The Plague - Revision history

Admin at 05:27, 20 November 2013

2013-11-20T05:27:06Z

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Admin at 18:54, 26 May 2013

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Admin at 22:21, 24 May 2013

2013-05-24T22:21:56Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 22:21, 24 May 2013
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	[Tarrou]		[Tarrou]

	In vain a zealous evangelist with a felt hat and flowing tie threads his way through the crowd, crying without cease: 'God is great and good. Come unto Him.' On the conterary, they all make haste toward some trivial objective that seems of more immediate interest than God.		In vain a zealous evangelist with a felt hat and flowing tie threads his way through the crowd, crying without cease: 'God is great and good. Come unto Him.' On the conterary, they all make haste toward some trivial objective that seems of more immediate interest than God.

	"In the early days, when they thought this epidemic was much like other epidemics, religion held its ground. But once these people realized their instant peril, they gave their thoughts to pleasure. And all the hideous fears that stamp their faces in the daytime are transformed int he firery, dusty nightfall into a sort of hectic exaltation, an unkempt freedom fevering their blood.		"In the early days, when they thought this epidemic was much like other epidemics, religion held its ground. But once these people realized their instant peril, they gave their thoughts to pleasure. And all the hideous fears that stamp their faces in the daytime are transformed int he firery, dusty nightfall into a sort of hectic exaltation, an unkempt freedom fevering their blood.

	"And I, too, I'm no different. But what matter? Death means nothing to men like me. It's the event that proves them right."		"And I, too, I'm no different. But what matter? Death means nothing to men like me. It's the event that proves them right."
	</blockquote>		</blockquote>
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	"I've seen too much of hospitals to relish any ideas of collective punishment. But, as you know, Christians sometimes say that sort of thing without really thinking it. They're better than they seem.		"I've seen too much of hospitals to relish any ideas of collective punishment. But, as you know, Christians sometimes say that sort of thing without really thinking it. They're better than they seem.

	[...]		[...]

	"Do you believe in God, Doctor?"		"Do you believe in God, Doctor?"

	Again the question was put in an ordinary tone. But this time Rieux took longer to find his answer.		Again the question was put in an ordinary tone. But this time Rieux took longer to find his answer.

	"No - but what does that really mean? I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding that original."		"No - but what does that really mean? I'm fumbling in the dark, struggling to make something out. But I've long ceased finding that original."

	"Isn't that it - the gulf between Paneloux and you?"		"Isn't that it - the gulf between Paneloux and you?"

	"I doubt it. Paneloux is a man of learning, a schoalr. He hasn't come in contract with death; that's why he can speak with su h assurance of the truth - with a capital T. But every country priest who visits his parishoners and has heard a man gasping for breath on his deathbed thinks as I do. He'd try to relieve human suffering before trying to point out its excellence."		"I doubt it. Paneloux is a man of learning, a schoalr. He hasn't come in contract with death; that's why he can speak with su h assurance of the truth - with a capital T. But every country priest who visits his parishoners and has heard a man gasping for breath on his deathbed thinks as I do. He'd try to relieve human suffering before trying to point out its excellence."
	</blockquote>		</blockquote>
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	"So you haven't understood yet?" Rambert shrugged his shoulders almost scornfully.		"So you haven't understood yet?" Rambert shrugged his shoulders almost scornfully.

	"Understood what?"		"Understood what?"

	"The plague."		"The plague."

	"Ah!" Rieux exclaimed.		"Ah!" Rieux exclaimed.

	"No, you haven't understood that it means exactly that - the same thing over and over and over again."		"No, you haven't understood that it means exactly that - the same thing over and over and over again."
	</blockquote>		</blockquote>
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	"But since then I've done a done a bit of thinking."		"But since then I've done a done a bit of thinking."

	"About what?"		"About what?"

	"Courage. I know now that man is capable of great deeds. But if he isn't capable of a great emotion, well, he leaves me cold."		"Courage. I know now that man is capable of great deeds. But if he isn't capable of a great emotion, well, he leaves me cold."

	"One has the idea that he is capable of everything," Tarrou remarked.		"One has the idea that he is capable of everything," Tarrou remarked.

	"I can't agree; he's incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that he's incapable of anything really worth while." He looked at the two men in turn, then asked: "Tell me, Tarrou, are you capable of dying for love?"		"I can't agree; he's incapable of suffering for a long time, or being happy for a long time. Which means that he's incapable of anything really worth while." He looked at the two men in turn, then asked: "Tell me, Tarrou, are you capable of dying for love?"

	"I couldn't say, but I hardly think so, as I am now." "You see. But you're capable of dying for an idea; one can see that right away. Well, personally, I've seen enough of people who die for an idea. I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned it can be murderous. What interests me is living and dying for what one loves."		"I couldn't say, but I hardly think so, as I am now." "You see. But you're capable of dying for an idea; one can see that right away. Well, personally, I've seen enough of people who die for an idea. I don't believe in heroism; I know it's easy and I've learned it can be murderous. What interests me is living and dying for what one loves."
	Rieux had been watching the journalist attentively. With his eyes still on him he said quietly:		Rieux had been watching the journalist attentively. With his eyes still on him he said quietly:

	"Man isn't an idea, Rambert."		"Man isn't an idea, Rambert."

	"Man is an idea, and a precious small idea, once he turns his back on love. And that's my point; we, mankind, have lost the capacity for love."		"Man is an idea, and a precious small idea, once he turns his back on love. And that's my point; we, mankind, have lost the capacity for love."
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	On moonlight nights the long, straight streets and dirty white walls, nowhere darkened by the shadow of a tree, their peace untroubled by footsteps or a dog's bark, glimmered in pale recession. The silent city was no more than an assemblage of huge, inert cubes, between which only the mute effigies of great men, carapaced in bronze, with their blank stone or metal faces, conjured up a sorry semblance of what the man had been. In lifeless squares and avenues these tawdry idols lorded it under the lowering sky; stolid monsters that might have personified the rule of immobility imposed on us, or, anyhow, its final aspect, that of a defunct city in which plague, stone, and darkness had effectively silenced every voice.		On moonlight nights the long, straight streets and dirty white walls, nowhere darkened by the shadow of a tree, their peace untroubled by footsteps or a dog's bark, glimmered in pale recession. The silent city was no more than an assemblage of huge, inert cubes, between which only the mute effigies of great men, carapaced in bronze, with their blank stone or metal faces, conjured up a sorry semblance of what the man had been. In lifeless squares and avenues these tawdry idols lorded it under the lowering sky; stolid monsters that might have personified the rule of immobility imposed on us, or, anyhow, its final aspect, that of a defunct city in which plague, stone, and darkness had effectively silenced every voice.

	But there was darkness also in men's hearts...		But there was darkness also in men's hearts...
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	Meanwhile the authorities had another cause for anxiety in the difficulty of maintaining the food-supply. Profiteers were taking a hand and purveying at enormous prices essential foodstuffs not available in the shops. The result was that poor families were in great straits, while the rich went short of practically nothing. Thus, whereas plague by its impartial ministrations should have promoted equality among our townsfolk, it now had the opposite effect and, thanks to the habitual conflict of cupidities, exacerbated the sense of injustice rankling in men's hearts. They were assured, of course, of the inerrable equality of death, but nobody wanted that kind of equality.		Meanwhile the authorities had another cause for anxiety in the difficulty of maintaining the food-supply. Profiteers were taking a hand and purveying at enormous prices essential foodstuffs not available in the shops. The result was that poor families were in great straits, while the rich went short of practically nothing. Thus, whereas plague by its impartial ministrations should have promoted equality among our townsfolk, it now had the opposite effect and, thanks to the habitual conflict of cupidities, exacerbated the sense of injustice rankling in men's hearts. They were assured, of course, of the inerrable equality of death, but nobody wanted that kind of equality.

	Poor people who were feeling the pinch thought still more nostalgically of towns and villages in the near-by countryside, where bread was cheap and life without restrictions. Indeed, they had a natural if illogical feeling that they should have been permitted to move out to these happier places. The feeling was embodied in a slogan shouted in the streets and chalked up on walls: "Bread or fresh air!" This half-ironical battle-cry was the signal for some demonstrations that, though easily repressed, made everyone aware that an ugly mood was developing among us.		Poor people who were feeling the pinch thought still more nostalgically of towns and villages in the near-by countryside, where bread was cheap and life without restrictions. Indeed, they had a natural if illogical feeling that they should have been permitted to move out to these happier places. The feeling was embodied in a slogan shouted in the streets and chalked up on walls: "Bread or fresh air!" This half-ironical battle-cry was the signal for some demonstrations that, though easily repressed, made everyone aware that an ugly mood was developing among us.
	</blockquote>		</blockquote>

Admin at 22:17, 24 May 2013

2013-05-24T22:17:36Z

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Admin: Created page with "=Quotes= ==Exile== p. 67:
Under other circumstances our townsfolk would probably have found an outlet in increased activity, a more sociable life. But the plague f..."

2013-05-24T18:52:45Z

Created page with "=Quotes= ==Exile== p. 67: <blockquote>Under other circumstances our townsfolk would probably have found an outlet in increased activity, a more sociable life. But the plague f..."

New page

=Quotes=

==Exile==

p. 67:

<blockquote>Under other circumstances our townsfolk would probably have found an outlet in
increased activity, a more sociable life. But the plague forced inactivity on them, limiting
their movements to the same dull round inside the town, and throwing them, day after
day, on the illusive solace of their memories. For in their aimless walks they kept on
coming back to the same streets and usually, owing to the smallness of the town, these
were streets in which, in happier days, they had walked with those who now were absent.

Thus the first thing that plague brought to our town was exile.</blockquote>

p. 67:

<blockquote>It was undoubtedly the feeling of exile, that sensation of a void within which never left us, that irrational longing to hark back to the past or else to speed up the march of time, and those keen shafts of memory that stung like fire. Sometimes we toyed with our imagination, composing ourselves to wait for a ring at the bell announcing somebody's return, or for the sound of a familiar footstep on the stairs; but, though we might deliberately stay at home at the hour when a traveler coming by the evening train would normally have arrived, and though we might contrive to forget for the moment that no trains were running, that game of make-believe, for obvious reasons, could not last. Always a moment came when we had to face the fact that no trains were coming in. And then we realized that the separation was destined to continue, we had no choice but to come to terms with the days ahead. In short, we returned to our prison-house, we had nothing left us but the past, and even if some were tempted to live in the future, they had speedily to abandon the idea anyhow, as soon as could be, once they felt the wounds that the imagination inflicts on those who yield themselves to it.</blockquote>

p. 68:

<blockquote>It is noteworthy that our townspeople very quickly desisted, even in public, from
a habit one might have expected them to form, that of trying to figure out the probable
duration of their exile. The reason was this: when the most pessimistic had fixed it at,
say, six months; when they had drunk in advance the dregs of bitterness of those six
black months, and painfully screwed up their courage to the sticking-place, straining all
their remaining energy to endure valiantly the long ordeal of all those weeks and days,
when they had done this, some friend they met, an article in a newspaper, a vague
suspicion, or a flash of foresight would suggest that, after all, there was no reason why
the epidemic shouldn't last more than six months; why not a year, or even more?
At such moments the collapse of their courage, willpower, and endurance was so
abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into
which they had fallen. Therefore they forced themselves never to think about the
problematic day of escape, to cease looking to the future, and always to keep, so to speak,
their eyes fixed on the ground at their feet. But, naturally enough, this prudence, this
habit of feinting with their predicament and refusing to put up a fight, was ill rewarded.
For, while averting that revulsion which they found so unbearable, they also deprived
themselves of those redeeming moments, frequent enough when all is told, when by
conjuring up pictures of a reunion to be, they could forget about the plague. Thus, in a
middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than
lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could
have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their
distress.

Thus, too, they came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles,
which is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose. Even the past, of
which they thought incessantly, had a savor only of regret. For they would have wished
to add to it all that they regretted having left undone, while they might yet have done it,
with the man or woman whose return they now awaited; just as in all the activities, even
the relatively happy ones, of their life as prisoners they kept vainly trying to include the
absent one. And thus there was always something missing in their lives. Hostile to the
past, impatient of the present, and cheated of the future, we were much like those whom
men's justice, or hatred, forces to live behind prison bars. Thus the only way of escaping
from that intolerable leisure was to set the trains running again in one's imagination and
in filling the silence with the fancied tinkle of a doorbell, in practice obstinately mute.</blockquote>

==Abstraction==

p. 80:

<blockquote>
"Oh, I know it's an absurd situation, but we're all involved in it, and we've got to accept it as it is."
<br>
"But I don't belong here."
<br>
"Unfortunately, from now on you'll belong here, like everybody else."
<br>
[...]
<br>
"You're using the language of reason, not of the heart; you live in a world of abstractions."
</blockquote>

 

p. 84:

<blockquote>
Soon the ambulance could be heard clanging down the street... Then came a second phase of conflict, tears and pleadings - abstraction, in a word. In those fever-hot, nerve-ridden sick-rooms crazy scenes took place. But the issue was always the same. The patient was removed. Then Rieux, too, could leave.
</blockquote>

==Escape==

p. 100:

<blockquote>
But then the sound of hurried footsteps came again. Rieux was already halfway
down the stairs, and when he stepped out into the street two men brushed past him. They
seemed to be on their way to one of the town gates. In fact, what with the heat and the
plague, some of our fellow citizens were losing their heads; there had already been some
scenes of violence and nightly attempts were made to elude the sentries and escape to the
outside world.
</blockquote>

The Plague - Revision history

Admin at 05:27, 20 November 2013

Admin at 18:54, 26 May 2013

Admin at 18:53, 26 May 2013

Admin at 22:21, 24 May 2013

Admin at 22:17, 24 May 2013

Admin: Created page with "=Quotes= ==Exile== p. 67: Under other circumstances our townsfolk would probably have found an outlet in increased activity, a more sociable life. But the plague f..."

Admin: Created page with "=Quotes= ==Exile== p. 67:
Under other circumstances our townsfolk would probably have found an outlet in increased activity, a more sociable life. But the plague f..."