The Plague by Albert Camus. Part 5 Chapter 1

Though this sudden setback in the plague was as welcome as it was on look for, our town's folk were in no hurry to jubilate. While intensifying their desire to be set free, the terrible months they had lived through had taught them prudence and they had come to count less and less on a speedy end of the epidemic. All the same this new development was the talk of the town and people began to nurse hopes nonetheless heartfelt for being unavowed. 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 be safely 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 crystallise above the town. Yet never before had the sky been so blue. Day after day its icy radiance flooded the town with brilliant light and in the 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, Anriu's girl patient. Its burst of activity for two or three days in some districts synchronising 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 Castile'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 or four patients whose recovery had been expected. A truly ill-starred few killed off when hope ran highest. Such was the case of Monsieur Otton, the magistrate. Evacuated from the quarantine camp Taru 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 Monsieur Otton. 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'd 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 had 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 probation 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. Minor details but significant. This state of subdued yet active ferment prevailed until January the 25th when the weekly total showed so striking a decline that after consulting the medical board the authorities announced that the epidemic could be regarded as definitely stemmed. True, the communiqué went on to say that acting with a prudence of which the population would certainly approve, the prefect had decided that the gates of the town were to remain closed for two weeks more and the prophylactic measures to remain in force for another month. During this period, at the least sign of danger, the standing orders would be strictly enforced and if necessary prolonged thereafter for such a period as might be deemed desirable. All however concurred in regarding these phrases as mere official verbiage and the night of January the 25th was the occasion of much festivity. To associate himself with the popular rejoicings the prefect gave orders for the street lighting to be resumed as in the past and the townspeople paraded the brilliantly lighted streets in boisterous groups laughing and singing. True, in some houses the shutters remained closed and those within listened in silence to the joyful shouts outside. Yet even in these houses of mourning a feeling of deep relief prevailed, whether because at last the fear of seeing other members of the household taken from them was calmed or because the shadow of personal anxiety was lifted from their hearts. The families that perforce withdrew themselves the most from the general jubilation were those who at this hour had one of their members down with the plague in hospital and whether in a quarantine camp or at home waited in enforced seclusion for the epidemic to have done with them as it had done with others. No doubt these families had hopes but they hoarded them and forbade themselves to draw on them before feeling quite sure they were justified. And this time of waiting in silence and exile in a limbo between joy and grief seemed still crueler for the gladness all around them. But these exceptions did not diminish the satisfaction of the great majority. No doubt the plague was not yet ended, a fact of which they were to be reminded. Still in imagination they could already hear, weeks in advance, trains whistling on their way to an outside world that had no limit and steamers hooting as they put out from the harbour across the shining seas. Next day these fancies would have passed and qualms of doubt returned but for the moment the whole town was on the move quitting the dark lugubrious confines where it had stuck its roots of stone and setting forth at last like a shipload of survivors toward a land of promise. That night Tauru, Riu and Rambha and their colleagues joined for a while the marching crowds and they too felt as if they trod on air. Long after they had turned off the main streets, even when in empty byways they walked past shuttered houses, the joyful clamour followed them up and because of their fatigue somehow they could not disassociate the sorrow behind these closed shutters from the joy filling the central streets. Thus the coming liberation had a twofold aspect of happiness and tears. At one moment when the cries of exultation in the distance were swelling to a roar Tauru stopped abruptly. A small sleek form was scampering along the roadway. A cat. The first cat any of them had seen since the spring. It stopped in the middle of the road, hesitated, licked a paw and quickly passed it behind its right ear. Then it started forward again and vanished into the darkness. Tauru smiled to himself. The little old man on the balcony too would be pleased.