he report of the
miracle must have already spread, and one and all were struggling to see
the chosen one, question her, and touch her. And she, with her empurpled
cheeks, her flaming eyes, her dancing gait, could do nothing but repeat,
"I am cured, I am cured!"

Shouts drowned her voice, she herself was submerged, carried off amidst
the eddies of the throng. For a moment one lost sight of her as though
she had sunk in those tumultuous waters; then she suddenly reappeared
close to Pierre and the doctor, who endeavoured to extricate her from the
crush. They had just perceived the Commander, one of whose manias was to
come down to the piscinas and the Grotto in order to vent his anger
there. With his frock-coat tightly girding him in military fashion, he
was, as usual, leaning on his silver-knobbed walking-stick, slightly
dragging his left leg, which his second attack of paralysis had
stiffened. And his face reddened and his eyes flashed with anger when La
Grivotte, pushing him aside in order that she might pass, repeated amidst
the wild enthusiasm of the crowd, "I am cured, I am cured!"

"Well!" he cried, seized with sudden fury, "so much the worse for you, my
girl!"

Exclamations arose, folks began to laugh, for he was well known, and his
maniacal passion for death was forgiven him. However, when he began
stammering confused words, saying that it was pitiful to desire life when
one was possessed of neither beauty nor fortune, and that this girl ought
to have preferred to die at once rather than suffer again, people began
to growl around him, and Abbe Judaine, who was passing, had to extricate
him from his trouble. The priest drew him away. "Be quiet, my friend, be
quiet," he said. "It is scandalous. Why do you rebel like this against
the goodness of God who occasionally shows His compassion for our
sufferings by alleviating them? I tell you again that you yourself ought
to fall on your knees and beg Him to restore to you the use of your leg
and let you live another ten years."

The Commander almost choked with anger. "What!" he replied, "ask to live
for another ten years, when my finest day will be the day I die! Show
myself as spiritless, as cowardly as the thousands of patients whom I see
pass along here, full of a base terror of death, shrieking aloud their
weakness, their passion to remain alive! Ah! no, I should feel too much
contempt for myself. I want to die!--to die at once! It will be so
delightful to be no