Unlike his fellow citizens, the asthmatic patient of Dr. Rieux does not involve himself with the evil confronting
Oran. He thus represents the contemplative alternative in a world otherwise defined, so it seems, by action. His life deliberately excludes "doing." His one "activity," passing peas from one pot to another, does no more than mark the passage of time. Yet he is fully conscious of life, eager to live to a ripe old age, despite his abandonment of the content around which men, especially in Oran, structure their existence. -
Counting Peas in Cairius's La Peste
R. BARTON PALMER, Georgia State University