{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_8511/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_8511","id":"gutenberg_8511","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/8511","summary":null,"tags":["Category: French Literature","Category: Novels","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Catholics -- Fiction","Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages -- Fiction","Clergy -- Fiction","Lourdes (France) -- Fiction"],"text":"The Three Cities\n\nLOURDES\n\nby \u00c9mile Zola\n\nVolume 1.\n\nTRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY\n\n\nContents\n\n PREFACE\n\n THE FIRST DAY\n I. PILGRIMS AND PATIENTS\n II. PIERRE AND MARIE\n III. POITIERS\n IV. MIRACLES\n V. BERNADETTE\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nBEFORE perusing this work, it is as well that the reader should\nunderstand M. Zola\u2019s aim in writing it, and his views\u2014as distinct from\nthose of his characters\u2014upon Lourdes, its Grotto, and its cures. A\nshort time before the book appeared M. Zola was interviewed upon the\nsubject by his friend and biographer, Mr. Robert H. Sherard, to whom he\nspoke as follows:\n\n\u201c\u2018Lourdes\u2019 came to be written by mere accident. In 1891 I happened to\nbe travelling for my pleasure, with my wife, in the Basque country and\nby the Pyrenees, and being in the neighbourhood of Lourdes, included it\nin my tour. I spent fifteen days there, and was greatly struck by what\nI saw, and it then occurred to me that there was material here for just\nthe sort of novel that I like to write\u2014a novel in which great masses of\nmen can be shown in motion\u2014/un grand mouvement de foule/\u2014a novel the\nsubject of which stirred up my philosophical ideas.\n\n\u201cIt was too late then to study the question, for I had visited Lourdes\nlate in September, and so had missed seeing the best pilgrimage, which\ntakes place in August, under the direction of the Peres de la\nMisericorde, of the Rue de l\u2019Assomption in Paris\u2014the National\nPilgrimage, as it is called. These Fathers are very active,\nenterprising men, and have made a great success of this annual national\npilgrimage. Under their direction thirty thousand pilgrims are\ntransported to Lourdes, including over a thousand sick persons.\n\n\u201cSo in the following year I went in August, and saw a national\npilgrimage, and followed it during the three days which it lasts, in\naddition to the two days given to travelling. After its departure, I\nstayed on ten or twelve days, working up the subject in every detail.\nMy book is the story of such a national pilgrimage, and is,\naccordingly, the story of five days. It is divided into five parts,\neach of which parts is limited to one day.\n\n\u201cThere are from ninety to one hundred characters in the story: sick\npersons, pilgrims, priests, nuns, hospitallers, nurses, and peasants;\nand the book shows Lourdes under every aspect. There are the piscinas,\nthe processions, the Grotto, the churches at night, the people in the\nstreets. It is, in one word, Lourdes in its entirety. In this canvas is\nworked out a very delicate central intrigue, as in \u2018Dr. Pascal,\u2019 and\naround this are many little stories or subsidiary plots. There is the\nstory of the sick person who gets well, of the sick person who is not\ncured, and so on. The philosophical idea which pervades the whole book\nis the idea of human suffering, the exhibition of the desperate and\ndespairing sufferers who, abandoned by science and by man, address\nthemselves to a higher Power in the hope of relief; as where parents\nhave a dearly loved daughter dying of consumption, who has been given\nup, and for whom nothing remains but death. A sudden hope, however,\nbreaks in upon them: \u2018supposing that after all there should be a Power\ngreater than that of man, higher than that of science.\u2019 They will haste\nto try this last chance of safety. It is the instinctive hankering\nafter the lie which creates human credulity.\n\n\u201cI will admit that I came across some instances of real cure. Many\ncases of nervous disorders have undoubtedly been cured, and there have\nalso been other cures which may, perhaps be attributed to errors of\ndiagnosis on the part of doctors who attended the patients so cured.\nOften a patient is described by his doctor as suffering from\nconsumption. He goes to Lourdes, and is cured. However, the probability\nis that the doctor made a mistake. In my own case I was at one time\nsuffering from a violent pain in my chest, which presented all the\nsymptoms of /angina pectoris/, a mortal malady. It was nothing of the\nsort. Indigestion, doubtless, and, as such, curable. Remember that most\nof the sick persons who go to Lourdes come from the country, and that\nthe country doctors are not usually men of either great skill or great\nexperience. But all doctors mistake symptoms. Put three doctors\ntogether to discuss a case, and in nine cases out of ten they will\ndisagree in their diagnosis. Look at the quantities of tumours,\nswellings, and sores, which cannot be properly classified. These cures\nare based on the ignorance of the medical profession. The sick pretend,\nbelieve, that they suffer from such and such a desperate malady,\nwhereas it is from some other malady that they are suffering. And so\nthe legend forms itself. And, of course, there must be cures out of so\nlarge a number of cases. Nature often cures without medical aid.\nCertainly, many of the workings of Nature are wonderful, but they are\nnot supernatural. The Lourdes miracles can neither be proved nor\ndenied. The miracle is based on human ignorance. And so the doctor who\nlives at Lourdes, and who is commissioned to register the cures and to\ntabulate the miracles, has a very careless time of it. A person comes,\nand gets cured. He has but to get three doctors together to examine the\ncase. They will disagree as to what was the disease from which the\npatient suffered, and the only explanation left which will be\nacceptable to the public, with its hankering after the lie, is that a\nmiracle has been vouchsafed.\n\n\u201cI interviewed a number of people at Lourdes, and could not find one\nwho would declare that he had witnessed a miracle. All the cases which\nI describe in my book are real cases, in which I have only changed the\nnames of the persons concerned. In none of these instances was I able\nto discover any real proof for or against the miraculous nature of the\ncure. Thus, in the case of Clementine Trouve, who figures in my story\nas Sophie\u2014the patient who, after suffering for a long time from a\nhorrid open sore on her foot, was suddenly cured, according to current\nreport, by bathing her foot in the piscina, where the bandages fell\noff, and her foot was entirely restored to a healthy condition\u2014I\ninvestigated that case thoroughly. I was told that there were three or\nfour ladies living in Lourdes who could guarantee the facts as stated\nby little Clementine. I looked up those ladies. The first said No, she\ncould not vouch for anything. She had seen nothing. I had better\nconsult somebody else. The next answered in the same way, and nowhere\nwas I able to find any corroboration of the girl\u2019s story. Yet the\nlittle girl did not look like a liar, and I believe that she was fully\nconvinced of the miraculous nature of her cure. It is the facts\nthemselves which lie.\n\n\u201cLourdes, the Grotto, the cures, the miracles, are, indeed, the\ncreation of that need of the Lie, that necessity for credulity, which\nis a characteristic of human nature. At first, when little Bernadette\ncame with her strange story of what she had witnessed, everybody was\nagainst her. The Prefect of the Department, the Bishop, the clergy,\nobjected to her story. But Lourdes grew up in spite of all opposition,\njust as the Christian religion did, because suffering humanity in its\ndespair must cling to something, must have some hope; and, on the other\nhand, because humanity thirsts after illusions. In a word, it is the\nstory of the foundation of all religions.\u201d\n\nTo the foregoing account of \u201cLourdes\u201d as supplied by its author, it may\nbe added that the present translation, first made from early proofs of\nthe French original whilst the latter was being completed, has for the\npurposes of this new American edition been carefully and extensively\nrevised by Mr. E. A. Vizetelly,\u2014M. Zola\u2019s representative for all\nEnglish-speaking countries. \u201cLourdes\u201d forms the first volume of the\n\u201cTrilogy of the Three Cities,\u201d the second being \u201cRome,\u201d and the third\n\u201cParis.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nLOURDES\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIRST DAY\n\n\n\n\nI\nPILGRIMS AND PATIENTS\n\n\nTHE pilgrims and patients, closely packed on the hard seats of a\nthird-class carriage, were just finishing the \u201cAve maris Stella,\u201d which\nthey had begun to chant on leaving the terminus of the Orleans line,\nwhen Marie, slightly raised on her couch of misery and restless with\nfeverish impatience, caught sight of the Paris fortifications through\nthe window of the moving train.\n\n\u201cAh, the fortifications!\u201d she exclaimed, in a tone which was joyous\ndespite her suffering. \u201cHere we are, out of Paris; we are off at last!\u201d\n\nHer delight drew a smile from her father, M. de Guersaint, who sat in\nfront of her, whilst Abbe Pierre Froment, who was looking at her with\nfraternal affection, was so carried away by his compassionate anxiety\nas to say aloud: \u201cAnd now we are in for it till to-morrow morning. We\nshall only reach Lourdes at three-forty. We have more than\ntwo-and-twenty hours\u2019 journey before us.\u201d\n\nIt was half-past five, the sun had risen, radiant in the pure sky of a\ndelightful morning. It was a Friday, the 19th of August. On the\nhorizon, however, some small, heavy clouds already presaged a terrible\nday of stormy heat. And the oblique sunrays were enfilading the\ncompartments of the railway carriage, filling them with dancing, golden\ndust.\n\n\u201cYes, two-and-twenty hours,\u201d murmured Marie, relapsing into a state of\nanguish. \u201c/Mon Dieu/! what a long time we must still wait!\u201d\n\nThen her father helped her to lie down again in the narrow box, a kind\nof wooden gutter, in which she had been living for seven years past.\nMaking an exception in her favour, the railway officials had consented\nto take as luggage the two pairs of wheels which could be removed from\nthe box, or fitted to it whenever it became necessary to transport her\nfrom place to place. Packed between the sides of this movable coffin,\nshe occupied the room of three passengers on the carriage seat; and for\na moment she lay there with eyes closed. Although she was\nthree-and-twenty; her ashen, emaciated face was still delicately\ninfantile, charming despite everything, in the midst of her marvellous\nfair hair, the hair of a queen, which illness had respected. Clad with\nthe utmost simplicity in a gown of thin woollen stuff, she wore,\nhanging from her neck, the card bearing her name and number, which\nentitled her to\n/hospitalisation/, or free treatment. She herself had insisted on\n/making the\njourney in this humble fashion, not wishing to be a source of expense\nto her relatives, who little by little had fallen into very straitened\ncircumstances. And thus it was that she found herself in a third-class\ncarriage of the \u201cwhite train,\u201d the train which carried the greatest\nsufferers, the most woeful of the fourteen trains going to Lourdes that\nday, the one in which, in addition to five hundred healthy pilgrims,\nnearly three hundred unfortunate wretches, weak to the point of\nexhaustion, racked by suffering, were heaped together, and borne at\nexpress speed from one to the other end of France.\n\nSorry that he had saddened her, Pierre continued to gaze at her with\nthe air of a compassionate elder brother. He had just completed his\nthirtieth year, and was pale and slight, with a broad forehead. After\nbusying himself with all the arrangements for the journey, he had been\ndesirous of accompanying her, and, having obtained admission among the\nHospitallers of Our Lady of Salvation as an auxiliary member, wore on\nhis cassock the red, orange-tipped cross of a bearer. M. de Guersaint\non his side had simply pinned the little scarlet cross of the\npilgrimage on his grey cloth jacket. The idea of travelling appeared to\ndelight him; although he was over fifty he still looked young, and,\nwith his eyes ever wandering over the landscape, he seemed unable to\nkeep his head still\u2014a bird-like head it was, with an expression of good\nnature and absent-mindedness.\n\nHowever, in spite of the violent shaking of the train, which constantly\ndrew sighs from Marie, Sister Hyacinthe had risen to her feet in the\nadjoining compartment. She noticed that the sun\u2019s rays were streaming\nin the girl\u2019s face.\n\n\u201cPull down the blind, Monsieur l\u2019Abbe,\u201d she said to Pierre. \u201cCome,\ncome, we must install ourselves properly, and set our little household\nin order.\u201d\n\nClad in the black robe of a Sister of the Assumption, enlivened by a\nwhite coif, a white wimple, and a large white apron, Sister Hyacinthe\nsmiled, the picture of courageous activity. Her youth bloomed upon her\nsmall, fresh lips, and in the depths of her beautiful blue eyes, whose\nexpression was ever gentle. She was not pretty, perhaps, still she was\ncharming, slender, and tall, the bib of her apron covering her flat\nchest like that of a young man; one of good heart, displaying a snowy\ncomplexion, and overflowing with health, gaiety, and innocence.\n\n\u201cBut this sun is already roasting us,\u201d said she; \u201cpray pull down your\nblind as well, madame.\u201d\n\nSeated in the corner, near the Sister, was Madame de Jonquiere, who had\nkept her little bag on her lap. She slowly pulled down the blind. Dark,\nand well built, she was still nice-looking, although she had a\ndaughter, Raymonde, who was four-and-twenty, and whom for motives of\npropriety she had placed in the charge of two lady-hospitallers, Madame\nDesagneaux and Madame Volmar, in a first-class carriage. For her part,\ndirectress as she was of a ward of the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours\nat Lourdes, she did not quit her patients; and outside, swinging\nagainst the door of her compartment, was the regulation placard bearing\nunder her own name those of the two Sisters of the Assumption who\naccompanied her. The widow of a ruined man, she lived with her daughter\non the scanty income of four or five thousand francs a year, at the\nrear of a courtyard in the Rue Vanneau. But her charity was\ninexhaustible, and she gave all her time to the work of the Hospitality\nof Our Lady of Salvation, an institution whose red cross she wore on\nher gown of carmelite poplin, and whose aims she furthered with the\nmost active zeal. Of a somewhat proud disposition, fond of being\nflattered and loved, she took great delight in this annual journey,\nfrom which both her heart and her passion derived contentment.\n\n\u201cYou are right, Sister,\u201d she said, \u201cwe will organise matters. I really\ndon\u2019t know why I am encumbering myself with this bag.\u201d\n\nAnd thereupon she placed it under the seat, near her.\n\n\u201cWait a moment,\u201d resumed Sister Hyacinthe; \u201cyou have the water-can\nbetween your legs\u2014it is in your way.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, no, it isn\u2019t, I assure you. Let it be. It must always be\nsomewhere.\u201d\n\nThen they both set their house in order as they expressed it, so that\nfor a day and a night they might live with their patients as\ncomfortably as possible. The worry was that they had not been able to\ntake Marie into their compartment, as she wished to have Pierre and her\nfather near her; however neighbourly intercourse was easy enough over\nthe low partition. Moreover the whole carriage, with its five\ncompartments of ten seats each, formed but one moving chamber, a common\nroom as it were which the eye took in at a glance from end to end.\nBetween its wooden walls, bare and yellow, under its white-painted\npanelled roof, it showed like a hospital ward, with all the disorder\nand promiscuous jumbling together of an improvised ambulance. Basins,\nbrooms, and sponges lay about, half-hidden by the seats. Then, as the\ntrain only carried such luggage as the pilgrims could take with them,\nthere were valises, deal boxes, bonnet boxes, and bags, a wretched pile\nof poor worn-out things mended with bits of string, heaped up a little\nbit everywhere; and overhead the litter began again, what with articles\nof clothing, parcels, and baskets hanging from brass pegs and swinging\nto and fro without a pause.\n\nAmidst all this frippery the more afflicted patients, stretched on\ntheir narrow mattresses, which took up the room of several passengers,\nwere shaken, carried along by the rumbling gyrations of the wheels;\nwhilst those who were able to remain seated, leaned against the\npartitions, their faces pale, their heads resting upon pillows.\nAccording to the regulations there should have been one\nlady-hospitaller to each compartment. However, at the other end of the\ncarriage there was but a second Sister of the Assumption, Sister Claire\ndes Anges. Some of the pilgrims who were in good health were already\ngetting up, eating and drinking. One compartment was entirely occupied\nby women, ten pilgrims closely pressed together, young ones and old\nones, all sadly, pitifully ugly. And as nobody dared to open the\nwindows on account of the consumptives in the carriage, the heat was\nsoon felt and an unbearable odour arose, set free as it were by the\njolting of the train as it went its way at express speed.\n\nThey had said their chaplets at Juvisy; and six o\u2019clock was striking,\nand they were rushing like a hurricane past the station of Bretigny,\nwhen Sister Hyacinthe stood up. It was she who directed the pious\nexercises, which most of the pilgrims followed from small, blue-covered\nbooks.\n\n\u201cThe Angelus, my children,\u201d said she with a pleasant smile, a maternal\nair which her great youth rendered very charming and sweet.\n\nThen the \u201cAves\u201d again followed one another, and were drawing to an end\nwhen Pierre and Marie began to feel interested in two women who\noccupied the other corner seats of their compartment. One of them, she\nwho sat at Marie\u2019s feet, was a blonde of slender build and /bourgeoise/\nappearance, some thirty and odd years of age, and faded before she had\ngrown old. She shrank back, scarcely occupying any room, wearing a dark\ndress, and showing colourless hair, and a long grief-stricken face\nwhich expressed unlimited self-abandonment, infinite sadness. The woman\nin front of her, she who sat on the same seat as Pierre, was of the\nsame age, but belonged to the working classes. She wore a black cap and\ndisplayed a face ravaged by wretchedness and anxiety, whilst on her lap\nshe held a little girl of seven, who was so pale, so wasted by illness,\nthat she scarcely seemed four. With her nose contracted, her eyelids\nlowered and showing blue in her waxen face, the child was unable to\nspeak, unable to give utterance to more than a low plaint, a gentle\nmoan, which rent the heart of her mother, leaning over her, each time\nthat she heard it.\n\n\u201cWould she eat a few grapes?\u201d timidly asked the lady, who had hitherto\npreserved silence. \u201cI have some in my basket.\u201d\n\n\u201cThank you, madame,\u201d replied the woman, \u201cshe only takes milk, and\nsometimes not even that willingly. I took care to bring a bottleful\nwith me.\u201d\n\nThen, giving way to the desire which possesses the wretched to confide\ntheir woes to others, she began to relate her story. Her name was\nVincent, and her husband, a gilder by trade, had been carried off by\nconsumption. Left alone with her little Rose, who was the passion of\nher heart, she had worked by day and night at her calling as a\ndressmaker in order to bring the child up. But disease had come, and\nfor fourteen months now she had had her in her arms like that, growing\nmore and more woeful and wasted until reduced almost to nothingness.\nShe, the mother, who never went to mass, entered a church, impelled by\ndespair to pray for her daughter\u2019s cure; and there she had heard a\nvoice which had told her to take the little one to Lourdes, where the\nBlessed Virgin would have pity on her. Acquainted with nobody, not\nknowing even how the pilgrimages were organised, she had had but one\nidea\u2014to work, save up the money necessary for the journey, take a\nticket, and start off with the thirty sous remaining to her, destitute\nof all supplies save a bottle of milk for the child, not having even\nthought of purchasing a crust of bread for herself.\n\n\u201cWhat is the poor little thing suffering from?\u201d resumed the lady.\n\n\u201cOh, it must be consumption of the bowels, madame! But the doctors have\nnames they give it. At first she only had slight pains in the stomach.\nThen her stomach began to swell and she suffered, oh, so dreadfully! it\nmade one cry to see her. Her stomach has gone down now, only she\u2019s worn\nout; she has got so thin that she has no legs left her, and she\u2019s\nwasting away with continual sweating.\u201d\n\nThen, as Rose, raising her eyelids, began to moan, her mother leant\nover her, distracted and turning pale. \u201cWhat is the matter, my jewel,\nmy treasure?\u201d she asked. \u201cAre you thirsty?\u201d\n\nBut the little girl was already closing her dim eyes of a hazy sky-blue\nhue, and did not even answer, but relapsed into her torpor, quite white\nin the white frock she wore\u2014a last coquetry on the part of her mother,\nwho had gone to this useless expense in the hope that the Virgin would\nbe more compassionate and gentle to a little sufferer who was well\ndressed, so immaculately white.\n\nThere was an interval of silence, and then Madame Vincent inquired:\n\u201cAnd you, madame, it\u2019s for yourself no doubt that you are going to\nLourdes? One can see very well that you are ill.\u201d\n\nBut the lady, with a frightened look, shrank woefully into her corner,\nmurmuring: \u201cNo, no, I am not ill. Would to God that I were! I should\nsuffer less.\u201d\n\nHer name was Madame Maze, and her heart was full of an incurable grief.\nAfter a love marriage to a big, gay fellow with ripe, red lips, she had\nfound herself deserted at the end of a twelvemonth\u2019s honeymoon. Ever\ntravelling, following the profession of a jeweller\u2019s bagman, her\nhusband, who earned a deal of money, would disappear for six months at\na stretch, deceive her from one frontier to the other of France, at\ntimes even carrying creatures about with him. And she worshipped him;\nshe suffered so frightfully from it all that she had sought a remedy in\nreligion, and had at last made up her mind to repair to Lourdes, in\norder to pray the Virgin to restore her husband to her and make him\namend his ways.\n\nAlthough Madame Vincent did not understand the other\u2019s words, she\nrealised that she was a prey to great mental affliction, and they\ncontinued looking at one another, the mother, whom the sight of her\ndying daughter was killing, and the abandoned wife, whom her passion\ncast into throes of death-like agony.\n\nHowever, Pierre, who, like Marie, had been listening to the\nconversation, now intervened. He was astonished that the dressmaker had\nnot sought free treatment for her little patient. The Association of\nOur Lady of Salvation had been founded by the Augustine Fathers of the\nAssumption after the Franco-German war, with the object of contributing\nto the salvation of France and the defence of the Church by prayer in\ncommon and the practice of charity; and it was this association which\nhad promoted the great pilgrimage movement, in particular initiating\nand unremittingly extending the national pilgrimage which every year,\ntowards the close of August, set out for Lourdes. An elaborate\norganisation had been gradually perfected, donations of considerable\namounts were collected in all parts of the world, sufferers were\nenrolled in every parish, and agreements were signed with the railway\ncompanies, to say nothing of the active help of the Little Sisters of\nthe Assumption and the establishment of the Hospitality of Our Lady of\nSalvation, a widespread brotherhood of the benevolent, in which one\nbeheld men and women, mostly belonging to society, who, under the\norders of the pilgrimage managers, nursed the sick, helped to transport\nthem, and watched over the observance of good discipline. A written\nrequest was needed for the sufferers to obtain hospitalisation, which\ndispensed them from making the smallest payment in respect either of\ntheir journey or their sojourn; they were fetched from their homes and\nconveyed back thither; and they simply had to provide a few provisions\nfor the road. By far the greater number were recommended by priests or\nbenevolent persons, who superintended the inquiries concerning them and\nobtained the needful papers, such as doctors\u2019 certificates and\ncertificates of birth. And, these matters being settled, the sick ones\nhad nothing further to trouble about, they became but so much suffering\nflesh, food for miracles, in the hands of the hospitallers of either\nsex.\n\n\u201cBut you need only have applied to your parish priest, madame,\u201d Pierre\nexplained. \u201cThis poor child is deserving of all sympathy. She would\nhave been immediately admitted.\u201d\n\n\u201cI did not know it, monsieur l\u2019Abbe.\u201d\n\n\u201cThen how did you manage?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, Monsieur l\u2019Abbe, I went to take a ticket at a place which one of\nmy neighbours, who reads the newspapers, told me about.\u201d\n\nShe was referring to the tickets, at greatly reduced rates, which were\nissued to the pilgrims possessed of means. And Marie, listening to her,\nfelt great pity for her, and also some shame; for she who was not\nentirely destitute of resources had succeeded in obtaining\n/hospitalisation/, thanks to Pierre, whereas that mother and her sorry\nchild, after exhausting their scanty savings, remained without a\ncopper.\n\nHowever, a more violent jolt of the carriage drew a cry of pain from\nthe girl. \u201cOh, father,\u201d she said, \u201cpray raise me a little! I can\u2019t stay\non my back any longer.\u201d\n\nWhen M. de Guersaint had helped her into a sitting posture, she gave a\ndeep sigh of relief. They were now at Etampes, after a run of an hour\nand a half from Paris, and what with the increased warmth of the sun,\nthe dust, and the noise, weariness was becoming apparent already.\nMadame de Jonquiere had got up to speak a few words of kindly\nencouragement to Marie over the partition; and Sister Hyacinthe\nmoreover again rose, and gaily clapped her hands that she might be\nheard and obeyed from one to the other end of the carriage.\n\n\u201cCome, come!\u201d said she, \u201cwe mustn\u2019t think of our little troubles. Let\nus pray and sing, and the Blessed Virgin will be with us.\u201d\n\nShe herself then began the rosary according to the rite of Our Lady of\nLourdes, and all the patients and pilgrims followed her. This was the\nfirst chaplet\u2014the five joyful mysteries, the Annunciation, the\nVisitation, the Nativity, the Purification, and Jesus found in the\nTemple. Then they all began to chant the canticle: \u201cLet us contemplate\nthe heavenly Archangel!\u201d Their voices were lost amid the loud rumbling\nof the wheels; you heard but the muffled surging of that human wave,\nstifling within the closed carriage which rolled on and on without a\npause.\n\nAlthough M. de Guersaint was a worshipper, he could never follow a hymn\nto the end. He got up, sat down again, and finished by resting his\nelbow on the partition and conversing in an undertone with a patient\nwho sat against this same partition in the next compartment. The\npatient in question was a thick-set man of fifty, with a good-natured\nface and a large head, completely bald. His name was Sabathier, and for\nfifteen years he had been stricken with ataxia. He only suffered pain\nby fits and starts, but he had quite lost the use of his legs, which\nhis wife, who accompanied him, moved for him as though they had been\ndead legs, whenever they became too heavy, weighty like bars of lead.\n\n\u201cYes, monsieur,\u201d he said, \u201csuch as you see me, I was formerly\nfifth-class professor at the Lycee Charlemagne. At first I thought that\nit was mere sciatica, but afterwards I was seized with sharp,\nlightning-like pains, red-hot sword thrusts, you know, in the muscles.\nFor nearly ten years the disease kept on mastering me more and more. I\nconsulted all the doctors, tried every imaginable mineral spring, and\nnow I suffer less, but I can no longer move from my seat. And then,\nafter long living without a thought of religion, I was led back to God\nby the idea that I was too wretched, and that Our Lady of Lourdes could\nnot do otherwise than take pity on me.\u201d\n\nFeeling interested, Pierre in his turn had leant over the partition and\nwas listening.\n\n\u201cIs it not so, Monsieur l\u2019Abbe?\u201d continued M. Sabathier. \u201cIs not\nsuffering the best awakener of souls? This is the seventh year that I\nam going to Lourdes without despairing of cure. This year the Blessed\nVirgin will cure me, I feel sure of it. Yes, I expect to be able to\nwalk about again; I now live solely in that hope.\u201d\n\nM. Sabathier paused, he wished his wife to push his legs a little more\nto the left; and Pierre looked at him, astonished to find such\nobstinate faith in a man of intellect, in one of those university\nprofessors who, as a rule, are such Voltairians. How could the belief\nin miracles have germinated and taken root in this man\u2019s brain? As he\nhimself said, great suffering alone explained this need of illusion,\nthis blossoming of eternal and consolatory hope.\n\n\u201cAnd my wife and I,\u201d resumed the ex-professor, \u201care dressed, you see,\nas poor folks, for I wished to go as a mere pauper this year, and\napplied for /hospitalisation/ in a spirit of humility in order that the\nBlessed Virgin might include me among the wretched, her children\u2014only,\nas I did not wish to take the place of a real pauper, I gave fifty\nfrancs to the Hospitalite, and this, as you are aware, gives one the\nright to have a patient of one\u2019s own in the pilgrimage. I even know my\npatient. He was introduced to me at the railway station. He is\nsuffering from tuberculosis, it appears, and seemed to me very low,\nvery low.\u201d\n\nA fresh interval of silence ensued. \u201cWell,\u201d said M. Sabathier at last,\n\u201cmay the Blessed Virgin save him also, she who can do everything. I\nshall be so happy; she will have loaded me with favours.\u201d\n\nThen the three men, isolating themselves from the others, went on\nconversing together, at first on medical subjects, and at last\ndiverging into a discussion on romanesque architecture, /a propos/ of a\nsteeple which they had perceived on a hillside, and which every pilgrim\nhad saluted with a sign of the cross. Swayed once more by the habits of\ncultivated intellect, the young priest and his two companions forgot\nthemselves together in the midst of their fellow-passengers, all those\npoor, suffering, simple-minded folk, whom wretchedness stupefied.\nAnother hour went by, two more canticles had just been sung, and the\nstations of Toury and Les Aubrais had been left behind, when, at\nBeaugency, they at last ceased their chat, on hearing Sister Hyacinthe\nclap her hands and intonate in her fresh, sonorous voice:\n\n\u201c/Parce, Domine, parce populo tuo/.\u201d\n\nAnd then the chant went on; all voices became mingled in that\never-surging wave of prayer which stilled pain, excited hope, and\nlittle by little penetrated the entire being, harassed by the haunting\nthought of the grace and cure which one and all were going to seek so\nfar away.\n\nHowever, as Pierre sat down again, he saw that Marie was very pale, and\nhad her eyes closed. By the painful contraction of her features he\ncould tell that she was not asleep. \u201cAre you in great suffering?\u201d he\nasked.\n\n\u201cYes, yes, I suffer dreadfully. I shall never last to the end. It is\nthis incessant jolting.\u201d\n\nShe moaned, raised her eyelids, and, half-fainting, remained in a\nsitting posture, her eyes turned on the other sufferers. In the\nadjoining compartment, La Grivotte, hitherto stretched out, scarce\nbreathing, like a corpse, had just raised herself up in front of M.\nSabathier. She was a tall, slip-shod, singular-looking creature of over\nthirty, with a round, ravaged face, which her frizzy hair and flaming\neyes rendered almost pretty. She had reached the third stage of\nphthisis.\n\n\u201cEh, mademoiselle,\u201d she said, addressing herself in a hoarse,\nindistinct voice to Marie, \u201chow nice it would be if we could only doze\noff a little. But it can\u2019t be managed; all these wheels keep on\nwhirling round and round in one\u2019s head.\u201d\n\nThen, although it fatigued her to speak, she obstinately went on\ntalking, volunteering particulars about herself. She was a\nmattress-maker, and with one of her aunts had long gone from yard to\nyard at Bercy to comb and sew up mattresses. And, indeed, it was to the\npestilential wool which she had combed in her youth that she ascribed\nher malady. For five years she had been making the round of the\nhospitals of Paris, and she spoke familiarly of all the great doctors.\nIt was the Sisters of Charity, at the Lariboisiere hospital, who,\nfinding that she had a passion for religious ceremonies, had completed\nher conversion, and convinced her that the Virgin awaited her at\nLourdes to cure her.\n\n\u201cI certainly need it,\u201d said she. \u201cThe doctors say that I have one lung\ndone for, and that the other one is scarcely any better. There are\ngreat big holes you know. At first I only felt bad between the\nshoulders and spat up some froth. But then I got thin, and became a\ndreadful sight. And now I\u2019m always in a sweat, and cough till I think\nI\u2019m going to bring my heart up. And I can no longer spit. And I haven\u2019t\nthe strength to stand, you see. I can\u2019t eat.\u201d\n\nA stifling sensation made her pause, and she became livid.\n\n\u201cAll the same I prefer being in my skin instead of in that of the\nBrother in the compartment behind you. He has the same complaint as I\nhave, but he is in a worse state that I am.\u201d\n\nShe was mistaken. In the farther compartment, beyond Marie, there was\nindeed a young missionary, Brother Isidore, who was lying on a mattress\nand could not be seen, since he was unable to raise even a finger. But\nhe was not suffering from phthisis. He was dying of inflammation of the\nliver, contracted in Senegal. Very long and lank, he had a yellow face,\nwith skin as dry and lifeless as parchment. The abscess which had\nformed in his liver had ended by breaking out externally, and amidst\nthe continuous shivering of fever, vomiting, and delirium, suppuration\nwas exhausting him. His eyes alone were still alive, eyes full of\nunextinguishable love, whose flame lighted up his expiring face, a\npeasant face such as painters have given to the crucified Christ,\ncommon, but rendered sublime at moments by its expression of faith and\npassion. He was a Breton, the last puny child of an over-numerous\nfamily, and had left his little share of land to his elder brothers.\nOne of his sisters, Marthe, older than himself by a couple of years,\naccompanied him. She had been in service in Paris, an insignificant\nmaid-of-all-work, but withal so devoted to her brother that she had\nleft her situation to follow him, subsisting scantily on her petty\nsavings.\n\n\u201cI was lying on the platform,\u201d resumed La Grivotte, \u201cwhen he was put in\nthe carriage. There were four men carrying him\u2014\u201d\n\nBut she was unable to speak any further, for just then an attack of\ncoughing shook her and threw her back upon the seat. She was\nsuffocating, and the red flush on her cheek-bones turned blue. Sister\nHyacinthe, however, immediately raised her head and wiped her lips with\na linen cloth, which became spotted with blood. At the same time Madame\nde Jonquiere gave her attention to a patient in front of her, who had\njust fainted. She was called Madame Vetu, and was the wife of a petty\nclockmaker of the Mouffetard district, who had not been able to shut up\nhis shop in order to accompany her to Lourdes. And to make sure that\nshe would be cared for she had sought and obtained /hospitalisation/.\nThe fear of death was bringing her back to religion, although she had\nnot set foot in church since her first communion. She knew that she was\nlost, that a cancer in the chest was eating into her; and she already\nhad the haggard, orange-hued mark of the cancerous patient. Since the\nbeginning of the journey she had not spoken a word, but, suffering\nterribly, had remained with her lips tightly closed. Then all at once,\nshe had swooned away after an attack of vomiting.\n\n\u201cIt is unbearable!\u201d murmured Madame de Jonquiere, who herself felt\nfaint; \u201cwe must let in a little fresh air.\u201d\n\nSister Hyacinthe was just then laying La Grivotte to rest on her\npillows, \u201cCertainly,\u201d said she, \u201cwe will open the window for a few\nmoments. But not on this side, for I am afraid we might have a fresh\nfit of coughing. Open the window on your side, madame.\u201d\n\nThe heat was still increasing, and the occupants of the carriage were\nstifling in that heavy evil-smelling atmosphere. The pure air which\ncame in when the window was opened brought relief however. For a moment\nthere were other duties to be attended to, a clearance and cleansing.\nThe Sister emptied the basins out of the window, whilst the\nlady-hospitaller wiped the shaking floor with a sponge. Next, things\nhad to be set in order; and then came a fresh anxiety, for the fourth\npatient, a slender girl whose face was entirely covered by a black\nfichu, and who had not yet moved, was saying that she felt hungry.\n\nWith quiet devotion Madame de Jonquiere immediately tendered her\nservices. \u201cDon\u2019t you trouble, Sister,\u201d she said, \u201cI will cut her bread\ninto little bits for her.\u201d\n\nMarie, with the need she felt of diverting her mind from her own\nsufferings, had already begun to take an interest in that motionless\nsufferer whose countenance was so thickly veiled, for she not\nunnaturally suspected that it was a case of some distressing facial\nsore. She had merely been told that the patient was a servant, which\nwas true, but it happened that the poor creature, a native of Picardy,\nnamed Elise Rouquet, had been obliged to leave her situation, and seek\na home with a sister who ill-treated her, for no hospital would take\nher in. Extremely devout, she had for many months been possessed by an\nardent desire to go to Lourdes.\n\nWhile Marie, with dread in her heart, waited for the fichu to be moved\naside, Madame de Jonquiere, having cut some bread into small pieces,\ninquired maternally: \u201cAre they small enough? Can you put them into your\nmouth?\u201d\n\nThereupon a hoarse voice growled confused words under the black fichu:\n\u201cYes, yes, madame.\u201d And at last the veil fell and Marie shuddered with\nhorror.\n\nIt was a case of lupus which had preyed upon the unhappy woman\u2019s nose\nand mouth. Ulceration had spread, and was hourly spreading\u2014in short,\nall the hideous peculiarities of this terrible disease were in full\nprocess of development, almost obliterating the traces of what once\nwere pleasing womanly lineaments.\n\n\u201cOh, look, Pierre!\u201d Marie murmured, trembling. The priest in his turn\nshuddered as he beheld Elise Rouquet cautiously slipping the tiny\npieces of bread into her poor shapeless mouth. Everyone in the carriage\nhad turned pale at sight of the awful apparition. And the same thought\nascended from all those hope-inflated souls. Ah! Blessed Virgin,\nPowerful Virgin, what a miracle indeed if such an ill were cured!\n\n\u201cWe must not think of ourselves, my children, if we wish to get well,\u201d\nresumed Sister Hyacinthe, who still retained her encouraging smile.\n\nAnd then she made them say the second chaplet, the five sorrowful\nmysteries: Jesus in the Garden of Olives, Jesus scourged, Jesus crowned\nwith thorns, Jesus carrying the cross, and Jesus crucified. Afterwards\ncame the canticle: \u201cIn thy help, Virgin, do I put my trust.\u201d\n\nThey had just passed through Blois; for three long hours they had been\nrolling onward; and Marie, who had averted her eyes from Elise Rouquet,\nnow turned them upon a man who occupied a corner seat in the\ncompartment on her left, that in which Brother Isidore was lying. She\nhad noticed this man several times already. Poorly clad in an old black\nfrock-coat, he looked still young, although his sparse beard was\nalready turning grey; and, short and emaciated, he seemed to experience\ngreat suffering, his fleshless, livid face being covered with sweat.\nHowever, he remained motionless, ensconced in his corner, speaking to\nnobody, but staring straight before him with dilated eyes. And all at\nonce Marie noticed that his eyelids were falling, and that he was\nfainting away.\n\nShe thereupon drew Sister\u2019s Hyacinthe\u2019s attention to him: \u201cLook,\nSister! One would think that that gentleman is dangerously ill.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhich one, my dear child?\u201d\n\n\u201cThat one, over there, with his head thrown back.\u201d\n\nGeneral excitement followed, all the healthy pilgrims rose up to look,\nand it occurred to Madame de Jonquiere to call to Marthe, Brother\nIsidore\u2019s sister, and tell her to tap the man\u2019s hands.\n\n\u201cQuestion him,\u201d she added; \u201cask what ails him.\u201d\n\nMarthe drew near, shook the man, and questioned him.\n\nBut instead of an answer only a rattle came from his throat, and his\neyes remained closed.\n\nThen a frightened voice was heard saying, \u201cI think he is going to die.\u201d\n\nThe dread increased, words flew about, advice was tendered from one to\nthe other end of the carriage. Nobody knew the man. He had certainly\nnot obtained\n/hospitalisation/, for no white card was hanging from his neck.\n/Somebody\nrelated, however, that he had seen him arrive, dragging himself along,\nbut three minutes or so before the train started; and that he had\nremained quite motionless, scarce breathing, ever since he had flung\nhimself with an air of intense weariness into that corner, where he was\nnow apparently dying. His ticket was at last seen protruding from under\nthe band of an old silk hat which was hung from a peg near him.\n\n\u201cAh, he is breathing again now!\u201d Sister Hyacinthe suddenly exclaimed.\n\u201cAsk him his name.\u201d\n\nHowever, on being again questioned by Marthe, the man merely gave vent\nto a low plaint, an exclamation scarcely articulated, \u201cOh, how I\nsuffer!\u201d\n\nAnd thenceforward that was the only answer that could be obtained from\nhim. With reference to everything that they wished to know, who he was,\nwhence he came, what his illness was, what could be done for him, he\ngave no information, but still and ever continued moaning, \u201cOh, how I\nsuffer\u2014how I suffer!\u201d\n\nSister Hyacinthe grew restless with impatience. Ah, if she had only\nbeen in the same compartment with him! And she resolved that she would\nchange her seat at the first station they should stop at. Only there\nwould be no stoppage for a long time. The position was becoming\nterrible, the more so as the man\u2019s head again fell back.\n\n\u201cHe is dying, he is dying!\u201d repeated the frightened voice.\n\nWhat was to be done, /mon Dieu/? The Sister was aware that one of the\nFathers of the Assumption, Father Massias, was in the train with the\nHoly Oils, ready to administer extreme unction to the dying; for every\nyear some of the patients passed away during the journey. But she did\nnot dare to have recourse to the alarm signal. Moreover, in the\n/cantine/ van where Sister Saint Francois officiated, there was a\ndoctor with a little medicine chest. If the sufferer should survive\nuntil they reached Poitiers, where there would be half an hour\u2019s\nstoppage, all possible help might be given to him.\n\nBut on the other hand he might suddenly expire. However, they ended by\nbecoming somewhat calmer. The man, though still unconscious, began to\nbreathe in a more regular manner, and seemed to fall asleep.\n\n\u201cTo think of it, to die before getting there,\u201d murmured Marie with a\nshudder, \u201cto die in sight of the promised land!\u201d And as her father\nsought to reassure her she added: \u201cI am suffering\u2014I am suffering\ndreadfully myself.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave confidence,\u201d said Pierre; \u201cthe Blessed Virgin is watching over\nyou.\u201d\n\nShe could no longer remain seated, and it became necessary to replace\nher in a recumbent position in her narrow coffin. Her father and the\npriest had to take every precaution in doing so, for the slightest hurt\ndrew a moan from her. And she lay there breathless, like one dead, her\nface contracted by suffering, and surrounded by her regal fair hair.\nThey had now been rolling on, ever rolling on for nearly four hours.\nAnd if the carriage was so greatly shaken, with an unbearable spreading\ntendency, it was from its position at the rear part of the train. The\ncoupling irons shrieked, the wheels growled furiously; and as it was\nnecessary to leave the windows partially open, the dust came in, acrid\nand burning; but it was especially the heat which grew terrible, a\ndevouring, stormy heat falling from a tawny sky which large hanging\nclouds had slowly covered. The hot carriages, those rolling boxes where\nthe pilgrims ate and drank, where the sick lay in a vitiated\natmosphere, amid dizzying moans, prayers, and hymns, became like so\nmany furnaces.\n\nAnd Marie was not the only one whose condition had been aggravated;\nothers also were suffering from the journey. Resting in the lap of her\ndespairing mother, who gazed at her with large, tear-blurred eyes,\nlittle Rose had ceased to stir, and had grown so pale that Madame Maze\nhad twice leant forward to feel her hands, fearful lest she should find\nthem cold. At each moment also Madame Sabathier had to move her\nhusband\u2019s legs, for their weight was so great, said he, that it seemed\nas if his hips were being torn from him. Brother Isidore too had just\nbegun to cry out, emerging from his wonted torpor; and his sister had\nonly been able to assuage his sufferings by raising him, and clasping\nhim in her arms. La Grivotte seemed to be asleep, but a continuous\nhiccoughing shook her, and a tiny streamlet of blood dribbled from her\nmouth. Madame Vetu had again vomited, Elise Rouquet no longer thought\nof hiding the frightful sore open on her face. And from the man yonder,\nbreathing hard, there still came a lugubrious rattle, as though he were\nat every moment on the point of expiring. In vain did Madame de\nJonquiere and Sister Hyacinthe lavish their attentions on the patients,\nthey could but slightly assuage so much suffering. At times it all\nseemed like an evil dream\u2014that carriage of wretchedness and pain,\nhurried along at express speed, with a continuous shaking and jolting\nwhich made everything hanging from the pegs\u2014the old clothes, the\nworn-out baskets mended with bits of string\u2014swing to and fro\nincessantly. And in the compartment at the far end, the ten female\npilgrims, some old, some young, and all pitifully ugly, sang on without\na pause in cracked voices, shrill and dreary.\n\nThen Pierre began to think of the other carriages of the train, that\nwhite train which conveyed most, if not all, of the more seriously\nafflicted patients; these carriages were rolling along, all displaying\nsimilar scenes of suffering among the three hundred sick and five\nhundred healthy pilgrims crowded within them. And afterwards he thought\nof the other trains which were leaving Paris that day, the grey train\nand the blue train* which had preceded the white one, the green train,\nthe yellow train, the pink train, the orange train which were following\nit. From hour to hour trains set out from one to the other end of\nFrance. And he thought, too, of those which that same morning had\nstarted from Orleans, Le Mans, Poitiers, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and\nCarcassonne. Coming from all parts, trains were rushing across that\nland of France at the same hour, all directing their course yonder\ntowards the holy Grotto, bringing thirty thousand patients and pilgrims\nto the Virgin\u2019s feet. And he reflected that other days of the year\nwitnessed a like rush of human beings, that not a week went by without\nLourdes beholding the arrival of some pilgrimage; that it was not\nmerely France which set out on the march, but all Europe, the whole\nworld; that in certain years of great religious fervour there had been\nthree hundred thousand, and even five hundred thousand, pilgrims and\npatients streaming to the spot.\n\n* Different-coloured tickets are issued for these trains; it is for\nthis reason that they are called the white, blue, and grey trains,\netc.\u2014Trans.\n\nPierre fancied that he could hear those flying trains, those trains\nfrom everywhere, all converging towards the same rocky cavity where the\ntapers were blazing. They all rumbled loudly amid the cries of pain and\nsnatches of hymns wafted from their carriages. They were the rolling\nhospitals of disease at its last stage, of human suffering rushing to\nthe hope of cure, furiously seeking consolation between attacks of\nincreased severity, with the ever-present threat of death\u2014death\nhastened, supervening under awful conditions, amidst the mob-like\nscramble. They rolled on, they rolled on again and again, they rolled\non without a pause, carrying the wretchedness of the world on its way\nto the divine illusion, the health of the infirm, the consolation of\nthe afflicted.\n\nAnd immense pity overflowed from Pierre\u2019s heart, human compassion for\nall the suffering and all the tears that consumed weak and naked men.\nHe was sad unto death and ardent charity burnt within him, the\nunextinguishable flame as it were of his fraternal feelings towards all\nthings and beings.\n\nWhen they left the station of Saint Pierre des Corps at half-past ten,\nSister Hyacinthe gave the signal, and they recited the third chaplet,\nthe five glorious mysteries, the Resurrection of Our Lord, the\nAscension of Our Lord, the Mission of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption of\nthe Most Blessed Virgin, the Crowning of the Most Blessed Virgin. And\nafterwards they sang the canticle of Bernadette, that long, long chant,\ncomposed of six times ten couplets, to which the ever recurring Angelic\nSalutation serves as a refrain\u2014a prolonged lullaby slowly besetting one\nuntil it ends by penetrating one\u2019s entire being, transporting one into\necstatic sleep, in delicious expectancy of a miracle.\n\n\n\n\nII\nPIERRE AND MARIE\n\n\nTHE green landscapes of Poitou were now defiling before them, and Abbe\nPierre Froment, gazing out of the window, watched the trees fly away\ntill, little by little, he ceased to distinguish them. A steeple\nappeared and then vanished, and all the pilgrims crossed themselves.\nThey would not reach Poitiers until twelve-thirty-five, and the train\nwas still rolling on amid the growing weariness of that oppressive,\nstormy day. Falling into a deep reverie, the young priest no longer\nheard the words of the canticle, which sounded in his ears merely like\na slow, wavy lullaby.\n\nForgetfulness of the present had come upon him, an awakening of the\npast filled his whole being. He was reascending the stream of memory,\nreascending it to its source. He again beheld the house at Neuilly,\nwhere he had been born and where he still lived, that home of peace and\ntoil, with its garden planted with a few fine trees, and parted by a\nquickset hedge and palisade from the garden of the neighbouring house,\nwhich was similar to his own. He was again three, perhaps four, years\nold, and round a table, shaded by the big horse-chestnut tree he once\nmore beheld his father, his mother, and his elder brother at\n/dejeuner/. To his father, Michel Froment, he could give no distinct\nlineaments; he pictured him but faintly, vaguely, renowned as an\nillustrious chemist, bearing the title of Member of the Institute, and\nleading a cloistered life in the laboratory which he had installed in\nthat secluded, deserted suburb. However he could plainly see his first\nbrother Guillaume, then fourteen years of age, whom some holiday had\nbrought from college that morning, and then and even more vividly his\nmother, so gentle and so quiet, with eyes so full of active kindliness.\nLater on he learnt what anguish had racked that religious soul, that\nbelieving woman who, from esteem and gratitude, had resignedly accepted\nmarriage with an unbeliever, her senior by fifteen years, to whom her\nrelatives were indebted for great services. He, Pierre, the tardy\noffspring of this union, born when his father was already near his\nfiftieth year, had only known his mother as a respectful, conquered\nwoman in the presence of her husband, whom she had learnt to love\npassionately, with the frightful torment of knowing, however, that he\nwas doomed to perdition. And, all at once, another memory flashed upon\nthe young priest, the terrible memory of the day when his father had\ndied, killed in his laboratory by an accident, the explosion of a\nretort. He, Pierre, had then been five years old, and he remembered the\nslightest incidents\u2014his mother\u2019s cry when she had found the shattered\nbody among the remnants of the chemical appliances, then her terror,\nher sobs, her prayers at the idea that God had slain the unbeliever,\ndamned him for evermore. Not daring to burn his books and papers, she\nhad contented herself with locking up the laboratory, which henceforth\nnobody entered. And from that moment, haunted by a vision of hell, she\nhad had but one idea, to possess herself of her second son, who was\nstill so young, to give him a strictly religious training, and through\nhim to ransom her husband\u2014secure his forgiveness from God. Guillaume,\nher elder boy, had already ceased to belong to her, having grown up at\ncollege, where he had been won over by the ideas of the century; but\nshe resolved that the other, the younger one, should not leave the\nhouse, but should have a priest as tutor; and her secret dream, her\nconsuming hope, was that she might some day see him a priest himself,\nsaying his first mass and solacing souls whom the thought of eternity\ntortured.\n\nThen between green, leafy boughs, flecked with sunlight, another figure\nrose vividly before Pierre\u2019s eyes. He suddenly beheld Marie de\nGuersaint as he had seen her one morning through a gap in the hedge\ndividing the two gardens. M. de Guersaint, who belonged to the petty\nNorman\n/noblesse/, was a combination of architect and inventor; and he was at\nthat time busy with a scheme of model dwellings for the poor, to which\nchurches and schools were to be attached; an affair of considerable\nmagnitude, planned none too well, however, and in which, with his\ncustomary impetuosity, the lack of foresight of an imperfect artist, he\nwas risking the three hundred thousand francs that he possessed. A\nsimilarity of religious faith had drawn Madame de Guersaint and Madame\nFroment together; but the former was altogether a superior woman,\nperspicuous and rigid, with an iron hand which alone prevented her\nhousehold from gliding to a catastrophe; and she was bringing up her\ntwo daughters, Blanche and Marie, in principles of narrow piety, the\nelder one already being as grave as herself, whilst the younger, albeit\nvery devout, was still fond of play, with an intensity of life within\nher which found vent in gay peals of sonorous laughter. From their\nearly childhood Pierre and Marie played together, the hedge was ever\nbeing crossed, the two families constantly mingled. And on that clear\nsunshiny morning, when he pictured her parting the leafy branches she\nwas already ten years old. He, who was sixteen, was to enter the\nseminary on the following Tuesday. Never had she seemed to him so\npretty. Her hair, of a pure golden hue, was so long that when it was\nlet down it sufficed to clothe her. Well did he remember her face as it\nhad been, with round cheeks, blue eyes, red mouth, and skin of\ndazzling, snowy whiteness. She was indeed as gay and brilliant as the\nsun itself, a transplendency. Yet there were tears at the corners of\nher eyes, for she was aware of his coming departure. They sat down\ntogether at the far end of the garden, in the shadow cast by the hedge.\nTheir hands mingled, and their hearts were very heavy. They had,\nhowever, never exchanged any vows amid their pastimes, for their\ninnocence was absolute. But now, on the eve of separation, their mutual\ntenderness rose to their lips, and they spoke without knowing, swore\nthat they would ever think of one another, and find one another again,\nsome day, even as one meets in heaven to be very, very happy. Then,\nwithout understanding how it happened, they clasped each other tightly,\nto the point of suffocation, and kissed each other\u2019s face, weeping, the\nwhile, hot tears. And it was that delightful memory which Pierre had\never carried with him, which he felt alive within him still, after so\nmany years, and after so many painful renunciations.\n\nJust then a more violent shock roused him from his reverie. He turned\nhis eyes upon the carriage and vaguely espied the suffering beings it\ncontained\u2014Madame Maze motionless, overwhelmed with grief; little Rose\ngently moaning in her mother\u2019s lap; La Grivotte, whom a hoarse cough\nwas choking. For a moment Sister Hyacinthe\u2019s gay face shone out amidst\nthe whiteness of her coif and wimple, dominating all the others. The\npainful journey was continuing, with a ray of divine hope still and\never shining yonder. Then everything slowly vanished from Pierre\u2019s eyes\nas a fresh wave of memory brought the past back from afar; and nothing\nof the present remained save the lulling hymn, the indistinct voices of\ndreamland, emerging from the invisible.\n\nHenceforth he was at the seminary. The classrooms, the recreation\nground with its trees, rose up clearly before him. But all at once he\nonly beheld, as in a mirror, the youthful face which had then been his,\nand he contemplated it and scrutinised it, as though it had been the\nface of a stranger. Tall and slender, he had an elongated visage, with\nan unusually developed forehead, lofty and straight like a tower;\nwhilst his jaws tapered, ending in a small refined chin. He seemed, in\nfact, to be all brains; his mouth, rather large, alone retained an\nexpression of tenderness. Indeed, when his usually serious face\nrelaxed, his mouth and eyes acquired an exceedingly soft expression,\nbetokening an unsatisfied, hungry desire to love, devote oneself, and\nlive. But immediately afterwards, the look of intellectual passion\nwould come back again, that intellectuality which had ever consumed him\nwith an anxiety to understand and know. And it was with surprise that\nhe now recalled those years of seminary life. How was it that he had so\nlong been able to accept the rude discipline of blind faith, of\nobedient belief in everything without the slightest examination? It had\nbeen required of him that he should absolutely surrender his reasoning\nfaculties, and he had striven to do so, had succeeded indeed in\nstifling his torturing need of truth. Doubtless he had been softened,\nweakened by his mother\u2019s tears, had been possessed by the sole desire\nto afford her the great happiness she dreamt of. Yet now he remembered\ncertain quiverings of revolt; he found in the depths of his mind the\nmemory of nights which he had spent in weeping without knowing why,\nnights peopled with vague images, nights through which galloped the\nfree, virile life of the world, when Marie\u2019s face incessantly returned\nto him, such as he had seen it one morning, dazzling and bathed in\ntears, while she embraced him with her whole soul. And that alone now\nremained; his years of religious study with their monotonous lessons,\ntheir ever similar exercises and ceremonies, had flown away into the\nsame haze, into a vague half-light, full of mortal silence.\n\nThen, just as the train had passed though a station at full speed, with\nthe sudden uproar of its rush there arose within him a succession of\nconfused visions. He had noticed a large deserted enclosure, and\nfancied that he could see himself within it at twenty years of age. His\nreverie was wandering. An indisposition of rather long duration had,\nhowever, at one time interrupted his studies, and led to his being sent\ninto the country. He had remained for a long time without seeing Marie;\nduring his vacations spent at Neuilly he had twice failed to meet her,\nfor she was almost always travelling. He knew that she was very ill, in\nconsequence of a fall from a horse when she was thirteen, a critical\nmoment in a girl\u2019s life; and her despairing mother, perplexed by the\ncontradictory advice of medical men, was taking her each year to a\ndifferent watering-place. Then he learnt the startling news of the\nsudden tragical death of that mother, who was so severe and yet so\nuseful to her kin. She had been carried off in five days by\ninflammation of the lungs, which she had contracted one evening whilst\nshe was out walking at La Bourboule, through having taken off her\nmantle to place it round the shoulders of Marie, who had been conveyed\nthither for treatment. It had been necessary that the father should at\nonce start off to fetch his daughter, who was mad with grief, and the\ncorpse of his wife, who had been so suddenly torn from him. And\nunhappily, after losing her, the affairs of the family went from bad to\nworse in the hands of this architect, who, without counting, flung his\nfortune into the yawning gulf of his unsuccessful enterprises. Marie no\nlonger stirred from her couch; only Blanche remained to manage the\nhousehold, and she had matters of her own to attend to, being busy with\nthe last examinations which she had to pass, the diplomas which she was\nobstinately intent on securing, foreseeing as she did that she would\nsomeday have to earn her bread.\n\nAll at once, from amidst this mass of confused, half-forgotten\nincidents, Pierre was conscious of the rise of a vivid vision.\nIll-health, he remembered, had again compelled him to take a holiday.\nHe had just completed his twenty-fourth year, he was greatly\nbehindhand, having so far only secured the four minor orders; but on\nhis return a sub-deaconship would be conferred on him, and an\ninviolable vow would bind him for evermore. And the Guersaints\u2019 little\ngarden at Neuilly, whither he had formerly so often gone to play, again\ndistinctly appeared before him. Marie\u2019s couch had been rolled under the\ntall trees at the far end of the garden near the hedge, they were alone\ntogether in the sad peacefulness of an autumnal afternoon, and he saw\nMarie, clad in deep mourning for her mother and reclining there with\nlegs inert; whilst he, also clad in black, in a cassock already, sat\nnear her on an iron garden chair. For five years she had been\nsuffering. She was now eighteen, paler and thinner than formerly, but\nstill adorable with her regal golden hair, which illness respected. He\nbelieved from what he had heard that she was destined to remain infirm,\ncondemned never to become a woman, stricken even in her sex. The\ndoctors, who failed to agree respecting her case, had abandoned her.\nDoubtless it was she who told him these things that dreary afternoon,\nwhilst the yellow withered leaves rained upon them. However, he could\nnot remember the words that they had spoken; her pale smile, her young\nface, still so charming though already dimmed by regretfulness for\nlife, alone remained present with him. But he realised that she had\nevoked the far-off day of their parting, on that same spot, behind the\nhedge flecked with sunlight; and all that was already as though\ndead\u2014their tears, their embrace, their promise to find one another some\nday with a certainty of happiness. For although they had found one\nanother again, what availed it, since she was but a corpse, and he was\nabout to bid farewell to the life of the world? As the doctors\ncondemned her, as she would never be woman, nor wife, nor mother, he,\non his side, might well renounce manhood, and annihilate himself,\ndedicate himself to God, to whom his mother gave him. And he still felt\nwithin him the soft bitterness of that last interview: Marie smiling\npainfully at memory of their childish play and prattle, and speaking to\nhim of the happiness which he would assuredly find in the service of\nGod; so penetrated indeed with emotion at this thought, that she had\nmade him promise that he would let her hear him say his first mass.\n\nBut the train was passing the station of Sainte-Maure, and just then a\nsudden uproar momentarily brought Pierre\u2019s attention back to the\ncarriage and its occupants. He fancied that there had been some fresh\nseizure or swooning, but the suffering faces that he beheld were still\nthe same, ever contracted by the same expression of anxious waiting for\nthe divine succour which was so slow in coming. M. Sabathier was vainly\nstriving to get his legs into a comfortable position, whilst Brother\nIsidore raised a feeble continuous moan like a dying child, and Madame\nVetu, a prey to terrible agony, devoured by her disease, sat\nmotionless, and kept her lips tightly closed, her face distorted,\nhaggard, and almost black. The noise which Pierre had heard had been\noccasioned by Madame de Jonquiere, who whilst cleansing a basin had\ndropped the large zinc water-can. And, despite their torment, this had\nmade the patients laugh, like the simple souls they were, rendered\npuerile by suffering. However, Sister Hyacinthe, who rightly called\nthem her children, children whom she governed with a word, at once set\nthem saying the chaplet again, pending the Angelus, which would only be\nsaid at Chatellerault, in accordance with the predetermined programme.\nAnd thereupon the \u201cAves\u201d followed one after the other, spreading into a\nconfused murmuring and mumbling amidst the rattling of the coupling\nirons and noisy growling of the wheels.\n\nPierre had meantime relapsed into his reverie, and beheld himself as he\nhad been at six-and-twenty, when ordained a priest. Tardy scruples had\ncome to him a few days before his ordination, a semi-consciousness that\nhe was binding himself without having clearly questioned his heart and\nmind. But he had avoided doing so, living in the dizzy bewilderment of\nhis decision, fancying that he had lopped off all human ties and\nfeelings with a voluntary hatchet-stroke. His flesh had surely died\nwith his childhood\u2019s innocent romance, that white-skinned girl with\ngolden hair, whom now he never beheld otherwise than stretched upon her\ncouch of suffering, her flesh as lifeless as his own. And he had\nafterwards made the sacrifice of his mind, which he then fancied even\nan easier one, hoping as he did that determination would suffice to\nprevent him from thinking. Besides, it was too late, he could not\nrecoil at the last moment, and if when he pronounced the last solemn\nvow he felt a secret terror, an indeterminate but immense regret\nagitating him, he forgot everything, saving a divine reward for his\nefforts on the day when he afforded his mother the great and\nlong-expected joy of hearing him say his first mass.\n\nHe could still see the poor woman in the little church of Neuilly,\nwhich she herself had selected, the church where the funeral service\nfor his father had been celebrated; he saw her on that cold November\nmorning, kneeling almost alone in the dark little chapel, her hands\nhiding her face as she continued weeping whilst he raised the Host. It\nwas there that she had tasted her last happiness, for she led a sad and\nlonely life, no longer seeing her elder son, who had gone away, swayed\nby other ideas than her own, bent on breaking off all family\nintercourse since his brother intended to enter the Church. It was said\nthat Guillaume, a chemist of great talent, like his father, but at the\nsame time a Bohemian, addicted to revolutionary dreams, was living in a\nlittle house in the suburbs, where he devoted himself to the dangerous\nstudy of explosive substances; and folks added that he was living with\na woman who had come no one knew whence. This it was which had severed\nthe last tie between himself and his mother, all piety and propriety.\nFor three years Pierre had not once seen Guillaume, whom in his\nchildhood he had worshipped as a kind, merry, and fatherly big brother.\n\nBut there came an awful pang to his heart\u2014he once more beheld his\nmother lying dead. This again was a thunderbolt, an illness of scarce\nthree days\u2019 duration, a sudden passing away, as in the case of Madame\nde Guersaint. One evening, after a wild hunt for the doctor, he had\nfound her motionless and quite white. She had died during his absence;\nand his lips had ever retained the icy thrill of the last kiss that he\nhad given her. Of everything else\u2014the vigil, the preparations, the\nfuneral\u2014he remembered nothing. All that had become lost in the black\nnight of his stupor and grief, grief so extreme that he had almost died\nof it\u2014seized with shivering on his return from the cemetery, struck\ndown by a fever which during three weeks had kept him delirious,\nhovering between life and death. His brother had come and nursed him\nand had then attended to pecuniary matters, dividing the little\ninheritance, leaving him the house and a modest income and taking his\nown share in money. And as soon as Guillaume had found him out of\ndanger he had gone off again, once more vanishing into the unknown. But\nthen through what a long convalescence he, Pierre, had passed, buried\nas it were in that deserted house. He had done nothing to detain\nGuillaume, for he realised that there was an abyss between them. At\nfirst the solitude had brought him suffering, but afterwards it had\ngrown very pleasant, whether in the deep silence of the rooms which the\nrare noises of the street did not disturb, or under the screening,\nshady foliage of the little garden, where he could spend whole days\nwithout seeing a soul. His favourite place of refuge, however, was the\nold laboratory, his father\u2019s cabinet, which his mother for twenty years\nhad kept carefully locked up, as though to immure within it all the\nincredulity and damnation of the past. And despite the gentleness, the\nrespectful submissiveness which she had shown in former times, she\nwould perhaps have some day ended by destroying all her husband\u2019s books\nand papers, had not death so suddenly surprised her. Pierre, however,\nhad once more had the windows opened, the writing-table and the\nbookcase dusted; and, installed in the large leather arm-chair, he now\nspent delicious hours there, regenerated as it were by his illness,\nbrought back to his youthful days again, deriving a wondrous\nintellectual delight from the perusal of the books which he came upon.\n\nThe only person whom he remembered having received during those two\nmonths of slow recovery was Doctor Chassaigne, an old friend of his\nfather, a medical man of real merit, who, with the one ambition of\ncuring disease, modestly confined himself to the /role/ of the\npractitioner. It was in vain that the doctor had sought to save Madame\nFroment, but he flattered himself that he had extricated the young\npriest from grievous danger; and he came to see him from time to time,\nto chat with him and cheer him, talking with him of his father, the\ngreat chemist, of whom he recounted many a charming anecdote, many a\nparticular, still glowing with the flame of ardent friendship. Little\nby little, amidst the weak languor of convalescence, the son had thus\nbeheld an embodiment of charming simplicity, affection, and good nature\nrising up before him. It was his father such as he had really been, not\nthe man of stern science whom he had pictured whilst listening to his\nmother. Certainly she had never taught him aught but respect for that\ndear memory; but had not her husband been the unbeliever, the man who\ndenied, and made the angels weep, the artisan of impiety who sought to\nchange the world that God had made? And so he had long remained a\ngloomy vision, a spectre of damnation prowling about the house, whereas\nnow he became the house\u2019s very light, clear and gay, a worker consumed\nby a longing for truth, who had never desired anything but the love and\nhappiness of all. For his part, Doctor Chassaigne, a Pyrenean by birth,\nborn in a far-off secluded village where folks still believed in\nsorceresses, inclined rather towards religion, although he had not set\nhis foot inside a church during the forty years he had been living in\nParis. However, his conviction was absolute: if there were a heaven\nsomewhere, Michel Froment was assuredly there, and not merely there,\nbut seated upon a throne on the Divinity\u2019s right hand.\n\nThen Pierre, in a few minutes, again lived through the frightful\ntorment which, during two long months, had ravaged him. It was not that\nhe had found controversial works of an anti-religious character in the\nbookcase, or that his father, whose papers he sorted, had ever gone\nbeyond his technical studies as a\n/savant/. But little by little, despite himself, the light of science\n/dawned\nupon him, an /ensemble/ of proven phenomena, which demolished dogmas\nand left within him nothing of the things which as a priest he should\nhave believed. It seemed, in fact, as though illness had renewed him,\nas though he were again beginning to live and learn amidst the physical\npleasantness of convalescence, that still subsisting weakness which\nlent penetrating lucidity to his brain. At the seminary, by the advice\nof his masters, he had always kept the spirit of inquiry, his thirst\nfor knowledge, in check. Much of that which was taught him there had\nsurprised him; however, he had succeeded in making the sacrifice of his\nmind required of his piety. But now, all the laboriously raised\nscaffolding of dogmas was swept away in a revolt of that sovereign mind\nwhich clamoured for its rights, and which he could no longer silence.\nTruth was bubbling up and overflowing in such an irresistible stream\nthat he realised he would never succeed in lodging error in his brain\nagain. It was indeed the total and irreparable ruin of faith. Although\nhe had been able to kill his flesh by renouncing the romance of his\nyouth, although he felt that he had altogether mastered carnal passion,\nhe now knew that it would be impossible for him to make the sacrifice\nof his intelligence. And he was not mistaken; it was indeed his father\nagain springing to life in the depths of his being, and at last\nobtaining the mastery in that dual heredity in which, during so many\nyears, his mother had dominated. The upper part of his face, his\nstraight, towering brow, seemed to have risen yet higher, whilst the\nlower part, the small chin, the affectionate mouth, were becoming less\ndistinct. However, he suffered; at certain twilight hours when his\nkindliness, his need of love awoke, he felt distracted with grief at no\nlonger believing, distracted with desire to believe again; and it was\nnecessary that the lighted lamp should be brought in, that he should\nsee clearly around him and within him, before he could recover the\nenergy and calmness of reason, the strength of martyrdom, the\ndetermination to sacrifice everything to the peace of his conscience.\n\nThen came the crisis. He was a priest and he no longer believed. This\nhad suddenly dawned before him like a bottomless abyss. It was the end\nof his life, the collapse of everything. What should he do? Did not\nsimple rectitude require that he should throw off the cassock and\nreturn to the world? But he had seen some renegade priests and had\ndespised them. A married priest with whom he was acquainted filled him\nwith disgust. All this, no doubt, was but a survival of his long\nreligious training. He retained the notion that a priest cannot, must\nnot, weaken; the idea that when one has dedicated oneself to God one\ncannot take possession of oneself again. Possibly, also, he felt that\nhe was too plainly branded, too different from other men already, to\nprove otherwise than awkward and unwelcome among them. Since he had\nbeen cut off from them he would remain apart in his grievous pride;\nAnd, after days of anguish, days of struggle incessantly renewed, in\nwhich his thirst for happiness warred with the energies of his\nreturning health, he took the heroic resolution to remain a priest, and\nan honest one. He would find the strength necessary for such\nabnegation. Since he had conquered the flesh, albeit unable to conquer\nthe brain, he felt sure of keeping his vow of chastity, and that would\nbe unshakable; therein lay the pure, upright life which he was\nabsolutely certain of living. What mattered the rest if he alone\nsuffered, if nobody in the world suspected that his heart was reduced\nto ashes, that nothing remained of his faith, that he was agonising\namidst fearful falsehood? His rectitude would prove a firm prop; he\nwould follow his priestly calling like an honest man, without breaking\nany of the vows he had taken; he would, in due accordance with the\nrites, discharge his duties as a minister of the Divinity, whom he\nwould praise and glorify at the altar, and distribute as the Bread of\nLife to the faithful. Who, then, would dare to impute his loss of faith\nto him as a crime, even if this great misfortune should some day become\nknown? And what more could be asked of him than lifelong devotion to\nhis vow, regard for his ministry, and the practice of every charity\nwithout the hope of any future reward? In this wise he ended by calming\nhimself, still upright, still bearing his head erect, with the desolate\ngrandeur of the priest who himself no longer believes, but continues\nwatching over the faith of others. And he certainly was not alone; he\nfelt that he had many brothers, priests with ravaged minds, who had\nsunk into incredulity, and who yet, like soldiers without a fatherland,\nremained at the altar, and, despite, everything, found the courage to\nmake the divine illusion shine forth above the kneeling crowds.\n\nOn recovering his health Pierre had immediately resumed his service at\nthe little church of Neuilly. He said his mass there every morning. But\nhe had resolved to refuse any appointment, any preferment. Months and\nyears went by, and he obstinately insisted on remaining the least known\nand the most humble of those priests who are tolerated in a parish, who\nappear and disappear after discharging their duty. The acceptance of\nany appointment would have seemed to him an aggravation of his\nfalsehood, a theft from those who were more deserving than himself. And\nhe had to resist frequent offers, for it was impossible for his merits\nto remain unnoticed. Indeed, his obstinate modesty provoked\nastonishment at the archbishop\u2019s palace, where there was a desire to\nutilise the power which could be divined in him. Now and again, it is\ntrue, he bitterly regretted that he was not useful, that he did not\nco-operate in some great work, in furthering the purification of the\nworld, the salvation and happiness of all, in accordance with his own\nardent, torturing desire. Fortunately his time was nearly all his own,\nand to console himself he gave rein to his passion for work by\ndevouring every volume in his father\u2019s bookcase, and then again\nresuming and considering his studies, feverishly preoccupied with\nregard to the history of nations, full of a desire to explore the\ndepths of the social and religious crisis so that he might ascertain\nwhether it were really beyond remedy.\n\nIt was at this time, whilst rummaging one morning in one of the large\ndrawers in the lower part of the bookcase, that he discovered quite a\ncollection of papers respecting the apparitions of Lourdes. It was a\nvery complete set of documents, comprising detailed notes of the\ninterrogatories to which Bernadette had been subjected, copies of\nnumerous official documents, and police and medical reports, in\naddition to many private and confidential letters of the greatest\ninterest. This discovery had surprised Pierre, and he had questioned,\nDoctor Chassaigne concerning it. The latter thereupon remembered that\nhis friend, Michel Froment, had at one time passionately devoted\nhimself to the study of Bernadette\u2019s case; and he himself, a native of\nthe village near Lourdes, had procured for the chemist a portion of the\ndocuments in the collection. Pierre, in his turn, then became\nimpassioned, and for a whole month continued studying the affair,\npowerfully attracted by the visionary\u2019s pure, upright nature, but\nindignant with all that had subsequently sprouted up\u2014the barbarous\nfetishism, the painful superstitions, and the triumphant simony. In the\naccess of unbelief which had come upon him, this story of Lourdes was\ncertainly of a nature to complete the collapse of his faith. However,\nit had also excited his curiosity, and he would have liked to\ninvestigate it, to establish beyond dispute what scientific truth might\nbe in it, and render pure Christianity the service of ridding it of\nthis scoria, this fairy tale, all touching and childish as it was. But\nhe had been obliged to relinquish his studies, shrinking from the\nnecessity of making a journey to the Grotto, and finding that it would\nbe extremely difficult to obtain the information which he still needed;\nand of it all there at last only remained within him a tender feeling\nfor Bernadette, of whom he could not think without a sensation of\ndelightful charm and infinite pity.\n\nThe days went by, and Pierre led a more and more lonely life. Doctor\nChassaigne had just left for the Pyrenees in a state of mortal anxiety.\nAbandoning his patients, he had set out for Cauterets with his ailing\nwife, who was sinking more and more each day, to the infinite distress\nof both his charming daughter and himself. From that moment the little\nhouse at Neuilly fell into deathlike silence and emptiness. Pierre had\nno other distraction than that of occasionally going to see the\nGuersaints, who had long since left the neighbouring house, but whom he\nhad found again in a small lodging in a wretched tenement of the\ndistrict. And the memory of his first visit to them there was yet so\nfresh within him, that he felt a pang at his heart as he recalled his\nemotion at sight of the hapless Marie.\n\nThat pang roused him from his reverie, and on looking round he\nperceived Marie stretched on the seat, even as he had found her on the\nday which he recalled, already imprisoned in that gutter-like box, that\ncoffin to which wheels were adapted when she was taken out-of-doors for\nan airing. She, formerly so brimful of life, ever astir and laughing,\nwas dying of inaction and immobility in that box. Of her old-time\nbeauty she had retained nothing save her hair, which clad her as with a\nroyal mantle, and she was so emaciated that she seemed to have grown\nsmaller again, to have become once more a child. And what was most\ndistressing was the expression on her pale face, the blank, frigid\nstare of her eyes which did not see, the ever haunting absent look, as\nof one whom suffering overwhelmed. However, she noticed that Pierre was\ngazing at her, and at once desired to smile at him; but irresistible\nmoans escaped her, and when she did at last smile, it was like a poor\nsmitten creature who is convinced that she will expire before the\nmiracle takes place. He was overcome by it, and, amidst all the\nsufferings with which the carriage abounded, hers were now the only\nones that he beheld and heard, as though one and all were summed up in\nher, in the long and terrible agony of her beauty, gaiety, and youth.\n\nThen by degrees, without taking his eyes from Marie, he again reverted\nto former days, again lived those hours, fraught with a mournful and\nbitter charm, which he had often spent beside her, when he called at\nthe sorry lodging to keep her company. M. de Guersaint had finally\nruined himself by trying to improve the artistic quality of the\nreligious prints so widely sold in France, the faulty execution of\nwhich quite irritated him. His last resources had been swallowed up in\nthe failure of a colour-printing firm; and, heedless as he was,\ndeficient in foresight, ever trusting in Providence, his childish mind\ncontinually swayed by illusions, he did not notice the awful pecuniary\nembarrassment of the household; but applied himself to the study of\naerial navigation, without even realising what prodigious activity his\nelder daughter, Blanche, was forced to display, in order to earn the\nliving of her two children, as she was wont to call her father and her\nsister. It was Blanche who, by running about Paris in the dust or the\nmud from morning to evening in order to give French or music lessons,\ncontrived to provide the money necessary for the unremitting attentions\nwhich Marie required. And Marie often experienced attacks of\ndespair\u2014bursting into tears and accusing herself of being the primary\ncause of their ruin, as for years and years now it had been necessary\nto pay for medical attendance and for taking her to almost every\nimaginable spring\u2014La Bourboule, Aix, Lamalou, Amelie-les-Bains, and\nothers. And the outcome of ten years of varied diagnosis and treatment\nwas that the doctors had now abandoned her. Some thought her illness to\nbe due to the rupture of certain ligaments, others believed in the\npresence of a tumour, others again to paralysis due to injury to the\nspinal cord, and as she, with maidenly revolt, refused to undergo any\nexamination, and they did not even dare to address precise questions to\nher, they each contented themselves with their several opinions and\ndeclared that she was beyond cure. Moreover, she now solely relied upon\nthe divine help, having grown rigidly pious since she had been\nsuffering, and finding her only relief in her ardent faith. Every\nmorning she herself read the holy offices, for to her great sorrow she\nwas unable to go to church. Her inert limbs indeed seemed quite\nlifeless, and she had sunk into a condition of extreme weakness, to\nsuch a point, in fact, that on certain days it became necessary for her\nsister to place her food in her mouth.\n\nPierre was thinking of this when all at once he recalled an evening he\nhad spent with her. The lamp had not yet been lighted, he was seated\nbeside her in the growing obscurity, and she suddenly told him that she\nwished to go to Lourdes, feeling certain that she would return cured.\nHe had experienced an uncomfortable sensation on hearing her speak in\nthis fashion, and quite forgetting himself had exclaimed that it was\nfolly to believe in such childishness. He had hitherto made it a rule\nnever to converse with her on religious matters, having not only\nrefused to be her confessor, but even to advise her with regard to the\npetty uncertainties of her pietism. In this respect he was influenced\nby feelings of mingled shame and compassion; to lie to her of all\npeople would have made him suffer, and, moreover, he would have deemed\nhimself a criminal had he even by a breath sullied that fervent pure\nfaith which lent her such strength against pain. And so, regretting\nthat he had not been able to restrain his exclamation, he remained\nsorely embarrassed, when all at once he felt the girl\u2019s cold hand take\nhold of his own. And then, emboldened by the darkness, she ventured in\na gentle, faltering voice, to tell him that she already knew his\nsecret, his misfortune, that wretchedness, so fearful for a priest, of\nbeing unable to believe.\n\nDespite himself he had revealed everything during their chats together,\nand she, with the delicate intuition of a friend, had been able to read\nhis conscience. She felt terribly distressed on his account; she deemed\nhim, with that mortal moral malady, to be more deserving of pity than\nherself. And then as he, thunderstruck, was still unable to find an\nanswer, acknowledging the truth of her words by his very silence, she\nagain began to speak to him of Lourdes, adding in a low whisper that\nshe wished to confide him as well as herself to the protection of the\nBlessed Virgin, whom she entreated to restore him to faith. And from\nthat evening forward she did not cease speaking on the subject,\nrepeating again and again, that if she went to Lourdes she would be\nsurely cured. But she was prevented from making the journey by lack of\nmeans and she did not even dare to speak to her sister of the pecuniary\nquestion. So two months went by, and day by day she grew weaker,\nexhausted by her longing dreams, her eyes ever turned towards the\nflashing light of the miraculous Grotto far away. Pierre then\nexperienced many painful days. He had at first told Marie that he would\nnot accompany her. But his decision was somewhat shaken by the thought\nthat if he made up his mind to go, he might profit by the journey to\ncontinue his inquiries with regard to Bernadette, whose charming image\nlingered in his heart. And at last he even felt penetrated by a\ndelightful feeling, an unacknowledged hope, the hope that Marie was\nperhaps right, that the Virgin might take pity on him and restore to\nhim his former blind faith, the faith of the child who loves and does\nnot question. Oh! to believe, to believe with his whole soul, to plunge\ninto faith for ever! Doubtless there was no other possible happiness.\nHe longed for faith with all the joyousness of his youth, with all the\nlove that he had felt for his mother, with all his burning desire to\nescape from the torment of understanding and knowing, and to slumber\nforever in the depths of divine ignorance. It was cowardly, and yet so\ndelightful; to exist no more, to become a mere thing in the hands of\nthe Divinity. And thus he was at last possessed by a desire to make the\nsupreme experiment.\n\nA week later the journey to Lourdes was decided upon. Pierre, however,\nhad insisted on a final consultation of medical men in order to\nascertain if it were really possible for Marie to travel; and this\nagain was a scene which rose up before him, with certain incidents\nwhich he ever beheld whilst others were already fading from his mind.\nTwo of the doctors who had formerly attended the patient, and one of\nwhom believed in the rupture of certain ligaments, whilst the other\nasserted the case to be one of medullary paralysis, had ended by\nagreeing that this paralysis existed, and that there was also,\npossibly, some ligamentary injury. In their opinion all the symptoms\npointed to this diagnosis, and the nature of the case seemed to them so\nevident that they did not hesitate to give certificates, each his own,\nagreeing almost word for word with one another, and so positive in\ncharacter as to leave no room for doubt. Moreover, they thought that\nthe journey was practicable, though it would certainly prove an\nexceedingly painful one. Pierre thereupon resolved to risk it, for he\nhad found the doctors very prudent, and very desirous to arrive at the\ntruth; and he retained but a confused recollection of the third medical\nman who had been called in, a distant cousin of his named De Beauclair,\nwho was young, extremely intelligent, but little known as yet, and said\nby some to be rather strange in his theories. This doctor, after\nlooking at Marie for a long time, had asked somewhat anxiously about\nher parents, and had seemed greatly interested by what was told him of\nM. de Guersaint, this architect and inventor with a weak and exuberant\nmind. Then he had desired to measure the sufferer\u2019s visual field, and\nby a slight discreet touch had ascertained the locality of the pain,\nwhich, under certain pressure, seemed to ascend like a heavy shifting\nmass towards the breast. He did not appear to attach importance to the\nparalysis of the legs; but on a direct question being put to him he\nexclaimed that the girl ought to be taken to Lourdes and that she would\nassuredly be cured there, if she herself were convinced of it. Faith\nsufficed, said he, with a smile; two pious lady patients of his, whom\nhe had sent thither during the preceding year, had returned in radiant\nhealth. He even predicted how the miracle would come about; it would be\nlike a lightning stroke, an awakening, an exaltation of the entire\nbeing, whilst the evil, that horrid, diabolical weight which stifled\nthe poor girl would once more ascend and fly away as though emerging by\nher mouth. But at the same time he flatly declined to give a\ncertificate. He had failed to agree with his two /confreres/, who\ntreated him coldly, as though they considered him a wild, adventurous\nyoung fellow. Pierre confusedly remembered some shreds of the\ndiscussion which had begun again in his presence, some little part of\nthe diagnosis framed by Beauclair. First, a dislocation of the organ,\nwith a slight laceration of the ligaments, resulting from the patient\u2019s\nfall from her horse; then a slow healing, everything returning to its\nplace, followed by consecutive nervous symptoms, so that the sufferer\nwas now simply beset by her original fright, her attention fixed on the\ninjured part, arrested there amidst increasing pain, incapable of\nacquiring fresh notions unless it were under the lash of some violent\nemotion. Moreover, he also admitted the probability of accidents due to\nnutrition, as yet unexplained, and on the course and importance of\nwhich he himself would not venture to give an opinion. However, the\nidea that Marie\n/dreamt/ her disease, that the fearful sufferings torturing her came\n/from an\ninjury long since healed, appeared such a paradox to Pierre when he\ngazed at her and saw her in such agony, her limbs already stretched out\nlifeless on her bed of misery, that he did not even pause to consider\nit; but at that moment felt simply happy in the thought that all three\ndoctors agreed in authorising the journey to Lourdes. To him it was\nsufficient that she\n/might/ be cured, and to attain that result he would have followed her\n/to\nthe end of the world.\n\nAh! those last days of Paris, amid what a scramble they were spent! The\nnational pilgrimage was about to start, and in order to avoid heavy\nexpenses, it had occurred to him to obtain /hospitalisation/ for Marie.\nThen he had been obliged to run about in order to obtain his own\nadmission, as a helper, into the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation.\nM. de Guersaint was delighted with the prospect of the journey, for he\nwas fond of nature, and ardently desired to become acquainted with the\nPyrenees. Moreover, he did not allow anything to worry him, but was\nperfectly willing that the young priest should pay his railway fare,\nand provide for him at the hotel yonder as for a child; and his\ndaughter Blanche, having slipped a twenty-franc piece into his hand at\nthe last moment, he had even thought himself rich again. That poor\nbrave Blanche had a little hidden store of her own, savings to the\namount of fifty francs, which it had been absolutely necessary to\naccept, for she became quite angry in her determination to contribute\ntowards her sister\u2019s cure, unable as she was to form one of the party,\nowing to the lessons which she had to give in Paris, whose hard\npavements she must continue pacing, whilst her dear ones were kneeling\nyonder, amidst the enchantments of the Grotto. And so the others had\nstarted on, and were now rolling, ever rolling along.\n\nAs they passed the station of Chatellerault a sudden burst of voices\nmade Pierre start, and drove away the torpor into which his reverie had\nplunged him. What was the matter? Were they reaching Poitiers? But it\nwas only half-past twelve o\u2019clock, and it was simply Sister Hyacinthe\nwho had roused him, by making her patients and pilgrims say the\nAngelus, the three \u201cAves\u201d thrice repeated. Then the voices burst forth,\nand the sound of a fresh canticle arose, and continued like a\nlamentation. Fully five and twenty minutes must elapse before they\nwould reach Poitiers, where it seemed as if the half-hour\u2019s stoppage\nwould bring relief to every suffering! They were all so uncomfortable,\nso roughly shaken in that malodorous, burning carriage! Such\nwretchedness was beyond endurance. Big tears coursed down the cheeks of\nMadame Vincent, a muttered oath escaped M. Sabathier usually so\nresigned, and Brother Isidore, La Grivotte, and Madame Vetu seemed to\nhave become inanimate, mere waifs carried along by a torrent. Moreover,\nMarie no longer answered, but had closed her eyes and would not open\nthem, pursued as she was by the horrible vision of Elise Rouquet\u2019s\nface, that face with its gaping cavities which seemed to her to be the\nimage of death. And whilst the train increased its speed, bearing all\nthis human despair onward, under the heavy sky, athwart the burning\nplains, there was yet another scare in the carriage. The strange man\nhad apparently ceased to breathe, and a voice cried out that he was\nexpiring.\n\n\n\n\nIII\nPOITIERS\n\n\nAS soon as the train arrived at Poitiers, Sister Hyacinthe alighted in\nall haste, amidst the crowd of porters opening the carriage doors, and\nof pilgrims darting forward to reach the platform. \u201cWait a moment, wait\na moment,\u201d she repeated, \u201clet me pass first. I wish to see if all is\nover.\u201d\n\nThen, having entered the other compartment, she raised the strange\nman\u2019s head, and seeing him so pale, with such blank eyes, she did at\nfirst think him already dead. At last, however, she detected a faint\nbreathing. \u201cNo, no,\u201d she then exclaimed, \u201che still breathes. Quick!\nthere is no time to be lost.\u201d And, perceiving the other Sister, she\nadded: \u201cSister Claire des Anges, will you go and fetch Father Massias,\nwho must be in the third or fourth carriage of the train? Tell him that\nwe have a patient in very great danger here, and ask him to bring the\nHoly Oils at once.\u201d\n\nWithout answering, the other Sister at once plunged into the midst of\nthe scramble. She was small, slender, and gentle, with a meditative air\nand mysterious eyes, but withal extremely active.\n\nPierre, who was standing in the other compartment watching the scene,\nnow ventured to make a suggestion: \u201cAnd would it not be as well to\nfetch the doctor?\u201d said he.\n\n\u201cYes, I was thinking of it,\u201d replied Sister Hyacinthe, \u201cand, Monsieur\nl\u2019Abbe, it would be very kind of you to go for him yourself.\u201d\n\nIt so happened that Pierre intended going to the cantine carriage to\nfetch some broth for Marie. Now that she was no longer being jolted she\nfelt somewhat relieved, and had opened her eyes, and caused her father\nto raise her to a sitting posture. Keenly thirsting for fresh air, she\nwould have much liked them to carry her out on to the platform for a\nmoment, but she felt that it would be asking too much, that it would be\ntoo troublesome a task to place her inside the carriage again. So M. de\nGuersaint remained by himself on the platform, near the open door,\nsmoking a cigarette, whilst Pierre hastened to the cantine van, where\nhe knew he would find the doctor on duty, with his travelling pharmacy.\n\nSome other patients, whom one could not think of removing, also\nremained in the carriage. Amongst them was La Grivotte, who was\nstifling and almost delirious, in such a state indeed as to detain\nMadame de Jonquiere, who had arranged to meet her daughter Raymonde,\nwith Madame Volmar and Madame Desagneaux, in the refreshment-room, in\norder that they might all four lunch together. But that unfortunate\ncreature seemed on the point of expiring, so how could she leave her\nall alone, on the hard seat of that carriage? On his side, M.\nSabathier, likewise riveted to his seat, was waiting for his wife, who\nhad gone to fetch a bunch of grapes for him; whilst Marthe had remained\nwith her brother the missionary, whose faint moan never ceased. The\nothers, those who were able to walk, had hustled one another in their\nhaste to alight, all eager as they were to escape for a moment from\nthat cage of wretchedness where their limbs had been quite numbed by\nthe seven hours\u2019 journey which they had so far gone. Madame Maze had at\nonce drawn apart, straying with melancholy face to the far end of the\nplatform, where she found herself all alone; Madame Vetu, stupefied by\nher sufferings, had found sufficient strength to take a few steps, and\nsit down on a bench, in the full sunlight, where she did not even feel\nthe burning heat; whilst Elise Rouquet, who had had the decency to\ncover her face with a black wrap, and was consumed by a desire for\nfresh water, went hither and thither in search of a drinking fountain.\nAnd meantime Madame Vincent, walking slowly, carried her little Rose\nabout in her arms, trying to smile at her, and to cheer her by showing\nher some gaudily coloured picture bills, which the child gravely gazed\nat, but did not see.\n\nPierre had the greatest possible difficulty in making his way through\nthe crowd inundating the platform. No effort of imagination could\nenable one to picture the living torrent of ailing and healthy beings\nwhich the train had here set down\u2014a mob of more than a thousand persons\njust emerging from suffocation, and bustling, hurrying hither and\nthither. Each carriage had contributed its share of wretchedness, like\nsome hospital ward suddenly evacuated; and it was now possible to form\nan idea of the frightful amount of suffering which this terrible white\ntrain carried along with it, this train which disseminated a legend of\nhorror wheresoever it passed. Some infirm sufferers were dragging\nthemselves about, others were being carried, and many remained in a\nheap on the platform. There were sudden pushes, violent calls,\ninnumerable displays of distracted eagerness to reach the\nrefreshment-room and the /buvette/. Each and all made haste, going\nwheresoever their wants called them. This stoppage of half an hour\u2019s\nduration, the only stoppage there would be before reaching Lourdes,\nwas, after all, such a short one. And the only gay note, amidst all the\nblack cassocks and the threadbare garments of the poor, never of any\nprecise shade of colour, was supplied by the smiling whiteness of the\nLittle Sisters of the Assumption, all bright and active in their snowy\ncoifs, wimples, and aprons.\n\nWhen Pierre at last reached the cantine van near the middle of the\ntrain, he found it already besieged. There was here a petroleum stove,\nwith a small supply of cooking utensils. The broth prepared from\nconcentrated meat-extract was being warmed in wrought-iron pans, whilst\nthe preserved milk in tins was diluted and supplied as occasion\nrequired. There were some other provisions, such as biscuits, fruit,\nand chocolate, on a few shelves. But Sister Saint-Francois, to whom the\nservice was entrusted, a short, stout woman of five-and-forty, with a\ngood-natured fresh-coloured face, was somewhat losing her head in the\npresence of all the hands so eagerly stretched towards her. Whilst\ncontinuing her distribution, she lent ear to Pierre, as he called the\ndoctor, who with his travelling pharmacy occupied another corner of the\nvan. Then, when the young priest began to explain matters, speaking of\nthe poor unknown man who was dying, a sudden desire came to her to go\nand see him, and she summoned another Sister to take her place.\n\n\u201cOh! I wished to ask you, Sister, for some broth for a passenger who is\nill,\u201d said Pierre, at that moment turning towards her.\n\n\u201cVery well, Monsieur l\u2019Abbe, I will bring some. Go on in front.\u201d\n\nThe doctor and the abbe went off in all haste, rapidly questioning and\nanswering one another, whilst behind them followed Sister\nSaint-Francois, carrying the bowl of broth with all possible caution\namidst the jostling of the crowd. The doctor was a dark-complexioned\nman of eight-and-twenty, robust and extremely handsome, with the head\nof a young Roman emperor, such as may still be occasionally met with in\nthe sunburnt land of Provence. As soon as Sister Hyacinthe caught sight\nof him, she raised an exclamation of surprise: \u201cWhat! Monsieur Ferrand,\nis it you?\u201d Indeed, they both seemed amazed at meeting in this manner.\n\nIt is, however, the courageous mission of the Sisters of the Assumption\nto tend the ailing poor, those who lie in agony in their humble\ngarrets, and cannot pay for nursing; and thus these good women spend\ntheir lives among the wretched, installing themselves beside the\nsufferer\u2019s pallet in his tiny lodging, and ministering to every want,\nattending alike to cooking and cleaning, and living there as servants\nand relatives, until either cure or death supervenes. And it was in\nthis wise that Sister Hyacinthe, young as she was, with her milky face,\nand her blue eyes which ever laughed, had installed herself one day in\nthe abode of this young fellow, Ferrand, then a medical student,\nprostrated by typhoid fever, and so desperately poor that he lived in a\nkind of loft reached by a ladder, in the Rue du Four. And from that\nmoment she had not stirred from his side, but had remained with him\nuntil she cured him, with the passion of one who lived only for others,\none who when an infant had been found in a church porch, and who had no\nother family than that of those who suffered, to whom she devoted\nherself with all her ardently affectionate nature. And what a\ndelightful month, what exquisite comradeship, fraught with the pure\nfraternity of suffering, had followed! When he called her \u201cSister,\u201d it\nwas really to a sister that he was speaking. And she was a mother also,\na mother who helped him to rise, and who put him to bed as though he\nwere her child, without aught springing up between them save supreme\npity, the divine, gentle compassion of charity. She ever showed herself\ngay, sexless, devoid of any instinct excepting that which prompted her\nto assuage and to console. And he worshipped her, venerated her, and\nhad retained of her the most chaste and passionate of recollections.\n\n\u201cO Sister Hyacinthe!\u201d he murmured in delight.\n\nChance alone had brought them face to face again, for Ferrand was not a\nbeliever, and if he found himself in that train it was simply because\nhe had at the last moment consented to take the place of a friend who\nwas suddenly prevented from coming. For nearly a twelvemonth he had\nbeen a house-surgeon at the Hospital of La Pitie. However, this journey\nto Lourdes, in such peculiar circumstances, greatly interested him.\n\nThe joy of the meeting was making them forget the ailing stranger. And\nso the Sister resumed: \u201cYou see, Monsieur Ferrand, it is for this man\nthat we want you. At one moment we thought him dead. Ever since we\npassed Amboise he has been filling us with fear, and I have just sent\nfor the Holy Oils. Do you find him so very low? Could you not revive\nhim a little?\u201d\n\nThe doctor was already examining the man, and thereupon the sufferers\nwho had remained in the carriage became greatly interested and began to\nlook. Marie, to whom Sister Saint-Francois had given the bowl of broth,\nwas holding it with such an unsteady hand that Pierre had to take it\nfrom her, and endeavour to make her drink; but she could not swallow,\nand she left the broth scarce tasted, fixing her eyes upon the man\nwaiting to see what would happen like one whose own existence is at\nstake.\n\n\u201cTell me,\u201d again asked Sister Hyacinthe, \u201chow do you find him? What is\nhis illness?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is his illness!\u201d muttered Ferrand; \u201che has every illness.\u201d\n\nThen, drawing a little phial from his pocket, he endeavoured to\nintroduce a few drops of the contents between the sufferer\u2019s clenched\nteeth. The man heaved a sigh, raised his eyelids and let them fall\nagain; that was all, he gave no other sign of life.\n\nSister Hyacinthe, usually so calm and composed, so little accustomed to\ndespair, became impatient.\n\n\u201cBut it is terrible,\u201d said she, \u201cand Sister Claire des Anges does not\ncome back! Yet I told her plainly enough where she would find Father\nMassias\u2019s carriage. /Mon Dieu!/ what will become of us?\u201d\n\nSister Saint-Francois, seeing that she could render no help, was now\nabout to return to the cantine van. Before doing so, however, she\ninquired if the man were not simply dying of hunger; for such cases\npresented themselves, and indeed she had only come to the compartment\nwith the view of offering some of her provisions. At last, as she went\noff, she promised that she would make Sister Claire des Anges hasten\nher return should she happen to meet her; and she had not gone twenty\nyards when she turned round and waved her arm to call attention to her\ncolleague, who with discreet short steps was coming back alone.\n\nLeaning out of the window, Sister Hyacinthe kept on calling to her,\n\u201cMake haste, make haste! Well, and where is Father Massias?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe isn\u2019t there.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat! not there?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo. I went as fast as I could, but with all these people about it was\nnot possible to get there quickly. When I reached the carriage Father\nMassias had already alighted, and gone out of the station, no doubt.\u201d\n\nShe thereupon explained, that according to what she had heard, Father\nMassias and the priest of Sainte-Radegonde had some appointment\ntogether. In other years the national pilgrimage halted at Poitiers for\nfour-and-twenty hours, and after those who were ill had been placed in\nthe town hospital the others went in procession to Sainte-Radegonde.*\nThat year, however, there was some obstacle to this course being\nfollowed, so the train was going straight on to Lourdes; and Father\nMassias was certainly with his friend the priest, talking with him on\nsome matter of importance.\n\n* The church of Sainte-Radegonde, built by the saint of that name in\nthe sixth century, is famous throughout Poitou. In the crypt between\nthe tombs of Ste. Agnes and St. Disciole is that of Ste. Radegonde\nherself, but it now only contains some particles of her remains, as the\ngreater portion was burnt by the Huguenots in 1562. On a previous\noccasion (1412) the tomb had been violated by Jean, Duc de Berry, who\nwished to remove both the saint\u2019s head and her two rings. Whilst he was\nmaking the attempt, however, the skeleton is said to have withdrawn its\nhand so that he might not possess himself of the rings. A greater\ncuriosity which the church contains is a footprint on a stone slab,\nsaid to have been left by Christ when He appeared to Ste. Radegonde in\nher cell. This attracts pilgrims from many parts.\u2014Trans.\n\n\u201cThey promised to tell him and send him here with the Holy Oils as soon\nas they found him,\u201d added Sister Claire.\n\nHowever, this was quite a disaster for Sister Hyacinthe. Since Science\nwas powerless, perhaps the Holy Oils would have brought the sufferer\nsome relief. She had often seen that happen.\n\n\u201cO Sister, Sister, how worried I am!\u201d she said to her companion. \u201cDo\nyou know, I wish you would go back and watch for Father Massias and\nbring him to me as soon as you see him. It would be so kind of you to\ndo so!\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, Sister,\u201d compliantly answered Sister Claire des Anges, and off\nshe went again with that grave, mysterious air of hers, wending her way\nthrough the crowd like a gliding shadow.\n\nFerrand, meantime, was still looking at the man, sorely distressed at\nhis inability to please Sister Hyacinthe by reviving him. And as he\nmade a gesture expressive of his powerlessness she again raised her\nvoice entreatingly: \u201cStay with me, Monsieur Ferrand, pray stay,\u201d she\nsaid. \u201cWait till Father Massias comes\u2014I shall be a little more at ease\nwith you here.\u201d\n\nHe remained and helped her to raise the man, who was slipping down upon\nthe seat. Then, taking a linen cloth, she wiped the poor fellow\u2019s face\nwhich a dense perspiration was continually covering. And the spell of\nwaiting continued amid the uneasiness of the patients who had remained\nin the carriage, and the curiosity of the folks who had begun to\nassemble on the platform in front of the compartment.\n\nAll at once however a girl hastily pushed the crowd aside, and,\nmounting on the footboard, addressed herself to Madame de Jonquiere:\n\u201cWhat is the matter, mamma?\u201d she said. \u201cThey are waiting for you in the\nrefreshment-room.\u201d\n\nIt was Raymonde de Jonquiere, who, already somewhat ripe for her\nfour-and-twenty years, was remarkably like her mother, being very dark,\nwith a pronounced nose, large mouth, and full, pleasant-looking face.\n\n\u201cBut, my dear, you can see for yourself. I can\u2019t leave this poor\nwoman,\u201d replied the lady-hospitaller; and thereupon she pointed to La\nGrivotte, who had been attacked by a fit of coughing which shook her\nfrightfully.\n\n\u201cOh, how annoying, mamma!\u201d retorted Raymonde, \u201cMadame Desagneaux and\nMadame Volmar were looking forward with so much pleasure to this little\nlunch together.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, it can\u2019t be helped, my dear. At all events, you can begin\nwithout waiting for me. Tell the ladies that I will come and join them\nas soon as I can.\u201d Then, an idea occurring to her, Madame de Jonquiere\nadded: \u201cWait a moment, the doctor is here. I will try to get him to\ntake charge of my patient. Go back, I will follow you. As you can\nguess, I am dying of hunger.\u201d\n\nRaymonde briskly returned to the refreshment-room whilst her mother\nbegged Ferrand to come into her compartment to see if he could do\nsomething to relieve La Grivotte. At Marthe\u2019s request he had already\nexamined Brother Isidore, whose moaning never ceased; and with a\nsorrowful gesture he had again confessed his powerlessness. However, he\nhastened to comply with Madame de Jonquiere\u2019s appeal, and raised the\nconsumptive woman to a sitting posture in the hope of thus stopping her\ncough, which indeed gradually ceased. And then he helped the\nlady-hospitaller to make her swallow a spoonful of some soothing\ndraught. The doctor\u2019s presence in the carriage was still causing a stir\namong the ailing ones. M. Sabathier, who was slowly eating the grapes\nwhich his wife had been to fetch him, did not, however, question\nFerrand, for he knew full well what his answer would be, and was weary,\nas he expressed it, of consulting all the princes of science;\nnevertheless he felt comforted as it were at seeing him set that poor\nconsumptive woman on her feet again. And even Marie watched all that\nthe doctor did with increasing interest, though not daring to call him\nherself, certain as she also was that he could do nothing for her.\n\nMeantime, the crush on the platform was increasing. Only a quarter of\nan hour now remained to the pilgrims. Madame Vetu, whose eyes were open\nbut who saw nothing, sat like an insensible being in the broad\nsunlight, in the hope possibly that the scorching heat would deaden her\npains; whilst up and down, in front of her, went Madame Vincent ever\nwith the same sleep-inducing step and ever carrying her little Rose,\nher poor ailing birdie, whose weight was so trifling that she scarcely\nfelt her in her arms. Many people meantime were hastening to the water\ntap in order to fill their pitchers, cans, and bottles. Madame Maze,\nwho was of refined tastes and careful of her person, thought of going\nto wash her hands there; but just as she arrived she found Elise\nRouquet drinking, and she recoiled at sight of that disease-smitten\nface, so terribly disfigured and robbed of nearly all semblance of\nhumanity. And all the others likewise shuddered, likewise hesitated to\nfill their bottles, pitchers, and cans at the tap from which she had\ndrunk.\n\nA large number of pilgrims had now begun to eat whilst pacing the\nplatform. You could hear the rhythmical taps of the crutches carried by\na woman who incessantly wended her way through the groups. On the\nground, a legless cripple was painfully dragging herself about in\nsearch of nobody knew what. Others, seated there in heaps, no longer\nstirred. All these sufferers, momentarily unpacked as it were, these\npatients of a travelling hospital emptied for a brief half-hour, were\ntaking the air amidst the bewilderment and agitation of the healthy\npassengers; and the whole throng had a frightfully woeful,\npoverty-stricken appearance in the broad noontide light.\n\nPierre no longer stirred from the side of Marie, for M. de Guersaint\nhad disappeared, attracted by a verdant patch of landscape which could\nbe seen at the far end of the station. And, feeling anxious about her,\nsince she had not been able to finish her broth, the young priest with\na smiling air tried to tempt her palate by offering to go and buy her a\npeach; but she refused it; she was suffering too much, she cared for\nnothing. She was gazing at him with her large, woeful eyes, on the one\nhand impatient at this stoppage which delayed her chance of cure, and\non the other terrified at the thought of again being jolted along that\nhard and endless railroad.\n\nJust then a stout gentleman whose full beard was turning grey, and who\nhad a broad, fatherly kind of face, drew near and touched Pierre\u2019s arm:\n\u201cExcuse me, Monsieur l\u2019Abbe,\u201d said he, \u201cbut is it not in this carriage\nthat there is a poor man dying?\u201d\n\nAnd on the priest returning an affirmative answer, the gentleman became\nquite affable and familiar.\n\n\u201cMy name is Vigneron,\u201d he said; \u201cI am the head clerk at the Ministry of\nFinances, and applied for leave in order that I might help my wife to\ntake our son Gustave to Lourdes. The dear lad places all his hope in\nthe Blessed Virgin, to whom we pray morning and evening on his behalf.\nWe are in a second-class compartment of the carriage just in front of\nyours.\u201d\n\nThen, turning round, he summoned his party with a wave of the hand.\n\u201cCome, come!\u201d said he, \u201cit is here. The unfortunate man is indeed in\nthe last throes.\u201d\n\nMadame Vigneron was a little woman with the correct bearing of a\nrespectable\n/bourgeoise/, but her long, livid face denoted impoverished blood,\n/terrible\nevidence of which was furnished by her son Gustave. The latter, who was\nfifteen years of age, looked scarcely ten. Twisted out of shape, he was\na mere skeleton, with his right leg so wasted, so reduced, that he had\nto walk with a crutch. He had a small, thin face, somewhat awry, in\nwhich one saw little excepting his eyes, clear eyes, sparkling with\nintelligence, sharpened as it were by suffering, and doubtless well\nable to dive into the human soul.\n\nAn old puffy-faced lady followed the others, dragging her legs along\nwith difficulty; and M. Vigneron, remembering that he had forgotten\nher, stepped back towards Pierre so that he might complete the\nintroduction. \u201cThat lady,\u201d said he, \u201cis Madame Chaise, my wife\u2019s eldest\nsister. She also wished to accompany Gustave, whom she is very fond\nof.\u201d And then, leaning forward, he added in a whisper, with a\nconfidential air: \u201cShe is the widow of Chaise, the silk merchant, you\nknow, who left such an immense fortune. She is suffering from a heart\ncomplaint which causes her much anxiety.\u201d\n\nThe whole family, grouped together, then gazed with lively curiosity at\nwhat was taking place in the railway carriage. People were incessantly\nflocking to the spot; and so that the lad might be the better able to\nsee, his father took him up in his arms for a moment whilst his aunt\nheld the crutch, and his mother on her side raised herself on tip-toe.\n\nThe scene in the carriage was still the same; the strange man was still\nstiffly seated in his corner, his head resting against the hard wood.\nHe was livid, his eyes were closed, and his mouth was twisted by\nsuffering; and every now and then Sister Hyacinthe with her linen cloth\nwiped away the cold sweat which was constantly covering his face. She\nno longer spoke, no longer evinced any impatience, but had recovered\nher serenity and relied on Heaven. From time to time she would simply\nglance towards the platform to see if Father Massias were coming.\n\n\u201cLook at him, Gustave,\u201d said M. Vigneron to his son; \u201che must be\nconsumptive.\u201d\n\nThe lad, whom scrofula was eating away, whose hip was attacked by an\nabscess, and in whom there were already signs of necrosis of the\nvertebrae, seemed to take a passionate interest in the agony he thus\nbeheld. It did not frighten him, he smiled at it with a smile of\ninfinite sadness.\n\n\u201cOh! how dreadful!\u201d muttered Madame Chaise, who, living in continual\nterror of a sudden attack which would carry her off, turned pale with\nthe fear of death.\n\n\u201cAh! well,\u201d replied M. Vigneron, philosophically, \u201cit will come to each\nof us in turn. We are all mortal.\u201d\n\nThereupon, a painful, mocking expression came over Gustave\u2019s smile, as\nthough he had heard other words than those\u2014perchance an unconscious\nwish, the hope that the old aunt might die before he himself did, that\nhe would inherit the promised half-million of francs, and then not long\nencumber his family.\n\n\u201cPut the boy down now,\u201d said Madame Vigneron to her husband. \u201cYou are\ntiring him, holding him by the legs like that.\u201d\n\nThen both she and Madame Chaise bestirred themselves in order that the\nlad might not be shaken. The poor darling was so much in need of care\nand attention. At each moment they feared that they might lose him.\nEven his father was of opinion that they had better put him in the\ntrain again at once. And as the two women went off with the child, the\nold gentleman once more turned towards Pierre, and with evident emotion\nexclaimed: \u201cAh! Monsieur l\u2019Abbe, if God should take him from us, the\nlight of our life would be extinguished\u2014I don\u2019t speak of his aunt\u2019s\nfortune, which would go to other nephews. But it would be unnatural,\nwould it not, that he should go off before her, especially as she is so\nill? However, we are all in the hands of Providence, and place our\nreliance in the Blessed Virgin, who will assuredly perform a miracle.\u201d\n\nJust then Madame de Jonquiere, having been reassured by Doctor Ferrand,\nwas able to leave La Grivotte. Before going off, however, she took care\nto say to Pierre: \u201cI am dying of hunger and am going to the\nrefreshment-room for a moment. But if my patient should begin coughing\nagain, pray come and fetch me.\u201d\n\nWhen, after great difficulty, she had managed to cross the platform and\nreach the refreshment-room, she found herself in the midst of another\nscramble. The better-circumstanced pilgrims had taken the tables by\nassault, and a great many priests were to be seen hastily lunching\namidst all the clatter of knives, forks, and crockery. The three or\nfour waiters were not able to attend to all the requirements,\nespecially as they were hampered in their movements by the crowd\npurchasing fruit, bread, and cold meat at the counter. It was at a\nlittle table at the far end of the room that Raymonde was lunching with\nMadame Desagneaux and Madame Volmar.\n\n\u201cAh! here you are at last, mamma!\u201d the girl exclaimed, as Madame de\nJonquiere approached. \u201cI was just going back to fetch you. You\ncertainly ought to be allowed time to eat!\u201d\n\nShe was laughing, with a very animated expression on her face, quite\ndelighted as she was with the adventures of the journey and this\nindifferent scrambling meal. \u201cThere,\u201d said she, \u201cI have kept you some\ntrout with green sauce, and there\u2019s a cutlet also waiting for you. We\nhave already got to the artichokes.\u201d\n\nThen everything became charming. The gaiety prevailing in that little\ncorner rejoiced the sight.\n\nYoung Madame Desagneaux was particularly adorable. A delicate blonde,\nwith wild, wavy, yellow hair, a round, dimpled, milky face, a gay,\nlaughing disposition, and a remarkably good heart, she had made a rich\nmarriage, and for three years past had been wont to leave her husband\nat Trouville in the fine August weather, in order to accompany the\nnational pilgrimage as a lady-hospitaller. This was her great passion,\nan access of quivering pity, a longing desire to place herself\nunreservedly at the disposal of the sick for five days, a real debauch\nof devotion from which she returned tired to death but full of intense\ndelight. Her only regret was that she as yet had no children, and with\ncomical passion, she occasionally expressed a regret that she had\nmissed her true vocation, that of a sister of charity.\n\n\u201cAh! my dear,\u201d she hastily said to Raymonde, \u201cdon\u2019t pity your mother\nfor being so much taken up with her patients. She, at all events, has\nsomething to occupy her.\u201d And addressing herself to Madame de\nJonquiere, she added: \u201cIf you only knew how long we find the time in\nour fine first-class carriage. We cannot even occupy ourselves with a\nlittle needlework, as it is forbidden. I asked for a place with the\npatients, but all were already distributed, so that my only resource\nwill be to try to sleep tonight.\u201d\n\nShe began to laugh, and then resumed: \u201cYes, Madame Volmar, we will try\nto sleep, won\u2019t we, since talking seems to tire you?\u201d Madame Volmar,\nwho looked over thirty, was very dark, with a long face and delicate\nbut drawn features. Her magnificent eyes shone out like brasiers,\nthough every now and then a cloud seemed to veil and extinguish them.\nAt the first glance she did not appear beautiful, but as you gazed at\nher she became more and more perturbing, till she conquered you and\ninspired you with passionate admiration. It should be said though that\nshe shrank from all self-assertion, comporting herself with much\nmodesty, ever keeping in the background, striving to hide her lustre,\ninvariably clad in black and unadorned by a single jewel, although she\nwas the wife of a Parisian diamond-merchant.\n\n\u201cOh! for my part,\u201d she murmured, \u201cas long as I am not hustled too much\nI am well pleased.\u201d\n\nShe had been to Lourdes as an auxiliary lady-helper already on two\noccasions, though but little had been seen of her there\u2014at the hospital\nof Our Lady of Dolours\u2014as, on arriving, she had been overcome by such\ngreat fatigue that she had been forced, she said, to keep her room.\n\nHowever, Madame de Jonquiere, who managed the ward, treated her with\ngood-natured tolerance. \u201cAh! my poor friends,\u201d said she, \u201cthere will be\nplenty of time for you to exert yourselves. Get to sleep if you can,\nand your turn will come when I can no longer keep up.\u201d Then addressing\nher daughter, she resumed: \u201cAnd you would do well, darling, not to\nexcite yourself too much if you wish to keep your head clear.\u201d\n\nRaymonde smiled and gave her mother a reproachful glance: \u201cMamma,\nmamma, why do you say that? Am I not sensible?\u201d she asked.\n\nDoubtless she was not boasting, for, despite her youthful, thoughtless\nair, the air of one who simply feels happy in living, there appeared in\nher grey eyes an expression of firm resolution, a resolution to shape\nher life for herself.\n\n\u201cIt is true,\u201d the mother confessed with a little confusion, \u201cthis\nlittle girl is at times more sensible than I am myself. Come, pass me\nthe cutlet\u2014it is welcome, I assure you. Lord! how hungry I was!\u201d\n\nThe meal continued, enlivened by the constant laughter of Madame\nDesagneaux and Raymonde. The latter was very animated, and her face,\nwhich was already growing somewhat yellow through long pining for a\nsuitor, again assumed the rosy bloom of twenty. They had to eat very\nfast, for only ten minutes now remained to them. On all sides one heard\nthe growing tumult of customers who feared that they would not have\ntime to take their coffee.\n\nAll at once, however, Pierre made his appearance; a fit of stifling had\nagain come over La Grivotte; and Madame de Jonquiere hastily finished\nher artichoke and returned to her compartment, after kissing her\ndaughter, who wished her \u201cgood-night\u201d in a facetious way. The priest,\nhowever, had made a movement of surprise on perceiving Madame Volmar\nwith the red cross of the lady-hospitallers on her black bodice. He\nknew her, for he still called at long intervals on old Madame Volmar,\nthe diamond-merchant\u2019s mother, who had been one of his own mother\u2019s\nfriends. She was the most terrible woman in the world, religious beyond\nall reason, so harsh and stern, moreover, as to close the very window\nshutters in order to prevent her daughter-in-law from looking into the\nstreet. And he knew the young woman\u2019s story, how she had been\nimprisoned on the very morrow of her marriage, shut up between her\nmother-in-law, who tyrannised over her, and her husband, a repulsively\nugly monster who went so far as to beat her, mad as he was with\njealousy, although he himself kept mistresses. The unhappy woman was\nnot allowed out of the house excepting it were to go to mass. And one\nday, at La Trinite, Pierre had surprised her secret, on seeing her\nbehind the church exchanging a few hasty words with a well-groomed,\ndistinguished-looking man.\n\nThe priest\u2019s sudden appearance in the refreshment-room had somewhat\ndisconcerted Madame Volmar.\n\n\u201cWhat an unexpected meeting, Monsieur l\u2019Abbe!\u201d she said, offering him\nher long, warm hand. \u201cWhat a long time it is since I last saw you!\u201d And\nthereupon she explained that this was the third year she had gone to\nLourdes, her mother-in-law having required her to join the Association\nof Our Lady of Salvation. \u201cIt is surprising that you did not see her at\nthe station when we started,\u201d she added. \u201cShe sees me into the train\nand comes to meet me on my return.\u201d\n\nThis was said in an apparently simple way, but with such a subtle touch\nof irony that Pierre fancied he could guess the truth. He knew that she\nreally had no religious principles at all, and that she merely followed\nthe rites and ceremonies of the Church in order that she might now and\nagain obtain an hour\u2019s freedom; and all at once he intuitively realised\nthat someone must be waiting for her yonder, that it was for the\npurpose of meeting him that she was thus hastening to Lourdes with her\nshrinking yet ardent air and flaming eyes, which she so prudently\nshrouded with a veil of lifeless indifference.\n\n\u201cFor my part,\u201d he answered, \u201cI am accompanying a friend of my\nchildhood, a poor girl who is very ill indeed. I must ask your help for\nher; you shall nurse her.\u201d\n\nThereupon she faintly blushed, and he no longer doubted the truth of\nhis surmise. However, Raymonde was just then settling the bill with the\neasy assurance of a girl who is expert in figures; and immediately\nafterwards Madame Desagneaux led Madame Volmar away. The waiters were\nnow growing more distracted and the tables were fast being vacated;\nfor, on hearing a bell ring, everybody had begun to rush towards the\ndoor.\n\nPierre, on his side, was hastening back to his carriage, when he was\nstopped by an old priest. \u201cAh! Monsieur le Cure,\u201d he said, \u201cI saw you\njust before we started, but I was unable to get near enough to shake\nhands with you.\u201d\n\nThereupon he offered his hand to his brother ecclesiastic, who was\nlooking and smiling at him in a kindly way. The Abbe Judaine was the\nparish priest of Saligny, a little village in the department of the\nOise. Tall and sturdy, he had a broad pink face, around which clustered\na mass of white, curly hair, and it could be divined by his appearance\nthat he was a worthy man whom neither the flesh nor the spirit had ever\ntormented. He believed indeed firmly and absolutely, with a tranquil\ngodliness, never having known a struggle, endowed as he was with the\nready faith of a child who is unacquainted with human passions. And\never since the Virgin at Lourdes had cured him of a disease of the\neyes, by a famous miracle which folks still talked about, his belief\nhad become yet more absolute and tender, as though impregnated with\ndivine gratitude.\n\n\u201cI am pleased that you are with us, my friend,\u201d he gently said; \u201cfor\nthere is much in these pilgrimages for young priests to profit by. I am\ntold that some of them at times experience a feeling of rebellion.\nWell, you will see all these poor people praying,\u2014it is a sight which\nwill make you weep. How can one do otherwise than place oneself in\nGod\u2019s hands, on seeing so much suffering cured or consoled?\u201d\n\nThe old priest himself was accompanying a patient; and he pointed to a\nfirst-class compartment, at the door of which hung a placard bearing\nthe inscription: \u201cM. l\u2019Abbe Judaine, Reserved.\u201d Then lowering his\nvoice, he said: \u201cIt is Madame Dieulafay, you know, the great banker\u2019s\nwife. Their chateau, a royal domain, is in my parish, and when they\nlearned that the Blessed Virgin had vouchsafed me such an undeserved\nfavour, they begged me to intercede for their poor sufferer. I have\nalready said several masses, and most sincerely pray for her. There,\nyou see her yonder on the ground. She insisted on being taken out of\nthe carriage, in spite of all the trouble which one will have to place\nher in it again.\u201d\n\nOn a shady part of the platform, in a kind of long box, there was, as\nthe old priest said, a woman whose beautiful, perfectly oval face,\nlighted up by splendid eyes, denoted no greater age than\nsix-and-twenty. She was suffering from a frightful disease. The\ndisappearance from her system of the calcareous salts had led to a\nsoftening of the osseous framework, the slow destruction of her bones.\nThree years previously, after the advent of a stillborn child, she had\nfelt vague pains in the spinal column. And then, little by little, her\nbones had rarefied and lost shape, the vertebrae had sunk, the bones of\nthe pelvis had flattened, and those of the arms and legs had\ncontracted. Thus shrunken, melting away as it were, she had become a\nmere human remnant, a nameless, fluid thing, which could not be set\nerect, but had to be carried hither and thither with infinite care, for\nfear lest she should vanish between one\u2019s fingers. Her face, a\nmotionless face, on which sat a stupefied imbecile expression, still\nretained its beauty of outline, and yet it was impossible to gaze at\nthis wretched shred of a woman without feeling a heart-pang, the keener\non account of all the luxury surrounding her; for not only was the box\nin which she lay lined with blue quilted silk, but she was covered with\nvaluable lace, and a cap of rare valenciennes was set upon her head,\nher wealth thus being proclaimed, displayed, in the midst of her awful\nagony.\n\n\u201cAh! how pitiable it is,\u201d resumed the Abbe Judaine in an undertone. \u201cTo\nthink that she is so young, so pretty, possessed of millions of money!\nAnd if you knew how dearly loved she was, with what adoration she is\nstill surrounded. That tall gentleman near her is her husband, that\nelegantly dressed lady is her sister, Madame Jousseur.\u201d\n\nPierre remembered having often noticed in the newspapers the name of\nMadame Jousseur, wife of a diplomatist, and a conspicuous member of the\nhigher spheres of Catholic society in Paris. People had even circulated\na story of some great passion which she had fought against and\nvanquished. She also was very prettily dressed, with marvellously\ntasteful simplicity, and she ministered to the wants of her sorry\nsister with an air of perfect devotion. As for the unhappy woman\u2019s\nhusband, who at the age of five-and-thirty had inherited his father\u2019s\ncolossal business, he was a clear-complexioned, well-groomed, handsome\nman, clad in a closely buttoned frock-coat. His eyes, however, were\nfull of tears, for he adored his wife, and had left his business in\norder to take her to Lourdes, placing his last hope in this appeal to\nthe mercy of Heaven.\n\nEver since the morning, Pierre had beheld many frightful sufferings in\nthat woeful white train. But none had so distressed his soul as did\nthat wretched female skeleton, slowly liquefying in the midst of its\nlace and its millions. \u201cThe unhappy woman!\u201d he murmured with a shudder.\n\nThe Abbe Judaine, however, made a gesture of serene hope. \u201cThe Blessed\nVirgin will cure her,\u201d said he; \u201cI have prayed to her so much.\u201d\n\nJust then a bell again pealed, and this time it was really the signal\nfor starting. Only two minutes remained. There was a last rush, and\nfolks hurried back towards the train carrying eatables wrapped in\npaper, and bottles and cans which they had filled with water. Several\nof them quite lost their heads, and in their inability to find their\ncarriages, ran distractedly from one to the other end of the train;\nwhilst some of the infirm ones dragged themselves about amidst the\nprecipitate tapping of crutches, and others, only able to walk with\ndifficulty, strove to hasten their steps whilst leaning on the arms of\nsome of the lady-hospitallers. It was only with infinite difficulty\nthat four men managed to replace Madame Dieulafay in her first-class\ncompartment. The Vignerons, who were content with second-class\naccommodation, had already reinstalled themselves in their quarters\namidst an extraordinary heap of baskets, boxes, and valises which\nscarcely allowed little Gustave enough room to stretch his poor puny\nlimbs\u2014the limbs as it were of a deformed insect. And then all the women\nappeared again: Madame Maze gliding along in silence; Madame Vincent\nraising her dear little girl in her outstretched arms and dreading lest\nshe should hear her cry out; Madame Vetu, whom it had been necessary to\npush into the train, after rousing her from her stupefying torment; and\nElise Rouquet, who was quite drenched through her obstinacy in\nendeavouring to drink from the tap, and was still wiping her monstrous\nface. Whilst each returned to her place and the carriage filled once\nmore, Marie listened to her father, who had come back delighted with\nhis stroll to a pointsman\u2019s little house beyond the station, whence a\nreally pleasant stretch of landscape could be discerned.\n\n\u201cShall we lay you down again at once?\u201d asked Pierre, sorely distressed\nby the pained expression on Marie\u2019s face.\n\n\u201cOh no, no, by-and-by!\u201d she replied. \u201cI shall have plenty of time to\nhear those wheels roaring in my head as though they were grinding my\nbones.\u201d\n\nThen, as Ferrand seemed on the point of returning to the cantine van,\nSister Hyacinthe begged him to take another look at the strange man\nbefore he went off. She was still waiting for Father Massias,\nastonished at the inexplicable delay in his arrival, but not yet\nwithout hope, as Sister Claire des Anges had not returned.\n\n\u201cPray, Monsieur Ferrand,\u201d said she, \u201ctell me if this unfortunate man is\nin any immediate danger.\u201d\n\nThe young doctor again looked at the sufferer, felt him, and listened\nto his breathing. Then with a gesture of discouragement he answered in\na low voice, \u201cI feel convinced that you will not get him to Lourdes\nalive.\u201d\n\nEvery head was still anxiously stretched forward. If they had only\nknown the man\u2019s name, the place he had come from, who he was! But it\nwas impossible to extract a word from this unhappy stranger, who was\nabout to die there, in that carriage, without anybody being able to\ngive his face a name!\n\nIt suddenly occurred to Sister Hyacinthe to have him searched. Under\nthe circumstances there could certainly be no harm in such a course.\n\u201cFeel in his pockets, Monsieur Ferrand,\u201d she said.\n\nThe doctor thereupon searched the man in a gentle, cautious way, but\nthe only things that he found in his pockets were a chaplet, a knife,\nand three sous. And nothing more was ever learnt of the man.\n\nAt that moment, however, a voice announced that Sister Claire des Anges\nwas at last coming back with Father Massias. All this while the latter\nhad simply been chatting with the priest of Sainte-Radegonde in one of\nthe waiting-rooms. Keen emotion attended his arrival; for a moment all\nseemed saved. But the train was about to start, the porters were\nalready closing the carriage doors, and it was necessary that extreme\nunction should be administered in all haste in order to avoid too long\na delay.\n\n\u201cThis way, reverend Father!\u201d exclaimed Sister Hyacinthe; \u201cyes, yes,\npray come in; our unfortunate patient is here.\u201d\n\nFather Massias, who was five years older than Pierre, whose\nfellow-student however he had been at the seminary, had a tall, spare\nfigure with an ascetic countenance, framed round with a light-coloured\nbeard and vividly lighted up by burning eyes, He was neither the priest\nharassed by doubt, nor the priest with childlike faith, but an apostle\ncarried away by his passion, ever ready to fight and vanquish for the\npure glory of the Blessed Virgin. In his black cloak with its large\nhood, and his broad-brimmed flossy hat, he shone resplendently with the\nperpetual ardour of battle.\n\nHe immediately took from his pocket the silver case containing the Holy\nOils, and the ceremony began whilst the last carriage doors were being\nslammed and belated pilgrims were rushing back to the train; the\nstation-master, meantime, anxiously glancing at the clock, and\nrealising that it would be necessary for him to grant a few minutes\u2019\ngrace.\n\n\u201c/Credo in unum Deum/,\u201d hastily murmured the Father.\n\n\u201c/Amen/,\u201d replied Sister Hyacinthe and the other occupants of the\ncarriage.\n\nThose who had been able to do so, had knelt upon the seats, whilst the\nothers joined their hands, or repeatedly made the sign of the cross;\nand when the murmured prayers were followed by the Litanies of the\nritual, every voice rose, an ardent desire for the remission of the\nman\u2019s sins and for his physical and spiritual cure winging its flight\nheavenward with each successive /Kyrie eleison/. Might his whole life,\nof which they knew nought, be forgiven him; might he enter, stranger\nthough he was, in triumph into the Kingdom of God!\n\n\u201c/Christe, exaudi nos/.\u201d\n\n\u201c/Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix/.\u201d\n\nFather Massias had pulled out the silver needle from which hung a drop\nof Holy Oil. In the midst of such a scramble, with the whole train\nwaiting\u2014many people now thrusting their heads out of the carriage\nwindows in surprise at the delay in starting\u2014he could not think of\nfollowing the usual practice, of anointing in turn all the organs of\nthe senses, those portals of the soul which give admittance to evil.\n\nHe must content himself, as the rules authorised him to do in pressing\ncases, with one anointment; and this he made upon the man\u2019s lips, those\nlivid parted lips from between which only a faint breath escaped,\nwhilst the rest of his face, with its lowered eyelids, already seemed\nindistinct, again merged into the dust of the earth.\n\n\u201c/Per istam sanctam unctionem/,\u201d said the Father, \u201c/et suam piissimam\nmisericordiam indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum, auditum,\nodoratum, gustum, tactum, deliquisti.\u201d*\n\n  * Through this holy unction and His most tender mercy may the    \n  Lord pardon thee whatever sins thou hast committed by thy sight,    \n  hearing, etc.\n\nThe remainder of the ceremony was lost amid the hurry and scramble of\nthe departure. Father Massias scarcely had time to wipe off the oil\nwith the little piece of cotton-wool which Sister Hyacinthe held in\nreadiness, before he had to leave the compartment and get into his own\nas fast as possible, setting the case containing the Holy Oils in order\nas he did so, whilst the pilgrims finished repeating the final prayer.\n\n\u201cWe cannot wait any longer! It is impossible!\u201d repeated the\nstation-master as he bustled about. \u201cCome, come, make haste everybody!\u201d\n\nAt last then they were about to resume their journey. Everybody sat\ndown, returned to his or her corner again. Madame de Jonquiere,\nhowever, had changed her place, in order to be nearer La Grivotte,\nwhose condition still worried her, and she was now seated in front of\nM. Sabathier, who remained waiting with silent resignation. Moreover,\nSister Hyacinthe had not returned to her compartment, having decided to\nremain near the unknown man so that she might watch over him and help\nhim. By following this course, too, she was able to minister to Brother\nIsidore, whose sufferings his sister Marthe was at a loss to assuage.\nAnd Marie, turning pale, felt the jolting of the train in her ailing\nflesh, even before it had resumed its journey under the heavy sun,\nrolling onward once more with its load of sufferers stifling in the\npestilential atmosphere of the over-heated carriages.\n\nAt last a loud whistle resounded, the engine puffed, and Sister\nHyacinthe rose up to say: The /Magnificat/, my children!\n\n\n\n\nIV\nMIRACLES\n\n\nJUST as the train was beginning to move, the door of the compartment in\nwhich Pierre and Marie found themselves was opened and a porter pushed\na girl of fourteen inside, saying: \u201cThere\u2019s a seat here\u2014make haste!\u201d\n\nThe others were already pulling long faces and were about to protest,\nwhen Sister Hyacinthe exclaimed: \u201cWhat, is it you, Sophie? So you are\ngoing back to see the Blessed Virgin who cured you last year!\u201d\n\nAnd at the same time Madame de Jonquiere remarked: \u201cAh! Sophie, my\nlittle friend, I am very pleased to see that you are grateful.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, yes, Sister; why, yes, madame,\u201d answered the girl, in a pretty\nway.\n\nThe carriage door had already been closed again, so that it was\nnecessary that they should accept the presence of this new pilgrim who\nhad fallen from heaven as it were at the very moment when the train,\nwhich she had almost missed, was starting off again. She was a slender\ndamsel and would not take up much room. Moreover these ladies knew her,\nand all the patients had turned their eyes upon her on hearing that the\nBlessed Virgin had been pleased to cure her. They had now got beyond\nthe station, the engine was still puffing, whilst the wheels increased\ntheir speed, and Sister Hyacinthe, clapping her hands, repeated: \u201cCome,\ncome, my children, the /Magnificat/.\u201d\n\nWhilst the joyful chant arose amidst the jolting of the train, Pierre\ngazed at Sophie. She was evidently a young peasant girl, the daughter\nof some poor husbandman of the vicinity of Poitiers, petted by her\nparents, treated in fact like a young lady since she had become the\nsubject of a miracle, one of the elect, whom the priests of the\ndistrict flocked to see. She wore a straw hat with pink ribbons, and a\ngrey woollen dress trimmed with a flounce. Her round face although not\npretty was a very pleasant one, with a beautifully fresh complexion and\nclear, intelligent eyes which lent her a smiling, modest air.\n\nWhen the /Magnificat/ had been sung, Pierre was unable to resist his\ndesire to question Sophie. A child of her age, with so candid an air,\nso utterly unlike a liar, greatly interested him.\n\n\u201cAnd so you nearly missed the train, my child?\u201d he said.\n\n\u201cI should have been much ashamed if I had, Monsieur l\u2019Abbe,\u201d she\nreplied. \u201cI had been at the station since twelve o\u2019clock. And all at\nonce I saw his reverence, the priest of Sainte-Radegonde, who knows me\nwell and who called me to him, to kiss me and tell me that it was very\ngood of me to go back to Lourdes. But it seems the train was starting\nand I only just had time to run on to the platform. Oh! I ran so fast!\u201d\n\nShe paused, laughing, still slightly out of breath, but already\nrepenting that she had been so giddy.\n\n\u201cAnd what is your name, my child?\u201d asked Pierre.\n\n\u201cSophie Couteau, Monsieur l\u2019Abbe.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou do not belong to the town of Poitiers?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh no! certainly not. We belong to Vivonne, which is seven kilometres\naway. My father and mother have a little land there, and things would\nnot be so bad if there were not eight children at home\u2014I am the\nfifth,\u2014fortunately the four older ones are beginning to work.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd you, my child, what do you do?\u201d\n\n\u201cI, Monsieur l\u2019Abbe! Oh! I am no great help. Since last year, when I\ncame home cured, I have not been left quiet a single day, for, as you\ncan understand, so many people have come to see me, and then too I have\nbeen taken to Monseigneur\u2019s,* and to the convents and all manner of\nother places. And before all that I was a long time ill. I could not\nwalk without a stick, and each step I took made me cry out, so\ndreadfully did my foot hurt me.\u201d\n\n* The Bishop\u2019s residence.\n\n\u201cSo it was of some injury to the foot that the Blessed Virgin cured\nyou?\u201d\n\nSophie did not have time to reply, for Sister Hyacinthe, who was\nlistening, intervened: \u201cOf caries of the bones of the left heel, which\nhad been going on for three years,\u201d said she. \u201cThe foot was swollen and\nquite deformed, and there were fistulas giving egress to continual\nsuppuration.\u201d\n\nOn hearing this, all the sufferers in the carriage became intensely\ninterested. They no longer took their eyes off this little girl on whom\na miracle had been performed, but scanned her from head to foot as\nthough seeking for some sign of the prodigy. Those who were able to\nstand rose up in order that they might the better see her, and the\nothers, the infirm ones, stretched on their mattresses, strove to raise\nthemselves and turn their heads. Amidst the suffering which had again\ncome upon them on leaving Poitiers, the terror which filled them at the\nthought that they must continue rolling onward for another fifteen\nhours, the sudden advent of this child, favoured by Heaven, was like a\ndivine relief, a ray of hope whence they would derive sufficient\nstrength to accomplish the remainder of their terrible journey. The\nmoaning had abated somewhat already, and every face was turned towards\nthe girl with an ardent desire to believe.\n\nThis was especially the case with Marie, who, already reviving, joined\nher trembling hands, and in a gentle supplicating voice said to Pierre,\n\u201cQuestion her, pray question her, ask her to tell us everything\u2014cured,\nO God! cured of such a terrible complaint!\u201d\n\nMadame de Jonquiere, who was quite affected, had leant over the\npartition to kiss the girl. \u201cCertainly,\u201d said she, \u201cour little friend\nwill tell you all about it. Won\u2019t you, my darling? You will tell us\nwhat the Blessed Virgin did for you?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, certainly! madame-as much as you like,\u201d answered Sophie with her\nsmiling, modest air, her eyes gleaming with intelligence. Indeed, she\nwished to begin at once, and raised her right hand with a pretty\ngesture, as a sign to everybody to be attentive. Plainly enough, she\nhad already acquired the habit of speaking in public.\n\nShe could not be seen, however, from some parts of the carriage, and an\nidea came to Sister Hyacinthe, who said: \u201cGet up on the seat, Sophie,\nand speak loudly, on account of the noise which the train makes.\u201d\n\nThis amused the girl, and before beginning she needed time to become\nserious again. \u201cWell, it was like this,\u201d said she; \u201cmy foot was past\ncure, I couldn\u2019t even go to church any more, and it had to be kept\nbandaged, because there was always a lot of nasty matter coming from\nit. Monsieur Rivoire, the doctor, who had made a cut in it, so as to\nsee inside it, said that he should be obliged to take out a piece of\nthe bone; and that, sure enough, would have made me lame for life. But\nwhen I got to Lourdes and had prayed a great deal to the Blessed\nVirgin, I went to dip my foot in the water, wishing so much that I\nmight be cured that I did not even take the time to pull the bandage\noff. And everything remained in the water, there was no longer anything\nthe matter with my foot when I took it out.\u201d\n\nA murmur of mingled surprise, wonder, and desire arose and spread among\nthose who heard this marvellous tale, so sweet and soothing to all who\nwere in despair. But the little one had not yet finished. She had\nsimply paused. And now, making a fresh gesture, holding her arms\nsomewhat apart, she concluded: \u201cWhen I got back to Vivonne and Monsieur\nRivoire saw my foot again, he said: \u2018Whether it be God or the Devil who\nhas cured this child, it is all the same to me; but in all truth she\n/is/ cured.\u2019\u201d\n\nThis time a burst of laughter rang out. The girl spoke in too\nrecitative a way, having repeated her story so many times already that\nshe knew it by heart. The doctor\u2019s remark was sure to produce an\neffect, and she herself laughed at it in advance, certain as she was\nthat the others would laugh also. However, she still retained her\ncandid, touching air.\n\nBut she had evidently forgotten some particular, for Sister Hyacinthe,\na glance from whom had foreshadowed the doctor\u2019s jest, now softly\nprompted her \u201cAnd what was it you said to Madame la Comtesse, the\nsuperintendent of your ward, Sophie?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! yes. I hadn\u2019t brought many bandages for my foot with me, and I\nsaid to her, \u2018It was very kind of the Blessed Virgin to cure me the\nfirst day, as I should have run out of linen on the morrow.\u2019\u201d\n\nThis provoked a fresh outburst of delight. They all thought her so\nnice, to have been cured like that! And in reply to a question from\nMadame de Jonquiere, she also had to tell the story of her boots, a\npair of beautiful new boots which Madame la Comtesse had given her, and\nin which she had run, jumped, and danced about, full of childish\ndelight. Boots! think of it, she who for three years had not even been\nable to wear a slipper.\n\nPierre, who had become grave, waxing pale with the secret uneasiness\nwhich was penetrating him, continued to look at her. And he also asked\nher other questions. She was certainly not lying, and he merely\nsuspected a slow distortion of the actual truth, an easily explained\nembellishment of the real facts amidst all the joy she felt at being\ncured and becoming an important little personage. Who now knew if the\ncicatrisation of her injuries, effected, so it was asserted,\ncompletely, instantaneously, in a few seconds, had not in reality been\nthe work of days? Where were the witnesses?\n\nJust then Madame de Jonquiere began to relate that she had been at the\nhospital at the time referred to. \u201cSophie was not in my ward,\u201d said\nshe, \u201cbut I had met her walking lame that very morning\u2014\u201d\n\nPierre hastily interrupted the lady-hospitaller. \u201cAh! you saw her foot\nbefore and after the immersion?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, no! I don\u2019t think that anybody was able to see it, for it was\nbound round with bandages. She told you that the bandages had fallen\ninto the piscina.\u201d And, turning towards the child, Madame de Jonquiere\nadded, \u201cBut she will show you her foot\u2014won\u2019t you, Sophie? Undo your\nshoe.\u201d\n\nThe girl took off her shoe, and pulled down her stocking, with a\npromptness and ease of manner which showed how thoroughly accustomed\nshe had become to it all. And she not only stretched out her foot,\nwhich was very clean and very white, carefully tended indeed, with\nwell-cut, pink nails, but complacently turned it so that the young\npriest might examine it at his ease. Just below the ankle there was a\nlong scar, whose whity seam, plainly defined, testified to the gravity\nof the complaint from which the girl had suffered.\n\n\u201cOh! take hold of the heel, Monsieur l\u2019Abbe,\u201d said she. \u201cPress it as\nhard as you like. I no longer feel any pain at all.\u201d\n\nPierre made a gesture from which it might have been thought that he was\ndelighted with the power exercised by the Blessed Virgin. But he was\nstill tortured by doubt. What unknown force had acted in this case? Or\nrather what faulty medical diagnosis, what assemblage of errors and\nexaggerations, had ended in this fine tale?\n\nAll the patients, however, wished to see the miraculous foot, that\noutward and visible sign of the divine cure which each of them was\ngoing in search of. And it was Marie, sitting up in her box, and\nalready feeling less pain, who touched it first. Then Madame Maze,\nquite roused from her melancholy, passed it on to Madame Vincent, who\nwould have kissed it for the hope which it restored to her. M.\nSabathier had listened to all the explanations with a beatific air;\nMadame Vetu, La Grivotte, and even Brother Isidore opened their eyes,\nand evinced signs of interest; whilst the face of Elise Rouquet had\nassumed an extraordinary expression, transfigured by faith, almost\nbeatified. If a sore had thus disappeared, might not her own sore close\nand disappear, her face retaining no trace of it save a slight scar,\nand again becoming such a face as other people had? Sophie, who was\nstill standing, had to hold on to one of the iron rails, and place her\nfoot on the partition, now on the right, now on the left. And she did\nnot weary of it all, but felt exceedingly happy and proud at the many\nexclamations which were raised, the quivering admiration and religious\nrespect which were bestowed on that little piece of her person, that\nlittle foot which had now, so to say, become sacred.\n\n\u201cOne must possess great faith, no doubt,\u201d said Marie, thinking aloud.\n\u201cOne must have a pure unspotted soul.\u201d And, addressing herself to M. de\nGuersaint, she added: \u201cFather, I feel that I should get well if I were\nten years old, if I had the unspotted soul of a little girl.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut you are ten years old, my darling! Is it not so, Pierre? A little\ngirl of ten years old could not have a more spotless soul.\u201d\n\nPossessed of a mind prone to chimeras, M. de Guersaint was fond of\nhearing tales of miracles. As for the young priest, profoundly affected\nby the ardent purity which the young girl evinced, he no longer sought\nto discuss the question, but let her surrender herself to the consoling\nillusions which Sophie\u2019s tale had wafted through the carriage.\n\nThe temperature had become yet more oppressive since their departure\nfrom Poitiers, a storm was rising in the coppery sky, and it seemed as\nthough the train were rushing through a furnace. The villages passed,\nmournful and solitary under the burning sun. At Couhe-Verac they had\nagain said their chaplets, and sung another canticle. At present,\nhowever, there was some slight abatement of the religious exercises.\nSister Hyacinthe, who had not yet been able to lunch, ventured to eat a\nroll and some fruit in all haste, whilst still ministering to the\nstrange man whose faint, painful breathing seemed to have become more\nregular. And it was only on passing Ruffec at three o\u2019clock that they\nsaid the vespers of the Blessed Virgin.\n\n\u201c/Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix/.\u201d\n\n\u201c/Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi/.\u201d*\n\n  * \u201cPray for us, O holy Mother of God,\n     That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.\u201d\n\nAs they were finishing, M. Sabathier, who had watched little Sophie\nwhile she put on her shoe and stocking, turned towards M. de Guersaint.\n\n\u201cThis child\u2019s case is interesting, no doubt,\u201d he remarked. \u201cBut it is a\nmere nothing, monsieur, for there have been far more marvellous cures\nthan that. Do you know the story of Pierre de Rudder, a Belgian\nworking-man?\u201d\n\nEverybody had again begun to listen.\n\n\u201cThis man,\u201d continued M. Sabathier, \u201chad his leg broken by the fall of\na tree. Eight years afterwards the two fragments of the bone had not\nyet joined together again\u2014the two ends could be seen in the depths of a\nsore which was continually suppurating; and the leg hung down quite\nlimp, swaying in all directions. Well, it was sufficient for this man\nto drink a glassful of the miraculous water, and his leg was made whole\nagain. He was able to walk without crutches, and the doctor said to\nhim: \u2018Your leg is like that of a new-born child.\u2019 Yes, indeed, a\nperfectly new leg.\u201d\n\nNobody spoke, but the listeners exchanged glances of ecstasy.\n\n\u201cAnd, by the way,\u201d resumed M. Sabathier, \u201cit is like the story of Louis\nBouriette, a quarryman, one of the first of the Lourdes miracles. Do\nyou know it? Bouriette had been injured by an explosion during some\nblasting operations. The sight of his right eye was altogether\ndestroyed, and he was even threatened with the loss of the left one.\nWell, one day he sent his daughter to fetch a bottleful of the muddy\nwater of the source, which then scarcely bubbled up to the surface. He\nwashed his eye with this muddy liquid, and prayed fervently. And, all\nat once, he raised a cry, for he could see, monsieur, see as well as\nyou and I. The doctor who was attending him drew up a detailed\nnarrative of the case, and there cannot be the slightest doubt about\nits truth.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is marvellous,\u201d murmured M. de Guersaint in his delight.\n\n\u201cWould you like another example, monsieur? I can give you a famous one,\nthat of Francois Macary, the carpenter of Lavaur. During eighteen years\nhe had suffered from a deep varicose ulcer, with considerable\nenlargement of the tissues in the mesial part of the left leg. He had\nreached such a point that he could no longer move, and science decreed\nthat he would forever remain infirm. Well, one evening he shuts himself\nup with a bottle of Lourdes water. He takes off his bandages, washes\nboth his legs, and drinks what little water then remains in the bottle.\nThen he goes to bed and falls asleep; and when he awakes, he feels his\nlegs and looks at them. There is nothing left; the varicose\nenlargement, the ulcers, have all disappeared. The skin of his knee,\nmonsieur, had become as smooth, as fresh as it had been when he was\ntwenty.\u201d\n\nThis time there was an explosion of surprise and admiration. The\npatients and the pilgrims were entering into the enchanted land of\nmiracles, where impossibilities are accomplished at each bend of the\npathways, where one marches on at ease from prodigy to prodigy. And\neach had his or her story to tell, burning with a desire to contribute\na fresh proof, to fortify faith and hope by yet another example.\n\nThat silent creature, Madame Maze, was so transported that she spoke\nthe first. \u201cI have a friend,\u201d said she, \u201cwho knew the Widow Rizan, that\nlady whose cure also created so great a stir. For four-and-twenty years\nher left side had been entirely paralysed. Her stomach was unable to\nretain any solid food, and she had become an inert bag of bones which\nhad to be turned over in bed, The friction of the sheets, too, had\nended by rubbing her skin away in parts. Well, she was so low one\nevening that the doctor announced that she would die during the night.\nAn hour later, however, she emerged from her torpor and asked her\ndaughter in a faint voice to go and fetch her a glass of Lourdes water\nfrom a neighbour\u2019s. But she was only able to obtain this glass of water\non the following morning; and she cried out to her daughter: \u2018Oh! it is\nlife that I am drinking\u2014rub my face with it, rub my arm and my leg, rub\nmy whole body with it!\u2019 And when her daughter obeyed her, she gradually\nsaw the huge swelling subside, and the paralysed, tumefied limbs\nrecover their natural suppleness and appearance. Nor was that all, for\nMadame Rizan cried out that she was cured and felt hungry, and wanted\nbread and meat\u2014she who had eaten none for four-and-twenty years! And\nshe got out of bed and dressed herself, whilst her daughter, who was so\noverpowered that the neighbours thought she had become an orphan,\nreplied to them: \u2018No, no, mamma isn\u2019t dead, she has come to life\nagain!\u2019\u201d\n\nThis narrative had brought tears to Madame Vincent\u2019s eyes. Ah! if she\nhad only been able to see her little Rose recover like that, eat with a\ngood appetite, and run about again! At the same time, another case,\nwhich she had been told of in Paris and which had greatly influenced\nher in deciding to take her ailing child to Lourdes, returned to her\nmemory.\n\n\u201cAnd I, too,\u201d said she, \u201cknow the story of a girl who was paralysed.\nHer name was Lucie Druon, and she was an inmate of an orphan asylum.\nShe was quite young and could not even kneel down. Her limbs were bent\nlike hoops. Her right leg, the shorter of the two, had ended by\nbecoming twisted round the left one; and when any of the other girls\ncarried her about you saw her feet hanging down quite limp, like dead\nones. Please notice that she did not even go to Lourdes. She simply\nperformed a novena; but she fasted during the nine days, and her desire\nto be cured was so great that she spent her nights in prayer. At last,\non the ninth day, whilst she was drinking a little Lourdes water, she\nfelt a violent commotion in her legs. She picked herself up, fell down,\npicked herself up again and walked. All her little companions, who were\nastonished, almost frightened at the sight, began to cry out \u2018Lucie can\nwalk! Lucie can walk!\u2019 It was quite true. In a few seconds her legs had\nbecome straight and strong and healthy. She crossed the courtyard and\nwas able to climb up the steps of the chapel, where the whole\nsisterhood, transported with gratitude, chanted the /Magnificat/. Ah!\nthe dear child, how happy, how happy she must have been!\u201d\n\nAs Madame Vincent finished, two tears fell from her cheeks on to the\npale face of her little girl, whom she kissed distractedly.\n\nThe general interest was still increasing, becoming quite impassioned.\nThe rapturous joy born of these beautiful stories, in which Heaven\ninvariably triumphed over human reality, transported these childlike\nsouls to such a point that those who were suffering the most grievously\nsat up in their turn, and recovered the power of speech. And with the\nnarratives of one and all was blended a thought of the sufferer\u2019s own\nailment, a belief that he or she would also be cured, since a malady of\nthe same description had vanished like an evil dream beneath the breath\nof the Divinity.\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d stammered Madame Vetu, her articulation hindered by her\nsufferings, \u201cthere was another one, Antoinette Thardivail, whose\nstomach was being eaten away like mine. You would have said that dogs\nwere devouring it, and sometimes there was a swelling in it as big as a\nchild\u2019s head. Tumours indeed were ever forming in it, like fowl\u2019s eggs,\nso that for eight months she brought up blood. And she also was at the\npoint of death, with nothing but her skin left on her bones, and dying\nof hunger, when she drank some water of Lourdes and had the pit of her\nstomach washed with it. Three minutes afterwards, her doctor, who on\nthe previous day had left her almost in the last throes, scarce\nbreathing, found her up and sitting by the fireside, eating a tender\nchicken\u2019s wing with a good appetite. She had no more tumours, she\nlaughed as she had laughed when she was twenty, and her face had\nregained the brilliancy of youth. Ah! to be able to eat what one likes,\nto become young again, to cease suffering!\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the cure of Sister Julienne!\u201d then exclaimed La Grivotte, raising\nherself on one of her elbows, her eyes glittering with fever. \u201cIn her\ncase it commenced with a bad cold as it did with me, and then she began\nto spit blood. And every six months she fell ill again and had to take\nto her bed. The last time everybody said that she wouldn\u2019t leave it\nalive. The doctors had vainly tried every remedy, iodine, blistering,\nand cauterising. In fact, hers was a real case of phthisis, certified\nby half a dozen medical men. Well, she comes to Lourdes, and Heaven\nalone knows amidst what awful suffering\u2014she was so bad, indeed, that at\nToulouse they thought for a moment that she was about to die! The\nSisters had to carry her in their arms, and on reaching the piscina the\nlady-hospitallers wouldn\u2019t bathe her. She was dead, they said. No\nmatter! she was undressed at last, and plunged into the water, quite\nunconscious and covered with perspiration. And when they took her out\nshe was so pale that they laid her on the ground, thinking that it was\ncertainly all over with her at last. But, all at once, colour came back\nto her cheeks, her eyes opened, and she drew a long breath. She was\ncured; she dressed herself without any help and made a good meal after\nshe had been to the Grotto to thank the Blessed Virgin. There! there\u2019s\nno gainsaying it, that was a real case of phthisis, completely cured as\nthough by medicine!\u201d\n\nThereupon Brother Isidore in his turn wished to speak; but he was\nunable to do so at any length, and could only with difficulty manage to\nsay to his sister: \u201cMarthe, tell them the story of Sister Dorothee\nwhich the priest of Saint-Sauveur related to us.\u201d\n\n\u201cSister Dorothee,\u201d began the peasant girl in an awkward way, \u201cfelt her\nleg quite numbed when she got up one morning, and from that time she\nlost the use of it, for it got as cold and as heavy as a stone. Besides\nwhich she felt a great pain in the back. The doctors couldn\u2019t\nunderstand it. She saw half a dozen of them, who pricked her with pins\nand burnt her skin with a lot of drugs. But it was just as if they had\nsung to her. Sister Dorothee had well understood that only the Blessed\nVirgin could find the right remedy for her, and so she went off to\nLourdes, and had herself dipped in the piscina. She thought at first\nthat the water was going to kill her, for it was so bitterly cold. But\nby-and-by it became so soft that she fancied it was warm, as nice as\nmilk. She had never felt so nice before, it seemed to her as if her\nveins were opening and the water were flowing into them. As you will\nunderstand, life was returning into her body since the Blessed Virgin\nwas concerning herself in the case. She no longer had anything the\nmatter with her when she came out, but walked about, ate the whole of a\npigeon for her dinner, and slept all night long like the happy woman\nshe was. Glory to the Blessed Virgin, eternal gratitude to the most\nPowerful Mother and her Divine Son!\u201d\n\nElise Rouquet would also have liked to bring forward a miracle which\nshe was acquainted with. Only she spoke with so much difficulty owing\nto the deformity of her mouth, that she had not yet been able to secure\na turn. Just then, however, there was a pause, and drawing the wrap,\nwhich concealed the horror of her sore, slightly on one side, she\nprofited by the opportunity to begin.\n\n\u201cFor my part, I wasn\u2019t told anything about a great illness, but it was\na very funny case at all events,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was about a woman,\nCelestine Dubois, as she was called, who had run a needle right into\nher hand while she was washing. It stopped there for seven years, for\nno doctor was able to take it out. Her hand shrivelled up, and she\ncould no longer open it. Well, she got to Lourdes, and dipped her hand\ninto the piscina. But as soon as she did so she began to shriek, and\ntook it out again. Then they caught hold of her and put her hand into\nthe water by force, and kept it there while she continued sobbing, with\nher face covered with sweat. Three times did they plunge her hand into\nthe piscina, and each time they saw the needle moving along, till it\ncame out by the tip of the thumb. She shrieked, of course, because the\nneedle was moving though her flesh just as though somebody had been\npushing it to drive it out. And after that Celestine never suffered\nagain, and only a little scar could be seen on her hand as a mark of\nwhat the Blessed Virgin had done.\u201d\n\nThis anecdote produced a greater effect than even the miraculous cures\nof the most fearful illnesses. A needle which moved as though somebody\nwere pushing it! This peopled the Invisible, showed each sufferer his\nGuardian Angel standing behind him, only awaiting the orders of Heaven\nin order to render him assistance. And besides, how pretty and\nchildlike the story was\u2014this needle which came out in the miraculous\nwater after obstinately refusing to stir during seven long years.\nExclamations of delight resounded from all the pleased listeners; they\nsmiled and laughed with satisfaction, radiant at finding that nothing\nwas beyond the power of Heaven, and that if it were Heaven\u2019s pleasure\nthey themselves would all become healthy, young, and superb. It was\nsufficient that one should fervently believe and pray in order that\nnature might be confounded and that the Incredible might come to pass.\nApart from that there was merely a question of good luck, since Heaven\nseemed to make a selection of those sufferers who should be cured.\n\n\u201cOh! how beautiful it is, father,\u201d murmured Marie, who, revived by the\npassionate interest which she took in the momentous subject, had so far\ncontented herself with listening, dumb with amazement as it were. \u201cDo\nyou remember,\u201d she continued, \u201cwhat you yourself told me of that poor\nwoman, Joachine Dehaut, who came from Belgium and made her way right\nacross France with her twisted leg eaten away by an ulcer, the awful\nsmell of which drove everybody away from her? First of all the ulcer\nwas healed; you could press her knee and she felt nothing, only a\nslight redness remained to mark where it had been. And then came the\nturn of the dislocation. She shrieked while she was in the water, it\nseemed to her as if somebody were breaking her bones, pulling her leg\naway from her; and, at the same time, she and the woman who was bathing\nher, saw her deformed foot rise and extend into its natural shape with\nthe regular movement of a clock hand. Her leg also straightened itself,\nthe muscles extended, the knee replaced itself in its proper position,\nall amidst such acute pain that Joachine ended by fainting. But as soon\nas she recovered consciousness, she darted off, erect and agile, to\ncarry her crutches to the Grotto.\u201d\n\nM. de Guersaint in his turn was laughing with wonderment, waving his\nhand to confirm this story, which had been told him by a Father of the\nAssumption. He could have related a score of similar instances, said\nhe, each more touching, more extraordinary than the other. He even\ninvoked Pierre\u2019s testimony, and the young priest, who was unable to\nbelieve, contented himself with nodding his head. At first, unwilling\nas he was to afflict Marie, he had striven to divert his thoughts by\ngazing though the carriage window at the fields, trees, and houses\nwhich defiled before his eyes. They had just passed Angouleme, and\nmeadows stretched out, and lines of poplar trees fled away amidst the\ncontinuous fanning of the air, which the velocity of the train\noccasioned.\n\nThey were late, no doubt, for they were hastening onward at full speed,\nthundering along under the stormy sky, through the fiery atmosphere,\ndevouring kilometre after kilometre in swift succession. However,\ndespite himself, Pierre heard snatches of the various narratives, and\ngrew interested in these extravagant stories, which the rough jolting\nof the wheels accompanied like a lullaby, as though the engine had been\nturned loose and were wildly bearing them away to the divine land of\ndreams, They were rolling, still rolling along, and Pierre at last\nceased to gaze at the landscape, and surrendered himself to the heavy,\nsleep-inviting atmosphere of the carriage, where ecstasy was growing\nand spreading, carrying everyone far from the world of reality across\nwhich they were so rapidly rushing, The sight of Marie\u2019s face with its\nbrightened look filled the young priest with sincere joy, and he let\nher retain his hand, which she had taken in order to acquaint him, by\nthe pressure of her fingers, with all the confidence which was reviving\nin her soul. And why should he have saddened her by his doubts, since\nhe was so desirous of her cure? So he continued clasping her small,\nmoist hand, feeling infinite affection for her, a dolorous brotherly\nlove which distracted him, and made him anxious to believe in the pity\nof the spheres, in a superior kindness which tempered suffering to\nthose who were plunged in despair, \u201cOh!\u201d she repeated, \u201chow beautiful\nit is, Pierre! How beautiful it is! And what glory it will be if the\nBlessed Virgin deigns to disturb herself for me! Do you really think me\nworthy of such a favour?\u201d\n\n\u201cAssuredly I do,\u201d he exclaimed; \u201cyou are the best and the purest, with\na spotless soul as your father said; there are not enough good angels\nin Paradise to form your escort.\u201d\n\nBut the narratives were not yet finished. Sister Hyacinthe and Madame\nde Jonquiere were now enumerating all the miracles with which they were\nacquainted, the long, long series of miracles which for more than\nthirty years had been flowering at Lourdes, like the uninterrupted\nbudding of the roses on the Mystical Rose-tree. They could be counted\nby thousands, they put forth fresh shoots every year with prodigious\nverdancy of sap, becoming brighter and brighter each successive season.\nAnd the sufferers who listened to these marvellous stories with\nincreasing feverishness were like little children who, after hearing\none fine fairy tale, ask for another, and another, and yet another. Oh!\nthat they might have more and more of those stories in which evil\nreality was flouted, in which unjust nature was cuffed and slapped, in\nwhich the Divinity intervened as the supreme healer, He who laughs at\nscience and distributes happiness according to His own good pleasure.\n\nFirst of all there were the deaf and the dumb who suddenly heard and\nspoke; such as Aurelie Bruneau, who was incurably deaf, with the drums\nof both ears broken, and yet was suddenly enraptured by the celestial\nmusic of a harmonium; such also as Louise Pourchet, who on her side had\nbeen dumb for five-and-twenty years, and yet, whilst praying in the\nGrotto, suddenly exclaimed, \u201cHail, Mary, full of grace!\u201d And there were\nothers and yet others who were completely cured by merely letting a few\ndrops of water fall into their ears or upon their tongues. Then came\nthe procession of the blind: Father Hermann, who felt the Blessed\nVirgin\u2019s gentle hand removing the veil which covered his eyes;\nMademoiselle de Pontbriant, who was threatened with a total loss of\nsight, but after a simple prayer was enabled to see better than she had\never seen before; then a child twelve years old whose corneas resembled\nmarbles, but who, in three seconds, became possessed of clear, deep\neyes, bright with an angelic smile. However, there was especially an\nabundance of paralytics, of lame people suddenly enabled to walk\nupright, of sufferers for long years powerless to stir from their beds\nof misery and to whom the voice said: \u201cArise and walk!\u201d Delannoy,*\nafflicted with ataxia, vainly cauterised and burnt, fifteen times an\ninmate of the Paris hospitals, whence he had emerged with the\nconcurring diagnosis of twelve doctors, feels a strange force raising\nhim up as the Blessed Sacrament goes by, and he begins to follow it,\nhis legs strong and healthy once more. Marie Louise Delpon, a girl of\nfourteen, suffering from paralysis which had stiffened her legs, drawn\nback her hands, and twisted her mouth on one side, sees her limbs\nloosen and the distortion of her mouth disappear as though an invisible\nhand were severing the fearful bonds which had deformed her. Marie\nVachier, riveted to her arm-chair during seventeen years by paraplegia,\nnot only runs and flies on emerging from the piscina, but finds no\ntrace even of the sores with which her long-enforced immobility had\ncovered her body. And Georges Hanquet, attacked by softening of the\nspinal marrow, passes without transition from agony to perfect health;\nwhile Leonie Charton, likewise afflicted with softening of the medulla,\nand whose vertebrae bulge out to a considerable extent, feels her hump\nmelting away as though by enchantment, and her legs rise and\nstraighten, renovated and vigorous.\n\n* This was one of the most notorious of the recorded cases and had a\nvery strange sequel subsequent to the first publication of this work.\nPierre Delannoy had been employed as a ward-assistant in one of the\nlarge Paris hospitals from 1877 to 1881, when he came to the conclusion\nthat the life of an in-patient was far preferable to the one he was\nleading. He, therefore, resolved to pass the rest of his days inside\ndifferent hospitals in the capacity of invalid. He started by feigning\nlocomotor ataxia, and for six years deceived the highest medical\nexperts in Paris, so curiously did he appear to suffer. He stayed in\nturn in all the hospitals in the city, being treated with every care\nand consideration, until at last he met with a doctor who insisted on\ncauterisation and other disagreeable remedies. Delannoy thereupon\nopined that the time to be cured had arrived, and cured he became, and\nwas discharged. He next appeared at Lourdes, supported by crutches, and\npresenting every symptom of being hopelessly crippled. With other\ninfirm and decrepid people he was dipped in the piscina and so\nefficacious did this treatment prove that he came out another man,\nthrew his crutches to the ground and walked, as an onlooker expressed\nit, \u201clike a rural postman.\u201d All Lourdes rang with the fame of the\nmiracle, and the Church, after starring Delannoy round the country as a\nspecimen of what could be done at the holy spring, placed him in charge\nof a home for invalids. But this was too much like hard work, and he\nsoon decamped with all the money he could lay his hands on. Returning\nto Paris he was admitted to the Hospital of Ste. Anne as suffering from\nmental debility, but this did not prevent him from running off one\nnight with about $300 belonging to a dispenser. The police were put on\nhis track and arrested him in May, 1895, when he tried to pass himself\noff as a lunatic; but he had become by this time too well known, and\nwas indicted in due course. At his trial he energetically denied that\nhe had ever shammed, but the Court would not believe him, and sentenced\nhim to four years\u2019 imprisonment with hard labour. \u2014Trans.\n\nThen came all sorts of ailments. First those brought about by\nscrofula\u2014a great many more legs long incapable of service and made\nanew. There was Margaret Gehier, who had suffered from coxalgia for\nseven-and-twenty years, whose hip was devoured by the disease, whose\nleft knee was anchylosed, and who yet was suddenly able to fall upon\nher knees to thank the Blessed Virgin for healing her. There was also\nPhilomene Simonneau, the young Vendeenne, whose left leg was perforated\nby three horrible sores in the depths of which her carious bones were\nvisible, and whose bones, whose flesh, and whose skin were all formed\nafresh.\n\nNext came the dropsical ones: Madame Ancelin, the swelling of whose\nfeet, hands, and entire body subsided without anyone being able to tell\nwhither all the water had gone; Mademoiselle Montagnon, from whom, on\nvarious occasions, nearly twenty quarts of water had been drawn, and\nwho, on again swelling, was entirely rid of the fluid by the\napplication of a bandage which had been dipped in the miraculous\nsource. And, in her case also, none of the water could be found, either\nin her bed or on the floor. In the same way, not a complaint of the\nstomach resisted, all disappeared with the first glass of water. There\nwas Marie Souchet, who vomited black blood, who had wasted to a\nskeleton, and who devoured her food and recovered her flesh in two\ndays\u2019 time! There was Marie Jarlaud, who had burnt herself internally\nthrough drinking a glass of a metallic solution used for cleansing and\nbrightening kitchen utensils, and who felt the tumour which had\nresulted from her injuries melt rapidly away. Moreover, every tumour\ndisappeared in this fashion, in the piscina, without leaving the\nslightest trace behind. But that which caused yet greater wonderment\nwas the manner in which ulcers, cancers, all sorts of horrible, visible\nsores were cicatrised as by a breath from on high. A Jew, an actor,\nwhose hand was devoured by an ulcer, merely had to dip it in the water\nand he was cured. A very wealthy young foreigner, who had a wen as\nlarge as a hen\u2019s egg, on his right wrist, /beheld/ it dissolve. Rose\nDuval, who, as a result of a white tumour, had a hole in her left\nelbow, large enough to accommodate a walnut, was able to watch and\nfollow the prompt action of the new flesh in filling up this cavity!\nThe Widow Fromond, with a lip half decoyed by a cancerous formation,\nmerely had to apply the miraculous water to it as a lotion, and not\neven a red mark remained. Marie Moreau, who experienced fearful\nsufferings from a cancer in the breast, fell asleep, after laying on it\na linen cloth soaked in some water of Lourdes, and when she awoke, two\nhours later, the pain had disappeared, and her flesh was once more\nsmooth and pink and fresh.\n\nAt last Sister Hyacinthe began to speak of the immediate and complete\ncures of phthisis, and this was the triumph, the healing of that\nterrible disease which ravages humanity, which unbelievers defied the\nBlessed Virgin to cure, but which she did cure, it was said, by merely\nraising her little finger. A hundred instances, more extraordinary one\nthan the other, pressed forward for citation.\n\nMarguerite Coupel, who had suffered from phthisis for three years, and\nthe upper part of whose lungs is destroyed by tuberculosis, rises up\nand goes off, radiant with health. Madame de la Riviere, who spits\nblood, who is ever covered with a cold perspiration, whose nails have\nalready acquired a violet tinge, who is indeed on the point of drawing\nher last breath, requires but a spoonful of the water to be\nadministered to her between her teeth, and lo! the rattles cease, she\nsits up, makes the responses to the litanies, and asks for some broth.\nJulie Jadot requires four spoonfuls; but then she could no longer hold\nup her head, she was of such a delicate constitution that disease had\nreduced her to nothing; and yet, in a few days, she becomes quite fat.\nAnna Catry, who is in the most advanced stage of the malady, with her\nleft lung half destroyed by a cavity, is plunged five times into the\ncold water, contrary to all the dictates of prudence, and she is cured,\nher lung is healthy once more. Another consumptive girl, condemned by\nfifteen doctors, has asked nothing, has simply fallen on her knees in\nthe Grotto, by chance as it were, and is afterwards quite surprised at\nhaving been cured /au passage/, through the lucky circumstance of\nhaving been there, no doubt, at the hour when the Blessed Virgin, moved\nto pity, allows miracles to fall from her invisible hands.\n\nMiracles and yet more miracles! They rained down like the flowers of\ndreams from a clear and balmy sky. Some of them were touching, some of\nthem were childish. An old woman, who, having her hand anchylosed, had\nbeen incapable of moving it for thirty years, washes it in the water\nand is at once able to make the sign of the Cross. Sister Sophie, who\nbarked like a dog, plunges into the piscina and emerges from it with a\nclear, pure voice, chanting a canticle. Mustapha, a Turk, invokes the\nWhite Lady and recovers the use of his right eye by applying a compress\nto it. An officer of Turcos was protected at Sedan; a cuirassier of\nReichsoffen would have died, pierced in the heart by a bullet, if this\nbullet after passing though his pocket-book had not stayed its flight\non reaching a little picture of Our Lady of Lourdes! And, as with the\nmen and women, so did the children, the poor, suffering little ones,\nfind mercy; a paralytic boy of five rose and walked after being held\nfor five minutes under the icy jet of the spring; another one, fifteen\nyears of age, who, lying in bed, could only raise an inarticulate cry,\nsprang out of the piscina, shouting that he was cured; another one, but\ntwo years old, a poor tiny fellow who had never been able to walk,\nremained for a quarter of an hour in the cold water and then,\ninvigorated and smiling, took his first steps like a little man! And\nfor all of them, the little ones as well as the adults, the pain was\nacute whilst the miracle was being accomplished; for the work of repair\ncould not be effected without causing an extraordinary shock to the\nwhole human organism; the bones grew again, new flesh was formed, and\nthe disease, driven away, made its escape in a final convulsion. But\nhow great was the feeling of comfort which followed! The doctors could\nnot believe their eyes, their astonishment burst forth at each fresh\ncure, when they saw the patients whom they had despaired of run and\njump and eat with ravenous appetites. All these chosen ones, these\nwomen cured of their ailments, walked a couple of miles, sat down to\nroast fowl, and slept the soundest of sleeps for a dozen hours.\nMoreover, there was no convalescence, it was a sudden leap from the\ndeath throes to complete health. Limbs were renovated, sores were\nfilled up, organs were reformed in their entirety, plumpness returned\nto the emaciated, all with the velocity of a lightning flash! Science\nwas completely baffled. Not even the most simple precautions were\ntaken, women were bathed at all times and seasons, perspiring\nconsumptives were plunged into the icy water, sores were left to their\nputrefaction without any thought of employing antiseptics. And then\nwhat canticles of joy, what shouts of gratitude and love arose at each\nfresh miracle! The favoured one falls upon her knees, all who are\npresent weep, conversions are effected, Protestants and Jews alike\nembrace Catholicism\u2014other miracles these, miracles of faith, at which\nHeaven triumphs. And when the favoured one, chosen for the miracle,\nreturns to her village, all the inhabitants crowd to meet her, whilst\nthe bells peal merrily; and when she is seen springing lightly from the\nvehicle which has brought her home, shouts and sobs of joy burst forth\nand all intonate the /Magnificat/: Glory to the Blessed Virgin!\nGratitude and love for ever!\n\nIndeed, that which was more particularly evolved from the realisation\nof all these hopes, from the celebration of all these ardent\nthanksgivings, was gratitude\u2014gratitude to the Mother most pure and most\nadmirable. She was the great passion of every soul, she, the Virgin\nmost powerful, the Virgin most merciful, the Mirror of Justice, the\nSeat of Wisdom.* All hands were stretched towards her, Mystical Rose in\nthe dim light of the chapels, Tower of Ivory on the horizon of\ndreamland, Gate of Heaven leading into the Infinite. Each day at early\ndawn she shone forth, bright Morning Star, gay with juvenescent hope.\nAnd was she not also the Health of the weak, the Refuge of sinners, the\nComforter of the afflicted? France had ever been her well-loved\ncountry, she was adored there with an ardent worship, the worship of\nher womanhood and her motherhood, the soaring of a divine affection;\nand it was particularly in France that it pleased her to show herself\nto little shepherdesses. She was so good to the little and the humble;\nshe continually occupied herself with them; and if she was appealed to\nso willingly it was because she was known to be the intermediary of\nlove betwixt Earth and Heaven. Every evening she wept tears of gold at\nthe feet of her divine Son to obtain favours from Him, and these\nfavours were the miracles which He permitted her to work,\u2014these\nbeautiful, flower-like miracles, as sweet-scented as the roses of\nParadise, so prodigiously splendid and fragrant.\n\n* For the information of Protestant and other non-Catholic readers it\nmay be mentioned that all the titles enumerated in this passage are\ntaken from the Litany of the Blessed Virgin.\u2014Trans.\n\nBut the train was still rolling, rolling onward. They had just passed\nContras, it was six o\u2019clock, and Sister Hyacinthe, rising to her, feet,\nclapped her hands together and once again repeated: \u201cThe Angelus, my\nchildren!\u201d\n\nNever had \u201cAves\u201d impregnated with greater faith, inflamed with a more\nfervent desire to be heard by Heaven, winged their flight on high. And\nPierre suddenly understood everything, clearly realised the meaning of\nall these pilgrimages, of all these trains rolling along through every\ncountry of the civilised world, of all these eager crowds, hastening\ntowards Lourdes, which blazed over yonder like the abode of salvation\nfor body and for mind. Ah! the poor wretches whom, ever since morning,\nhe had heard groaning with pain, the poor wretches who exposed their\nsorry carcasses to the fatigues of such a journey! They were all\ncondemned, abandoned by science, weary of consulting doctors, of having\ntried the torturing effects of futile remedies. And how well one could\nunderstand that, burning with a desire to preserve their lives, unable\nto resign themselves to the injustice and indifference of Nature, they\nshould dream of a superhuman power, of an almighty Divinity who, in\ntheir favour, would perchance annul the established laws, alter the\ncourse of the planets, and reconsider His creation! For if the world\nfailed them, did not the Divinity remain to them? In their cases\nreality was too abominable, and an immense need of illusion and\nfalsehood sprang up within them. Oh! to believe that there is a supreme\nJusticiar somewhere, one who rights the apparent wrongs of things and\nbeings; to believe that there is a Redeemer, a consoler who is the real\nmaster, who can carry the torrents back to their source, who can\nrestore youth to the aged, and life to the dead! And when you are\ncovered with sores, when your limbs are twisted, when your stomach is\nswollen by tumours, when your lungs are destroyed by disease, to be\nable to say that all this is of no consequence, that everything may\ndisappear and be renewed at a sign from the Blessed Virgin, that it is\nsufficient that you should pray to her, touch her heart, and obtain the\nfavour of being chosen by her. And then what a heavenly fount of hope\nappeared with the prodigious flow of those beautiful stories of cure,\nthose adorable fairy tales which lulled and intoxicated the feverish\nimaginations of the sick and the infirm. Since little Sophie Couteau,\nwith her white, sound foot, had climbed into that carriage, opening to\nthe gaze of those within it the limitless heavens of the Divine and the\nSupernatural, how well one could understand the breath of resurrection\nthat was passing over the world, slowly raising those who despaired the\nmost from their beds of misery, and making their eyes shine since life\nwas itself a possibility for them, and they were, perhaps, about to\nbegin it afresh.\n\nYes, \u2019t was indeed that. If that woeful train was rolling, rolling on,\nif that carriage was full, if the other carriages were full also, if\nFrance and the world, from the uttermost limits of the earth, were\ncrossed by similar trains, if crowds of three hundred thousand\nbelievers, bringing thousands of sick along with them, were ever\nsetting out, from one end of the year to the other, it was because the\nGrotto yonder was shining forth in its glory like a beacon of hope and\nillusion, like a sign of the revolt and triumph of the Impossible over\ninexorable materiality. Never had a more impassionating romance been\ndevised to exalt the souls of men above the stern laws of life. To\ndream that dream, this was the great, the ineffable happiness. If the\nFathers of the Assumption had seen the success of their pilgrimages\nincrease and spread from year to year, it was because they sold to all\nthe flocking peoples the bread of consolation and illusion, the\ndelicious bread of hope, for which suffering humanity ever hungers with\na hunger that nothing will ever appease. And it was not merely the\nphysical sores which cried aloud for cure, the whole of man\u2019s moral and\nintellectual being likewise shrieked forth its wretchedness, with an\ninsatiable yearning for happiness. To be happy, to place the certainty\nof life in faith, to lean till death should come upon that one strong\nstaff of travel\u2014such was the desire exhaled by every breast, the desire\nwhich made every moral grief bend the knee, imploring a continuance of\ngrace, the conversion of dear ones, the spiritual salvation of self and\nthose one loved. The mighty cry spread from pole to pole, ascended and\nfilled all the regions of space: To be happy, happy for evermore, both\nin life and in death!\n\nAnd Pierre saw the suffering beings around him lose all perception of\nthe jolting and recover their strength as league by league they drew\nnearer to the miracle. Even Madame Maze grew talkative, certain as she\nfelt that the Blessed Virgin would restore her husband to her. With a\nsmile on her face Madame Vincent gently rocked her little Rose in her\narms, thinking that she was not nearly so ill as those all but lifeless\nchildren who, after being plunged in the icy water, sprang out and\nplayed. M. Sabathier jested with M. de Guersaint, and explained to him\nthat, next October, when he had recovered the use of his legs, he\nshould go on a trip to Rome\u2014a journey which he had been postponing for\nfifteen years and more. Madame Vetu, quite calmed, feeling nothing but\na slight twinge in the stomach, imagined that she was hungry, and asked\nMadame de Jonquiere to let her dip some strips of bread in a glass of\nmilk; whilst Elise Rouquet, forgetting her sores, ate some grapes, with\nface uncovered. And in La Grivotte who was sitting up and Brother\nIsidore who had ceased moaning, all those fine stories had left a\npleasant fever, to such a point that, impatient to be cured, they grew\nanxious to know the time. For a minute also the man, the strange man,\nresuscitated. Whilst Sister Hyacinthe was again wiping the cold sweat\nfrom his brow, he raised his eyelids, and a smile momentarily\nbrightened his pallid countenance. Yet once again he, also, had hoped.\n\nMarie was still holding Pierre\u2019s fingers in her own small, warm hand.\nIt was seven o\u2019clock, they were not due at Bordeaux till half-past\nseven; and the belated train was quickening its pace yet more and more,\nrushing along with wild speed in order to make up for the minutes it\nhad lost. The storm had ended by coming down, and now a gentle light of\ninfinite purity fell from the vast clear heavens.\n\n\u201cOh! how beautiful it is, Pierre\u2014how beautiful it is!\u201d Marie again\nrepeated, pressing his hand with tender affection. And leaning towards\nhim, she added in an undertone: \u201cI beheld the Blessed Virgin a little\nwhile ago, Pierre, and it was your cure that I implored and shall\nobtain.\u201d\n\nThe priest, who understood her meaning, was thrown into confusion by\nthe divine light which gleamed in her eyes as she fixed them on his\nown. She had forgotten her own sufferings; that which she had asked for\nwas his conversion; and that prayer of faith, emanating, pure and\ncandid, from that dear, suffering creature, upset his soul. Yet why\nshould he not believe some day? He himself had been distracted by all\nthose extraordinary narratives. The stifling heat of the carriage had\nmade him dizzy, the sight of all the woe heaped up there caused his\nheart to bleed with pity. And contagion was doing its work; he no\nlonger knew where the real and the possible ceased, he lacked the power\nto disentangle such a mass of stupefying facts, to explain such as\nadmitted of explanation and reject the others. At one moment, indeed,\nas a hymn once more resounded and carried him off with its stubborn\nimportunate rhythm, he ceased to be master of himself, and imagined\nthat he was at last beginning to believe amidst the hallucinatory\nvertigo which reigned in that travelling hospital, rolling, ever\nrolling onward at full speed.\n\n\n\n\nV\nBERNADETTE\n\n\nTHE train left Bordeaux after a stoppage of a few minutes, during which\nthose who had not dined hastened to purchase some provisions. Moreover,\nthe ailing ones were constantly drinking milk, and asking for biscuits,\nlike little children. And, as soon as they were off again, Sister\nHyacinthe clapped her hands, and exclaimed: \u201cCome, let us make haste;\nthe evening prayer.\u201d\n\nThereupon, during a quarter of an hour came a confused murmuring, made\nup of \u201cPaters\u201d and \u201cAves,\u201d self-examinations, acts of contrition, and\nvows of trustful reliance in God, the Blessed Virgin, and the Saints,\nwith thanksgiving for protection and preservation that day, and, at\nlast, a prayer for the living and for the faithful departed.\n\n\u201cIn the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.\u201d\n\nIt was ten minutes past eight o\u2019clock, the shades of night were already\nbedimming the landscape\u2014a vast plain which the evening mist seemed to\nprolong into the infinite, and where, far away, bright dots of light\nshone out from the windows of lonely, scattered houses. In the\ncarriage, the lights of the lamps were flickering, casting a subdued\nyellow glow on the luggage and the pilgrims, who were sorely shaken by\nthe spreading tendency of the train\u2019s motion.\n\n\u201cYou know, my children,\u201d resumed Sister Hyacinthe, who had remained\nstanding, \u201cI shall order silence when we get to Lamothe, in about an\nhour\u2019s time. So you have an hour to amuse yourselves, but you must be\nreasonable and not excite yourselves too much. And when we have passed\nLamothe, you hear me, there must not be another word, another sound,\nyou must all go to sleep.\u201d\n\nThis made them laugh.\n\n\u201cOh! but it is the rule, you know,\u201d added the Sister, \u201cand surely you\nhave too much sense not to obey me.\u201d\n\nSince the morning they had punctually fulfilled the programme of\nreligious exercises specified for each successive hour. And now that\nall the prayers had been said, the beads told, the hymns chanted, the\nday\u2019s duties were over, and a brief interval for recreation was allowed\nbefore sleeping. They were, however, at a loss as to what they should\ndo.\n\n\u201cSister,\u201d suddenly said Marie, \u201cif you would allow Monsieur l\u2019Abbe to\nread to us\u2014he reads extremely well,\u2014and as it happens I have a little\nbook with me\u2014a history of Bernadette which is so interesting\u2014\u201d\n\nThe others did nor let her finish, but with the suddenly awakened\ndesire of children to whom a beautiful story has been promised, loudly\nexclaimed: \u201cOh! yes, Sister. Oh! yes, Sister\u2014\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course I will allow it,\u201d replied Sister Hyacinthe, \u201csince it is a\nquestion of reading something instructive and edifying.\u201d\n\nPierre was obliged to consent. But to be able to read the book he\nwished to be under the lamp, and it was necessary that he should change\nseats with M. de Guersaint, whom the promise of a story had delighted\nas much as it did the ailing ones. And when the young priest, after\nchanging seats and declaring that he would be able to see well enough,\nat last opened the little book, a quiver of curiosity sped from one end\nof the carriage to the other, and every head was stretched out, lending\near with rapt attention. Fortunately, Pierre had a clear, powerful\nvoice and made himself distinctly heard above the wheels, which, now\nthat the train travelled across a vast level plain, gave out but a\nsubdued, rumbling sound.\n\nBefore beginning, however, the young priest had examined the book. It\nwas one of those little works of propaganda issued from the Catholic\nprinting-presses and circulated in profusion throughout all\nChristendom. Badly printed, on wretched paper, it was adorned on its\nblue cover with a little wood-cut of Our Lady of Lourdes, a naive\ndesign alike stiff and awkward. The book itself was short, and half an\nhour would certainly suffice to read it from cover to cover without\nhurrying.\n\nAccordingly, in his fine, clear voice, with its penetrating, musical\ntones, he began his perusal as follows:\u2014\n\n\u201cIt happened at Lourdes, a little town near the Pyrenees, on a\nThursday, February 11, 1858. The weather was cold, and somewhat cloudy,\nand in the humble home of a poor but honest miller named Francois\nSoubirous there was no wood to cook the dinner. The miller\u2019s wife,\nLouise, said to her younger daughter Marie, \u2018Go and gather some wood on\nthe bank of the Gave or on the common-land.\u2019 The Gave is a torrent\nwhich passes through Lourdes.\n\n\u201cMarie had an elder sister, named Bernadette, who had lately arrived\nfrom the country, where some worthy villagers had employed her as a\nshepherdess. She was a slender, delicate, extremely innocent child, and\nknew nothing except her rosary. Louise Soubirous hesitated to send her\nout with her sister, on account of the cold, but at last, yielding to\nthe entreaties of Marie and a young girl of the neighbourhood called\nJeanne Abadie, she consented to let her go.\n\n\u201cFollowing the bank of the torrent and gathering stray fragments of\ndead wood, the three maidens at last found themselves in front of the\nGrotto, hollowed out in a huge mass of rock which the people of the\ndistrict called Massabielle.\u201d\n\nPierre had reached this point and was turning the page when he suddenly\npaused and let the little book fall on his knees. The childish\ncharacter of the narrative, its ready-made, empty phraseology, filled\nhim with impatience. He himself possessed quite a collection of\ndocuments concerning this extraordinary story, had passionately studied\neven its most trifling details, and in the depths of his heart retained\na feeling of tender affection and infinite pity for Bernadette. He had\njust reflected, too, that on the very next day he would be able to\nbegin that decisive inquiry which he had formerly dreamt of making at\nLourdes. In fact, this was one of the reasons which had induced him to\naccompany Marie on her journey. And he was now conscious of an\nawakening of all his curiosity respecting the Visionary, whom he loved\nbecause he felt that she had been a girl of candid soul, truthful and\nill-fated, though at the same time he would much have liked to analyse\nand explain her case. Assuredly, she had not lied, she had indeed\nbeheld a vision and heard voices, like Joan of Arc; and like Joan of\nArc also, she was now, in the opinion of the devout, accomplishing the\ndeliverance of France\u2014from sin if not from invaders. Pierre wondered\nwhat force could have produced her\u2014her and her work. How was it that\nthe visionary faculty had become developed in that lowly girl, so\ndistracting believing souls as to bring about a renewal of the miracles\nof primitive times, as to found almost a new religion in the midst of a\nHoly City, built at an outlay of millions, and ever invaded by crowds\nof worshippers more numerous and more exalted in mind than had ever\nbeen known since the days of the Crusades?\n\nAnd so, ceasing to read the book, Pierre began to tell his companions\nall that he knew, all that he had divined and reconstructed of that\nstory which is yet so obscure despite the vast rivers of ink which it\nhas already caused to flow. He knew the country and its manners and\ncustoms, through his long conversations with his friend Doctor\nChassaigne. And he was endowed with charming fluency of language, an\nemotional power of exquisite purity, many remarkable gifts well fitting\nhim to be a pulpit orator, which he never made use of, although he had\nknown them to be within him ever since his seminary days. When the\noccupants of the carriage perceived that he knew the story, far better\nand in far greater detail than it appeared in Marie\u2019s little book, and\nthat he related it also in such a gentle yet passionate way, there came\nan increase of attention, and all those afflicted souls hungering for\nhappiness went forth towards him. First came the story of Bernadette\u2019s\nchildhood at Bartres, where she had grown up in the abode of her\nfoster-mother, Madame Lagues, who, having lost an infant of her own,\nhad rendered those poor folks, the Soubirouses, the service of suckling\nand keeping their child for them. Bartres, a village of four hundred\nsouls, at a league or so from Lourdes, lay as it were in a desert\noasis, sequestered amidst greenery, and far from any frequented\nhighway. The road dips down, the few houses are scattered over\ngrassland, divided by hedges and planted with walnut and chestnut\ntrees, whilst the clear rivulets, which are never silent, follow the\nsloping banks beside the pathways, and nothing rises on high save the\nsmall ancient romanesque church, which is perched on a hillock, covered\nwith graves. Wooded slopes undulate upon all sides. Bartres lies in a\nhollow amidst grass of delicious freshness, grass of intense greenness,\nwhich is ever moist at the roots, thanks to the eternal subterraneous\nexpanse of water which is fed by the mountain torrents. And Bernadette,\nwho, since becoming a big girl, had paid for her keep by tending lambs,\nwas wont to take them with her, season after season, through all the\ngreenery where she never met a soul. It was only now and then, from the\nsummit of some slope, that she saw the far-away mountains, the Pic du\nMidi, the Pic de Viscos, those masses which rose up, bright or gloomy,\naccording to the weather, and which stretched away to other peaks,\nlightly and faintly coloured, vaguely and confusedly outlined, like\napparitions seen in dreams.\n\nThen came the home of the Lagueses, where her cradle was still\npreserved, a solitary, silent house, the last of the village. A meadow\nplanted with pear and apple trees, and only separated from the open\ncountry by a narrow stream which one could jump across, stretched out\nin front of the house. Inside the latter, a low and damp abode, there\nwere, on either side of the wooden stairway leading to the loft, but\ntwo spacious rooms, flagged with stones, and each containing four or\nfive beds. The girls, who slept together, fell asleep at even, gazing\nat the fine pictures affixed to the walls, whilst the big clock in its\npinewood case gravely struck the hours in the midst of the deep\nsilence.\n\nAh! those years at Bartres; in what sweet peacefulness did Bernadette\nlive them! Yet she grew up very thin, always in bad health, suffering\nfrom a nervous asthma which stifled her in the least veering of the\nwind; and on attaining her twelfth year she could neither read nor\nwrite, nor speak otherwise than in dialect, having remained quite\ninfantile, behindhand in mind as in body. She was a very good little\ngirl, very gentle and well behaved, and but little different from other\nchildren, except that instead of talking she preferred to listen.\nLimited as was her intelligence, she often evinced much natural\ncommon-sense, and at times was prompt in her /reparties/, with a kind\nof simple gaiety which made one smile. It was only with infinite\ntrouble that she was taught her rosary, and when she knew it she seemed\nbent on carrying her knowledge no further, but repeated it all day\nlong, so that whenever you met her with her lambs, she invariably had\nher chaplet between her fingers, diligently telling each successive\n\u201cPater\u201d and \u201cAve.\u201d For long, long hours she lived like this on the\ngrassy slopes of the hills, hidden away and haunted as it were amidst\nthe mysteries of the foliage, seeing nought of the world save the\ncrests of the distant mountains, which, for an instant, every now and\nthen, would soar aloft in the radiant light, as ethereal as the peaks\nof dreamland.\n\nDays followed days, and Bernadette roamed, dreaming her one narrow\ndream, repeating the sole prayer she knew, which gave her amidst her\nsolitude, so fresh and naively infantile, no other companion and friend\nthan the Blessed Virgin. But what pleasant evenings she spent in the\nwinter-time in the room on the left, where a fire was kept burning! Her\nfoster-mother had a brother, a priest, who occasionally read some\nmarvellous stories to them\u2014stories of saints, prodigious adventures of\na kind to make one tremble with mingled fear and joy, in which Paradise\nappeared upon earth, whilst the heavens opened and a glimpse was caught\nof the splendour of the angels. The books he brought with him were\noften full of pictures\u2014God the Father enthroned amidst His glory;\nJesus, so gentle and so handsome with His beaming face; the Blessed\nVirgin, who recurred again and again, radiant with splendour, clad now\nin white, now in azure, now in gold, and ever so amiable that\nBernadette would see her again in her dreams. But the book which was\nread more than all others was the Bible, an old Bible which had been in\nthe family for more than a hundred years, and which time and usage had\nturned yellow. Each winter evening Bernadette\u2019s foster-father, the only\nmember of the household who had learnt to read, would take a pin, pass\nit at random between the leaves of the book, open the latter, and then\nstart reading from the top of the right-hand page, amidst the deep\nattention of both the women and the children, who ended by knowing the\nbook by heart, and could have continued reciting it without a single\nmistake.\n\nHowever, Bernadette, for her part, preferred the religious works in\nwhich the Blessed Virgin constantly appeared with her engaging smile.\nTrue, one reading of a different character amused her, that of the\nmarvellous story of the Four Brothers Aymon. On the yellow paper cover\nof the little book, which had doubtless fallen from the bale of some\npeddler who had lost his way in that remote region, there was a naive\ncut showing the four doughty knights, Renaud and his brothers, all\nmounted on Bayard, their famous battle charger, that princely present\nmade to them by the fairy Orlanda. And inside were narratives of bloody\nfights, of the building and besieging of fortresses, of the terrible\nswordthrusts exchanged by Roland and Renaud, who was at last about to\nfree the Holy Land, without mentioning the tales of Maugis the Magician\nand his marvellous enchantments, and the Princess Clarisse, the King of\nAquitaine\u2019s sister, who was more lovely than sunlight. Her imagination\nfired by such stories as these, Bernadette often found it difficult to\nget to sleep; and this was especially the case on the evenings when the\nbooks were left aside, and some person of the company related a tale of\nwitchcraft. The girl was very superstitious, and after sundown could\nnever be prevailed upon to pass near a tower in the vicinity, which was\nsaid to be haunted by the fiend. For that matter, all the folks of the\nregion were superstitious, devout, and simple-minded, the whole\ncountryside being peopled, so to say, with mysteries\u2014trees which sang,\nstones from which blood flowed, cross-roads where it was necessary to\nsay three \u201cPaters\u201d and three \u201cAves,\u201d if you did not wish to meet the\nseven-horned beast who carried maidens off to perdition. And what a\nwealth of terrifying stories there was! Hundreds of stories, so that\nthere was no finishing on the evenings when somebody started them.\nFirst came the wehrwolf adventures, the tales of the unhappy men whom\nthe demon forced to enter into the bodies of dogs, the great white dogs\nof the mountains. If you fire a gun at the dog and a single shot should\nstrike him, the man will be delivered; but if the shot should fall on\nthe dog\u2019s shadow, the man will immediately die. Then came the endless\nprocession of sorcerers and sorceresses. In one of these tales\nBernadette evinced a passionate interest; it was the story of a clerk\nof the tribunal of Lourdes who, wishing to see the devil, was conducted\nby a witch into an untilled field at midnight on Good Friday. The devil\narrived clad in magnificent scarlet garments, and at once proposed to\nthe clerk that he should buy his soul, an offer which the clerk\npretended to accept. It so happened that the devil was carrying under\nhis arm a register in which different persons of the town, who had\nalready sold themselves, had signed their names. However, the clerk,\nwho was a cunning fellow, pulled out of his pocket a pretended bottle\nof ink, which in reality contained holy water, and with this he\nsprinkled the devil, who raised frightful shrieks, whilst the clerk\ntook to flight, carrying the register off with him. Then began a wild,\nmad race, which might last throughout the night, over the mountains,\nthrough the valleys, across the forests and the torrents. \u201cGive me back\nmy register!\u201d shouted the fiend. \u201cNo, you sha\u2019n\u2019t have it!\u201d replied the\nclerk. And again and again it began afresh: \u201cGive me back my\nregister!\u201d\u2014\u201cNo, you sha\u2019n\u2019t have it\u2019!\u201d And at last, finding himself out\nof breath, near the point of succumbing, the clerk, who had his plan,\nthrew himself into the cemetery, which was consecrated ground, and was\nthere able to deride the devil at his ease, waving the register which\nhe had purloined so as to save the souls of all the unhappy people who\nhad signed their names in it. On the evening when this story was told,\nBernadette, before surrendering herself to sleep, would mentally repeat\nher rosary, delighted with the thought that hell should have been\nbaffled, though she trembled at the idea that it would surely return to\nprowl around her, as soon as the lamp should have been put out.\n\nThroughout one winter, the long evenings were spent in the church. Abbe\nAder, the village priest, had authorised it, and many families came, in\norder to economise oil and candles. Moreover, they felt less cold when\ngathered together in this fashion. The Bible was read, and prayers were\nrepeated, whilst the children ended by falling asleep. Bernadette alone\nstruggled on to the finish, so pleased she was at being there, in that\nnarrow nave whose slender nervures were coloured blue and red. At the\nfarther end was the altar, also painted and gilded, with its twisted\ncolumns and its screens on which appeared the Virgin and Ste. Anne, and\nthe beheading of St. John the Baptist\u2014the whole of a gaudy and somewhat\nbarbaric splendour. And as sleepiness grew upon her, the child must\nhave often seen a mystical vision as it were of those crudely coloured\ndesigns rising before her\u2014have seen the blood flowing from St. John\u2019s\nsevered head, have seen the aureolas shining, the Virgin ever returning\nand gazing at her with her blue, living eyes, and looking as though she\nwere on the point of opening her vermilion lips in order to speak to\nher. For some months Bernadette spent her evenings in this wise, half\nasleep in front of that sumptuous, vaguely defined altar, in the\nincipiency of a divine dream which she carried away with her, and\nfinished in bed, slumbering peacefully under the watchful care of her\nguardian angel.\n\nAnd it was also in that old church, so humble yet so impregnated with\nardent faith, that Bernadette began to learn her catechism. She would\nsoon be fourteen now, and must think of her first communion. Her\nfoster-mother, who had the reputation of being avaricious, did not send\nher to school, but employed her in or about the house from morning till\nevening. M. Barbet, the schoolmaster, never saw her at his classes,\nthough one day, when he gave the catechism lesson, in the place of Abbe\nAder who was indisposed, he remarked her on account of her piety and\nmodesty. The village priest was very fond of Bernadette and often spoke\nof her to the schoolmaster, saying that he could never look at her\nwithout thinking of the children of La Salette, since they must have\nbeen good, candid, and pious as she was, for the Blessed Virgin to have\nappeared to them.* On another occasion whilst the two men were walking\none morning near the village, and saw Bernadette disappear with her\nlittle flock under some spreading trees in the distance, the Abbe\nrepeatedly turned round to look for her, and again remarked \u201cI cannot\naccount for it, but every time I meet that child it seems to me as if I\nsaw Melanie, the young shepherdess, little Maximin\u2019s companion.\u201d He was\ncertainly beset by this singular idea, which became, so to say, a\nprediction. Moreover, had he not one day after catechism, or one\nevening, when the villagers were gathered in the church, related that\nmarvellous story which was already twelve years old, that story of the\nLady in the dazzling robes who walked upon the grass without even\nmaking it bend, the Blessed Virgin who showed herself to Melanie and\nMaximin on the banks of a stream in the mountains, and confided to them\na great secret and announced the anger of her Son? Ever since that day\na source had sprung up from the tears which she had shed, a source\nwhich cured all ailments, whilst the secret, inscribed on parchment\nfastened with three seals, slumbered at Rome! And Bernadette, no doubt,\nwith her dreamy, silent air, had listened passionately to that\nwonderful tale and carried it off with her into the desert of foliage\nwhere she spent her days, so that she might live it over again as she\nwalked along behind her lambs with her rosary, slipping bead by bead\nbetween her slender fingers.\n\n* It was on September 19, 1846, that the Virgin is said to have\nappeared in the ravine of La Sezia, adjacent to the valley of La\nSalette, between Corps and Eutraigues, in the department of the Isere.\nThe visionaries were Melanie Mathieu, a girl of fourteen, and Maximin\nGiraud, a boy of twelve. The local clergy speedily endorsed the story\nof the miracle, and thousands of people still go every year in\npilgrimage to a church overlooking the valley, and bathe and drink at a\nso-called miraculous source. Two priests of Grenoble, however, Abbe\nDeleon and Abbe Cartellier, accused a Mlle. de Lamerliere of having\nconcocted the miracle, and when she took proceedings against them for\nlibel she lost her case.\u2014Trans.\n\nThus her childhood ran its course at Bartres. That which delighted one\nin this Bernadette, so poor-blooded, so slight of build, was her\necstatic eyes, beautiful visionary eyes, from which dreams soared aloft\nlike birds winging their flight in a pure limpid sky. Her mouth was\nlarge, with lips somewhat thick, expressive of kindliness; her\nsquare-shaped head had a straight brow, and was covered with thick\nblack hair, whilst her face would have seemed rather common but for its\ncharming expression of gentle obstinacy. Those who did not gaze into\nher eyes, however, gave her no thought. To them she was but an ordinary\nchild, a poor thing of the roads, a girl of reluctant growth, timidly\nhumble in her ways. Assuredly it was in her glance that Abbe Ader had\nwith agitation detected the stifling ailment which filled her puny,\ngirlish form with suffering\u2014that ailment born of the greeny solitude in\nwhich she had grown up, the gentleness of her bleating lambs, the\nAngelic Salutation which she had carried with her, hither and thither,\nunder the sky, repeating and repeating it to the point of\nhallucination, the prodigious stories, too, which she had heard folks\ntell at her foster-mother\u2019s, the long evenings spent before the living\naltar-screens in the church, and all the atmosphere of primitive faith\nwhich she had breathed in that far-away rural region, hemmed in by\nmountains.\n\nAt last, on one seventh of January, Bernadette had just reached her\nfourteenth birthday, when her parents, finding that she learnt nothing\nat Bartres, resolved to bring her back to Lourdes for good, in order\nthat she might diligently study her catechism, and in this wise\nseriously prepare herself for her first communion. And so it happened\nthat she had already been at Lourdes some fifteen or twenty days, when\non February 11, a Thursday, cold and somewhat cloudy\u2014\n\nBut Pierre could carry his narrative no further, for Sister Hyacinthe\nhad risen to her feet and was vigorously clapping her hands. \u201cMy\nchildren,\u201d she exclaimed, \u201cit is past nine o\u2019clock. Silence! silence!\u201d\n\nThe train had indeed just passed Lamothe, and was rolling with a dull\nrumble across a sea of darkness\u2014the endless plains of the Landes which\nthe night submerged. For ten minutes already not a sound ought to have\nbeen heard in the carriage, one and all ought to have been sleeping or\nsuffering uncomplainingly. However, a mutiny broke out.\n\n\u201cOh! Sister!\u201d exclaimed Marie, whose eyes were sparkling, \u201callow us\njust another short quarter of an hour! We have got to the most\ninteresting part.\u201d\n\nTen, twenty voices took up the cry: \u201cOh yes, Sister, please do let us\nhave another short quarter of an hour!\u201d\n\nThey all wished to hear the continuation, burning with as much\ncuriosity as though they had not known the story, so captivated were\nthey by the touches of compassionate human feeling which Pierre\nintroduced into his narrative. Their glances never left him, all their\nheads were stretched towards him, fantastically illumined by the\nflickering light of the lamps. And it was not only the sick who\ndisplayed this interest; the ten women occupying the compartment at the\nfar end of the carriage had also become impassioned, and, happy at not\nmissing a single word, turned their poor ugly faces now beautified by\nnaive faith.\n\n\u201cNo, I cannot!\u201d Sister Hyacinthe at first declared; \u201cthe rules are very\nstrict\u2014you must be silent.\u201d\n\nHowever, she weakened, she herself feeling so interested in the tale\nthat she could detect her heart beating under her stomacher. Then Marie\nagain repeated her request in an entreating tone; whilst her father, M.\nde Guersaint, who had listened like one hugely amused, declared that\nthey would all fall ill if the story were not continued. And thereupon,\nseeing Madame de Jonquiere smile with an indulgent air, Sister\nHyacinthe ended by consenting.\n\n\u201cWell, then,\u201d said she, \u201cI will allow you another short quarter of an\nhour; but only a short quarter of an hour, mind. That is understood, is\nit not? For I should otherwise be in fault.\u201d\n\nPierre had waited quietly without attempting to intervene. And he\nresumed his narrative in the same penetrating voice as before, a voice\nin which his own doubts were softened by pity for those who suffer and\nwho hope.\n\nThe scene of the story was now transferred to Lourdes, to the Rue des\nPetits Fosses, a narrow, tortuous, mournful street taking a downward\ncourse between humble houses and roughly plastered dead walls. The\nSoubirous family occupied a single room on the ground floor of one of\nthese sorry habitations, a room at the end of a dark passage, in which\nseven persons were huddled together, the father, the mother, and five\nchildren. You could scarcely see in the chamber; from the tiny, damp\ninner courtyard of the house there came but a greenish light. And in\nthat room they slept, all of a heap; and there also they ate, when they\nhad bread. For some time past, the father, a miller by trade, could\nonly with difficulty obtain work as a journeyman. And it was from that\ndark hole, that lowly wretchedness, that Bernadette, the elder girl,\nwith Marie, her sister, and Jeanne, a little friend of the\nneighbourhood, went out to pick up dead wood, on the cold February\nThursday already spoken of.\n\nThen the beautiful tale was unfolded at length; how the three girls\nfollowed the bank of the Gave from the other side of the castle, and\nhow they ended by finding themselves on the Ile du Chalet in front of\nthe rock of Massabielle, from which they were only separated by the\nnarrow stream diverted from the Gave, and used for working the mill of\nSavy. It was a wild spot, whither the common herdsman often brought the\npigs of the neighbourhood, which, when showers suddenly came on, would\ntake shelter under this rock of Massabielle, at whose base there was a\nkind of grotto of no great depth, blocked at the entrance by eglantine\nand brambles. The girls found dead wood very scarce that day, but at\nlast on seeing on the other side of the stream quite a gleaning of\nbranches deposited there by the torrent, Marie and Jeanne crossed over\nthrough the water; whilst Bernadette, more delicate than they were, a\ntrifle young-ladyfied, perhaps, remained on the bank lamenting, and not\ndaring to wet her feet. She was suffering slightly from humour in the\nhead, and her mother had expressly bidden her to wrap herself in her\n/capulet/,* a large white\n/capulet/ which contrasted vividly with her old black woollen dress.\n/When she\nfound that her companions would not help her, she resignedly made up\nher mind to take off her /sabots/, and pull down her stockings. It was\nthen about noon, the three strokes of the Angelus rang out from the\nparish church, rising into the broad calm winter sky, which was\nsomewhat veiled by fine fleecy clouds. And it was then that a great\nagitation arose within her, resounding in her ears with such a\ntempestuous roar that she fancied a hurricane had descended from the\nmountains, and was passing over her. But she looked at the trees and\nwas stupefied, for not a leaf was stirring. Then she thought that she\nhad been mistaken, and was about to pick up her /sabots/, when again\nthe great gust swept through her; but, this time, the disturbance in\nher ears reached her eyes, she no longer saw the trees, but was dazzled\nby a whiteness, a kind of bright light which seemed to her to settle\nitself against the rock, in a narrow, lofty slit above the Grotto, not\nunlike an ogival window of a cathedral. In her fright she fell upon her\nknees. What could it be, /mon Dieu/? Sometimes, during bad weather,\nwhen her asthma oppressed her more than usual, she spent very bad\nnights, incessantly dreaming dreams which were often painful, and whose\nstifling effect she retained on awaking, even when she had ceased to\nremember anything. Flames would surround her, the sun would flash\nbefore her face. Had she dreamt in that fashion during the previous\nnight? Was this the continuation of some forgotten dream? However,\nlittle by little a form became outlined, she believed that she could\ndistinguish a figure which the vivid light rendered intensely white. In\nher fear lest it should be the devil, for her mind was haunted by tales\nof witchcraft, she began to tell her beads. And when the light had\nslowly faded away, and she had crossed the canal and joined Marie and\nJeanne, she was surprised to find that neither of them had seen\nanything whilst they were picking up the wood in front of the Grotto.\nOn their way back to Lourdes the three girls talked together. So she,\nBernadette, had seen something then? What was it? At first, feeling\nuneasy, and somewhat ashamed, she would not answer; but at last she\nsaid that she had seen something white.\n\n* This is a kind of hood, more generally known among the Bearnese\npeasantry as a /sarot/. Whilst forming a coif it also completely covers\nthe back and shoulders.\u2014Trans.\n\nFrom this the rumours started and grew. The Soubirouses, on being made\nacquainted with the circumstance, evinced much displeasure at such\nchildish nonsense, and told their daughter that she was not to return\nto the rock of Massabielle. All the children of the neighbourhood,\nhowever, were already repeating the tale, and when Sunday came the\nparents had to give way, and allow Bernadette to betake herself to the\nGrotto with a bottle of holy water to ascertain if it were really the\ndevil whom one had to deal with. She then again beheld the light, the\nfigure became more clearly defined, and smiled upon her, evincing no\nfear whatever of the holy water. And, on the ensuing Thursday, she once\nmore returned to the spot accompanied by several persons, and then for\nthe first time the radiant lady assumed sufficient corporality to\nspeak, and say to her: \u201cDo me the kindness to come here for fifteen\ndays.\u201d\n\nThus, little by little, the lady had assumed a precise appearance. The\nsomething clad in white had become indeed a lady more beautiful than a\nqueen, of a kind such as is only seen in pictures. At first, in\npresence of the questions with which all the neighbours plied her from\nmorning till evening, Bernadette had hesitated, disturbed, perhaps, by\nscruples of conscience. But then, as though prompted by the very\ninterrogatories to which she was subjected, she seemed to perceive the\nfigure which she had beheld, more plainly, so that it definitely\nassumed life, with lines and hues from which the child, in her\nafter-descriptions, never departed. The lady\u2019s eyes were blue and very\nmild, her mouth was rosy and smiling, the oval of her face expressed\nboth the grace of youth and of maternity. Below the veil covering her\nhead and falling to her heels, only a glimpse was caught of her\nadmirable fair hair, which was slightly curled. Her robe, which was of\ndazzling whiteness, must have been of some material unknown on earth,\nsome material woven of the sun\u2019s rays. Her sash, of the same hue as the\nheavens, was fastened loosely about her, its long ends streaming\ndownwards, with the light airiness of morning. Her chaplet, wound about\nher right arm, had beads of a milky whiteness, whilst the links and the\ncross were of gold. And on her bare feet, on her adorable feet of\nvirgin snow, flowered two golden roses, the mystic roses of this divine\nmother\u2019s immaculate flesh.\n\nWhere was it that Bernadette had seen this Blessed Virgin, of such\ntraditionally simple composition, unadorned by a single jewel, having\nbut the primitive grace imagined by the painters of a people in its\nchildhood? In which illustrated book belonging to her foster-mother\u2019s\nbrother, the good priest, who read such attractive stories, had she\nbeheld this Virgin? Or in what picture, or what statuette, or what\nstained-glass window of the painted and gilded church where she had\nspent so many evenings whilst growing up? And whence, above all things,\nhad come those golden roses poised on the Virgin\u2019s feet, that piously\nimagined florescence of woman\u2019s flesh\u2014from what romance of chivalry,\nfrom what story told after catechism by the Abbe Ader, from what\nunconscious dream indulged in under the shady foliage of Bartres,\nwhilst ever and ever repeating that haunting Angelic Salutation?\n\nPierre\u2019s voice had acquired a yet more feeling tone, for if he did not\nsay all these things to the simple-minded folks who were listening to\nhim, still the human explanation of all these prodigies which the\nfeeling of doubt in the depths of his being strove to supply, imparted\nto his narrative a quiver of sympathetic, fraternal love. He loved\nBernadette the better for the great charm of her hallucination\u2014that\nlady of such gracious access, such perfect amiability, such politeness\nin appearing and disappearing so appropriately. At first the great\nlight would show itself, then the vision took form, came and went,\nleant forward, moved about, floating imperceptibly, with ethereal\nlightness; and when it vanished the glow lingered for yet another\nmoment, and then disappeared like a star fading away. No lady in this\nworld could have such a white and rosy face, with a beauty so akin to\nthat of the Virgins on the picture-cards given to children at their\nfirst communions. And it was strange that the eglantine of the Grotto\ndid not even hurt her adorable bare feet blooming with golden flowers.\n\nPierre, however, at once proceeded to recount the other apparitions.\nThe fourth and fifth occurred on the Friday and the Saturday; but the\nLady, who shone so brightly and who had not yet told her name,\ncontented herself on these occasions with smiling and saluting without\npronouncing a word. On the Sunday, however, she wept, and said to\nBernadette, \u201cPray for sinners.\u201d On the Monday, to the child\u2019s great\ngrief, she did not appear, wishing, no doubt, to try her. But on the\nTuesday she confided to her a secret which concerned her (the girl)\nalone, a secret which she was never to divulge*; and then she at last\ntold her what mission it was that she entrusted to her: \u201cGo and tell\nthe priests,\u201d she said, \u201cthat they must build a chapel here.\u201d On the\nWednesday she frequently murmured the word \u201cPenitence! penitence!\npenitence!\u201d which the child repeated, afterwards kissing the earth. On\nthe Thursday the Lady said to her: \u201cGo, and drink, and wash at the\nspring, and eat of the grass that is beside it,\u201d words which the\nVisionary ended by understanding, when in the depths of the Grotto a\nsource suddenly sprang up beneath her fingers. And this was the miracle\nof the enchanted fountain.\n\n* In a like way, it will be remembered, the apparition at La Salette\nconfided a secret to Melanie and Maximin (see /ante/, note). There can\nbe little doubt that Bernadette was acquainted with the story of the\nmiracle of La Salette.\u2014Trans.\n\nThen the second week ran its course. The lady did not appear on the\nFriday, but was punctual on the five following days, repeating her\ncommands and gazing with a smile at the humble girl whom she had chosen\nto do her bidding, and who, on her side, duly told her beads at each\napparition, kissed the earth, and repaired on her knees to the source,\nthere to drink and wash. At last, on Thursday, March 4, the last day of\nthese mystical assignations, the Lady requested more pressingly than\nbefore that a chapel might be erected in order that the nations might\ncome thither in procession from all parts of the earth. So far,\nhowever, in reply to all Bernadette\u2019s appeals, she had refused to say\nwho she was; and it was only three weeks later, on Thursday, March 25,\nthat, joining her hands together, and raising her eyes to Heaven, she\nsaid: \u201cI am the Immaculate Conception.\u201d On two other occasions, at\nsomewhat long intervals, April 7 and July l6, she again appeared: the\nfirst time to perform the miracle of the lighted taper, that taper\nabove which the child, plunged in ecstasy, for a long time\nunconsciously left her hand, without burning it; and the second time to\nbid Bernadette farewell, to favour her with a last smile, and a last\ninclination of the head full of charming politeness. This made eighteen\napparitions all told; and never again did the Lady show herself.\n\nWhilst Pierre went on with his beautiful, marvellous story, so soothing\nto the wretched, he evoked for himself a vision of that pitiable,\nlovable Bernadette, whose sufferings had flowered so wonderfully. As a\ndoctor had roughly expressed it, this girl of fourteen, at a critical\nperiod of her life, already ravaged, too, by asthma, was, after all,\nsimply an exceptional victim of hysteria, afflicted with a degenerate\nheredity and lapsing into infancy. If there were no violent crises in\nher case, if there were no stiffening of the muscles during her\nattacks, if she retained a precise recollection of her dreams, the\nreason was that her case was peculiar to herself, and she added, so to\nsay, a new and very curious form to all the forms of hysteria known at\nthe time. Miracles only begin when things cannot be explained; and\nscience, so far, knows and can explain so little, so infinitely do the\nphenomena of disease vary according to the nature of the patient! But\nhow many shepherdesses there had been before Bernadette who had seen\nthe Virgin in a similar way, amidst all the same childish nonsense! Was\nit not always the same story, the Lady clad in light, the secret\nconfided, the spring bursting forth, the mission which had to be\nfulfilled, the miracles whose enchantments would convert the masses?\nAnd was not the personal appearance of the Virgin always in accordance\nwith a poor child\u2019s dreams\u2014akin to some coloured figure in a missal, an\nideal compounded of traditional beauty, gentleness, and politeness. And\nthe same dreams showed themselves in the naivete of the means which\nwere to be employed and of the object which was to be attained\u2014the\ndeliverance of nations, the building of churches, the processional\npilgrimages of the faithful! Then, too, all the words which fell from\nHeaven resembled one another, calls for penitence, promises of help;\nand in this respect, in Bernadette\u2019s case the only new feature was that\nmost extraordinary declaration: \u201cI am the Immaculate Conception,\u201d which\nburst forth\u2014very usefully\u2014as the recognition by the Blessed Virgin\nherself of the dogma promulgated by the Court of Rome but three years\npreviously! It was not the Immaculate Virgin who appeared: no, it was\nthe Immaculate Conception, the abstraction itself, the thing, the\ndogma, so that one might well ask oneself if really the Virgin had\nspoken in such a fashion. As for the other words, it was possible that\nBernadette had heard them somewhere and stored them up in some\nunconscious nook of her memory. But these\u2014\u201cI am the Immaculate\nConception\u201d\u2014whence had they come as though expressly to fortify a\ndogma\u2014still bitterly discussed\u2014with such prodigious support as the\ndirect testimony of the Mother conceived without sin? At this thought,\nPierre, who was convinced of Bernadette\u2019s absolute good faith, who\nrefused to believe that she had been the instrument of a fraud, began\nto waver, deeply agitated, feeling his belief in truth totter within\nhim.\n\nThe apparitions, however, had caused intense emotion at Lourdes; crowds\nflocked to the spot, miracles began, and those inevitable persecutions\nbroke out which ensure the triumph of new religions. Abbe Peyramale,\nthe parish priest of Lourdes, an extremely honest man, with an upright,\nvigorous mind, was able in all truth to declare that he did not know\nthis child, that she had not yet been seen at catechism. Where was the\npressure, then, where the lesson learnt by heart? There was nothing but\nthose years of childhood spent at Bartres, the first teachings of Abbe\nAder, conversations possibly, religious ceremonies in honour of the\nrecently proclaimed dogma, or simply the gift of one of those\ncommemorative medals which had been scattered in profusion. Never did\nAbbe Ader reappear upon the scene, he who had predicted the mission of\nthe future Visionary. He was destined to remain apart from Bernadette\nand her future career, he who, the first, had seen her little soul\nblossom in his pious hands. And yet all the unknown forces that had\nsprung from that sequestered village, from that nook of greenery where\nsuperstition and poverty of intelligence prevailed, were still making\nthemselves felt, disturbing the brains of men, disseminating the\ncontagion of the mysterious. It was remembered that a shepherd of\nArgeles, speaking of the rock of Massabielle, had prophesied that great\nthings would take place there. Other children, moreover, now fell in\necstasy with their eyes dilated and their limbs quivering with\nconvulsions, but these only saw the devil. A whirlwind of madness\nseemed to be passing over the region. An old lady of Lourdes declared\nthat Bernadette was simply a witch and that she had herself seen the\ntoad\u2019s foot in her eye. But for the others, for the thousands of\npilgrims who hastened to the spot, she was a saint, and they kissed her\ngarments. Sobs burst forth and frenzy seemed to seize upon the souls of\nthe beholders, when she fell upon her knees before the Grotto, a\nlighted taper in her right hand, whilst with the left she told the\nbeads of her rosary. She became very pale and quite beautiful,\ntransfigured, so to say. Her features gently ascended in her face,\nlengthened into an expression of extraordinary beatitude, whilst her\neyes filled with light, and her lips parted as though she were speaking\nwords which could not be heard. And it was quite certain that she had\nno will of her own left her, penetrated as she was by a dream,\npossessed by it to such a point in the confined, exclusive sphere in\nwhich she lived, that she continued dreaming it even when awake, and\nthus accepted it as the only indisputable reality, prepared to testify\nto it even at the cost of her blood, repeating it over and over again,\nobstinately, stubbornly clinging to it, and never varying in the\ndetails she gave. She did not lie, for she did not know, could not and\nwould not desire anything apart from it.\n\nForgetful of the flight of time, Pierre was now sketching a charming\npicture of old Lourdes, that pious little town, slumbering at the foot\nof the Pyrenees. The castle, perched on a rock at the point of\nintersection of the seven valleys of Lavedan, had formerly been the key\nof the mountain districts. But, in Bernadette\u2019s time, it had become a\nmere dismantled, ruined pile, at the entrance of a road leading\nnowhere. Modern life found its march stayed by a formidable rampart of\nlofty, snow-capped peaks, and only the trans-Pyrenean railway\u2014had it\nbeen constructed\u2014could have established an active circulation of social\nlife in that sequestered nook where human existence stagnated like dead\nwater. Forgotten, therefore, Lourdes remained slumbering, happy and\nsluggish amidst its old-time peacefulness, with its narrow,\npebble-paved streets and its bleak houses with dressings of marble. The\nold roofs were still all massed on the eastern side of the castle; the\nRue de la Grotte, then called the Rue du Bois, was but a deserted and\noften impassable road; no houses stretched down to the Gave as now, and\nthe scum-laden waters rolled through a perfect solitude of pollard\nwillows and tall grass. On week-days but few people passed across the\nPlace du Marcadal, such as housewives hastening on errands, and petty\ncits airing their leisure hours; and you had to wait till Sundays or\nfair days to find the inhabitants rigged out in their best clothes and\nassembled on the Champ Commun, in company with the crowd of graziers\nwho had come down from the distant tablelands with their cattle. During\nthe season when people resort to the Pyrenean-waters, the passage of\nthe visitors to Cauterets and Bagneres also brought some animation;\n/diligences/ passed through the town twice a day, but they came from\nPau by a wretched road, and had to ford the Lapaca, which often\noverflowed its banks. Then climbing the steep ascent of the Rue Basse,\nthey skirted the terrace of the church, which was shaded by large elms.\nAnd what soft peacefulness prevailed in and around that old\nsemi-Spanish church, full of ancient carvings, columns, screens, and\nstatues, peopled with visionary patches of gilding and painted flesh,\nwhich time had mellowed and which you faintly discerned as by the light\nof mystical lamps! The whole population came there to worship, to fill\ntheir eyes with the dream of the mysterious. There were no unbelievers,\nthe inhabitants of Lourdes were a people of primitive faith; each\ncorporation marched behind the banner of its saint, brotherhoods of all\nkinds united the entire town, on festival mornings, in one large\nChristian family. And, as with some exquisite flower that has grown in\nthe soil of its choice, great purity of life reigned there. There was\nnot even a resort of debauchery for young men to wreck their lives, and\nthe girls, one and all, grew up with the perfume and beauty of\ninnocence, under the eyes of the Blessed Virgin, Tower of Ivory and\nSeat of Wisdom.\n\nAnd how well one could understand that Bernadette, born in that holy\nsoil, should flower in it, like one of nature\u2019s roses budding in the\nwayside bushes! She was indeed the very florescence of that region of\nancient belief and rectitude; she would certainly not have sprouted\nelsewhere; she could only appear and develop there, amidst that belated\nrace, amidst the slumberous peacefulness of a childlike people, under\nthe moral discipline of religion. And what intense love at once burst\nforth all around her! What blind confidence was displayed in her\nmission, what immense consolation and hope came to human hearts on the\nvery morrow of the first miracles! A long cry of relief had greeted the\ncure of old Bourriette recovering his sight, and of little Justin\nBouhohorts coming to life again in the icy water of the spring. At\nlast, then, the Blessed Virgin was intervening in favour of those who\ndespaired, forcing that unkind mother, Nature, to be just and\ncharitable. This was divine omnipotence returning to reign on earth,\nsweeping the laws of the world aside in order to work the happiness of\nthe suffering and the poor. The miracles multiplied, blazed forth, from\nday to day more and more extraordinary, like unimpeachable proof of\nBernadette\u2019s veracity. And she was, indeed, the rose of the divine\ngarden, whose deeds shed perfume, the rose who beholds all the other\nflowers of grace and salvation spring into being around her.\n\nPierre had reached this point of his story, and was again enumerating\nthe miracles, on the point of recounting the prodigious triumph of the\nGrotto, when Sister Hyacinthe, awaking with a start from the ecstasy\ninto which the narrative had plunged her, hastily rose to her feet.\n\u201cReally, really,\u201d said she, \u201cthere is no sense in it. It will soon be\neleven o\u2019clock.\u201d\n\nThis was true. They had left Morceux behind them, and would now soon be\nat Mont de Marsan. So Sister Hyacinthe clapped her hands once more, and\nadded: \u201cSilence, my children, silence!\u201d\n\nThis time they did not dare to rebel, for they felt she was in the\nright; they were unreasonable. But how greatly they regretted not\nhearing the continuation, how vexed they were that the story should\ncease when only half told! The ten women in the farther compartment\neven let a murmur of disappointment escape them; whilst the sick, their\nfaces still outstretched, their dilated eyes gazing upon the light of\nhope, seemed to be yet listening. Those miracles which ever and ever\nreturned to their minds and filled them with unlimited, haunting,\nsupernatural joy.\n\n\u201cAnd don\u2019t let me hear anyone breathe, even,\u201d added Sister Hyacinthe\ngaily, \u201cor otherwise I shall impose penance on you.\u201d\n\nMadame de Jonquiere laughed good-naturedly. \u201cYou must obey, my\nchildren,\u201d she said; \u201cbe good and get to sleep, so that you may have\nstrength to pray at the Grotto to-morrow with all your hearts.\u201d\n\nThen silence fell, nobody spoke any further; and the only sounds were\nthose of the rumbling of the wheels and the jolting of the train as it\nwas carried along at full speed through the black night.\n\nPierre, however, was unable to sleep. Beside him, M. de Guersaint was\nalready snoring lightly, looking very happy despite the hardness of his\nseat. For a time the young priest saw Marie\u2019s eyes wide open, still\nfull of all the radiance of the marvels that he had related. For a long\nwhile she kept them ardently fixed upon his own, but at last closed\nthem, and then he knew not whether she was sleeping, or with eyelids\nsimply closed was living the everlasting miracle over again. Some of\nthe sufferers were dreaming aloud, giving vent to bursts of laughter\nwhich unconscious moans interrupted. Perhaps they beheld the Archangels\nopening their flesh to wrest their diseases from them. Others, restless\nwith insomnia, turned over and over, stifling their sobs and gazing\nfixedly into the darkness. And, with a shudder born of all the mystery\nhe had evoked, Pierre, distracted, no longer master of himself in that\ndelirious sphere of fraternal suffering, ended by hating his very mind,\nand, drawn into close communion with all those humble folks, sought to\nbelieve like them. What could be the use of that physiological inquiry\ninto Bernadette\u2019s case, so full of gaps and intricacies? Why should he\nnot accept her as a messenger from the spheres beyond, as one of the\nelect chosen for the divine mystery? Doctors were but ignorant men with\nrough and brutal hands, and it would be so delightful to fall asleep in\nchildlike faith, in the enchanted gardens of the impossible. And for a\nmoment indeed he surrendered himself, experiencing a delightful feeling\nof comfort, no longer seeking to explain anything, but accepting the\nVisionary with her sumptuous /cortege/ of miracles, and relying on God\nto think and determine for him. Then he looked out through the window,\nwhich they did not dare to open on account of the consumptive patients,\nand beheld the immeasurable night which enwrapped the country across\nwhich the train was fleeing. The storm must have burst forth there; the\nsky was now of an admirable nocturnal purity, as though cleansed by the\nmasses of fallen water. Large stars shone out in the dark velvet, alone\nillumining, with their mysterious gleams, the silent, refreshed fields,\nwhich incessantly displayed only the black solitude of slumber. And\nacross the Landes, through the valleys, between the hills, that\ncarriage of wretchedness and suffering rolled on and on, over-heated,\npestilential, rueful, and wailing, amidst the serenity of the august\nnight, so lovely and so mild.\n\nThey had passed Riscle at one in the morning. Between the jolting, the\npainful, the hallucinatory silence still continued. At two o\u2019clock, as\nthey reached Vic-de-Bigorre, low moans were heard; the bad state of the\nline, with the unbearable spreading tendency of the train\u2019s motion, was\nsorely shaking the patients. It was only at Tarbes, at half-past two,\nthat silence was at length broken, and that morning prayers were said,\nthough black night still reigned around them. There came first the\n\u201cPater,\u201d and then the \u201cAve,\u201d the \u201cCredo,\u201d and the supplication to God\nto grant them the happiness of a glorious day.\n\n\u201cO God, vouchsafe me sufficient strength that I may avoid all that is\nevil, do all that is good, and suffer uncomplainingly every pain.\u201d\n\nAnd now there was to be no further stoppage until they reached Lourdes.\nBarely three more quarters of an hour, and Lourdes, with all its vast\nhopes, would blaze forth in the midst of that night, so long and cruel.\nTheir painful awakening was enfevered by the thought; a final agitation\narose amidst the morning discomfort, as the abominable sufferings began\nafresh.\n\nSister Hyacinthe, however, was especially anxious about the strange\nman, whose sweat-covered face she had been continually wiping. He had\nso far managed to keep alive, she watching him without a pause, never\nhaving once closed her eyes, but unremittingly listening to his faint\nbreathing with the stubborn desire to take him to the holy Grotto\nbefore he died.\n\nAll at once, however, she felt frightened; and addressing Madame de\nJonquiere, she hastily exclaimed, \u201cPray pass me the vinegar bottle at\nonce\u2014I can no longer hear him breathe.\u201d\n\nFor an instant, indeed, the man\u2019s faint breathing had ceased. His eyes\nwere still closed, his lips parted; he could not have been paler, he\nhad an ashen hue, and was cold. And the carriage was rolling along with\nits ceaseless rattle of coupling-irons; the speed of the train seemed\neven to have increased.\n\n\u201cI will rub his temples,\u201d resumed Sister Hyacinthe. \u201cHelp me, do!\u201d\n\nBut, at a more violent jolt of the train, the man suddenly fell from\nthe seat, face downward.\n\n\u201cAh! /mon Dieu/, help me, pick him up!\u201d\n\nThey picked him up, and found him dead. And they had to seat him in his\ncorner again, with his back resting against the woodwork. He remained\nthere erect, his torso stiffened, and his head wagging slightly at each\nsuccessive jolt. Thus the train continued carrying him along, with the\nsame thundering noise of wheels, while the engine, well pleased, no\ndoubt, to be reaching its destination, began whistling shrilly, giving\nvent to quite a flourish of delirious joy as it sped through the calm\nnight.\n\nAnd then came the last and seemingly endless half-hour of the journey,\nin company with that wretched corpse. Two big tears had rolled down\nSister Hyacinthe\u2019s cheeks, and with her hands joined she had begun to\npray. The whole carriage shuddered with terror at sight of that\nterrible companion who was being taken, too late alas! to the Blessed\nVirgin.\n\nHope, however, proved stronger than sorrow or pain, and although all\nthe sufferings there assembled awoke and grew again, irritated by\noverwhelming weariness, a song of joy nevertheless proclaimed the\nsufferers\u2019 triumphal entry into the Land of Miracles. Amidst the tears\nwhich their pains drew from them, the exasperated and howling sick\nbegan to chant the \u201cAve maris Stella\u201d with a growing clamour in which\nlamentation finally turned into cries of hope.\n\nMarie had again taken Pierre\u2019s hand between her little feverish\nfingers. \u201cOh, /mon Dieu!/\u201d said she, \u201cto think that poor man is dead,\nand I feared so much that it was I who would die before arriving. And\nwe are there\u2014there at last!\u201d\n\nThe priest was trembling with intense emotion. \u201cIt means that you are\nto be cured, Marie,\u201d he replied, \u201cand that I myself shall be cured if\nyou pray for me\u2014\u201d\n\nThe engine was now whistling in a yet louder key in the depths of the\nbluish darkness. They were nearing their destination. The lights of\nLourdes already shone out on the horizon. Then the whole train again\nsang a canticle\u2014the rhymed story of Bernadette, that endless ballad of\nsix times ten couplets, in which the Angelic Salutation ever returns as\na refrain, all besetting and distracting, opening to the human mind the\nportals of the heaven of ecstasy:\u2014\n\n  \u201cIt was the hour for ev\u2019ning pray\u2019r;\n   Soft bells chimed on the chilly air.\n                    Ave, ave, ave Maria!\n\n  \u201cThe maid stood on the torrent\u2019s bank,\n   A breeze arose, then swiftly sank.\n                    Ave, ave, ave Maria!\n\n  \u201cAnd she beheld, e\u2019en as it fell,\n   The Virgin on Massabielle.\n                    Ave, ave, ave Maria!\n\n  \u201cAll white appeared the Lady chaste,\n   A zone of Heaven round her waist.\n                    Ave, ave, ave Maria!\n\n  \u201cTwo golden roses, pure and sweet,\n   Bloomed brightly on her naked feet.\n                    Ave, ave, ave Maria!\n\n  \u201cUpon her arm, so white and round,\n   Her chaplet\u2019s milky pearls were wound.\n                    Ave, ave, ave Maria!\n\n  \u201cThe maiden prayed till, from her eyes,\n   The vision sped to Paradise.\n                    Ave, ave, ave Maria!\u201d","title":"The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Volume 1","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":43835}