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with his crutches from group to group. Then there was quite a block around a man who was bent in half, twisted by paralysis to such a point that he had to be carried on a chair with his head and feet hanging downward. It seemed as though hours would be required to clear the platform.
The dismay therefore reached a climax when the stationmaster suddenly rushed up shouting: “The Bayonne express is signalled. Make haste! make haste! You have only three minutes left!”
Father Fourcade, who had remained in the midst of the throng, leaning on Doctor Bonamy’s arm, and gaily encouraging the more stricken of the sufferers, beckoned to Berthaud and said to him: “Finish taking them out of the train; you will be able to clear the platform afterwards!”
The advice was very sensible, and in accordance with it they finished placing the sufferers on the platform. In Madame de Jonquiere’s carriage Marie now alone remained, waiting patiently. M. de Guersaint and Pierre had at last returned to her, bringing the two pairs of wheels by means of which the box in which she lay was rolled about. And with Gerard’s assistance Pierre in all haste removed the girl from the train. She was as light as a poor shivering bird, and it was only the box that gave them any trouble. However, they soon placed it on the wheels and made the latter fast, and then Pierre might have rolled Marie away had it not been for the crowd which hampered him.
“Make haste! make haste!” furiously repeated the stationmaster.
He himself lent a hand, taking hold of a sick man by the feet in order to remove him from the compartment more speedily. And he also pushed the little handcarts back, so as to clear the edge of the platform. In a second-class carriage, however, there still remained one woman who had just been overpowered by a terrible nervous attack. She was howling and struggling, and it was impossible to think of touching her at that moment. But on the other hand the express, signalled by the incessant tinkling of the electric bells, was now fast approaching, and they had to close the door and in all haste shunt the train to the siding where it would remain for three days, until in fact it was required to convey its load of sick and healthy passengers back to Paris. As it went off to the siding the crowd still heard the cries of the suffering woman, whom it had been necessary to leave in it, in charge of a Sister, cries which grew weaker and weaker, like those of a strengthless child whom one at last succeeds in consoling.
“Good Lord!” muttered the stationmaster; “it was high time!”
In fact the Bayonne express was now coming along at full speed, and the next moment it rushed like a crash of thunder past that woeful platform littered with all the grievous wretchedness of a hospital hastily evacuated. The litters and little handcarts were shaken, but there was no accident, for the porters were on the watch, and pushed back the bewildered flock which was still jostling and struggling in its eagerness to get away. As soon as the express had passed, however, circulation was reestablished, and the bearers were at last able to complete the removal of the sick with prudent deliberation.
Little by little the daylight was increasing — a clear dawn it was, whitening the heavens whose reflection illumined the earth, which was still black. One began to distinguish things and people clearly.
“Oh, by-and-by!” Marie repeated to Pierre, as he endeavoured to roll her away. “Let us wait till some part of the crowd has gone.”
Then, looking around, she began to feel interested in a man of military bearing, apparently some sixty years of age, who was walking about among the sick pilgrims. With a square-shaped head and white bushy hair, he would still have looked sturdy if he had not dragged his left foot, throwing it inward at each step he took. With the left hand, too, he leant heavily on a thick walking-stick. When M. Sabathier, who had visited Lourdes for six years past, perceived him, he became quite gay. “Ah!” said he, “it is you, Commander!”
Commander was perhaps the old man’s name. But as he was decorated with a broad red riband, he was possibly called Commander on account of his decoration, albeit the latter was that of a mere chevalier. Nobody exactly knew his story. No doubt he had relatives and children of his own somewhere, but these matters remained vague and mysterious. For the last three years he had been employed at the railway station as a superintendent in the goods department, a simple occupation, a little berth which had been given him by favour and which enabled him to live in perfect happiness. A first stroke of apoplexy at fifty-five years of age had been followed by a second one three years later, which had left him slightly paralysed in the left side. And now he was awaiting the third stroke with an air of perfect tranquillity. As he himself put it, he was at the disposal of death, which might come for him that night, the next day, or possibly that very moment. All Lourdes knew him on account of the habit, the mania he had, at pilgrimage time, of coming to witness the arrival of the trains, dragging his foot along and leaning upon his stick, whilst expressing his astonishment and reproaching the ailing ones for their intense desire to be made whole and sound again.
This was the third year that he had seen M. Sabathier arrive, and all his anger fell upon him. “What! you have come back again!” he exclaimed. “Well, you must be desirous of living this hateful life! But sacrebleu! go and die quietly in your bed at home. Isn’t that the best thing that can happen to anyone?”
M. Sabathier evinced no anger, but laughed, exhausted though he was by the handling to which he had been subjected during his removal from the carriage. “No, no,” said he, “I prefer to be cured.”
“To be cured, to be cured! That’s what they all ask for. They travel hundreds of leagues and arrive in fragments, howling with pain, and all this to be cured — to go through every worry and every suffering again. Come, monsieur, you would be nicely caught if, at your age and with your dilapidated old body, your Blessed Virgin should be pleased to restore the use of your legs to you. What would you do with them, mon Dieu? What pleasure would you find in prolonging the abomination of old age for a few years more? It’s much better to die at once, while you are like that! Death is happiness!”
He spoke in this fashion, not as a believer who aspires to the delicious reward of eternal life, but as a weary man who expects to fall into nihility, to enjoy the great everlasting peace of being no more.
Whilst M. Sabathier was gaily shrugging his shoulders as though he had a child to deal with, Abbe Judaine, who had at last secured his banner, came by and stopped for a moment in order that he might gently scold the Commander, with whom he also was well acquainted.
“Don’t blaspheme, my dear friend,” he said. “It is an offence against God to refuse life and to treat health with contempt. If you yourself had listened to me, you would have asked the Blessed Virgin to cure your leg before now.”
At this the Commander became angry. “My leg! The Virgin can do nothing to it! I’m quite at my ease. May death come and may it all be over forever! When the time comes to die you turn your face to the wall and you die — it’s simple enough.”
The old priest interrupted him, however. Pointing to Marie, who was lying on her box listening to them, he exclaimed: “You tell all our sick to go home and die — even mademoiselle, eh? She who is full of youth and wishes to live.”
Marie’s eyes were wide open, burning with the ardent desire which she felt to be, to enjoy her share of the vast world; and the Commander, who had drawn near, gazed upon her, suddenly seized with deep emotion which made his voice tremble. “If mademoiselle gets well,” he said, “I will wish her another miracle, that she be happy.”
Then he went off, dragging his foot and tapping the flagstones with the ferrule of his stout stick as he continued wending his way, like an angry philosopher among the suffering pilgrims.
Little by little, the platform was at last cleared. Madame Vetu and La Grivotte were carried away, and Gerard removed M. Sabathier in a little cart, whilst Baron Suire and Berthaud already began giving orders for the green train, which would be the next one to arrive. Of all the ailing pilgrims the only one now remaining at the station was Marie, of whom Pierre jealously took charge. He had already dragged her into the courtyard when he noticed that M. de Guersaint had disappeared; but a moment later he perceived him conversing with the Abbe des Hermoises, whose acquaintance he had just made. Their admiration of the beauties