The Plague by Albert Camus. Part 2 Chapter 8

Next day Taro is set to work and enrolled the first team of workers, soon to be joined by many others. However it is not the narrator's intention to ascribe to these sanitary groups more importance than they're due. Doubtless today many of our fellow citizens are apt to yield to the temptation of exaggerating the services they rendered. But the narrator is inclined to think that by attributing over importance to praiseworthy actions one may by implication be paying indirect but potent homage to the worst side of human nature. For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions while callousness and apathy are the general rule. The narrator does not share that view. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding. On the whole men are more good than bad. That however isn't the real point but they are more or less ignorant and it is this that we call vice or virtue. The most incorrigible vice being that of ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear sightedness. Hence the sanitary groups whose creation was entirely Tarou's work should be considered with objectivity as well as with approval. And this is why the narrator declines to vaunt in over glowing terms a courage and a devotion to which he attributes only a relative and reasonable importance. But he will continue being the chronicler of the troubled, rebellious hearts of our townspeople under the impact of the plague. Those who enrolled in the sanitary squads as they were called had indeed no such great merit in doing as they did since they knew it was the only thing to do and the unthinkable thing would have been not to have bought themselves to do it. These groups enabled our townsfolk to come to grips with the disease and convince them that now the plague was among us it was up to them to do whatever could be done to fight it. Since plague became in this way some men's duty it revealed itself as what it really was, that is the concern of all. So far so good. But we do not congratulate a schoolmaster on teaching that two and two make four, though we may perhaps congratulate him on having chosen his laudable vocation. Let us then say it was praiseworthy that Tarou and so many others should have elected to prove that two and two make four rather than the contrary. But let us add that this goodwill of theirs was one that is shared by the schoolmaster and by all who have the same feeling as the schoolmaster. And, be it said to the credit of mankind, they are more numerous than one would think. Such, anyhow, is the narrator's conviction. Needless to say, he can see quite clearly a point that could be made against him, which is that these men were risking their lives. But again and again there comes a time in history where a man who dares to say two and two make four is punished with death. The school teacher is well aware of this and the question is not one of knowing what punishment or reward attends the making of this calculation. The question is that of knowing whether two and two do make four. For those of our townsfolk who risked their lives in this predicament the issue was whether or not plague was in their midst and whether or not they must fight against it. Many fledgling moralists in those days were going about our town proclaiming there was nothing to be done about it and we should bow to the inevitable. And Tarou, Rie and their friends might give one answer or another. But its conclusion was always the same. Their certitude that a fight must be put up in this way or that and there must be no bowing down. The essential thing was to save the greatest possible number of persons from dying and being doomed to unending separation. And to do this there was only one resource, to fight the plague. There was nothing admirable about this attitude, it was merely logical. Thus it was only natural that old Dr. Castell should plod away with unshaken confidence, never sparing himself at making anti-plague serum on the spot with the makeshift equipment at his disposal. Rieux shared his hope that a vaccine made with cultures of the bacilli obtained locally would take effect more actively than the serum coming from outside, since the local bacillus differed slightly from the normal plague bacillus as defined in textbooks of tropical diseases. And Castell expected to have his first supply ready within a surprisingly short period. That too is why it was natural that Grand, who had nothing of the hero about him, should now be acting as a sort of general secretary to the sanitary squads. A certain number of the groups organised by Tarrou were working in the congested areas of the town, with a view to improving the sanitary conditions there. Their duties were to see that houses were kept in a proper hygienic state and to list attics and cellars that had not been disinfected by the official sanitary service. Other teams of volunteers accompanied the doctors on their house-to-house visits, saw to the evacuation of infected persons, and subsequently, owing to the shortage of drivers, even drove the vehicles conveying sick persons and dead bodies. All this involved the upkeep of registers and statistics, and Grand undertook the task. From this angle the narrator holds that, more than Rieux or Tarrou, Grand was the true embodiment of the quiet courage that inspired the sanitary groups. He had said yes without a moment's hesitation, and with the large-heartedness that was a second nature with him. All he had asked was to be allowed light duties. He was too old for anything else. He could give his time from six to eight every evening. When Rieux thanked him with some warmth, he seemed surprised. Why? That's not difficult. Plague is here, and we've got to make a stand. That's obvious. I only wish everything were as simple. And he went back to his phrase. Sometimes in the evening, when he had filed his reports and worked out his statistics, Grand and Rieux would have a chat. Soon they formed the habit of including Tarrou in their talks, and Grand unburdened himself with increasingly apparent pleasure to his two companions. They began to take a genuine interest in the laborious literary task to which he was applying himself, while Plague raged about him. Indeed, they too found it a relaxation of the strain. How's your young lady on horseback progressing? Tarrou would ask, and invariably Grand would answer with a wry smile, trotting along. One evening, Grand announced that he had definitely discarded the adjective elegant for his horsewoman. From now on, it was replaced by slim. That's more concrete, he explained. Soon after, he read out to his two friends the new version of the sentence. One fine morning in May, a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a handsome sorrel mare along the flowery avenues of the Bois de Boulogne. Don't you agree with me? One sees her better that way. And I've put one fine morning in May because in the month of May tended rather to drag out the trot, if you see what I mean. Next, he showed some anxiety about the adjective handsome. In his opinion, it didn't convey enough, and he set to looking for an epithet that would promptly and clearly photograph the superb animal he saw with his mind's eye. Plump wouldn't do. Though concrete enough, it sounded perhaps a little disparaging, also a shade vulgar. Beautifully groomed had tempted him for a moment, but it was cumbrous and made the rhythm limp somewhat. Then, one evening, he announced triumphantly that he had got it. A black sorrel mare. To his thinking, he explained, black conveyed a hint of elegance and opulence. Who won't do, Rio said. Why not? Because sorrel doesn't mean a breed of horse, it's a colour. What colour? Well, a colour that anyhow isn't black. Grand seemed greatly troubled. Thank you, he said warmly. How fortunate you're here to help me, but you see how difficult it is. How about glossy, Taru suggested. Grand gazed at him meditatively. Then, yes, he exclaimed. That's good, and slowly his lips parted in a smile. Some days later, he confessed that the word flowery was bothering him considerably. As the only towns he knew were ours and Montelimar, he sometimes asked his friends to tell him about the avenues of the Bois de Boulogne. What sort of flowers grew in them, and how they were disposed. Actually, neither Rio nor Taru had ever gathered the impression that those avenues were flowery, but Grand's conviction on the subject shook their confidence in their memories. He was amazed at their uncertainty. It's only artists who know how to use their eyes, was his conclusion. But one evening, the doctor found him in a state of much excitement. For flowery, he had substituted flower strewn. He was rubbing his hands. At last, one can see them, smell them. Hats off, gentlemen. Triumphantly, he read out the sentence. One fine morning in May, a slim young horsewoman might have been seen riding a glossy sorrel mare along the flower strewn avenues of the Bois de Boulogne. But spoken aloud, the numerous S sounds had a disagreeable effect, and Grand stumbled over them, lisping here and there. He sat down, crestfallen, and then he asked the doctor if he might go. Some hard thinking lay ahead of him. It was about this time, as was subsequently learned, that he began to display signs of absent-mindedness in the office. A serious view was taken of these lapses of attention, as the municipality not only was working at high pressure with a reduced staff, but was constantly having new duties thrust upon it. His department suffered, and his chief took him severely to task, pointing out that he was paid to do certain work and was failing to do it, as it should be done. I'm told that you're acting as a voluntary helper in the sanitary groups. You do this out of office hours, so it's no concern of mine, but the best way of making yourself useful in a terrible time like this is to do your work well. Otherwise, all the rest is useless. He's right, Grand said to Rieu. Yes, he's right, the doctor agreed. But I can't steady my thoughts. It's the end of my phrase that's worrying me. I don't seem to be able to sort it out. The plethora of sibilance in the sentence still offended his ear, but he saw no way of amending them without using what were to his mind inferior synonyms. And that flower strewn, which had rejoiced him when he first lit on it, now seemed unsatisfactory. How could one say that flowers were strewn, when presumably they'd been planted along the avenues, or else grew there naturally? On some evenings, indeed, he looked more tired than Rieu. Yes, this unavailing quest, which never left his mind, had worn him out. Nonetheless, he went on adding up the figures and compiling the statistics needed for the sanitary groups. Patiently, every evening, he brought his totals up to date, illustrated them with graphs, and racked his brains to present his data in the most exact, clearest form. Quite often he went to see Rieu at one of the hospitals and asked to be given a table in an office or the dispensary. He would settle down at it with his papers, exactly as he settled down at his desk in the municipal office, and wave each completed sheet to dry the ink in the warm air, noisome with disinfectants and the disease itself. At these times he made honest efforts not to think about his horsewoman and concentrate on what he had to do. Yes, if it is a fact that people like to have examples given them, men of the type they call heroic, and if it is absolutely necessary that this narrative should include a hero, the narrator commends to his readers, with, to his thinking, perfect justice, this insignificant and obscure hero, who had to his credit only a little goodness of heart and a seemingly absurd ideal. This will render the truth its due, to the addition of two and two its sum of four, and to heroism the secondary place that rightly falls to it. Just after, never before, the noble claim of happiness. It will also give this chronicle its character, which is intended to be that of a narrative made with good feelings, that is to say feelings that are neither demonstrably bad nor overcharged with emotion in the ugly manner of a stage play. Such at least was Dr Rear's opinion when he read in newspapers or heard on the radio the messages and encouragement the outer world transmitted to the plague-ridden populace. Besides the comforts sent over air and over land, compassionate or admiring comments were lavished on the henceforth isolated town by way of newspaper articles or broadcast talks, and invariably their epical or prized speech verbiage jarred on the Doctor. Needless to say he knew the sympathy was genuine enough, but it could be expressed only in the conventional language with which men try to express what unites them with mankind in general. A vocabulary quite unsuited, for example, to Grand's small daily effort, and incapable of describing what Grand stood for under plague conditions. Sometimes at midnight, in the great silence of the sleep-bound town, the Doctor turned on his radio before going to bed for the few hours sleep he allowed himself, and from the ends of the earth across thousands of miles of land and sea, kindly, well-meaning speakers tried to voice their fellow feeling, and indeed did so, but at the same time proved the utter incapacity of every man truly to share in suffering that he cannot see. In vain the call rang over the oceans, in vain Rio listened hopefully. Always the tide of eloquence began to flow, bringing home still more the unbridgeable gulf that lay between Grand and the speaker. We're with you, they called emotionally, but not, the Doctor told himself, to love or to die together, and that's the only way, they're too remote.