Chapter 31 Chapter 30 There is always much to be admired

This narrative ends here.Now is the time for Dr. Rieux to admit that he is the author of this book.But before recording the last events of this period of history, he at least wants to explain his reasons for writing this work. I hope everyone knows that he insists on recording with the attitude of an objective witness.Throughout the plague, his occupation gave him the opportunity to meet most of the city's residents and understand their mood.Therefore, he is fully qualified to describe what he has seen and heard.However, he wanted to maintain a proper degree of caution in undertaking this work.On the whole, he took pains to avoid describing things that he himself did not see, and trying not to impose fantasies on his companions during the plague. Based on information that fell into his hands through unfortunate events.

He was testifying against a crime, and he exercised the caution of a good witness.But at the same time, according to his good conscience, he consciously sided with the victim.He hopes to stand with everyone, the people in his city, on the basis of their only common belief, that is, to love together, to endure hardship together, and to be exiled together.He therefore shared all their cares, and their situation was his. As a faithful witness, he mainly recorded their actions, related documents and rumors.But he doesn't intend to touch on the things he wants to talk about personally, such as his expectations and the various tests he has endured.Even if he mentioned some, it was only in order to know them, or to make them known, and also to express as clearly as possible what they often vaguely felt.In truth, this effort to obey reason did not cost him very much.Whenever he couldn't help but want to mix his inner thoughts directly with the groans of thousands of plague sufferers, he would think that none of the pain he had endured was someone else's pain, and he would think that in this day and age In the world, one person's suffering is often irrelevant to others, but now everyone can feel sorry for each other, which is a comforting thing in itself, so he doesn't talk about personal matters.Obviously, he should speak for everyone.

But among these citizens there was at least one man whom Dr. Rieux could not speak for.This is the man Tarrou was talking about one day with Rieux: "His only real crime is that he approves from the bottom of his heart that which leads to the death of children and adults. I can understand anything else, but this one I can only barely forgive him." This man has a heart of ignorance, a heart of loneliness, and our story should end after writing this man. When Dr. Rieux left the festive street and was about to turn into the street where Grand and Cottard lived, he was stopped by a cordon.This was completely beyond his expectations.The sound of carnival coming from a distance further set off the silence of this area, and he felt that it was lonely and silent here.He showed his credentials.

"Can't go, doctor," said the policeman. "There's a madman shooting into the crowd. But please stay here, you can help." At that moment Rieux saw Grand coming towards him.Grand didn't know anything about the situation either.People wouldn't let him go, and he heard the bullets had come from his house.In the distance, under the setting sun, the front of the house was covered with a golden glow.It was surrounded by a large open field that stretched to the opposite sidewalk.In the middle of the street, one can clearly see a hat and a piece of dirty cloth.Looking from afar, Rieux and Grand saw that there was also a cordon at the other end of the street, parallel to the one blocking their way.Behind this cordon, several residents of the district can also be seen coming and going in a hurry.On closer inspection, they also found police officers with pistols crouching behind the doors of some buildings across from the house, which had all shutters closed but one on the third floor appeared to be ajar.The street was quiet, except for the intermittent music from the city center.

A moment later there was two pistol shots from a building opposite the house, and the half-open shutter burst into pieces.Then the silence was restored again.Rieux saw the scene from a distance after a whole day of noise, and it seemed a little unreal. "It's Cottard's window!" Grand said suddenly excitedly, "but Cottard isn't there) L." "Why did you shoot?" Rieux asked the policeman. "We're teasing him. We're now waiting for a car with the necessary equipment because he's shooting at everyone who tries to come in the door of the house. One of the policemen has already been shot."

"Why did he shoot?" "I don't know. People were wandering the streets. When they heard the first shot, they couldn't figure out what it was. By the second shot, there were shouts, and a man was wounded." , so everyone ran away. A madman, understand!" The surroundings fell silent again.Time passed very slowly.Suddenly they saw a dog on the other side of the street, the first dog Rieux had seen for a long time.It was a spaniel and was so dirty that its owner probably kept it hidden until today.Now it was trotting along the wall, near the door of the house, hesitated, crouched, and then bent over to bite the fleas.The police whistled several times to call it.The dog looked up, then made up his mind, and walked slowly across the road to sniff the hat.At this moment, a bullet was shot from the third floor and hit the dog. It turned over suddenly, struggled desperately with its four paws, and finally fell sideways, and its whole body trembled with long-term convulsions.The police immediately returned fire, firing half a dozen rounds through the door of the building opposite, and the shutter was blown to pieces.Then silence returned.The sun had now set lower, and the shadows were beginning to move over Cottard's window.From behind the doctor in the street came a soft screech of brakes.

"Here they come!" said the policeman. Some policemen got out of the car with their backs out, carrying ropes, ladders, and two oblong packages wrapped in tarpaulins.They walked into a street that surrounded the row of houses and stopped opposite Grand's house.After a while some commotion was seen, or rather supposed, behind the doors of these houses.Then people began to wait.The dog was lying motionless in a dark pool of blood. Suddenly, from the windows of the house occupied by the police, there was the rattling of submachine guns.With this burst of fire, the aimed shutter fell in pieces, forming a dark hole.Rieux and Grand stood where they were and looked over, unable to distinguish anything.When the firing stopped, a second submachine gun fired from another angle in a house farther away.The bullets probably entered the window frame, as one of the bullets dislodged a pile of brick fragments.At that moment, three police officers rushed across the road and rushed through the gate.Almost immediately, three other policemen rushed in, and the shooting stopped.People are still waiting.There were two explosions from the house.Then there was a commotion, and a short, yelling figure in his shirt-sleeves was seen being dragged out almost without touching his feet.At the same moment, as if by a miracle, all the shutters along the street were flung open, the windows were filled with onlookers, and a great crowd came out of the houses and crowded behind the cordon.At this time, people saw that the short man had reached the middle of the road, his feet on the ground, and his arms were twisted behind his back by the police.he yelled.A policeman ran up to him and gave him two hard, steady blows.

"This is Cottard," stammered Grand, "he's crazy." Cottard was knocked to the ground.The policeman kicked the person lying on the ground with all his might.Then there was a commotion in a mob of people, and they came towards the doctor and his old friend. "Get out!" said the policeman. Rieux averted his eyes as the group passed in front of them. In the twilight, Grand and Rieux left.As if the events of recent events had awakened the district from a state of torpor, the lonely streets were boiling again, and the merry crowds were stirring again.Grand said goodbye to the doctor as he reached the door.He is going to work.But before going upstairs, he told the doctor that he had written to Jeanne and that he was very happy now.He then mentioned that he had rewritten the sentence: "I crossed out the adjective."

With that, he took off his hat with a mischievous smile and saluted Rieux respectfully, but Rieux was thinking of Cottard.He walked towards the asthmatic old man's house, the heavy sound of a fist being struck in Cottard's face resounding in his ears.It is probably worse to think of a man who has committed a crime than of a dead man. It was completely dark when Rieux arrived at the patient's house.In the patient's room, the celebratory laughter of freedom could be heard from afar, and the old man, in his usual temper, continued to play his game of chickpeas for pots. "Yeah, play and be merry, they're doing right," he said, "you've got to have fun, or it wouldn't be the world. Doctor, where's your colleague? What's the matter with him now? "

The sound of explosions reached their ears, but it was not the sound of guns, the children were setting off firecrackers. "He's dead," replied the doctor, auscultating the old man's whirring chest. "Ouch!" the old man exclaimed. "The plague," Rieux added. "Yes," the old man sighed after a while, "the good man dies first, and that's life. But he's a man of brains." "Why do you say this?" the doctor asked as he put his stethoscope back. "I'm talking casually. But he's a guy who doesn't just talk. Anyway, I like him. That's all. People say, 'It's the plague! We've got the plague!' They almost do Medals are requested. But what about the plague? It's just life."

"You'll have to do fumigations often." "Ah! Don't worry. I have a lot of time to live, and I want to see people die. I know how to live." In the distance, cries of joy answered his words.Rieux stood in the middle of the room. "I'm going to the platform, won't I bother you?" "Not at all! You want to go up and see them, don't you? You go if you like. But the people are the same as before." Rieux walked towards the stairs. "Well, doctor, is it true that they're going to erect a monument to those who died of the plague?" "That's what the papers say. Put up a monument, or a commemorative plaque." "I expected it to happen. There will be speeches." The old man laughed so hard he couldn't even breathe. "I could hear them from here saying: 'Our late...' and as soon as it was over they went to eat and drink." Rieux had already climbed the stairs.The cold sky stretched as far as the eye could see, and the stars shone above the houses, and near the hills the stars looked hard and hard as flint.The night of the day was not very different from the last night he had been with Tarrou--that night they had come to this platform to relieve their troubles from the plague.But today, the sea below the cliff was less calm than it had been that night.The surrounding air floated there lightly and motionless, and there was no smell of sea water brought by the still cool autumn wind.But the noise from the city was like waves crashing against the foot of the platform wall.But this night is a night of liberation, not rebellion.In the distance, a large area of ​​dark red light can be seen, where are the brightly lit avenues and squares.In the liberated night, no force can stop people from fulfilling their wishes, and the voice reaching Rieux's ears is the roar of people's wishes. From the dark port rose the first fireworks set off by the city hall.There was a long, muffled cheer from the whole town.All those who had been loved by Rieux and who have now left him, Cottard, Tarrou, the doctor's own wife, all these people, some dead, some criminals, are now forgotten.The old man was right, people were the same as before.That is to say people are still alive and well.Pure ignorance, and now on this platform, Rieux forgot his pain and felt that he was with people.The louder and longer-lasting cheers continued to spread from the city center to the bottom of the platform, and more and more fiery trees and silver flowers appeared in the sky, like a hundred flowers blooming, competing for beauty.Faced with this situation, Dr. Rieux decided to write the story so far.He did this out of reluctance to remain silent before the facts, in order to be a sympathetic witness to these plague sufferers, in order to at least recall that they were victims of injustice and violence, in order to tell the truth What he learned in this disaster, and told people: in people, there are always more things worthy of admiration than things that should be despised. But he understands that what this documentary writes cannot be a decisive victory.It is but a testimonial of what men had to do at that time, and later on, when the god of terror reappears with his pitiless butcher knife, those who are neither saints nor willing to bow down The majesty of catastrophe, the person who puts personal pain aside, and only wants to be a doctor, must do something. Rieux listened to the thunderous cheers in the city, but thought in his heart: there is always something that threatens the joy, because he can see at a glance what these jubilant crowds cannot see.He knew that one could read these words in the book: that the bacillus of plague never dies, that it can sleep for decades in furniture and clothes, that it can patiently survive in rooms, cellars, suitcases, handkerchiefs and wastepaper piles. Maybe one day, people will suffer another bad luck, or they will be taught another lesson, and the God of Plague will once again mobilize its swarm of rats and drive them to choose a certain happy city as their burial place.