"The Plague" - читать интересную книгу автора (Camus Albert)

men and women consume one another rapidly in what is called "the act of love,"
or else settle down to a mild habit of conjugality. We seldom find a mean
between these extremes. That, too, is not exceptional. At Oran, as elsewhere,
for lack of

time and thinking, people have to love one another without knowing much about
it.

What is more exceptional in our town is the difficulty one may experience there
in dying. "Difficulty," perhaps, is not the right word, 'discomfort" would come
nearer. Being ill :s never agreeable but there are towns that stand by you, so
to speak, when you are sick; in which you can, after a fashion, let yourself go.
An invalid needs small attentions, he likes to have something to rely on, and
that's natural enough. But at Oran the violent extremes of temperature, the exigencies
of business, the uninspiring surroundings, the sudden nightfalls, and the very
nature of its pleasures call for good health. An invalid feels out of it there.
Think what it must be for a dying man, trapped behind hundreds of walls all
sizzling with heat, while the whole population, sitting in cafes or hanging on
the telephone, is discussing shipments, bills of lading, discounts! It will then
be obvious what discomfort attends death, even modern death, when it waylays you
under such conditions in a dry place.

These somewhat haphazard observations may give a fair idea of what our town is
like. However, we must not exaggerate. Really, all that was to be conveyed was
the banality of the town's appearance and of life in it. But you can get through
the days there without trouble, once you have formed habits. And since habits
are precisely what our town encourages, all is for the best. Viewed from this
angle, its life is not particularly exciting; that must be admitted. But, at
least, social unrest is quite unknown among us. And our frank-spoken, amiable,
and industrious citizens have always inspired a reasonable esteem in visitors.
Treeless, glamour-less, soulless, the town of Oran ends by seeming restful and,
after a while, you go complacently to sleep there.

It is only fair to add that Oran is grafted on to a unique landscape, in the
center of a bare plateau, ringed with luminous hills and above a perfectly
shaped bay. All we may regret is the town's being so disposed that it turns its
back on

the bay, with the result that it's impossible to see the sea, you always have to
go to look for it.

Such being the normal life of Oran, it will be easily understood that our fellow
citizens had not the faintest reason to apprehend the incidents that took place
in the spring of the year in question and were (as we subsequently realized) premonitory
signs of the grave events we are to chronicle. To some, these events will seem
quite natural; to others, all but incredible. But, obviously, a narrator cannot
take account of these differences of outlook. His business is only to say: "This
is what happened," when he knows that it actually did happen, that it closely
affected the life of a whole populace, and that there are thousands of
eyewitnesses who can appraise in their hearts the truth of what he writes.