Books: Plague in Provence

THE HORSEMAN ON THE ROOF (426 pp.) —Jean Giono—Knopf ($4).

The doctor began poking about in corners and cupboards. "What are you looking for?" asked Angelo Pardi. "The last one," answered the-doctor cryptically. [He] must have dragged himself off to some unspeakable corner. As he's the one who has a chance, he's the one we have to find." At last they found him in a storeroom, doubled up in his death agony. "Grab him by the shoulders," snapped the doctor, "unbutton his trousers . . .Rub his legs." But within minutes "the last one" was blue, cold and dead. And dead, too,...