All else took a back place; that daily there were new victims counted for little beside that staggering fact: the weekly total showed a decrease.
One of the signs that a return to the golden age of health was secretly awaited was that our fellow citizens, careful though they were not to voice their hope, now began to talk—in, it is true, a carefully detached tone—of the new order of life that would set in after the plague.
All agreed that the amenities of the past couldn’t be restored at once; destruction is an easier, speedier process than reconstruction.
However, it was thought that a slight improvement in the food-supply could safely be counted on, and this would relieve what was just now the acutest worry of every household.
But in reality behind these mild aspirations lurked wild, extravagant hopes, and often one of us, becoming aware of this, would hastily add that, even on the rosiest view, you couldn’t expect the plague to stop from one day to another.
Actually, while the epidemic did not stop “from one day to another,” it declined more rapidly than we could reasonably have expected.
With the first week of January an unusually persistent spell of very cold weather settled in and seemed to crystallize above the town.
Yet never before had the sky been so blue; day after day its icy radiance flooded the town with a brilliant light, and in frost-cleansed air the epidemic seemed to lose its virulence, and in each of three consecutive weeks a big drop in the death-roll was announced.
Thus over a relatively brief period the disease lost practically all the gains piled up over many months.
Its setbacks with seemingly predestined victims, like Grand and Rieux’s girl patient, its bursts of activity for two or three days in some districts synchronizing with its total disappearance from others, its new practice of multiplying its victims on, say, a Monday, and on Wednesday letting almost all escape—in short, its accesses of violence followed by spells of complete inactivity—all these gave an impression that its energy was flagging, out of exhaustion and exasperation, and it was losing, with its self-command, the ruthless, almost mathematical efficiency that had been its trump card hitherto.
Of a sudden Castel’s anti-plague injections scored frequent successes, denied it until now.
Indeed, all the treatments the doctors had tentatively employed, without definite results, now seemed almost uniformly efficacious.
It was as if the plague had been hounded down and cornered, and its sudden weakness lent new strength to the blunted weapons so far used against it.
Only at rare moments did the disease brace itself and make as it were a blind and fatal leap at three of four patients whose recovery had been expected—a truly ill-starred few, killed off when hope ran highest.
Such was the case of M. Othon, the magistrate, evacuated from the quarantine camp; Tarrou said of him that “he’d had no luck,” but one couldn’t tell if he had in mind the life or the death of M. Othon.
But, generally speaking, the epidemic was in retreat all along the line; the official communiques, which had at first encouraged no more than shadowy, half-hearted hopes, now confirmed the popular belief that the victory was won and the enemy abandoning his positions.
Really, however, it is doubtful if this could be called a victory.
All that could be said was that the disease seemed to be leaving as unaccountably as it had come.
Our strategy had not changed, but whereas yesterday it had obviously failed, today it seemed triumphant.
Indeed, one’s chief impression was that the epidemic had called a retreat after reaching all its objectives; it had, so to speak, achieved its purpose.
Nevertheless, it seemed as if nothing had changed in the town.
Silent as ever by day, the streets filled up at nightfall with the usual crowds of people, now wearing overcoats and scarves.
Cafes and picture-houses did as much business as before.
But on a closer view you might notice that people looked less strained, and they occasionally smiled.
And this brought home the fact that since the outbreak of plague no one had hitherto been seen to smile in public. The truth was that for many months the town had been stifling under an airless shroud, in which a rent had now been made, and every Monday when he turned on the radio, each of us learned that the rift was widening; soon he would be able to breathe freely.
It was at best a negative solace, with no immediate impact on men’s lives.
Still, had anyone been told a month earlier that a train had just left or a boat put in, or that cars were to be allowed on the streets again, the news would have been received with looks of incredulity; whereas in mid-January an announcement of this kind would have caused no surprise.
The change, no doubt, was slight.
Yet, however slight, it proved what a vast forward stride our townsfolk had made in the way of hope.
And indeed it could be said that once the faintest stirring of hope became possible, the dominion of the plague was ended.
It must, however, be admitted that our fellow citizens’ reactions during that month were diverse to the point of incoherence.
More precisely, they fluctuated between high optimism and extreme depression.
Hence the odd circumstance that several more attempts to escape took place at the very moment when the statistics were most encouraging.
This took the authorities by surprise, and, apparently, the sentries too—since most of the “escapists” brought it off.
But, looking into it, one saw that people who tried to escape at this time were prompted by quite understandable motives.
Some of them plague had imbued with a skepticism so thorough that it was now a second nature; they had become allergic to hope in any form.
Thus even when the plague had run its course, they went on living by its standards.
They were, in short, behind the times.
In the case of others—chiefly those who had been living until now in forced separation from those they loved—the rising wind of hope, after all these months of durance and depression, had fanned impatience to a blaze and swept away their self-control.
They were seized with a sort of panic at the thought that they might die so near the goal and never see again the ones they loved, and their long privation have no recompense.
Thus, though for weary months and months they had endured their long ordeal with dogged perseverance, the first thrill of hope had been enough to shatter what fear and hopelessness had failed to impair.
And in the frenzy of their haste they tried to outstrip the plague, incapable of keeping pace with it up to the end.
Meanwhile, there were various symptoms of the growing optimism.
Prices, for instance, fell sharply.
This fall was unaccountable from the purely economic viewpoint.
Our difficulties were as great as ever, the gates were kept rigorously closed, and the food situation was far from showing any improvement.
Thus it was a purely psychological reaction—as if the dwindling of the plague must have repercussions in all fields.
Others to profit by the spread of optimism were those who used to live in groups and had been forced to live apart.
The two convents reopened and their communal life was resumed.
The troops, too, were regrouped in such barracks as had not been requisitioned, and settled down to the garrison life of the past.