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.
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