The Three Cities Trilogy: Chapter 1

Chapter 1

I

THE TRAIN ARRIVES

IT was twenty minutes past three by the clock of the Lourdes railway
station, the dial of which was illumined by a reflector. Under the
slanting roof sheltering the platform, a hundred yards or so in length,
some shadowy forms went to and fro, resignedly waiting. Only a red signal
light peeped out of the black countryside, far away.

Two of the promenaders suddenly halted. The taller of them, a Father of
the Assumption, none other indeed than the Reverend Father Fourcade,
director of the national pilgrimage, who had reached Lourdes on the
previous day, was a man of sixty, looking superb in his black cloak with
its large hood. His fine head, with its clear, domineering eyes and thick
grizzly beard, was the head of a general whom an intelligent
determination to conquer inflames. In consequence, however, of a sudden
attack of gout he slightly dragged one of his legs, and was leaning on
the shoulder of his companion, Dr. Bonamy, the practitioner attached to
the Miracle Verification Office, a short, thick-set man, with a
square-shaped, clean-shaven face, which had dull, blurred eyes and a
tranquil cast of features.

Father Fourcade had stopped to question the station-master whom he
perceived running out of his office. "Will the white train be very late,
monsieur?" he asked.

"No, your reverence. It hasn't lost more than ten minutes; it will be
here at the half-hour. It's the Bayonne train which worries me; it ought
to have passed through already."

So saying, he ran off to give an order; but soon came back again, his
slim, nervous figure displaying marked signs of agitation. He lived,
indeed, in a state of high fever throughout the period of the great
pilgrimages. Apart from the usual service, he that day expected eighteen
trains, containing more than fifteen thousand passengers. The grey and
the blue trains which had started from Paris the first had already
arrived at the regulation hour. But the delay in the arrival of the white
train was very troublesome, the more so as the Bayonne express--which
passed over the same rails--had not yet been signalled. It was easy to
understand, therefore, what incessant watchfulness was necessary, not a
second passing without the entire staff of the station being called upon
to exercise its vigilance.

"In ten minutes, then?" repeated Father Fourcade.

"Yes, in ten minutes, unless I'm obliged to close the line!" cried the
station-master as he hastened into the telegraph office.

Father Fourcade and the doctor slowly resumed their promenade. The thing
which astonished them was that no serious accident had ever happened in
the midst of such a fearful scramble. In past times, especially, the most
terrible disorder had prevailed. Father Fourcade complacently recalled
the first pilgrimage which he had organised and led, in 1875; the
terrible endless journey without pillows or mattresses, the patients
exhausted, half dead, with no means of reviving them at hand; and then
the arrival at Lourdes, the train evacuated in confusion, no /materiel/
in readiness, no straps, nor stretchers, nor carts. But now there was a
powerful organisation; a hospital awaited the sick, who were no longer
reduced to lying upon straw in sheds. What a shock for those unhappy
ones! What force of will in the man of faith who led them to the scene of
miracles! The reverend Father smiled gently at the thought of the work
which he had accomplished.

Then, still leaning on the doctor's shoulder, he began to question him:
"How many pilgrims did you have last year?" he asked.

"About two hundred thousand. That is still the average. In the year of
the Coronation of the Virgin the figure rose to five hundred thousand.
But to bring that about an exceptional occasion was needed with a great
effort of propaganda. Such vast masses cannot be collected together every
day."

A pause followed, and then Father Fourcade murmured: "No doubt. Still the
blessing of Heaven attends our endeavours; our work thrives more and
more. We have collected more than two hundred thousand francs in
donations for this journey, and God will be with us, there will be many
cures for you to proclaim to-morrow, I am sure of it." Then, breaking
off, he inquired: "Has not Father Dargeles come here?"

Dr. Bonamy waved his hand as though to say that he did not know. Father
Dargeles was the editor of the "Journal de la Grotte." He belonged to the
Order of the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception whom the Bishop had
installed at Lourdes and who were the absolute masters there; though,
when the Fathers of the Assumption came to the town with the national
pilgrimage from Paris, which crowds of faithful Catholics from Cambrai,
Arras, Chartres, Troyes, Rheims, Sens, Orleans, Blois, and Poitiers
joined, they evinced a kind of affectation in disappearing from the
scene. Their omnipotence was no longer felt either at the Grotto or at
the Basilica; they seemed to surrender every key together with every
responsibility. Their superior, Father Capdebarthe, a tall, peasant-like
man, with a knotty frame, a big head which looked as if it had been
fashioned with a bill-hook, and a worn face which retained a ruddy
mournful reflection of the soil, did not even show himself. Of the whole
community you only saw little, insinuating Father Dargeles; but he was
met everywhere, incessantly on the look-out for paragraphs for his
newspaper. At the same time, however, although the Fathers of the
Immaculate Conception disappeared in this fashion, it could be divined
that they were behind the vast stage, like a hidden sovereign power,
coining money and toiling without a pause to increase the triumphant
prosperity of their business. Indeed, they turned even their humility to
account.

"It's true that we have had to get up early--two in the morning," resumed
Father Fourcade gaily. "But I wished to be here. What would my poor
children have said, indeed, if I had not come?"

He was alluding to the sick pilgrims, those who were so much flesh for
miracle-working; and it was a fact that he had never missed coming to the
station, no matter what the hour, to meet that woeful white train, that
train which brought such grievous suffering with it.

"Five-and-twenty minutes past three--only another five minutes now,"
exclaimed Dr. Bonamy repressing a yawn as he glanced at the clock; for,
despite his obsequious air, he was at bottom very much annoyed at having
had to get out of bed so early. However, he continued his slow promenade
with Father Fourcade along that platform which resembled a covered walk,
pacing up and down in the dense night which the gas jets here and there
illumined with patches of yellow light. Little parties, dimly outlined,
composed of priests and gentlemen in frock-coats, with a solitary officer
of dragoons, went to and fro incessantly, talking together the while in
discreet murmuring tones. Other people, seated on benches, ranged along
the station wall, were also chatting or putting their patience to proof
with their glances wandering away into the black stretch of country
before them. The doorways of the offices and waiting-rooms, which were
brilliantly lighted, looked like great holes in the darkness, and all was
flaring in the refreshment-room, where you could see the marble tables
and the counter laden with bottles and glasses and baskets of bread and
fruit.

On the right hand, beyond the roofing of the platform, there was a
confused swarming of people. There was here a goods gate, by which the
sick were taken out of the station, and a mass of stretchers, litters,
and hand-carts, with piles of pillows and mattresses, obstructed the
broad walk. Three parties of bearers were also assembled here, persons of
well-nigh every class, but more particularly young men of good society,
all wearing red, orange-tipped crosses and straps of yellow leather. Many
of them, too, had adopted the Bearnese cap, the convenient head-gear of
the region; and a few, clad as though they were bound on some distant
expedition, displayed wonderful gaiters reaching to their knees. Some
were smoking, whilst others, installed in their little vehicles, slept or
read newspapers by the light of the neighbouring gas jets. One group,
standing apart, were discussing some service question.

Suddenly, however, one and all began to salute. A paternal-looking man,
with a heavy but good-natured face, lighted by large blue eyes, like
those of a credulous child, was approaching. It was Baron Suire, the
President of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation. He possessed a
great fortune and occupied a high position at Toulouse.

"Where is Berthaud?" he inquired of one bearer after another, with a busy
air. "Where is Berthaud? I must speak to him."

The others answered, volunteering contradictory information. Berthaud was
their superintendent, and whilst some said that they had seen him with
the Reverend Father Fourcade, others affirmed that he must be in the
courtyard of the station inspecting the ambulance vehicles. And they
thereupon offered to go and fetch him.

"No, no, thank you," replied the Baron. "I shall manage to find him
myself."

Whilst this was happening, Berthaud, who had just seated himself on a
bench at the other end of the station, was talking with his young friend,
Gerard de Peyrelongue, by way of occupation pending the arrival of the
train. The superintendent of the bearers was a man of forty, with a
broad, regular-featured, handsome face and carefully trimmed whiskers of
a lawyer-like pattern. Belonging to a militant Legitimist family and
holding extremely reactionary opinions, he had been Procureur de la
Republique (public prosecutor) in a town of the south of France from the
time of the parliamentary revolution of the twenty-fourth of May* until
that of the decree of the Religious Communities,** when he had resigned
his post in a blusterous fashion, by addressing an insulting letter to
the Minister of Justice. And he had never since laid down his arms, but
had joined the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation as a sort of protest,
repairing year after year to Lourdes in order to "demonstrate"; convinced
as he was that the pilgrimages were both disagreeable and hurtful to the
Republic, and that God alone could re-establish the Monarchy by one of
those miracles which He worked so lavishly at the Grotto. Despite all
this, however, Berthaud possessed no small amount of good sense, and
being of a gay disposition, displayed a kind of jovial charity towards
the poor sufferers whose transport he had to provide for during the three
days that the national pilgrimage remained at Lourdes.

* The parliamentary revolution of May, 1873, by which M. Thiers
was overthrown and Marshal MacMahon installed in his place with
the object of restoring the Monarchy in France.--Trans.

** M. Grevy's decree by which the Jesuits were expelled.--Trans.

"And so, my dear Gerard," he said to the young man seated beside him,
"your marriage is really to come off this year?"

"Why yes, if I can find such a wife as I want," replied the other. "Come,
cousin, give me some good advice."

Gerard de Peyrelongue, a short, thin, carroty young man, with a
pronounced nose and prominent cheek-bones, belonged to Tarbes, where his
father and mother had lately died, leaving him at the utmost some seven
or eight thousand francs a year. Extremely ambitious, he had been unable
to find such a wife as he desired in his native province--a
well-connected young woman capable of helping him to push both forward
and upward in the world; and so he had joined the Hospitality, and betook
himself every summer to Lourdes, in the vague hope that amidst the mass
of believers, the torrent of devout mammas and daughters which flowed
thither, he might find the family whose help he needed to enable him to
make his way in this terrestrial sphere. However, he remained in
perplexity, for if, on the one hand, he already had several young ladies
in view, on the other, none of them completely satisfied him.

"Eh, cousin? You will advise me, won't you?" he said to Berthaud. "You
are a man of experience. There is Mademoiselle Lemercier who comes here
with her aunt. She is very rich; according to what is said she has over a
million francs. But she doesn't belong to our set, and besides I think
her a bit of a madcap."

Berthaud nodded. "I told you so; if I were you I should choose little
Raymonde, Mademoiselle de Jonquiere."

"But she hasn't a copper!"

"That's true--she has barely enough to pay for her board. But she is
fairly good-looking, she has been well brought up, and she has no
extravagant tastes. That is the really important point, for what is the
use of marrying a rich girl if she squanders the dowry she brings you?
Besides, I know Madame and Mademoiselle de Jonquiere very well, I meet
them all through the winter in the most influential drawing-rooms of
Paris. And, finally, don't forget the girl's uncle, the diplomatist, who
has had the painful courage to remain in the service of the Republic. He
will be able to do whatever he pleases for his niece's husband."

For a moment Gerard seemed shaken, and then he relapsed into perplexity.
"But she hasn't a copper," he said, "no, not a copper. It's too stiff. I
am quite willing to think it over, but it really frightens me too much."

This time Berthaud burst into a frank laugh. "Come, you are ambitious, so
you must be daring. I tell you that it means the secretaryship of an
embassy before two years are over. By the way, Madame and Mademoiselle de
Jonquiere are in the white train which we are waiting for. Make up your
mind and pay your court at once."

"No, no! Later on. I want to think it over."

At this moment they were interrupted, for Baron Suire, who had already
once gone by without perceiving them, so completely did the darkness
enshroud them in that retired corner, had just recognised the ex-public
prosecutor's good-natured laugh. And, thereupon, with the volubility of a
man whose head is easily unhinged, he gave him several orders respecting
the vehicles and the transport service, deploring the circumstance that
it would be impossible to conduct the patients to the Grotto immediately
on their arrival, as it was yet so extremely early. It had therefore been
decided that they should in the first instance be taken to the Hospital
of Our Lady of Dolours, where they would be able to rest awhile after
their trying journey.

Whilst the Baron and the superintendent were thus settling what measures
should be adopted, Gerard shook hands with a priest who had sat down
beside him. This was the Abbe des Hermoises, who was barely
eight-and-thirty years of age and had a superb head--such a head as one
might expect to find on the shoulders of a worldly priest. With his hair
well combed, and his person perfumed, he was not unnaturally a great
favourite among women. Very amiable and distinguished in his manners, he
did not come to Lourdes in any official capacity, but simply for his
pleasure, as so many other people did; and the bright, sparkling smile of
a sceptic above all idolatry gleamed in the depths of his fine eyes. He
certainly believed, and bowed to superior decisions; but the Church--the
Holy See--had not pronounced itself with regard to the miracles; and he
seemed quite ready to dispute their authenticity. Having lived at Tarbes
he was already acquainted with Gerard.

"Ah!" he said to him, "how impressive it is--isn't it?--this waiting for
the trains in the middle of the night! I have come to meet a lady--one of
my former Paris penitents--but I don't know what train she will come by.
Still, as you see, I stop on, for it all interests me so much."

Then another priest, an old country priest, having come to sit down on
the same bench, the Abbe considerately began talking to him, speaking of
the beauty of the Lourdes district and of the theatrical effect which
would take place by-and-by when the sun rose and the mountains appeared.

However, there was again a sudden alert, and the station-master ran along
shouting orders. Removing his hand from Dr. Bonamy's shoulder, Father
Fourcade, despite his gouty leg, hastily drew near.

"Oh! it's that Bayonne express which is so late," answered the
station-master in reply to the questions addressed to him. "I should like
some information about it; I'm not at ease."

At this moment the telegraph bells rang out and a porter rushed away into
the darkness swinging a lantern, whilst a distant signal began to work.
Thereupon the station-master resumed: "Ah! this time it's the white
train. Let us hope we shall have time to get the sick people out before
the express passes."

He started off once more and disappeared. Berthaud meanwhile called to
Gerard, who was at the head of a squad of bearers, and they both made
haste to join their men, into whom Baron Suire was already instilling
activity. The bearers flocked to the spot from all sides, and setting
themselves in motion began dragging their little vehicles across the
lines to the platform at which the white train would come in--an unroofed
platform plunged in darkness. A mass of pillows, mattresses, stretchers,
and litters was soon waiting there, whilst Father Fourcade, Dr. Bonamy,
the priests, the gentlemen, and the officer of dragoons in their turn
crossed over in order to witness the removal of the ailing pilgrims. All
that they could as yet see, far away in the depths of the black country,
was the lantern in front of the engine, looking like a red star which
grew larger and larger. Strident whistles pierced the night, then
suddenly ceased, and you only heard the panting of the steam and the dull
roar of the wheels gradually slackening their speed. Then the canticle
became distinctly audible, the song of Bernadette with the ever-recurring
"Aves" of its refrain, which the whole train was chanting in chorus. And
at last this train of suffering and faith, this moaning, singing train,
thus making its entry into Lourdes, drew up in the station.

The carriage doors were at once opened, the whole throng of healthy
pilgrims, and of ailing ones able to walk, alighted, and streamed over
the platform. The few gas lamps cast but a feeble light on the crowd of
poverty-stricken beings clad in faded garments, and encumbered with all
sorts of parcels, baskets, valises, and boxes. And amidst all the
jostling of this scared flock, which did not know in which direction to
turn to find its way out of the station, loud exclamations were heard,
the shouts of people calling relatives whom they had lost, mingled with
the embraces of others whom relatives or friends had come to meet. One
woman declared with beatifical satisfaction, "I have slept well." A
priest went off carrying his travelling-bag, after wishing a crippled
lady "good luck!" Most of them had the bewildered, weary, yet joyous
appearance of people whom an excursion train sets down at some unknown
station. And such became the scramble and the confusion in the darkness,
that they did not hear the railway /employes/ who grew quite hoarse
through shouting, "This way! this way!" in their eagerness to clear the
platform as soon as possible.

Sister Hyacinthe had nimbly alighted from her compartment, leaving the
dead man in the charge of Sister Claire des Anges; and, losing her head
somewhat, she ran off to the cantine van in the idea that Ferrand would
be able to help her. Fortunately she found Father Fourcade in front of
the van and acquainted him with the fatality in a low voice. Repressing a
gesture of annoyance, he thereupon called Baron Suire, who was passing,
and began whispering in his ear. The muttering lasted for a few seconds,
and then the Baron rushed off, and clove his way through the crowd with
two bearers carrying a covered litter. In this the man was removed from
the carriage as though he were a patient who had simply fainted, the mob
of pilgrims paying no further attention to him amidst all the emotion of
their arrival. Preceded by the Baron, the bearers carried the corpse into
a goods office, where they provisionally lodged it behind some barrels;
one of them, a fair-haired little fellow, a general's son, remaining to
watch over it.

Meanwhile, after begging Ferrand and Sister Saint-Francois to go and wait
for her in the courtyard of the station, near the reserved vehicle which
was to take them to the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours, Sister Hyacinthe
returned to the railway carriage and talked of helping her patients to
alight before going away. But Marie would not let her touch her. "No,
no!" said the girl, "do not trouble about me, Sister. I shall remain here
the last. My father and Abbe Froment have gone to the van to fetch the
wheels; I am waiting for their return; they know how to fix them, and
they will take me away all right, you may be sure of it."

In the same way M. Sabathier and Brother Isidore did not desire to be
moved until the crowd had decreased. Madame de Jonquiere, who had taken
charge of La Grivotte, also promised to see to Madame Vetu's removal in
an ambulance vehicle. And thereupon Sister Hyacinthe decided that she
would go off at once so as to get everything ready at the hospital.
Moreover, she took with her both little Sophie Couteau and Elise Rouquet,
whose face she very carefully wrapped up. Madame Maze preceded them,
while Madame Vincent, carrying her little girl, who was unconscious and
quite white, struggled through the crowd, possessed by the fixed idea of
running off as soon as possible and depositing the child in the Grotto at
the feet of the Blessed Virgin.

The mob was now pressing towards the doorway by which passengers left the
station, and to facilitate the egress of all these people it at last
became necessary to open the luggage gates. The /employes/, at a loss how
to take the tickets, held out their caps, which a downpour of the little
cards speedily filled. And in the courtyard, a large square courtyard,
skirted on three sides by the low buildings of the station, the most
extraordinary uproar prevailed amongst all the vehicles of divers kinds
which were there jumbled together. The hotel omnibuses, backed against
the curb of the footway, displayed the most sacred names on their large
boards--Jesus and Mary, St. Michel, the Rosary, and the Sacred Heart.
Then there were ambulance vehicles, landaus, cabriolets, brakes, and
little donkey carts, all entangled together, with their drivers shouting,
swearing, and cracking their whips--the tumult being apparently increased
by the obscurity in which the lanterns set brilliant patches of light.

Rain had fallen heavily a few hours previously. Liquid mud splashed up
under the hoofs of the horses; the foot passengers sank into it to their
ankles. M. Vigneron, whom Madame Vigneron and Madame Chaise were
following in a state of distraction, raised Gustave, in order to place
him in the omnibus from the Hotel of the Apparitions, after which he
himself and the ladies climbed into the vehicle. Madame Maze, shuddering
slightly, like a delicate tabby who fears to dirty the tips of her paws,
made a sign to the driver of an old brougham, got into it, and quickly
drove away, after giving as address the Convent of the Blue Sisters. And
at last Sister Hyacinthe was able to install herself with Elise Rouquet
and Sophie Couteau in a large /char-a-bancs/, in which Ferrand and
Sisters Saint-Francois and Claire des Anges were already seated. The
drivers whipped up their spirited little horses, and the vehicles went
off at a breakneck pace, amidst the shouts of those left behind, and the
splashing of the mire.

In presence of that rushing torrent, Madame Vincent, with her dear little
burden in her arms, hesitated to cross over. Bursts of laughter rang out
around her every now and then. Oh! what a filthy mess! And at sight of
all the mud, the women caught up their skirts before attempting to pass
through it. At last, when the courtyard had somewhat emptied, Madame
Vincent herself ventured on her way, all terror lest the mire should make
her fall in that black darkness. Then, on reaching a downhill road, she
noticed there a number of women of the locality who were on the watch,
offering furnished rooms, bed and board, according to the state of the
pilgrim's purse.

"Which is the way to the Grotto, madame, if you please?" asked Madame
Vincent, addressing one old woman of the party.

Instead of answering the question, however, the other offered her a cheap
room. "You won't find anything in the hotels," said she, "for they are
all full. Perhaps you will be able to eat there, but you certainly won't
find a closet even to sleep in."

Eat, sleep, indeed! Had Madame Vincent any thought of such things; she
who had left Paris with thirty sous in her pocket, all that remained to
her after the expenses she had been put to!

"The way to the Grotto, if you please, madame?" she repeated.

Among the women who were thus touting for lodgers, there was a tall,
well-built girl, dressed like a superior servant, and looking very clean,
with carefully tended hands. She glanced at Madame Vincent and slightly
shrugged her shoulders. And then, seeing a broad-chested priest with a
red face go by, she rushed after him, offered him a furnished room, and
continued following him, whispering in his ear.

Another girl, however, at last took pity on Madame Vincent and said to
her: "Here, go down this road, and when you get to the bottom, turn to
the right and you will reach the Grotto."

Meanwhile, the confusion inside the station continued. The healthy
pilgrims, and those of the sick who retained the use of their legs could
go off, thus, in some measure, clearing the platform; but the others, the
more grievously stricken sufferers whom it was difficult to get out of
the carriages and remove to the hospital, remained waiting. The bearers
seemed to become quite bewildered, rushing madly hither and thither with
their litters and vehicles, not knowing at what end to set about the
profusion of work which lay before them.

As Berthaud, followed by Gerard, went along the platform, gesticulating,
he noticed two ladies and a girl who were standing under a gas jet and to
all appearance waiting. In the girl he recognised Raymonde, and with a
sign of the hand he at once stopped his companion. "Ah! mademoiselle,"
said he, "how pleased I am to see you! Is Madame de Jonquiere quite well?
You have made a good journey, I hope?" Then, without a pause, he added:
"This is my friend, Monsieur Gerard de Peyrelongue."

Raymonde gazed fixedly at the young man with her clear, smiling eyes.
"Oh! I already have the pleasure of being slightly acquainted with this
gentleman," she said. "We have previously met one another at Lourdes."

Thereupon Gerard, who thought that his cousin Berthaud was conducting
matters too quickly, and was quite resolved that he would not enter into
any hasty engagement, contented himself with bowing in a ceremonious way.

"We are waiting for mamma," resumed Raymonde. "She is extremely busy; she
has to see after some pilgrims who are very ill."

At this, little Madame Desagneaux, with her pretty, light wavy-haired
head, began to say that it served Madame de Jonquiere right for refusing
her services. She herself was stamping with impatience, eager to join in
the work and make herself useful, whilst Madame Volmar, silent, shrinking
back as though taking no interest in it at all, seemed simply desirous of
penetrating the darkness, as though, indeed, she were seeking somebody
with those magnificent eyes of hers, usually bedimmed, but now shining
out like brasiers.

Just then, however, they were all pushed back. Madame Dieulafay was being
removed from her first-class compartment, and Madame Desagneaux could not
restrain an exclamation of pity. "Ah! the poor woman!"

There could in fact be no more distressing sight than this young woman,
encompassed by luxury, covered with lace in her species of coffin, so
wasted that she seemed to be a mere human shred, deposited on that
platform till it could be taken away. Her husband and her sister, both
very elegant and very sad, remained standing near her, whilst a
man-servant and maid ran off with the valises to ascertain if the
carriage which had been ordered by telegram was in the courtyard. Abbe
Judaine also helped the sufferer; and when two men at last took her up he
bent over her and wished her /au revoir/, adding some kind words which
she did not seem to hear. Then as he watched her removal, he resumed,
addressing himself to Berthaud, whom he knew: "Ah! the poor people, if
they could only purchase their dear sufferer's cure. I told them that
prayer was the most precious thing in the Blessed Virgin's eyes, and I
hope that I have myself prayed fervently enough to obtain the compassion
of Heaven. Nevertheless, they have brought a magnificent gift, a golden
lantern for the Basilica, a perfect marvel, adorned with precious stones.
May the Immaculate Virgin deign to smile upon it!"

In this way a great many offerings were brought by the pilgrims. Some
huge bouquets of flowers had just gone by, together with a kind of triple
crown of roses, mounted on a wooden stand. And the old priest explained
that before leaving the station he wished to secure a banner, the gift of
the beautiful Madame Jousseur, Madame Dieulafay's sister.

Madame de Jonquiere was at last approaching, however, and on perceiving
Berthaud and Gerard she exclaimed: "Pray do go to that carriage,
gentlemen--that one, there! We want some men very badly. There are three
or four sick persons to be taken out. I am in despair; I can do nothing
myself."

Gerard ran off after bowing to Raymonde, whilst Berthaud advised Madame
de Jonquiere to leave the station with her daughter and those ladies
instead of remaining on the platform. Her presence was in nowise
necessary, he said; he would undertake everything, and within three
quarters of an hour she would find her patients in her ward at the
hospital. She ended by giving way, and took a conveyance in company with
Raymonde and Madame Desagneaux. As for Madame Volmar, she had at the last
moment disappeared, as though seized with a sudden fit of impatience. The
others fancied that they had seen her approach a strange gentleman, with
the object no doubt of making some inquiry of him. However, they would of
course find her at the hospital.

Berthaud joined Gerard again just as the young man, assisted by two
fellow-bearers, was endeavouring to remove M. Sabathier from the
carriage. It was a difficult task, for he was very stout and very heavy,
and they began to think that he would never pass through the doorway of
the compartment. However, as he had been got in they ought to be able to
get him out; and indeed when two other bearers had entered the carriage
from the other side, they were at last able to deposit him on the
platform.

The dawn was now appearing, a faint pale dawn; and the platform presented
the woeful appearance of an improvised hospital. La Grivotte, who had
lost consciousness, lay there on a mattress pending her removal in a
litter; whilst Madame Vetu had been seated against a lamp-post, suffering
so severely from another attack of her ailment that they scarcely dared
to touch her. Some hospitallers, whose hands were gloved, were with
difficulty wheeling their little vehicles in which were poor,
sordid-looking women with old baskets at their feet. Others, with
stretchers on which lay the stiffened, woeful bodies of silent sufferers,
whose eyes gleamed with anguish, found themselves unable to pass; but
some of the infirm pilgrims, some unfortunate cripples, contrived to slip
through the ranks, among them a young priest who was lame, and a little
humpbacked boy, one of whose legs had been amputated, and who, looking
like a gnome, managed to drag himself 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 station-master 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 station-master.

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 hand-carts 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 station-master; "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
re-established, 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 of
nature had brought them together. The daylight had now appeared, and the
surrounding mountains displayed themselves in all their majesty.

"What a lovely country, monsieur!" exclaimed M. de Guersaint. "I have
been wishing to see the Cirque de Gavarnie for thirty years past. But it
is some distance away and the trip must be an expensive one, so that I
fear I shall not be able to make it."

"You are mistaken, monsieur," said the Abbe; "nothing is more easily
managed. By making up a party the expense becomes very slight. And as it
happens, I wish to return there this year, so that if you would like to
join us--"

"Oh, certainly, monsieur. We will speak of it again. A thousand thanks,"
replied M. de Guersaint.

His daughter was now calling him, however, and he joined her after taking
leave of the Abbe in a very cordial manner. Pierre had decided that he
would drag Marie to the hospital so as to spare her the pain of
transference to another vehicle. But as the omnibuses, landaus, and other
conveyances were already coming back, again filling the courtyard in
readiness for the arrival of the next train, the young priest had some
difficulty in reaching the road with the little chariot whose low wheels
sank deeply in the mud. Some police agents charged with maintaining order
were cursing that fearful mire which splashed their boots; and indeed it
was only the touts, the young and old women who had rooms to let, who
laughed at the puddles, which they crossed and crossed again in every
direction, pursuing the last pilgrims that emerged from the station.

When the little car had begun to roll more easily over the sloping road
Marie suddenly inquired of M. de Guersaint, who was walking near her:
"What day of the week is it, father?"

"Saturday, my darling."

"Ah! yes, Saturday, the day of the Blessed Virgin. Is it to-day that she
will cure me?"

Then she began thinking again; while, at some distance behind her, two
bearers came furtively down the road, with a covered stretcher in which
lay the corpse of the man who had died in the train. They had gone to
take it from behind the barrels in the goods office, and were now
conveying it to a secret spot of which Father Fourcade had told them.

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