Chapter 29 Chapter 28

On the third day, a few days before the opening of the city gates, Dr. Rieux returned to his house at noon to see if he had the telegram he had been waiting for.Although his day's work was as exhausting as it had been at the height of the plague, this waiting for final liberation took away all fatigue from him.He is living with hope now and is happy about it.One cannot always keep one's strings taut, one cannot always be so tense; of course one must fight the plague with all one's strength, but if there is such a moment of passion, let it go, It was "a happy thing. If the telegram he was waiting for had good news, Rieux would have a new beginning, and he thought everyone would have a new beginning too.

As he passed the porter, the new porter smiled at him with his face against the glass window.As he went up the stairs, Rieux still had in his mind the porter's face, pale with weariness and poverty. Yes, when the abstractions were over, he would start all over again, if he was lucky... But as soon as he opened the door, his mother came to tell him that M. Tarrou was not well.Tarrou had risen in the morning, but he was unable to go out, and now he lay down again, and the old lady was worried. "It probably doesn't matter," her son said. Tarrou was lying upright on the bed, his heavy head sunk deep in the pillow, and his firm chest could be seen through the thick quilt.He was running a fever and had a terrible headache.He told Rieux that his symptoms were difficult to determine, and that it might be plague.

"No, it's not at all certain yet," said Rieux, after examining him. Tarrou was dying of thirst.In the corridor, the doctor told his mother that this might be the beginning of the plague. "Ah!" said the old lady, "how is this possible? It shouldn't be happening now!" She immediately went on to say: "Let's keep him, Bernard." Rieux thought for a moment and said: "I have no right to do so. But the gates are about to open. I think I would exercise my first right to keep him if you were not here." "Bernard," she said, "you keep us both. You know I just had another vaccination."

The doctor said that Tarrou had also been vaccinated, but probably because of fatigue he had forgotten to take the last serum and to take certain precautions. Rieux went into his study.When he returned to the room, Tarrou saw him holding several large ampoules filled with blood serum. "Ah! Is that the disease?" said Tarrou. "No, it's just a security measure," Rieux explained. Tarrou held out his arm in reply, and Rieux gave him a long injection of the kind he himself usually gave his other patients. "We'll see the result tonight," Rieux said, looking at Tarrou.

"Why not quarantine, Rieux?" "It is not at all certain that you have the plague." Tarrou smiled wryly. "It's the first time I've seen people injecting serum and not ordering quarantine at the same time." Rieux turned and said: "My mother and I will look after you. You will be more comfortable here." Tarrou said nothing.Rieux, who was arranging the ampoules at the moment, wanted to wait until Tarrou spoke before turning away.Finally, he went to the bed.The patient looked at him.Tarrou's face was tired, but his gray eyes were as calm as ever.Rieux smiled at him and said: "Sleep if you can. I'll see you later."

When the doctor reached the door, he heard Tarrou calling him, and he returned to the patient. But Tarrou seemed to be hesitating what to say.At last he said: "Rieux, tell me everything. I need to know." "I agree to your request." Tarrou's large face twisted a little and forced a smile. "Thank you. I don't want to die, I want to fight. But if I lose, I also hope for a good ending." Rieux leaned over, clutched Tarrou by the shoulders, and said: "No! To be a saint, one should live. Fight!" The weather was very cold at first, and then gradually warmed up. In the afternoon, there were several heavy rains and hailstones.At dusk, the sky cleared slightly, but the weather became more bitterly cold.When Rieux came back in the evening, he went into his friend's room without even taking off his coat.His mother was knitting there.Tarrou did not seem to have moved, but his feverish lips showed that he was fighting.

"How?" said the doctor. Tarrou shrugged his broad, exposed shoulders. "That's it," he said, "I lost." The doctor leaned over the patient and noticed clusters of lymph nodes appearing beneath the scalding skin, and the patient had a rumbling chest sound reminiscent of the noise of an underground subway factory.Tarrou's case was peculiar; his symptoms indicated that he had suffered from two different types of plague at the same time.Rieux straightened up and said that it would take a while for the serum to take full effect.Tarrou seemed about to say something, but a fever caught his throat and stifled his words.

After supper, Rieux and his mother came and sat down beside the sick man.As night fell, Tarrou's struggle began, and Rieux knew that this difficult struggle against the plague god would continue until dawn.But the best weapon in this struggle is not Tarrou's muscular back, but his blood, that is to say, that which Rieux has just seen flowing from Tarrou's arm along the needle during the injection. His blood, to be more precise, is the kind of thing in his blood that is even more elusive than the soul, which cannot be explained by any science.Rieux could only watch his friend fight.All he had to do was to ripen the abscess earlier and give some supplementary injections, but repeated failures over the past few months had taught him how to look at the effects of these measures.In fact, his only task is to create the conditions for the accidental effect of these measures, and this accident is often brought about by human beings.He thought that this chance must have been brought about, because the manifestation of the plague god had already confused Rieux.It is back again, trying to thwart the strategies people have used against it, it has disappeared from places where it seemed to have taken root, but it has reappeared where no one expected it.It stunned people once again.

Tarrou lay motionless on his bed, fighting the plague god.All night, under the attack of the disease, he never restless, but only his strong body and his silent willpower struggled.Throughout the night, he never said a word, as a way of showing that he was engrossed in the struggle and could not be distracted for a moment.Rieux could only observe the stages of this struggle through the eyes of his friend: now they opened and now closed; and his mother.Tarrou made a great effort to smile whenever the doctor's eyes met his. For a moment there was the sound of hurried footsteps in the street.It seemed that people had heard thunder in the distance and were running quickly.The thunder came nearer and nearer, and at last there was the gurgling of running water in the street: it began to rain again, and soon it was mingled with hail, crackling on the pavement.The hangings in front of the window fluctuated.Rieux's attention had once been drawn to the sound of the rain in the dark room, and now he looked again at Tarrou in the light of the bedside lamp.The doctor's mother was still knitting, and she looked up at the patient from time to time.The doctor has now done all that needs to be done.After the rain, there was silence in the room, but it was filled with the inaudible fighting sounds of an invisible war.The doctor was plagued by insomnia, and he seemed to hear a soft, regular whistling sound in the silence, which had been echoing in his ears throughout the plague epidemic.He gestured to his mother to go to bed.She shook her head to express her refusal, her eyes were sparkling, and then she picked up the knitting work in her hand, and carefully checked a needle hole at the tip of the knitting needle, for fear that she would have to rework if she made a mistake.Rieux got up and went to give the sick man a drink, then came back and sat down again.

The pedestrians outside, taking advantage of the pause of the shower, quickened their pace on the sidewalk.The sound of their footsteps gradually became lighter, and finally disappeared into the distance.For the first time, the doctor noticed that this night was similar to the night before the plague. There were still many people walking in the street late at night, and the bell of the ambulance could not be heard.It was a night free from the plague.Driven by the cold, the light, and the crowd, it seemed, the plague god had escaped from the dark depths of the city, slipped into the warm room, and made his final assault on Tarrou's lifeless body. No longer haunting the sky above the city, but whistling softly in the dreary air of this room.For hours all Rieux had heard was its sound.Now one had to hope that its voice would stop here too, that it would admit defeat here too.

Shortly before dawn, Rieux leaned over to his mother and said: "You should go to sleep for a while, and wait for eight o'clock to replace me. Before going to bed, give me some medicine." The old lady stood up, put away her knitting work, and walked to the bed.Tarrou had kept his eyes closed for some time, sweat curling his hair against his strong forehead.The old lady sighed, and the patient opened his eyes.He saw a gentle face leaning towards him, the roiling heat wave of high fever did not overwhelm him, and a stubborn smile appeared on his mouth again, but his eyes closed again immediately.When his mother left, Rieux was left alone, and he sat down in her chair.Now the streets are silent, deathly still.The room was starting to feel the early morning chill. The doctor dozed off vaguely, but the first car at dawn woke him from his half-sleep.He shuddered, looked at Tarrou, and realized that it was an interval between struggles and that the patient was asleep.The wooden and iron wheels of the carriage were still rolling in the distance.Outside the window, it was still dark.As the doctor walked towards the bed Tarrou looked at him with expressionless eyes, as if he had not yet awakened. Rieux asked: "You fell asleep, didn't you?" "yes." "Feeling easier to breathe?" "Relaxed. Does that explain something?" Rieux was silent for a while and said: "No, Tarrou, that doesn't mean anything. You know as well as I do that it's a morning respite." Tarrou agreed. "Thank you," he said, "please always answer me exactly." Rieux sat down at the foot of the bed.He felt the legs of the patient beside him as deadly straight and stiff.Tarrou's breathing became heavier. "It's time for the heat to rise again, isn't it, Rieux?" he said out of breath. "Yes, but we won't know until noon." Tarrou closed his eyes as if to recharge his batteries.There was a look of boredom on his face.He was waiting for the heat to pick up, and in fact, somewhere inside him, the fever was already churning.When he opened his eyes, his gaze was dull and lifeless.It was only when he noticed that Rieux was bending over him that his eyes sparkled. "Drink some water," Rieux told him. He drank the water and his head fell back again. "What a long time!" he said. Rieux seized his arm, but Tarrou had already looked away and did not respond.Suddenly, the high fever visibly rushed back to his forehead like a tide breaking through a certain dam in the patient's body.When Tarrou turned his eyes to Rieux, the doctor moved his face close to encourage him.Tarrou still wanted to force a smile, but now his clenched jaw and lips sealed with foam prevented him from doing so.But in his hardened face, his eyes were still bright and shining with a brave light. At seven o'clock in the morning, the old lady walked into the ward.The doctor went back to his study and called the hospital to arrange for someone to fill his shift there.At the same time, he also decided to postpone the consultation time and lie down on the sofa in his study for a while, but he got up immediately after lying down and went back to the room.At this moment Tarrou turned his face to the little figure of the old lady who was sitting bent over the chair beside him, her hands folded in her lap.Seeing that Tarrou was looking at her so intently, she put a finger to her lips and got up to switch off the bedside lamp.But the sunlight quickly penetrated the curtains, and after a while the darkness in the room was driven away, and the patient's face was illuminated.The old lady noticed that his frozen gaze was still on her.She leaned over and tidied the pillow for him, straightened up, put her hands on his damp and curly hair, and stayed for a while.Then she heard a low voice, as if from afar, thank her and tell her that all was well now.When she sat down again, Tarrou had closed his eyes, and there seemed to be another smile on his weakened face, though his mouth was tightly shut. At noon, the high fever had reached its peak.The patient's body trembled in fits of severe coughing from deep within, and at the same time he began to vomit blood again.His lymph nodes had stopped swelling, but they hadn't subsided, and they were as hard as screw caps screwed on the joints, and Rieux considered it impossible to open them again.In the intervals between fever and coughing, Tarrou looked at his two friends from time to time.But after a while, the number of times he opened his eyes became less and less, and his face, which had been ruined by the plague god, became paler and paler under the sunlight.The high fever was like a storm, causing his whole body to jump and twitch from time to time. He became weaker and weaker, and finally he was gradually conquered by the storm.From now on, all Rieux saw was a lifeless mask that had lost its smile forever.Once upon a time, this body was so dear to him, but now it was pierced by the spear of the disease, it was tortured unconscious by this inhuman pain, and it was distorted by this evil wind of hatred that fell from the sky. shape!He watched Tarrou gradually drown in the sea of ​​plague, but he could do nothing about it.He could only stay on the shore, with his arms outstretched, his heart pierced.Once again he felt that he had neither weapons nor means to meet the disaster.At last Rieux's vision was blurred by helpless tears, so that he did not see Tarrou turn suddenly, facing the wall, and then, as if somewhere in him a main string snapped, with a low sound. With a groan, he left the world. Night fell again, the battle was over, and there was silence all around.In this isolated room, Rieux felt an astonishing tranquility over the clothed corpse.Such an atmosphere had taken place one night many days ago, immediately after the storming of the gates, over the row of platforms that seemed to loom high above the plague.At that time, he thought of a scene he had experienced: he saw some patients die with his own eyes, and then, a similar peaceful atmosphere would appear over the hospital bed.This interval, this solemn interlude, this post-battle calm is everywhere the same, it is the stillness of a defeated battle.But how strangely still was the atmosphere now surrounding his friend, and how it was in harmony with the stillness of the streets and the city freed from the plague!In Rieux's mind, therefore, this was a decisive defeat which declared the end of all wars but at the same time turned peace into an incurable wound.The doctor did not know whether Tarrou found peace in the end, but at this moment at least he had a premonition that he would never have peace again, like a mother who has lost her child, or a man who buries his friend. Outside, the night was still cold, and the stars were shining in the clear, cold sky.In the dimly lit room, they felt the chill on the glass windows, and heard the shrill whistling of the strong wind in the cold night.The old lady sat on the edge of the bed, her posture was still the same as usual, and the bedside lamp illuminated her right side.In the middle of the room, away from the light, Rieux was sitting in an easy chair.He thought of his wife, but every time he restrained himself, dismissed the thought. As night begins to fall, the heels of passers-by on the street choke clearly in the cold night. The old lady said, "Have you arranged everything?" "Okay, I've already called." So, they began to guard the corpse silently again.The old lady looked at her son from time to time.Rieux smiled at her when the eyes of mother and son met occasionally.Those familiar voices on the street at night reached their ears one after another.Although there is no official approval for vehicles to pass through the city, many vehicles have resumed driving, and they are speeding past the road in an endless stream.There were voices, calls, then silence, then the sound of horses' hoofs, the scraping of two trams on the track as they turned, a faint noise, and then the night wind. "Bernard?" "Ai" "Are you tired?" "Not tired." Rieux knew what his mother was thinking at this moment, he knew she was hurting him.But he also knows that loving someone is not a big deal, or at least that love can never be properly expressed.Therefore, his mother and he can only love each other silently forever.But one day it will be her or his turn to die, and yet in their lifetime, they have not been able to tell each other any further about their love.Likewise, he had lived with Tarrou, who died that night, but they had never really enjoyed their friendship either.He had lost, as Tarrou himself said.But he, Rieux, what has he won?He knew the plague and friendship, but now the plague and friendship were memories for him; he also knew tenderness now, but one day tenderness would also be a memory.Yes, he just earned these things.All one can win in the gamble of plague and life is knowledge and memory.Maybe that's what Tarrou meant by "won"! Another car passed by in the street, and the old lady shifted in her chair.Rieux smiled at her.She told him she was not tired, but added quickly: "You should go to the mountains and rest." "Of course, mother." Yes, he will go there to rest.why not?It was also an excuse to go there and reminisce.However, if you only know something and remember something, but you can't get what you want, living like this is called "winning", then how difficult this kind of life will be!That was probably how Tarrou lived, and he realized the emptiness of a life without illusions.A person without hope cannot find peace of mind.Tarrou believes that people have no right to sentence anyone, but he also knows that no one can refrain from condemning others, even the victim himself is sometimes the executioner, so he lives in pain and contradictions, Never lived in hope.Is it for this reason that he wants to be a saint, to find peace by helping others?In fact, Rieux knew nothing about it, and it didn't matter.The only image Tarrou had of Rieux was that of him driving the doctor's car with his hands on the steering wheel, or that his massive body lay there motionless now.A passion for life, an image of death, this is called knowledge. It may be for this reason that Dr. Rieux was calm when he received the news of his wife's death in the morning.He was in his study at the time.His mother almost ran to deliver him a telegram, and then she went out to tip the messenger.When she returned to the house, her son had the open telegram in his hand.She glanced at him, but he stared stubbornly out the window at the brilliant morning dawning on the harbor. The old lady called out, "Bernard." The doctor looked at her absently. "What did the telegram say?" asked the old lady. "That's it," the doctor admitted. "Eight days ago." The old lady turned her head to the window.The doctor was silent, and then he persuaded the mother not to cry, saying that he had expected it, which was of course very difficult.But in saying this, he felt that his pain did not come suddenly.For many months, especially these two days, the same pain has not stopped.