To Bear Witness
“Dr. Rieux resolved to compile this chronicle, so that he should not be one of those who hold their peace but should bear witness in favor of those plague-stricken people; so that some memorial of the injustice and outrage done them might endure.” ALBERT CAMUS · THE PLAGUE
At the end of the novel Rieux reveals that he wrote it. The detached narrator who has been recording the epidemic all along was the doctor.
His stated reason deserves attention. He did not write in order to explain the plague, or to draw lessons from it, or to be admired. He wrote so that he would not be one of those who hold their peace, and so that some record of what was done to these people would last.
Notice that this is a second job. Rieux had already worked the epidemic to exhaustion. Bearing witness is additional labor, taken up after the crisis, when everyone else is out celebrating and he could reasonably rest.
That impulse is one of the most persistent forms of care there is. Keeping the record. Making sure the thing that happened is not smoothed over once remembering it becomes inconvenient. It rarely feels heroic and it wins no arguments quickly. But institutions and families alike depend on someone who declines to hold their peace.
Write down an accurate account of something the people around you are already starting to soften. Just for the record.
