THE THREE CITIES

 LOURDES

 BY

 EMILE ZOLA

 Volume 1. 

 TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY

 PREFACE

BEFORE perusing this work, it is as well that the reader shouldunderstand M. Zola's aim in writing it, and his views--as distinct fromthose of his characters--upon Lourdes, its Grotto, and its cures. A shorttime before the book appeared M. Zola was interviewed upon the subject byhis friend and biographer, Mr. Robert H. Sherard, to whom he spoke asfollows:

"'Lourdes' came to be written by mere accident. In 1891 I happened to betravelling for my pleasure, with my wife, in the Basque country and bythe Pyrenees, and being in the neighbourhood of Lourdes, included it inmy tour. I spent fifteen days there, and was greatly struck by what Isaw, and it then occurred to me that there was material here for just thesort of novel that I like to write--a novel in which great masses of mencan be shown in motion--/un grand mouvement de foule/--a novel thesubject of which stirred up my philosophical ideas. 

"It was too late then to study the question, for I had visited Lourdeslate in September, and so had missed seeing the best pilgrimage, whichtakes place in August, under the direction of the Peres de laMisericorde, of the Rue de l'Assomption in Paris--the NationalPilgrimage, as it is called. These Fathers are very active, enterprisingmen, and have made a great success of this annual national pilgrimage. Under their direction thirty thousand pilgrims are transported toLourdes, including over a thousand sick persons. 

"So in the following year I went in August, and saw a nationalpilgrimage, and followed it during the three days which it lasts, inaddition to the two days given to travelling. After its departure, Istayed on ten or twelve days, working up the subject in every detail. Mybook is the story of such a national pilgrimage, and is, accordingly, thestory of five days. It is divided into five parts, each of which parts islimited to one day. 

"There are from ninety to one hundred characters in the story: sickpersons, pilgrims, priests, nuns, hospitallers, nurses, and peasants; andthe book shows Lourdes under every aspect. There are the piscinas, theprocessions, the Grotto, the churches at night, the people in thestreets. It is, in one word, Lourdes in its entirety. In this canvas isworked out a very delicate central intrigue, as in 'Dr. Pascal, ' andaround this are many little stories or subsidiary plots. There is thestory of the sick person who gets well, of the sick person who is notcured, and so on. The philosophical idea which pervades the whole book isthe idea of human suffering, the exhibition of the desperate anddespairing sufferers who, abandoned by science and by man, addressthemselves to a higher Power in the hope of relief; as where parents havea dearly loved daughter dying of consumption, who has been given up, andfor whom nothing remains but death. A sudden hope, however, breaks inupon them: 'supposing that after all there should be a Power greater thanthat of man, higher than that of science. ' They will haste to try thislast chance of safety. It is the instinctive hankering after the liewhich creates human credulity. 

"I will admit that I came across some instances of real cure. Many casesof nervous disorders have undoubtedly been cured, and there have alsobeen other cures which may, perhaps be attributed to errors of diagnosison the part of doctors who attended the patients so cured. Often apatient is described by his doctor as suffering from consumption. He goesto Lourdes, and is cured. However, the probability is that the doctormade a mistake. In my own case I was at one time suffering from a violentpain in my chest, which presented all the symptoms of /angina pectoris/, a mortal malady. It was nothing of the sort. Indigestion, doubtless, and, as such, curable. Remember that most of the sick persons who go toLourdes come from the country, and that the country doctors are notusually men of either great skill or great experience. But all doctorsmistake symptoms. Put three doctors together to discuss a case, and innine cases out of ten they will disagree in their diagnosis. Look at thequantities of tumours, swellings, and sores, which cannot be properlyclassified. These cures are based on the ignorance of the medicalprofession. The sick pretend, believe, that they suffer from such andsuch a desperate malady, whereas it is from some other malady that theyare suffering. And so the legend forms itself. And, of course, there mustbe cures out of so large a number of cases. Nature often cures withoutmedical aid. Certainly, many of the workings of Nature are wonderful, butthey are not supernatural. The Lourdes miracles can neither be proved nordenied. The miracle is based on human ignorance. And so the doctor wholives at Lourdes, and who is commissioned to register the cures and totabulate the miracles, has a very careless time of it. A person comes, and gets cured. He has but to get three doctors together to examine thecase. They will disagree as to what was the disease from which thepatient suffered, and the only explanation left which will be acceptableto the public, with its hankering after the lie, is that a miracle hasbeen vouchsafed. 

"I interviewed a number of people at Lourdes, and could not find one whowould declare that he had witnessed a miracle. All the cases which Idescribe in my book are real cases, in which I have only changed thenames of the persons concerned. In none of these instances was I able todiscover any real proof for or against the miraculous nature of the cure. Thus, in the case of Clementine Trouve, who figures in my story asSophie--the patient who, after suffering for a long time from a horridopen sore on her foot, was suddenly cured, according to current report, by bathing her foot in the piscina, where the bandages fell off, and herfoot was entirely restored to a healthy condition--I investigated thatcase thoroughly. I was told that there were three or four ladies livingin Lourdes who could guarantee the facts as stated by little Clementine. I looked up those ladies. The first said No, she could not vouch foranything. She had seen nothing. I had better consult somebody else. Thenext answered in the same way, and nowhere was I able to find anycorroboration of the girl's story. Yet the little girl did not look likea liar, and I believe that she was fully convinced of the miraculousnature of her cure. It is the facts themselves which lie. 

"Lourdes, the Grotto, the cures, the miracles, are, indeed, the creationof that need of the Lie, that necessity for credulity, which is acharacteristic of human nature. At first, when little Bernadette camewith her strange story of what she had witnessed, everybody was againsther. The Prefect of the Department, the Bishop, the clergy, objected toher story. But Lourdes grew up in spite of all opposition, just as theChristian religion did, because suffering humanity in its despair mustcling to something, must have some hope; and, on the other hand, becausehumanity thirsts after illusions. In a word, it is the story of thefoundation of all religions. "

To the foregoing account of "Lourdes" as supplied by its author, it maybe added that the present translation, first made from early proofs ofthe French original whilst the latter was being completed, has for thepurposes of this new American edition been carefully and extensivelyrevised by Mr. E. A. Vizetelly, --M. Zola's representative for allEnglish-speaking countries. "Lourdes" forms the first volume of the"Trilogy of the Three Cities, " the second being "Rome, " and the third"Paris. "

 LOURDES

 THE FIRST DAY

I

PILGRIMS AND PATIENTS

THE pilgrims and patients, closely packed on the hard seats of athird-class carriage, were just finishing the "Ave maris Stella, " whichthey had begun to chant on leaving the terminus of the Orleans line, whenMarie, slightly raised on her couch of misery and restless with feverishimpatience, caught sight of the Paris fortifications through the windowof the moving train. 

"Ah, the fortifications!" she exclaimed, in a tone which was joyousdespite her suffering. "Here we are, out of Paris; we are off at last!"

Her delight drew a smile from her father, M. De Guersaint, who sat infront of her, whilst Abbe Pierre Froment, who was looking at her withfraternal affection, was so carried away by his compassionate anxiety asto say aloud: "And now we are in for it till to-morrow morning. We shallonly reach Lourdes at three-forty. We have more than two-and-twentyhours' journey before us. "

It was half-past five, the sun had risen, radiant in the pure sky of adelightful morning. It was a Friday, the 19th of August. On the horizon, however, some small, heavy clouds already presaged a terrible day ofstormy heat. And the oblique sunrays were enfilading the compartments ofthe railway carriage, filling them with dancing, golden dust. 

"Yes, two-and-twenty hours, " murmured Marie, relapsing into a state ofanguish. "/Mon Dieu/! what a long time we must still wait!"

Then her father helped her to lie down again in the narrow box, a kind ofwooden gutter, in which she had been living for seven years past. Makingan exception in her favour, the railway officials had consented to takeas luggage the two pairs of wheels which could be removed from the box, or fitted to it whenever it became necessary to transport her from placeto place. Packed between the sides of this movable coffin, she occupiedthe room of three passengers on the carriage seat; and for a moment shelay there with eyes closed. Although she was three-and-twenty; her ashen, emaciated face was still delicately infantile, charming despiteeverything, in the midst of her marvellous fair hair, the hair of aqueen, which illness had respected. Clad with the utmost simplicity in agown of thin woollen stuff, she wore, hanging from her neck, the cardbearing her name and number, which entitled her to /hospitalisation/, orfree treatment. She herself had insisted on making the journey in thishumble fashion, not wishing to be a source of expense to her relatives, who little by little had fallen into very straitened circumstances. Andthus it was that she found herself in a third-class carriage of the"white train, " the train which carried the greatest sufferers, the mostwoeful of the fourteen trains going to Lourdes that day, the one inwhich, in addition to five hundred healthy pilgrims, nearly three hundredunfortunate wretches, weak to the point of exhaustion, racked bysuffering, were heaped together, and borne at express speed from one tothe other end of France. 

Sorry that he had saddened her, Pierre continued to gaze at her with theair of a compassionate elder brother. He had just completed his thirtiethyear, and was pale and slight, with a broad forehead. After busyinghimself with all the arrangements for the journey, he had been desirousof accompanying her, and, having obtained admission among theHospitallers of Our Lady of Salvation as an auxiliary member, wore on hiscassock the red, orange-tipped cross of a bearer. M. De Guersaint on hisside had simply pinned the little scarlet cross of the pilgrimage on hisgrey cloth jacket. The idea of travelling appeared to delight him;although he was over fifty he still looked young, and, with his eyes everwandering over the landscape, he seemed unable to keep his head still--abird-like head it was, with an expression of good nature andabsent-mindedness. 

However, in spite of the violent shaking of the train, which constantlydrew sighs from Marie, Sister Hyacinthe had risen to her feet in theadjoining compartment. She noticed that the sun's rays were streaming inthe girl's face. 

"Pull down the blind, Monsieur l'Abbe, " she said to Pierre. "Come, come, we must install ourselves properly, and set our little household inorder. "

Clad in the black robe of a Sister of the Assumption, enlivened by awhite coif, a white wimple, and a large white apron, Sister Hyacinthesmiled, the picture of courageous activity. Her youth bloomed upon hersmall, fresh lips, and in the depths of her beautiful blue eyes, whoseexpression was ever gentle. She was not pretty, perhaps, still she wascharming, slender, and tall, the bib of her apron covering her flat chestlike that of a young man; one of good heart, displaying a snowycomplexion, and overflowing with health, gaiety, and innocence. 

"But this sun is already roasting us, " said she; "pray pull down yourblind as well, madame. "

Seated in the corner, near the Sister, was Madame de Jonquiere, who hadkept her little bag on her lap. She slowly pulled down the blind. Dark, and well built, she was still nice-looking, although she had a daughter, Raymonde, who was four-and-twenty, and whom for motives of propriety shehad placed in the charge of two lady-hospitallers, Madame Desagneaux andMadame Volmar, in a first-class carriage. For her part, directress as shewas of a ward of the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours at Lourdes, she didnot quit her patients; and outside, swinging against the door of hercompartment, was the regulation placard bearing under her own name thoseof the two Sisters of the Assumption who accompanied her. The widow of aruined man, she lived with her daughter on the scanty income of four orfive thousand francs a year, at the rear of a courtyard in the RueVanneau. But her charity was inexhaustible, and she gave all her time tothe work of the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation, an institutionwhose red cross she wore on her gown of carmelite poplin, and whose aimsshe furthered with the most active zeal. Of a somewhat proud disposition, fond of being flattered and loved, she took great delight in this annualjourney, from which both her heart and her passion derived contentment. 

"You are right, Sister, " she said, "we will organise matters. I reallydon't know why I am encumbering myself with this bag. "

And thereupon she placed it under the seat, near her. 

"Wait a moment, " resumed Sister Hyacinthe; "you have the water-canbetween your legs--it is in your way. "

"No, no, it isn't, I assure you. Let it be. It must always be somewhere. "

Then they both set their house in order as they expressed it, so that fora day and a night they might live with their patients as comfortably aspossible. The worry was that they had not been able to take Marie intotheir compartment, as she wished to have Pierre and her father near her;however neighbourly intercourse was easy enough over the low partition. Moreover the whole carriage, with its five compartments of ten seatseach, formed but one moving chamber, a common room as it were which theeye took in at a glance from end to end. Between its wooden walls, bareand yellow, under its white-painted panelled roof, it showed like ahospital ward, with all the disorder and promiscuous jumbling together ofan improvised ambulance. Basins, brooms, and sponges lay about, half-hidden by the seats. Then, as the train only carried such luggage asthe pilgrims could take with them, there were valises, deal boxes, bonnetboxes, and bags, a wretched pile of poor worn-out things mended with bitsof string, heaped up a little bit everywhere; and overhead the litterbegan again, what with articles of clothing, parcels, and baskets hangingfrom brass pegs and swinging to and fro without a pause. 

Amidst all this frippery the more afflicted patients, stretched on theirnarrow mattresses, which took up the room of several passengers, wereshaken, carried along by the rumbling gyrations of the wheels; whilstthose who were able to remain seated, leaned against the partitions, their faces pale, their heads resting upon pillows. According to theregulations there should have been one lady-hospitaller to eachcompartment. However, at the other end of the carriage there was but asecond Sister of the Assumption, Sister Claire des Anges. Some of thepilgrims who were in good health were already getting up, eating anddrinking. One compartment was entirely occupied by women, ten pilgrimsclosely pressed together, young ones and old ones, all sadly, pitifullyugly. And as nobody dared to open the windows on account of theconsumptives in the carriage, the heat was soon felt and an unbearableodour arose, set free as it were by the jolting of the train as it wentits way at express speed. 

They had said their chaplets at Juvisy; and six o'clock was striking, andthey were rushing like a hurricane past the station of Bretigny, whenSister Hyacinthe stood up. It was she who directed the pious exercises, which most of the pilgrims followed from small, blue-covered books. 

"The Angelus, my children, " said she with a pleasant smile, a maternalair which her great youth rendered very charming and sweet. 

Then the "Aves" again followed one another, and were drawing to an endwhen Pierre and Marie began to feel interested in two women who occupiedthe other corner seats of their compartment. One of them, she who sat atMarie's feet, was a blonde of slender build and /bourgeoise/ appearance, some thirty and odd years of age, and faded before she had grown old. Sheshrank back, scarcely occupying any room, wearing a dark dress, andshowing colourless hair, and a long grief-stricken face which expressedunlimited self-abandonment, infinite sadness. The woman in front of her, she who sat on the same seat as Pierre, was of the same age, but belongedto the working classes. She wore a black cap and displayed a face ravagedby wretchedness and anxiety, whilst on her lap she held a little girl ofseven, who was so pale, so wasted by illness, that she scarcely seemedfour. With her nose contracted, her eyelids lowered and showing blue inher waxen face, the child was unable to speak, unable to give utteranceto more than a low plaint, a gentle moan, which rent the heart of hermother, leaning over her, each time that she heard it. 

"Would she eat a few grapes?" timidly asked the lady, who had hithertopreserved silence. "I have some in my basket. "

"Thank you, madame, " replied the woman, "she only takes milk, andsometimes not even that willingly. I took care to bring a bottleful withme. "

Then, giving way to the desire which possesses the wretched to confidetheir woes to others, she began to relate her story. Her name wasVincent, and her husband, a gilder by trade, had been carried off byconsumption. Left alone with her little Rose, who was the passion of herheart, she had worked by day and night at her calling as a dressmaker inorder to bring the child up. But disease had come, and for fourteenmonths now she had had her in her arms like that, growing more and morewoeful and wasted until reduced almost to nothingness. She, the mother, who never went to mass, entered a church, impelled by despair to pray forher daughter's cure; and there she had heard a voice which had told herto take the little one to Lourdes, where the Blessed Virgin would havepity on her. Acquainted with nobody, not knowing even how the pilgrimageswere organised, she had had but one idea--to work, save up the moneynecessary for the journey, take a ticket, and start off with the thirtysous remaining to her, destitute of all supplies save a bottle of milkfor the child, not having even thought of purchasing a crust of bread forherself. 

"What is the poor little thing suffering from?" resumed the lady. 

"Oh, it must be consumption of the bowels, madame! But the doctors havenames they give it. At first she only had slight pains in the stomach. Then her stomach began to swell and she suffered, oh, so dreadfully! itmade one cry to see her. Her stomach has gone down now, only she's wornout; she has got so thin that she has no legs left her, and she's wastingaway with continual sweating. "

Then, as Rose, raising her eyelids, began to moan, her mother leant overher, distracted and turning pale. "What is the matter, my jewel, mytreasure?" she asked. "Are you thirsty?"

But the little girl was already closing her dim eyes of a hazy sky-bluehue, and did not even answer, but relapsed into her torpor, quite whitein the white frock she wore--a last coquetry on the part of her mother, who had gone to this useless expense in the hope that the Virgin would bemore compassionate and gentle to a little sufferer who was well dressed, so immaculately white. 

There was an interval of silence, and then Madame Vincent inquired: "Andyou, madame, it's for yourself no doubt that you are going to Lourdes?One can see very well that you are ill. "

But the lady, with a frightened look, shrank woefully into her corner, murmuring: "No, no, I am not ill. Would to God that I were! I shouldsuffer less. "

Her name was Madame Maze, and her heart was full of an incurable grief. After a love marriage to a big, gay fellow with ripe, red lips, she hadfound herself deserted at the end of a twelvemonth's honeymoon. Evertravelling, following the profession of a jeweller's bagman, her husband, who earned a deal of money, would disappear for six months at a stretch, deceive her from one frontier to the other of France, at times evencarrying creatures about with him. And she worshipped him; she sufferedso frightfully from it all that she had sought a remedy in religion, andhad at last made up her mind to repair to Lourdes, in order to pray theVirgin to restore her husband to her and make him amend his ways. 

Although Madame Vincent did not understand the other's words, sherealised that she was a prey to great mental affliction, and theycontinued looking at one another, the mother, whom the sight of her dyingdaughter was killing, and the abandoned wife, whom her passion cast intothroes of death-like agony. 

However, Pierre, who, like Marie, had been listening to the conversation, now intervened. He was astonished that the dressmaker had not sought freetreatment for her little patient. The Association of Our Lady ofSalvation had been founded by the Augustine Fathers of the Assumptionafter the Franco-German war, with the object of contributing to thesalvation of France and the defence of the Church by prayer in common andthe practice of charity; and it was this association which had promotedthe great pilgrimage movement, in particular initiating and unremittinglyextending the national pilgrimage which every year, towards the close ofAugust, set out for Lourdes. An elaborate organisation had been graduallyperfected, donations of considerable amounts were collected in all partsof the world, sufferers were enrolled in every parish, and agreementswere signed with the railway companies, to say nothing of the active helpof the Little Sisters of the Assumption and the establishment of theHospitality of Our Lady of Salvation, a widespread brotherhood of thebenevolent, in which one beheld men and women, mostly belonging tosociety, who, under the orders of the pilgrimage managers, nursed thesick, helped to transport them, and watched over the observance of gooddiscipline. A written request was needed for the sufferers to obtainhospitalisation, which dispensed them from making the smallest payment inrespect either of their journey or their sojourn; they were fetched fromtheir homes and conveyed back thither; and they simply had to provide afew provisions for the road. By far the greater number were recommendedby priests or benevolent persons, who superintended the inquiriesconcerning them and obtained the needful papers, such as doctors'certificates and certificates of birth. And, these matters being settled, the sick ones had nothing further to trouble about, they became but somuch suffering flesh, food for miracles, in the hands of the hospitallersof either sex. 

"But you need only have applied to your parish priest, madame, " Pierreexplained. "This poor child is deserving of all sympathy. She would havebeen immediately admitted. "

"I did not know it, monsieur l'Abbe. "

"Then how did you manage?"

"Why, Monsieur l'Abbe, I went to take a ticket at a place which one of myneighbours, who reads the newspapers, told me about. "

She was referring to the tickets, at greatly reduced rates, which wereissued to the pilgrims possessed of means. And Marie, listening to her, felt great pity for her, and also some shame; for she who was notentirely destitute of resources had succeeded in obtaining/hospitalisation/, thanks to Pierre, whereas that mother and her sorrychild, after exhausting their scanty savings, remained without a copper. 

However, a more violent jolt of the carriage drew a cry of pain from thegirl. "Oh, father, " she said, "pray raise me a little! I can't stay on myback any longer. "

When M. De Guersaint had helped her into a sitting posture, she gave adeep sigh of relief. They were now at Etampes, after a run of an hour anda half from Paris, and what with the increased warmth of the sun, thedust, and the noise, weariness was becoming apparent already. Madame deJonquiere had got up to speak a few words of kindly encouragement toMarie over the partition; and Sister Hyacinthe moreover again rose, andgaily clapped her hands that she might be heard and obeyed from one tothe other end of the carriage. 

"Come, come!" said she, "we mustn't think of our little troubles. Let uspray and sing, and the Blessed Virgin will be with us. "

She herself then began the rosary according to the rite of Our Lady ofLourdes, and all the patients and pilgrims followed her. This was thefirst chaplet--the five joyful mysteries, the Annunciation, theVisitation, the Nativity, the Purification, and Jesus found in theTemple. Then they all began to chant the canticle: "Let us contemplatethe heavenly Archangel!" Their voices were lost amid the loud rumbling ofthe wheels; you heard but the muffled surging of that human wave, stifling within the closed carriage which rolled on and on without apause. 

Although M. De Guersaint was a worshipper, he could never follow a hymnto the end. He got up, sat down again, and finished by resting his elbowon the partition and conversing in an undertone with a patient who satagainst this same partition in the next compartment. The patient inquestion was a thick-set man of fifty, with a good-natured face and alarge head, completely bald. His name was Sabathier, and for fifteenyears he had been stricken with ataxia. He only suffered pain by fits andstarts, but he had quite lost the use of his legs, which his wife, whoaccompanied him, moved for him as though they had been dead legs, whenever they became too heavy, weighty like bars of lead. 

"Yes, monsieur, " he said, "such as you see me, I was formerly fifth-classprofessor at the Lycee Charlemagne. At first I thought that it was meresciatica, but afterwards I was seized with sharp, lightning-like pains, red-hot sword thrusts, you know, in the muscles. For nearly ten years thedisease kept on mastering me more and more. I consulted all the doctors, tried every imaginable mineral spring, and now I suffer less, but I canno longer move from my seat. And then, after long living without athought of religion, I was led back to God by the idea that I was toowretched, and that Our Lady of Lourdes could not do otherwise than takepity on me. "

Feeling interested, Pierre in his turn had leant over the partition andwas listening. 

"Is it not so, Monsieur l'Abbe?" continued M. Sabathier. "Is notsuffering the best awakener of souls? This is the seventh year that I amgoing to Lourdes without despairing of cure. This year the Blessed Virginwill cure me, I feel sure of it. Yes, I expect to be able to walk aboutagain; I now live solely in that hope. "

M. Sabathier paused, he wished his wife to push his legs a little more tothe left; and Pierre looked at him, astonished to find such obstinatefaith in a man of intellect, in one of those university professors who, as a rule, are such Voltairians. How could the belief in miracles havegerminated and taken root in this man's brain? As he himself said, greatsuffering alone explained this need of illusion, this blossoming ofeternal and consolatory hope. 

"And my wife and I, " resumed the ex-professor, "are dressed, you see, aspoor folks, for I wished to go as a mere pauper this year, and appliedfor /hospitalisation/ in a spirit of humility in order that the BlessedVirgin might include me among the wretched, her children--only, as I didnot wish to take the place of a real pauper, I gave fifty francs to theHospitalite, and this, as you are aware, gives one the right to have apatient of one's own in the pilgrimage. I even know my patient. He wasintroduced to me at the railway station. He is suffering fromtuberculosis, it appears, and seemed to me very low, very low. "

A fresh interval of silence ensued. "Well, " said M. Sabathier at last, "may the Blessed Virgin save him also, she who can do everything. I shallbe so happy; she will have loaded me with favours. "

Then the three men, isolating themselves from the others, went onconversing together, at first on medical subjects, and at last diverginginto a discussion on romanesque architecture, /a propos/ of a steeplewhich they had perceived on a hillside, and which every pilgrim hadsaluted with a sign of the cross. Swayed once more by the habits ofcultivated intellect, the young priest and his two companions forgotthemselves together in the midst of their fellow-passengers, all thosepoor, suffering, simple-minded folk, whom wretchedness stupefied. Anotherhour went by, two more canticles had just been sung, and the stations ofToury and Les Aubrais had been left behind, when, at Beaugency, they atlast ceased their chat, on hearing Sister Hyacinthe clap her hands andintonate in her fresh, sonorous voice:

"/Parce, Domine, parce populo tuo/. "

And then the chant went on; all voices became mingled in thatever-surging wave of prayer which stilled pain, excited hope, and littleby little penetrated the entire being, harassed by the haunting thoughtof the grace and cure which one and all were going to seek so far away. 

However, as Pierre sat down again, he saw that Marie was very pale, andhad her eyes closed. By the painful contraction of her features he couldtell that she was not asleep. "Are you in great suffering?" he asked. 

"Yes, yes, I suffer dreadfully. I shall never last to the end. It is thisincessant jolting. "

She moaned, raised her eyelids, and, half-fainting, remained in a sittingposture, her eyes turned on the other sufferers. In the adjoiningcompartment, La Grivotte, hitherto stretched out, scarce breathing, likea corpse, had just raised herself up in front of M. Sabathier. She was atall, slip-shod, singular-looking creature of over thirty, with a round, ravaged face, which her frizzy hair and flaming eyes rendered almostpretty. She had reached the third stage of phthisis. 

"Eh, mademoiselle, " she said, addressing herself in a hoarse, indistinctvoice to Marie, "how nice it would be if we could only doze off a little. But it can't be managed; all these wheels keep on whirling round andround in one's head. "

Then, although it fatigued her to speak, she obstinately went on talking, volunteering particulars about herself. She was a mattress-maker, andwith one of her aunts had long gone from yard to yard at Bercy to comband sew up mattresses. And, indeed, it was to the pestilential wool whichshe had combed in her youth that she ascribed her malady. For five yearsshe had been making the round of the hospitals of Paris, and she spokefamiliarly of all the great doctors. It was the Sisters of Charity, atthe Lariboisiere hospital, who, finding that she had a passion forreligious ceremonies, had completed her conversion, and convinced herthat the Virgin awaited her at Lourdes to cure her. 

"I certainly need it, " said she. "The doctors say that I have one lungdone for, and that the other one is scarcely any better. There are greatbig holes you know. At first I only felt bad between the shoulders andspat up some froth. But then I got thin, and became a dreadful sight. Andnow I'm always in a sweat, and cough till I think I'm going to bring myheart up. And I can no longer spit. And I haven't the strength to stand, you see. I can't eat. "

A stifling sensation made her pause, and she became livid. 

"All the same I prefer being in my skin instead of in that of the Brotherin the compartment behind you. He has the same complaint as I have, buthe is in a worse state that I am. "

She was mistaken. In the farther compartment, beyond Marie, there wasindeed a young missionary, Brother Isidore, who was lying on a mattressand could not be seen, since he was unable to raise even a finger. But hewas not suffering from phthisis. He was dying of inflammation of theliver, contracted in Senegal. Very long and lank, he had a yellow face, with skin as dry and lifeless as parchment. The abscess which had formedin his liver had ended by breaking out externally, and amidst thecontinuous shivering of fever, vomiting, and delirium, suppuration wasexhausting him. His eyes alone were still alive, eyes full ofunextinguishable love, whose flame lighted up his expiring face, apeasant face such as painters have given to the crucified Christ, common, but rendered sublime at moments by its expression of faith and passion. He was a Breton, the last puny child of an over-numerous family, and hadleft his little share of land to his elder brothers. One of his sisters, Marthe, older than himself by a couple of years, accompanied him. She hadbeen in service in Paris, an insignificant maid-of-all-work, but withalso devoted to her brother that she had left her situation to follow him, subsisting scantily on her petty savings. 

"I was lying on the platform, " resumed La Grivotte, "when he was put inthe carriage. There were four men carrying him--"

But she was unable to speak any further, for just then an attack ofcoughing shook her and threw her back upon the seat. She was suffocating, and the red flush on her cheek-bones turned blue. Sister Hyacinthe, however, immediately raised her head and wiped her lips with a linencloth, which became spotted with blood. At the same time Madame deJonquiere gave her attention to a patient in front of her, who had justfainted. She was called Madame Vetu, and was the wife of a pettyclockmaker of the Mouffetard district, who had not been able to shut uphis shop in order to accompany her to Lourdes. And to make sure that shewould be cared for she had sought and obtained /hospitalisation/. Thefear of death was bringing her back to religion, although she had not setfoot in church since her first communion. She knew that she was lost, that a cancer in the chest was eating into her; and she already had thehaggard, orange-hued mark of the cancerous patient. Since the beginningof the journey she had not spoken a word, but, suffering terribly, hadremained with her lips tightly closed. Then all at once, she had swoonedaway after an attack of vomiting. 

"It is unbearable!" murmured Madame de Jonquiere, who herself felt faint;"we must let in a little fresh air. "

Sister Hyacinthe was just then laying La Grivotte to rest on her pillows, "Certainly, " said she, "we will open the window for a few moments. Butnot on this side, for I am afraid we might have a fresh fit of coughing. Open the window on your side, madame. "

The heat was still increasing, and the occupants of the carriage werestifling in that heavy evil-smelling atmosphere. The pure air which camein when the window was opened brought relief however. For a moment therewere other duties to be attended to, a clearance and cleansing. TheSister emptied the basins out of the window, whilst the lady-hospitallerwiped the shaking floor with a sponge. Next, things had to be set inorder; and then came a fresh anxiety, for the fourth patient, a slendergirl whose face was entirely covered by a black fichu, and who had notyet moved, was saying that she felt hungry. 

With quiet devotion Madame de Jonquiere immediately tendered herservices. "Don't you trouble, Sister, " she said, "I will cut her breadinto little bits for her. "

Marie, with the need she felt of diverting her mind from her ownsufferings, had already begun to take an interest in that motionlesssufferer whose countenance was so thickly veiled, for she not unnaturallysuspected that it was a case of some distressing facial sore. She hadmerely been told that the patient was a servant, which was true, but ithappened that the poor creature, a native of Picardy, named EliseRouquet, had been obliged to leave her situation, and seek a home with asister who ill-treated her, for no hospital would take her in. Extremelydevout, she had for many months been possessed by an ardent desire to goto Lourdes. 

While Marie, with dread in her heart, waited for the fichu to be movedaside, Madame de Jonquiere, having cut some bread into small pieces, inquired maternally: "Are they small enough? Can you put them into yourmouth?"

Thereupon a hoarse voice growled confused words under the black fichu:"Yes, yes, madame. " And at last the veil fell and Marie shuddered withhorror. 

It was a case of lupus which had preyed upon the unhappy woman's nose andmouth. Ulceration had spread, and was hourly spreading--in short, all thehideous peculiarities of this terrible disease were in full process ofdevelopment, almost obliterating the traces of what once were pleasingwomanly lineaments. 

"Oh, look, Pierre!" Marie murmured, trembling. The priest in his turnshuddered as he beheld Elise Rouquet cautiously slipping the tiny piecesof bread into her poor shapeless mouth. Everyone in the carriage hadturned pale at sight of the awful apparition. And the same thoughtascended from all those hope-inflated souls. Ah! Blessed Virgin, PowerfulVirgin, what a miracle indeed if such an ill were cured!

"We must not think of ourselves, my children, if we wish to get well, "resumed Sister Hyacinthe, who still retained her encouraging smile. 

And then she made them say the second chaplet, the five sorrowfulmysteries: Jesus in the Garden of Olives, Jesus scourged, Jesus crownedwith thorns, Jesus carrying the cross, and Jesus crucified. Afterwardscame the canticle: "In thy help, Virgin, do I put my trust. "

They had just passed through Blois; for three long hours they had beenrolling onward; and Marie, who had averted her eyes from Elise Rouquet, now turned them upon a man who occupied a corner seat in the compartmenton her left, that in which Brother Isidore was lying. She had noticedthis man several times already. Poorly clad in an old black frock-coat, he looked still young, although his sparse beard was already turninggrey; and, short and emaciated, he seemed to experience great suffering, his fleshless, livid face being covered with sweat. However, he remainedmotionless, ensconced in his corner, speaking to nobody, but staringstraight before him with dilated eyes. And all at once Marie noticed thathis eyelids were falling, and that he was fainting away. 

She thereupon drew Sister's Hyacinthe's attention to him: "Look, Sister!One would think that that gentleman is dangerously ill. "

"Which one, my dear child?"

"That one, over there, with his head thrown back. "

General excitement followed, all the healthy pilgrims rose up to look, and it occurred to Madame de Jonquiere to call to Marthe, BrotherIsidore's sister, and tell her to tap the man's hands. 

"Question him, " she added; "ask what ails him. "

Marthe drew near, shook the man, and questioned him. 

But instead of an answer only a rattle came from his throat, and his eyesremained closed. 

Then a frightened voice was heard saying, "I think he is going to die. "

The dread increased, words flew about, advice was tendered from one tothe other end of the carriage. Nobody knew the man. He had certainly notobtained /hospitalisation/, for no white card was hanging from his neck. Somebody related, however, that he had seen him arrive, dragging himselfalong, but three minutes or so before the train started; and that he hadremained quite motionless, scarce breathing, ever since he had flunghimself with an air of intense weariness into that corner, where he wasnow apparently dying. His ticket was at last seen protruding from underthe band of an old silk hat which was hung from a peg near him. 

"Ah, he is breathing again now!" Sister Hyacinthe suddenly exclaimed. "Ask him his name. "

However, on being again questioned by Marthe, the man merely gave vent toa low plaint, an exclamation scarcely articulated, "Oh, how I suffer!"

And thenceforward that was the only answer that could be obtained fromhim. With reference to everything that they wished to know, who he was, whence he came, what his illness was, what could be done for him, he gaveno information, but still and ever continued moaning, "Oh, how Isuffer--how I suffer!"

Sister Hyacinthe grew restless with impatience. Ah, if she had only beenin the same compartment with him! And she resolved that she would changeher seat at the first station they should stop at. Only there would be nostoppage for a long time. The position was becoming terrible, the more soas the man's head again fell back. 

"He is dying, he is dying!" repeated the frightened voice. 

What was to be done, /mon Dieu/? The Sister was aware that one of theFathers of the Assumption, Father Massias, was in the train with the HolyOils, ready to administer extreme unction to the dying; for every yearsome of the patients passed away during the journey. But she did not dareto have recourse to the alarm signal. Moreover, in the /cantine/ vanwhere Sister Saint Francois officiated, there was a doctor with a littlemedicine chest. If the sufferer should survive until they reachedPoitiers, where there would be half an hour's stoppage, all possible helpmight be given to him. 

But on the other hand he might suddenly expire. However, they ended bybecoming somewhat calmer. The man, though still unconscious, began tobreathe in a more regular manner, and seemed to fall asleep. 

"To think of it, to die before getting there, " murmured Marie with ashudder, "to die in sight of the promised land!" And as her father soughtto reassure her she added: "I am suffering--I am suffering dreadfullymyself. "

"Have confidence, " said Pierre; "the Blessed Virgin is watching overyou. "

She could no longer remain seated, and it became necessary to replace herin a recumbent position in her narrow coffin. Her father and the priesthad to take every precaution in doing so, for the slightest hurt drew amoan from her. And she lay there breathless, like one dead, her facecontracted by suffering, and surrounded by her regal fair hair. They hadnow been rolling on, ever rolling on for nearly four hours. And if thecarriage was so greatly shaken, with an unbearable spreading tendency, itwas from its position at the rear part of the train. The coupling ironsshrieked, the wheels growled furiously; and as it was necessary to leavethe windows partially open, the dust came in, acrid and burning; but itwas especially the heat which grew terrible, a devouring, stormy heatfalling from a tawny sky which large hanging clouds had slowly covered. The hot carriages, those rolling boxes where the pilgrims ate and drank, where the sick lay in a vitiated atmosphere, amid dizzying moans, prayers, and hymns, became like so many furnaces. 

And Marie was not the only one whose condition had been aggravated;others also were suffering from the journey. Resting in the lap of herdespairing mother, who gazed at her with large, tear-blurred eyes, littleRose had ceased to stir, and had grown so pale that Madame Maze had twiceleant forward to feel her hands, fearful lest she should find them cold. At each moment also Madame Sabathier had to move her husband's legs, fortheir weight was so great, said he, that it seemed as if his hips werebeing torn from him. Brother Isidore too had just begun to cry out, emerging from his wonted torpor; and his sister had only been able toassuage his sufferings by raising him, and clasping him in her arms. LaGrivotte seemed to be asleep, but a continuous hiccoughing shook her, anda tiny streamlet of blood dribbled from her mouth. Madame Vetu had againvomited, Elise Rouquet no longer thought of hiding the frightful soreopen on her face. And from the man yonder, breathing hard, there stillcame a lugubrious rattle, as though he were at every moment on the pointof expiring. In vain did Madame de Jonquiere and Sister Hyacinthe lavishtheir attentions on the patients, they could but slightly assuage so muchsuffering. At times it all seemed like an evil dream--that carriage ofwretchedness and pain, hurried along at express speed, with a continuousshaking and jolting which made everything hanging from the pegs--the oldclothes, the worn-out baskets mended with bits of string--swing to andfro incessantly. And in the compartment at the far end, the ten femalepilgrims, some old, some young, and all pitifully ugly, sang on without apause in cracked voices, shrill and dreary. 

Then Pierre began to think of the other carriages of the train, thatwhite train which conveyed most, if not all, of the more seriouslyafflicted patients; these carriages were rolling along, all displayingsimilar scenes of suffering among the three hundred sick and five hundredhealthy pilgrims crowded within them. And afterwards he thought of theother trains which were leaving Paris that day, the grey train and theblue train* which had preceded the white one, the green train, the yellowtrain, the pink train, the orange train which were following it. Fromhour to hour trains set out from one to the other end of France. And hethought, too, of those which that same morning had started from Orleans, Le Mans, Poitiers, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Carcassonne. Coming from allparts, trains were rushing across that land of France at the same hour, all directing their course yonder towards the holy Grotto, bringingthirty thousand patients and pilgrims to the Virgin's feet. And hereflected that other days of the year witnessed a like rush of humanbeings, that not a week went by without Lourdes beholding the arrival ofsome pilgrimage; that it was not merely France which set out on themarch, but all Europe, the whole world; that in certain years of greatreligious fervour there had been three hundred thousand, and even fivehundred thousand, pilgrims and patients streaming to the spot. 

 * Different-coloured tickets are issued for these trains; it is for this reason that they are called the white, blue, and grey trains, etc. --Trans. 

Pierre fancied that he could hear those flying trains, those trains fromeverywhere, all converging towards the same rocky cavity where the taperswere blazing. They all rumbled loudly amid the cries of pain and snatchesof hymns wafted from their carriages. They were the rolling hospitals ofdisease at its last stage, of human suffering rushing to the hope ofcure, furiously seeking consolation between attacks of increasedseverity, with the ever-present threat of death--death hastened, supervening under awful conditions, amidst the mob-like scramble. Theyrolled on, they rolled on again and again, they rolled on without apause, carrying the wretchedness of the world on its way to the divineillusion, the health of the infirm, the consolation of the afflicted. 

And immense pity overflowed from Pierre's heart, human compassion for allthe suffering and all the tears that consumed weak and naked men. He wassad unto death and ardent charity burnt within him, the unextinguishableflame as it were of his fraternal feelings towards all things and beings. 

When they left the station of Saint Pierre des Corps at half-past ten, Sister Hyacinthe gave the signal, and they recited the third chaplet, thefive glorious mysteries, the Resurrection of Our Lord, the Ascension ofOur Lord, the Mission of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption of the MostBlessed Virgin, the Crowning of the Most Blessed Virgin. And afterwardsthey sang the canticle of Bernadette, that long, long chant, composed ofsix times ten couplets, to which the ever recurring Angelic Salutationserves as a refrain--a prolonged lullaby slowly besetting one until itends by penetrating one's entire being, transporting one into ecstaticsleep, in delicious expectancy of a miracle. 

II

PIERRE AND MARIE

THE green landscapes of Poitou were now defiling before them, and AbbePierre Froment, gazing out of the window, watched the trees fly awaytill, little by little, he ceased to distinguish them. A steeple appearedand then vanished, and all the pilgrims crossed themselves. They wouldnot reach Poitiers until twelve-thirty-five, and the train was stillrolling on amid the growing weariness of that oppressive, stormy day. Falling into a deep reverie, the young priest no longer heard the wordsof the canticle, which sounded in his ears merely like a slow, wavylullaby. 

Forgetfulness of the present had come upon him, an awakening of the pastfilled his whole being. He was reascending the stream of memory, reascending it to its source. He again beheld the house at Neuilly, wherehe had been born and where he still lived, that home of peace and toil, with its garden planted with a few fine trees, and parted by a quicksethedge and palisade from the garden of the neighbouring house, which wassimilar to his own. He was again three, perhaps four, years old, andround a table, shaded by the big horse-chestnut tree he once more beheldhis father, his mother, and his elder brother at /dejeuner/. To hisfather, Michel Froment, he could give no distinct lineaments; he picturedhim but faintly, vaguely, renowned as an illustrious chemist, bearing thetitle of Member of the Institute, and leading a cloistered life in thelaboratory which he had installed in that secluded, deserted suburb. However he could plainly see his first brother Guillaume, then fourteenyears of age, whom some holiday had brought from college that morning, and then and even more vividly his mother, so gentle and so quiet, witheyes so full of active kindliness. Later on he learnt what anguish hadracked that religious soul, that believing woman who, from esteem andgratitude, had resignedly accepted marriage with an unbeliever, hersenior by fifteen years, to whom her relatives were indebted for greatservices. He, Pierre, the tardy offspring of this union, born when hisfather was already near his fiftieth year, had only known his mother as arespectful, conquered woman in the presence of her husband, whom she hadlearnt to love passionately, with the frightful torment of knowing, however, that he was doomed to perdition. And, all at once, anothermemory flashed upon the young priest, the terrible memory of the day whenhis father had died, killed in his laboratory by an accident, theexplosion of a retort. He, Pierre, had then been five years old, and heremembered the slightest incidents--his mother's cry when she had foundthe shattered body among the remnants of the chemical appliances, thenher terror, her sobs, her prayers at the idea that God had slain theunbeliever, damned him for evermore. Not daring to burn his books andpapers, she had contented herself with locking up the laboratory, whichhenceforth nobody entered. And from that moment, haunted by a vision ofhell, she had had but one idea, to possess herself of her second son, whowas still so young, to give him a strictly religious training, andthrough him to ransom her husband--secure his forgiveness from God. Guillaume, her elder boy, had already ceased to belong to her, havinggrown up at college, where he had been won over by the ideas of thecentury; but she resolved that the other, the younger one, should notleave the house, but should have a priest as tutor; and her secret dream, her consuming hope, was that she might some day see him a priest himself, saying his first mass and solacing souls whom the thought of eternitytortured. 

Then between green, leafy boughs, flecked with sunlight, another figurerose vividly before Pierre's eyes. He suddenly beheld Marie de Guersaintas he had seen her one morning through a gap in the hedge dividing thetwo gardens. M. De Guersaint, who belonged to the petty Norman/noblesse/, was a combination of architect and inventor; and he was atthat time busy with a scheme of model dwellings for the poor, to whichchurches and schools were to be attached; an affair of considerablemagnitude, planned none too well, however, and in which, with hiscustomary impetuosity, the lack of foresight of an imperfect artist, hewas risking the three hundred thousand francs that he possessed. Asimilarity of religious faith had drawn Madame de Guersaint and MadameFroment together; but the former was altogether a superior woman, perspicuous and rigid, with an iron hand which alone prevented herhousehold from gliding to a catastrophe; and she was bringing up her twodaughters, Blanche and Marie, in principles of narrow piety, the elderone already being as grave as herself, whilst the younger, albeit verydevout, was still fond of play, with an intensity of life within herwhich found vent in gay peals of sonorous laughter. From their earlychildhood Pierre and Marie played together, the hedge was ever beingcrossed, the two families constantly mingled. And on that clear sunshinymorning, when he pictured her parting the leafy branches she was alreadyten years old. He, who was sixteen, was to enter the seminary on thefollowing Tuesday. Never had she seemed to him so pretty. Her hair, of apure golden hue, was so long that when it was let down it sufficed toclothe her. Well did he remember her face as it had been, with roundcheeks, blue eyes, red mouth, and skin of dazzling, snowy whiteness. Shewas indeed as gay and brilliant as the sun itself, a transplendency. Yetthere were tears at the corners of her eyes, for she was aware of hiscoming departure. They sat down together at the far end of the garden, inthe shadow cast by the hedge. Their hands mingled, and their hearts werevery heavy. They had, however, never exchanged any vows amid theirpastimes, for their innocence was absolute. But now, on the eve ofseparation, their mutual tenderness rose to their lips, and they spokewithout knowing, swore that they would ever think of one another, andfind one another again, some day, even as one meets in heaven to be very, very happy. Then, without understanding how it happened, they claspedeach other tightly, to the point of suffocation, and kissed each other'sface, weeping, the while, hot tears. And it was that delightful memorywhich Pierre had ever carried with him, which he felt alive within himstill, after so many years, and after so many painful renunciations. 

Just then a more violent shock roused him from his reverie. He turned hiseyes upon the carriage and vaguely espied the suffering beings itcontained--Madame Maze motionless, overwhelmed with grief; little Rosegently moaning in her mother's lap; La Grivotte, whom a hoarse cough waschoking. For a moment Sister Hyacinthe's gay face shone out amidst thewhiteness of her coif and wimple, dominating all the others. The painfuljourney was continuing, with a ray of divine hope still and ever shiningyonder. Then everything slowly vanished from Pierre's eyes as a freshwave of memory brought the past back from afar; and nothing of thepresent remained save the lulling hymn, the indistinct voices ofdreamland, emerging from the invisible. 

Henceforth he was at the seminary. The classrooms, the recreation groundwith its trees, rose up clearly before him. But all at once he onlybeheld, as in a mirror, the youthful face which had then been his, and hecontemplated it and scrutinised it, as though it had been the face of astranger. Tall and slender, he had an elongated visage, with an unusuallydeveloped forehead, lofty and straight like a tower; whilst his jawstapered, ending in a small refined chin. He seemed, in fact, to be allbrains; his mouth, rather large, alone retained an expression oftenderness. Indeed, when his usually serious face relaxed, his mouth andeyes acquired an exceedingly soft expression, betokening an unsatisfied, hungry desire to love, devote oneself, and live. But immediatelyafterwards, the look of intellectual passion would come back again, thatintellectuality which had ever consumed him with an anxiety to understandand know. And it was with surprise that he now recalled those years ofseminary life. How was it that he had so long been able to accept therude discipline of blind faith, of obedient belief in everything withoutthe slightest examination? It had been required of him that he shouldabsolutely surrender his reasoning faculties, and he had striven to doso, had succeeded indeed in stifling his torturing need of truth. Doubtless he had been softened, weakened by his mother's tears, had beenpossessed by the sole desire to afford her the great happiness she dreamtof. Yet now he remembered certain quiverings of revolt; he found in thedepths of his mind the memory of nights which he had spent in weepingwithout knowing why, nights peopled with vague images, nights throughwhich galloped the free, virile life of the world, when Marie's faceincessantly returned to him, such as he had seen it one morning, dazzlingand bathed in tears, while she embraced him with her whole soul. And thatalone now remained; his years of religious study with their monotonouslessons, their ever similar exercises and ceremonies, had flown away intothe same haze, into a vague half-light, full of mortal silence. 

Then, just as the train had passed though a station at full speed, withthe sudden uproar of its rush there arose within him a succession ofconfused visions. He had noticed a large deserted enclosure, and fanciedthat he could see himself within it at twenty years of age. His reveriewas wandering. An indisposition of rather long duration had, however, atone time interrupted his studies, and led to his being sent into thecountry. He had remained for a long time without seeing Marie; during hisvacations spent at Neuilly he had twice failed to meet her, for she wasalmost always travelling. He knew that she was very ill, in consequenceof a fall from a horse when she was thirteen, a critical moment in agirl's life; and her despairing mother, perplexed by the contradictoryadvice of medical men, was taking her each year to a differentwatering-place. Then he learnt the startling news of the sudden tragicaldeath of that mother, who was so severe and yet so useful to her kin. Shehad been carried off in five days by inflammation of the lungs, which shehad contracted one evening whilst she was out walking at La Bourboule, through having taken off her mantle to place it round the shoulders ofMarie, who had been conveyed thither for treatment. It had been necessarythat the father should at once start off to fetch his daughter, who wasmad with grief, and the corpse of his wife, who had been so suddenly tornfrom him. And unhappily, after losing her, the affairs of the family wentfrom bad to worse in the hands of this architect, who, without counting, flung his fortune into the yawning gulf of his unsuccessful enterprises. Marie no longer stirred from her couch; only Blanche remained to managethe household, and she had matters of her own to attend to, being busywith the last examinations which she had to pass, the diplomas which shewas obstinately intent on securing, foreseeing as she did that she wouldsomeday have to earn her bread. 

All at once, from amidst this mass of confused, half-forgotten incidents, Pierre was conscious of the rise of a vivid vision. Ill-health, heremembered, had again compelled him to take a holiday. He had justcompleted his twenty-fourth year, he was greatly behindhand, having sofar only secured the four minor orders; but on his return asub-deaconship would be conferred on him, and an inviolable vow wouldbind him for evermore. And the Guersaints' little garden at Neuilly, whither he had formerly so often gone to play, again distinctly appearedbefore him. Marie's couch had been rolled under the tall trees at the farend of the garden near the hedge, they were alone together in the sadpeacefulness of an autumnal afternoon, and he saw Marie, clad in deepmourning for her mother and reclining there with legs inert; whilst he, also clad in black, in a cassock already, sat near her on an iron gardenchair. For five years she had been suffering. She was now eighteen, palerand thinner than formerly, but still adorable with her regal golden hair, which illness respected. He believed from what he had heard that she wasdestined to remain infirm, condemned never to become a woman, strickeneven in her sex. The doctors, who failed to agree respecting her case, had abandoned her. Doubtless it was she who told him these things thatdreary afternoon, whilst the yellow withered leaves rained upon them. However, he could not remember the words that they had spoken; her palesmile, her young face, still so charming though already dimmed byregretfulness for life, alone remained present with him. But he realisedthat she had evoked the far-off day of their parting, on that same spot, behind the hedge flecked with sunlight; and all that was already asthough dead--their tears, their embrace, their promise to find oneanother some day with a certainty of happiness. For although they hadfound one another again, what availed it, since she was but a corpse, andhe was about to bid farewell to the life of the world? As the doctorscondemned her, as she would never be woman, nor wife, nor mother, he, onhis side, might well renounce manhood, and annihilate himself, dedicatehimself to God, to whom his mother gave him. And he still felt within himthe soft bitterness of that last interview: Marie smiling painfully atmemory of their childish play and prattle, and speaking to him of thehappiness which he would assuredly find in the service of God; sopenetrated indeed with emotion at this thought, that she had made himpromise that he would let her hear him say his first mass. 

But the train was passing the station of Sainte-Maure, and just then asudden uproar momentarily brought Pierre's attention back to the carriageand its occupants. He fancied that there had been some fresh seizure orswooning, but the suffering faces that he beheld were still the same, ever contracted by the same expression of anxious waiting for the divinesuccour which was so slow in coming. M. Sabathier was vainly striving toget his legs into a comfortable position, whilst Brother Isidore raised afeeble continuous moan like a dying child, and Madame Vetu, a prey toterrible agony, devoured by her disease, sat motionless, and kept herlips tightly closed, her face distorted, haggard, and almost black. Thenoise which Pierre had heard had been occasioned by Madame de Jonquiere, who whilst cleansing a basin had dropped the large zinc water-can. And, despite their torment, this had made the patients laugh, like the simplesouls they were, rendered puerile by suffering. However, SisterHyacinthe, who rightly called them her children, children whom shegoverned with a word, at once set them saying the chaplet again, pendingthe Angelus, which would only be said at Chatellerault, in accordancewith the predetermined programme. And thereupon the "Aves" followed oneafter the other, spreading into a confused murmuring and mumbling amidstthe rattling of the coupling irons and noisy growling of the wheels. 

Pierre had meantime relapsed into his reverie, and beheld himself as hehad been at six-and-twenty, when ordained a priest. Tardy scruples hadcome to him a few days before his ordination, a semi-consciousness thathe was binding himself without having clearly questioned his heart andmind. But he had avoided doing so, living in the dizzy bewilderment ofhis decision, fancying that he had lopped off all human ties and feelingswith a voluntary hatchet-stroke. His flesh had surely died with hischildhood's innocent romance, that white-skinned girl with golden hair, whom now he never beheld otherwise than stretched upon her couch ofsuffering, her flesh as lifeless as his own. And he had afterwards madethe sacrifice of his mind, which he then fancied even an easier one, hoping as he did that determination would suffice to prevent him fromthinking. Besides, it was too late, he could not recoil at the lastmoment, and if when he pronounced the last solemn vow he felt a secretterror, an indeterminate but immense regret agitating him, he forgoteverything, saving a divine reward for his efforts on the day when heafforded his mother the great and long-expected joy of hearing him sayhis first mass. 

He could still see the poor woman in the little church of Neuilly, whichshe herself had selected, the church where the funeral service for hisfather had been celebrated; he saw her on that cold November morning, kneeling almost alone in the dark little chapel, her hands hiding herface as she continued weeping whilst he raised the Host. It was therethat she had tasted her last happiness, for she led a sad and lonelylife, no longer seeing her elder son, who had gone away, swayed by otherideas than her own, bent on breaking off all family intercourse since hisbrother intended to enter the Church. It was said that Guillaume, achemist of great talent, like his father, but at the same time aBohemian, addicted to revolutionary dreams, was living in a little housein the suburbs, where he devoted himself to the dangerous study ofexplosive substances; and folks added that he was living with a woman whohad come no one knew whence. This it was which had severed the last tiebetween himself and his mother, all piety and propriety. For three yearsPierre had not once seen Guillaume, whom in his childhood he hadworshipped as a kind, merry, and fatherly big brother. 

But there came an awful pang to his heart--he once more beheld his motherlying dead. This again was a thunderbolt, an illness of scarce threedays' duration, a sudden passing away, as in the case of Madame deGuersaint. One evening, after a wild hunt for the doctor, he had foundher motionless and quite white. She had died during his absence; and hislips had ever retained the icy thrill of the last kiss that he had givenher. Of everything else--the vigil, the preparations, the funeral--heremembered nothing. All that had become lost in the black night of hisstupor and grief, grief so extreme that he had almost died of it--seizedwith shivering on his return from the cemetery, struck down by a feverwhich during three weeks had kept him delirious, hovering between lifeand death. His brother had come and nursed him and had then attended topecuniary matters, dividing the little inheritance, leaving him the houseand a modest income and taking his own share in money. And as soon asGuillaume had found him out of danger he had gone off again, once morevanishing into the unknown. But then through what a long convalescencehe, Pierre, had passed, buried as it were in that deserted house. He haddone nothing to detain Guillaume, for he realised that there was an abyssbetween them. At first the solitude had brought him suffering, butafterwards it had grown very pleasant, whether in the deep silence of therooms which the rare noises of the street did not disturb, or under thescreening, shady foliage of the little garden, where he could spend wholedays without seeing a soul. His favourite place of refuge, however, wasthe old laboratory, his father's cabinet, which his mother for twentyyears had kept carefully locked up, as though to immure within it all theincredulity and damnation of the past. And despite the gentleness, therespectful submissiveness which she had shown in former times, she wouldperhaps have some day ended by destroying all her husband's books andpapers, had not death so suddenly surprised her. Pierre, however, hadonce more had the windows opened, the writing-table and the bookcasedusted; and, installed in the large leather arm-chair, he now spentdelicious hours there, regenerated as it were by his illness, broughtback to his youthful days again, deriving a wondrous intellectual delightfrom the perusal of the books which he came upon. 

The only person whom he remembered having received during those twomonths of slow recovery was Doctor Chassaigne, an old friend of hisfather, a medical man of real merit, who, with the one ambition of curingdisease, modestly confined himself to the /role/ of the practitioner. Itwas in vain that the doctor had sought to save Madame Froment, but heflattered himself that he had extricated the young priest from grievousdanger; and he came to see him from time to time, to chat with him andcheer him, talking with him of his father, the great chemist, of whom herecounted many a charming anecdote, many a particular, still glowing withthe flame of ardent friendship. Little by little, amidst the weak languorof convalescence, the son had thus beheld an embodiment of charmingsimplicity, affection, and good nature rising up before him. It was hisfather such as he had really been, not the man of stern science whom hehad pictured whilst listening to his mother. Certainly she had nevertaught him aught but respect for that dear memory; but had not herhusband been the unbeliever, the man who denied, and made the angelsweep, the artisan of impiety who sought to change the world that God hadmade? And so he had long remained a gloomy vision, a spectre of damnationprowling about the house, whereas now he became the house's very light, clear and gay, a worker consumed by a longing for truth, who had neverdesired anything but the love and happiness of all. For his part, DoctorChassaigne, a Pyrenean by birth, born in a far-off secluded village wherefolks still believed in sorceresses, inclined rather towards religion, although he had not set his foot inside a church during the forty yearshe had been living in Paris. However, his conviction was absolute: ifthere were a heaven somewhere, Michel Froment was assuredly there, andnot merely there, but seated upon a throne on the Divinity's right hand. 

Then Pierre, in a few minutes, again lived through the frightful tormentwhich, during two long months, had ravaged him. It was not that he hadfound controversial works of an anti-religious character in the bookcase, or that his father, whose papers he sorted, had ever gone beyond histechnical studies as a /savant/. But little by little, despite himself, the light of science dawned upon him, an /ensemble/ of proven phenomena, which demolished dogmas and left within him nothing of the things whichas a priest he should have believed. It seemed, in fact, as thoughillness had renewed him, as though he were again beginning to live andlearn amidst the physical pleasantness of convalescence, that stillsubsisting weakness which lent penetrating lucidity to his brain. At theseminary, by the advice of his masters, he had always kept the spirit ofinquiry, his thirst for knowledge, in check. Much of that which wastaught him there had surprised him; however, he had succeeded in makingthe sacrifice of his mind required of his piety. But now, all thelaboriously raised scaffolding of dogmas was swept away in a revolt ofthat sovereign mind which clamoured for its rights, and which he could nolonger silence. Truth was bubbling up and overflowing in such anirresistible stream that he realised he would never succeed in lodgingerror in his brain again. It was indeed the total and irreparable ruin offaith. Although he had been able to kill his flesh by renouncing theromance of his youth, although he felt that he had altogether masteredcarnal passion, he now knew that it would be impossible for him to makethe sacrifice of his intelligence. And he was not mistaken; it was indeedhis father again springing to life in the depths of his being, and atlast obtaining the mastery in that dual heredity in which, during so manyyears, his mother had dominated. The upper part of his face, hisstraight, towering brow, seemed to have risen yet higher, whilst thelower part, the small chin, the affectionate mouth, were becoming lessdistinct. However, he suffered; at certain twilight hours when hiskindliness, his need of love awoke, he felt distracted with grief at nolonger believing, distracted with desire to believe again; and it wasnecessary that the lighted lamp should be brought in, that he should seeclearly around him and within him, before he could recover the energy andcalmness of reason, the strength of martyrdom, the determination tosacrifice everything to the peace of his conscience. 

Then came the crisis. He was a priest and he no longer believed. This hadsuddenly dawned before him like a bottomless abyss. It was the end of hislife, the collapse of everything. What should he do? Did not simplerectitude require that he should throw off the cassock and return to theworld? But he had seen some renegade priests and had despised them. Amarried priest with whom he was acquainted filled him with disgust. Allthis, no doubt, was but a survival of his long religious training. Heretained the notion that a priest cannot, must not, weaken; the idea thatwhen one has dedicated oneself to God one cannot take possession ofoneself again. Possibly, also, he felt that he was too plainly branded, too different from other men already, to prove otherwise than awkward andunwelcome among them. Since he had been cut off from them he would remainapart in his grievous pride; And, after days of anguish, days of struggleincessantly renewed, in which his thirst for happiness warred with theenergies of his returning health, he took the heroic resolution to remaina priest, and an honest one. He would find the strength necessary forsuch abnegation. Since he had conquered the flesh, albeit unable toconquer the brain, he felt sure of keeping his vow of chastity, and thatwould be unshakable; therein lay the pure, upright life which he wasabsolutely certain of living. What mattered the rest if he alonesuffered, if nobody in the world suspected that his heart was reduced toashes, that nothing remained of his faith, that he was agonising amidstfearful falsehood? His rectitude would prove a firm prop; he would followhis priestly calling like an honest man, without breaking any of the vowshe had taken; he would, in due accordance with the rites, discharge hisduties as a minister of the Divinity, whom he would praise and glorify atthe altar, and distribute as the Bread of Life to the faithful. Who, then, would dare to impute his loss of faith to him as a crime, even ifthis great misfortune should some day become known? And what more couldbe asked of him than lifelong devotion to his vow, regard for hisministry, and the practice of every charity without the hope of anyfuture reward? In this wise he ended by calming himself, still upright, still bearing his head erect, with the desolate grandeur of the priestwho himself no longer believes, but continues watching over the faith ofothers. And he certainly was not alone; he felt that he had manybrothers, priests with ravaged minds, who had sunk into incredulity, andwho yet, like soldiers without a fatherland, remained at the altar, and, despite, everything, found the courage to make the divine illusion shineforth above the kneeling crowds. 

On recovering his health Pierre had immediately resumed his service atthe little church of Neuilly. He said his mass there every morning. Buthe had resolved to refuse any appointment, any preferment. Months andyears went by, and he obstinately insisted on remaining the least knownand the most humble of those priests who are tolerated in a parish, whoappear and disappear after discharging their duty. The acceptance of anyappointment would have seemed to him an aggravation of his falsehood, atheft from those who were more deserving than himself. And he had toresist frequent offers, for it was impossible for his merits to remainunnoticed. Indeed, his obstinate modesty provoked astonishment at thearchbishop's palace, where there was a desire to utilise the power whichcould be divined in him. Now and again, it is true, he bitterly regrettedthat he was not useful, that he did not co-operate in some great work, infurthering the purification of the world, the salvation and happiness ofall, in accordance with his own ardent, torturing desire. Fortunately histime was nearly all his own, and to console himself he gave rein to hispassion for work by devouring every volume in his father's bookcase, andthen again resuming and considering his studies, feverishly preoccupiedwith regard to the history of nations, full of a desire to explore thedepths of the social and religious crisis so that he might ascertainwhether it were really beyond remedy. 

It was at this time, whilst rummaging one morning in one of the largedrawers in the lower part of the bookcase, that he discovered quite acollection of papers respecting the apparitions of Lourdes. It was a verycomplete set of documents, comprising detailed notes of theinterrogatories to which Bernadette had been subjected, copies ofnumerous official documents, and police and medical reports, in additionto many private and confidential letters of the greatest interest. Thisdiscovery had surprised Pierre, and he had questioned, Doctor Chassaigneconcerning it. The latter thereupon remembered that his friend, MichelFroment, had at one time passionately devoted himself to the study ofBernadette's case; and he himself, a native of the village near Lourdes, had procured for the chemist a portion of the documents in thecollection. Pierre, in his turn, then became impassioned, and for a wholemonth continued studying the affair, powerfully attracted by thevisionary's pure, upright nature, but indignant with all that hadsubsequently sprouted up--the barbarous fetishism, the painfulsuperstitions, and the triumphant simony. In the access of unbelief whichhad come upon him, this story of Lourdes was certainly of a nature tocomplete the collapse of his faith. However, it had also excited hiscuriosity, and he would have liked to investigate it, to establish beyonddispute what scientific truth might be in it, and render pureChristianity the service of ridding it of this scoria, this fairy tale, all touching and childish as it was. But he had been obliged torelinquish his studies, shrinking from the necessity of making a journeyto the Grotto, and finding that it would be extremely difficult to obtainthe information which he still needed; and of it all there at last onlyremained within him a tender feeling for Bernadette, of whom he could notthink without a sensation of delightful charm and infinite pity. 

The days went by, and Pierre led a more and more lonely life. DoctorChassaigne had just left for the Pyrenees in a state of mortal anxiety. Abandoning his patients, he had set out for Cauterets with his ailingwife, who was sinking more and more each day, to the infinite distress ofboth his charming daughter and himself. From that moment the little houseat Neuilly fell into deathlike silence and emptiness. Pierre had no otherdistraction than that of occasionally going to see the Guersaints, whohad long since left the neighbouring house, but whom he had found againin a small lodging in a wretched tenement of the district. And the memoryof his first visit to them there was yet so fresh within him, that hefelt a pang at his heart as he recalled his emotion at sight of thehapless Marie. 

That pang roused him from his reverie, and on looking round he perceivedMarie stretched on the seat, even as he had found her on the day which herecalled, already imprisoned in that gutter-like box, that coffin towhich wheels were adapted when she was taken out-of-doors for an airing. She, formerly so brimful of life, ever astir and laughing, was dying ofinaction and immobility in that box. Of her old-time beauty she hadretained nothing save her hair, which clad her as with a royal mantle, and she was so emaciated that she seemed to have grown smaller again, tohave become once more a child. And what was most distressing was theexpression on her pale face, the blank, frigid stare of her eyes whichdid not see, the ever haunting absent look, as of one whom sufferingoverwhelmed. However, she noticed that Pierre was gazing at her, and atonce desired to smile at him; but irresistible moans escaped her, andwhen she did at last smile, it was like a poor smitten creature who isconvinced that she will expire before the miracle takes place. He wasovercome by it, and, amidst all the sufferings with which the carriageabounded, hers were now the only ones that he beheld and heard, as thoughone and all were summed up in her, in the long and terrible agony of herbeauty, gaiety, and youth. 

Then by degrees, without taking his eyes from Marie, he again reverted toformer days, again lived those hours, fraught with a mournful and bittercharm, which he had often spent beside her, when he called at the sorrylodging to keep her company. M. De Guersaint had finally ruined himselfby trying to improve the artistic quality of the religious prints sowidely sold in France, the faulty execution of which quite irritated him. His last resources had been swallowed up in the failure of acolour-printing firm; and, heedless as he was, deficient in foresight, ever trusting in Providence, his childish mind continually swayed byillusions, he did not notice the awful pecuniary embarrassment of thehousehold; but applied himself to the study of aerial navigation, withouteven realising what prodigious activity his elder daughter, Blanche, wasforced to display, in order to earn the living of her two children, asshe was wont to call her father and her sister. It was Blanche who, byrunning about Paris in the dust or the mud from morning to evening inorder to give French or music lessons, contrived to provide the moneynecessary for the unremitting attentions which Marie required. And Marieoften experienced attacks of despair--bursting into tears and accusingherself of being the primary cause of their ruin, as for years and yearsnow it had been necessary to pay for medical attendance and for takingher to almost every imaginable spring--La Bourboule, Aix, Lamalou, Amelie-les-Bains, and others. And the outcome of ten years of varieddiagnosis and treatment was that the doctors had now abandoned her. Somethought her illness to be due to the rupture of certain ligaments, othersbelieved in the presence of a tumour, others again to paralysis due toinjury to the spinal cord, and as she, with maidenly revolt, refused toundergo any examination, and they did not even dare to address precisequestions to her, they each contented themselves with their severalopinions and declared that she was beyond cure. Moreover, she now solelyrelied upon the divine help, having grown rigidly pious since she hadbeen suffering, and finding her only relief in her ardent faith. Everymorning she herself read the holy offices, for to her great sorrow shewas unable to go to church. Her inert limbs indeed seemed quite lifeless, and she had sunk into a condition of extreme weakness, to such a point, in fact, that on certain days it became necessary for her sister to placeher food in her mouth. 

Pierre was thinking of this when all at once he recalled an evening hehad spent with her. The lamp had not yet been lighted, he was seatedbeside her in the growing obscurity, and she suddenly told him that shewished to go to Lourdes, feeling certain that she would return cured. Hehad experienced an uncomfortable sensation on hearing her speak in thisfashion, and quite forgetting himself had exclaimed that it was folly tobelieve in such childishness. He had hitherto made it a rule never toconverse with her on religious matters, having not only refused to be herconfessor, but even to advise her with regard to the petty uncertaintiesof her pietism. In this respect he was influenced by feelings of mingledshame and compassion; to lie to her of all people would have made himsuffer, and, moreover, he would have deemed himself a criminal had heeven by a breath sullied that fervent pure faith which lent her suchstrength against pain. And so, regretting that he had not been able torestrain his exclamation, he remained sorely embarrassed, when all atonce he felt the girl's cold hand take hold of his own. And then, emboldened by the darkness, she ventured in a gentle, faltering voice, totell him that she already knew his secret, his misfortune, thatwretchedness, so fearful for a priest, of being unable to believe. 

Despite himself he had revealed everything during their chats together, and she, with the delicate intuition of a friend, had been able to readhis conscience. She felt terribly distressed on his account; she deemedhim, with that mortal moral malady, to be more deserving of pity thanherself. And then as he, thunderstruck, was still unable to find ananswer, acknowledging the truth of her words by his very silence, sheagain began to speak to him of Lourdes, adding in a low whisper that shewished to confide him as well as herself to the protection of the BlessedVirgin, whom she entreated to restore him to faith. And from that eveningforward she did not cease speaking on the subject, repeating again andagain, that if she went to Lourdes she would be surely cured. But she wasprevented from making the journey by lack of means and she did not evendare to speak to her sister of the pecuniary question. So two months wentby, and day by day she grew weaker, exhausted by her longing dreams, hereyes ever turned towards the flashing light of the miraculous Grotto faraway. Pierre then experienced many painful days. He had at first toldMarie that he would not accompany her. But his decision was somewhatshaken by the thought that if he made up his mind to go, he might profitby the journey to continue his inquiries with regard to Bernadette, whosecharming image lingered in his heart. And at last he even felt penetratedby a delightful feeling, an unacknowledged hope, the hope that Marie wasperhaps right, that the Virgin might take pity on him and restore to himhis former blind faith, the faith of the child who loves and does notquestion. Oh! to believe, to believe with his whole soul, to plunge intofaith for ever! Doubtless there was no other possible happiness. Helonged for faith with all the joyousness of his youth, with all the lovethat he had felt for his mother, with all his burning desire to escapefrom the torment of understanding and knowing, and to slumber forever inthe depths of divine ignorance. It was cowardly, and yet so delightful;to exist no more, to become a mere thing in the hands of the Divinity. And thus he was at last possessed by a desire to make the supremeexperiment. 

A week later the journey to Lourdes was decided upon. Pierre, however, had insisted on a final consultation of medical men in order to ascertainif it were really possible for Marie to travel; and this again was ascene which rose up before him, with certain incidents which he everbeheld whilst others were already fading from his mind. Two of thedoctors who had formerly attended the patient, and one of whom believedin the rupture of certain ligaments, whilst the other asserted the caseto be one of medullary paralysis, had ended by agreeing that thisparalysis existed, and that there was also, possibly, some ligamentaryinjury. In their opinion all the symptoms pointed to this diagnosis, andthe nature of the case seemed to them so evident that they did nothesitate to give certificates, each his own, agreeing almost word forword with one another, and so positive in character as to leave no roomfor doubt. Moreover, they thought that the journey was practicable, though it would certainly prove an exceedingly painful one. Pierrethereupon resolved to risk it, for he had found the doctors very prudent, and very desirous to arrive at the truth; and he retained but a confusedrecollection of the third medical man who had been called in, a distantcousin of his named De Beauclair, who was young, extremely intelligent, but little known as yet, and said by some to be rather strange in histheories. This doctor, after looking at Marie for a long time, had askedsomewhat anxiously about her parents, and had seemed greatly interestedby what was told him of M. De Guersaint, this architect and inventor witha weak and exuberant mind. Then he had desired to measure the sufferer'svisual field, and by a slight discreet touch had ascertained the localityof the pain, which, under certain pressure, seemed to ascend like a heavyshifting mass towards the breast. He did not appear to attach importanceto the paralysis of the legs; but on a direct question being put to himhe exclaimed that the girl ought to be taken to Lourdes and that shewould assuredly be cured there, if she herself were convinced of it. Faith sufficed, said he, with a smile; two pious lady patients of his, whom he had sent thither during the preceding year, had returned inradiant health. He even predicted how the miracle would come about; itwould be like a lightning stroke, an awakening, an exaltation of theentire being, whilst the evil, that horrid, diabolical weight whichstifled the poor girl would once more ascend and fly away as thoughemerging by her mouth. But at the same time he flatly declined to give acertificate. He had failed to agree with his two /confreres/, who treatedhim coldly, as though they considered him a wild, adventurous youngfellow. Pierre confusedly remembered some shreds of the discussion whichhad begun again in his presence, some little part of the diagnosis framedby Beauclair. First, a dislocation of the organ, with a slight lacerationof the ligaments, resulting from the patient's fall from her horse; thena slow healing, everything returning to its place, followed byconsecutive nervous symptoms, so that the sufferer was now simply besetby her original fright, her attention fixed on the injured part, arrestedthere amidst increasing pain, incapable of acquiring fresh notions unlessit were under the lash of some violent emotion. Moreover, he alsoadmitted the probability of accidents due to nutrition, as yetunexplained, and on the course and importance of which he himself wouldnot venture to give an opinion. However, the idea that Marie /dreamt/ herdisease, that the fearful sufferings torturing her came from an injurylong since healed, appeared such a paradox to Pierre when he gazed at herand saw her in such agony, her limbs already stretched out lifeless onher bed of misery, that he did not even pause to consider it; but at thatmoment felt simply happy in the thought that all three doctors agreed inauthorising the journey to Lourdes. To him it was sufficient that she/might/ be cured, and to attain that result he would have followed her tothe end of the world. 

Ah! those last days of Paris, amid what a scramble they were spent! Thenational pilgrimage was about to start, and in order to avoid heavyexpenses, it had occurred to him to obtain /hospitalisation/ for Marie. Then he had been obliged to run about in order to obtain his ownadmission, as a helper, into the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation. M. De Guersaint was delighted with the prospect of the journey, for he wasfond of nature, and ardently desired to become acquainted with thePyrenees. Moreover, he did not allow anything to worry him, but wasperfectly willing that the young priest should pay his railway fare, andprovide for him at the hotel yonder as for a child; and his daughterBlanche, having slipped a twenty-franc piece into his hand at the lastmoment, he had even thought himself rich again. That poor brave Blanchehad a little hidden store of her own, savings to the amount of fiftyfrancs, which it had been absolutely necessary to accept, for she becamequite angry in her determination to contribute towards her sister's cure, unable as she was to form one of the party, owing to the lessons whichshe had to give in Paris, whose hard pavements she must continue pacing, whilst her dear ones were kneeling yonder, amidst the enchantments of theGrotto. And so the others had started on, and were now rolling, everrolling along. 

As they passed the station of Chatellerault a sudden burst of voices madePierre start, and drove away the torpor into which his reverie hadplunged him. What was the matter? Were they reaching Poitiers? But it wasonly half-past twelve o'clock, and it was simply Sister Hyacinthe who hadroused him, by making her patients and pilgrims say the Angelus, thethree "Aves" thrice repeated. Then the voices burst forth, and the soundof a fresh canticle arose, and continued like a lamentation. Fully fiveand twenty minutes must elapse before they would reach Poitiers, where itseemed as if the half-hour's stoppage would bring relief to everysuffering! They were all so uncomfortable, so roughly shaken in thatmalodorous, burning carriage! Such wretchedness was beyond endurance. Bigtears coursed down the cheeks of Madame Vincent, a muttered oath escapedM. Sabathier usually so resigned, and Brother Isidore, La Grivotte, andMadame Vetu seemed to have become inanimate, mere waifs carried along bya torrent. Moreover, Marie no longer answered, but had closed her eyesand would not open them, pursued as she was by the horrible vision ofElise Rouquet's face, that face with its gaping cavities which seemed toher to be the image of death. And whilst the train increased its speed, bearing all this human despair onward, under the heavy sky, athwart theburning plains, there was yet another scare in the carriage. The strangeman had apparently ceased to breathe, and a voice cried out that he wasexpiring. 

III

POITIERS

AS soon as the train arrived at Poitiers, Sister Hyacinthe alighted inall haste, amidst the crowd of porters opening the carriage doors, and ofpilgrims darting forward to reach the platform. "Wait a moment, wait amoment, " she repeated, "let me pass first. I wish to see if all is over. "

Then, having entered the other compartment, she raised the strange man'shead, and seeing him so pale, with such blank eyes, she did at firstthink him already dead. At last, however, she detected a faint breathing. "No, no, " she then exclaimed, "he still breathes. Quick! there is no timeto be lost. " And, perceiving the other Sister, she added: "Sister Clairedes Anges, will you go and fetch Father Massias, who must be in the thirdor fourth carriage of the train? Tell him that we have a patient in verygreat danger here, and ask him to bring the Holy Oils at once. "

Without answering, the other Sister at once plunged into the midst of thescramble. She was small, slender, and gentle, with a meditative air andmysterious eyes, but withal extremely active. 

Pierre, who was standing in the other compartment watching the scene, nowventured to make a suggestion: "And would it not be as well to fetch thedoctor?" said he. 

"Yes, I was thinking of it, " replied Sister Hyacinthe, "and, Monsieurl'Abbe, it would be very kind of you to go for him yourself. "

It so happened that Pierre intended going to the cantine carriage tofetch some broth for Marie. Now that she was no longer being jolted shefelt somewhat relieved, and had opened her eyes, and caused her father toraise her to a sitting posture. Keenly thirsting for fresh air, she wouldhave much liked them to carry her out on to the platform for a moment, but she felt that it would be asking too much, that it would be tootroublesome a task to place her inside the carriage again. So M. DeGuersaint remained by himself on the platform, near the open door, smoking a cigarette, whilst Pierre hastened to the cantine van, where heknew he would find the doctor on duty, with his travelling pharmacy. 

Some other patients, whom one could not think of removing, also remainedin the carriage. Amongst them was La Grivotte, who was stifling andalmost delirious, in such a state indeed as to detain Madame deJonquiere, who had arranged to meet her daughter Raymonde, with MadameVolmar and Madame Desagneaux, in the refreshment-room, in order that theymight all four lunch together. But that unfortunate creature seemed onthe point of expiring, so how could she leave her all alone, on the hardseat of that carriage? On his side, M. Sabathier, likewise riveted to hisseat, was waiting for his wife, who had gone to fetch a bunch of grapesfor him; whilst Marthe had remained with her brother the missionary, whose faint moan never ceased. The others, those who were able to walk, had hustled one another in their haste to alight, all eager as they wereto escape for a moment from that cage of wretchedness where their limbshad been quite numbed by the seven hours' journey which they had so fargone. Madame Maze had at once drawn apart, straying with melancholy faceto the far end of the platform, where she found herself all alone; MadameVetu, stupefied by her sufferings, had found sufficient strength to takea few steps, and sit down on a bench, in the full sunlight, where she didnot even feel the burning heat; whilst Elise Rouquet, who had had thedecency to cover her face with a black wrap, and was consumed by a desirefor fresh water, went hither and thither in search of a drinkingfountain. And meantime Madame Vincent, walking slowly, carried her littleRose about in her arms, trying to smile at her, and to cheer her byshowing her some gaudily coloured picture bills, which the child gravelygazed at, but did not see. 

Pierre had the greatest possible difficulty in making his way through thecrowd inundating the platform. No effort of imagination could enable oneto picture the living torrent of ailing and healthy beings which thetrain had here set down--a mob of more than a thousand persons justemerging from suffocation, and bustling, hurrying hither and thither. Each carriage had contributed its share of wretchedness, like somehospital ward suddenly evacuated; and it was now possible to form an ideaof the frightful amount of suffering which this terrible white traincarried along with it, this train which disseminated a legend of horrorwheresoever it passed. Some infirm sufferers were dragging themselvesabout, others were being carried, and many remained in a heap on theplatform. There were sudden pushes, violent calls, innumerable displaysof distracted eagerness to reach the refreshment-room and the /buvette/. Each and all made haste, going wheresoever their wants called them. Thisstoppage of half an hour's duration, the only stoppage there would bebefore reaching Lourdes, was, after all, such a short one. And the onlygay note, amidst all the black cassocks and the threadbare garments ofthe poor, never of any precise shade of colour, was supplied by thesmiling whiteness of the Little Sisters of the Assumption, all bright andactive in their snowy coifs, wimples, and aprons. 

When Pierre at last reached the cantine van near the middle of the train, he found it already besieged. There was here a petroleum stove, with asmall supply of cooking utensils. The broth prepared from concentratedmeat-extract was being warmed in wrought-iron pans, whilst the preservedmilk in tins was diluted and supplied as occasion required. There weresome other provisions, such as biscuits, fruit, and chocolate, on a fewshelves. But Sister Saint-Francois, to whom the service was entrusted, ashort, stout woman of five-and-forty, with a good-natured fresh-colouredface, was somewhat losing her head in the presence of all the hands soeagerly stretched towards her. Whilst continuing her distribution, shelent ear to Pierre, as he called the doctor, who with his travellingpharmacy occupied another corner of the van. Then, when the young priestbegan to explain matters, speaking of the poor unknown man who was dying, a sudden desire came to her to go and see him, and she summoned anotherSister to take her place. 

"Oh! I wished to ask you, Sister, for some broth for a passenger who isill, " said Pierre, at that moment turning towards her. 

"Very well, Monsieur l'Abbe, I will bring some. Go on in front. "

The doctor and the abbe went off in all haste, rapidly questioning andanswering one another, whilst behind them followed Sister Saint-Francois, carrying the bowl of broth with all possible caution amidst the jostlingof the crowd. The doctor was a dark-complexioned man of eight-and-twenty, robust and extremely handsome, with the head of a young Roman emperor, such as may still be occasionally met with in the sunburnt land ofProvence. As soon as Sister Hyacinthe caught sight of him, she raised anexclamation of surprise: "What! Monsieur Ferrand, is it you?" Indeed, they both seemed amazed at meeting in this manner. 

It is, however, the courageous mission of the Sisters of the Assumptionto tend the ailing poor, those who lie in agony in their humble garrets, and cannot pay for nursing; and thus these good women spend their livesamong the wretched, installing themselves beside the sufferer's pallet inhis tiny lodging, and ministering to every want, attending alike tocooking and cleaning, and living there as servants and relatives, untileither cure or death supervenes. And it was in this wise that SisterHyacinthe, young as she was, with her milky face, and her blue eyes whichever laughed, had installed herself one day in the abode of this youngfellow, Ferrand, then a medical student, prostrated by typhoid fever, andso desperately poor that he lived in a kind of loft reached by a ladder, in the Rue du Four. And from that moment she had not stirred from hisside, but had remained with him until she cured him, with the passion ofone who lived only for others, one who when an infant had been found in achurch porch, and who had no other family than that of those whosuffered, to whom she devoted herself with all her ardently affectionatenature. And what a delightful month, what exquisite comradeship, fraughtwith the pure fraternity of suffering, had followed! When he called her"Sister, " it was really to a sister that he was speaking. And she was amother also, a mother who helped him to rise, and who put him to bed asthough he were her child, without aught springing up between them savesupreme pity, the divine, gentle compassion of charity. She ever showedherself gay, sexless, devoid of any instinct excepting that whichprompted her to assuage and to console. And he worshipped her, veneratedher, and had retained of her the most chaste and passionate ofrecollections. 

"O Sister Hyacinthe!" he murmured in delight. 

Chance alone had brought them face to face again, for Ferrand was not abeliever, and if he found himself in that train it was simply because hehad at the last moment consented to take the place of a friend who wassuddenly prevented from coming. For nearly a twelvemonth he had been ahouse-surgeon at the Hospital of La Pitie. However, this journey toLourdes, in such peculiar circumstances, greatly interested him. 

The joy of the meeting was making them forget the ailing stranger. And sothe Sister resumed: "You see, Monsieur Ferrand, it is for this man thatwe want you. At one moment we thought him dead. Ever since we passedAmboise he has been filling us with fear, and I have just sent for theHoly Oils. Do you find him so very low? Could you not revive him alittle?"

The doctor was already examining the man, and thereupon the sufferers whohad remained in the carriage became greatly interested and began to look. Marie, to whom Sister Saint-Francois had given the bowl of broth, washolding it with such an unsteady hand that Pierre had to take it fromher, and endeavour to make her drink; but she could not swallow, and sheleft the broth scarce tasted, fixing her eyes upon the man waiting to seewhat would happen like one whose own existence is at stake. 

"Tell me, " again asked Sister Hyacinthe, "how do you find him? What ishis illness?"

"What is his illness!" muttered Ferrand; "he has every illness. "

Then, drawing a little phial from his pocket, he endeavoured to introducea few drops of the contents between the sufferer's clenched teeth. Theman heaved a sigh, raised his eyelids and let them fall again; that wasall, he gave no other sign of life. 

Sister Hyacinthe, usually so calm and composed, so little accustomed todespair, became impatient. 

"But it is terrible, " said she, "and Sister Claire des Anges does notcome back! Yet I told her plainly enough where she would find FatherMassias's carriage. /Mon Dieu!/ what will become of us?"

Sister Saint-Francois, seeing that she could render no help, was nowabout to return to the cantine van. Before doing so, however, sheinquired if the man were not simply dying of hunger; for such casespresented themselves, and indeed she had only come to the compartmentwith the view of offering some of her provisions. At last, as she wentoff, she promised that she would make Sister Claire des Anges hasten herreturn should she happen to meet her; and she had not gone twenty yardswhen she turned round and waved her arm to call attention to hercolleague, who with discreet short steps was coming back alone. 

Leaning out of the window, Sister Hyacinthe kept on calling to her, "Makehaste, make haste! Well, and where is Father Massias?"

"He isn't there. "

"What! not there?"

"No. I went as fast as I could, but with all these people about it wasnot possible to get there quickly. When I reached the carriage FatherMassias had already alighted, and gone out of the station, no doubt. "

She thereupon explained, that according to what she had heard, FatherMassias and the priest of Sainte-Radegonde had some appointment together. In other years the national pilgrimage halted at Poitiers forfour-and-twenty hours, and after those who were ill had been placed inthe town hospital the others went in procession to Sainte-Radegonde. *That year, however, there was some obstacle to this course beingfollowed, so the train was going straight on to Lourdes; and FatherMassias was certainly with his friend the priest, talking with him onsome matter of importance. 

 * The church of Sainte-Radegonde, built by the saint of that name in the sixth century, is famous throughout Poitou. In the crypt between the tombs of Ste. Agnes and St. Disciole is that of Ste. Radegonde herself, but it now only contains some particles of her remains, as the greater portion was burnt by the Huguenots in 1562. On a previous occasion (1412) the tomb had been violated by Jean, Duc de Berry, who wished to remove both the saint's head and her two rings. Whilst he was making the attempt, however, the skeleton is said to have withdrawn its hand so that he might not possess himself of the rings. A greater curiosity which the church contains is a footprint on a stone slab, said to have been left by Christ when He appeared to Ste. Radegonde in her cell. This attracts pilgrims from many parts. --Trans. 

"They promised to tell him and send him here with the Holy Oils as soonas they found him, " added Sister Claire. 

However, this was quite a disaster for Sister Hyacinthe. Since Sciencewas powerless, perhaps the Holy Oils would have brought the sufferer somerelief. She had often seen that happen. 

"O Sister, Sister, how worried I am!" she said to her companion. "Do youknow, I wish you would go back and watch for Father Massias and bring himto me as soon as you see him. It would be so kind of you to do so!"

"Yes, Sister, " compliantly answered Sister Claire des Anges, and off shewent again with that grave, mysterious air of hers, wending her waythrough the crowd like a gliding shadow. 

Ferrand, meantime, was still looking at the man, sorely distressed at hisinability to please Sister Hyacinthe by reviving him. And as he made agesture expressive of his powerlessness she again raised her voiceentreatingly: "Stay with me, Monsieur Ferrand, pray stay, " she said. "Wait till Father Massias comes--I shall be a little more at ease withyou here. "

He remained and helped her to raise the man, who was slipping down uponthe seat. Then, taking a linen cloth, she wiped the poor fellow's facewhich a dense perspiration was continually covering. And the spell ofwaiting continued amid the uneasiness of the patients who had remained inthe carriage, and the curiosity of the folks who had begun to assemble onthe platform in front of the compartment. 

All at once however a girl hastily pushed the crowd aside, and, mountingon the footboard, addressed herself to Madame de Jonquiere: "What is thematter, mamma?" she said. "They are waiting for you in therefreshment-room. "

It was Raymonde de Jonquiere, who, already somewhat ripe for herfour-and-twenty years, was remarkably like her mother, being very dark, with a pronounced nose, large mouth, and full, pleasant-looking face. 

"But, my dear, you can see for yourself. I can't leave this poor woman, "replied the lady-hospitaller; and thereupon she pointed to La Grivotte, who had been attacked by a fit of coughing which shook her frightfully. 

"Oh, how annoying, mamma!" retorted Raymonde, "Madame Desagneaux andMadame Volmar were looking forward with so much pleasure to this littlelunch together. "

"Well, it can't be helped, my dear. At all events, you can begin withoutwaiting for me. Tell the ladies that I will come and join them as soon asI can. " Then, an idea occurring to her, Madame de Jonquiere added: "Waita moment, the doctor is here. I will try to get him to take charge of mypatient. Go back, I will follow you. As you can guess, I am dying ofhunger. "

Raymonde briskly returned to the refreshment-room whilst her motherbegged Ferrand to come into her compartment to see if he could dosomething to relieve La Grivotte. At Marthe's request he had alreadyexamined Brother Isidore, whose moaning never ceased; and with asorrowful gesture he had again confessed his powerlessness. However, hehastened to comply with Madame de Jonquiere's appeal, and raised theconsumptive woman to a sitting posture in the hope of thus stopping hercough, which indeed gradually ceased. And then he helped thelady-hospitaller to make her swallow a spoonful of some soothing draught. The doctor's presence in the carriage was still causing a stir among theailing ones. M. Sabathier, who was slowly eating the grapes which hiswife had been to fetch him, did not, however, question Ferrand, for heknew full well what his answer would be, and was weary, as he expressedit, of consulting all the princes of science; nevertheless he feltcomforted as it were at seeing him set that poor consumptive woman on herfeet again. And even Marie watched all that the doctor did withincreasing interest, though not daring to call him herself, certain asshe also was that he could do nothing for her. 

Meantime, the crush on the platform was increasing. Only a quarter of anhour now remained to the pilgrims. Madame Vetu, whose eyes were open butwho saw nothing, sat like an insensible being in the broad sunlight, inthe hope possibly that the scorching heat would deaden her pains; whilstup and down, in front of her, went Madame Vincent ever with the samesleep-inducing step and ever carrying her little Rose, her poor ailingbirdie, whose weight was so trifling that she scarcely felt her in herarms. Many people meantime were hastening to the water tap in order tofill their pitchers, cans, and bottles. Madame Maze, who was of refinedtastes and careful of her person, thought of going to wash her handsthere; but just as she arrived she found Elise Rouquet drinking, and sherecoiled at sight of that disease-smitten face, so terribly disfiguredand robbed of nearly all semblance of humanity. And all the otherslikewise shuddered, likewise hesitated to fill their bottles, pitchers, and cans at the tap from which she had drunk. 

A large number of pilgrims had now begun to eat whilst pacing theplatform. You could hear the rhythmical taps of the crutches carried by awoman who incessantly wended her way through the groups. On the ground, alegless cripple was painfully dragging herself about in search of nobodyknew what. Others, seated there in heaps, no longer stirred. All thesesufferers, momentarily unpacked as it were, these patients of atravelling hospital emptied for a brief half-hour, were taking the airamidst the bewilderment and agitation of the healthy passengers; and thewhole throng had a frightfully woeful, poverty-stricken appearance in thebroad noontide light. 

Pierre no longer stirred from the side of Marie, for M. De Guersaint haddisappeared, attracted by a verdant patch of landscape which could beseen at the far end of the station. And, feeling anxious about her, sinceshe had not been able to finish her broth, the young priest with asmiling air tried to tempt her palate by offering to go and buy her apeach; but she refused it; she was suffering too much, she cared fornothing. She was gazing at him with her large, woeful eyes, on the onehand impatient at this stoppage which delayed her chance of cure, and onthe other terrified at the thought of again being jolted along that hardand endless railroad. 

Just then a stout gentleman whose full beard was turning grey, and whohad a broad, fatherly kind of face, drew near and touched Pierre's arm:"Excuse me, Monsieur l'Abbe, " said he, "but is it not in this carriagethat there is a poor man dying?"

And on the priest returning an affirmative answer, the gentleman becamequite affable and familiar. 

"My name is Vigneron, " he said; "I am the head clerk at the Ministry ofFinances, and applied for leave in order that I might help my wife totake our son Gustave to Lourdes. The dear lad places all his hope in theBlessed Virgin, to whom we pray morning and evening on his behalf. We arein a second-class compartment of the carriage just in front of yours. "

Then, turning round, he summoned his party with a wave of the hand. "Come, come!" said he, "it is here. The unfortunate man is indeed in thelast throes. "

Madame Vigneron was a little woman with the correct bearing of arespectable /bourgeoise/, but her long, livid face denoted impoverishedblood, terrible evidence of which was furnished by her son Gustave. Thelatter, who was fifteen years of age, looked scarcely ten. Twisted out ofshape, he was a mere skeleton, with his right leg so wasted, so reduced, that he had to walk with a crutch. He had a small, thin face, somewhatawry, in which one saw little excepting his eyes, clear eyes, sparklingwith intelligence, sharpened as it were by suffering, and doubtless wellable to dive into the human soul. 

An old puffy-faced lady followed the others, dragging her legs along withdifficulty; and M. Vigneron, remembering that he had forgotten her, stepped back towards Pierre so that he might complete the introduction. "That lady, " said he, "is Madame Chaise, my wife's eldest sister. Shealso wished to accompany Gustave, whom she is very fond of. " And then, leaning forward, he added in a whisper, with a confidential air: "She isthe widow of Chaise, the silk merchant, you know, who left such animmense fortune. She is suffering from a heart complaint which causes hermuch anxiety. "

The whole family, grouped together, then gazed with lively curiosity atwhat was taking place in the railway carriage. People were incessantlyflocking to the spot; and so that the lad might be the better able tosee, his father took him up in his arms for a moment whilst his aunt heldthe crutch, and his mother on her side raised herself on tip-toe. 

The scene in the carriage was still the same; the strange man was stillstiffly seated in his corner, his head resting against the hard wood. Hewas livid, his eyes were closed, and his mouth was twisted by suffering;and every now and then Sister Hyacinthe with her linen cloth wiped awaythe cold sweat which was constantly covering his face. She no longerspoke, no longer evinced any impatience, but had recovered her serenityand relied on Heaven. From time to time she would simply glance towardsthe platform to see if Father Massias were coming. 

"Look at him, Gustave, " said M. Vigneron to his son; "he must beconsumptive. "

The lad, whom scrofula was eating away, whose hip was attacked by anabscess, and in whom there were already signs of necrosis of thevertebrae, seemed to take a passionate interest in the agony he thusbeheld. It did not frighten him, he smiled at it with a smile of infinitesadness. 

"Oh! how dreadful!" muttered Madame Chaise, who, living in continualterror of a sudden attack which would carry her off, turned pale with thefear of death. 

"Ah! well, " replied M. Vigneron, philosophically, "it will come to eachof us in turn. We are all mortal. "

Thereupon, a painful, mocking expression came over Gustave's smile, asthough he had heard other words than those--perchance an unconsciouswish, the hope that the old aunt might die before he himself did, that hewould inherit the promised half-million of francs, and then not longencumber his family. 

"Put the boy down now, " said Madame Vigneron to her husband. "You aretiring him, holding him by the legs like that. "

Then both she and Madame Chaise bestirred themselves in order that thelad might not be shaken. The poor darling was so much in need of care andattention. At each moment they feared that they might lose him. Even hisfather was of opinion that they had better put him in the train again atonce. And as the two women went off with the child, the old gentlemanonce more turned towards Pierre, and with evident emotion exclaimed: "Ah!Monsieur l'Abbe, if God should take him from us, the light of our lifewould be extinguished--I don't speak of his aunt's fortune, which wouldgo to other nephews. But it would be unnatural, would it not, that heshould go off before her, especially as she is so ill? However, we areall in the hands of Providence, and place our reliance in the BlessedVirgin, who will assuredly perform a miracle. "

Just then Madame de Jonquiere, having been reassured by Doctor Ferrand, was able to leave La Grivotte. Before going off, however, she took careto say to Pierre: "I am dying of hunger and am going to therefreshment-room for a moment. But if my patient should begin coughingagain, pray come and fetch me. "

When, after great difficulty, she had managed to cross the platform andreach the refreshment-room, she found herself in the midst of anotherscramble. The better-circumstanced pilgrims had taken the tables byassault, and a great many priests were to be seen hastily lunching amidstall the clatter of knives, forks, and crockery. The three or four waiterswere not able to attend to all the requirements, especially as they werehampered in their movements by the crowd purchasing fruit, bread, andcold meat at the counter. It was at a little table at the far end of theroom that Raymonde was lunching with Madame Desagneaux and Madame Volmar. 

"Ah! here you are at last, mamma!" the girl exclaimed, as Madame deJonquiere approached. "I was just going back to fetch you. You certainlyought to be allowed time to eat!"

She was laughing, with a very animated expression on her face, quitedelighted as she was with the adventures of the journey and thisindifferent scrambling meal. "There, " said she, "I have kept you sometrout with green sauce, and there's a cutlet also waiting for you. Wehave already got to the artichokes. "

Then everything became charming. The gaiety prevailing in that littlecorner rejoiced the sight. 

Young Madame Desagneaux was particularly adorable. A delicate blonde, with wild, wavy, yellow hair, a round, dimpled, milky face, a gay, laughing disposition, and a remarkably good heart, she had made a richmarriage, and for three years past had been wont to leave her husband atTrouville in the fine August weather, in order to accompany the nationalpilgrimage as a lady-hospitaller. This was her great passion, an accessof quivering pity, a longing desire to place herself unreservedly at thedisposal of the sick for five days, a real debauch of devotion from whichshe returned tired to death but full of intense delight. Her only regretwas that she as yet had no children, and with comical passion, sheoccasionally expressed a regret that she had missed her true vocation, that of a sister of charity. 

"Ah! my dear, " she hastily said to Raymonde, "don't pity your mother forbeing so much taken up with her patients. She, at all events, hassomething to occupy her. " And addressing herself to Madame de Jonquiere, she added: "If you only knew how long we find the time in our finefirst-class carriage. We cannot even occupy ourselves with a littleneedlework, as it is forbidden. I asked for a place with the patients, but all were already distributed, so that my only resource will be to tryto sleep tonight. "

She began to laugh, and then resumed: "Yes, Madame Volmar, we will try tosleep, won't we, since talking seems to tire you?" Madame Volmar, wholooked over thirty, was very dark, with a long face and delicate butdrawn features. Her magnificent eyes shone out like brasiers, thoughevery now and then a cloud seemed to veil and extinguish them. At thefirst glance she did not appear beautiful, but as you gazed at her shebecame more and more perturbing, till she conquered you and inspired youwith passionate admiration. It should be said though that she shrank fromall self-assertion, comporting herself with much modesty, ever keeping inthe background, striving to hide her lustre, invariably clad in black andunadorned by a single jewel, although she was the wife of a Parisiandiamond-merchant. 

"Oh! for my part, " she murmured, "as long as I am not hustled too much Iam well pleased. "

She had been to Lourdes as an auxiliary lady-helper already on twooccasions, though but little had been seen of her there--at the hospitalof Our Lady of Dolours--as, on arriving, she had been overcome by suchgreat fatigue that she had been forced, she said, to keep her room. 

However, Madame de Jonquiere, who managed the ward, treated her withgood-natured tolerance. "Ah! my poor friends, " said she, "there will beplenty of time for you to exert yourselves. Get to sleep if you can, andyour turn will come when I can no longer keep up. " Then addressing herdaughter, she resumed: "And you would do well, darling, not to exciteyourself too much if you wish to keep your head clear. "

Raymonde smiled and gave her mother a reproachful glance: "Mamma, mamma, why do you say that? Am I not sensible?" she asked. 

Doubtless she was not boasting, for, despite her youthful, thoughtlessair, the air of one who simply feels happy in living, there appeared inher grey eyes an expression of firm resolution, a resolution to shape herlife for herself. 

"It is true, " the mother confessed with a little confusion, "this littlegirl is at times more sensible than I am myself. Come, pass me thecutlet--it is welcome, I assure you. Lord! how hungry I was!"

The meal continued, enlivened by the constant laughter of MadameDesagneaux and Raymonde. The latter was very animated, and her face, which was already growing somewhat yellow through long pining for asuitor, again assumed the rosy bloom of twenty. They had to eat veryfast, for only ten minutes now remained to them. On all sides one heardthe growing tumult of customers who feared that they would not have timeto take their coffee. 

All at once, however, Pierre made his appearance; a fit of stifling hadagain come over La Grivotte; and Madame de Jonquiere hastily finished herartichoke and returned to her compartment, after kissing her daughter, who wished her "good-night" in a facetious way. The priest, however, hadmade a movement of surprise on perceiving Madame Volmar with the redcross of the lady-hospitallers on her black bodice. He knew her, for hestill called at long intervals on old Madame Volmar, thediamond-merchant's mother, who had been one of his own mother's friends. She was the most terrible woman in the world, religious beyond allreason, so harsh and stern, moreover, as to close the very windowshutters in order to prevent her daughter-in-law from looking into thestreet. And he knew the young woman's story, how she had been imprisonedon the very morrow of her marriage, shut up between her mother-in-law, who tyrannised over her, and her husband, a repulsively ugly monster whowent so far as to beat her, mad as he was with jealousy, although hehimself kept mistresses. The unhappy woman was not allowed out of thehouse excepting it were to go to mass. And one day, at La Trinite, Pierrehad surprised her secret, on seeing her behind the church exchanging afew hasty words with a well-groomed, distinguished-looking man. 

The priest's sudden appearance in the refreshment-room had somewhatdisconcerted Madame Volmar. 

"What an unexpected meeting, Monsieur l'Abbe!" she said, offering him herlong, warm hand. "What a long time it is since I last saw you!" Andthereupon she explained that this was the third year she had gone toLourdes, her mother-in-law having required her to join the Association ofOur Lady of Salvation. "It is surprising that you did not see her at thestation when we started, " she added. "She sees me into the train andcomes to meet me on my return. "

This was said in an apparently simple way, but with such a subtle touchof irony that Pierre fancied he could guess the truth. He knew that shereally had no religious principles at all, and that she merely followedthe rites and ceremonies of the Church in order that she might now andagain obtain an hour's freedom; and all at once he intuitively realisedthat someone must be waiting for her yonder, that it was for the purposeof meeting him that she was thus hastening to Lourdes with her shrinkingyet ardent air and flaming eyes, which she so prudently shrouded with aveil of lifeless indifference. 

"For my part, " he answered, "I am accompanying a friend of my childhood, a poor girl who is very ill indeed. I must ask your help for her; youshall nurse her. "

Thereupon she faintly blushed, and he no longer doubted the truth of hissurmise. However, Raymonde was just then settling the bill with the easyassurance of a girl who is expert in figures; and immediately afterwardsMadame Desagneaux led Madame Volmar away. The waiters were now growingmore distracted and the tables were fast being vacated; for, on hearing abell ring, everybody had begun to rush towards the door. 

Pierre, on his side, was hastening back to his carriage, when he wasstopped by an old priest. "Ah! Monsieur le Cure, " he said, "I saw youjust before we started, but I was unable to get near enough to shakehands with you. "

Thereupon he offered his hand to his brother ecclesiastic, who waslooking and smiling at him in a kindly way. The Abbe Judaine was theparish priest of Saligny, a little village in the department of the Oise. Tall and sturdy, he had a broad pink face, around which clustered a massof white, curly hair, and it could be divined by his appearance that hewas a worthy man whom neither the flesh nor the spirit had evertormented. He believed indeed firmly and absolutely, with a tranquilgodliness, never having known a struggle, endowed as he was with theready faith of a child who is unacquainted with human passions. And eversince the Virgin at Lourdes had cured him of a disease of the eyes, by afamous miracle which folks still talked about, his belief had become yetmore absolute and tender, as though impregnated with divine gratitude. 

"I am pleased that you are with us, my friend, " he gently said; "forthere is much in these pilgrimages for young priests to profit by. I amtold that some of them at times experience a feeling of rebellion. Well, you will see all these poor people praying, --it is a sight which willmake you weep. How can one do otherwise than place oneself in God'shands, on seeing so much suffering cured or consoled?"

The old priest himself was accompanying a patient; and he pointed to afirst-class compartment, at the door of which hung a placard bearing theinscription: "M. L'Abbe Judaine, Reserved. " Then lowering his voice, hesaid: "It is Madame Dieulafay, you know, the great banker's wife. Theirchateau, a royal domain, is in my parish, and when they learned that theBlessed Virgin had vouchsafed me such an undeserved favour, they beggedme to intercede for their poor sufferer. I have already said severalmasses, and most sincerely pray for her. There, you see her yonder on theground. She insisted on being taken out of the carriage, in spite of allthe trouble which one will have to place her in it again. "

On a shady part of the platform, in a kind of long box, there was, as theold priest said, a woman whose beautiful, perfectly oval face, lighted upby splendid eyes, denoted no greater age than six-and-twenty. She wassuffering from a frightful disease. The disappearance from her system ofthe calcareous salts had led to a softening of the osseous framework, theslow destruction of her bones. Three years previously, after the adventof a stillborn child, she had felt vague pains in the spinal column. Andthen, little by little, her bones had rarefied and lost shape, thevertebrae had sunk, the bones of the pelvis had flattened, and those ofthe arms and legs had contracted. Thus shrunken, melting away as it were, she had become a mere human remnant, a nameless, fluid thing, which couldnot be set erect, but had to be carried hither and thither with infinitecare, for fear lest she should vanish between one's fingers. Her face, amotionless face, on which sat a stupefied imbecile expression, stillretained its beauty of outline, and yet it was impossible to gaze at thiswretched shred of a woman without feeling a heart-pang, the keener onaccount of all the luxury surrounding her; for not only was the box inwhich she lay lined with blue quilted silk, but she was covered withvaluable lace, and a cap of rare valenciennes was set upon her head, herwealth thus being proclaimed, displayed, in the midst of her awful agony. 

"Ah! how pitiable it is, " resumed the Abbe Judaine in an undertone. "Tothink that she is so young, so pretty, possessed of millions of money!And if you knew how dearly loved she was, with what adoration she isstill surrounded. That tall gentleman near her is her husband, thatelegantly dressed lady is her sister, Madame Jousseur. "

Pierre remembered having often noticed in the newspapers the name ofMadame Jousseur, wife of a diplomatist, and a conspicuous member of thehigher spheres of Catholic society in Paris. People had even circulated astory of some great passion which she had fought against and vanquished. She also was very prettily dressed, with marvellously tastefulsimplicity, and she ministered to the wants of her sorry sister with anair of perfect devotion. As for the unhappy woman's husband, who at theage of five-and-thirty had inherited his father's colossal business, hewas a clear-complexioned, well-groomed, handsome man, clad in a closelybuttoned frock-coat. His eyes, however, were full of tears, for he adoredhis wife, and had left his business in order to take her to Lourdes, placing his last hope in this appeal to the mercy of Heaven. 

Ever since the morning, Pierre had beheld many frightful sufferings inthat woeful white train. But none had so distressed his soul as did thatwretched female skeleton, slowly liquefying in the midst of its lace andits millions. "The unhappy woman!" he murmured with a shudder. 

The Abbe Judaine, however, made a gesture of serene hope. "The BlessedVirgin will cure her, " said he; "I have prayed to her so much. "

Just then a bell again pealed, and this time it was really the signal forstarting. Only two minutes remained. There was a last rush, and folkshurried back towards the train carrying eatables wrapped in paper, andbottles and cans which they had filled with water. Several of them quitelost their heads, and in their inability to find their carriages, randistractedly from one to the other end of the train; whilst some of theinfirm ones dragged themselves about amidst the precipitate tapping ofcrutches, and others, only able to walk with difficulty, strove to hastentheir steps whilst leaning on the arms of some of the lady-hospitallers. It was only with infinite difficulty that four men managed to replaceMadame Dieulafay in her first-class compartment. The Vignerons, who werecontent with second-class accommodation, had already reinstalledthemselves in their quarters amidst an extraordinary heap of baskets, boxes, and valises which scarcely allowed little Gustave enough room tostretch his poor puny limbs--the limbs as it were of a deformed insect. And then all the women appeared again: Madame Maze gliding along insilence; Madame Vincent raising her dear little girl in her outstretchedarms and dreading lest she should hear her cry out; Madame Vetu, whom ithad been necessary to push into the train, after rousing her from herstupefying torment; and Elise Rouquet, who was quite drenched through herobstinacy in endeavouring to drink from the tap, and was still wiping hermonstrous face. Whilst each returned to her place and the carriage filledonce more, Marie listened to her father, who had come back delighted withhis stroll to a pointsman's little house beyond the station, whence areally pleasant stretch of landscape could be discerned. 

"Shall we lay you down again at once?" asked Pierre, sorely distressed bythe pained expression on Marie's face. 

"Oh no, no, by-and-by!" she replied. "I shall have plenty of time to hearthose wheels roaring in my head as though they were grinding my bones. "

Then, as Ferrand seemed on the point of returning to the cantine van, Sister Hyacinthe begged him to take another look at the strange manbefore he went off. She was still waiting for Father Massias, astonishedat the inexplicable delay in his arrival, but not yet without hope, asSister Claire des Anges had not returned. 

"Pray, Monsieur Ferrand, " said she, "tell me if this unfortunate man isin any immediate danger. "

The young doctor again looked at the sufferer, felt him, and listened tohis breathing. Then with a gesture of discouragement he answered in a lowvoice, "I feel convinced that you will not get him to Lourdes alive. "

Every head was still anxiously stretched forward. If they had only knownthe man's name, the place he had come from, who he was! But it wasimpossible to extract a word from this unhappy stranger, who was about todie there, in that carriage, without anybody being able to give his facea name!

It suddenly occurred to Sister Hyacinthe to have him searched. Under thecircumstances there could certainly be no harm in such a course. "Feel inhis pockets, Monsieur Ferrand, " she said. 

The doctor thereupon searched the man in a gentle, cautious way, but theonly things that he found in his pockets were a chaplet, a knife, andthree sous. And nothing more was ever learnt of the man. 

At that moment, however, a voice announced that Sister Claire des Angeswas at last coming back with Father Massias. All this while the latterhad simply been chatting with the priest of Sainte-Radegonde in one ofthe waiting-rooms. Keen emotion attended his arrival; for a moment allseemed saved. But the train was about to start, the porters were alreadyclosing the carriage doors, and it was necessary that extreme unctionshould be administered in all haste in order to avoid too long a delay. 

"This way, reverend Father!" exclaimed Sister Hyacinthe; "yes, yes, praycome in; our unfortunate patient is here. "

Father Massias, who was five years older than Pierre, whosefellow-student however he had been at the seminary, had a tall, sparefigure with an ascetic countenance, framed round with a light-colouredbeard and vividly lighted up by burning eyes, He was neither the priestharassed by doubt, nor the priest with childlike faith, but an apostlecarried away by his passion, ever ready to fight and vanquish for thepure glory of the Blessed Virgin. In his black cloak with its large hood, and his broad-brimmed flossy hat, he shone resplendently with theperpetual ardour of battle. 

He immediately took from his pocket the silver case containing the HolyOils, and the ceremony began whilst the last carriage doors were beingslammed and belated pilgrims were rushing back to the train; thestation-master, meantime, anxiously glancing at the clock, and realisingthat it would be necessary for him to grant a few minutes' grace. 

"/Credo in unum Deum/, " hastily murmured the Father. 

"/Amen/, " replied Sister Hyacinthe and the other occupants of thecarriage. 

Those who had been able to do so, had knelt upon the seats, whilst theothers joined their hands, or repeatedly made the sign of the cross; andwhen the murmured prayers were followed by the Litanies of the ritual, every voice rose, an ardent desire for the remission of the man's sinsand for his physical and spiritual cure winging its flight heavenwardwith each successive /Kyrie eleison/. Might his whole life, of which theyknew nought, be forgiven him; might he enter, stranger though he was, intriumph into the Kingdom of God!

"/Christe, exaudi nos/. "

"/Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix/. "

Father Massias had pulled out the silver needle from which hung a drop ofHoly Oil. In the midst of such a scramble, with the whole trainwaiting--many people now thrusting their heads out of the carriagewindows in surprise at the delay in starting--he could not think offollowing the usual practice, of anointing in turn all the organs of thesenses, those portals of the soul which give admittance to evil. 

He must content himself, as the rules authorised him to do in pressingcases, with one anointment; and this he made upon the man's lips, thoselivid parted lips from between which only a faint breath escaped, whilstthe rest of his face, with its lowered eyelids, already seemedindistinct, again merged into the dust of the earth. 

"/Per istam sanctam unctionem/, " said the Father, "/et suam piissimammisericordiam indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum, auditum, odoratum, gustum, tactum, deliquisti. "*

 * Through this holy unction and His most tender mercy may the Lord pardon thee whatever sins thou hast committed by thy sight, hearing, etc. 

The remainder of the ceremony was lost amid the hurry and scramble of thedeparture. Father Massias scarcely had time to wipe off the oil with thelittle piece of cotton-wool which Sister Hyacinthe held in readiness, before he had to leave the compartment and get into his own as fast aspossible, setting the case containing the Holy Oils in order as he didso, whilst the pilgrims finished repeating the final prayer. 

"We cannot wait any longer! It is impossible!" repeated thestation-master as he bustled about. "Come, come, make haste everybody!"

At last then they were about to resume their journey. Everybody sat down, returned to his or her corner again. Madame de Jonquiere, however, hadchanged her place, in order to be nearer La Grivotte, whose conditionstill worried her, and she was now seated in front of M. Sabathier, whoremained waiting with silent resignation. Moreover, Sister Hyacinthe hadnot returned to her compartment, having decided to remain near theunknown man so that she might watch over him and help him. By followingthis course, too, she was able to minister to Brother Isidore, whosesufferings his sister Marthe was at a loss to assuage. And Marie, turningpale, felt the jolting of the train in her ailing flesh, even before ithad resumed its journey under the heavy sun, rolling onward once morewith its load of sufferers stifling in the pestilential atmosphere of theover-heated carriages. 

At last a loud whistle resounded, the engine puffed, and Sister Hyacintherose up to say: The /Magnificat/, my children!

IV

MIRACLES

JUST as the train was beginning to move, the door of the compartment inwhich Pierre and Marie found themselves was opened and a porter pushed agirl of fourteen inside, saying: "There's a seat here--make haste!"

The others were already pulling long faces and were about to protest, when Sister Hyacinthe exclaimed: "What, is it you, Sophie? So you aregoing back to see the Blessed Virgin who cured you last year!"

And at the same time Madame de Jonquiere remarked: "Ah! Sophie, my littlefriend, I am very pleased to see that you are grateful. "

"Why, yes, Sister; why, yes, madame, " answered the girl, in a pretty way. 

The carriage door had already been closed again, so that it was necessarythat they should accept the presence of this new pilgrim who had fallenfrom heaven as it were at the very moment when the train, which she hadalmost missed, was starting off again. She was a slender damsel and wouldnot take up much room. Moreover these ladies knew her, and all thepatients had turned their eyes upon her on hearing that the BlessedVirgin had been pleased to cure her. They had now got beyond the station, the engine was still puffing, whilst the wheels increased their speed, and Sister Hyacinthe, clapping her hands, repeated: "Come, come, mychildren, the /Magnificat/. "

Whilst the joyful chant arose amidst the jolting of the train, Pierregazed at Sophie. She was evidently a young peasant girl, the daughter ofsome poor husbandman of the vicinity of Poitiers, petted by her parents, treated in fact like a young lady since she had become the subject of amiracle, one of the elect, whom the priests of the district flocked tosee. She wore a straw hat with pink ribbons, and a grey woollen dresstrimmed with a flounce. Her round face although not pretty was a verypleasant one, with a beautifully fresh complexion and clear, intelligenteyes which lent her a smiling, modest air. 

When the /Magnificat/ had been sung, Pierre was unable to resist hisdesire to question Sophie. A child of her age, with so candid an air, soutterly unlike a liar, greatly interested him. 

"And so you nearly missed the train, my child?" he said. 

"I should have been much ashamed if I had, Monsieur l'Abbe, " she replied. "I had been at the station since twelve o'clock. And all at once I sawhis reverence, the priest of Sainte-Radegonde, who knows me well and whocalled me to him, to kiss me and tell me that it was very good of me togo back to Lourdes. But it seems the train was starting and I only justhad time to run on to the platform. Oh! I ran so fast!"

She paused, laughing, still slightly out of breath, but already repentingthat she had been so giddy. 

"And what is your name, my child?" asked Pierre. 

"Sophie Couteau, Monsieur l'Abbe. "

"You do not belong to the town of Poitiers?"

"Oh no! certainly not. We belong to Vivonne, which is seven kilometresaway. My father and mother have a little land there, and things would notbe so bad if there were not eight children at home--I am thefifth, --fortunately the four older ones are beginning to work. "

"And you, my child, what do you do?"

"I, Monsieur l'Abbe! Oh! I am no great help. Since last year, when I camehome cured, I have not been left quiet a single day, for, as you canunderstand, so many people have come to see me, and then too I have beentaken to Monseigneur's, * and to the convents and all manner of otherplaces. And before all that I was a long time ill. I could not walkwithout a stick, and each step I took made me cry out, so dreadfully didmy foot hurt me. "

 * The Bishop's residence. 

"So it was of some injury to the foot that the Blessed Virgin cured you?"

Sophie did not have time to reply, for Sister Hyacinthe, who waslistening, intervened: "Of caries of the bones of the left heel, whichhad been going on for three years, " said she. "The foot was swollen andquite deformed, and there were fistulas giving egress to continualsuppuration. "

On hearing this, all the sufferers in the carriage became intenselyinterested. They no longer took their eyes off this little girl on whom amiracle had been performed, but scanned her from head to foot as thoughseeking for some sign of the prodigy. Those who were able to stand roseup in order that they might the better see her, and the others, theinfirm ones, stretched on their mattresses, strove to raise themselvesand turn their heads. Amidst the suffering which had again come upon themon leaving Poitiers, the terror which filled them at the thought thatthey must continue rolling onward for another fifteen hours, the suddenadvent of this child, favoured by Heaven, was like a divine relief, a rayof hope whence they would derive sufficient strength to accomplish theremainder of their terrible journey. The moaning had abated somewhatalready, and every face was turned towards the girl with an ardent desireto believe. 

This was especially the case with Marie, who, already reviving, joinedher trembling hands, and in a gentle supplicating voice said to Pierre, "Question her, pray question her, ask her to tell us everything--cured, OGod! cured of such a terrible complaint!"

Madame de Jonquiere, who was quite affected, had leant over the partitionto kiss the girl. "Certainly, " said she, "our little friend will tell youall about it. Won't you, my darling? You will tell us what the BlessedVirgin did for you?"

"Oh, certainly! madame-as much as you like, " answered Sophie with hersmiling, modest air, her eyes gleaming with intelligence. Indeed, shewished to begin at once, and raised her right hand with a pretty gesture, as a sign to everybody to be attentive. Plainly enough, she had alreadyacquired the habit of speaking in public. 

She could not be seen, however, from some parts of the carriage, and anidea came to Sister Hyacinthe, who said: "Get up on the seat, Sophie, andspeak loudly, on account of the noise which the train makes. "

This amused the girl, and before beginning she needed time to becomeserious again. "Well, it was like this, " said she; "my foot was pastcure, I couldn't even go to church any more, and it had to be keptbandaged, because there was always a lot of nasty matter coming from it. Monsieur Rivoire, the doctor, who had made a cut in it, so as to seeinside it, said that he should be obliged to take out a piece of thebone; and that, sure enough, would have made me lame for life. But when Igot to Lourdes and had prayed a great deal to the Blessed Virgin, I wentto dip my foot in the water, wishing so much that I might be cured that Idid not even take the time to pull the bandage off. And everythingremained in the water, there was no longer anything the matter with myfoot when I took it out. "

A murmur of mingled surprise, wonder, and desire arose and spread amongthose who heard this marvellous tale, so sweet and soothing to all whowere in despair. But the little one had not yet finished. She had simplypaused. And now, making a fresh gesture, holding her arms somewhat apart, she concluded: "When I got back to Vivonne and Monsieur Rivoire saw myfoot again, he said: 'Whether it be God or the Devil who has cured thischild, it is all the same to me; but in all truth she /is/ cured. '"

This time a burst of laughter rang out. The girl spoke in too recitativea way, having repeated her story so many times already that she knew itby heart. The doctor's remark was sure to produce an effect, and sheherself laughed at it in advance, certain as she was that the otherswould laugh also. However, she still retained her candid, touching air. 

But she had evidently forgotten some particular, for Sister Hyacinthe, aglance from whom had foreshadowed the doctor's jest, now softly promptedher "And what was it you said to Madame la Comtesse, the superintendentof your ward, Sophie?"

"Ah! yes. I hadn't brought many bandages for my foot with me, and I saidto her, 'It was very kind of the Blessed Virgin to cure me the first day, as I should have run out of linen on the morrow. '"

This provoked a fresh outburst of delight. They all thought her so nice, to have been cured like that! And in reply to a question from Madame deJonquiere, she also had to tell the story of her boots, a pair ofbeautiful new boots which Madame la Comtesse had given her, and in whichshe had run, jumped, and danced about, full of childish delight. Boots!think of it, she who for three years had not even been able to wear aslipper. 

Pierre, who had become grave, waxing pale with the secret uneasinesswhich was penetrating him, continued to look at her. And he also askedher other questions. She was certainly not lying, and he merely suspecteda slow distortion of the actual truth, an easily explained embellishmentof the real facts amidst all the joy she felt at being cured and becomingan important little personage. Who now knew if the cicatrisation of herinjuries, effected, so it was asserted, completely, instantaneously, in afew seconds, had not in reality been the work of days? Where were thewitnesses?

Just then Madame de Jonquiere began to relate that she had been at thehospital at the time referred to. "Sophie was not in my ward, " said she, "but I had met her walking lame that very morning--"

Pierre hastily interrupted the lady-hospitaller. "Ah! you saw her footbefore and after the immersion?"

"No, no! I don't think that anybody was able to see it, for it was boundround with bandages. She told you that the bandages had fallen into thepiscina. " And, turning towards the child, Madame de Jonquiere added, "Butshe will show you her foot--won't you, Sophie? Undo your shoe. "

The girl took off her shoe, and pulled down her stocking, with apromptness and ease of manner which showed how thoroughly accustomed shehad become to it all. And she not only stretched out her foot, which wasvery clean and very white, carefully tended indeed, with well-cut, pinknails, but complacently turned it so that the young priest might examineit at his ease. Just below the ankle there was a long scar, whose whityseam, plainly defined, testified to the gravity of the complaint fromwhich the girl had suffered. 

"Oh! take hold of the heel, Monsieur l'Abbe, " said she. "Press it as hardas you like. I no longer feel any pain at all. "

Pierre made a gesture from which it might have been thought that he wasdelighted with the power exercised by the Blessed Virgin. But he wasstill tortured by doubt. What unknown force had acted in this case? Orrather what faulty medical diagnosis, what assemblage of errors andexaggerations, had ended in this fine tale?

All the patients, however, wished to see the miraculous foot, thatoutward and visible sign of the divine cure which each of them was goingin search of. And it was Marie, sitting up in her box, and alreadyfeeling less pain, who touched it first. Then Madame Maze, quite rousedfrom her melancholy, passed it on to Madame Vincent, who would havekissed it for the hope which it restored to her. M. Sabathier hadlistened to all the explanations with a beatific air; Madame Vetu, LaGrivotte, and even Brother Isidore opened their eyes, and evinced signsof interest; whilst the face of Elise Rouquet had assumed anextraordinary expression, transfigured by faith, almost beatified. If asore had thus disappeared, might not her own sore close and disappear, her face retaining no trace of it save a slight scar, and again becomingsuch a face as other people had? Sophie, who was still standing, had tohold on to one of the iron rails, and place her foot on the partition, now on the right, now on the left. And she did not weary of it all, butfelt exceedingly happy and proud at the many exclamations which wereraised, the quivering admiration and religious respect which werebestowed on that little piece of her person, that little foot which hadnow, so to say, become sacred. 

"One must possess great faith, no doubt, " said Marie, thinking aloud. "One must have a pure unspotted soul. " And, addressing herself to M. DeGuersaint, she added: "Father, I feel that I should get well if I wereten years old, if I had the unspotted soul of a little girl. "

"But you are ten years old, my darling! Is it not so, Pierre? A littlegirl of ten years old could not have a more spotless soul. "

Possessed of a mind prone to chimeras, M. De Guersaint was fond ofhearing tales of miracles. As for the young priest, profoundly affectedby the ardent purity which the young girl evinced, he no longer sought todiscuss the question, but let her surrender herself to the consolingillusions which Sophie's tale had wafted through the carriage. 

The temperature had become yet more oppressive since their departure fromPoitiers, a storm was rising in the coppery sky, and it seemed as thoughthe train were rushing through a furnace. The villages passed, mournfuland solitary under the burning sun. At Couhe-Verac they had again saidtheir chaplets, and sung another canticle. At present, however, there wassome slight abatement of the religious exercises. Sister Hyacinthe, whohad not yet been able to lunch, ventured to eat a roll and some fruit inall haste, whilst still ministering to the strange man whose faint, painful breathing seemed to have become more regular. And it was only onpassing Ruffec at three o'clock that they said the vespers of the BlessedVirgin. 

"/Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix/. "

"/Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi/. "*

 * "Pray for us, O holy Mother of God, That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ. "

As they were finishing, M. Sabathier, who had watched little Sophie whileshe put on her shoe and stocking, turned towards M. De Guersaint. 

"This child's case is interesting, no doubt, " he remarked. "But it is amere nothing, monsieur, for there have been far more marvellous curesthan that. Do you know the story of Pierre de Rudder, a Belgianworking-man?"

Everybody had again begun to listen. 

"This man, " continued M. Sabathier, "had his leg broken by the fall of atree. Eight years afterwards the two fragments of the bone had not yetjoined together again--the two ends could be seen in the depths of a sorewhich was continually suppurating; and the leg hung down quite limp, swaying in all directions. Well, it was sufficient for this man to drinka glassful of the miraculous water, and his leg was made whole again. Hewas able to walk without crutches, and the doctor said to him: 'Your legis like that of a new-born child. ' Yes, indeed, a perfectly new leg. "

Nobody spoke, but the listeners exchanged glances of ecstasy. 

"And, by the way, " resumed M. Sabathier, "it is like the story of LouisBouriette, a quarryman, one of the first of the Lourdes miracles. Do youknow it? Bouriette had been injured by an explosion during some blastingoperations. The sight of his right eye was altogether destroyed, and hewas even threatened with the loss of the left one. Well, one day he senthis daughter to fetch a bottleful of the muddy water of the source, whichthen scarcely bubbled up to the surface. He washed his eye with thismuddy liquid, and prayed fervently. And, all at once, he raised a cry, for he could see, monsieur, see as well as you and I. The doctor who wasattending him drew up a detailed narrative of the case, and there cannotbe the slightest doubt about its truth. "

"It is marvellous, " murmured M. De Guersaint in his delight. 

"Would you like another example, monsieur? I can give you a famous one, that of Francois Macary, the carpenter of Lavaur. During eighteen yearshe had suffered from a deep varicose ulcer, with considerable enlargementof the tissues in the mesial part of the left leg. He had reached such apoint that he could no longer move, and science decreed that he wouldforever remain infirm. Well, one evening he shuts himself up with abottle of Lourdes water. He takes off his bandages, washes both his legs, and drinks what little water then remains in the bottle. Then he goes tobed and falls asleep; and when he awakes, he feels his legs and looks atthem. There is nothing left; the varicose enlargement, the ulcers, haveall disappeared. The skin of his knee, monsieur, had become as smooth, asfresh as it had been when he was twenty. "

This time there was an explosion of surprise and admiration. The patientsand the pilgrims were entering into the enchanted land of miracles, whereimpossibilities are accomplished at each bend of the pathways, where onemarches on at ease from prodigy to prodigy. And each had his or her storyto tell, burning with a desire to contribute a fresh proof, to fortifyfaith and hope by yet another example. 

That silent creature, Madame Maze, was so transported that she spoke thefirst. "I have a friend, " said she, "who knew the Widow Rizan, that ladywhose cure also created so great a stir. For four-and-twenty years herleft side had been entirely paralysed. Her stomach was unable to retainany solid food, and she had become an inert bag of bones which had to beturned over in bed, The friction of the sheets, too, had ended by rubbingher skin away in parts. Well, she was so low one evening that the doctorannounced that she would die during the night. An hour later, however, she emerged from her torpor and asked her daughter in a faint voice to goand fetch her a glass of Lourdes water from a neighbour's. But she wasonly able to obtain this glass of water on the following morning; and shecried out to her daughter: 'Oh! it is life that I am drinking--rub myface with it, rub my arm and my leg, rub my whole body with it!' And whenher daughter obeyed her, she gradually saw the huge swelling subside, andthe paralysed, tumefied limbs recover their natural suppleness andappearance. Nor was that all, for Madame Rizan cried out that she wascured and felt hungry, and wanted bread and meat--she who had eaten nonefor four-and-twenty years! And she got out of bed and dressed herself, whilst her daughter, who was so overpowered that the neighbours thoughtshe had become an orphan, replied to them: 'No, no, mamma isn't dead, shehas come to life again!'"

This narrative had brought tears to Madame Vincent's eyes. Ah! if she hadonly been able to see her little Rose recover like that, eat with a goodappetite, and run about again! At the same time, another case, which shehad been told of in Paris and which had greatly influenced her indeciding to take her ailing child to Lourdes, returned to her memory. 

"And I, too, " said she, "know the story of a girl who was paralysed. Hername was Lucie Druon, and she was an inmate of an orphan asylum. She wasquite young and could not even kneel down. Her limbs were bent likehoops. Her right leg, the shorter of the two, had ended by becomingtwisted round the left one; and when any of the other girls carried herabout you saw her feet hanging down quite limp, like dead ones. Pleasenotice that she did not even go to Lourdes. She simply performed anovena; but she fasted during the nine days, and her desire to be curedwas so great that she spent her nights in prayer. At last, on the ninthday, whilst she was drinking a little Lourdes water, she felt a violentcommotion in her legs. She picked herself up, fell down, picked herselfup again and walked. All her little companions, who were astonished, almost frightened at the sight, began to cry out 'Lucie can walk! Luciecan walk!' It was quite true. In a few seconds her legs had becomestraight and strong and healthy. She crossed the courtyard and was ableto climb up the steps of the chapel, where the whole sisterhood, transported with gratitude, chanted the /Magnificat/. Ah! the dear child, how happy, how happy she must have been!"

As Madame Vincent finished, two tears fell from her cheeks on to the paleface of her little girl, whom she kissed distractedly. 

The general interest was still increasing, becoming quite impassioned. The rapturous joy born of these beautiful stories, in which Heaveninvariably triumphed over human reality, transported these childlikesouls to such a point that those who were suffering the most grievouslysat up in their turn, and recovered the power of speech. And with thenarratives of one and all was blended a thought of the sufferer's ownailment, a belief that he or she would also be cured, since a malady ofthe same description had vanished like an evil dream beneath the breathof the Divinity. 

"Ah!" stammered Madame Vetu, her articulation hindered by her sufferings, "there was another one, Antoinette Thardivail, whose stomach was beingeaten away like mine. You would have said that dogs were devouring it, and sometimes there was a swelling in it as big as a child's head. Tumours indeed were ever forming in it, like fowl's eggs, so that foreight months she brought up blood. And she also was at the point ofdeath, with nothing but her skin left on her bones, and dying of hunger, when she drank some water of Lourdes and had the pit of her stomachwashed with it. Three minutes afterwards, her doctor, who on the previousday had left her almost in the last throes, scarce breathing, found herup and sitting by the fireside, eating a tender chicken's wing with agood appetite. She had no more tumours, she laughed as she had laughedwhen she was twenty, and her face had regained the brilliancy of youth. Ah! to be able to eat what one likes, to become young again, to ceasesuffering!"

"And the cure of Sister Julienne!" then exclaimed La Grivotte, raisingherself on one of her elbows, her eyes glittering with fever. "In hercase it commenced with a bad cold as it did with me, and then she beganto spit blood. And every six months she fell ill again and had to take toher bed. The last time everybody said that she wouldn't leave it alive. The doctors had vainly tried every remedy, iodine, blistering, andcauterising. In fact, hers was a real case of phthisis, certified by halfa dozen medical men. Well, she comes to Lourdes, and Heaven alone knowsamidst what awful suffering--she was so bad, indeed, that at Toulousethey thought for a moment that she was about to die! The Sisters had tocarry her in their arms, and on reaching the piscina thelady-hospitallers wouldn't bathe her. She was dead, they said. No matter!she was undressed at last, and plunged into the water, quite unconsciousand covered with perspiration. And when they took her out she was so palethat they laid her on the ground, thinking that it was certainly all overwith her at last. But, all at once, colour came back to her cheeks, hereyes opened, and she drew a long breath. She was cured; she dressedherself without any help and made a good meal after she had been to theGrotto to thank the Blessed Virgin. There! there's no gainsaying it, thatwas a real case of phthisis, completely cured as though by medicine!"

Thereupon Brother Isidore in his turn wished to speak; but he was unableto do so at any length, and could only with difficulty manage to say tohis sister: "Marthe, tell them the story of Sister Dorothee which thepriest of Saint-Sauveur related to us. "

"Sister Dorothee, " began the peasant girl in an awkward way, "felt herleg quite numbed when she got up one morning, and from that time she lostthe use of it, for it got as cold and as heavy as a stone. Besides whichshe felt a great pain in the back. The doctors couldn't understand it. She saw half a dozen of them, who pricked her with pins and burnt herskin with a lot of drugs. But it was just as if they had sung to her. Sister Dorothee had well understood that only the Blessed Virgin couldfind the right remedy for her, and so she went off to Lourdes, and hadherself dipped in the piscina. She thought at first that the water wasgoing to kill her, for it was so bitterly cold. But by-and-by it becameso soft that she fancied it was warm, as nice as milk. She had never feltso nice before, it seemed to her as if her veins were opening and thewater were flowing into them. As you will understand, life was returninginto her body since the Blessed Virgin was concerning herself in thecase. She no longer had anything the matter with her when she came out, but walked about, ate the whole of a pigeon for her dinner, and slept allnight long like the happy woman she was. Glory to the Blessed Virgin, eternal gratitude to the most Powerful Mother and her Divine Son!"

Elise Rouquet would also have liked to bring forward a miracle which shewas acquainted with. Only she spoke with so much difficulty owing to thedeformity of her mouth, that she had not yet been able to secure a turn. Just then, however, there was a pause, and drawing the wrap, whichconcealed the horror of her sore, slightly on one side, she profited bythe opportunity to begin. 

"For my part, I wasn't told anything about a great illness, but it was avery funny case at all events, " she said. "It was about a woman, Celestine Dubois, as she was called, who had run a needle right into herhand while she was washing. It stopped there for seven years, for nodoctor was able to take it out. Her hand shrivelled up, and she could nolonger open it. Well, she got to Lourdes, and dipped her hand into thepiscina. But as soon as she did so she began to shriek, and took it outagain. Then they caught hold of her and put her hand into the water byforce, and kept it there while she continued sobbing, with her facecovered with sweat. Three times did they plunge her hand into thepiscina, and each time they saw the needle moving along, till it came outby the tip of the thumb. She shrieked, of course, because the needle wasmoving though her flesh just as though somebody had been pushing it todrive it out. And after that Celestine never suffered again, and only alittle scar could be seen on her hand as a mark of what the BlessedVirgin had done. "

This anecdote produced a greater effect than even the miraculous cures ofthe most fearful illnesses. A needle which moved as though somebody werepushing it! This peopled the Invisible, showed each sufferer his GuardianAngel standing behind him, only awaiting the orders of Heaven in order torender him assistance. And besides, how pretty and childlike the storywas--this needle which came out in the miraculous water after obstinatelyrefusing to stir during seven long years. Exclamations of delightresounded from all the pleased listeners; they smiled and laughed withsatisfaction, radiant at finding that nothing was beyond the power ofHeaven, and that if it were Heaven's pleasure they themselves would allbecome healthy, young, and superb. It was sufficient that one shouldfervently believe and pray in order that nature might be confounded andthat the Incredible might come to pass. Apart from that there was merelya question of good luck, since Heaven seemed to make a selection of thosesufferers who should be cured. 

"Oh! how beautiful it is, father, " murmured Marie, who, revived by thepassionate interest which she took in the momentous subject, had so farcontented herself with listening, dumb with amazement as it were. "Do youremember, " she continued, "what you yourself told me of that poor woman, Joachine Dehaut, who came from Belgium and made her way right acrossFrance with her twisted leg eaten away by an ulcer, the awful smell ofwhich drove everybody away from her? First of all the ulcer was healed;you could press her knee and she felt nothing, only a slight rednessremained to mark where it had been. And then came the turn of thedislocation. She shrieked while she was in the water, it seemed to her asif somebody were breaking her bones, pulling her leg away from her; and, at the same time, she and the woman who was bathing her, saw her deformedfoot rise and extend into its natural shape with the regular movement ofa clock hand. Her leg also straightened itself, the muscles extended, theknee replaced itself in its proper position, all amidst such acute painthat Joachine ended by fainting. But as soon as she recoveredconsciousness, she darted off, erect and agile, to carry her crutches tothe Grotto. "

M. De Guersaint in his turn was laughing with wonderment, waving his handto confirm this story, which had been told him by a Father of theAssumption. He could have related a score of similar instances, said he, each more touching, more extraordinary than the other. He even invokedPierre's testimony, and the young priest, who was unable to believe, contented himself with nodding his head. At first, unwilling as he was toafflict Marie, he had striven to divert his thoughts by gazing though thecarriage window at the fields, trees, and houses which defiled before hiseyes. They had just passed Angouleme, and meadows stretched out, andlines of poplar trees fled away amidst the continuous fanning of the air, which the velocity of the train occasioned. 

They were late, no doubt, for they were hastening onward at full speed, thundering along under the stormy sky, through the fiery atmosphere, devouring kilometre after kilometre in swift succession. However, despitehimself, Pierre heard snatches of the various narratives, and grewinterested in these extravagant stories, which the rough jolting of thewheels accompanied like a lullaby, as though the engine had been turnedloose and were wildly bearing them away to the divine land of dreams, They were rolling, still rolling along, and Pierre at last ceased to gazeat the landscape, and surrendered himself to the heavy, sleep-invitingatmosphere of the carriage, where ecstasy was growing and spreading, carrying everyone far from the world of reality across which they were sorapidly rushing, The sight of Marie's face with its brightened lookfilled the young priest with sincere joy, and he let her retain his hand, which she had taken in order to acquaint him, by the pressure of herfingers, with all the confidence which was reviving in her soul. And whyshould he have saddened her by his doubts, since he was so desirous ofher cure? So he continued clasping her small, moist hand, feelinginfinite affection for her, a dolorous brotherly love which distractedhim, and made him anxious to believe in the pity of the spheres, in asuperior kindness which tempered suffering to those who were plunged indespair, "Oh!" she repeated, "how beautiful it is, Pierre! How beautifulit is! And what glory it will be if the Blessed Virgin deigns to disturbherself for me! Do you really think me worthy of such a favour?"

"Assuredly I do, " he exclaimed; "you are the best and the purest, with aspotless soul as your father said; there are not enough good angels inParadise to form your escort. "

But the narratives were not yet finished. Sister Hyacinthe and Madame deJonquiere were now enumerating all the miracles with which they wereacquainted, the long, long series of miracles which for more than thirtyyears had been flowering at Lourdes, like the uninterrupted budding ofthe roses on the Mystical Rose-tree. They could be counted by thousands, they put forth fresh shoots every year with prodigious verdancy of sap, becoming brighter and brighter each successive season. And the suffererswho listened to these marvellous stories with increasing feverishnesswere like little children who, after hearing one fine fairy tale, ask foranother, and another, and yet another. Oh! that they might have more andmore of those stories in which evil reality was flouted, in which unjustnature was cuffed and slapped, in which the Divinity intervened as thesupreme healer, He who laughs at science and distributes happinessaccording to His own good pleasure. 

First of all there were the deaf and the dumb who suddenly heard andspoke; such as Aurelie Bruneau, who was incurably deaf, with the drums ofboth ears broken, and yet was suddenly enraptured by the celestial musicof a harmonium; such also as Louise Pourchet, who on her side had beendumb for five-and-twenty years, and yet, whilst praying in the Grotto, suddenly exclaimed, "Hail, Mary, full of grace!" And there were others andyet others who were completely cured by merely letting a few drops ofwater fall into their ears or upon their tongues. Then came the processionof the blind: Father Hermann, who felt the Blessed Virgin's gentle handremoving the veil which covered his eyes; Mademoiselle de Pontbriant, whowas threatened with a total loss of sight, but after a simple prayer wasenabled to see better than she had ever seen before; then a child twelveyears old whose corneas resembled marbles, but who, in three seconds, became possessed of clear, deep eyes, bright with an angelic smile. However, there was especially an abundance of paralytics, of lame peoplesuddenly enabled to walk upright, of sufferers for long years powerless tostir from their beds of misery and to whom the voice said: "Arise andwalk!" Delannoy, * afflicted with ataxia, vainly cauterised and burnt, fifteen times an inmate of the Paris hospitals, whence he had emerged withthe concurring diagnosis of twelve doctors, feels a strange force raisinghim up as the Blessed Sacrament goes by, and he begins to follow it, hislegs strong and healthy once more. Marie Louise Delpon, a girl offourteen, suffering from paralysis which had stiffened her legs, drawnback her hands, and twisted her mouth on one side, sees her limbs loosenand the distortion of her mouth disappear as though an invisible hand weresevering the fearful bonds which had deformed her. Marie Vachier, rivetedto her arm-chair during seventeen years by paraplegia, not only runs andflies on emerging from the piscina, but finds no trace even of the soreswith which her long-enforced immobility had covered her body. And GeorgesHanquet, attacked by softening of the spinal marrow, passes withouttransition from agony to perfect health; while Leonie Charton, likewiseafflicted with softening of the medulla, and whose vertebrae bulge out toa considerable extent, feels her hump melting away as though byenchantment, and her legs rise and straighten, renovated and vigorous. 

 * This was one of the most notorious of the recorded cases and had a very strange sequel subsequent to the first publication of this work. Pierre Delannoy had been employed as a ward-assistant in one of the large Paris hospitals from 1877 to 1881, when he came to the conclusion that the life of an in-patient was far preferable to the one he was leading. He, therefore, resolved to pass the rest of his days inside different hospitals in the capacity of invalid. He started by feigning locomotor ataxia, and for six years deceived the highest medical experts in Paris, so curiously did he appear to suffer. He stayed in turn in all the hospitals in the city, being treated with every care and consideration, until at last he met with a doctor who insisted on cauterisation and other disagreeable remedies. Delannoy thereupon opined that the time to be cured had arrived, and cured he became, and was discharged. He next appeared at Lourdes, supported by crutches, and presenting every symptom of being hopelessly crippled. With other infirm and decrepid people he was dipped in the piscina and so efficacious did this treatment prove that he came out another man, threw his crutches to the ground and walked, as an onlooker expressed it, "like a rural postman. " All Lourdes rang with the fame of the miracle, and the Church, after starring Delannoy round the country as a specimen of what could be done at the holy spring, placed him in charge of a home for invalids. But this was too much like hard work, and he soon decamped with all the money he could lay his hands on. Returning to Paris he was admitted to the Hospital of Ste. Anne as suffering from mental debility, but this did not prevent him from running off one night with about $300 belonging to a dispenser. The police were put on his track and arrested him in May, 1895, when he tried to pass himself off as a lunatic; but he had become by this time too well known, and was indicted in due course. At his trial he energetically denied that he had ever shammed, but the Court would not believe him, and sentenced him to four years' imprisonment with hard labour. --Trans. 

Then came all sorts of ailments. First those brought about by scrofula--agreat many more legs long incapable of service and made anew. There wasMargaret Gehier, who had suffered from coxalgia for seven-and-twentyyears, whose hip was devoured by the disease, whose left knee wasanchylosed, and who yet was suddenly able to fall upon her knees to thankthe Blessed Virgin for healing her. There was also Philomene Simonneau, the young Vendeenne, whose left leg was perforated by three horriblesores in the depths of which her carious bones were visible, and whosebones, whose flesh, and whose skin were all formed afresh. 

Next came the dropsical ones: Madame Ancelin, the swelling of whose feet, hands, and entire body subsided without anyone being able to tell whitherall the water had gone; Mademoiselle Montagnon, from whom, on variousoccasions, nearly twenty quarts of water had been drawn, and who, onagain swelling, was entirely rid of the fluid by the application of abandage which had been dipped in the miraculous source. And, in her casealso, none of the water could be found, either in her bed or on thefloor. In the same way, not a complaint of the stomach resisted, alldisappeared with the first glass of water. There was Marie Souchet, whovomited black blood, who had wasted to a skeleton, and who devoured herfood and recovered her flesh in two days' time! There was Marie Jarlaud, who had burnt herself internally through drinking a glass of a metallicsolution used for cleansing and brightening kitchen utensils, and whofelt the tumour which had resulted from her injuries melt rapidly away. Moreover, every tumour disappeared in this fashion, in the piscina, without leaving the slightest trace behind. But that which caused yetgreater wonderment was the manner in which ulcers, cancers, all sorts ofhorrible, visible sores were cicatrised as by a breath from on high. AJew, an actor, whose hand was devoured by an ulcer, merely had to dip itin the water and he was cured. A very wealthy young foreigner, who had awen as large as a hen's egg, on his right wrist, /beheld/ it dissolve. Rose Duval, who, as a result of a white tumour, had a hole in her leftelbow, large enough to accommodate a walnut, was able to watch and followthe prompt action of the new flesh in filling up this cavity! The WidowFromond, with a lip half decoyed by a cancerous formation, merely had toapply the miraculous water to it as a lotion, and not even a red markremained. Marie Moreau, who experienced fearful sufferings from a cancerin the breast, fell asleep, after laying on it a linen cloth soaked insome water of Lourdes, and when she awoke, two hours later, the pain haddisappeared, and her flesh was once more smooth and pink and fresh. 

At last Sister Hyacinthe began to speak of the immediate and completecures of phthisis, and this was the triumph, the healing of that terribledisease which ravages humanity, which unbelievers defied the BlessedVirgin to cure, but which she did cure, it was said, by merely raisingher little finger. A hundred instances, more extraordinary one than theother, pressed forward for citation. 

Marguerite Coupel, who had suffered from phthisis for three years, andthe upper part of whose lungs is destroyed by tuberculosis, rises up andgoes off, radiant with health. Madame de la Riviere, who spits blood, whois ever covered with a cold perspiration, whose nails have alreadyacquired a violet tinge, who is indeed on the point of drawing her lastbreath, requires but a spoonful of the water to be administered to herbetween her teeth, and lo! the rattles cease, she sits up, makes theresponses to the litanies, and asks for some broth. Julie Jadot requiresfour spoonfuls; but then she could no longer hold up her head, she was ofsuch a delicate constitution that disease had reduced her to nothing; andyet, in a few days, she becomes quite fat. Anna Catry, who is in the mostadvanced stage of the malady, with her left lung half destroyed by acavity, is plunged five times into the cold water, contrary to all thedictates of prudence, and she is cured, her lung is healthy once more. Another consumptive girl, condemned by fifteen doctors, has askednothing, has simply fallen on her knees in the Grotto, by chance as itwere, and is afterwards quite surprised at having been cured /aupassage/, through the lucky circumstance of having been there, no doubt, at the hour when the Blessed Virgin, moved to pity, allows miracles tofall from her invisible hands. 

Miracles and yet more miracles! They rained down like the flowers ofdreams from a clear and balmy sky. Some of them were touching, some ofthem were childish. An old woman, who, having her hand anchylosed, hadbeen incapable of moving it for thirty years, washes it in the water andis at once able to make the sign of the Cross. Sister Sophie, who barkedlike a dog, plunges into the piscina and emerges from it with a clear, pure voice, chanting a canticle. Mustapha, a Turk, invokes the White Ladyand recovers the use of his right eye by applying a compress to it. Anofficer of Turcos was protected at Sedan; a cuirassier of Reichsoffenwould have died, pierced in the heart by a bullet, if this bullet afterpassing though his pocket-book had not stayed its flight on reaching alittle picture of Our Lady of Lourdes! And, as with the men and women, sodid the children, the poor, suffering little ones, find mercy; aparalytic boy of five rose and walked after being held for five minutesunder the icy jet of the spring; another one, fifteen years of age, who, lying in bed, could only raise an inarticulate cry, sprang out of thepiscina, shouting that he was cured; another one, but two years old, apoor tiny fellow who had never been able to walk, remained for a quarterof an hour in the cold water and then, invigorated and smiling, took hisfirst steps like a little man! And for all of them, the little ones aswell as the adults, the pain was acute whilst the miracle was beingaccomplished; for the work of repair could not be effected withoutcausing an extraordinary shock to the whole human organism; the bonesgrew again, new flesh was formed, and the disease, driven away, made itsescape in a final convulsion. But how great was the feeling of comfortwhich followed! The doctors could not believe their eyes, theirastonishment burst forth at each fresh cure, when they saw the patientswhom they had despaired of run and jump and eat with ravenous appetites. All these chosen ones, these women cured of their ailments, walked acouple of miles, sat down to roast fowl, and slept the soundest of sleepsfor a dozen hours. Moreover, there was no convalescence, it was a suddenleap from the death throes to complete health. Limbs were renovated, sores were filled up, organs were reformed in their entirety, plumpnessreturned to the emaciated, all with the velocity of a lightning flash!Science was completely baffled. Not even the most simple precautions weretaken, women were bathed at all times and seasons, perspiringconsumptives were plunged into the icy water, sores were left to theirputrefaction without any thought of employing antiseptics. And then whatcanticles of joy, what shouts of gratitude and love arose at each freshmiracle! The favoured one falls upon her knees, all who are present weep, conversions are effected, Protestants and Jews alike embraceCatholicism--other miracles these, miracles of faith, at which Heaventriumphs. And when the favoured one, chosen for the miracle, returns toher village, all the inhabitants crowd to meet her, whilst the bells pealmerrily; and when she is seen springing lightly from the vehicle whichhas brought her home, shouts and sobs of joy burst forth and all intonatethe /Magnificat/: Glory to the Blessed Virgin! Gratitude and love forever!

Indeed, that which was more particularly evolved from the realisation ofall these hopes, from the celebration of all these ardent thanksgivings, was gratitude--gratitude to the Mother most pure and most admirable. Shewas the great passion of every soul, she, the Virgin most powerful, theVirgin most merciful, the Mirror of Justice, the Seat of Wisdom. * Allhands were stretched towards her, Mystical Rose in the dim light of thechapels, Tower of Ivory on the horizon of dreamland, Gate of Heavenleading into the Infinite. Each day at early dawn she shone forth, brightMorning Star, gay with juvenescent hope. And was she not also the Healthof the weak, the Refuge of sinners, the Comforter of the afflicted?France had ever been her well-loved country, she was adored there with anardent worship, the worship of her womanhood and her motherhood, thesoaring of a divine affection; and it was particularly in France that itpleased her to show herself to little shepherdesses. She was so good tothe little and the humble; she continually occupied herself with them;and if she was appealed to so willingly it was because she was known tobe the intermediary of love betwixt Earth and Heaven. Every evening shewept tears of gold at the feet of her divine Son to obtain favours fromHim, and these favours were the miracles which He permitted her towork, --these beautiful, flower-like miracles, as sweet-scented as theroses of Paradise, so prodigiously splendid and fragrant. 

 * For the information of Protestant and other non-Catholic readers it may be mentioned that all the titles enumerated in this passage are taken from the Litany of the Blessed Virgin. --Trans. 

But the train was still rolling, rolling onward. They had just passedContras, it was six o'clock, and Sister Hyacinthe, rising to her, feet, clapped her hands together and once again repeated: "The Angelus, mychildren!"

Never had "Aves" impregnated with greater faith, inflamed with a morefervent desire to be heard by Heaven, winged their flight on high. AndPierre suddenly understood everything, clearly realised the meaning ofall these pilgrimages, of all these trains rolling along through everycountry of the civilised world, of all these eager crowds, hasteningtowards Lourdes, which blazed over yonder like the abode of salvation forbody and for mind. Ah! the poor wretches whom, ever since morning, he hadheard groaning with pain, the poor wretches who exposed their sorrycarcasses to the fatigues of such a journey! They were all condemned, abandoned by science, weary of consulting doctors, of having tried thetorturing effects of futile remedies. And how well one could understandthat, burning with a desire to preserve their lives, unable to resignthemselves to the injustice and indifference of Nature, they should dreamof a superhuman power, of an almighty Divinity who, in their favour, would perchance annul the established laws, alter the course of theplanets, and reconsider His creation! For if the world failed them, didnot the Divinity remain to them? In their cases reality was tooabominable, and an immense need of illusion and falsehood sprang upwithin them. Oh! to believe that there is a supreme Justiciar somewhere, one who rights the apparent wrongs of things and beings; to believe thatthere is a Redeemer, a consoler who is the real master, who can carry thetorrents back to their source, who can restore youth to the aged, andlife to the dead! And when you are covered with sores, when your limbsare twisted, when your stomach is swollen by tumours, when your lungs aredestroyed by disease, to be able to say that all this is of noconsequence, that everything may disappear and be renewed at a sign fromthe Blessed Virgin, that it is sufficient that you should pray to her, touch her heart, and obtain the favour of being chosen by her. And thenwhat a heavenly fount of hope appeared with the prodigious flow of thosebeautiful stories of cure, those adorable fairy tales which lulled andintoxicated the feverish imaginations of the sick and the infirm. Sincelittle Sophie Couteau, with her white, sound foot, had climbed into thatcarriage, opening to the gaze of those within it the limitless heavens ofthe Divine and the Supernatural, how well one could understand the breathof resurrection that was passing over the world, slowly raising those whodespaired the most from their beds of misery, and making their eyes shinesince life was itself a possibility for them, and they were, perhaps, about to begin it afresh. 

Yes, 't was indeed that. If that woeful train was rolling, rolling on, ifthat carriage was full, if the other carriages were full also, if Franceand the world, from the uttermost limits of the earth, were crossed bysimilar trains, if crowds of three hundred thousand believers, bringingthousands of sick along with them, were ever setting out, from one end ofthe year to the other, it was because the Grotto yonder was shining forthin its glory like a beacon of hope and illusion, like a sign of therevolt and triumph of the Impossible over inexorable materiality. Neverhad a more impassionating romance been devised to exalt the souls of menabove the stern laws of life. To dream that dream, this was the great, the ineffable happiness. If the Fathers of the Assumption had seen thesuccess of their pilgrimages increase and spread from year to year, itwas because they sold to all the flocking peoples the bread ofconsolation and illusion, the delicious bread of hope, for whichsuffering humanity ever hungers with a hunger that nothing will everappease. And it was not merely the physical sores which cried aloud forcure, the whole of man's moral and intellectual being likewise shriekedforth its wretchedness, with an insatiable yearning for happiness. To behappy, to place the certainty of life in faith, to lean till death shouldcome upon that one strong staff of travel--such was the desire exhaled byevery breast, the desire which made every moral grief bend the knee, imploring a continuance of grace, the conversion of dear ones, thespiritual salvation of self and those one loved. The mighty cry spreadfrom pole to pole, ascended and filled all the regions of space: To behappy, happy for evermore, both in life and in death!

And Pierre saw the suffering beings around him lose all perception of thejolting and recover their strength as league by league they drew nearerto the miracle. Even Madame Maze grew talkative, certain as she felt thatthe Blessed Virgin would restore her husband to her. With a smile on herface Madame Vincent gently rocked her little Rose in her arms, thinkingthat she was not nearly so ill as those all but lifeless children who, after being plunged in the icy water, sprang out and played. M. Sabathierjested with M. De Guersaint, and explained to him that, next October, when he had recovered the use of his legs, he should go on a trip toRome--a journey which he had been postponing for fifteen years and more. Madame Vetu, quite calmed, feeling nothing but a slight twinge in thestomach, imagined that she was hungry, and asked Madame de Jonquiere tolet her dip some strips of bread in a glass of milk; whilst EliseRouquet, forgetting her sores, ate some grapes, with face uncovered. Andin La Grivotte who was sitting up and Brother Isidore who had ceasedmoaning, all those fine stories had left a pleasant fever, to such apoint that, impatient to be cured, they grew anxious to know the time. For a minute also the man, the strange man, resuscitated. Whilst SisterHyacinthe was again wiping the cold sweat from his brow, he raised hiseyelids, and a smile momentarily brightened his pallid countenance. Yetonce again he, also, had hoped. 

Marie was still holding Pierre's fingers in her own small, warm hand. Itwas seven o'clock, they were not due at Bordeaux till half-past seven;and the belated train was quickening its pace yet more and more, rushingalong with wild speed in order to make up for the minutes it had lost. The storm had ended by coming down, and now a gentle light of infinitepurity fell from the vast clear heavens. 

"Oh! how beautiful it is, Pierre--how beautiful it is!" Marie againrepeated, pressing his hand with tender affection. And leaning towardshim, she added in an undertone: "I beheld the Blessed Virgin a littlewhile ago, Pierre, and it was your cure that I implored and shallobtain. "

The priest, who understood her meaning, was thrown into confusion by thedivine light which gleamed in her eyes as she fixed them on his own. Shehad forgotten her own sufferings; that which she had asked for was hisconversion; and that prayer of faith, emanating, pure and candid, fromthat dear, suffering creature, upset his soul. Yet why should he notbelieve some day? He himself had been distracted by all thoseextraordinary narratives. The stifling heat of the carriage had made himdizzy, the sight of all the woe heaped up there caused his heart to bleedwith pity. And contagion was doing its work; he no longer knew where thereal and the possible ceased, he lacked the power to disentangle such amass of stupefying facts, to explain such as admitted of explanation andreject the others. At one moment, indeed, as a hymn once more resoundedand carried him off with its stubborn importunate rhythm, he ceased to bemaster of himself, and imagined that he was at last beginning to believeamidst the hallucinatory vertigo which reigned in that travellinghospital, rolling, ever rolling onward at full speed. 

V

BERNADETTE

THE train left Bordeaux after a stoppage of a few minutes, during whichthose who had not dined hastened to purchase some provisions. Moreover, the ailing ones were constantly drinking milk, and asking for biscuits, like little children. And, as soon as they were off again, SisterHyacinthe clapped her hands, and exclaimed: "Come, let us make haste; theevening prayer. "

Thereupon, during a quarter of an hour came a confused murmuring, made upof "Paters" and "Aves, " self-examinations, acts of contrition, and vowsof trustful reliance in God, the Blessed Virgin, and the Saints, withthanksgiving for protection and preservation that day, and, at last, aprayer for the living and for the faithful departed. 

"In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen. "

It was ten minutes past eight o'clock, the shades of night were alreadybedimming the landscape--a vast plain which the evening mist seemed toprolong into the infinite, and where, far away, bright dots of lightshone out from the windows of lonely, scattered houses. In the carriage, the lights of the lamps were flickering, casting a subdued yellow glow onthe luggage and the pilgrims, who were sorely shaken by the spreadingtendency of the train's motion. 

"You know, my children, " resumed Sister Hyacinthe, who had remainedstanding, "I shall order silence when we get to Lamothe, in about anhour's time. So you have an hour to amuse yourselves, but you must bereasonable and not excite yourselves too much. And when we have passedLamothe, you hear me, there must not be another word, another sound, youmust all go to sleep. "

This made them laugh. 

"Oh! but it is the rule, you know, " added the Sister, "and surely youhave too much sense not to obey me. "

Since the morning they had punctually fulfilled the programme ofreligious exercises specified for each successive hour. And now that allthe prayers had been said, the beads told, the hymns chanted, the day'sduties were over, and a brief interval for recreation was allowed beforesleeping. They were, however, at a loss as to what they should do. 

"Sister, " suddenly said Marie, "if you would allow Monsieur l'Abbe toread to us--he reads extremely well, --and as it happens I have a littlebook with me--a history of Bernadette which is so interesting--"

The others did nor let her finish, but with the suddenly awakened desireof children to whom a beautiful story has been promised, loudlyexclaimed: "Oh! yes, Sister. Oh! yes, Sister--"

"Of course I will allow it, " replied Sister Hyacinthe, "since it is aquestion of reading something instructive and edifying. "

Pierre was obliged to consent. But to be able to read the book he wishedto be under the lamp, and it was necessary that he should change seatswith M. De Guersaint, whom the promise of a story had delighted as muchas it did the ailing ones. And when the young priest, after changingseats and declaring that he would be able to see well enough, at lastopened the little book, a quiver of curiosity sped from one end of thecarriage to the other, and every head was stretched out, lending ear withrapt attention. Fortunately, Pierre had a clear, powerful voice and madehimself distinctly heard above the wheels, which, now that the traintravelled across a vast level plain, gave out but a subdued, rumblingsound. 

Before beginning, however, the young priest had examined the book. It wasone of those little works of propaganda issued from the Catholicprinting-presses and circulated in profusion throughout all Christendom. Badly printed, on wretched paper, it was adorned on its blue cover with alittle wood-cut of Our Lady of Lourdes, a naive design alike stiff andawkward. The book itself was short, and half an hour would certainlysuffice to read it from cover to cover without hurrying. 

Accordingly, in his fine, clear voice, with its penetrating, musicaltones, he began his perusal as follows:--

"It happened at Lourdes, a little town near the Pyrenees, on a Thursday, February 11, 1858. The weather was cold, and somewhat cloudy, and in thehumble home of a poor but honest miller named Francois Soubirous therewas no wood to cook the dinner. The miller's wife, Louise, said to heryounger daughter Marie, 'Go and gather some wood on the bank of the Gaveor on the common-land. ' The Gave is a torrent which passes throughLourdes. 

"Marie had an elder sister, named Bernadette, who had lately arrived fromthe country, where some worthy villagers had employed her as ashepherdess. She was a slender, delicate, extremely innocent child, andknew nothing except her rosary. Louise Soubirous hesitated to send herout with her sister, on account of the cold, but at last, yielding to theentreaties of Marie and a young girl of the neighbourhood called JeanneAbadie, she consented to let her go. 

"Following the bank of the torrent and gathering stray fragments of deadwood, the three maidens at last found themselves in front of the Grotto, hollowed out in a huge mass of rock which the people of the districtcalled Massabielle. "

Pierre had reached this point and was turning the page when he suddenlypaused and let the little book fall on his knees. The childish characterof the narrative, its ready-made, empty phraseology, filled him withimpatience. He himself possessed quite a collection of documentsconcerning this extraordinary story, had passionately studied even itsmost trifling details, and in the depths of his heart retained a feelingof tender affection and infinite pity for Bernadette. He had justreflected, too, that on the very next day he would be able to begin thatdecisive inquiry which he had formerly dreamt of making at Lourdes. Infact, this was one of the reasons which had induced him to accompanyMarie on her journey. And he was now conscious of an awakening of all hiscuriosity respecting the Visionary, whom he loved because he felt thatshe had been a girl of candid soul, truthful and ill-fated, though at thesame time he would much have liked to analyse and explain her case. Assuredly, she had not lied, she had indeed beheld a vision and heardvoices, like Joan of Arc; and like Joan of Arc also, she was now, in theopinion of the devout, accomplishing the deliverance of France--from sinif not from invaders. Pierre wondered what force could have producedher--her and her work. How was it that the visionary faculty had becomedeveloped in that lowly girl, so distracting believing souls as to bringabout a renewal of the miracles of primitive times, as to found almost anew religion in the midst of a Holy City, built at an outlay of millions, and ever invaded by crowds of worshippers more numerous and more exaltedin mind than had ever been known since the days of the Crusades?

And so, ceasing to read the book, Pierre began to tell his companions allthat he knew, all that he had divined and reconstructed of that storywhich is yet so obscure despite the vast rivers of ink which it hasalready caused to flow. He knew the country and its manners and customs, through his long conversations with his friend Doctor Chassaigne. And hewas endowed with charming fluency of language, an emotional power ofexquisite purity, many remarkable gifts well fitting him to be a pulpitorator, which he never made use of, although he had known them to bewithin him ever since his seminary days. When the occupants of thecarriage perceived that he knew the story, far better and in far greaterdetail than it appeared in Marie's little book, and that he related italso in such a gentle yet passionate way, there came an increase ofattention, and all those afflicted souls hungering for happiness wentforth towards him. First came the story of Bernadette's childhood atBartres, where she had grown up in the abode of her foster-mother, MadameLagues, who, having lost an infant of her own, had rendered those poorfolks, the Soubirouses, the service of suckling and keeping their childfor them. Bartres, a village of four hundred souls, at a league or sofrom Lourdes, lay as it were in a desert oasis, sequestered amidstgreenery, and far from any frequented highway. The road dips down, thefew houses are scattered over grassland, divided by hedges and plantedwith walnut and chestnut trees, whilst the clear rivulets, which arenever silent, follow the sloping banks beside the pathways, and nothingrises on high save the small ancient romanesque church, which is perchedon a hillock, covered with graves. Wooded slopes undulate upon all sides. Bartres lies in a hollow amidst grass of delicious freshness, grass ofintense greenness, which is ever moist at the roots, thanks to theeternal subterraneous expanse of water which is fed by the mountaintorrents. And Bernadette, who, since becoming a big girl, had paid forher keep by tending lambs, was wont to take them with her, season afterseason, through all the greenery where she never met a soul. It was onlynow and then, from the summit of some slope, that she saw the far-awaymountains, the Pic du Midi, the Pic de Viscos, those masses which roseup, bright or gloomy, according to the weather, and which stretched awayto other peaks, lightly and faintly coloured, vaguely and confusedlyoutlined, like apparitions seen in dreams. 

Then came the home of the Lagueses, where her cradle was still preserved, a solitary, silent house, the last of the village. A meadow planted withpear and apple trees, and only separated from the open country by anarrow stream which one could jump across, stretched out in front of thehouse. Inside the latter, a low and damp abode, there were, on eitherside of the wooden stairway leading to the loft, but two spacious rooms, flagged with stones, and each containing four or five beds. The girls, who slept together, fell asleep at even, gazing at the fine picturesaffixed to the walls, whilst the big clock in its pinewood case gravelystruck the hours in the midst of the deep silence. 

Ah! those years at Bartres; in what sweet peacefulness did Bernadettelive them! Yet she grew up very thin, always in bad health, sufferingfrom a nervous asthma which stifled her in the least veering of the wind;and on attaining her twelfth year she could neither read nor write, norspeak otherwise than in dialect, having remained quite infantile, behindhand in mind as in body. She was a very good little girl, verygentle and well behaved, and but little different from other children, except that instead of talking she preferred to listen. Limited as washer intelligence, she often evinced much natural common-sense, and attimes was prompt in her /reparties/, with a kind of simple gaiety whichmade one smile. It was only with infinite trouble that she was taught herrosary, and when she knew it she seemed bent on carrying her knowledge nofurther, but repeated it all day long, so that whenever you met her withher lambs, she invariably had her chaplet between her fingers, diligentlytelling each successive "Pater" and "Ave. " For long, long hours she livedlike this on the grassy slopes of the hills, hidden away and haunted asit were amidst the mysteries of the foliage, seeing nought of the worldsave the crests of the distant mountains, which, for an instant, everynow and then, would soar aloft in the radiant light, as ethereal as thepeaks of dreamland. 

Days followed days, and Bernadette roamed, dreaming her one narrow dream, repeating the sole prayer she knew, which gave her amidst her solitude, so fresh and naively infantile, no other companion and friend than theBlessed Virgin. But what pleasant evenings she spent in the winter-timein the room on the left, where a fire was kept burning! Her foster-motherhad a brother, a priest, who occasionally read some marvellous stories tothem--stories of saints, prodigious adventures of a kind to make onetremble with mingled fear and joy, in which Paradise appeared upon earth, whilst the heavens opened and a glimpse was caught of the splendour ofthe angels. The books he brought with him were often full ofpictures--God the Father enthroned amidst His glory; Jesus, so gentle andso handsome with His beaming face; the Blessed Virgin, who recurred againand again, radiant with splendour, clad now in white, now in azure, nowin gold, and ever so amiable that Bernadette would see her again in herdreams. But the book which was read more than all others was the Bible, an old Bible which had been in the family for more than a hundred years, and which time and usage had turned yellow. Each winter eveningBernadette's foster-father, the only member of the household who hadlearnt to read, would take a pin, pass it at random between the leaves ofthe book, open the latter, and then start reading from the top of theright-hand page, amidst the deep attention of both the women and thechildren, who ended by knowing the book by heart, and could havecontinued reciting it without a single mistake. 

However, Bernadette, for her part, preferred the religious works in whichthe Blessed Virgin constantly appeared with her engaging smile. True, onereading of a different character amused her, that of the marvellous storyof the Four Brothers Aymon. On the yellow paper cover of the little book, which had doubtless fallen from the bale of some peddler who had lost hisway in that remote region, there was a naive cut showing the four doughtyknights, Renaud and his brothers, all mounted on Bayard, their famousbattle charger, that princely present made to them by the fairy Orlanda. And inside were narratives of bloody fights, of the building andbesieging of fortresses, of the terrible swordthrusts exchanged by Rolandand Renaud, who was at last about to free the Holy Land, withoutmentioning the tales of Maugis the Magician and his marvellousenchantments, and the Princess Clarisse, the King of Aquitaine's sister, who was more lovely than sunlight. Her imagination fired by such storiesas these, Bernadette often found it difficult to get to sleep; and thiswas especially the case on the evenings when the books were left aside, and some person of the company related a tale of witchcraft. The girl wasvery superstitious, and after sundown could never be prevailed upon topass near a tower in the vicinity, which was said to be haunted by thefiend. For that matter, all the folks of the region were superstitious, devout, and simple-minded, the whole countryside being peopled, so tosay, with mysteries--trees which sang, stones from which blood flowed, cross-roads where it was necessary to say three "Paters" and three"Aves, " if you did not wish to meet the seven-horned beast who carriedmaidens off to perdition. And what a wealth of terrifying stories therewas! Hundreds of stories, so that there was no finishing on the eveningswhen somebody started them. First came the wehrwolf adventures, the talesof the unhappy men whom the demon forced to enter into the bodies ofdogs, the great white dogs of the mountains. If you fire a gun at the dogand a single shot should strike him, the man will be delivered; but ifthe shot should fall on the dog's shadow, the man will immediately die. Then came the endless procession of sorcerers and sorceresses. In one ofthese tales Bernadette evinced a passionate interest; it was the story ofa clerk of the tribunal of Lourdes who, wishing to see the devil, wasconducted by a witch into an untilled field at midnight on Good Friday. The devil arrived clad in magnificent scarlet garments, and at onceproposed to the clerk that he should buy his soul, an offer which theclerk pretended to accept. It so happened that the devil was carryingunder his arm a register in which different persons of the town, who hadalready sold themselves, had signed their names. However, the clerk, whowas a cunning fellow, pulled out of his pocket a pretended bottle of ink, which in reality contained holy water, and with this he sprinkled thedevil, who raised frightful shrieks, whilst the clerk took to flight, carrying the register off with him. Then began a wild, mad race, whichmight last throughout the night, over the mountains, through the valleys, across the forests and the torrents. "Give me back my register!" shoutedthe fiend. "No, you sha'n't have it!" replied the clerk. And again andagain it began afresh: "Give me back my register!"--"No, you sha'n't haveit'!" And at last, finding himself out of breath, near the point ofsuccumbing, the clerk, who had his plan, threw himself into the cemetery, which was consecrated ground, and was there able to deride the devil athis ease, waving the register which he had purloined so as to save thesouls of all the unhappy people who had signed their names in it. On theevening when this story was told, Bernadette, before surrendering herselfto sleep, would mentally repeat her rosary, delighted with the thoughtthat hell should have been baffled, though she trembled at the idea thatit would surely return to prowl around her, as soon as the lamp shouldhave been put out. 

Throughout one winter, the long evenings were spent in the church. AbbeAder, the village priest, had authorised it, and many families came, inorder to economise oil and candles. Moreover, they felt less cold whengathered together in this fashion. The Bible was read, and prayers wererepeated, whilst the children ended by falling asleep. Bernadette alonestruggled on to the finish, so pleased she was at being there, in thatnarrow nave whose slender nervures were coloured blue and red. At thefarther end was the altar, also painted and gilded, with its twistedcolumns and its screens on which appeared the Virgin and Ste. Anne, andthe beheading of St. John the Baptist--the whole of a gaudy and somewhatbarbaric splendour. And as sleepiness grew upon her, the child must haveoften seen a mystical vision as it were of those crudely coloured designsrising before her--have seen the blood flowing from St. John's severedhead, have seen the aureolas shining, the Virgin ever returning andgazing at her with her blue, living eyes, and looking as though she wereon the point of opening her vermilion lips in order to speak to her. Forsome months Bernadette spent her evenings in this wise, half asleep infront of that sumptuous, vaguely defined altar, in the incipiency of adivine dream which she carried away with her, and finished in bed, slumbering peacefully under the watchful care of her guardian angel. 

And it was also in that old church, so humble yet so impregnated withardent faith, that Bernadette began to learn her catechism. She wouldsoon be fourteen now, and must think of her first communion. Herfoster-mother, who had the reputation of being avaricious, did not sendher to school, but employed her in or about the house from morning tillevening. M. Barbet, the schoolmaster, never saw her at his classes, though one day, when he gave the catechism lesson, in the place of AbbeAder who was indisposed, he remarked her on account of her piety andmodesty. The village priest was very fond of Bernadette and often spokeof her to the schoolmaster, saying that he could never look at herwithout thinking of the children of La Salette, since they must have beengood, candid, and pious as she was, for the Blessed Virgin to haveappeared to them. * On another occasion whilst the two men were walkingone morning near the village, and saw Bernadette disappear with herlittle flock under some spreading trees in the distance, the Abberepeatedly turned round to look for her, and again remarked "I cannotaccount for it, but every time I meet that child it seems to me as if Isaw Melanie, the young shepherdess, little Maximin's companion. " He wascertainly beset by this singular idea, which became, so to say, aprediction. Moreover, had he not one day after catechism, or one evening, when the villagers were gathered in the church, related that marvellousstory which was already twelve years old, that story of the Lady in thedazzling robes who walked upon the grass without even making it bend, theBlessed Virgin who showed herself to Melanie and Maximin on the banks ofa stream in the mountains, and confided to them a great secret andannounced the anger of her Son? Ever since that day a source had sprungup from the tears which she had shed, a source which cured all ailments, whilst the secret, inscribed on parchment fastened with three seals, slumbered at Rome! And Bernadette, no doubt, with her dreamy, silent air, had listened passionately to that wonderful tale and carried it off withher into the desert of foliage where she spent her days, so that shemight live it over again as she walked along behind her lambs with herrosary, slipping bead by bead between her slender fingers. 

 * It was on September 19, 1846, that the Virgin is said to have appeared in the ravine of La Sezia, adjacent to the valley of La Salette, between Corps and Eutraigues, in the department of the Isere. The visionaries were Melanie Mathieu, a girl of fourteen, and Maximin Giraud, a boy of twelve. The local clergy speedily endorsed the story of the miracle, and thousands of people still go every year in pilgrimage to a church overlooking the valley, and bathe and drink at a so-called miraculous source. Two priests of Grenoble, however, Abbe Deleon and Abbe Cartellier, accused a Mlle. De Lamerliere of having concocted the miracle, and when she took proceedings against them for libel she lost her case. --Trans. 

Thus her childhood ran its course at Bartres. That which delighted one inthis Bernadette, so poor-blooded, so slight of build, was her ecstaticeyes, beautiful visionary eyes, from which dreams soared aloft like birdswinging their flight in a pure limpid sky. Her mouth was large, with lipssomewhat thick, expressive of kindliness; her square-shaped head had astraight brow, and was covered with thick black hair, whilst her facewould have seemed rather common but for its charming expression of gentleobstinacy. Those who did not gaze into her eyes, however, gave her nothought. To them she was but an ordinary child, a poor thing of theroads, a girl of reluctant growth, timidly humble in her ways. Assuredlyit was in her glance that Abbe Ader had with agitation detected thestifling ailment which filled her puny, girlish form with suffering--thatailment born of the greeny solitude in which she had grown up, thegentleness of her bleating lambs, the Angelic Salutation which she hadcarried with her, hither and thither, under the sky, repeating andrepeating it to the point of hallucination, the prodigious stories, too, which she had heard folks tell at her foster-mother's, the long eveningsspent before the living altar-screens in the church, and all theatmosphere of primitive faith which she had breathed in that far-awayrural region, hemmed in by mountains. 

At last, on one seventh of January, Bernadette had just reached herfourteenth birthday, when her parents, finding that she learnt nothing atBartres, resolved to bring her back to Lourdes for good, in order thatshe might diligently study her catechism, and in this wise seriouslyprepare herself for her first communion. And so it happened that she hadalready been at Lourdes some fifteen or twenty days, when on February 11, a Thursday, cold and somewhat cloudy--

But Pierre could carry his narrative no further, for Sister Hyacinthe hadrisen to her feet and was vigorously clapping her hands. "My children, "she exclaimed, "it is past nine o'clock. Silence! silence!"

The train had indeed just passed Lamothe, and was rolling with a dullrumble across a sea of darkness--the endless plains of the Landes whichthe night submerged. For ten minutes already not a sound ought to havebeen heard in the carriage, one and all ought to have been sleeping orsuffering uncomplainingly. However, a mutiny broke out. 

"Oh! Sister!" exclaimed Marie, whose eyes were sparkling, "allow us justanother short quarter of an hour! We have got to the most interestingpart. "

Ten, twenty voices took up the cry: "Oh yes, Sister, please do let ushave another short quarter of an hour!"

They all wished to hear the continuation, burning with as much curiosityas though they had not known the story, so captivated were they by thetouches of compassionate human feeling which Pierre introduced into hisnarrative. Their glances never left him, all their heads were stretchedtowards him, fantastically illumined by the flickering light of thelamps. And it was not only the sick who displayed this interest; the tenwomen occupying the compartment at the far end of the carriage had alsobecome impassioned, and, happy at not missing a single word, turned theirpoor ugly faces now beautified by naive faith. 

"No, I cannot!" Sister Hyacinthe at first declared; "the rules are verystrict--you must be silent. "

However, she weakened, she herself feeling so interested in the tale thatshe could detect her heart beating under her stomacher. Then Marie againrepeated her request in an entreating tone; whilst her father, M. DeGuersaint, who had listened like one hugely amused, declared that theywould all fall ill if the story were not continued. And thereupon, seeingMadame de Jonquiere smile with an indulgent air, Sister Hyacinthe endedby consenting. 

"Well, then, " said she, "I will allow you another short quarter of anhour; but only a short quarter of an hour, mind. That is understood, isit not? For I should otherwise be in fault. "

Pierre had waited quietly without attempting to intervene. And he resumedhis narrative in the same penetrating voice as before, a voice in whichhis own doubts were softened by pity for those who suffer and who hope. 

The scene of the story was now transferred to Lourdes, to the Rue desPetits Fosses, a narrow, tortuous, mournful street taking a downwardcourse between humble houses and roughly plastered dead walls. TheSoubirous family occupied a single room on the ground floor of one ofthese sorry habitations, a room at the end of a dark passage, in whichseven persons were huddled together, the father, the mother, and fivechildren. You could scarcely see in the chamber; from the tiny, dampinner courtyard of the house there came but a greenish light. And in thatroom they slept, all of a heap; and there also they ate, when they hadbread. For some time past, the father, a miller by trade, could only withdifficulty obtain work as a journeyman. And it was from that dark hole, that lowly wretchedness, that Bernadette, the elder girl, with Marie, hersister, and Jeanne, a little friend of the neighbourhood, went out topick up dead wood, on the cold February Thursday already spoken of. 

Then the beautiful tale was unfolded at length; how the three girlsfollowed the bank of the Gave from the other side of the castle, and howthey ended by finding themselves on the Ile du Chalet in front of therock of Massabielle, from which they were only separated by the narrowstream diverted from the Gave, and used for working the mill of Savy. Itwas a wild spot, whither the common herdsman often brought the pigs ofthe neighbourhood, which, when showers suddenly came on, would takeshelter under this rock of Massabielle, at whose base there was a kind ofgrotto of no great depth, blocked at the entrance by eglantine andbrambles. The girls found dead wood very scarce that day, but at last onseeing on the other side of the stream quite a gleaning of branchesdeposited there by the torrent, Marie and Jeanne crossed over through thewater; whilst Bernadette, more delicate than they were, a trifleyoung-ladyfied, perhaps, remained on the bank lamenting, and not daringto wet her feet. She was suffering slightly from humour in the head, andher mother had expressly bidden her to wrap herself in her /capulet/, * alarge white /capulet/ which contrasted vividly with her old black woollendress. When she found that her companions would not help her, sheresignedly made up her mind to take off her /sabots/, and pull down herstockings. It was then about noon, the three strokes of the Angelus rangout from the parish church, rising into the broad calm winter sky, whichwas somewhat veiled by fine fleecy clouds. And it was then that a greatagitation arose within her, resounding in her ears with such atempestuous roar that she fancied a hurricane had descended from themountains, and was passing over her. But she looked at the trees and wasstupefied, for not a leaf was stirring. Then she thought that she hadbeen mistaken, and was about to pick up her /sabots/, when again thegreat gust swept through her; but, this time, the disturbance in her earsreached her eyes, she no longer saw the trees, but was dazzled by awhiteness, a kind of bright light which seemed to her to settle itselfagainst the rock, in a narrow, lofty slit above the Grotto, not unlike anogival window of a cathedral. In her fright she fell upon her knees. Whatcould it be, /mon Dieu/? Sometimes, during bad weather, when her asthmaoppressed her more than usual, she spent very bad nights, incessantlydreaming dreams which were often painful, and whose stifling effect sheretained on awaking, even when she had ceased to remember anything. Flames would surround her, the sun would flash before her face. Had shedreamt in that fashion during the previous night? Was this thecontinuation of some forgotten dream? However, little by little a formbecame outlined, she believed that she could distinguish a figure whichthe vivid light rendered intensely white. In her fear lest it should bethe devil, for her mind was haunted by tales of witchcraft, she began totell her beads. And when the light had slowly faded away, and she hadcrossed the canal and joined Marie and Jeanne, she was surprised to findthat neither of them had seen anything whilst they were picking up thewood in front of the Grotto. On their way back to Lourdes the three girlstalked together. So she, Bernadette, had seen something then? What wasit? At first, feeling uneasy, and somewhat ashamed, she would not answer;but at last she said that she had seen something white. 

 * This is a kind of hood, more generally known among the Bearnese peasantry as a /sarot/. Whilst forming a coif it also completely covers the back and shoulders. --Trans. 

From this the rumours started and grew. The Soubirouses, on being madeacquainted with the circumstance, evinced much displeasure at suchchildish nonsense, and told their daughter that she was not to return tothe rock of Massabielle. All the children of the neighbourhood, however, were already repeating the tale, and when Sunday came the parents had togive way, and allow Bernadette to betake herself to the Grotto with abottle of holy water to ascertain if it were really the devil whom onehad to deal with. She then again beheld the light, the figure became moreclearly defined, and smiled upon her, evincing no fear whatever of theholy water. And, on the ensuing Thursday, she once more returned to thespot accompanied by several persons, and then for the first time theradiant lady assumed sufficient corporality to speak, and say to her: "Dome the kindness to come here for fifteen days. "

Thus, little by little, the lady had assumed a precise appearance. Thesomething clad in white had become indeed a lady more beautiful than aqueen, of a kind such as is only seen in pictures. At first, in presenceof the questions with which all the neighbours plied her from morningtill evening, Bernadette had hesitated, disturbed, perhaps, by scruplesof conscience. But then, as though prompted by the very interrogatoriesto which she was subjected, she seemed to perceive the figure which shehad beheld, more plainly, so that it definitely assumed life, with linesand hues from which the child, in her after-descriptions, never departed. The lady's eyes were blue and very mild, her mouth was rosy and smiling, the oval of her face expressed both the grace of youth and of maternity. Below the veil covering her head and falling to her heels, only a glimpsewas caught of her admirable fair hair, which was slightly curled. Herrobe, which was of dazzling whiteness, must have been of some materialunknown on earth, some material woven of the sun's rays. Her sash, of thesame hue as the heavens, was fastened loosely about her, its long endsstreaming downwards, with the light airiness of morning. Her chaplet, wound about her right arm, had beads of a milky whiteness, whilst thelinks and the cross were of gold. And on her bare feet, on her adorablefeet of virgin snow, flowered two golden roses, the mystic roses of thisdivine mother's immaculate flesh. 

Where was it that Bernadette had seen this Blessed Virgin, of suchtraditionally simple composition, unadorned by a single jewel, having butthe primitive grace imagined by the painters of a people in itschildhood? In which illustrated book belonging to her foster-mother'sbrother, the good priest, who read such attractive stories, had shebeheld this Virgin? Or in what picture, or what statuette, or whatstained-glass window of the painted and gilded church where she had spentso many evenings whilst growing up? And whence, above all things, hadcome those golden roses poised on the Virgin's feet, that piouslyimagined florescence of woman's flesh--from what romance of chivalry, from what story told after catechism by the Abbe Ader, from whatunconscious dream indulged in under the shady foliage of Bartres, whilstever and ever repeating that haunting Angelic Salutation?

Pierre's voice had acquired a yet more feeling tone, for if he did notsay all these things to the simple-minded folks who were listening tohim, still the human explanation of all these prodigies which the feelingof doubt in the depths of his being strove to supply, imparted to hisnarrative a quiver of sympathetic, fraternal love. He loved Bernadettethe better for the great charm of her hallucination--that lady of suchgracious access, such perfect amiability, such politeness in appearingand disappearing so appropriately. At first the great light would showitself, then the vision took form, came and went, leant forward, movedabout, floating imperceptibly, with ethereal lightness; and when itvanished the glow lingered for yet another moment, and then disappearedlike a star fading away. No lady in this world could have such a whiteand rosy face, with a beauty so akin to that of the Virgins on thepicture-cards given to children at their first communions. And it wasstrange that the eglantine of the Grotto did not even hurt her adorablebare feet blooming with golden flowers. 

Pierre, however, at once proceeded to recount the other apparitions. Thefourth and fifth occurred on the Friday and the Saturday; but the Lady, who shone so brightly and who had not yet told her name, contentedherself on these occasions with smiling and saluting without pronouncinga word. On the Sunday, however, she wept, and said to Bernadette, "Prayfor sinners. " On the Monday, to the child's great grief, she did notappear, wishing, no doubt, to try her. But on the Tuesday she confided toher a secret which concerned her (the girl) alone, a secret which she wasnever to divulge*; and then she at last told her what mission it was thatshe entrusted to her: "Go and tell the priests, " she said, "that theymust build a chapel here. " On the Wednesday she frequently murmured theword "Penitence! penitence! penitence!" which the child repeated, afterwards kissing the earth. On the Thursday the Lady said to her: "Go, and drink, and wash at the spring, and eat of the grass that is besideit, " words which the Visionary ended by understanding, when in the depthsof the Grotto a source suddenly sprang up beneath her fingers. And thiswas the miracle of the enchanted fountain. 

 * In a like way, it will be remembered, the apparition at La Salette confided a secret to Melanie and Maximin (see /ante/, note). There can be little doubt that Bernadette was acquainted with the story of the miracle of La Salette. --Trans. 

Then the second week ran its course. The lady did not appear on theFriday, but was punctual on the five following days, repeating hercommands and gazing with a smile at the humble girl whom she had chosento do her bidding, and who, on her side, duly told her beads at eachapparition, kissed the earth, and repaired on her knees to the source, there to drink and wash. At last, on Thursday, March 4, the last day ofthese mystical assignations, the Lady requested more pressingly thanbefore that a chapel might be erected in order that the nations mightcome thither in procession from all parts of the earth. So far, however, in reply to all Bernadette's appeals, she had refused to say who she was;and it was only three weeks later, on Thursday, March 25, that, joiningher hands together, and raising her eyes to Heaven, she said: "I am theImmaculate Conception. " On two other occasions, at somewhat longintervals, April 7 and July l6, she again appeared: the first time toperform the miracle of the lighted taper, that taper above which thechild, plunged in ecstasy, for a long time unconsciously left her hand, without burning it; and the second time to bid Bernadette farewell, tofavour her with a last smile, and a last inclination of the head full ofcharming politeness. This made eighteen apparitions all told; and neveragain did the Lady show herself. 

Whilst Pierre went on with his beautiful, marvellous story, so soothingto the wretched, he evoked for himself a vision of that pitiable, lovableBernadette, whose sufferings had flowered so wonderfully. As a doctor hadroughly expressed it, this girl of fourteen, at a critical period of herlife, already ravaged, too, by asthma, was, after all, simply anexceptional victim of hysteria, afflicted with a degenerate heredity andlapsing into infancy. If there were no violent crises in her case, ifthere were no stiffening of the muscles during her attacks, if sheretained a precise recollection of her dreams, the reason was that hercase was peculiar to herself, and she added, so to say, a new and verycurious form to all the forms of hysteria known at the time. Miraclesonly begin when things cannot be explained; and science, so far, knowsand can explain so little, so infinitely do the phenomena of disease varyaccording to the nature of the patient! But how many shepherdesses therehad been before Bernadette who had seen the Virgin in a similar way, amidst all the same childish nonsense! Was it not always the same story, the Lady clad in light, the secret confided, the spring bursting forth, the mission which had to be fulfilled, the miracles whose enchantmentswould convert the masses? And was not the personal appearance of theVirgin always in accordance with a poor child's dreams--akin to somecoloured figure in a missal, an ideal compounded of traditional beauty, gentleness, and politeness. And the same dreams showed themselves in thenaivete of the means which were to be employed and of the object whichwas to be attained--the deliverance of nations, the building of churches, the processional pilgrimages of the faithful! Then, too, all the wordswhich fell from Heaven resembled one another, calls for penitence, promises of help; and in this respect, in Bernadette's case the only newfeature was that most extraordinary declaration: "I am the ImmaculateConception, " which burst forth--very usefully--as the recognition by theBlessed Virgin herself of the dogma promulgated by the Court of Rome butthree years previously! It was not the Immaculate Virgin who appeared:no, it was the Immaculate Conception, the abstraction itself, the thing, the dogma, so that one might well ask oneself if really the Virgin hadspoken in such a fashion. As for the other words, it was possible thatBernadette had heard them somewhere and stored them up in someunconscious nook of her memory. But these--"I am the ImmaculateConception"--whence had they come as though expressly to fortify adogma--still bitterly discussed--with such prodigious support as thedirect testimony of the Mother conceived without sin? At this thought, Pierre, who was convinced of Bernadette's absolute good faith, whorefused to believe that she had been the instrument of a fraud, began towaver, deeply agitated, feeling his belief in truth totter within him. 

The apparitions, however, had caused intense emotion at Lourdes; crowdsflocked to the spot, miracles began, and those inevitable persecutionsbroke out which ensure the triumph of new religions. Abbe Peyramale, theparish priest of Lourdes, an extremely honest man, with an upright, vigorous mind, was able in all truth to declare that he did not know thischild, that she had not yet been seen at catechism. Where was thepressure, then, where the lesson learnt by heart? There was nothing butthose years of childhood spent at Bartres, the first teachings of AbbeAder, conversations possibly, religious ceremonies in honour of therecently proclaimed dogma, or simply the gift of one of thosecommemorative medals which had been scattered in profusion. Never didAbbe Ader reappear upon the scene, he who had predicted the mission ofthe future Visionary. He was destined to remain apart from Bernadette andher future career, he who, the first, had seen her little soul blossom inhis pious hands. And yet all the unknown forces that had sprung from thatsequestered village, from that nook of greenery where superstition andpoverty of intelligence prevailed, were still making themselves felt, disturbing the brains of men, disseminating the contagion of themysterious. It was remembered that a shepherd of Argeles, speaking of therock of Massabielle, had prophesied that great things would take placethere. Other children, moreover, now fell in ecstasy with their eyesdilated and their limbs quivering with convulsions, but these only sawthe devil. A whirlwind of madness seemed to be passing over the region. An old lady of Lourdes declared that Bernadette was simply a witch andthat she had herself seen the toad's foot in her eye. But for the others, for the thousands of pilgrims who hastened to the spot, she was a saint, and they kissed her garments. Sobs burst forth and frenzy seemed to seizeupon the souls of the beholders, when she fell upon her knees before theGrotto, a lighted taper in her right hand, whilst with the left she toldthe beads of her rosary. She became very pale and quite beautiful, transfigured, so to say. Her features gently ascended in her face, lengthened into an expression of extraordinary beatitude, whilst her eyesfilled with light, and her lips parted as though she were speaking wordswhich could not be heard. And it was quite certain that she had no willof her own left her, penetrated as she was by a dream, possessed by it tosuch a point in the confined, exclusive sphere in which she lived, thatshe continued dreaming it even when awake, and thus accepted it as theonly indisputable reality, prepared to testify to it even at the cost ofher blood, repeating it over and over again, obstinately, stubbornlyclinging to it, and never varying in the details she gave. She did notlie, for she did not know, could not and would not desire anything apartfrom it. 

Forgetful of the flight of time, Pierre was now sketching a charmingpicture of old Lourdes, that pious little town, slumbering at the foot ofthe Pyrenees. The castle, perched on a rock at the point of intersectionof the seven valleys of Lavedan, had formerly been the key of themountain districts. But, in Bernadette's time, it had become a meredismantled, ruined pile, at the entrance of a road leading nowhere. Modern life found its march stayed by a formidable rampart of lofty, snow-capped peaks, and only the trans-Pyrenean railway--had it beenconstructed--could have established an active circulation of social lifein that sequestered nook where human existence stagnated like dead water. Forgotten, therefore, Lourdes remained slumbering, happy and sluggishamidst its old-time peacefulness, with its narrow, pebble-paved streetsand its bleak houses with dressings of marble. The old roofs were stillall massed on the eastern side of the castle; the Rue de la Grotte, thencalled the Rue du Bois, was but a deserted and often impassable road; nohouses stretched down to the Gave as now, and the scum-laden watersrolled through a perfect solitude of pollard willows and tall grass. Onweek-days but few people passed across the Place du Marcadal, such ashousewives hastening on errands, and petty cits airing their leisurehours; and you had to wait till Sundays or fair days to find theinhabitants rigged out in their best clothes and assembled on the ChampCommun, in company with the crowd of graziers who had come down from thedistant tablelands with their cattle. During the season when peopleresort to the Pyrenean-waters, the passage of the visitors to Cauteretsand Bagneres also brought some animation; /diligences/ passed through thetown twice a day, but they came from Pau by a wretched road, and had toford the Lapaca, which often overflowed its banks. Then climbing thesteep ascent of the Rue Basse, they skirted the terrace of the church, which was shaded by large elms. And what soft peacefulness prevailed inand around that old semi-Spanish church, full of ancient carvings, columns, screens, and statues, peopled with visionary patches of gildingand painted flesh, which time had mellowed and which you faintlydiscerned as by the light of mystical lamps! The whole population camethere to worship, to fill their eyes with the dream of the mysterious. There were no unbelievers, the inhabitants of Lourdes were a people ofprimitive faith; each corporation marched behind the banner of its saint, brotherhoods of all kinds united the entire town, on festival mornings, in one large Christian family. And, as with some exquisite flower thathas grown in the soil of its choice, great purity of life reigned there. There was not even a resort of debauchery for young men to wreck theirlives, and the girls, one and all, grew up with the perfume and beauty ofinnocence, under the eyes of the Blessed Virgin, Tower of Ivory and Seatof Wisdom. 

And how well one could understand that Bernadette, born in that holysoil, should flower in it, like one of nature's roses budding in thewayside bushes! She was indeed the very florescence of that region ofancient belief and rectitude; she would certainly not have sproutedelsewhere; she could only appear and develop there, amidst that belatedrace, amidst the slumberous peacefulness of a childlike people, under themoral discipline of religion. And what intense love at once burst forthall around her! What blind confidence was displayed in her mission, whatimmense consolation and hope came to human hearts on the very morrow ofthe first miracles! A long cry of relief had greeted the cure of oldBourriette recovering his sight, and of little Justin Bouhohorts comingto life again in the icy water of the spring. At last, then, the BlessedVirgin was intervening in favour of those who despaired, forcing thatunkind mother, Nature, to be just and charitable. This was divineomnipotence returning to reign on earth, sweeping the laws of the worldaside in order to work the happiness of the suffering and the poor. Themiracles multiplied, blazed forth, from day to day more and moreextraordinary, like unimpeachable proof of Bernadette's veracity. And shewas, indeed, the rose of the divine garden, whose deeds shed perfume, therose who beholds all the other flowers of grace and salvation spring intobeing around her. 

Pierre had reached this point of his story, and was again enumerating themiracles, on the point of recounting the prodigious triumph of theGrotto, when Sister Hyacinthe, awaking with a start from the ecstasy intowhich the narrative had plunged her, hastily rose to her feet. "Really, really, " said she, "there is no sense in it. It will soon be eleveno'clock. "

This was true. They had left Morceux behind them, and would now soon beat Mont de Marsan. So Sister Hyacinthe clapped her hands once more, andadded: "Silence, my children, silence!"

This time they did not dare to rebel, for they felt she was in the right;they were unreasonable. But how greatly they regretted not hearing thecontinuation, how vexed they were that the story should cease when onlyhalf told! The ten women in the farther compartment even let a murmur ofdisappointment escape them; whilst the sick, their faces stilloutstretched, their dilated eyes gazing upon the light of hope, seemed tobe yet listening. Those miracles which ever and ever returned to theirminds and filled them with unlimited, haunting, supernatural joy. 

"And don't let me hear anyone breathe, even, " added Sister Hyacinthegaily, "or otherwise I shall impose penance on you. "

Madame de Jonquiere laughed good-naturedly. "You must obey, my children, "she said; "be good and get to sleep, so that you may have strength topray at the Grotto to-morrow with all your hearts. "

Then silence fell, nobody spoke any further; and the only sounds werethose of the rumbling of the wheels and the jolting of the train as itwas carried along at full speed through the black night. 

Pierre, however, was unable to sleep. Beside him, M. De Guersaint wasalready snoring lightly, looking very happy despite the hardness of hisseat. For a time the young priest saw Marie's eyes wide open, still fullof all the radiance of the marvels that he had related. For a long whileshe kept them ardently fixed upon his own, but at last closed them, andthen he knew not whether she was sleeping, or with eyelids simply closedwas living the everlasting miracle over again. Some of the sufferers weredreaming aloud, giving vent to bursts of laughter which unconscious moansinterrupted. Perhaps they beheld the Archangels opening their flesh towrest their diseases from them. Others, restless with insomnia, turnedover and over, stifling their sobs and gazing fixedly into the darkness. And, with a shudder born of all the mystery he had evoked, Pierre, distracted, no longer master of himself in that delirious sphere offraternal suffering, ended by hating his very mind, and, drawn into closecommunion with all those humble folks, sought to believe like them. Whatcould be the use of that physiological inquiry into Bernadette's case, sofull of gaps and intricacies? Why should he not accept her as a messengerfrom the spheres beyond, as one of the elect chosen for the divinemystery? Doctors were but ignorant men with rough and brutal hands, andit would be so delightful to fall asleep in childlike faith, in theenchanted gardens of the impossible. And for a moment indeed hesurrendered himself, experiencing a delightful feeling of comfort, nolonger seeking to explain anything, but accepting the Visionary with hersumptuous /cortege/ of miracles, and relying on God to think anddetermine for him. Then he looked out through the window, which they didnot dare to open on account of the consumptive patients, and beheld theimmeasurable night which enwrapped the country across which the train wasfleeing. The storm must have burst forth there; the sky was now of anadmirable nocturnal purity, as though cleansed by the masses of fallenwater. Large stars shone out in the dark velvet, alone illumining, withtheir mysterious gleams, the silent, refreshed fields, which incessantlydisplayed only the black solitude of slumber. And across the Landes, through the valleys, between the hills, that carriage of wretchedness andsuffering rolled on and on, over-heated, pestilential, rueful, andwailing, amidst the serenity of the august night, so lovely and so mild. 

They had passed Riscle at one in the morning. Between the jolting, thepainful, the hallucinatory silence still continued. At two o'clock, asthey reached Vic-de-Bigorre, low moans were heard; the bad state of theline, with the unbearable spreading tendency of the train's motion, wassorely shaking the patients. It was only at Tarbes, at half-past two, that silence was at length broken, and that morning prayers were said, though black night still reigned around them. There came first the"Pater, " and then the "Ave, " the "Credo, " and the supplication to God togrant them the happiness of a glorious day. 

"O God, vouchsafe me sufficient strength that I may avoid all that isevil, do all that is good, and suffer uncomplainingly every pain. "

And now there was to be no further stoppage until they reached Lourdes. Barely three more quarters of an hour, and Lourdes, with all its vasthopes, would blaze forth in the midst of that night, so long and cruel. Their painful awakening was enfevered by the thought; a final agitationarose amidst the morning discomfort, as the abominable sufferings beganafresh. 

Sister Hyacinthe, however, was especially anxious about the strange man, whose sweat-covered face she had been continually wiping. He had so farmanaged to keep alive, she watching him without a pause, never havingonce closed her eyes, but unremittingly listening to his faint breathingwith the stubborn desire to take him to the holy Grotto before he died. 

All at once, however, she felt frightened; and addressing Madame deJonquiere, she hastily exclaimed, "Pray pass me the vinegar bottle atonce--I can no longer hear him breathe. "

For an instant, indeed, the man's faint breathing had ceased. His eyeswere still closed, his lips parted; he could not have been paler, he hadan ashen hue, and was cold. And the carriage was rolling along with itsceaseless rattle of coupling-irons; the speed of the train seemed even tohave increased. 

"I will rub his temples, " resumed Sister Hyacinthe. "Help me, do!"

But, at a more violent jolt of the train, the man suddenly fell from theseat, face downward. 

"Ah! /mon Dieu/, help me, pick him up!"

They picked him up, and found him dead. And they had to seat him in hiscorner again, with his back resting against the woodwork. He remainedthere erect, his torso stiffened, and his head wagging slightly at eachsuccessive jolt. Thus the train continued carrying him along, with thesame thundering noise of wheels, while the engine, well pleased, nodoubt, to be reaching its destination, began whistling shrilly, givingvent to quite a flourish of delirious joy as it sped through the calmnight. 

And then came the last and seemingly endless half-hour of the journey, incompany with that wretched corpse. Two big tears had rolled down SisterHyacinthe's cheeks, and with her hands joined she had begun to pray. Thewhole carriage shuddered with terror at sight of that terrible companionwho was being taken, too late alas! to the Blessed Virgin. 

Hope, however, proved stronger than sorrow or pain, and although all thesufferings there assembled awoke and grew again, irritated byoverwhelming weariness, a song of joy nevertheless proclaimed thesufferers' triumphal entry into the Land of Miracles. Amidst the tearswhich their pains drew from them, the exasperated and howling sick beganto chant the "Ave maris Stella" with a growing clamour in whichlamentation finally turned into cries of hope. 

Marie had again taken Pierre's hand between her little feverish fingers. "Oh, /mon Dieu!/" said she, "to think that poor man is dead, and I fearedso much that it was I who would die before arriving. And we arethere--there at last!"

The priest was trembling with intense emotion. "It means that you are tobe cured, Marie, " he replied, "and that I myself shall be cured if youpray for me--"

The engine was now whistling in a yet louder key in the depths of thebluish darkness. They were nearing their destination. The lights ofLourdes already shone out on the horizon. Then the whole train again sanga canticle--the rhymed story of Bernadette, that endless ballad of sixtimes ten couplets, in which the Angelic Salutation ever returns as arefrain, all besetting and distracting, opening to the human mind theportals of the heaven of ecstasy:--

 "It was the hour for ev'ning pray'r; Soft bells chimed on the chilly air. Ave, ave, ave Maria!

 "The maid stood on the torrent's bank, A breeze arose, then swiftly sank. Ave, ave, ave Maria!

 "And she beheld, e'en as it fell, The Virgin on Massabielle. Ave, ave, ave Maria!

 "All white appeared the Lady chaste, A zone of Heaven round her waist. Ave, ave, ave Maria!

 "Two golden roses, pure and sweet, Bloomed brightly on her naked feet. Ave, ave, ave Maria!

 "Upon her arm, so white and round, Her chaplet's milky pearls were wound. Ave, ave, ave Maria!

 "The maiden prayed till, from her eyes, The vision sped to Paradise. Ave, ave, ave Maria!"