***
"
Was it that our fellow citizens, even those who had felt the parting from their loved ones most keenly, were getting used to doing without them? To assume this would fall somewhat short of the truth. It would be more correct to say that they were wasting away emotionally as well as physically...In short, at these moments memory played its part, but their imagination failed them. And by the end of their long sundering they had also lost the power of imagining the intimacy that once was theirs or understanding what it can be to live with someone whose life is wrapped up in yours. In this respect they had adapted themselves to the very condition of the plague, all the more potent for its mediocrity....
"Man isn't an idea, Rambert."Rambert sprang off the bed, his face ablaze with passion.
"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. We must face that fact, doctor. Let's wait to acquire that capacity or, if really it's beyond us, wait for the deliverance that will come to each of us anyway, without playing the hero.
Personally, I look no farther."
(...There was a mordant edge to Rambert's voice. "Maybe I'm all wrong in putting love first."
Rieux looked him in the eyes. "No," he said vehemently,
"you are not wrong.")
"
(camus, "the plague" 150, 164)
***
1 comment:
that was one of the hardest books for me to read...
i blocked most of it out of my memory, i only remember his descriptions of the sunny city that he was stuck in.
but that is a beautiful quote!
Post a Comment