	Cottard is normally quite perceptive of other’s motivations and actions; however, during some time in the past he seems to have lost confidence in himself. His lack of confidence in his own skills at reading people had made him fearful of them. He believes he can no longer tell true friend from false, and combined with his fear of arrest, concludes that everyone should be feared as a police informant. Thus when the plague is present he becomes very social. He is safe in this new atmosphere solely because everyone else has become vulnerable.



	Following the incident at the theatre Cottard seemed to have taken to evening walks around the town. He did not appear to have been overly disturbed by recent events, and his enjoyment of the entire situation had not diminished in the slightest. The fear the townspeople felt had become something quite commonplace by then, and the slight, almost meaningless differences between one hour and the next, between one day and the next, between one week and the next had neatly obliterated the sensation of the passage of time. Only their own repetitive and, more often than not,  bromidic thoughts remained with the everyday people; and their own simplicity, their inability to understand the plight of others so similar to their own, isolated and connected them at once, solely by rendering most communication meaningless. 
	Cottard seemed inherently comfortable in this atmosphere. It had been clear to Dr. Rieux that Cottard was quite used to the presence of fear, and that seeing it become so commonplace for others was immeasurably comforting for Cottard. Dr. Rieux, and indeed all those engaged in the arduous task of dealing with the ephemeral enemy of the plague, felt none of the comfort that Cottard experienced, only a profound resignation. For this reason, Rieux had found walking with Cottard on these new outings, during those few stolen moments of leisure he was able to hold on to, was both relaxing and unsettling for him. He enjoyed the vicarious sensation of comfort and belonging that Cottard seem so desperate to embrace, but became intensely curious as to the reason for Cottard's comfort when all others found only despair and shallow hope. 
	Any information the doctor would have come by in ordinary conversation was decidedly lacking in the discussions he had with Cottard on the occasions they wandered through the town together. The past seemed to be almost nonexistent for the other man, the only thing he appeared to consciously notice was that the past had been more difficult than the present, and, as such, was best left alone. The future was nebulous and dangerous to contemplate, thinking of the future involved predictions and estimations and it appeared as though Cottard had long ago lost his faith in his own divinatory skills. He associated them with apparently disastrous consequences. This was likely rather a severe misjudgment on his part. His observations on others showed a surprising insight, though they now lacked any real risk and did not concern anything too far-reaching. 