Chapter 30 Chapter 29

At dawn on a fine February morning, the city gates were finally opened, congratulated by residents of the city, newspapers, radio broadcasts, and provincial communiqués.Although the author, like some, was not able to fully join in these revelry at the time, he felt compelled to report on the joyful moments after the opening of the city gates. The grand carnival takes place all day and all night.At the same time, the trains began to smoke at the stations, and the ships from the distant seas were already heading for the ports. This new situation vividly showed that for all those who suffered from long separation, this day It's their day of reunion.

Here it is easy to imagine how far this feeling of parting, which has tormented so many citizens, has grown.During the day the trains arriving and leaving the city are full of passengers.Everyone has already ordered tickets for this day. During the two weeks of the suspension of the lifting of the ban, everyone is worried, for fear that the province will cancel the original decision at the last moment.Moreover, some travelers were not quite free from fear when they approached the city, for even if they had some knowledge of the fate of their own relatives, they knew nothing of the others, of the city itself, They had a terrible picture of the city of Oran.But the above applies only to those who have not suffered from love during the whole period of separation.

As for the amorous ones, they do have their good things in their minds all the time.Their only change was that, during these days of exile, they had tried to make time pass faster, and afterward they tried to make it go faster; They want time to pass slowly; and when the train starts to brake and prepare to pull in, they even want time to stop.They have an elusive, strong feeling that they have been lost by the loss of their love life these past few months, so they subconsciously demand a kind of compensation: the hope that the upcoming happy time will be better than the days and years of waiting. Time is twice as slow.Those who were waiting for them in their rooms or on the platform—like Rambert, whose lover had been notified and ready to leave weeks before—were equally impatient and distraught because For so many months, the plague had reduced this tenderness to an abstraction, and Rambert waited anxiously to reconnect with his flesh-and-blood sweetheart, the concrete object of this tenderness. .

He really wanted to be himself in the early days of the plague, when he wished he could run out of the city gate and fly into the arms of his lover.But he now knew that was impossible.He had changed, and through the plague he had acquired a habit of absent-mindedness which continued to haunt him like a hidden worry, in spite of all his efforts to get rid of it.In a way, he felt that the end of the plague was too sudden for him to prepare for it.Happiness came so quickly, and the situation changed more quickly than people expected.Rambert knew that he would regain at once all that he had lost, and therefore joy would become a burning, indistinguishable taste.

Besides, everyone is more or less in the same mood as Rambert, so I should speak about everyone.Although on this train platform, they started their private lives again, but when they exchanged glances and smiles, they still felt that they were a group that shared weal and woe.However, the moment they saw the train's smoke, that feeling of exile suddenly disappeared in a wave of ecstasy.On this platform, long ago, most of them began their long separation; The long-awaited distress ended in an instant for their already unfamiliar bodies.The figure galloping towards Rambert fell into his arms before he had time to see it clearly.He put his arms around her, her head was close to him, all he saw was the familiar hair, at this moment he couldn't help the tears, he didn't know it was the tears of happiness at this moment , or tears of pain that he has been suppressing for a long time, but at least he feels that these tears have blurred his vision, making him unable to verify whether it is the face he has been thinking about buried in his chest, or the other way around. , is the face of a strange woman.This mystery will have to wait for him to figure it out later.For the moment he tried to act like the people around him, as if he believed that the plague could come and pass away, but people would not change their minds.

They cuddled tightly one by one, and returned to their home; they were so intoxicated, they forgot that there was a world outside them, and seemed to have defeated the plague; People who got on and off the train and didn't find their loved ones.These people were planning to go home to confirm their fears, and trembling and uneasiness had grown in their hearts because they had not heard from their loved ones for a long time.For those who felt new pain, it was quite different for others who were now mourning the loss of a loved one: the sentiment of parting had reached its climax.To these mothers, wives, husbands, or lovers, the bones of their loved ones are now buried in the grave or reduced to ashes. 2 For them the plague still exists.

But who would have thought of these lonely people?At noon, the sun dispelled the chill that had been contending with it in the sky since morning, and the sun shone continuously on the city.Time seemed to have stopped.The battery on the top of the hill roared incessantly in the still sky.People all over the city took to the streets to celebrate this exciting moment, which marked the end of the time of suffering and the beginning of the time of forgetting. Everywhere in the squares, people were dancing.Overnight, the traffic on the road became extremely congested, with more and more cars, and the streets were blocked.All afternoon the city bells were tolling in unison, and their clangs echoed in the blue sky and the golden sun.The church was filled with joyful thanksgiving.But at the same time, the entertainment venues were also overcrowded, and the owner of the cafe, regardless of how to operate in the future, sold all the last remaining wine to customers.Groups of equally excited people were crowded in front of the counter, and many couples of men and women could be seen embracing each other without any scruples under the watchful eyes of everyone.Everyone was shouting and laughing.Over the past few months, they have accumulated enthusiasm for life, and no one can easily reveal this enthusiasm.And yet on this day, the day they survived, they poured it all out.Tomorrow is the day to start life cautiously, and now all classes of men are brought together like brothers.Death failed to bring equality among men, but the joy of liberation gave it a chance to be born, 'gu lasted for a few hours at least.

But this general exuberance was not enough to explain everything, for example, those who crowded the streets with Rambert before dusk often concealed a more subtle feeling of happiness with a poise.Many couples, many families do look like peaceful-looking ramblers.In fact, most of them were making a subtle pilgrimage to the places where they had suffered.They pointed out to their relatives who had just returned to the city the traces, light and dark, which the plague had left in these places, the witnesses of its whole history.In some cases people like to assume the air of a guide, a well-informed witness to the plague, who speaks only of its dangers without saying a word about the horrors it caused. carry.The fun doesn't hurt either.But there are others who take a more gripping 'route', such as a lover, full of anxious tenderness reminiscing about him, who says to his female companion: "It was in this place that I used to miss You, but you're not here!" These enthusiastic tourists were easy to recognize at that time, because they walked and whispered and expressed their feelings to each other in the noise, which seemed different.They express this liberated mood more vividly than the band at the Crossroads, for amidst the merry din these happy, huddled couples speak little, But they triumphantly and selfishly displayed a very happy appearance. In this way, they showed that the plague was over and the period of terror was over.In disregard of the obvious, they calmly deny that we have ever lived in such an absurd world, where killing a human being is as routine as killing a few flies; Unmistakable barbarism, this premeditated insanity, this captivity which disregards all established social morals; they deny that we have ever smelled the smell of the dead that stupefies all living ;Finally, they also denied that we were all frightened out of our wits by the plague god. At that time, the corpses of some of us were thrown into the huge mouth of the cremator every day, and finally turned into a puff of smoke, while others were helpless every day. And under the shackles of panic, waiting for the call of death.

In short, this was what Dr. Rieux saw.At that time, towards dusk, he was walking alone in the direction of the suburbs amidst the sound of bells, guns, music, and deafening shouts. He wanted to continue his practice, because patients did not have vacations.Under the beautiful sunlight, the familiar aromas of barbecue and Yinxiang wine wafted in the city.All around Rieux were faces upturned and smiling.Pairs of men and women stuck close together, their red faces seemed emotionally excited, and they uttered affectionate cries from time to time.Yes, the plague is over, the period of terror is over, and this warm embrace speaks to the fact that plague was a source of exile and separation.

For several months, Rieux had noticed that the faces of passers-by showed a kind of family look, and it was only today that he suddenly realized what it was all about.He only needs to look at the people around him now to understand.These people finally hoped for the end of the plague, but because of hardship, they openly put on the clothes of exiles.In fact, they had for a long time lived a life of exiles, a life which at first was reflected only in the bewildered and far-from-home look on their faces, and which could now also be seen in their clothes. I can tell.After the plague, the city gates were closed, and from then on, they just lived a life in isolation, and they lost the warmth of the world that could soothe all pain.To varying degrees, these men and women in all corners of the city longed for a reunion, and of course it was not of the same nature for each, but it was an equally tragic event for all at the time. Unattainable things.Most of them have tried their best to call out the departed lover, longing for physical warmth, old tenderness, or nostalgia for old habits of life.There are people who have lost the friendship of people, who can no longer keep in touch with people through the normal means of letters, trains, ships, etc., and suffer from it without knowing it.There may be a few, like Tarrou, who also wish to be reunited, but with something they cannot identify, but which they think is the only thing they want.Because they couldn't think of a proper name, they sometimes called the thing "Tranquility."

Rieux continued walking.The further he walked, the more people around him, the louder the noise. He seemed to feel that he was standing still, and the distance between the suburbs and him always remained the same.Gradually he felt that he and these noisy crowds were melting into one; more and more he understood the meaning of their cries, and he understood that at least some of them represented his own voice.Yes, all have suffered in body and mind an unbearable separation, an irrevocable exile, and an insatiable longing.Among these mountains of corpses, amidst the bells of ambulances, amidst the warnings issued by the so-called fate, amidst this stagnant atmosphere of terror and the strong resistance in people's hearts, there is a huge cry. The reverberation in the air reminds these lost souls that they should find their true hometown.For all of them the real home was beyond the walls of the suffocating city, in these briar-bushes that scented the hills, in the sea, in those free places, in love among.They want to return to the embrace of their hometown and resume a happy life; they dismiss everything else. What was the meaning of this exile and this wish for a reunion, Rieux had no way of knowing.As he walked on, people crowded and yelled at him everywhere.In this way, he gradually walked to a street with few pedestrians.He thinks it doesn't matter whether these things have meaning or not, as long as there is such a thing that meets people's wishes, it is enough. He knew it now, and he saw it even more clearly in those almost deserted streets on the outskirts of the city.For those who cling to what little they have and want only to return to their loving home, there may be fulfillment.Of course, some of them have lost the loved ones they were waiting for and are still walking alone in the city.Others were fortunate enough not to suffer twice a separation like those who, before the plague, were not able to establish love at once, and then spent years blindly Blindly pursuing this kind of reluctant combination, so that in the end, the lover became the enemy.The lucky ones mentioned above, like Rieux himself, once easily believed that time will solve the problem: a mistake in one thought, and the result is a long-term farewell.But there were others, like Rambert (to whom the doctor had left him that morning: "Be brave, now is your time to win"), and they were soon found again. A loved one who was thought to have been lost.At least for a while, they will be happy.They now know that if there is one thing in this world that people can always yearn for and sometimes get, it is human tenderness. On the contrary, all those detached people, those who yearn for something even they People who couldn't explain themselves didn't find anything that matched their wishes.Tarrou seemed to have attained that elusive peace of which he had spoken, but he had obtained it only through death, and by then it was of no use to him.In the afterglow of the setting sun, Rieux saw some people embracing each other tightly at the door of the house, gazing at each other passionately; these people can get what they yearn for because what they ask for is The only thing within their reach.When Rieux was about to turn into the street where Grand and Cottard lived, he thought of the following question: whether those who are content with man and his poor but great love should make them, or At least reward them with joy every once in a while.