So the only thing for us to do was to go on waiting, and since after a too long waiting one gives up waiting, the whole town lived as if it had no future.
As for Dr. Rieux, that brief hour of peace and friendship which had been granted him was not, and could not be, repeated.
Yet another hospital had been opened, and his only converse was with his patients.
However, he noticed a change at this stage of the epidemic, now that the plague was assuming more and more the pneumonic form; the patients seemed, after their fashion, to be seconding the doctor.
Instead of giving way to the prostration or the frenzies of the early period, they appeared to have a clearer idea of where their interests lay and on their own initiative asked for what might be most beneficial.
Thus they were always clamoring for something to drink and insisted on being kept as warm as possible.
And though the demands on him were as exhausting as before, Rieux no longer had the impression of putting up a solitary fight; the patients were co-operating.
Toward the end of December he received a letter from M. Othon, who was still in quarantine. The magistrate stated that his quarantine period was over; unfortunately the date of his admission to camp seemed to have been mislaid by the secretariat, and if he was still detained it was certainly due to a mistake.
His wife, recently released from quarantine, had gone to the Prefect’s office to protest and had been rudely treated; they had told her that the office never made mistakes.
Rieux asked Rambert to look into the matter, and a few days later M. Othon called on him.
There had, in fact, been a mistake, and Rieux showed some indignation.
But M. Othon, who had grown thinner, raised a limp, deprecating hand; weighing his words, he said that everyone could make mistakes.
And the doctor thought to himself that decidedly something had changed.
“What will you do now, Monsieur Othon?” Rieux asked.
“I suppose you have a pile of work awaiting you.”
“Well, as a matter of fact, I’m putting in for some leave.”
“I quite understand. You need a rest.”
“It’s not that.
I want to go back to the camp.”
Rieux couldn’t believe his ears.
“But you’ve only just come out of it!”
“I’m afraid I did not make myself clear.
I’m told there are some voluntary workers from government offices in that camp.”
The magistrate rolled his round eyes a little and tried to smooth down a tuft of hair.
“It would keep me busy, you see.
And also—I know it may sound absurd, but I’d feel less separated from my little boy.”
Rieux stared at him.
Could it be that a sudden gentleness showed in those hard, inexpressive eyes?
Yes, they had grown misted, lost their steely glitter.
“Certainly,” Rieux said. “Since that’s your wish, I’ll fix it up for you.”
The doctor kept his word; and the life of the plague-ridden town resumed its course until Christmas.
Tarrou continued to bring his quiet efficiency to bear on every problem.
Rambert confided in the doctor that, with the connivance of the two young guards, he was sending letters to his wife and now and then receiving an answer.
He suggested to Rieux that he should avail himself of this clandestine channel, and Rieux agreed to do so.
For the first time for many months he sat down to write a letter. He found it a laborious business, as if he were manipulating a language that he had forgotten.
The letter was dispatched.
The reply was slow in coming.
As for Cottard, he was prospering, making money hand over fist in small, somewhat shady transactions.
With Grand, however, it was otherwise; the Christmas season did not seem to agree with him.
Indeed, Christmas that year had none of its old-time associations; it smacked of hell rather than of heaven.
Empty, unlighted shops, dummy chocolates or empty boxes in the confectioners’ windows, streetcars laden with listless, dispirited passengers—all was as unlike Christmastides as it well could be.
In the past all the townspeople, rich and poor alike, indulged in seasonable festivity; now only a privileged few, those with money to burn, could do so, and they caroused in shamefaced solitude in a dingy back shop or a private room.
In the churches there were more supplications than carols.
You saw a few children, too young to realize what threatened them, playing in the frosty, cheerless streets.
But no one dared to bid them welcome-in the God of former days, bringer of gifts, and old as human sorrow, yet new as the hopes of youth.
There was no room in any heart but for a very old, gray hope, that hope which keeps men from letting themselves drift into death and is nothing but a dogged will to live.
Grand had failed to show up as usual on the previous evening.
Feeling somewhat anxious, Rieux called at his place early in the morning, but he wasn’t at home.
His friends were asked to keep a lookout for him.
At about eleven Rambert came to the hospital with the news that he’d had a distant glimpse of Grand, who seemed to be wandering aimlessly, “looking very queer.”