The Plague

They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.

Oran, as elsewhere, for lack of time and thinking, people have to love one another without knowing much about it.

The clang of an unseen streetcar came through the window, briskly refuting cruelty and pain.

wide margin for error.

But what are a hundred million deaths? When one has served in a war, one hardly knows what a dead man is, after a while. And since a dead man has no substance unless one has actually seen him dead, a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff of smoke in the imagination

He tried to recall what he had read about the disease. Figures floated across his memory, and he recalled that some thirty or so great plagues known to history had accounted for nearly a hundred million deaths.

a thing made to man’s measure

In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences

as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves

he was torn between conflicting fears and confidence.