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.
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