Men Within Women: A Story of a Married Couple Beginning and Ending at the Station
"The Plague" by Albert Camus: Translated by Shohei Nakajo, Kobunsha Koten Shinsho Bunko
About a year and a half has passed since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. In that time, I realized I have read this book three times. I think I probably sought out this novel for a code of conduct on how to live through this pandemic. I first picked up this book last April, just when it was back in the spotlight and selling like crazy in bookstores. When I read it for the first time, I empathized with the timely disaster of an infectious disease, and I was also deeply impressed by Camus's philosophy of the "absurd" and the ideological aspects of the book. I read it for the second time just this past April, around the time a third state of emergency was about to be declared in Tokyo and the Kinki region. Upon my second reading, I was strongly left with the impression that this novel is a "workplace novel" about men's convictions. The attitude of Rieux, a man of integrity, as a doctor, and the life-risking, devoted work of Tarrou, Rambert, and Grand. It was almost like the NHK television program "Project X." It was a masculine, passionate drama of men.
And now, this time. The new translation by Shohei Nakajo. The language is modern, and in a good way, it was very easy to read and understand. Upon my third reading, I suddenly thought about something. Even when read again, this is a novel that features only men. It is not quite Hemingway's short story collection "Men Without Women," but the question suddenly arose: where did the women go? Yes, where are the women?
First, at the beginning, the day after rats proliferate due to the plague, Rieux sends his sickly wife off to a mountain sanatorium. The two cherish a fleeting farewell on the station platform. Knowing that this farewell would actually become their final parting in this life, I find it incredibly heartbreaking. The words "let's start over again (once this disaster is over)" are repeated many times by Rieux. It gives the impression that Rieux, a workaholic, had been neglecting his sickly wife. Perhaps, in that sense, the couple's relationship was not very good. Later, when the journalist Rambert appears, he too has left his lover (whom he calls his wife) far away in Paris, and he seeks every means to reunite with her. (Rambert himself, not knowing that Rieux is also separated from his wife, attacks Rieux with this anguish as if to reproach him.) However, the look Rieux directs at Rambert is very warm and sympathetic. I feel I can see a hint of Rieux entrusting his own failed reconciliation with his wife to Rambert's escape for the sake of love. However, because Rieux does not condemn his selfish escape, Rambert's own guilt is amplified even more. In the end, realizing that Rieux is in the same situation as himself, Rambert also chooses to stay in Oran. This is a part where one can feel the chivalry of both men.
When you read carefully in that way, the women who do not appear certainly emerge between the lines that are not written. Although only briefly mentioned, there is a description that when the plague began and the city was locked down, the wife of the old doctor Castel, who had happened to leave the city before the epidemic, returned to the plague-stricken city on purpose. It says that the elderly couple, who had not been very satisfied with their marriage, realized that they could not live apart during this disaster. This is also a form of great marital love. Grand, a middle-aged man who dreams of being a novelist, also has a separated wife he cannot forget. It is heartbreaking to see Grand crying at Christmas while reminiscing about his wife. There is a moment when Rieux also reveals his thoughts about his wife to Grand, and I feel I can understand that too. I cannot help but feel that for this novel, the existence of a wife is depicted as a symbol of absence—of being not here. There is a constant sense of absence, as if there is a presence but no substance. In other words, we must not forget the existence of Rieux's wife, who is not even allowed to appear in the story because of her convalescence. If you read carefully, you will notice that the image of separation—that the wife is not there—is repeated persistently, almost obsessively, throughout the story. The most representative example of this is the telegrams. Since letters are not allowed due to the possibility of infection, only a few characters in telegrams connect Rieux and his wife. Conversely, the reports that only confirm their safety fuel the urgency. In a sense, could the words "exile and separation," which are repeated throughout this novel, be a symbol of that for every husband and wife? As an aside, the opera "Orfeo ed Euridice," which Tarrou and the criminal Cottard attend, is also, according to the notes, a story about a poet who brings his dead wife back from the underworld, and there, too, one can see the repetition of the images of exile and separation between Rieux and his wife.
Instead, the existence of a mother leaves a great presence in the novel. The most impressive is Rieux's mother, Madame Rieux. She arrives after Rieux's wife leaves the city, which is also symbolic. Rieux gets through his hard daily life while having his mother take care of his personal needs. The image of the mother is very strong in this novel. In the end, in the latter half of the story, when Tarrou falls ill with the plague, Madame Rieux also demonstrates her motherliness. At that time, Rieux's mother also takes the place of Tarrou's mother. For Tarrou, who lost his parents without being able to reconcile with them, I cannot help but feel salvation in the fact that he dies under the love of a parent, even if it is a temporary one. Others include the mothers of the brothers Marcel and Louis, who help with Rambert's illegal escape, and the devoted mothers who appear to take care of family members who have become ill with the infection. In the midst of the disaster, they play a major role as caregivers. (Conversely, it remains unsettling that no women appear in the medical volunteer health corps led by Tarrou.) If you pay attention in this way, women who seem invisible are placed in a hidden form, and in that sense, this novel might be called "men within women" rather than "men without women."
In the grand finale after the plague has left, there is the scene on the station platform. While many people are rejoicing in their reunions, Rambert's lover finally arrives by train, and the two embrace tightly. However, Rieux's wife, who left here a year ago, will never return. I want to think about that sorrow. If so, it could be said that this story is also a story of a married couple that begins at the station and ends at the station.
Rieux says on the surface that he is writing this record as a mission to document and remember this disaster. However, I cannot help but feel that he spun this record as his own grief work, so to speak, to mourn his wife who did not return, or for Rieux to overcome that sorrow.