The Plague by Albert Camus. Part 4 Chapter 4

Since joining Rio's band of workers, Panalu had spent his entire time in hospitals and places where he came in contact with plague. He had elected for the place among his fellow workers that he judged incumbent on him, in the forefront of the fight, and constantly since then he had rubbed shoulders with death. Though theoretically immunised by periodical inoculations, he was well aware that at any moment death might claim him too, and he had given thought to this. Outwardly he had lost nothing of his serenity, but from the day on which he saw a child die, something seemed to change in him, and his face bore traces of the rising tension of his thoughts. When one day he told Rio with a smile that he was working on a short essay entitled, Is a Priest Justified in Consulting a Doctor, Rio had gathered that something graver lay behind the question than the priest's tone seemed to imply. On the doctor saying he would greatly like to have a look at the essay, Panalu informed him that he would shortly be preaching at a mass for men, and his sermon would convey some at least of his considered opinions on the question. I hope you'll come doctor, the subject will interest you. A high wind was blowing on the day that Father Panalu preached his second sermon. The congregation, it must be admitted, was sparser than on the first occasion, partly because this kind of performance had lost its novelty for our townsfolk. Indeed, considering the very abnormal conditions they were up against, the very word novelty had lost all meaning. Moreover, most people, assuming that they had not altogether abandoned religious observances, or did not combine them naively with a thoroughly immoral way of living, had replaced normal religious practice by more or less extravagant superstitions. Thus they were far readier to wear prophylactic medals of St. Roch than go to mass. An illustration may be found in the remarkable interest shown in prophecies of all descriptions. True, in the spring when the epidemic was expected to end abruptly at any moment, no one troubled to take another's opinion as to its probable duration, since everyone had persuaded himself that it would have none. But as the days went by, a fear grew up that the calamity might last indefinitely, and then the ending of the plague became the target of all hopes. As a result, copies of predictions attributed to soothsayers or saints of the Catholic Church circulated freely from hand to hand. The local printing firms were quick to realise the profit to be made by pandering to this new craze, and printed large numbers of these prophecies that had been going around in manuscript. Finding that the public appetite for this type of literature was still unsated, they had researchers made in all the municipal libraries for all the mental pabulum of the kind available in old chronicles, memoirs and the like. And when this source ran dry, they commissioned journalists to write up forecasts, and in this respect at least, the journalists proved themselves equal to their prototypes of earlier ages. Some of these prophetic warnings were actually serialised in our newspapers, and read with as much avidity as the love stories that had occupied these columns in the piping times of health. Some predictions were based on far-fetched arithmetical calculations involving the figures of the year, the total of deaths, and the number of months the plague had so far lasted. Others made comparisons with the great pestilences of former times, drew parallels which the forecasters called constants, and claimed to deduce conclusions bearing on the present calamity. But our most popular prophets were undoubtedly those who in an apocalyptic jargon had announced sequences of events, any one of which might be construed as applicable to the present state of affairs, and was abstruse enough to admit of almost any interpretation. Thus Nostradamus and Saint Odelia were consulted daily, and always with happy results. Indeed, the one thing these prophecies had in common was that ultimately all were reassuring. Unfortunately though, the plague was not. Thus superstition had usurped the place of religion in the life of our town, and that is why the church in which Panelew preached his sermon was only three-quarters full. That evening when Rieux arrived, the wind was pouring in great gusts through the swing doors, and filling the aisles with sudden draughts. And it was in a cold, silent church, surrounded by a congregation of men exclusively, that Rieux watched the Father climb into the pulpit. He spoke in a gentler, more thoughtful tone than on the previous occasion, and several times was noticed to be stumbling over his words. A yet more noteworthy change was that instead of saying you, he now said we. However, his voice grew gradually firmer as he proceeded. He started by recalling that for many a long month plague had been in our midst, and we now knew it better, after having seen it often seated at our tables, or at the bedsides of those we loved. We had seen it walking at our side, or waiting for our coming at the places where we worked. Thus we were now perhaps better able to comprehend what it was telling us unceasingly. A message to which, in the first shock of the visitation, we might not have listened to with due heed. What he, Father Pannelew, had said in his first sermon still held good, such anyhow was his belief. And yet, perhaps as may befall any one of us, here he struck his breast, his words and thoughts had lacked in charity. However this might be, one thing was not to be gainsaid. A fact that always, under all circumstances, we should bear in mind. Appearances notwithstanding, all trials, however cruel, worked together for good to the Christian. And indeed, what a Christian should always seek in his hour of trial was to discern that good, in what it consisted, and how best he could turn it to account. At this stage, the people near Rieu seemed to settle in against the armrests of their pews, and make themselves as comfortable as they could. One of the big padded entrance doors was softly thudding in the wind, and someone got up to secure it. As a result, Rieu's attention wandered, and he did not follow well what Pannelew now went on to say. Apparently it came to this. We might try to explain the phenomenon of the plague, but above all, should learn what it had to teach us. Rieu gathered that, to the Father's thinking, there was really nothing to explain. His interest quickened when, in a more emphatic tone, the preacher said that there were some things we could grasp as touching God, and others we could not. There was no doubt as to the existence of good and evil, and as a rule, it was easy to see the difference between them. The difficulty began when we looked into the nature of evil, and among things evil, he included human suffering. Thus, we had apparently needful pain, and apparently needless pain. We had Don Juan cast into hell, and a child's death. For while it is right that a libertine should be struck down, we see no reason for a child's suffering. And truth to tell, nothing was more important on earth than a child's suffering. The horror it inspires in us, and the reasons we must find to account for it. In other manifestations of life, God made things easy for us, and thus far, our religion had no merit. But in this respect, he put us, so to speak, with our backs to the wall. Indeed, we were all up against the wall that plague had built around us, and in its lethal shadow, we must work out our salvation. He, Father Panolo, refused to have recourse to simple devices enabling him to scale that wall. Thus, he might easily have assured them that the child's sufferings would be compensated for by an eternity of bliss awaiting him. But how could he give that assurance when, to tell the truth, he knew nothing about it? For who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for a single moment's human suffering? He who asserted that would not be a true Christian, a follower of the Master who knew all the pangs of suffering in his body and his soul. No, he, Father Panolo, would keep faith with that great symbol of all suffering, the tortured body on the cross. He would stand fast, his back to the wall, and face honestly the terrible problem of a child's agony. And he would boldly say to those who listened to his words today, my brothers, a time of testing has come for us all. We must believe everything or deny everything, and who among you, I ask, would dare to deny everything? It crossed Rio's mind that Father Panolo was dallying with heresy in speaking thus, but he had no time to follow up the thought. The preacher was declaring vehemently that this uncompromising duty laid on the Christian was at once his ruling virtue and his privilege. He was well aware that certain minds schooled to a more indulgent and conventional morality might well be dismayed, not to say outraged, by the seemingly excessive standard of Christian virtue about which he was going to speak. But religion in a time of plague could not be the religion of every day. While God might accept and even desire that the soul should take its ease and rejoice in happier times, in periods of extreme calamity he laid extreme demands on it. Thus today God had vouchsafed to his creatures an ordeal such that they must acquire and practice the greatest of all virtues, that of the all or nothing. Many centuries previously a profane writer had claimed to reveal a secret of the church by declaring that purgatory did not exist. He wished to convey that there could be no half measures. There was only the alternative between heaven and hell. You were either saved or damned. That according to Panolo was a heresy that could spring only from a blind disordered soul. Nevertheless there may well have been periods of history when purgatory could not be hoped for. Periods when it was impossible to speak of venal sin. Every sin was deadly and any indifference criminal. It was all or it was nothing. The preacher paused and re-heard more clearly the whistling of the wind outside. Judging by the sounds that came in below the closed doors it had risen to a storm pitch. Then he heard Father Panolo's voice again. He was saying that the total acceptance of which he had been speaking was not to be taken in the limited sense usually given to the words. He was not thinking of mere resignation or even of that harder virtue, humility. It involved humiliation, but a humiliation to which the person humiliated gave full assent. True the agony of a child was humiliating to the heart and to the mind, but that was why we had to come to terms with it. And that too was why, and here Panolo assured those present, that it was not easy to say what he was about to say. Since it was God's will we too should will it. Thus and thus only the Christian could face the problem squarely and scorning subterfuge pierce to the heart of the supreme issue the essential choice. And his choice would be to believe everything so as not to be forced into denying everything. Like those worthy women who after learning that buboes were the natural issues through which the body cast out infection went to their church and prayed, please God give him buboes. Thus the Christian should yield himself wholly to the divine will even though it passed his understanding. It was wrong to say this I understand but that I cannot accept. We must go straight to the heart of that which is unacceptable precisely because it is thus that we are constrained to make our choice. The sufferings of children were our bread of affliction, but without this bread our souls would die of spiritual hunger. The shuffling sounds which usually followed the moment when the preacher paused were beginning to make themselves heard when unexpectedly he raised his voice making as if to put himself in his hearer's place and ask what then was the proper course to follow. He made no doubt that the ugly word fatalism would be applied to what he said. Well he would not boggle at the word provided he were allowed to qualify it with the adjective active. Needless to say there was no question of imitating the Abyssinian Christians of whom he had spoken previously. Nor should one even think of acting like those Persians who in the time of plague threw their infected garments on the Christian sanitary workers and loudly called on heaven to give the plague to those infidels who were trying to avert the pestilence sent by God. But on the other hand it would be no less wrong to imitate the monks at Cairo who when plague was raging in the town distributed the host with pincers at the mass so as to avoid contact with wet warm mouths in which infection might be latent. The plague stricken Persians and the monks were equally at fault. For the former a child's agony did not count. With the latter on the contrary the natural dread of suffering ranked highest in their conduct. In both cases the real problem had been shirked. They had closed their ears to God's voice. But Panlu continued there were other precedents of which he would now remind them. If the chronicles of the Black Death at Marseilles were to be trusted only four of the 81 monks in the Mercy Monastery survived the epidemic. And of these four three took flight. Thus Father Chronicler. And it was not his task to tell us more than the bare facts. But when he read that chronicle Father Panlu had found his thoughts fixed on that monk who stayed on by himself. Despite the death of his 77 companions and above all despite the example of his three brothers who had fled. And bringing down his fist on the edge of the pulpit Father Panlu cried in a ringing voice. My brothers each one of us must be the one who stays. There was no question of not taking precautions or failing to comply with the orders wisely promulgated for the public wheel in the disorders of pestilence. Nor should we listen to certain moralists who told us to sink on our knees and give up the struggle. No we should go forward groping our way through the darkness stumbling perhaps at times and try to do what good lay in our power. As for the rest we must hold fast trusting in the divine goodness even as to the deaths of little children and not seeking personal respite. At this point Father Panlu evoked the august figure of Bishop Belzance during the Marseilles plague. He reminded his hearers how towards the close of the epidemic the bishop having done all that it behoved him shut himself up in his palace behind high walls after laying in a stock of food and drink. With a sudden revulsion of feeling such as often comes in times of extreme tribulation that the inhabitants of Marseilles who had idolized him hitherto now turned against him, piled up corpses around his house in order to infect it and even flung bodies over the walls to make sure of his death. Thus in a moment of weakness the bishop had proposed to isolate himself from the outside world and lo and behold corpses rained down on his head. This had a lesson for us all. We must convince ourselves that there is no island of escape in time of plague. No there was no middle course. We must accept the dilemma and choose either to hate God or to love God and who would dare to choose to hate him? My brothers. The preacher's tone showed he was nearing the conclusion of his sermon. The love of God is a hard love. It demands total self-surrender, disdain of our human personality and yet it alone can reconcile us to suffering and the deaths of children. It alone can justify them since we cannot understand them and we can only make God's will ours. That is the hard lesson I would share with you today. That is the faith. Cruel in men's eyes and crucial in God's which we must ever strive to compass. We must aspire beyond ourselves towards that high and fearful vision and on that lofty plane all will fall into place. All discords will be resolved and truth flash forth from the dark cloud of seeming injustice. Thus in some churches of the south of France plague victims have lain sleeping many a century under the flagstones of the chancel and priests now speak above their tombs and the divine message they bring to men rises from that channel to which nevertheless children have contributed their share. When Rio was preparing to leave the church a violent gust swept up the nave through the half-open doors and buffeted the faces of the departing congregation. It brought with it a smell of rain, a tang of drenched sidewalks warning them of the weather they would encounter outside. An old priest and a young deacon who were walking immediately in front of Rio had much difficulty in keeping their headdress from blowing away but this did not prevent the elder of the two from discussing the sermon they had heard. He paid tribute to the preacher's eloquence but the boldness of thought Panolou had shown gave him pause. In his opinion the sermon had displayed more uneasiness than real power and at Panolou's age a priest had no business to feel uneasy. The young deacon, his head bowed to protect his face from the wind, replied that he saw much of the father, had followed the evolution of his views and believed his forthcoming pamphlet would be bolder still. Indeed it might well be refused the imprimatur. Well you don't mean to say so. What's the main idea? asked the old priest. They were now on Cathedral Square and for some moments the roar of the wind made it impossible for the younger man to speak. When there was a slight lull he said briefly to his companion that it's illogical for a priest to call a doctor. Tarou, when told by Rio what Panolou had said, remarked that he'd known a priest who had lost his faith during the war as a result of seeing a young man's face with both eyes destroyed. Panolou is right, Tarou continued, when an innocent youth can have his eyes destroyed a Christian should either lose his faith or consent to having his eyes destroyed. Panolou declines to lose his faith and he will go through with it to the end. That's what he meant to say. It may be that this remark of Tarou's throws some light on the regrettable events which followed in the course of which the priest's conduct seemed inexplicable to his friends. The reader would judge for himself. A few days after the sermon Panolou had to move out of his rooms. It was a time when many people were obliged to change their residence owing to the new conditions created by the plague. Thus Tarou, when his hotel was requisitioned, had gone to live with Rio and now the father had to vacate the lodgings provided for him by his order and stay in the house of a pious old lady who had so far escaped the epidemic. During the process of moving Panolou had been feeling more run down than ever, mentally as well as physically, and it was this that put him in the bad books of his hostess. One evening when she was enthusiastic vaunting the merits of Saint Adelia's prophecies the priest betrayed a slight impatience, due probably to fatigue. All his subsequent efforts to bring the good lady round to, anyhow, a state of benevolent neutrality came to nothing. He had made a bad impression and it went on rankling. So each night on his way to his bedroom where almost all the furniture was dotted with crochet coffers he had to contemplate the back of his hostess seated in her drawing room and carry away with him a memory of the sour good night father she flung at him over her shoulder. It was on one such evening that he felt like a flood bursting at its dykes, the turbulent onrush in his wrists and temples of the fever latent in his blood for several days past. The only available account of what follows come from the lips of the old lady. Next morning she rose early, as was her want. After an hour or so puzzled at not seeing the father leave his room she brought herself, not without some hesitation, to knock at his door. She found him still in bed after a sleepless night. He had difficulty in breathing and looked more flushed than usual. She had suggested, most politely as she put it, that a doctor should be called in but her suggestion had been brushed aside with a curtness that she described as quite unmannerly. So she had no alternative but to leave the room. Later in the morning the father rang and asked if he could see her. He apologised for his lack of courtesy and assured her that what he was suffering from could not be plague as he had none of the symptoms. It was no more than a passing indisposition. The lady replied with dignity that her suggestion had not been prompted by any apprehension of that sort. She took no thoughts for her own personal security which was in God's hands but that she felt a certain measure of responsibility for the father's welfare while he was under her roof. When he said nothing his hostess, wishing, according to her account, to do her duty by him, offered to send for her doctor. Father Panolou told her not to trouble, adding some explanation that seemed to the old lady quite incoherent, not to say nonsensical. The only thing she gathered, and it was precisely this that appeared to her so incomprehensible, was that the father refused to hear of her doctor's visit because it was against his principles. Her impression was that her guest's mind had been unhinged by fever and she confined herself to bringing him a cup of tea. Resolutely mindful of the obligations imposed on her by the situation she visited the invalid regularly, every two hours. What struck her most about him was his restlessness which continued throughout the day. He would throw off the blankets and then pull them back and he kept running his hand over his forehead which was glistening with sweat. Every now and then he sat up in bed and tried to clear his throat with a thick grating cough which sounded almost like retching. At these moments he seemed to be vainly struggling to force up from his lungs a clot of some semi-solid substance that was choking him. After each unavailing effort he sank back utterly exhausted on the pillow. Then he would raise himself again a little and stare straight in front of him with a fixity even more dismaying than the paroxysms which had preceded it. Even now the old lady was reluctant to annoy her guest by calling in the doctor. After all it might be no more than an attack of fever, spectacular as were its manifestations. However in the afternoon she made another attempt to talk to the priest but she could get out of him no more than a few rambling phrases. She renewed her proposal to call in the doctor where at Paneloo sat up and in a stifled voice emphatically declined to see a doctor. Under these circumstances it seemed best to the old lady to wait till the following morning. If the father's condition showed no more improvements she would ring up the number announced 10 times daily on the radio by the Ransdock Information Bureau. Still conscious of her obligations she resolved to visit the invalid from time to time in the course of the night and give him any attention he might need. But after bringing him a decoction of herbal tea she decided to lie down for a while. Only at daybreak did she wake up and then she hurried to the priest's room. Father Paneloo was lying quite still his face had lost its steep flush of the previous day and he had now a deathly pallor. All the more impressive because the cheeks had kept their fullness. He was gazing up at the bead fringe of a lamp hanging above the bed. When the old lady came in he turned his head to her. As she quaintly put it he looked as if he'd been severely thrashed all night long and more dead than alive. She was greatly struck by the apathy of his voice when on her asking how he was feeling he replied that he was in a bad way. He did not need a doctor and all he wished was to be taken to the hospital so as to comply with the regulations. Panic-stricken she hurried to the telephone. Ria came at noon. After hearing what the old lady had to say he replied briefly that Paneloo was right but it was probably too late. The father welcomed him with the same air of complete indifference. Ria examined him and was surprised to find none of the characteristic symptoms of bubonic or pneumonic plague except congestion and obstruction of the lungs. But his pulse was so weak and his general state so alarming that there was little hope of saving him. You have none of the specific symptoms of the disease Ria told him but I admit I can't be sure and I must isolate you. The father smiled queerly as if for politeness sake but said nothing. Ria left the room to telephone then came back and looked at the priest. I'll stay with you he said gently. Paneloo showed a little more animation and a sort of warmth came back to his eyes when he looked up at the doctor. Then speaking with such difficulty that it was impossible to tell if there was sadness in his voice he said thanks but priests can have no friends. They have given their all to God. He asked for the crucifix that hung above the head of the bed. When given it he turned away to gaze at it. At the hospital Paneloo did not utter a word. He submitted passively to the treatment given him but never let go of the crucifix. However his case continued doubtful and Ria could not feel sure how to diagnose it. For several weeks indeed the disease had seemed to make a point of confounding diagnosis. In the case of Paneloo what followed was to show that this uncertainty had no consequence. His temperature rose throughout the day. The cough grew louder wracking the enfeebled body. At last at nightfall father Paneloo brought up the clot of matter that was choking him. It was red. Even at the height of his fever Paneloo's eyes kept their blank serenity and when next morning he was found dead his body drooping over the bedside they betrayed nothing. Against his name the index card recorded doubtful case.