The dusk was thickening into night when Grand and the doctor made a move at last.
The Cottard incident seemed to have shaken the neighborhood out of its normal lethargy and even these remote streets were becoming crowded with noisy merry-makers.
On his doorstep Grand bade the doctor good night; he was going to put in an evening’s work, he said.
Just as he was starting up the stairs he added that he’d written to Jeanne and was feeling much happier.
Also he’d made a fresh start with his phrase.
“I’ve cut out all the adjectives.”
And, with a twinkle in his eye, he took his hat off, bringing it low in a courtly sweep.
But Rieux was thinking of Cottard, and the dull thud of fists belaboring the wretched man’s face haunted him as he went to visit his old asthma patient.
Perhaps it was more painful to think of a guilty man than of a dead man.
It was quite dark by the time he reached his patient’s house.
In the bedroom the distant clamor of a populace rejoicing in its new-won freedom could be faintly heard, and the old fellow was as usual transposing peas from one pan to another.
“They’re quite right to amuse themselves,” he said.
“It takes all sorts to make a world, as they say. And your colleague, Doctor, how’s he getting on?”
“He’s dead.” Rieux was listening to his patient’s rumbling chest.
“Ah, really?” The old fellow sounded embarrassed.
“Of plague,” Rieux added.
“Yes,” the old man said after a moment’s silence, “it’s always the best who go.
That’s how life is.
But he was a man who knew what he wanted.”
“Why do you say that?” The doctor was putting back his stethoscope.
“Oh, for no particular reason.
Only—well, he never talked just for talking’s sake.
I’d rather cottoned to him.
But there you are!
All those folks are saying:
‘It was plague. We’ve had the plague here.’
You’d almost think they expected to be given medals for it.
But what does that mean—‘plague’?
Just life, no more than that.”
“Do your inhalations regularly.”
“Don’t worry about me, Doctor!
There’s lots of life in me yet, and I’ll see ’em all into their graves.
I know how to live.”
A burst of joyful shouts in the distance seemed an echo of his boast.
Halfway across the room the doctor halted.
“Would you mind if I go up on the terrace?”
“Of course not.
You’d like to have a look at ’em—that it?
But they’re just the same as ever, really.”
When Rieux was leaving the room, a new thought crossed his mind.
“I say, Doctor. Is it a fact they’re going to put up a memorial to the people who died of plague?”
“So the papers say.
A monument, or just a tablet.”
“I could have sworn it!
And there’ll be speeches.” He chuckled throatily. “I can almost hear them saying:
‘Our dear departed …’ And then they they’ll go off and have a good snack.”
Rieux was already halfway up the stairs.
Cold, fathomless depths of sky glimmered overhead, and near the hilltops stars shone hard as flint.
It was much like the night when he and Tarrou had come to the terrace to forget the plague.
Only, tonight the sea was breaking on the cliffs more loudly and the air was calm and limpid, free of the tang of brine the autumn wind had brought.