I wasn’t put on this earth to be a reporter. But I might have been put on this earth to live beside a woman. Is that so out of the question?”

Impatient with their present, enemies with their past, and deprived of a future, we very much resembled those who had been sent to live behind bars by human justice or human hate.

As a result, they compelled themselves never to think of the date of their release, to no longer think of the future, and to keep their eyes down, so to speak.

Like this, they experienced the deep suffering of all prisoners and all exiles, which is to live with a useless memory. The very past they kept revisiting tasted only of regret.

It would be fair to say that the first result of this illness’ brutal invasion was to force our fellow citizens to act as if they didn’t have individual feelings. In the first hours of the day when the decree went into effect, the prefecture was assailed by a crowd of claimants who laid out, by phone and in person, situations that were uniquely

felt a need for human warmth.

Richard thought they shouldn’t paint such a dark picture, and that besides, the contagion hadn’t been proved, as the relatives of these patients were still unscathed. “But others are dead,” remarked Rieux. “And of course, contagion is never absolute, if it were, there would be infinite exponential growth and a staggering population decline. It’s

But the prospect of a life materially assured by honest means and, when he left work, the possibility to devote himself, without guilt, to his favorite pastimes, made him very pleased.

“we must call things by their names. But what name is that?” “I can’t tell you, and besides, it wouldn’t be useful.” “You see,” smiled the clerk, “it’s not so easy.”