In today’s pages we witness the death of Tarrou. It’s a very moving scene, not least for the ways that it shows the deep friendship and tenderness between Tarrou and Rieux. The narrator describes the silence that surrounds the doctor in the wake of the death, a silence that he has noticed throughout the plague but that this time feels like “the definitive defeat, the one that ends wars and makes of peace itself an irremediable suffering.” Again this somber acknowledgement that the suffering goes on even as the plague ends – and for the doctor, who no longer has his immediate task to occupy him, that suffering only deepens. A lesson here, for how we need to support those in our own communities who will be feeling the effects of this time perhaps even more acutely once it has passed. 

FOR TOMORROW: read to the end of the book! And don’t forget to register for our final meeting with translator Laura Marris (and submit questions if you have them!) on the book club main page: narrativemedicine.blog/narrative-medicine-book-club

This quote strikes as particularly poignant – acknowledgement that the promise of “deliverance” from the plague does not only bring joy with it, but also tears, the recognition of all that has been lost. In today’s pages Cottard and Tarrou talk about what happens when the plague is gone, whether it is possible “that everything would begin again as before, that is to say, as though nothing had happened.” The notion of “starting again” is raised a few different times; Cottard “imagined the town starting to live again from zero and wiping out its past.” Is such a thing possible? If it is, is it the thing to hope for? 

FOR TOMORROW: Read to the end of section 3 in Part V.

Today’s pages bring the beginning of the end of the plague. There is no clear reason for the plague’s demise; “one merely had the feeling that the disease had exhausted itself, or perhaps that it was retiring after achieving all of its objectives. In a sense, its role was completed.” Of course our own plague is far from over, but Camus’s description of the townspeople’s impatience with their hope still resonates, as we begin to wrestle with our own impatience and surmise about plans for how to live in the meantime. Our path out of this will not be as simple as that of the folks in Oran; still, one does hope for the day that we might smile in the street.  

FOR TOMORROW: Next 7 pages, to paragraph beginning “The doctor said that the same was true of Tarrou…” 

In today’s pages we see a lovely scene of friendship between Rieux and Tarrou; the two go for a moonlit swim together, a moment of joy in the midst of plague. Tarrou explains his philosophy to Rieux – his steadfast striving to not “become a plague victim,” that is, the metaphorical plague of causing death to others through your actions. “‘What is natural is the microbe. The rest – health, integrity, purity, if you like – are an effect of will and a will that should never relax.'” When asked “the road that one should follow to arrive at peace,” Tarrou responds: “‘sympathy.” 

FOR TOMORROW: Next 7 pages, to the end of the paragraph that begins “The population lived in this secret” in the first section of Part V. 

Is today’s section the first time in the book where “the plague” is used literally as a metaphor for larger societal ills? Tarrou starts his monologue, telling Rieux about his background and his relationship to his prosecutor father; how Tarrou resisted the condemnation to death of an accused man, then the death penalty in general — “my business was the hole in the chest” — all of this perpetrated by “plague sufferers” who, as I read it, seem to be each of us? I wonder if there is a way to exist, in this view, without being a plague sufferer? As we near the end of the book, the larger allegorical vision is beginning to come more clear…

FOR TOMORROW: Next 7 pages, to, in dialogue, “‘We must go back,'” in section 7 of  Part IV. 

More resonances in today’s pages: supplies run low, and speculators jump in to offer “vital necessities” at “huge prices.” The plague, though it kills with “efficient impartiality,” “heightened the feeling of injustice in the hearts of men”: the poor and the rich do not fare equally. The plague settles “comfortably into its peak” but experts warn that “the history of epidemics showed that they could flare up again unexpectedly.” And we visit a stadium, once the home of soccer matches, that has now been taken over, as many public spaces in Oran have, as an isolation facility. The population there is eerily quiet. “Since they could not always be thinking about death, they thought about nothing.” 

 FOR MONDAY: Next 7 pages, to the end of the paragraph that begins “‘In any case, my business was not argument,'” in section 6 of Part IV.

JOIN OUR MEETING TOMORROW AT 2 PM! Visit https://narrativemedicine.blog/blog/narrative-medicine-book-club/ to register. 

In today’s pages we see the conclusion of Paneloux’s second sermon, and then his death following soon after. In his sermon he argues that “there is no middle way” — you cannot accept only certain aspects of the plague, of evil, but rather you “one must believe everything or deny everything.” As Tarrou says: “When innocence has its eyes gouged out, a Christian must lose his faith or accept the gouging out of eyes.” How fascinating, to juxtapose this sermon, so different from his first, with the priest’s death immediately after, a “doubtful case” of the plague. What is Camus doing here, with this death for Panaloux? 

FOR TOMORROW: Read section 5 of Part IV. 

NEXT ZOOM CALL SUNDAY 2pm! Visit https://narrativemedicine.blog/blog/narrative-medicine-book-club/ to register. 

Rieux and his colleagues, including the priest, witness the terrible death from plague of a young child. Rieux, in his exhaustion and grief, argues with the priest, who still believes that the plague is punishment for sin: “that one, at least, was innocent, as you very well know!” These pages are very interesting – Camus writes of how “superstition” and “prophecies” have taken the place of religion for many townspeople, these prophecies read with “as much eagerness as the love stories” found in newspapers “in times of health.” This resonated, as so many of us search the news for definitive projections of how this will all end, and so many people put forth theories and plans – both careful and reckless – to move forward. The priest, it seems, has been both changed and not by what he has witnessed; looking forward to discussing with you all the way Camus contrasts his second sermon with his first. 

FOR TOMORROW: Read to the end of section 4 in Part IV. 

In today’s pages Rambert finally decides to stay in the town; “if he went away he would feel ashamed.” Rieux says there is no shame in happiness — Rambert answers, “But there may be shame in being happy all by oneself,” as “this business concerns all of us.” This exchange made me think of those currently protesting orders to stay at home – the false idea that one lives in an unconnected universe where achieving what one wants is possible without the help of others, or without putting others at risk. And another wise statement by Rieux, on the ability to understand and process what one is living through in the moment of living it: “One can’t heal and know at the same time. So let’s heal as fast as we can.” 

FOR TOMORROW: Next 7 pages, up to “It was everything or nothing,” in section 4 of Part IV.

In today’s pages we get one of the strangest moments of the book so far: the opera company of Orpheus & Eurydice, trapped in Oran, performs the opera over and over again every week for months to a packed house. In the third act, a singer collapses, presumably of the plague, and the audience files out leaving their “fans and lace stoles” behind, “luxury that had become useless.” We also pick back up with Rambert’s quest to get out of the town, “choosing happiness,” as Rieux says. Somehow I still feel sure that Rambert is not going to get out … 

FOR TOMORROW: Next 7 pages, to the end of the paragraph beginning “The light spread through the ward,” in section 3 of Part IV