THE THREE CITIES

 LOURDES

 BY

 EMILE ZOLA

 Volume 4. 

 TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY

 THE FOURTH DAY

I

THE BITTERNESS OP DEATH

AT the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours, that morning, Marie remainedseated on her bed, propped up by pillows. Having spent the whole night atthe Grotto, she had refused to let them take her back there. And, asMadame de Jonquiere approached her, to raise one of the pillows which wasslipping from its place, she asked: "What day is it, madame?"

"Monday, my dear child. "

"Ah! true. One so soon loses count of time. And, besides, I am so happy!It is to-day that the Blessed Virgin will cure me!"

She smiled divinely, with the air of a day-dreamer, her eyes gazing intovacancy, her thoughts so far away, so absorbed in her one fixed idea, that she beheld nothing save the certainty of her hope. Round about her, the Sainte-Honorine Ward was now quite deserted, all the patients, excepting Madame Vetu, who lay at the last extremity in the next bed, having already started for the Grotto. But Marie did not even notice herneighbour; she was delighted with the sudden stillness which had fallen. One of the windows overlooking the courtyard had been opened, and theglorious morning sunshine entered in one broad beam, whose golden dustwas dancing over her bed and streaming upon her pale hands. It was indeedpleasant to find this room, so dismal at nighttime with its many beds ofsickness, its unhealthy atmosphere, and its nightmare groans, thussuddenly filled with sunlight, purified by the morning air, and wrappedin such delicious silence! "Why don't you try to sleep a little?"maternally inquired Madame de Jonquiere. "You must be quite worn out byyour vigil. "

Marie, who felt so light and cheerful that she no longer experienced anypain, seemed surprised. 

"But I am not at all tired, and I don't feel a bit sleepy. Go to sleep?Oh! no, that would be too sad. I should no longer know that I was goingto be cured!"

At this the superintendent laughed. "Then why didn't you let them takeyou to the Grotto?" she asked. "You won't know what to do with yourselfall alone here. "

"I am not alone, madame, I am with her, " replied Marie; and thereupon, her vision returning to her, she clasped her hands in ecstasy. "Lastnight, you know, I saw her bend her head towards me and smile. I quiteunderstood her, I could hear her voice, although she never opened herlips. When the Blessed Sacrament passes at four o'clock I shall becured. "

Madame de Jonquiere tried to calm her, feeling rather anxious at thespecies of somnambulism in which she beheld her. However, the sick girlwent on: "No, no, I am no worse, I am waiting. Only, you must surely see, madame, that there is no need for me to go to the Grotto this morning, since the appointment which she gave me is for four o'clock. " And then thegirl added in a lower tone: "Pierre will come for me at half-past three. At four o'clock I shall be cured. "

The sunbeam slowly made its way up her bare arms, which were now almosttransparent, so wasted had they become through illness; whilst herglorious fair hair, which had fallen over her shoulders, seemed like thevery effulgence of the great luminary enveloping her. The trill of a birdcame in from the courtyard, and quite enlivened the tremulous silence ofthe ward. Some child who could not be seen must also have been playingclose by, for now and again a soft laugh could be heard ascending in thewarm air which was so delightfully calm. 

"Well, " said Madame de Jonquiere by way of conclusion, "don't sleep then, as you don't wish to. But keep quite quiet, and it will rest you all thesame. "

Meantime Madame Vetu was expiring in the adjoining bed. They had notdared to take her to the Grotto, for fear they should see her die on theway. For some little time she had lain there with her eyes closed; andSister Hyacinthe, who was watching, had beckoned to Madame Desagneaux inorder to acquaint her with the bad opinion she had formed of the case. Both of them were now leaning over the dying woman, observing her withincreasing anxiety. The mask upon her face had turned more yellow thanever, and now looked like a coating of mud; her eyes too had become moresunken, her lips seemed to have grown thinner, and the death rattle hadbegun, a slow, pestilential wheezing, polluted by the cancer which wasfinishing its destructive work. All at once she raised her eyelids, andwas seized with fear on beholding those two faces bent over her own. Could her death be near, that they should thus be gazing at her? Immensesadness showed itself in her eyes, a despairing regret of life. It wasnot a vehement revolt, for she no longer had the strength to struggle;but what a frightful fate it was to have left her shop, her surroundings, and her husband, merely to come and die so far away; to have braved theabominable torture of such a journey, to have prayed both day and night, and then, instead of having her prayer granted, to die when othersrecovered!

However, she could do no more than murmur "Oh! how I suffer; oh! how Isuffer. Do something, anything, to relieve this pain, I beseech you. "

Little Madame Desagneaux, with her pretty milk-white face showing amidsther mass of fair, frizzy hair, was quite upset. She was not used todeathbed scenes, she would have given half her heart, as she expressedit, to see that poor woman recover. And she rose up and began to questionSister Hyacinthe, who was also in tears but already resigned, knowing asshe did that salvation was assured when one died well. Could nothingreally be done, however? Could not something be tried to ease the dyingwoman? Abbe Judaine had come and administered the last sacrament to her acouple of hours earlier that very morning. She now only had Heaven tolook to; it was her only hope, for she had long since given up expectingaid from the skill of man. 

"No, no! we must do something, " exclaimed Madame Desagneaux. Andthereupon she went and fetched Madame de Jonquiere from beside Marie'sbed. "Look how this poor creature is suffering, madame!" she exclaimed. "Sister Hyacinthe says that she can only last a few hours longer. But wecannot leave her moaning like this. There are things which give relief. Why not call that young doctor who is here?"

"Of course we will, " replied the superintendent. "We will send for him atonce. "

They seldom thought of the doctor in the wards. It only occurred to theladies to send for him when a case was at its very worst, when one oftheir patients was howling with pain. Sister Hyacinthe, who herself feltsurprised at not having thought of Ferrand, whom she believed to be in anadjoining room, inquired if she should fetch him. 

"Certainly, " was the reply. "Bring him as quickly as possible. "

When the Sister had gone off, Madame de Jonquiere made Madame Desagneauxhelp her in slightly raising the dying woman's head, thinking that thismight relieve her. The two ladies happened to be alone there thatmorning, all the other lady-hospitallers having gone to their devotionsor their private affairs. However, from the end of the large desertedward, where, amidst the warm quiver of the sunlight such sweettranquillity prevailed, there still came at intervals the light laughterof the unseen child. 

"Can it be Sophie who is making such a noise?" suddenly asked thelady-superintendent, whose nerves were somewhat upset by all the worry ofthe death which she foresaw. Then quickly walking to the end of the ward, she found that it was indeed Sophie Couteau--the young girl somiraculously healed the previous year--who, seated on the floor behind abed, had been amusing herself, despite her fourteen years, in making adoll out of a few rags. She was now talking to it, so happy, so absorbedin her play, that she laughed quite heartily. "Hold yourself up, mademoiselle, " said she. "Dance the polka, that I may see how you can doit! One! two! dance, turn, kiss the one you like best!"

Madame de Jonquiere, however, was now coming up. "Little girl, " she said, "we have one of our patients here in great pain, and not expected torecover. You must not laugh so loud. "

"Ah! madame, I didn't know, " replied Sophie, rising up, and becomingquite serious, although still holding the doll in her hand. "Is she goingto die, madame?"

"I fear so, my poor child. "

Thereupon Sophie became quite silent. She followed the superintendent, and seated herself on an adjoining bed; whence, without the slightestsign of fear, but with her large eyes burning with curiosity, she beganto watch Madame Vetu's death agony. In her nervous state, MadameDesagneaux was growing impatient at the delay in the doctor's arrival;whilst Marie, still enraptured, and resplendent in the sunlight, seemedunconscious of what was taking place about her, wrapt as she was indelightful expectancy of the miracle. 

Not having found Ferrand in the small apartment near the linen-room whichhe usually occupied, Sister Hyacinthe was now searching for him all overthe building. During the past two days the young doctor had become morebewildered than ever in that extraordinary hospital, where his assistancewas only sought for the relief of death pangs. The small medicine-chestwhich he had brought with him proved quite useless; for there could be nothought of trying any course of treatment, as the sick were not there tobe doctored, but simply to be cured by the lightning stroke of a miracle. And so he mainly confined himself to administering a few opium pills, inorder to deaden the severer sufferings. He had been fairly amazed whenaccompanying Doctor Bonamy on a round through the wards. It had resolveditself into a mere stroll, the doctor, who had only come out ofcuriosity, taking no interest in the patients, whom he neither questionednor examined. He solely concerned himself with the pretended cases ofcure, stopping opposite those women whom he recognised from having seenthem at his office where the miracles were verified. One of them hadsuffered from three complaints, only one of which the Blessed Virgin hadso far deigned to cure; but great hopes were entertained respecting theother two. Sometimes, when a wretched woman, who the day before hadclaimed to be cured, was questioned with reference to her health, shewould reply that her pains had returned to her. However, this neverdisturbed the doctor's serenity; ever conciliatory, the good man declaredthat Heaven would surely complete what Heaven had begun. Whenever therewas an improvement in health, he would ask if it were not something to bethankful for. And, indeed, his constant saying was: "There's animprovement already; be patient!" What he most dreaded were theimportunities of the lady-superintendents, who all wished to detain himto show him sundry extraordinary cases. Each prided herself on having themost serious illnesses, the most frightful, exceptional cases in herward; so that she was eager to have them medically authenticated, inorder that she might share in the triumph should cure supervene. Onecaught the doctor by the arm and assured him that she felt confident shehad a leper in her charge; another entreated him to come and look at ayoung girl whose back, she said, was covered with fish's scales; whilst athird, whispering in his ear, gave him some terrible details about amarried lady of the best society. He hastened away, however, refusing tosee even one of them, or else simply promising to come back later on whenhe was not so busy. As he himself said, if he listened to all thoseladies, the day would pass in useless consultations. However, he at lastsuddenly stopped opposite one of the miraculously cured inmates, and, beckoning Ferrand to his side, exclaimed: "Ah! now here is an interestingcure!" and Ferrand, utterly bewildered, had to listen to him whilst hedescribed all the features of the illness, which had totally disappearedat the first immersion in the piscina. 

At last Sister Hyacinthe, still wandering about, encountered AbbeJudaine, who informed her that the young doctor had just been summoned tothe Family Ward. It was the fourth time he had gone thither to attend toBrother Isidore, whose sufferings were as acute as ever, and whom hecould only fill with opium. In his agony, the Brother merely asked to besoothed a little, in order that he might gather together sufficientstrength to return to the Grotto in the afternoon, as he had not beenable to do so in the morning. However, his pains increased, and at lasthe swooned away. 

When the Sister entered the ward she found the doctor seated at themissionary's bedside. "Monsieur Ferrand, " she said, "come up-stairs withme to the Sainte-Honorine Ward at once. We have a patient there at thepoint of death. "

He smiled at her; indeed, he never beheld her without feeling brighterand comforted. "I will come with you, Sister, " he replied. "But you'llwait a minute, won't you? I must try to restore this poor man. "

She waited patiently and made herself useful. The Family Ward, situatedon the ground-floor, was also full of sunshine and fresh air whichentered through three large windows opening on to a narrow strip ofgarden. In addition to Brother Isidore, only Monsieur Sabathier hadremained in bed that morning, with the view of obtaining a little rest;whilst Madame Sabathier, taking advantage of the opportunity, had gone topurchase a few medals and pictures, which she intended for presents. Comfortably seated on his bed, his back supported by some pillows, theex-professor was rolling the beads of a chaplet between his fingers. Hewas no longer praying, however, but merely continuing the operation in amechanical manner, his eyes, meantime, fixed upon his neighbour, whoseattack he was following with painful interest. 

"Ah! Sister, " said he to Sister Hyacinthe, who had drawn near, "that poorBrother fills me with admiration. Yesterday I doubted the Blessed Virginfor a moment, seeing that she did not deign to hear me, though I havebeen coming here for seven years past; but the example set me by thatpoor martyr, so resigned amidst his torments, has quite shamed me for mywant of faith. You can have no idea how grievously he suffers, and youshould see him at the Grotto, with his eyes glowing with divine hope! Itis really sublime! I only know of one picture at the Louvre--a picture bysome unknown Italian master--in which there is the head of a monkbeatified by a similar faith. "

The man of intellect, the ex-university-professor, reared on literatureand art, was reappearing in this poor old fellow, whose life had beenblasted, and who had desired to become a free patient, one of the poor ofthe earth, in order to move the pity of Heaven. He again began thinkingof his own case, and with tenacious hopefulness, which the futility ofseven journeys to Lourdes had failed to destroy, he added: "Well, I stillhave this afternoon, since we sha'n't leave till to-morrow. The water iscertainly very cold, but I shall let them dip me a last time; and all themorning I have been praying and asking pardon for my revolt of yesterday. When the Blessed Virgin chooses to cure one of her children, it onlytakes her a second to do so; is that not so, Sister? May her will bedone, and blessed be her name!"

Passing the beads of the chaplet more slowly between his fingers, heagain began saying his "Aves" and "Paters, " whilst his eyelids drooped onhis flabby face, to which a childish expression had been returning duringthe many years that he had been virtually cut off from the world. 

Meantime Ferrand had signalled to Brother Isidore's sister, Marthe, tocome to him. She had been standing at the foot of the bed with her armshanging down beside her, showing the tearless resignation of a poor, narrow-minded girl whilst she watched that dying man whom she worshipped. She was no more than a faithful dog; she had accompanied her brother andspent her scanty savings, without being of any use save to watch himsuffer. Accordingly, when the doctor told her to take the invalid in herarms and raise him up a little, she felt quite happy at being of someservice at last. Her heavy, freckled, mournful face actually grew bright. 

"Hold him, " said the doctor, "whilst I try to give him this. "

When she had raised him, Ferrand, with the aid of a small spoon, succeeded in introducing a few drops of liquid between his set teeth. Almost immediately the sick man opened his eyes and heaved a deep sigh. He was calmer already; the opium was taking effect and dulling the painwhich he felt burning his right side, as though a red-hot iron were beingapplied to it. However, he remained so weak that, when he wished tospeak, it became necessary to place one's ear close to his mouth in orderto catch what he said. With a slight sign he had begged Ferrand to bendover him. "You are the doctor, monsieur, are you not?" he faltered. "Giveme sufficient strength that I may go once more to the Grotto, thisafternoon. I am certain that, if I am able to go, the Blessed Virgin willcure me. "

"Why, of course you shall go, " replied the young man. "Don't you feelever so much better?"

"Oh! ever so much better--no! I know very well what my condition is, because I saw many of our Brothers die, out there in Senegal. When theliver is attacked and the abscess has worked its way outside, it meansthe end. Sweating, fever, and delirium follow. But the Blessed Virginwill touch the sore with her little finger and it will be healed. Oh! Iimplore you all, take me to the Grotto, even if I should be unconscious!"

Sister Hyacinthe had also approached, and leant over him. "Be easy, dearBrother, " said she. "You shall go to the Grotto after /dejeuner/, and wewill all pray for you. "

At length, in despair at these delays and extremely anxious about MadameVetu, she was able to get Ferrand away. Still, the Brother's state filledher with pity; and, as they ascended the stairs, she questioned thedoctor, asking him if there were really no more hope. The other made agesture expressive of absolute hopelessness. It was madness to come toLourdes when one was in such a condition. However, he hastened to add, with a smile: "I beg your pardon, Sister. You know that I am unfortunateenough not to be a believer. "

But she smiled in her turn, like an indulgent friend who tolerates theshortcomings of those she loves. "Oh! that doesn't matter, " she replied. "I know you; you're all the same a good fellow. Besides, we see so manypeople, we go amongst such pagans that it would be difficult to shockus. "

Up above, in the Sainte-Honorine Ward, they found Madame Vetu stillmoaning, a prey to most intolerable suffering. Madame de Jonquiere andMadame Desagneaux had remained beside the bed, their faces turning pale, their hearts distracted by that death-cry, which never ceased. And whenthey consulted Ferrand in a whisper, he merely replied, with a slightshrug of the shoulders, that she was a lost woman, that it was only aquestion of hours, perhaps merely of minutes. All he could do was tostupefy her also, in order to ease the atrocious death agony which heforesaw. She was watching him, still conscious, and also very obedient, never refusing the medicine offered her. Like the others, she now had butone ardent desire--to go back to the Grotto--and she gave expression toit in the stammering accents of a child who fears that its prayer may notbe granted: "To the Grotto--will you? To the Grotto!"

"You shall be taken there by-and-by, I promise you, " said SisterHyacinthe. "But you must be good. Try to sleep a little to gain somestrength. "

The sick woman appeared to sink into a doze, and Madame de Jonquiere thenthought that she might take Madame Desagneaux with her to the other endof the ward to count the linen, a troublesome business, in which theybecame quite bewildered, as some of the articles were missing. MeantimeSophie, seated on the bed opposite Madame Vetu, had not stirred. She hadlaid her doll on her lap, and was waiting for the lady's death, sincethey had told her that she was about to die. Sister Hyacinthe, moreover, had remained beside the dying woman, and, unwilling to waste her time, had taken a needle and cotton to mend some patient's bodice which had ahole in the sleeve. 

"You'll stay a little while with us, won't you?" she asked Ferrand. 

The latter, who was still watching Madame Vetu, replied: "Yes, yes. Shemay go off at any moment. I fear hemorrhage. " Then, catching sight ofMarie on the neighbouring bed, he added in a lower voice: "How is she?Has she experienced any relief?"

"No, not yet. Ah, dear child! we all pray for her very sincerely. She isso young, so sweet, and so sorely afflicted. Just look at her now! Isn'tshe pretty? One might think her a saint amid all this sunshine, with herlarge, ecstatic eyes, and her golden hair shining like an aureola!"

Ferrand watched Marie for a moment with interest. Her absent air, herindifference to all about her, the ardent faith, the internal joy whichso completely absorbed her, surprised him. "She will recover, " hemurmured, as though giving utterance to a prognostic. "She will recover. "

Then he rejoined Sister Hyacinthe, who had seated herself in theembrasure of the lofty window, which stood wide open, admitting the warmair of the courtyard. The sun was now creeping round, and only a narrowgolden ray fell upon her white coif and wimple. Ferrand stood opposite toher, leaning against the window bar and watching her while she sewed. "Doyou know, Sister, " said he, "this journey to Lourdes, which I undertookto oblige a friend, will be one of the few delights of my life. "

She did not understand him, but innocently asked: "Why so?"

"Because I have found you again, because I am here with you, assistingyou in your admirable work. And if you only knew how grateful I am toyou, what sincere affection and reverence I feel for you!"

She raised her head to look him straight in the face, and began jestingwithout the least constraint. She was really delicious, with her purelily-white complexion, her small laughing mouth, and adorable blue eyeswhich ever smiled. And you could realise that she had grown up in allinnocence and devotion, slender and supple, with all the appearance of agirl hardly in her teens. 

"What! You are so fond of me as all that!" she exclaimed. "Why?"

"Why I'm fond of you? Because you are the best, the most consoling, themost sisterly of beings. You are the sweetest memory in my life, thememory I evoke whenever I need to be encouraged and sustained. Do you nolonger remember the month we spent together, in my poor room, when I wasso ill and you so affectionately nursed me?"

"Of course, of course I remember it! Why, I never had so good a patientas you. You took all I offered you; and when I tucked you in, afterchanging your linen, you remained as still as a little child. "

So speaking, she continued looking at him, smiling ingenuously the while. He was very handsome and robust, in the very prime of youth, with arather pronounced nose, superb eyes, and red lips showing under his blackmoustache. But she seemed to be simply pleased at seeing him there beforeher moved almost to tears. 

"Ah! Sister, I should have died if it hadn't been for you, " he said. "Itwas through having you that I was cured. "

Then, as they gazed at one another, with tender gaiety of heart, thememory of that adorable month recurred to them. They no longer heardMadame Vetu's death moans, nor beheld the ward littered with beds, and, with all its disorder, resembling some infirmary improvised after apublic catastrophe. They once more found themselves in a small attic atthe top of a dingy house in old Paris, where air and light only reachedthem through a tiny window opening on to a sea of roofs. And how charmingit was to be alone there together--he who had been prostrated by fever, she who had appeared there like a good angel, who had quietly come fromher convent like a comrade who fears nothing! It was thus that she nursedwomen, children, and men, as chance ordained, feeling perfectly happy solong as she had something to do, some sufferer to relieve. She neverdisplayed any consciousness of her sex; and he, on his side, never seemedto have suspected that she might be a woman, except it were for theextreme softness of her hands, the caressing accents of her voice, thebeneficent gentleness of her manner; and yet all the tender love of amother, all the affection of a sister, radiated from her person. Duringthree weeks, as she had said, she had nursed him like a child, helpinghim in and out of bed, and rendering him every necessary attention, without the slightest embarrassment or repugnance, the holy purity bornof suffering and charity shielding them both the while. They were indeedfar removed from the frailties of life. And when he became convalescent, what a happy existence began, how joyously they laughed, like two oldfriends! She still watched over him, scolding him and gently slapping hisarms when he persisted in keeping them uncovered. He would watch herstanding at the basin, washing him a shirt in order to save him thetrifling expense of employing a laundress. No one ever came up there;they were quite alone, thousands of miles away from the world, delightedwith this solitude, in which their youth displayed such fraternal gaiety. 

"Do you remember, Sister, the morning when I was first able to walkabout?" asked Ferrand. "You helped me to get up, and supported me whilstI awkwardly stumbled about, no longer knowing how to use my legs. We didlaugh so. "

"Yes, yes, you were saved, and I was very pleased. "

"And the day when you brought me some cherries--I can see it all again:myself reclining on my pillows, and you seated at the edge of the bed, with the cherries lying between us in a large piece of white paper. Irefused to touch them unless you ate some with me. And then we took themin turn, one at a time, until the paper was emptied; and they were verynice. "

"Yes, yes, very nice. It was the same with the currant syrup: you wouldonly drink it when I took some also. "

Thereupon they laughed yet louder; these recollections quite delightedthem. But a painful sigh from Madame Vetu brought them back to thepresent. Ferrand leant over and cast a glance at the sick woman, who hadnot stirred. The ward was still full of a quivering peacefulness, whichwas only broken by the clear voice of Madame Desagneaux counting thelinen. Stifling with emotion, the young man resumed in a lower tone: "Ah!Sister, were I to live a hundred years, to know every joy, everypleasure, I should never love another woman as I love you!"

Then Sister Hyacinthe, without, however, showing any confusion, bowed herhead and resumed her sewing. An almost imperceptible blush tinged herlily-white skin with pink. 

"I also love you well, Monsieur Ferrand, " she said, "but you must notmake me vain. I only did for you what I do for so many others. It is mybusiness, you see. And there was really only one pleasant thing about itall, that the Almighty cured you. "

They were now again interrupted. La Grivotte and Elise Rouquet hadreturned from the Grotto before the others. La Grivotte at once squatteddown on her mattress on the floor, at the foot of Madame Vetu's bed, and, taking a piece of bread from her pocket, proceeded to devour it. Ferrand, since the day before, had felt some interest in this consumptive patient, who was traversing such a curious phase of agitation, a prey to aninordinate appetite and a feverish need of motion. For the moment, however, Elise Rouquet's case interested him still more; for it had nowbecome evident that the lupus, the sore which was eating away her face, was showing signs of cure. She had continued bathing her face at themiraculous fountain, and had just come from the Verification Office, where Doctor Bonamy had triumphed. Ferrand, quite surprised, went andexamined the sore, which, although still far from healed, was alreadypaler in colour and slightly desiccated, displaying all the symptoms ofgradual cure. And the case seemed to him so curious, that he resolved tomake some notes upon it for one of his old masters at the medicalcollege, who was studying the nervous origin of certain skin diseases dueto faulty nutrition. 

"Have you felt any pricking sensation?" he asked. 

"Not at all, monsieur, " she replied. "I bathe my face and tell my beadswith my whole soul, and that is all. "

La Grivotte, who was vain and jealous, and ever since the day before hadbeen going in triumph among the crowds, thereupon called to the doctor. "I say, monsieur, I am cured, cured, cured completely!"

He waved his hand to her in a friendly way, but refused to examine her. "I know, my girl. There is nothing more the matter with you. "

Just then Sister Hyacinthe called to him. She had put her sewing down onseeing Madame Vetu raise herself in a frightful fit of nausea. In spiteof her haste, however, she was too late with the basin; the sick womanhad brought up another discharge of black matter, similar to soot; but, this time, some blood was mixed with it, little specks of violet-colouredblood. It was the hemorrhage coming, the near end which Ferrand had beendreading. 

"Send for the superintendent, " he said in a low voice, seating himself atthe bedside. 

Sister Hyacinthe ran for Madame de Jonquiere. The linen having beencounted, she found her deep in conversation with her daughter Raymonde, at some distance from Madame Desagneaux, who was washing her hands. 

Raymonde had just escaped for a few minutes from the refectory, where shewas on duty. This was the roughest of her labours. The long narrow room, with its double row of greasy tables, its sickening smell of food andmisery, quite disgusted her. And taking advantage of the half-hour stillremaining before the return of the patients, she had hurried up-stairs, where, out of breath, with a rosy face and shining eyes, she had thrownher arms around her mother's neck. 

"Ah! mamma, " she cried, "what happiness! It's settled!"

Amazed, her head buzzing, busy with the superintendence of her ward, Madame de Jonquiere did not understand. "What's settled, my child?" sheasked. 

Then Raymonde lowered her voice, and, with a faint blush, replied: "Mymarriage!"

It was now the mother's turn to rejoice. Lively satisfaction appearedupon her face, the fat face of a ripe, handsome, and still agreeablewoman. She at once beheld in her mind's eye their little lodging in theRue Vaneau, where, since her husband's death, she had reared her daughterwith great difficulty upon the few thousand francs he had left her. Thismarriage, however, meant a return to life, to society, the good old timescome back once more. 

"Ah! my child, how happy you make me!" she exclaimed. 

But a feeling of uneasiness suddenly restrained her. God was her witnessthat for three years past she had been coming to Lourdes through puremotives of charity, for the one great joy of nursing His belovedinvalids. Perhaps, had she closely examined her conscience, she might, behind her devotion, have found some trace of her fondness for authority, which rendered her present managerial duties extremely pleasant to her. However, the hope of finding a husband for her daughter among thesuitable young men who swarmed at the Grotto was certainly her lastthought. It was a thought which came to her, of course, but merely assomething that was possible, though she never mentioned it. However, herhappiness, wrung an avowal from her:

"Ah! my child, your success doesn't surprise me. I prayed to the BlessedVirgin for it this morning. "

Then she wished to be quite sure, and asked for further information. Raymonde had not yet told her of her long walk leaning on Gerard's armthe day before, for she did not wish to speak of such things until shewas triumphant, certain of having at last secured a husband. And now itwas indeed settled, as she had exclaimed so gaily: that very morning shehad again seen the young man at the Grotto, and he had formally becomeengaged to her. M. Berthaud would undoubtedly ask for her hand on hiscousin's behalf before they took their departure from Lourdes. 

"Well, " declared Madame de Jonquiere, who was now convinced, smiling, anddelighted at heart, "I hope you will be happy, since you are so sensibleand do not need my aid to bring your affairs to a successful issue. Kissme. "

It was at this moment that Sister Hyacinthe arrived to announce MadameVetu's imminent death. Raymonde at once ran off. And Madame Desagneaux, who was wiping her hands, began to complain of the lady-assistants, whohad all disappeared precisely on the morning when they were most wanted. "For instance, " said she, "there's Madame Volmar. I should like to knowwhere she can have got to. She has not been seen, even for an hour, eversince our arrival. "

"Pray leave Madame Volmar alone!" replied Madame de Jonquiere with someasperity. "I have already told you that she is ill. "

They both hastened to Madame Vetu. Ferrand stood there waiting; andSister Hyacinthe having asked him if there were indeed nothing to bedone, he shook his head. The dying woman, relieved by her first emesis, now lay inert, with closed eyes. But, a second time, the frightful nauseareturned to her, and she brought up another discharge of black mattermingled with violet-coloured blood. Then she had another short intervalof calm, during which she noticed La Grivotte, who was greedily devouringher hunk of bread on the mattress on the floor. 

"She is cured, isn't she?" the poor woman asked, feeling that she herselfwas dying. 

La Grivotte heard her, and exclaimed triumphantly: "Oh, yes, madame, cured, cured, cured completely!"

For a moment Madame Vetu seemed overcome by a miserable feeling of grief, the revolt of one who will not succumb while others continue to live. Butalmost immediately she became resigned, and they heard her add veryfaintly, "It is the young ones who ought to remain. "

Then her eyes, which remained wide open, looked round, as though biddingfarewell to all those persons, whom she seemed surprised to see abouther. She attempted to smile as she encountered the eager gaze ofcuriosity which little Sophie Couteau still fixed upon her: the charmingchild had come to kiss her that very morning, in her bed. Elise Rouquet, who troubled herself about nobody, was meantime holding her hand-glass, absorbed in the contemplation of her face, which seemed to her to begrowing beautiful, now that the sore was healing. But what especiallycharmed the dying woman was the sight of Marie, so lovely in her ecstasy. She watched her for a long time, constantly attracted towards her, astowards a vision of light and joy. Perhaps she fancied that she alreadybeheld one of the saints of Paradise amid the glory of the sun. 

Suddenly, however, the fits of vomiting returned, and now she solelybrought up blood, vitiated blood, the colour of claret. The rush was sogreat that it bespattered the sheet, and ran all over the bed. In vaindid Madame de Jonquiere and Madame Desagneaux bring cloths; they wereboth very pale and scarce able to remain standing. Ferrand, knowing howpowerless he was, had withdrawn to the window, to the very spot where hehad so lately experienced such delicious emotion; and with an instinctivemovement, of which she was surely unconscious, Sister Hyacinthe hadlikewise returned to that happy window, as though to be near him. 

"Really, can you do nothing?" she inquired. 

"No, nothing! She will go off like that, in the same way as a lamp thathas burnt out. "

Madame Vetu, who was now utterly exhausted, with a thin red stream stillflowing from her mouth, looked fixedly at Madame de Jonquiere whilstfaintly moving her lips. The lady-superintendent thereupon bent over herand heard these slowly uttered words:

"About my husband, madame--the shop is in the Rue Mouffetard--oh! it'squite a tiny one, not far from the Gobelins. --He's a clockmaker, he is;he couldn't come with me, of course, having to attend to the business;and he will be very much put out when he finds I don't come back. --Yes, Icleaned the jewelry and did the errands--" Then her voice grew fainter, her words disjointed by the death rattle, which began. "Therefore, madame, I beg you will write to him, because I haven't done so, and nowhere's the end. --Tell him my body had better remain here at Lourdes, onaccount of the expense. --And he must marry again; it's necessary for onein trade--his cousin--tell him his cousin--"

The rest became a confused murmur. Her weakness was too great, her breathwas halting. Yet her eyes continued open and full of life, amid her pale, yellow, waxy mask. And those eyes seemed to fix themselves despairinglyon the past, on all that which soon would be no more: the littleclockmaker's shop hidden away in a populous neighbourhood; the gentlehumdrum existence, with a toiling husband who was ever bending over hiswatches; the great pleasures of Sunday, such as watching children flytheir kites upon the fortifications. And at last these staring eyes gazedvainly into the frightful night which was gathering. 

A last time did Madame de Jonquiere lean over her, seeing that her lipswere again moving. There came but a faint breath, a voice from far away, which distantly murmured in an accent of intense grief: "She did not cureme. "

And then Madame Vetu expired, very gently. 

As though this were all that she had been waiting for, little SophieCouteau jumped from the bed quite satisfied, and went off to play withher doll again at the far end of the ward. Neither La Grivotte, who wasfinishing her bread, nor Elise Rouquet, busy with her mirror, noticed thecatastrophe. However, amidst the cold breath which seemingly swept by, while Madame de Jonquiere and Madame Desagneaux--the latter of whom wasunaccustomed to the sight of death--were whispering together inagitation, Marie emerged from the expectant rapture in which thecontinuous, unspoken prayer of her whole being had plunged her so long. And when she understood what had happened, a feeling of sisterlycompassion--the compassion of a suffering companion, on her side certainof cure--brought tears to her eyes. 

"Ah! the poor woman!" she murmured; "to think that she has died so farfrom home, in such loneliness, at the hour when others are being bornanew!"

Ferrand, who, in spite of professional indifference, had also beenstirred by the scene, stepped forward to verify the death; and it was ona sign from him that Sister Hyacinthe turned up the sheet, and threw itover the dead woman's face, for there could be no question of removingthe corpse at that moment. The patients were now returning from theGrotto in bands, and the ward, hitherto so calm, so full of sunshine, wasagain filling with the tumult of wretchedness and pain--deep coughing andfeeble shuffling, mingled with a noisome smell--a pitiful display, infact, of well-nigh every human infirmity. 

II

THE SERVICE AT THE GROTTO

ON that day, Monday, the crowd at the Grotto, was enormous. It was thelast day that the national pilgrimage would spend at Lourdes, and FatherFourcade, in his morning address, had said that it would be necessary tomake a supreme effort of fervour and faith to obtain from Heaven all thatit might be willing to grant in the way of grace and prodigious cure. So, from two o'clock in the afternoon, twenty thousand pilgrims wereassembled there, feverish, and agitated by the most ardent hopes. Fromminute to minute the throng continued increasing, to such a point, indeed, that Baron Suire became alarmed, and came out of the Grotto tosay to Berthaud: "My friend, we shall be overwhelmed, that's certain. Double your squads, bring your men closer together. "

The Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation was alone entrusted with thetask of keeping order, for there were neither guardians nor policemen, ofany sort present; and it was for this reason that the President of theAssociation was so alarmed. However, Berthaud, under grave circumstances, was a leader whose words commanded attention, and who was endowed withenergy that could be relied on. 

"Be easy, " said he; "I will be answerable for everything. I shall notmove from here until the four-o'clock procession has passed by. "

Nevertheless, he signalled to Gerard to approach. 

"Give your men the strictest instructions, " he said to him. "Only thosepersons who have cards should be allowed to pass. And place your mennearer each other; tell them to hold the cord tight. "

Yonder, beneath the ivy which draped the rock, the Grotto opened, withthe eternal flaring of its candles. From a distance it looked rathersquat and misshapen, a very narrow and modest aperture for the breath ofthe Infinite which issued from it, turning all faces pale and bowingevery head. The statue of the Virgin had become a mere white spot, whichseemed to move amid the quiver of the atmosphere, heated by the smallyellow flames. To see everything it was necessary to raise oneself; forthe silver altar, the harmonium divested of its housing, the heap ofbouquets flung there, and the votive offerings streaking the smoky wallswere scarcely distinguishable from behind the railing. And the day waslovely; never yet had a purer sky expanded above the immense crowd; thesoftness of the breeze in particular seemed delicious after the storm ofthe night, which had brought down the over-oppressive heat of the twofirst days. 

Gerard had to fight his way with his elbows in order to repeat the ordersto his men. The crowd had already begun pushing. "Two more men here!" hecalled. "Come, four together, if necessary, and hold the rope well!"

The general impulse was instinctive and invincible; the twenty thousandpersons assembled there were drawn towards the Grotto by an irresistibleattraction, in which burning curiosity mingled with the thirst formystery. All eyes converged, every mouth, hand, and body was bornetowards the pale glitter of the candles and the white moving speck of themarble Virgin. And, in order that the large space reserved to the sick, in front of the railings, might not be invaded by the swelling mob, ithad been necessary to inclose it with a stout rope which the bearers atintervals of two or three yards grasped with both hands. Their orderswere to let nobody pass excepting the sick provided with hospital cardsand the few persons to whom special authorisations had been granted. Theylimited themselves, therefore, to raising the cords and then letting themfall behind the chosen ones, without heeding the supplications of theothers. In fact they even showed themselves somewhat rough, taking acertain pleasure in exercising the authority with which they wereinvested for a day. In truth, however, they were very much pushed about, and had to support each other and resist with all the strength of theirloins to avoid being swept away. 

While the benches before the Grotto and the vast reserved space werefilling with sick people, handcarts, and stretchers, the crowd, theimmense crowd, swayed about on the outskirts. Starting from the Place duRosaire, it extended to the bottom of the promenade along the Gave, wherethe pavement throughout its entire length was black with people, so densea human sea that all circulation was prevented. On the parapet was aninterminable line of women--most of them seated, but some few standing soas to see the better--and almost all carrying silk parasols, which, withholiday-like gaiety, shimmered in the sunlight. The managers had wishedto keep a path open in order that the sick might be brought along; but itwas ever being invaded and obstructed, so that the carts and stretchersremained on the road, submerged and lost until a bearer freed them. Nevertheless, the great tramping was that of a docile flock, an innocent, lamb-like crowd; and it was only the involuntary pushing, the blindrolling towards the light of the candles that had to be contendedagainst. No accident had ever happened there, notwithstanding theexcitement, which gradually increased and threw the people into theunruly delirium of faith. 

However, Baron Suire again forced his way through the throng. "Berthaud!Berthaud!" he called, "see that the /defile/ is conducted less rapidly. There are women and children stifling. "

This time Berthaud gave a sign of impatience. "Ah! hang it, I can't beeverywhere! Close the gate for a moment if it's necessary. "

It was a question of the march through the Grotto which went onthroughout the afternoon. The faithful were permitted to enter by thedoor on the left, and made their exit by that on the right. 

"Close the gate!" exclaimed the Baron. "But that would be worse; theywould all get crushed against it!"

As it happened Gerard was there, thoughtlessly talking for an instantwith Raymonde, who was standing on the other side of the cord, holding abowl of milk which she was about to carry to a paralysed old woman; andBerthaud ordered the young fellow to post two men at the entrance gate ofthe iron railing, with instructions only to allow the pilgrims to enterby tens. When Gerard had executed this order, and returned, he foundBerthaud laughing and joking with Raymonde. She went off on her errand, however, and the two men stood watching her while she made the paralysedwoman drink. 

"She is charming, and it's settled, eh?" said Berthaud. "You are going tomarry her, aren't you?"

"I shall ask her mother to-night. I rely upon you to accompany me. "

"Why, certainly. You know what I told you. Nothing could be moresensible. The uncle will find you a berth before six months are over. "

A push of the crowd separated them, and Berthaud went off to make surewhether the march through the Grotto was now being accomplished in amethodical manner, without any crushing. For hours the same unbroken tiderolled in--women, men, and children from all parts of the world, all whochose, all who passed that way. As a result, the crowd was singularlymixed: there were beggars in rags beside neat /bourgeois/, peasants ofeither sex, well dressed ladies, servants with bare hair, young girlswith bare feet, and others with pomatumed hair and foreheads bound withribbons. Admission was free; the mystery was open to all, to unbelieversas well as to the faithful, to those who were solely influenced bycuriosity as well as to those who entered with their hearts faint withlove. And it was a sight to see them, all almost equally affected by thetepid odour of the wax, half stifling in the heavy tabernacle air whichgathered beneath the rocky vault, and lowering their eyes for fear ofslipping on the gratings. Many stood there bewildered, not even bowing, examining the things around with the covert uneasiness of indifferentfolks astray amidst the redoubtable mysteries of a sanctuary. But thedevout crossed themselves, threw letters, deposited candles and bouquets, kissed the rock below the Virgin's statue, or else rubbed their chaplets, medals, and other small objects of piety against it, as the contactsufficed to bless them. And the /defile/ continued, continued without endduring days and months as it had done for years; and it seemed as if thewhole world, all the miseries and sufferings of humanity, came in turnand passed in the same hypnotic, contagious kind of round, through thatrocky nook, ever in search of happiness. 

When Berthaud had satisfied himself that everything was working well, hewalked about like a mere spectator, superintending his men. Only onematter remained to trouble him: the procession of the Blessed Sacrament, during which such frenzy burst forth that accidents were always to befeared. 

This last day seemed likely to be a very fervent one, for he already felta tremor of exalted faith rising among the crowd. The treatment neededfor miraculous care was drawing to an end; there had been the fever ofthe journey, the besetting influence of the same endlessly repeatedhymns, and the stubborn continuation of the same religious exercises; andever and ever the conversation had been turned on miracles, and the mindfixed on the divine illumination of the Grotto. Many, not having sleptfor three nights, had reached a state of hallucination, and walked aboutin a rageful dream. No repose was granted them, the continual prayerswere like whips lashing their souls. The appeals to the Blessed Virginnever ceased; priest followed priest in the pulpit, proclaiming theuniversal dolour and directing the despairing supplications of thethrong, during the whole time that the sick remained with hands claspedand eyes raised to heaven before the pale, smiling, marble statue. 

At that moment the white stone pulpit against the rock on the right ofthe Grotto was occupied by a priest from Toulouse, whom Berthaud knew, and to whom he listened for a moment with an air of approval. He was astout man with an unctuous diction, famous for his rhetorical successes. However, all eloquence here consisted in displaying the strength of one'slungs in a violent delivery of the phrase or cry which the whole crowdhad to repeat; for the addresses were nothing more than so muchvociferation interspersed with "Ayes" and "Paters. "

The priest, who had just finished the Rosary, strove to increase hisstature by stretching his short legs, whilst shouting the first appeal ofthe litanies which he improvised, and led in his own way, according tothe inspiration which possessed him. 

"Mary, we love thee!" he called. 

And thereupon the crowd repeated in a lower, confused, and broken tone:"Mary, we love thee!"

From that moment there was no stopping. The voice of the priest rang outat full swing, and the voices of the crowd responded in a dolorousmurmur:

"Mary, thou art our only hope!"

"Mary, thou art our only hope!"

"Pure Virgin, make us purer, among the pure!"

"Pure Virgin, make us purer, among the pure!"

"Powerful Virgin, save our sick!"

"Powerful Virgin, save our sick!"

Often, when the priest's imagination failed him, or he wished to thrust acry home with greater force, he would repeat it thrice; while the docilecrowd would do the same, quivering under the enervating effect of thepersistent lamentation, which increased the fever. 

The litanies continued, and Berthaud went back towards the Grotto. Thosewho defiled through it beheld an extraordinary sight when they turned andfaced the sick. The whole of the large space between the cords wasoccupied by the thousand or twelve hundred patients whom the nationalpilgrimage had brought with it; and beneath the vast, spotless sky onthat radiant day there was the most heart-rending jumble of sufferersthat one could behold. The three hospitals of Lourdes had emptied theirchambers of horror. To begin with, those who were still able to remainseated had been piled upon the benches. Many of them, however, werepropped up with cushions, whilst others kept shoulder to shoulder, thestrong ones supporting the weak. Then, in front of the benches, beforethe Grotto itself, were the more grievously afflicted sufferers lying atfull length; the flagstones disappearing from view beneath this woefulassemblage, which was like a large, stagnant pool of horror. There was anindescribable block of vehicles, stretchers, and mattresses. Some of theinvalids in little boxes not unlike coffins had raised themselves up andshowed above the others, but the majority lay almost on a level with theground. There were some lying fully dressed on the check-patterned ticksof mattresses; whilst others had been brought with their bedding, so thatonly their heads and pale hands were seen outside the sheets. Few ofthese pallets were clean. Some pillows of dazzling whiteness, which by alast feeling of coquetry had been trimmed with embroidery, alone shoneout among all the filthy wretchedness of all the rest--a fearfulcollection of rags, worn-out blankets, and linen splashed with stains. And all were pushed, squeezed, piled up by chance as they came, women, men, children, and priests, people in nightgowns beside people who werefully attired being jumbled together in the blinding light of day. 

And all forms of disease were there, the whole frightful processionwhich, twice a day, left the hospitals to wend its way through horrifiedLourdes. There were the heads eaten away by eczema, the foreheads crownedwith roseola, and the noses and mouths which elephantiasis hadtransformed into shapeless snouts. Next, the dropsical ones, swollen outlike leathern bottles; the rheumatic ones with twisted hands and swollenfeet, like bags stuffed full of rags; and a sufferer from hydrocephalus, whose huge and weighty skull fell backwards. Then the consumptive ones, with livid skins, trembling with fever, exhausted by dysentery, wasted toskeletons. Then the deformities, the contractions, the twisted trunks, the twisted arms, the necks all awry; all the poor broken, poundedcreatures, motionless in their tragic, marionette-like postures. Then thepoor rachitic girls displaying their waxen complexions and slender neckseaten into by sores; the yellow-faced, besotted-looking women in thepainful stupor which falls on unfortunate creatures devoured by cancer;and the others who turned pale, and dared not move, fearing as they didthe shock of the tumours whose weighty pain was stifling them. On thebenches sat bewildered deaf women, who heard nothing, but sang on all thesame, and blind ones with heads erect, who remained for hours turnedtoward the statue of the Virgin which they could not see. And there wasalso the woman stricken with imbecility, whose nose was eaten away, andwho laughed with a terrifying laugh, displaying the black, empty cavernof her mouth; and then the epileptic woman, whom a recent attack had leftas pale as death, with froth still at the corners of her lips. 

But sickness and suffering were no longer of consequence, since they wereall there, seated or stretched with their eyes upon the Grotto. The poor, fleshless, earthy-looking faces became transfigured, and began to glowwith hope. Anchylosed hands were joined, heavy eyelids found the strengthto rise, exhausted voices revived as the priest shouted the appeals. Atfirst there was nothing but indistinct stuttering, similar to slightpuffs of air rising, here and there above the multitude. Then the cryascended and spread through the crowd itself from one to the other end ofthe immense square. 

"Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us!" cried the priest in histhundering voice. 

And the sick and the pilgrims repeated louder and louder: "Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us!"

Then the flow of the litany set in, and continued with increasing speed:

"Most pure Mother, most chaste Mother, thy children are at thy feet!"

"Most pure Mother, most chaste Mother, thy children are at thy feet!"

"Queen of the Angels, say but a word, and our sick shall be healed!"

"Queen of the Angels, say but a word, and our sick shall be healed!"

In the second row of sufferers, near the pulpit, was M. Sabathier, whohad asked to be brought there early, wishing to choose his place like anold /habitue/ who knew the cosy corners. Moreover, it seemed to him thatit was of paramount importance that he should be as near as possible, under the very eyes of the Virgin, as though she required to see herfaithful in order not to forget them. However, for the seven years thathe had been coming there he had nursed this one hope of being some daynoticed by her, of touching her, and of obtaining his cure, if not byselection, at least by seniority. This merely needed patience on his partwithout the firmness of his faith being in the least shaken by his way ofthinking. Only, like a poor, resigned man just a little weary of beingalways put off, he sometimes allowed himself diversions. For instance, hehad obtained permission to keep his wife near him, seated on acamp-stool, and he liked to talk to her, and acquaint her with hisreflections. 

"Raise me a little, my dear, " said he. "I am slipping. I am veryuncomfortable. "

Attired in trousers and a coarse woollen jacket, he was sitting upon hismattress, with his back leaning against a tilted chair. 

"Are you better?" asked his wife, when she had raised him. 

"Yes, yes, " he answered; and then began to take an interest in BrotherIsidore, whom they had succeeded in bringing in spite of everything, andwho was lying upon a neighbouring mattress, with a sheet drawn up to hischin, and nothing protruding but his wasted hands, which lay clasped uponthe blanket. 

"Ah! the poor man, " said M. Sabathier. "It's very imprudent, but theBlessed Virgin is so powerful when she chooses!"

He took up his chaplet again, but once more broke off from his devotionson perceiving Madame Maze, who had just glided into the reservedspace--so slender and unobtrusive that she had doubtless slipped underthe ropes without being noticed. She had seated herself at the end of abench and, very quiet and motionless, did not occupy more room there thana child. And her long face, with its weary features, the face of a womanof two-and-thirty faded before her time, wore an expression of unlimitedsadness, infinite abandonment. 

"And so, " resumed M. Sabathier in a low voice, again addressing his wifeafter attracting her attention by a slight movement of the chin, "it'sfor the conversion of her husband that this lady prays. You came acrossher this morning in a shop, didn't you?"

"Yes, yes, " replied Madame Sabathier. "And, besides, I had some talkabout her with another lady who knows her. Her husband is acommercial-traveller. He leaves her for six months at a time, and goesabout with other people. Oh! he's a very gay fellow, it seems, very nice, and he doesn't let her want for money; only she adores him, she cannotaccustom herself to his neglect, and comes to pray the Blessed Virgin togive him back to her. At this moment, it appears, he is close by, atLuchon, with two ladies--two sisters. "

M. Sabathier signed to his wife to stop. He was now looking at theGrotto, again becoming a man of intellect, a professor whom questions ofart had formerly impassioned. "You see, my dear, " he said, "they havespoilt the Grotto by endeavouring to make it too beautiful. I am certainit looked much better in its original wildness. It has lost itscharacteristic features--and what a frightful shop they have stuck there, on the left!"

However, he now experienced sudden remorse for his thoughtlessness. Whilst he was chatting away, might not the Blessed Virgin be noticing oneof his neighbours, more fervent, more sedate than himself? Feelinganxious on the point, he reverted to his customary modesty and patience, and with dull, expressionless eyes again began waiting for the goodpleasure of Heaven. 

Moreover, the sound of a fresh voice helped to bring him back to thisannihilation, in which nothing was left of the cultured reasoner that hehad formerly been. It was another preacher who had just entered thepulpit, a Capuchin this time, whose guttural call, persistently repeated, sent a tremor through the crowd. 

"Holy Virgin of virgins, be blessed!"

"Holy Virgin of virgins, be blessed!"

"Holy Virgin of virgins, turn not thy face from thy children!"

"Holy Virgin of virgins, turn not thy face from thy children!"

"Holy Virgin of virgins, breathe upon our sores, and our sores shallheal!"

"Holy Virgin of virgins, breathe upon our sores, and our sores shallheal!"

At the end of the first bench, skirting the central path, which wasbecoming crowded, the Vigneron family had succeeded in finding room forthemselves. They were all there: little Gustave, seated in a sinkingposture, with his crutch between his legs; his mother, beside him, following the prayers like a punctilious /bourgeoise/; his aunt, MadameChaise, on the other side, so inconvenienced by the crowd that she wasstifling; and M. Vigneron, who remained silent and, for a moment, hadbeen examining Madame Chaise attentively. 

"What is the matter with you, my dear?" he inquired. "Do you feelunwell?"

She was breathing with difficulty. "Well, I don't know, " she answered;"but I can't feel my limbs, and my breath fails me. "

At that very moment the thought had occurred to him that all theagitation, fever, and scramble of a pilgrimage could not be very good forheart-disease. Of course he did not desire anybody's death, he had neverasked the Blessed Virgin for any such thing. If his prayer foradvancement had already been granted through the sudden death of hischief, it must certainly be because Heaven had already ordained thelatter's death. And, in the same way, if Madame Chaise should die first, leaving her fortune to Gustave, he would only have to bow before the willof God, which generally requires that the aged should go off before theyoung. Nevertheless, his hope unconsciously became so keen that he couldnot help exchanging a glance with his wife, to whom had come the sameinvoluntary thought. 

"Gustave, draw back, " he exclaimed; "you are inconveniencing your aunt. "And then, as Raymonde passed, he asked; "Do you happen to have a glass ofwater, mademoiselle? One of our relatives here is losing consciousness. "

But Madame Chaise refused the offer with a gesture. She was gettingbetter, recovering her breath with an effort. "No, I want nothing, thankyou, " she gasped. "There, I'm better--still, I really thought this timethat I should stifle!"

Her fright left her trembling, with haggard eyes in her pale face. Sheagain joined her hands, and begged the Blessed Virgin to save her fromother attacks and cure her; while the Vignerons, man and wife, honestfolk both of them, reverted to the covert prayer for happiness that theyhad come to offer up at Lourdes: a pleasant old age, deservedly gained bytwenty years of honesty, with a respectable fortune which in later yearsthey would go and enjoy in the country, cultivating flowers. On the otherhand, little Gustave, who had seen and noted everything with his brighteyes and intelligence sharpened by suffering, was not praying, butsmiling at space, with his vague enigmatical smile. What could be the useof his praying? He knew that the Blessed Virgin would not cure him, andthat he would die. 

However, M. Vigneron could not remain long without busying himself abouthis neighbours. Madame Dieulafay, who had come late, had been depositedin the crowded central pathway; and he marvelled at the luxury about theyoung woman, that sort of coffin quilted with white silk, in which shewas lying, attired in a pink dressing-gown trimmed with Valencienneslace. The husband in a frock-coat, and the sister in a black gown ofsimple but marvellous elegance, were standing by; while Abbe Judaine, kneeling near the sufferer, finished offering up a fervent prayer. 

When the priest had risen, M. Vigneron made him a little room on thebench beside him; and he then took the liberty of questioning him. "Well, Monsieur le Cure, does that poor young woman feel a little better?"

Abbe Judaine made a gesture of infinite sadness. 

"Alas! no. I was full of so much hope! It was I who persuaded the familyto come. Two years ago the Blessed Virgin showed me such extraordinarygrace by curing my poor lost eyes, that I hoped to obtain another favourfrom her. However, I will not despair. We still have until to-morrow. "

M. Vigneron again looked towards Madame Dieulafay and examined her face, still of a perfect oval and with admirable eyes; but it wasexpressionless, with ashen hue, similar to a mask of death, amidst thelace. "It's really very sad, " he murmured. 

"And if you had seen her last summer!" resumed the priest. "They havetheir country seat at Saligny, my parish, and I often dined with them. Icannot help feeling sad when I look at her elder sister, Madame Jousseur, that lady in black who stands there, for she bears a strong resemblanceto her; and the poor sufferer was even prettier, one of the beauties ofParis. And now compare them together--observe that brilliancy, thatsovereign grace, beside that poor, pitiful creature--it oppresses one'sheart--ah! what a frightful lesson!"

He became silent for an instant. Saintly man that he was naturally, altogether devoid of passions, with no keen intelligence to disturb himin his faith, he displayed a naive admiration for beauty, wealth, andpower, which he had never envied. Nevertheless, he ventured to express adoubt, a scruple, which troubled his usual serenity. "For my part, Ishould have liked her to come here with more simplicity, without all thatsurrounding of luxury, because the Blessed Virgin prefers the humble--But I understand very well that there are certain social exigencies. And, then, her husband and sister love her so! Remember that he has forsakenhis business and she her pleasures in order to come here with her; and soovercome are they at the idea of losing her that their eyes are neverdry, they always have that bewildered look which you can notice. So theymust be excused for trying to procure her the comfort of lookingbeautiful until the last hour. "

M. Vigneron nodded his head approvingly. Ah! it was certainly not thewealthy who had the most luck at the Grotto! Servants, country folk, poorbeggars, were cured, while ladies returned home with their ailmentsunrelieved, notwithstanding their gifts and the big candles they hadburnt. And, in spite of himself, Vigneron then looked at Madame Chaise, who, having recovered from her attack, was now reposing with acomfortable air. 

But a tremor passed through the crowd and Abbe Judaine spoke again: "Hereis Father Massias coming towards the pulpit. He is a saint; listen tohim. "

They knew him, and were aware that he could not make his appearancewithout every soul being stirred by sudden hope, for it was reported thatthe miracles were often brought to pass by his great fervour. His voice, full of tenderness and strength, was said to be appreciated by theVirgin. 

All heads were therefore uplifted and the emotion yet further increasedwhen Father Fourcade was seen coming to the foot of the pulpit, leaningon the shoulder of his well-beloved brother, the preferred of all; and hestayed there, so that he also might hear him. His gouty foot had beenpaining him more acutely since the morning, so that it required greatcourage on his part to remain thus standing and smiling. The increasingexaltation of the crowd made him happy, however; he foresaw prodigies anddazzling cures which would redound to the glory of Mary and Jesus. 

Having ascended the pulpit, Father Massias did not at once speak. Heseemed, very tall, thin, and pale, with an ascetic face, elongated themore by his discoloured beard. His eyes sparkled, and his large eloquentmouth protruded passionately. 

"Lord, save us, for we perish!" he suddenly cried; and in a fever, whichincreased minute by minute, the transported crowd repeated: "Lord, saveus, for we perish!"

Then he opened his arms and again launched forth his flaming cry, as ifhe had torn it from his glowing heart: "Lord, if it be Thy will, Thoucanst heal me!"

"Lord, if it be Thy will, Thou canst heal me!"

"Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but onlysay the word, and I shall be healed!"

"Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldst enter under my roof, but onlysay the word, and I shall be healed!"

Marthe, Brother Isidore's sister, had now begun to talk in a whisper toMadame Sabathier, near whom she had at last seated herself. They hadformed an acquaintance at the hospital; and, drawn together by so muchsuffering, the servant had familiarly confided to the /bourgeoise/ howanxious she felt about her brother; for she could plainly see that he hadvery little breath left in him. The Blessed Virgin must be quick indeedif she desired to save him. It was already a miracle that they had beenable to bring him alive as far as the Grotto. 

In her resignation, poor, simple creature that she was, she did not weep;but her heart was so swollen that her infrequent words came faintly fromher lips. Then a flood of past memories suddenly returned to her; andwith her utterance thickened by prolonged silence, she began to relieveher heart: "We were fourteen at home, at Saint Jacut, near Vannes. He, big as he was, has always been delicate, and that was why he remainedwith our priest, who ended by placing him among the Christian Brothers. The elder ones took over the property, and, for my part, I preferredgoing out to service. Yes, it was a lady who took me with her to Paris, five years ago already. Ah! what a lot of trouble there is in life!Everyone has so much trouble!"

"You are quite right, my girl, " replied Madame Sabathier, looking thewhile at her husband, who was devoutly repeating each of Father Massias'sappeals. 

"And then, " continued Marthe, "there I learned last month that Isidore, who had returned from a hot climate where he had been on a mission, hadbrought a bad sickness back with him. And, when I ran to see him, he toldme he should die if he did not leave for Lourdes, but that he couldn'tmake the journey, because he had nobody to accompany him. Then, as I hadeighty francs saved up, I gave up my place, and we set out together. Yousee, madame, if I am so fond of him, it's because he used to bring megooseberries from the parsonage, whereas all the others beat me. "

She relapsed into silence for a moment, her countenance swollen by grief, and her poor eyes so scorched by watching that no tears could come fromthem. Then she began to stutter disjointed words: "Look at him, madame. It fills one with pity. Ah! my God, his poor cheeks, his poor chin, hispoor face--"

It was, in fact, a lamentable spectacle. Madame Sabathier's heart wasquite upset when she observed Brother Isidore so yellow, cadaverous, steeped in a cold sweat of agony. Above the sheet he still only showedhis clasped hands and his face encircled with long scanty hair; but ifthose wax-like hands seemed lifeless, if there was not a feature of thatlong-suffering face that stirred, its eyes were still alive, inextinguishable eyes of love, whose flame sufficed to illumine the wholeof his expiring visage--the visage of a Christ upon the cross. And neverhad the contrast been so clearly marked between his low forehead andunintelligent, loutish, peasant air, and the divine splendour which camefrom his poor human mask, ravaged and sanctified by suffering, sublime atthis last hour in the passionate radiance of his faith. His flesh hadmelted, as it were; he was no longer a breath, nothing but a look, alight. 

Since he had been set down there his eyes had not strayed from the statueof the Virgin. Nothing else existed around him. He did not see theenormous multitude, he did not even hear the wild cries of the priests, the incessant cries which shook this quivering crowd. His eyes aloneremained to him, his eyes burning with infinite tenderness, and they werefixed upon the Virgin, never more to turn from her. They drank her in, even unto death; they made a last effort of will to disappear, die out inher. For an instant, however, his mouth half opened and his drawn visagerelaxed as an expression of celestial beatitude came over it. Thennothing more stirred, his eyes remained wide open, still obstinatelyfixed upon the white statue. 

A few seconds elapsed. Marthe had felt a cold breath, chilling the rootsof her hair. "I say, madame, look!" she stammered. 

Madame Sabathier, who felt anxious, pretended that she did notunderstand. "What is it, my girl?"

"My brother! look! He no longer moves. He opened his mouth, and has notstirred since. " Then they both shuddered, feeling certain he was dead. Hehad, indeed, just passed away, without a rattle, without a breath, as iflife had escaped in his glance, through his large, loving eyes, ravenouswith passion. He had expired gazing upon the Virgin, and nothing couldhave been so sweet; and he still continued to gaze upon her with his deadeyes, as though with ineffable delight. 

"Try to close his eyes, " murmured Madame Sabathier. "We shall soon knowthen. "

Marthe had already risen, and, leaning forward, so as not to be observed, she endeavoured to close the eyes with a trembling finger. But each timethey reopened, and again looked at the Virgin with invincible obstinacy. He was dead, and Marthe had to leave his eyes wide open, steeped inunbounded ecstasy. 

"Ah! it's finished, it's quite finished, madame!" she stuttered. 

Two tears then burst from her heavy eyelids and ran down her cheeks;while Madame Sabathier caught hold of her hand to keep her quiet. Therehad been whisperings, and uneasiness was already spreading. But whatcourse could be adopted? It was impossible to carry off the corpse amidstsuch a mob, during the prayers, without incurring the risk of creating adisastrous effect. The best plan would be to leave it there, pending afavourable moment. The poor fellow scandalised no one, he did not seemany more dead now than he had seemed ten minutes previously, andeverybody would think that his flaming eyes were still alive, ardentlyappealing to the divine compassion of the Blessed Virgin. 

Only a few persons among those around knew the truth. M. Sabathier, quitescared, had made a questioning sign to his wife, and on being answered bya prolonged affirmative nod, he had returned to his prayers without anyrebellion, though he could not help turning pale at the thought of themysterious almighty power which sent death when life was asked for. TheVignerons, who were very much interested, leaned forward, and whisperedas though in presence of some street accident, one of those pettyincidents which in Paris the father sometimes related on returning homefrom the Ministry, and which sufficed to occupy them all, throughout theevening. Madame Jousseur, for her part, had simply turned round andwhispered a word or two in M. Dieulafay's ear, and then they had bothreverted to the heart-rending contemplation of their own dear invalid;whilst Abbe Judaine, informed by M. Vigneron, knelt down, and in a low, agitated voice recited the prayers for the dead. Was he not a Saint, thatmissionary who had returned from a deadly climate, with a mortal wound inhis side, to die there, beneath the smiling gaze of the Blessed Virgin?And Madame Maze, who also knew what had happened, suddenly felt a tastefor death, and resolved that she would implore Heaven to suppress heralso, in unobtrusive fashion, if it would not listen to her prayer andgive her back her husband. 

But the cry of Father Massias rose into a still higher key, burst forthwith a strength of terrible despair, with a rending like that of a sob:"Jesus, son of David, I am perishing, save me!"

And the crowd sobbed after him in unison "Jesus, son of David, I amperishing, save me!"

Then, in quick succession, and in higher and higher keys, the appealswent on proclaiming the intolerable misery of the world:

"Jesus, son of David, take pity on Thy sick children!"

"Jesus, son of David, take pity on Thy sick children!"

"Jesus, son of David, come, heal them, that they may live!"

"Jesus, son of David, come, heal them, that they may live!"

It was delirium. At the foot of the pulpit Father Fourcade, succumbing tothe extraordinary passion which overflowed from all hearts, had likewiseraised his arms, and was shouting the appeals in his thundering voice asthough to compel the intervention of Heaven. And the exaltation was stillincreasing beneath this blast of desire, whose powerful breath bowedevery head in turn, spreading even to the young women who, in a spirit ofmere curiosity, sat watching the scene from the parapet of the Gave; forthese also turned pale under their sunshades. 

Miserable humanity was clamouring from the depths of its abyss ofsuffering, and the clamour swept along, sending a shudder down everyspine, for one and all were plunged in agony, refusing to die, longing tocompel God to grant them eternal life. Ah! life, life! that was what allthose unfortunates, who had come so far, amid so many obstacles, wanted--that was the one boon they asked for in their wild desire to liveit over again, to live it always! O Lord, whatever our misery, whateverthe torment of our life may be, cure us, grant that we may begin to liveagain and suffer once more what we have suffered already. However unhappywe may be, to be is what we wish. It is not heaven that we ask Thee for, it is earth; and grant that we may leave it at the latest possiblemoment, never leave it, indeed, if such be Thy good pleasure. And evenwhen we no longer implore a physical cure, but a moral favour, it isstill happiness that we ask Thee for; happiness, the thirst for whichalone consumes us. O Lord, grant that we may be happy and healthy; let uslive, ay, let us live forever!

This wild cry, the cry of man's furious desire for life, came in brokenaccents, mingled with tears, from every breast. 

"O Lord, son of David, heal our sick!"

"O Lord, son of David, heal our sick!"

Berthaud had twice been obliged to dash forward to prevent the cords fromgiving way under the unconscious pressure of the crowd. Baron Suire, indespair, kept on making signs, begging someone to come to his assistance;for the Grotto was now invaded, and the march past had become the meretrampling of a flock rushing to its passion. In vain did Gerard againleave Raymonde and post himself at the entrance gate of the iron railing, so as to carry out the orders, which were to admit the pilgrims by tens. He was hustled and swept aside, while with feverish excitement everybodyrushed in, passing like a torrent between the flaring candles, throwingbouquets and letters to the Virgin, and kissing the rock, which thepressure of millions of inflamed lips had polished. It was faith runwild, the great power that nothing henceforth could stop. 

And now, whilst Gerard stood there, hemmed in against the iron railing, he heard two countrywomen, whom the advance was bearing onward, raiseloud exclamations at sight of the sufferers lying on the stretchersbefore them. One of them was so greatly impressed by the pallid face ofBrother Isidore, whose large dilated eyes were still fixed on the statueof the Virgin, that she crossed herself, and, overcome by devoutadmiration, murmured: "Oh! look at that one; see how he is praying withhis whole heart, and how he gazes on Our Lady of Lourdes!"

The other peasant woman thereupon replied "Oh! she will certainly curehim, he is so beautiful!"

Indeed, as the dead man lay there, his eyes still fixedly staring whilsthe continued his prayer of love and faith, his appearance touched everyheart. No one in that endless, streaming throng could behold him withoutfeeling edified. 

III

MARIE'S CURE

IT was good Abbe Judaine who was to carry the Blessed Sacrament in thefour-o'clock procession. Since the Blessed Virgin had cured him of adisease of the eyes, a miracle with which the Catholic press stillresounded, he had become one of the glories of Lourdes, was given thefirst place, and honoured with all sorts of attentions. 

At half-past three he rose, wishing to leave the Grotto, but theextraordinary concourse of people quite frightened him, and he feared hewould be late if he did not succeed in getting out of it. Fortunatelyhelp came to him in the person of Berthaud. "Monsieur le Cure, " exclaimedthe superintendent of the bearers, "don't attempt to pass out by way ofthe Rosary; you would never arrive in time. The best course is to ascendby the winding paths--and come! follow me; I will go before you. "

By means of his elbows, he thereupon parted the dense throng and opened apath for the priest, who overwhelmed him with thanks. "You are too kind. It's my fault; I had forgotten myself. But, good heavens! how shall wemanage to pass with the procession presently?"

This procession was Berthaud's remaining anxiety. Even on ordinary daysit provoked wild excitement, which forced him to take special measures;and what would now happen, as it wended its way through this densemultitude of thirty thousand persons, consumed by such a fever of faith, already on the verge of divine frenzy? Accordingly, in a sensible way, hetook advantage of this opportunity to give Abbe Judaine the best advice. 

"Ah! Monsieur le Cure, pray impress upon your colleagues of the clergythat they must not leave any space between their ranks; they should comeon slowly, one close behind the other. And, above all, the banners shouldbe firmly grasped, so that they may not be overthrown. As for yourself, Monsieur le Cure, see that the canopy-bearers are strong, tighten thecloth around the monstrance, and don't be afraid to carry it in bothhands with all your strength. "

A little frightened by this advice, the priest went on expressing histhanks. "Of course, of course; you are very good, " said he. "Ah!monsieur, how much I am indebted to you for having helped me to escapefrom all those people!"

Then, free at last, he hastened towards the Basilica by the narrowserpentine path which climbs the hill; while his companion again plungedinto the mob, to return to his post of inspection. 

At that same moment Pierre, who was bringing Marie to the Grotto in herlittle cart, encountered on the other side, that of the Place du Rosaire, the impenetrable wall formed by the crowd. The servant at the hotel hadawakened him at three o'clock, so that he might go and fetch the younggirl at the hospital. There seemed to be no hurry; they apparently hadplenty of time to reach the Grotto before the procession. However, thatimmense throng, that resisting, living wall, through which he did notknow how to break, began to cause him some uneasiness. He would neversucceed in passing with the little car if the people did not evince someobligingness. "Come, ladies, come!" he appealed. "I beg of you! You see, it's for a patient!"

The ladies, hypnotised as they were by the spectacle of the Grottosparkling in the distance, and standing on tiptoe so as to lose nothingof the sight, did not move, however. Besides, the clamour of the litanieswas so loud at this moment that they did not even hear the young priest'sentreaties. 

Then Pierre began again: "Pray stand on one side, gentlemen; allow me topass. A little room for a sick person. Come, please, listen to what I amsaying!"

But the men, beside themselves, in a blind, deaf rapture, would stir nomore than the women. 

Marie, however, smiled serenely, as if ignorant of the impediments, andconvinced that nothing in the world could prevent her from going to hercure. However, when Pierre had found an aperture, and begun to work hisway through the moving mass, the situation became more serious. From allparts the swelling human waves beat against the frail chariot, and attimes threatened to submerge it. At each step it became necessary tostop, wait, and again entreat the people. Pierre had never before feltsuch an anxious sensation in a crowd. True, it was not a threatening mob, it was as innocent as a flock of sheep; but he found a troubling thrillin its midst, a peculiar atmosphere that upset him. And, in spite of hisaffection for the humble, the ugliness of the features around him, thecommon, sweating faces, the evil breath, and the old clothes, smelling ofpoverty, made him suffer even to nausea. 

"Now, ladies, now, gentlemen, it's for a patient, " he repeated. "A littleroom, I beg of you!"

Buffeted about in this vast ocean, the little vehicle continued toadvance by fits and starts, taking long minutes to get over a few yardsof ground. At one moment you might have thought it swamped, for no signof it could be detected. Then, however, it reappeared near the piscinas. Tender sympathy had at length been awakened for this sick girl, so wastedby suffering, but still so beautiful. When people had been compelled togive way before the priest's stubborn pushing, they turned round, but didnot dare to get angry, for pity penetrated them at sight of that thin, suffering face, shining out amidst a halo of fair hair. Words ofcompassion and admiration were heard on all sides: "Ah, the poorchild!"--"Was it not cruel to be infirm at her age?"--"Might the BlessedVirgin be merciful to her!" Others, however, expressed surprise, struckas they were by the ecstasy in which they saw her, with her clear eyesopen to the spheres beyond, where she had placed her hope. She beheldHeaven, she would assuredly be cured. And thus the little car left, as itwere, a feeling of wonder and fraternal charity behind it, as it made itsway with so much difficulty through that human ocean. 

Pierre, however, was in despair and at the end of his strength, when someof the stretcher-bearers came to his aid by forming a path for thepassage of the procession--a path which Berthaud had ordered them to keepclear by means of cords, which they were to hold at intervals of a coupleof yards. From that moment the young priest was able to drag Marie alongin a fairly easy manner, and at last place her within the reserved space, where he halted, facing the Grotto on the left side. You could no longermove in this reserved space, where the crowd seemed to increase everyminute. And, quite exhausted by the painful journey he had justaccomplished, Pierre reflected what a prodigious concourse of peoplethere was; it had seemed to him as if he were in the midst of an ocean, whose waves he had heard heaving around him without a pause. 

Since leaving the hospital Marie had not opened her lips. He nowrealised, however, that she wished to speak to him, and accordingly bentover her. "And my father, " she inquired, "is he here? Hasn't he returnedfrom his excursion?"

Pierre had to answer that M. De Guersaint had not returned, and that hehad doubtless been delayed against his will. And thereupon she merelyadded with a smile: "Ah I poor father, won't he be pleased when he findsme cured!"

Pierre looked at her with tender admiration. He did not remember havingever seen her looking so adorable since the slow wasting of sickness hadbegun. Her hair, which alone disease had respected, clothed her in gold. Her thin, delicate face had assumed a dreamy expression, her eyeswandering away to the haunting thought of her sufferings, her featuresmotionless, as if she had fallen asleep in a fixed thought until theexpected shock of happiness should waken her. She was absent fromherself, ready, however, to return to consciousness whenever God mightwill it. And, indeed, this delicious infantile creature, this little girlof three-and-twenty, still a child as when an accident had struck her, delaying her growth, preventing her from becoming a woman, was at lastready to receive the visit of the angel, the miraculous shock which woulddraw her out of her torpor and set her upright once more. Her morningecstasy continued; she had clasped her hands, and a leap of her wholebeing had ravished her from earth as soon as she had perceived the imageof the Blessed Virgin yonder. And now she prayed and offered herselfdivinely. 

It was an hour of great mental trouble for Pierre. He felt that the dramaof his priestly life was about to be enacted, and that if he did notrecover faith in this crisis, it would never return to him. And he waswithout bad thoughts, without resistance, hoping with fervour, he also, that they might both be healed! Oh! that he might be convinced by hercure, that he might believe like her, that they might be saved together!He wished to pray, ardently, as she herself did. But in spite of himselfhe was preoccupied by the crowd, that limitless crowd, among which hefound it so difficult to drown himself, disappear, become nothing morethan a leaf in the forest, lost amidst the rustle of all the leaves. Hecould not prevent himself from analysing and judging it. He knew that forfour days past it had been undergoing all the training of suggestion;there had been the fever of the long journey, the excitement of the newlandscapes, the days spent before the splendour of the Grotto, thesleepless nights, and all the exasperating suffering, ravenous forillusion. Then, again, there had been the all-besetting prayers, thosehymns, those litanies, which agitated it without a pause. Another priesthad followed Father Massias in the pulpit, a little thin, dark Abbe, whomPierre heard hurling appeals to the Virgin and Jesus in a lashing voicewhich resounded like a whip. Father Massias and Father Fourcade hadremained at the foot of the pulpit, and were now directing the cries ofthe crowd, whose lamentations rose in louder and louder tones beneath thelimpid sunlight. The general exaltation had yet increased; it was thehour when the violence done to Heaven at last produced the miracles. 

All at once a paralytic rose up and walked towards the Grotto, holdinghis crutch in the air; and this crutch, waving like a flag above theswaying heads, wrung loud applause from the faithful. They were all onthe look-out for prodigies, they awaited them with the certainty thatthey would take place, innumerable and wonderful. Some eyes seemed tobehold them, and feverish voices pointed them out. Another woman had beencured! Another! Yet another! A deaf person had heard, a mute had spoken, a consumptive had revived! What, a consumptive? Certainly, that was adaily occurrence! Surprise was no longer possible; you might havecertified that an amputated leg was growing again without astonishinganyone. Miracle-working became the actual state of nature, the usualthing, quite commonplace, such was its abundance. The most incrediblestories seemed quite simple to those overheated imaginations, given whatthey expected from the Blessed Virgin. And you should have heard thetales that went about, the quiet affirmations, the expressions ofabsolute certainty which were exchanged whenever a delirious patientcried out that she was cured. Another! Yet another! However, a piteousvoice would at times exclaim: "Ah! she's cured; that one; she's lucky, she is!"

Already, at the Verification Office, Pierre had suffered from thiscredulity of the folk among whom he lived. But here it surpassedeverything he could have imagined; and he was exasperated by theextravagant things he heard people say in such a placid fashion, with theopen smiles of children. Accordingly he tried to absorb himself in histhoughts and listen to nothing. "O God!" he prayed, "grant that my reasonmay be annihilated, that I may no longer desire to understand, that I mayaccept the unreal and impossible. " For a moment he thought the spirit ofinquiry dead within him, and allowed the cry of supplication to carry himaway: "Lord, heal our sick! Lord, heal our sick!" He repeated this appealwith all his charity, clasped his hands, and gazed fixedly at the statueof the Virgin, until he became quite giddy, and imagined that the figuremoved. Why should he not return to a state of childhood like the others, since happiness lay in ignorance and falsehood? Contagion would surelyend by acting; he would become nothing more than a grain of sand amonginnumerable other grains, one of the humblest among the humble ones underthe millstone, who trouble not about the power that crushes them. Butjust at that second, when he hoped that he had killed the old man in him, that he had annihilated himself along with his will and intelligence, thestubborn work of thought, incessant and invincible, began afresh in thedepths of his brain. Little by little, notwithstanding his efforts to thecontrary, he returned to his inquiries, doubted, and sought the truth. What was the unknown force thrown off by this crowd, the vital fluidpowerful enough to work the few cures that really occurred? There washere a phenomenon that no physiologist had yet studied. Ought one tobelieve that a multitude became a single being, as it were, able toincrease the power of auto-suggestion tenfold upon itself? Might oneadmit that, under certain circumstances of extreme exaltation, amultitude became an agent of sovereign will compelling the obedience ofmatter? That would have explained how sudden cure fell at times upon themost sincerely excited of the throng. The breaths of all of them unitedin one breath, and the power that acted was a power of consolation, hope, and life. 

This thought, the outcome of his human charity, filled Pierre withemotion. For another moment he was able to regain possession of himself, and prayed for the cure of all, deeply touched by the belief that hehimself might in some degree contribute towards the cure of Marie. Butall at once, without knowing what transition of ideas led to it, arecollection returned to him of the medical consultation which he hadinsisted upon prior to the young girl's departure for Lourdes. The scenerose before him with extraordinary clearness and precision; he saw theroom with its grey, blue-flowered wall-paper, and he heard the threedoctors discuss and decide. The two who had given certificatesdiagnosticating paralysis of the marrow spoke discreetly, slowly, likeesteemed, well-known, perfectly honourable practitioners; but Pierrestill heard the warm, vivacious voice of his cousin Beauclair, the thirddoctor, a young man of vast and daring intelligence, who was treatedcoldly by his colleagues as being of an adventurous turn of mind. And atthis supreme moment Pierre was surprised to find in his memory thingswhich he did not know were there; but it was only an instance of thatsingular phenomenon by which it sometimes happens that words scarcelistened to, words but imperfectly heard, words stored away in the brainalmost in spite of self, will awaken, burst forth, and impose themselveson the mind after they have long been forgotten. And thus it now seemedto him that the very approach of the miracle was bringing him a vision ofthe conditions under which--according to Beauclair's predictions--themiracle would be accomplished. 

In vain did Pierre endeavour to drive away this recollection by prayingwith an increase of fervour. The scene again appeared to him, and the oldwords rang out, filling his ears like a trumpet-blast. He was now againin the dining-room, where Beauclair and he had shut themselves up afterthe departure of the two others, and Beauclair recapitulated the historyof the malady: the fall from a horse at the age of fourteen; thedislocation and displacement of the organ, with doubtless a slightlaceration of the ligaments, whence the weight which the sufferer hadfelt, and the weakness of the legs leading to paralysis. Then, a slowhealing of the disorder, everything returning to its place of itself, butwithout the pain ceasing. In fact this big, nervous child, whose mind hadbeen so grievously impressed by her accident, was unable to forget it;her attention remained fixed on the part where she suffered, and shecould not divert it, so that, even after cure, her sufferings hadcontinued--a neuropathic state, a consecutive nervous exhaustion, doubtless aggravated by accidents due to faulty nutrition as yetimperfectly understood. And further, Beauclair easily explained thecontrary and erroneous diagnosis of the numerous doctors who had attendedher, and who, as she would not submit to examination, had groped in thedark, some believing in a tumour, and the others, the more numerous, convinced of some lesion of the marrow. He alone, after inquiring intothe girl's parentage, had just begun to suspect a simple state ofauto-suggestion, in which she had obstinately remained ever since thefirst violent shock of pain; and among the reasons which he gave for thisbelief were the contraction of her visual field, the fixity of her eyes, the absorbed, inattentive expression of her face, and above all thenature of the pain she felt, which, leaving the organ, had borne to theleft, where it continued in the form of a crushing, intolerable weight, which sometimes rose to the breast in frightful fits of stifling. Asudden determination to throw off the false notion she had formed of hercomplaint, the will to rise, breathe freely, and suffer no more, couldalone place her on her feet again, cured, transfigured, beneath the lashof some intense emotion. 

A last time did Pierre endeavour to see and hear no more, for he feltthat the irreparable ruin of all belief in the miraculous was in him. And, in spite of his efforts, in spite of the ardour with which he beganto cry, "Jesus, son of David, heal our sick!" he still saw, he stillheard Beauclair telling him, in his calm, smiling manner how the miraclewould take place, like a lightning flash, at the moment of extremeemotion, under the decisive circumstance which would complete theloosening of the muscles. The patient would rise and walk in a wildtransport of joy, her legs would all at once be light again, relieved ofthe weight which had so long made them like lead, as though this weighthad melted, fallen to the ground. But above all, the weight which boreupon the lower part of the trunk, which rose, ravaged the breast, andstrangled the throat, would this time depart in a prodigious soaringflight, a tempest blast bearing all the evil away with it. And was it notthus that, in the Middle Ages, possessed women had by the mouth cast upthe Devil, by whom their flesh had so long been tortured? And Beauclairhad added that Marie would at last become a woman, that in that moment ofsupreme joy she would cease to be a child, that although seemingly wornout by her prolonged dream of suffering, she would all at once berestored to resplendent health, with beaming face, and eyes full of life. 

Pierre looked at her, and his trouble increased still more on seeing herso wretched in her little cart, so distractedly imploring health, herwhole being soaring towards Our Lady of Lourdes, who gave life. Ah! mightshe be saved, at the cost even of his own damnation! But she was too ill;science lied like faith; he could not believe that this child, whoselimbs had been dead for so many years, would indeed return to life. And, in the bewildered doubt into which he again relapsed, his bleeding heartclamoured yet more loudly, ever and ever repeating with the deliriouscrowd: "Lord, son of David, heal our sick!--Lord, son of David, heal oursick!"

At that moment a tumult arose agitating one and all. People shuddered, faces were turned and raised. It was the cross of the four-o'clockprocession, a little behind time that day, appearing from beneath one ofthe arches of the monumental gradient way. There was such applause andsuch violent, instinctive pushing that Berthaud, waving his arms, commanded the bearers to thrust the crowd back by pulling strongly on thecords. Overpowered for a moment, the bearers had to throw themselvesbackward with sore hands; however, they ended by somewhat enlarging thereserved path, along which the procession was then able to slowly wendits way. At the head came a superb beadle, all blue and gold, followed bythe processional cross, a tall cross shining like a star. Then followedthe delegations of the different pilgrimages with their banners, standards of velvet and satin, embroidered with metal and bright silk, adorned with painted figures, and bearing the names of towns: Versailles, Rheims, Orleans, Poitiers, and Toulouse. One, which was quite white, magnificently rich, displayed in red letters the inscription "Associationof Catholic Working Men's Clubs. " Then came the clergy, two or threehundred priests in simple cassocks, about a hundred in surplices, andsome fifty clothed in golden chasubles, effulgent like stars. They allcarried lighted candles, and sang the "Laudate Sion Salvatorem" in fullvoices. And then the canopy appeared in royal pomp, a canopy of purplesilk, braided with gold, and upheld by four ecclesiastics, who, it couldbe seen, had been selected from among the most robust. Beneath it, between two other priests who assisted him, was Abbe Judaine, vigorouslyclasping the Blessed Sacrament with both hands, as Berthaud hadrecommended him to do; and the somewhat uneasy glances that he cast onthe encroaching crowd right and left showed how anxious he was that noinjury should befall the heavy divine monstrance, whose weight wasalready straining his wrists. When the slanting sun fell upon him infront, the monstrance itself looked like another sun. Choir-boys meantimewere swinging censers in the blinding glow which gave splendour to theentire procession; and, finally, in the rear, there was a confused massof pilgrims, a flock-like tramping of believers and sightseers allaflame, hurrying along, and blocking the track with their ever-rollingwaves. 

Father Massias had returned to the pulpit a moment previously; and thistime he had devised another pious exercise. After the burning cries offaith, hope, and love that he threw forth, he all at once commandedabsolute silence, in order that one and all might, with closed lips, speak to God in secret for a few minutes. These sudden spells of silencefalling upon the vast crowd, these minutes of mute prayer, in which allsouls unbosomed their secrets, were deeply, wonderfully impressive. Theirsolemnity became formidable; you heard desire, the immense desire forlife, winging its flight on high. Then Father Massias invited the sickalone to speak, to implore God to grant them what they asked of Hisalmighty power. And, in response, came a pitiful lamentation, hundreds oftremulous, broken voices rising amidst a concert of sobs. "Lord Jesus, ifit please Thee, Thou canst cure me!"--"Lord Jesus take pity on Thy child, who is dying of love!"--"Lord Jesus, grant that I may see, grant that Imay hear, grant that I may walk!" And, all at once, the shrill voice of alittle girl, light and vivacious as the notes of a flute, rose above theuniversal sob, repeating in the distance: "Save the others, save theothers, Lord Jesus!" Tears streamed from every eye; these supplicationsupset all hearts, threw the hardest into the frenzy of charity, into asublime disorder which would have impelled them to open their breastswith both hands, if by doing so they could have given their neighbourstheir health and youth. And then Father Massias, not letting thisenthusiasm abate, resumed his cries, and again lashed the delirious crowdwith them; while Father Fourcade himself sobbed on one of the steps ofthe pulpit, raising his streaming face to heaven as though to command Godto descend on earth. 

But the procession had arrived; the delegations, the priests, had rangedthemselves on the right and left; and, when the canopy entered the spacereserved to the sick in front of the Grotto, when the sufferers perceivedJesus the Host, the Blessed Sacrament, shining like a sun, in the handsof Abbe Judaine, it became impossible to direct the prayers, all voicesmingled together, and all will was borne away by vertigo. The cries, calls, entreaties broke, lapsing into groans. Human forms rose frompallets of suffering; trembling arms were stretched forth; clenched handsseemingly desired to clutch at the miracle on the way. "Lord Jesus, saveus, for we perish!"--"Lord Jesus, we worship Thee; heal us!"--"LordJesus, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God; heal us!" Thricedid the despairing, exasperated voices give vent to the supremelamentation in a clamour which rushed up to Heaven; and the tearsredoubled, flooding all the burning faces which desire transformed. Atone moment, the delirium became so great, the instinctive leap toward theBlessed Sacrament seemed so irresistible, that Berthaud placed thebearers who were there in a chain about it. This was the extremeprotective manoeuvre, a hedge of bearers drawn up on either side of thecanopy, each placing an arm firmly round his neighbour's neck, so as toestablish a sort of living wall. Not the smallest aperture was left init; nothing whatever could pass. Still, these human barriers staggeredunder the pressure of the unfortunate creatures who hungered for life, who wished to touch, to kiss Jesus; and, oscillating and recoiling, thebearers were at last thrust against the canopy they were defending, andthe canopy itself began swaying among the crowd, ever in danger of beingswept away like some holy bark in peril of being wrecked. 

Then, at the very climax of this holy frenzy, the miracles began amidstsupplications and sobs, as when the heavens open during a storm, and athunderbolt falls on earth. A paralytic woman rose and cast aside hercrutches. There was a piercing yell, and another woman appeared erect onher mattress, wrapped in a white blanket as in a winding sheet; andpeople said it was a half-dead consumptive who had thus beenresuscitated. Then grace fell upon two others in quick succession: ablind woman suddenly perceived the Grotto in a flame; a dumb woman fellon both her knees, thanking the Blessed Virgin in a loud, clear voice. And all in a like way prostrated themselves at the feet of Our Lady ofLourdes, distracted with joy and gratitude. 

But Pierre had not taken his eyes off Marie, and he was overcome withtender emotion at what he saw. The sufferer's eyes were stillexpressionless, but they had dilated, while her poor, pale face, with itsheavy mask, was contracted as if she were suffering frightfully. She didnot speak in her despair; she undoubtedly thought that she was again inthe clutches of her ailment. But all at once, when the Blessed Sacramentpassed by, and she saw the star-like monstrance sparkling in the sun, asensation of dizziness came over her. She imagined herself struck bylightning. Her eyes caught fire from the glare which flashed upon her, and at last regained their flame of life, shining out like stars. Andunder the influence of a wave of blood her face became animated, suffusedwith colour, beaming with a smile of joy and health. And, suddenly, Pierre saw her rise, stand upright in her little car, staggering, stuttering, and finding in her mind only these caressing words: "Oh, myfriend! Oh, my friend!"

He hurriedly drew near in order to support her. But she drove him backwith a gesture. She was regaining strength, looking so touching, sobeautiful, in the little black woollen gown and slippers which she alwayswore; tall and slender, too, and crowned as with a halo of gold by herbeautiful flaxen hair, which was covered with a simple piece of lace. Thewhole of her virgin form was quivering as if some powerful fermentationhad regenerated her. First of all, it was her legs that were relieved ofthe chains that bound them; and then, while she felt the spirit oflife--the life of woman, wife, and mother--within her, there came a finalagony, an enormous weight that rose to her very throat. Only, this time, it did not linger there, did not stifle her, but burst from her openmouth, and flew away in a cry of sublime joy. 

"I am cured!--I am cured!"

Then there was an extraordinary sight. The blanket lay at her feet, shewas triumphant, she had a superb, glowing face. And her cry of cure hadresounded with such rapturous delight that the entire crowd wasdistracted by it. She had become the sole point of interest, the otherssaw none but her, erect, grown so radiant and so divine. 

"I am cured!--I am cured!"

Pierre, at the violent shock his heart had received, had begun to weep. Indeed, tears glistened again in every eye. Amidst exclamations ofgratitude and praise, frantic enthusiasm passed from one to another, throwing the thousands of pilgrims who pressed forward to see into astate of violent emotion. Applause broke out, a fury of applause, whosethunder rolled from one to the other end of the valley. 

However, Father Fourcade began waving his arms, and Father Massias was atlast able to make himself heard from the pulpit: "God has visited us, mydear brothers, my dear sisters!" said he. "/Magnificat anima meaDominum/, My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced inGod my Saviour. "

And then all the voices, the thousands of voices, began the chant ofadoration and gratitude. The procession found itself at a stand-still. Abbe Judaine had been able to reach the Grotto with the monstrance, buthe patiently remained there before giving the Benediction. The canopy wasawaiting him outside the railings, surrounded by priests in surplices andchasubles, all a glitter of white and gold in the rays of the settingsun. 

Marie, however, had knelt down, sobbing; and, whilst the canticle lasted, a burning prayer of faith and love ascended from her whole being. But thecrowd wanted to see her walk, delighted women called to her, a groupsurrounded her, and swept her towards the Verification Office, so thatthe miracle might be proved true, as patent as the very light of the sun. Her box was forgotten, Pierre followed her, while she, stammering andhesitating, she who for seven years had not used her legs, advanced withadorable awkwardness, the uneasy, charming gait of a little child makingits first steps; and it was so affecting, so delicious, that the youngpriest thought of nothing but the immense happiness of seeing her thusreturn to her childhood. Ah! the dear friend of infancy, the deartenderness of long ago, so she would at last be the beautiful andcharming woman that she had promised to be as a young girl when, in thelittle garden at Neuilly, she had looked so gay and pretty beneath thetall trees flecked with sunlight!

The crowd continued to applaud her furiously, a huge wave of peopleaccompanied her; and all remained awaiting her egress, swarming in afever before the door, when she had entered the office, whither Pierreonly was admitted with her. 

That particular afternoon there were few people at the VerificationOffice. The small square room, with its hot wooden walls and rudimentaryfurniture, its rush-bottomed chairs, and its two tables of unequalheight, contained, apart from the usual staff only some five or sixdoctors, seated and silent. At the tables were the inspector of thepiscinas and two young Abbes making entries in the registers, andconsulting the sets of documents; while Father Dargeles, at one end, wrote a paragraph for his newspaper. And, as it happened, Doctor Bonamywas just then examining Elise Rouquet, who, for the third time, had cometo have the increasing cicatrisation of her sore certified. 

"Anyhow, gentlemen, " exclaimed the doctor, "have you ever seen a lupusheal in this way so rapidly? I am aware that a new work has appeared onfaith healing in which it is stated that certain sores may have a nervousorigin. Only that is by no means proved in the case of lupus, and I defya committee of doctors to assemble and explain mademoiselle's cure byordinary means. "

He paused, and turning towards Father Dargeles, inquired: "Have younoted, Father, that the suppuration has completely disappeared, and thatthe skin is resuming its natural colour?"

However, he did not wait for the reply, for just then Marie entered, followed by Pierre; and by her beaming radiance he immediately guessedwhat good-fortune was befalling him. She looked superb, admirably fittedto transport and convert the multitude. He therefore promptly dismissedElise Rouquet, inquired the new arrival's name, and asked one of theyoung priests to look for her papers. Then, as she slightly staggered, hewished to seat her in the arm-chair. 

"Oh no! oh no!" she exclaimed. "I am so happy to be able to use my legs!"

Pierre, with a glance, had sought for Doctor Chassaigne, whom he wassorry not to see there. He remained on one side, waiting while theyrummaged in the untidy drawers without being able to place their hands onthe required papers. "Let's see, " repeated Dr. Bonamy; "Marie deGuersaint, Marie de Guersaint. I have certainly seen that name before. "

At last Raboin discovered the documents classified under a wrong letter;and when the doctor had perused the two medical certificates he becamequite enthusiastic. "Here is something very interesting, gentlemen, " saidhe. "I beg you to listen attentively. This young lady, whom you seestanding here, was afflicted with a very serious lesion of the marrow. And, if one had the least doubt of it, these two certificates wouldsuffice to convince the most incredulous, for they are signed by twodoctors of the Paris faculty, whose names are well known to us all. "

Then he passed the certificates to the doctors present, who read them, wagging their heads the while. It was beyond dispute; the medical men whohad drawn up these documents enjoyed the reputation of being honest andclever practitioners. 

"Well, gentlemen, if the diagnosis is not disputed--and it cannot be whena patient brings us documents of this value--we will now see what changehas taken place in the young lady's condition. "

However, before questioning her he turned towards Pierre. "Monsieurl'Abbe, " said he, "you came from Paris with Mademoiselle de Guersaint, Ithink. Did you converse with the doctors before your departure?"

The priest shuddered amidst all his great delight. 

"I was present at the consultation, monsieur, " he replied. 

And again the scene rose up before him. He once more saw the two doctors, so serious and rational, and he once more saw Beauclair smiling, whilehis colleagues drew up their certificates, which were identical. And washe, Pierre, to reduce these certificates to nothing, reveal the otherdiagnosis, the one that allowed of the cure being explainedscientifically? The miracle had been predicted, shattered beforehand. 

"You will observe, gentlemen, " now resumed Dr. Bonamy, "that the presenceof the Abbe gives these proofs additional weight. However, mademoisellewill now tell us exactly what she felt. "

He had leant over Father Dargeles's shoulder to impress upon him that hemust not forget to make Pierre play the part of a witness in thenarrative. 

"/Mon Dieu/! gentlemen, how can I tell you?" exclaimed Marie in a haltingvoice, broken by her surging happiness. "Since yesterday I had feltcertain that I should be cured. And yet, a little while ago, when thepins and needles seized me in the legs again, I was afraid it might onlybe another attack. For an instant I doubted. Then the feeling stopped. But it began again as soon as I recommenced praying. Oh! I prayed, Iprayed with all my soul! I ended by surrendering myself like a child. 'Blessed Virgin, Our Lady of Lourdes, do with me as thou wilt, ' I said. But the feeling did not cease, it seemed as if my blood were boiling; avoice cried to me: 'Rise! Rise!' And I felt the miracle fall on me in acracking of all my bones, of all my flesh, as if I had been struck bylightning. "

Pierre, very pale, listened to her. Beauclair had positively told himthat the cure would come like a lightning flash, that under the influenceof extreme excitement a sudden awakening of will so long somnolent wouldtake place within her. 

"It was my legs which the Holy Virgin first of all delivered, " shecontinued. "I could well feel that the iron bands which bound them weregliding along my skin like broken chains. Then the weight which stillsuffocated me, there, in the left side, began to ascend; and I thought Iwas going to die, it hurt me so. But it passed my chest, it passed mythroat, and I felt it there in my mouth, and spat it out violently. Itwas all over, I no longer had any pain, it had flown away!"

She had made a gesture expressive of the motion of a night bird beatingits wings, and, lapsing into silence, stood smiling at Pierre, who wasbewildered. Beauclair had told him all that beforehand, using almost thesame words and the same imagery. Point by point, his prognostics wererealised, there was nothing more in the case than natural phenomena, which had been foreseen. 

Raboin, however, had followed Marie's narrative with dilated eyes and thepassion of a pietist of limited intelligence, ever haunted by the idea ofhell. "It was the devil, " he cried; "it was the devil that she spat out!"

Doctor Bonamy, who was more wary, made him hold his tongue. And turningtowards the doctors he said: "Gentlemen, you know that we always avoidpronouncing the big word of miracle here. Only here is a fact, and I amcurious to know how any of you can explain it by natural means. Sevenyears ago this young lady was struck with serious paralysis, evidentlydue to a lesion of the marrow. And that cannot be denied; thecertificates are there, irrefutable. She could no longer walk, she couldno longer make a movement without a cry of pain, she had reached thatextreme state of exhaustion which precedes but by little an unfortunateissue. All at once, however, here she rises, walks, laughs, and beams onus. The paralysis has completely disappeared, no pain remains, she is aswell as you and I. Come, gentlemen, approach, examine her, and tell mewhat has happened. "

He triumphed. Not one of the doctors spoke. Two, who were doubtless trueCatholics, had shown their approval of his speech by their vigorous nods, while the others remained motionless, with a constrained air, not caringto mix themselves up in the business. However, a little thin man, whoseeyes shone behind the glasses he was wearing, ended by rising to take acloser look at Marie. He caught hold of her hand, examined the pupils ofher eyes, and merely seemed preoccupied by the air of transfigurationwhich she wore. Then, in a very courteous manner, without even showing adesire to discuss the matter, he came back and sat down again. 

"The case is beyond science, that is all I can assume, " concluded DoctorBonamy, victoriously. "I will add that we have no convalescence here;health is at once restored, full, entire. Observe the young lady. Hereyes are bright, her colour is rosy, her physiognomy has recovered itslively gaiety. Without doubt, the healing of the tissues will proceedsomewhat slowly, but one can already say that mademoiselle has been bornagain. Is it not so, Monsieur l'Abbe, you who have seen her sofrequently; you no longer recognise her, eh?"

"That's true, that's true, " stammered Pierre. 

And, in fact, she already appeared strong to him, her cheeks full andfresh, gaily blooming. But Beauclair had also foreseen this sudden joyfulchange, this straightening and resplendency of her invalid frame, whenlife should re-enter it, with the will to be cured and be happy. Onceagain, however, had Doctor Bonamy leant over Father Dargeles, who wasfinishing his note, a brief but fairly complete account of the affair. They exchanged a few words in low tones, consulting together, and thedoctor ended by saying: "You have witnessed these marvels, Monsieurl'Abbe, so you will not refuse to sign the careful report which thereverend Father has drawn up for publication in the 'Journal de laGrotte. '"

He--Pierre--sign that page of error and falsehood! A revolt roused him, and he was on the point of shouting out the truth. But he felt the weightof his cassock on his shoulders; and, above all, Marie's divine joyfilled his heart. He was penetrated with deep happiness at seeing hersaved. Since they had ceased questioning her she had come and leant onhis arm, and remained smiling at him with eyes full of enthusiasm. 

"Oh, my, friend, thank the Blessed Virgin!" she murmured in a low voice. "She has been so good to me; I am now so well, so beautiful, so young!And how pleased my father, my poor father, will be!"

Then Pierre signed. Everything was collapsing within him, but it wasenough that she should be saved; he would have thought it sacrilegious tointerfere with the faith of that child, the great pure faith which hadhealed her. 

When Marie reappeared outside the office, the applause began afresh, thecrowd clapped their hands. It now seemed that the miracle was official. However, certain charitable persons, fearing that she might again fatigueherself and again require her little car, which she had abandoned beforethe Grotto, had brought it to the office, and when she found it there shefelt deeply moved. Ah! that box in which she had lived so many years, that rolling coffin in which she had sometimes imagined herself buriedalive, how many tears, how much despair, how many bad days it hadwitnessed! And, all at once, the idea occurred to her that it had so longbeen linked with her sufferings, it ought also to share her triumph. Itwas a sudden inspiration, a kind of holy folly, that made her seize thehandle. 

At that moment the procession passed by, returning from the Grotto, whereAbbe Judaine had pronounced the Benediction. And thereupon Marie, dragging the little car, placed herself behind the canopy. And, in herslippers, her head covered with a strip of lace, her bosom heaving, herface erect, glowing, and superb, she walked on behind the clergy, dragging after her that car of misery, that rolling coffin, in which shehad endured so much agony. And the crowd which acclaimed her, the franticcrowd, followed in her wake. 

IV

TRIUMPH--DESPAIR

PIERRE also had followed Marie, and like her was behind the canopy, carried along as it were by the blast of glory which made her drag herlittle car along in triumph. Every moment, however, there was so muchtempestuous pushing that the young priest would assuredly have fallen ifa rough hand had not upheld him. 

"Don't be alarmed, " said a voice; "give me your arm, otherwise you won'tbe able to remain on your feet. "

Pierre turned round, and was surprised to recognise Father Massias, whohad left Father Fourcade in the pulpit in order to accompany theprocession. An extraordinary fever was sustaining him, throwing himforward, as solid as a rock, with eyes glowing like live coals, and anexcited face covered with perspiration. 

"Take care, then!" he again exclaimed; "give me your arm. "

A fresh human wave had almost swept them away. And Pierre now yielded tothe support of this terrible enthusiast, whom he remembered as afellow-student at the seminary. What a singular meeting it was, and howgreatly he would have liked to possess that violent faith, that madfaith, which was making Massias pant, with his throat full of sobs, whilst he continued giving vent to the ardent entreaty "Lord Jesus, healour sick! Lord Jesus, heal our sick!"

There was no cessation of this cry behind the canopy, where there wasalways a crier whose duty it was to accord no respite to the slowclemency of Heaven. At times a thick voice full of anguish, and at othersa shrill and piercing voice, would arise. The Father's, which was animperious one, was now at last breaking through sheer emotion. 

"Lord Jesus, heal our sick! Lord Jesus, heal our sick!"

The rumour of Marie's wondrous cure, of the miracle whose fame wouldspeedily fill all Christendom, had already spread from one to the otherend of Lourdes; and from this had come the increased vertigo of themultitude, the attack of contagious delirium which now caused it to whirland rush toward the Blessed Sacrament like the resistless flux of arising tide. One and all yielded to the desire of beholding the Sacramentand touching it, of being cured and becoming happy. The Divinity waspassing; and now it was not merely a question of ailing beings glowingwith a desire for life, but a longing for happiness which consumed allpresent and raised them up with bleeding, open hearts and eager hands. 

Berthaud, who feared the excesses of this religious adoration, haddecided to accompany his men. He commanded them, carefully watching overthe double chain of bearers beside the canopy in order that it might notbe broken. 

"Close your ranks--closer--closer!" he called, "and keep your arms firmlylinked!"

These young men, chosen from among the most vigorous of the bearers, hadan extremely difficult duty to discharge. The wall which they formed, shoulder to shoulder, with arms linked at the waist and the neck, kept ongiving way under the involuntary assaults of the throng. Nobody, certainly, fancied that he was pushing, but there was constant eddying, and deep waves of people rolled towards the procession from afar andthreatened to submerge it. 

When the canopy had reached the middle of the Place du Rosaire, AbbeJudaine really thought that he would be unable to go any farther. Numerous conflicting currents had set in over the vast expanse, and werewhirling, assailing him from all sides, so that he had to halt under theswaying canopy, which shook like a sail in a sudden squall on the opensea. He held the Blessed Sacrament aloft with his numbed hands, eachmoment fearing that a final push would throw him over; for he fullyrealised that the golden monstrance, radiant like a sun, was the onepassion of all that multitude, the Divinity they demanded to kiss, inorder that they might lose themselves in it, even though they shouldannihilate it in doing so. Accordingly, while standing there, the priestanxiously turned his eyes on Berthaud. 

"Let nobody pass!" called the latter to the bearers--"nobody! The ordersare precise; you hear me?"

Voices, however, were rising in supplication on all sides, wretchedbeings were sobbing with arms outstretched and lips protruding, in thewild desire that they might be allowed to approach and kneel at thepriest's feet. What divine grace it would be to be thrown upon the groundand trampled under foot by the whole procession!* An infirm old mandisplayed his withered hand in the conviction that it would be made soundagain were he only allowed to touch the monstrance. A dumb woman wildlypushed her way through the throng with her broad shoulders, in order thatshe might loosen her tongue by a kiss. Others were shouting, imploring, and even clenching their fists in their rage with those cruel men whodenied cure to their bodily sufferings and their mental wretchedness. Theorders to keep them back were rigidly enforced, however, for the mostserious accidents were feared. 

 * One is here irresistibly reminded of the car of Juggernaut, and of the Hindoo fanatics throwing themselves beneath its wheels in the belief that they would thus obtain an entrance into Paradise. --Trans. 

"Nobody, nobody!" repeated Berthaud; "let nobody whatever pass!"

There was a woman there, however, who touched every heart withcompassion. Clad in wretched garments, bareheaded, her face wet withtears, she was holding in her arms a little boy of ten years or so, whoselimp, paralysed legs hung down inertly. The lad's weight was too greatfor one so weak as herself, still she did not seem to feel it. She hadbrought the boy there, and was now entreating the bearers with aninvincible obstinacy which neither words nor hustling could conquer. 

At last, as Abbe Judaine, who felt deeply moved, beckoned to her toapproach, two of the bearers, in deference to his compassion, drew apart, despite all the danger of opening a breach, and the woman then rushedforward with her burden, and fell in a heap before the priest. For amoment he rested the foot of the monstrance on the child's head, and themother herself pressed her eager, longing lips to it; and, as theystarted off again, she wished to remain behind the canopy, and followedthe procession, with streaming hair and panting breast, staggering thewhile under the heavy burden, which was fast exhausting her strength. 

They managed, with great difficulty, to cross the remainder of the Placedu Rosaire, and then the ascent began, the glorious ascent by way of themonumental incline; whilst upon high, on the fringe of heaven, theBasilica reared its slim spire, whence pealing bells were winging theirflight, sounding the triumphs of Our Lady of Lourdes. And now it wastowards an apotheosis that the canopy slowly climbed, towards the loftyportal of the high-perched sanctuary which stood open, face to face withthe Infinite, high above the huge multitude whose waves continued soaringacross the valley's squares and avenues. Preceding the processionalcross, the magnificent beadle, all blue and silver, was already rearingthe level of the Rosary cupola, the spacious esplanade formed by the roofof the lower church, across which the pilgrimage deputations began towind, with their bright-coloured silk and velvet banners waving in theruddy glow of the sunset. Then came the clergy, the priests in snowysurplices, and the priests in golden chasubles, likewise shining out likea procession of stars. And the censers swung, and the canopy continuedclimbing, without anything of its bearers being seen, so that it seemedas though a mysterious power, some troop of invisible angels, werecarrying it off in this glorious ascension towards the open portal ofheaven. 

A sound of chanting had burst forth; the voices in the procession nolonger called for the healing of the sick, now that the /cortege/ hadextricated itself from amidst the crowd. The miracle had been worked, andthey were celebrating it with the full power of their lungs, amidst thepealing of the bells and the quivering gaiety of the atmosphere. 

"/Magnificat anima mea Dominum/"--they began. "My soul doth magnify theLord. "

'Twas the song of gratitude, already chanted at the Grotto, and againspringing from every heart: "/Et exsultavit spiritus meus in Deo salutarimeo/. " "And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. "

Meantime it was with increasing, overflowing joy that Marie took part inthat radiant ascent, by the colossal gradient way, towards the glowingBasilica. It seemed to her, as she continued climbing, that she wasgrowing stronger and stronger, that her legs, so long lifeless, becamefirmer at each step. The little car which she victoriously dragged behindher was like the earthly tenement of her illness, the /inferno/ whencethe Blessed Virgin had extricated her, and although its handle was makingher hands sore, she nevertheless wished to pull it up yonder with her, inorder that she might cast it at last at the feet of the Almighty. Noobstacle could stay her course, she laughed through the big tears whichwere falling on her cheeks, her bosom was swelling, her demeanourbecoming warlike. One of her slippers had become unfastened, and thestrip of lace had fallen from her head to her shoulders. Nevertheless, with her lovely fair hair crowning her like a helmet and her face beamingbrightly, she still marched on and on with such an awakening of will andstrength that, behind her, you could hear her car leap and rattle overthe rough slope of the flagstones, as though it had been a mere toy. 

Near Marie was Pierre, still leaning on the arm of Father Massias, whohad not relinquished his hold. Lost amidst the far-spreading emotion, theyoung priest was unable to reflect. Moreover his companion's sonorousvoice quite deafened him. 

"/Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles/. " "He hath put down themighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble. "

On Pierre's other side, the right, Berthaud, who no longer had any causefor anxiety, was now also following the canopy. He had given his bearersorders to break their chain, and was gazing with an expression of delighton the human sea through which the procession had lately passed. Thehigher they the incline, the more did the Place du Rosaire and theavenues and paths of the gardens expand below them, black with theswarming multitude. It was a bird's-eye view of a whole nation, anant-hill which ever increased in size, spreading farther and fartheraway. "Look!" Berthaud at last exclaimed to Pierre. "How vast and howbeautiful it is! Ah! well, the year won't have been a bad one after all. "

Looking upon Lourdes as a centre of propaganda, where his politicalrancour found satisfaction, he always rejoiced when there was a numerouspilgrimage, as in his mind it was bound to prove unpleasant to theGovernment. Ah! thought he, if they had only been able to bring theworking classes of the towns thither, and create a Catholic democracy. "Last year we scarcely reached the figure of two hundred thousandpilgrims, " he continued, "but we shall exceed it this year, I hope. " Andthen, with the gay air of the jolly fellow that he was, despite hissectarian passions, he added: "Well, 'pon my word, I was really pleasedjust now when there was such a crush. Things are looking up, I thought, things are looking up. "

Pierre, however, was not listening to him; his mind had been struck bythe grandeur of the spectacle. That multitude, which spread out more andmore as the procession rose higher and higher above it, that magnificentvalley which was hollowed out below and ever became more and moreextensive, displaying afar off its gorgeous horizon of mountains, filledhim with quivering admiration. His mental trouble was increased by itall, and seeking Marie's glance, he waved his arm to draw her attentionto the vast circular expanse of country. And his gesture deceived her, for in the purely spiritual excitement that possessed her she did notbehold the material spectacle he pointed at, but thought that he wascalling earth to witness the prodigious favours which the Blessed Virginhad heaped upon them both; for she imagined that he had had his share ofthe miracle, and that in the stroke of grace which had set her erect withher flesh healed, he, so near to her that their hearts mingled, had felthimself enveloped and raised by the same divine power, his soul savedfrom doubt, conquered by faith once more. How could he have witnessed herwondrous cure, indeed, without being convinced? Moreover, she had prayedso fervently for him outside the Grotto on the previous night. And now, therefore, to her excessive delight, she espied him transfigured likeherself, weeping and laughing, restored to God again. And this lentincreased force to her blissful fever; she dragged her little car alongwith unwearying hands, and--as though it were their double cross, her ownredemption and her friend's redemption which she was carrying up thatincline with its resounding flagstones--she would have liked to drag ityet farther, for leagues and leagues, ever higher and higher, to the mostinaccessible summits, to the transplendent threshold of Paradise itself. 

"O Pierre, Pierre!" she stammered, "how sweet it is that this greathappiness should have fallen on us together--yes, together! I prayed forit so fervently, and she granted my prayer, and saved you even in savingme. Yes, I felt your soul mingling with my own. Tell me that our mutualprayers have been granted, tell me that I have won your salvation even asyou have won mine!"

He understood her mistake and shuddered. 

"If you only knew, " she continued, "how great would have been my griefhad I thus ascended into light alone. Oh! to be chosen without you, tosoar yonder without you! But with you, Pierre, it is rapturous delight!We have been saved together, we shall be happy forever! I feel allneedful strength for happiness, yes, strength enough to raise the world!"

And in spite of everything, he was obliged to answer her and lie, revolting at the idea of spoiling, dimming that great and pure felicity. "Yes, yes, be happy, Marie, " he said, "for I am very happy myself, andall our sufferings are redeemed. "

But even while he spoke he felt a deep rending within him, as though abrutal hatchet-stroke were parting them forever. Amidst their commonsufferings, she had hitherto remained the little friend of childhood'sdays, the first artlessly loved woman, whom he knew to be still his own, since she could belong to none. But now she was cured, and he remainedalone in his hell, repeating to himself that she would never more be his!This sudden thought so upset him that he averted his eyes, in despair atreaping such suffering from the prodigious felicity with which sheexulted. 

However the chant went on, and Father Massias, hearing nothing and seeingnothing, absorbed as he was in his glowing gratitude to God, shouted thefinal verse in a thundering voice: "/Sicut locutus est ad patres nostros, Abraham, et semini ejus in saecula/. " "As He spake to our fathers, toAbraham, and to his seed for ever!"

Yet another incline had to be climbed, yet another effort had to be madeup that rough acclivity, with its large slippery flagstones. And theprocession rose yet higher, and the ascent still went on in the full, bright light. There came a last turn, and the wheels of Marie's cargrated against a granite curb. Then, still higher, still and ever higher, did it roll until it finally reached what seemed to be the very fringe ofheaven. 

And all at once the canopy appeared on the summit of the giganticinclined ways, on the stone balcony overlooking the stretch of countryoutside the portal of the Basilica. Abbe Judaine stepped forward holdingthe Blessed Sacrament aloft with both hands. Marie, who had pulled hercar up the balcony steps, was near him, her heart beating from herexertion, her face all aglow amidst the gold of her loosened hair. Thenall the clergy, the snowy surplices, and the dazzling chasubles rangedthemselves behind, whilst the banners waved like bunting decking thewhite balustrades. And a solemn minute followed. 

From on high there could have been no grander spectacle. First, immediately below, there was the multitude, the human sea with its darkwaves, its heaving billows, now for a moment stilled, amidst which youonly distinguished the small pale specks of the faces uplifted towardsthe Basilica, in expectation of the Benediction; and as far as the eyecould reach, from the place du Rosaire to the Gave, along the paths andavenues and across the open spaces, even to the old town in the distance;those little pale faces multiplied and multiplied, all with lips parted, and eyes fixed upon the august heaven was about to open to their gaze. 

Then the vast amphitheatre of slopes and hills and mountains surgedaloft, ascended upon all sides, crests following crests, until they fadedaway in the far blue atmosphere. The numerous convents among the trees onthe first of the northern slopes, beyond the torrent--those of theCarmelites, the Dominicans, the Assumptionists, and the Sisters ofNevers--were coloured by a rosy reflection from the fire-like glow of thesunset. Then wooded masses rose one above the other, until they reachedthe heights of Le Buala, which were surmounted by the Serre de Julos, inits turn capped by the Miramont. 

Deep valleys opened on the south, narrow gorges between piles of giganticrocks whose bases were already steeped in lakes of bluish shadow, whilstthe summits sparkled with the smiling farewell of the sun. The hills ofVisens upon this side were empurpled, and shewed like a promontory ofcoral, in front of the stagnant lake of the ether, which was bright witha sapphire-like transparency. But, on the east, in front of you, thehorizon again spread out to the very point of intersection of the sevenvalleys. The castle which had formerly guarded them still stood with itskeep, its lofty walls, its black outlines--the outlines of a fiercefortress of feudal time, --upon the rock whose base was watered by theGave; and upon this side of the stern old pile was the new town, lookingquite gay amidst its gardens, with its swarm of white house-fronts, itslarge hotels, its lodging-houses, and its fine shops, whose windows wereglowing like live embers; whilst, behind the castle, the discolouredroofs of old Lourdes spread out in confusion, in a ruddy light whichhovered over them like a cloud of dust. At this late hour, when thedeclining luminary was sinking in royal splendour behind the little Gersand the big Gers, those two huge ridges of bare rock, spotted withpatches of short herbage, formed nothing but a neutral, somewhat violet, background, as though, indeed, they were two curtains of sober hue drawnacross the margin of the horizon. 

And higher and still higher, in front of this immensity, did Abbe Judainewith both hands raise the Blessed Sacrament. He moved it slowly from oneto the other horizon, causing it to describe a huge sign of the crossagainst the vault of heaven. He saluted the convents, the heights of LeBuala, the Serre de Julos, and the Miramont, upon his left; he salutedthe huge fallen rocks of the dim valleys, and the empurpled hills ofVisens, on his right; he saluted the new and the old town, the castlebathed by the Gave, the big and the little Gers, already drowsy, in frontof him; and he saluted the woods, the torrents, the mountains, the faintchains linking the distant peaks, the whole earth, even beyond thevisible horizon: Peace upon earth, hope and consolation to mankind! Themultitude below had quivered beneath that great sign of the cross whichenveloped it. It seemed as though a divine breath were passing, rollingthose billows of little pale faces which were as numerous as the waves ofan ocean. A loud murmur of adoration ascended; all those parted lipsproclaimed the glory of God when, in the rays of the setting sun, theillumined monstrance again shone forth like another sun, a sun of puregold, describing the sign of the cross in streaks of flame upon thethreshold of the Infinite. 

The banners, the clergy, with Abbe Judaine under the canopy, were alreadyreturning to the Basilica, when Marie, who was also entering it, stilldragging her car by the handle, was stopped by two ladies, who kissedher, weeping. They were Madame de Jonquiere and her daughter Raymonde, who had come thither to witness the Benediction, and had been told of themiracle. 

"Ah! my dear child, what happiness!" repeated the lady-hospitaller; "andhow proud I am to have you in my ward! It is so precious a favour for allof us that the Blessed Virgin should have been pleased to select you. "

Raymonde, meanwhile, had kept one of the young girl's hands in her own. "Will you allow me to call you my friend, mademoiselle?" said she. "Ifelt so much pity for you, and I am now so pleased to see you walking, sostrong and beautiful already. Let me kiss you again. It will bring mehappiness. "

"Thank you, thank you with all my heart, " Marie stammered amidst herrapture. "I am so happy, so very happy!"

"Oh! we will not leave you, " resumed Madame de Jonquiere. "You hear me, Raymonde? We must follow her, and kneel beside her, and we will take herback after the ceremony. "

Thereupon the two ladies joined the /cortege/, and, following the canopy, walked beside Pierre and Father Massias, between the rows of chairs whichthe deputations already occupied, to the very centre of the choir. Thebanners alone were allowed on either side of the high altar; but Marieadvanced to its steps, still dragging her car, whose wheels resoundedover the flagstones. She had at last brought it to the spot whither thesacred madness of her desire had longingly impelled her to drag it. Shehad brought it, indeed, woeful, wretched-looking as it was, into thesplendour of God's house, so that it might there testify to the truth ofthe miracle. The threshold had scarcely been crossed when the organsburst into a hymn of triumph, the sonorous acclamation of a happy people, from amidst which there soon arose a celestial, angelic voice, of joyfulshrillness and crystalline purity. Abbe Judaine had placed the BlessedSacrament upon the altar, and the crowd was streaming into the nave, eachtaking a seat, installing him or herself in a corner, pending thecommencement of the ceremony. Marie had at once fallen on her kneesbetween Madame de Jonquiere and Raymonde, whose eyes were moist withtender emotion; whilst Father Massias, exhausted by the extraordinarytension of the nerves which had been sustaining him ever since hisdeparture from the Grotto, had sunk upon the ground, sobbing, with hishead between his hands. Behind him Pierre and Berthaud remained standing, the latter still busy with his superintendence, his eyes ever on thewatch, seeing that good order was preserved even during the most violentoutbursts of emotion. 

Then, amidst all his mental confusion, increased by the deafening strainsof the organ, Pierre raised his head and examined the interior of theBasilica. The nave was narrow and lofty, and streaked with brightcolours, which numerous windows flooded with light. There were scarcelyany aisles; they were reduced to the proportions of a mere passagerunning between the side-chapels and the clustering columns, and thiscircumstance seemed to increase the slim loftiness of the nave, thesoaring of the stonework in perpendicular lines of infantile, gracefulslenderness. A gilded railing, as transparent as lace, closed the choir, where the high altar, of white marble richly sculptured, arose in all itslavish chasteness. But the feature of the building which astonished youwas the mass of extraordinary ornamentation which transformed the wholeof it into an overflowing exhibition of embroidery and jewellery. Whatwith all the banners and votive offerings, the perfect river of giftswhich had flowed into it and remained clinging to its walls in a streamof gold and silver, velvet and silk, covering it from top to bottom, itwas, so to say, the ever-glowing sanctuary of gratitude, whose thousandrich adornments seemed to be chanting a perpetual canticle of faith andthankfulness. 

The banners, in particular, abounded, as innumerable as the leaves oftrees. Some thirty hung from the vaulted roof, whilst others weresuspended, like pictures, between the little columns around thetriforium. And others, again, displayed themselves on the walls, waved inthe depths of the side-chapels, and encompassed the choir with a heavenof silk, satin, and velvet. You could count them by hundreds, and youreyes grew weary of admiring them. Many of them were quite celebrated, sorenowned for their skilful workmanship that talented embroideresses tookthe trouble to come to Lourdes on purpose to examine them. Among thesewere the banner of our Lady of Fourvieres, bearing the arms of the cityof Lyons; the banner of Alsace, of black velvet embroidered with gold;the banner of Lorraine, on which you beheld the Virgin casting her cloakaround two children; and the white and blue banner of Brittany, on whichbled the sacred heart of Jesus in the midst of a halo. All empires andkingdoms of the earth were represented; the most distant lands--Canada, Brazil, Chili, Haiti--here had their flags, which, in all piety, werebeing offered as a tribute of homage to the Queen of Heaven. 

Then, after the banners, there were other marvels, the thousands andthousands of gold and silver hearts which were hanging everywhere, glittering on the walls like stars in the heavens. Some were groupedtogether in the form of mystical roses, others described festoons andgarlands, others, again, climbed up the pillars, surrounded the windows, and constellated the deep, dim chapels. Below the triforium somebody hadhad the ingenious idea of employing these hearts to trace in tall lettersthe various words which the Blessed Virgin had addressed to Bernadette;and thus, around the nave, there extended a long frieze of words, thedelight of the infantile minds which busied themselves with spellingthem. It was a swarming, a prodigious resplendency of hearts, whoseinfinite number deeply impressed you when you thought of all the hands, trembling with gratitude, which had offered them. Moreover, theadornments comprised many other votive offerings, and some of quite anunexpected description. There were bridal wreaths and crosses of honour, jewels and photographs, chaplets, and even spurs, in glass cases orframes. There were also the epaulets and swords of officers, togetherwith a superb sabre, left there in memory of a miraculous conversion. 

But all this was not sufficient; other riches, riches of every kind, shone out on all sides--marble statues, diadems enriched with brilliants, a marvellous carpet designed at Blois and embroidered by ladies of allparts of France, and a golden palm with ornaments of enamel, the gift ofthe sovereign pontiff. The lamps suspended from the vaulted roof, some ofthem of massive gold and the most delicate workmanship, were also gifts. They were too numerous to be counted, they studded the nave with stars ofgreat price. Immediately in front of the tabernacle there was one, amasterpiece of chasing, offered by Ireland. Others--one from Lille, onefrom Valence, one from Macao in far-off China--were veritable jewels, sparkling with precious stones. And how great was the resplendency whenthe choir's score of chandeliers was illumined, when the hundreds oflamps and the hundreds of candles burned all together, at the greatevening ceremonies! The whole church then became a conflagration, thethousands of gold and silver hearts reflecting all the little flames withthousands of fiery scintillations. It was like a huge and wondrousbrasier; the walls streamed with live flakes of light; you seemed to beentering into the blinding glory of Paradise itself; whilst on all sidesthe innumerable banners spread out their silk, their satin, and theirvelvet, embroidered with sanguifluous sacred hearts, victorious saints, and Virgins whose kindly smiles engendered miracles. 

Ah! how many ceremonies had already displayed their pomp in thatBasilica! Worship, prayer, chanting, never ceased there. From one end ofthe year to the other incense smoked, organs roared, and kneelingmultitudes prayed there with their whole souls. Masses, vespers, sermons, were continually following one upon another; day by day the religiousexercises began afresh, and each festival of the Church was celebratedwith unparalleled magnificence. The least noteworthy anniversary supplieda pretext for pompous solemnities. Each pilgrimage was granted its shareof the dazzling resplendency. It was necessary that those suffering onesand those humble ones who had come from such long distances should besent home consoled and enraptured, carrying with them a vision ofParadise espied through its opening portals. They beheld the luxurioussurroundings of the Divinity, and would forever remain enraptured by thesight. In the depths of bare, wretched rooms, indeed, by the side ofhumble pallets of suffering throughout all Christendom, a vision of theBasilica with its blazing riches continually arose like a vision offortune itself, like a vision of the wealth of that life to be, intowhich the poor would surely some day enter after their long, long miseryin this terrestrial sphere. 

Pierre, however, felt no delight; no consolation, no hope, came to him ashe gazed upon all the splendour. His frightful feeling of discomfort wasincreasing, all was becoming black within him, with that blackness of thetempest which gathers when men's thoughts and feelings pant and shriek. He had felt immense desolation rising in his soul ever since Marie, crying that she was healed, had risen from her little car and walkedalong with such strength and fulness of life. Yet he loved her like apassionately attached brother, and had experienced unlimited happiness onseeing that she no longer suffered. Why, therefore, should her felicitybring him such agony? He could now no longer gaze at her, kneeling there, radiant amidst her tears, with beauty recovered and increased, withouthis poor heart bleeding as from some mortal wound. Still he wished toremain there, and so, averting his eyes, he tried to interest himself inFather Massias, who was still shaking with violent sobbing on theflagstones, and whose prostration and annihilation, amidst the consumingillusion of divine love, he sorely envied. For a moment, moreover, hequestioned Berthaud, feigning to admire some banner and requestinginformation respecting it. 

"Which one?" asked the superintendent of the bearers; "that lace bannerover there?"

"Yes, that one on the left. "

"Oh! it is a banner offered by Le Puy. The arms are those of Le Puy andLourdes linked together by the Rosary. The lace is so fine that if youcrumpled the banner up, you could hold it in the hollow of your hand. "

However, Abbe Judaine was now stepping forward; the ceremony was about tobegin. Again did the organs resound, and again was a canticle chanted, whilst, on the altar, the Blessed Sacrament looked like the sovereignplanet amidst the scintillations of the gold and silver hearts, asinnumerable as stars. And then Pierre lacked the strength to remain thereany longer. Since Marie had Madame de Jonquiere and Raymonde with her, and they would accompany her back, he might surely go off by himself, vanish into some shadowy corner, and there, at last, vent his grief. In afew words he excused himself, giving his appointment with DoctorChassaigne as a pretext for his departure. However, another fear suddenlycame to him, that of being unable to leave the building, so densely didthe serried throng of believers bar the open doorway. But immediatelyafterwards he had an inspiration, and, crossing the sacristy, descendedinto the crypt by the narrow interior stairway. 

Deep silence and sepulchral gloom suddenly succeeded to the joyous chantsand prodigious radiance of the Basilica above. Cut in the rock, the cryptformed two narrow passages, parted by a massive block of stone whichupheld the nave, and conducting to a subterranean chapel under the apse, where some little lamps remained burning both day and night. A dim forestof pillars rose up there, a mystic terror reigned in that semi-obscuritywhere the mystery ever quivered. The chapel walls remained bare, like thevery stones of the tomb, in which all men must some day sleep the lastsleep. And along the passages, against their sides, covered from top tobottom with marble votive offerings, you only saw a double row ofconfessionals; for it was here, in the lifeless tranquillity of thebowels of the earth, that sins were confessed; and there were priests, speaking all languages, to absolve the sinners who came thither from thefour corners of the world. 

At that hour, however, when the multitude was thronging the Basilicaabove, the crypt had become quite deserted. Not a soul, save Pierre's, throbbed there ever so faintly; and he, amidst that deep silence, thatdarkness, that coolness of the grave, fell upon his knees. It was not, however, through any need of prayer and worship, but because his wholebeing was giving way beneath his crushing mental torment. He felt atorturing longing to be able to see clearly within himself. Ah! why couldhe not plunge even more deeply into the heart of things, reflect, understand, and at last calm himself. 

And it was a fearful agony that he experienced. He tried to remember allthe minutes that had gone by since Marie, suddenly springing from herpallet of wretchedness, had raised her cry of resurrection. Why had heeven then, despite his fraternal joy in seeing her erect, felt such anawful sensation of discomfort, as though, indeed, the greatest of allpossible misfortunes had fallen upon him? Was he jealous of the divinegrace? Did he suffer because the Virgin, whilst healing her, hadforgotten him, whose soul was so afflicted? He remembered how he hadgranted himself a last delay, fixed a supreme appointment with Faith forthe moment when the Blessed Sacrament should pass by, were Marie onlycured; and she was cured, and still he did not believe, and henceforththere was no hope, for never, never would he be able to believe. Thereinlay the bare, bleeding sore. The truth burst upon him with blindingcruelty and certainty--she was saved, he was lost. That pretended miraclewhich had restored her to life had, in him, completed the ruin of allbelief in the supernatural. That which he had, for a moment, dreamed ofseeking, and perhaps finding, at Lourdes, --naive faith, the happy faithof a little child, --was no longer possible, would never bloom again afterthat collapse of the miraculous, that cure which Beauclair had foretold, and which had afterwards come to pass, exactly as had been predicted. Jealous! No--he was not jealous; but he was ravaged, full of mortalsadness at thus remaining all alone in the icy desert of hisintelligence, regretting the illusion, the lie, the divine love of thesimpleminded, for which henceforth there was no room in his heart. 

A flood of bitterness stifled him, and tears started from his eyes. Hehad slipped on to the flagstones, prostrated by his anguish. And, bydegrees, he remembered the whole delightful story, from the day whenMarie, guessing how he was tortured by doubt, had become so passionatelyeager for his conversion, taking hold of his hand in the gloom, retainingit in her own, and stammering that she would pray for him--oh! pray forhim with her whole soul. She forgot herself, she entreated the BlessedVirgin to save her friend rather than herself if there were but one gracethat she could obtain from her Divine Son. Then came another memory, thememory of the delightful hours which they had spent together amid thedense darkness of the trees during the night procession. There, again, they had prayed for one another, mingled one in the other with so ardenta desire for mutual happiness that, for a moment, they had attained tothe very depths of the love which gives and immolates itself. And nowtheir long, tear-drenched tenderness, their pure idyl of suffering, wasending in this brutal separation; she on her side saved, radiant amidstthe hosannas of the triumphant Basilica; and he lost, sobbing withwretchedness, bowed down in the depths of the dark crypt in an icy, grave-like solitude. It was as though he had just lost her again, andthis time forever and forever. 

All at once Pierre felt the sharp stab which this thought dealt hisheart. He at last understood his pain--a sudden light illumined theterrible crisis of woe amidst which he was struggling. He had lost Mariefor the first time on the day when he had become a priest, saying tohimself that he might well renounce his manhood since she, stricken inher sex by incurable illness, would never be a woman. But behold! she/was/ cured. Behold! she /had/ become a woman. She had all at onceappeared to him very strong, very beautiful, living, and desirable. He, who was dead, however, could not become a man again. Never more would hebe able to raise the tombstone which crushed and imprisoned his flesh. She fled away alone, leaving him in the cold grave. The whole wide worldwas opening before her with smiling happiness, with the love which laughsin the sunlit paths, with the husband, with children, no doubt. Whereashe, buried, as it were to his shoulders, had naught of his body free, save his brain, and that remained free, no doubt, in order that he mightsuffer the more. She had still been his so long as she had not belongedto another; and if he had been enduring such agony during the past hour, it was only through this final rending which, this time, parted her fromhim forever and forever. 

Then rage shook Pierre from head to foot. He was tempted to return to theBasilica, and cry the truth aloud to Marie. The miracle was a lie! Thehelpful beneficence of an all-powerful Divinity was but so much illusion!Nature alone had acted, life had conquered once again. And he would havegiven proofs: he would have shown how life, the only sovereign, workedfor health amid all the sufferings of this terrestrial sphere. And thenthey would have gone off together; they would have fled far, far away, that they might be happy. But a sudden terror took possession of him. What! lay hands upon that little spotless soul, kill all belief in it, fill it with the ruins which worked such havoc in his own soul? It all atonce occurred to him that this would be odious sacrilege. He wouldafterwards become horrified with himself, he would look upon himself asher murderer were he some day to realise that he was unable to give her ahappiness equal to that which she would have lost. Perhaps, too, shewould not believe him. And, moreover, would she ever consent to marry apriest who had broken his vows? She who would always retain the sweet andnever-to be-forgotten memory of how she had been healed in ecstasy! Hisdesign then appeared to him insane, monstrous, polluting. And his revoltrapidly subsided, until he only retained a feeling of infinite weariness, a sensation of a burning, incurable wound--the wound of his poor, bruised, lacerated heart. 

Then, however, amidst his abandonment, the void in which he was whirling, a supreme struggle began, filling him again with agony. What should hedo? His sufferings made a coward of him, and he would have liked to flee, so that he might never see Marie again. For he understood very well thathe would now have to lie to her, since she thought that he was saved likeherself, converted, healed in soul, even as she had been healed in body. She had told him of her joy while dragging her car up the colossalgradient way. Oh! to have had that great happiness together, together; tohave felt their hearts melt and mingle one in the other! And even then hehad already lied, as he would always be obliged to lie in order that hemight not spoil her pure and blissful illusion. He let the lastthrobbings of his veins subside, and vowed that he would find sufficientstrength for the sublime charity of feigning peacefulness of soul, therapture of one who is redeemed. For he wished her to be whollyhappy--without a regret, without a doubt--in the full serenity of faith, convinced that the blessed Virgin had indeed given her consent to theirpurely mystical union. What did his torments matter? Later on, perhaps, he might recover possession of himself. Amidst his desolate solitude ofmind would there not always be a little joy to sustain him, all that joywhose consoling falsity he would leave to her?

Several minutes again elapsed, and Pierre, still overwhelmed, remained onthe flagstones, seeking to calm his fever. He no longer thought, he nolonger lived; he was a prey to that prostration of the entire being whichfollows upon great crises. But, all at once, he fancied he could hear asound of footsteps, and thereupon he painfully rose to his feet, andfeigned to be reading the inscriptions graven in the marble votive slabsalong the walls. He had been mistaken--nobody was there; nevertheless, seeking to divert his mind, he continued perusing the inscriptions, atfirst in a mechanical kind of way, and then, little by little, feeling afresh emotion steal over him. 

The sight was almost beyond imagination. Faith, love, and gratitudedisplayed themselves in a hundred, a thousand ways on these marble slabswith gilded lettering. Some of the inscriptions were so artless as toprovoke a smile. A colonel had sent a sculptured representation of hisfoot with the words: "Thou hast preserved it; grant that it may serveThee. " Farther on you read the line: "May Her protection extend to theglass trade. " And then, by the frankness of certain expressions ofthanks, you realised of what a strange character the appeals had been. "To Mary the Immaculate, " ran one inscription, "from a father of afamily, in recognition of health restored, a lawsuit won, and advancementgained. " However, the memory of these instances faded away amidst thechorus of soaring, fervent cries. There was the cry of the lovers: "Pauland Anna entreat Our Lady of Lourdes to bless their union. " There was thecry of the mothers in various forms: "Gratitude to Mary, who has thricehealed my child. "--"Gratitude to Mary for the birth of Antoinette, whom Idedicate, like myself and all my kin, to Her. "--"P. D. , three years old, has been preserved to the love of his parents. " And then came the cry ofthe wives, the cry, too, of the sick restored to health, and of the soulsrestored to happiness: "Protect my husband; grant that my husband mayenjoy good health. "--"I was crippled in both legs, and now I amhealed. "--"We came, and now we hope. "--"I prayed, I wept, and She heardme. " And there were yet other cries, cries whose veiled glow conjured upthoughts of long romances: "Thou didst join us together; protect us, wepray Thee. "--"To Mary, for the greatest of all blessings. " And the samecries, the same words--gratitude, thankfulness, homage, acknowledgment, --occurred again and again, ever with the same passionatefervour. All! those hundreds, those thousands of cries which were forevergraven on that marble, and from the depths of the crypt rose clamorouslyto the Virgin, proclaiming the everlasting devotion of the unhappy beingswhom she had succoured. 

Pierre did not weary of reading them, albeit his mouth was bitter andincreasing desolation was filling him. So it was only he who had nosuccour to hope for! When so many sufferers were listened to, he alonehad been unable to make himself heard! And he now began to think of theextraordinary number of prayers which must be said at Lourdes from oneend of the year to the other. He tried to cast them up; those said duringthe days spent at the Grotto and during the nights spent at the Rosary, those said at the ceremonies at the Basilica, and those said at thesunlight and the starlight processions. But this continual entreaty ofevery second was beyond computation. It seemed as if the faithful weredetermined to weary the ears of the Divinity, determined to extortfavours and forgiveness by the very multitude, the vast multitude oftheir prayers. The priests said that it was necessary to offer to God theacts of expiation which the sins of France required, and that when thenumber of these acts of expiation should be large enough, God would smiteFrance no more. What a harsh belief in the necessity of chastisement!What a ferocious idea born of the gloomiest pessimism! How evil life mustbe if it were indeed necessary that such imploring cries, such cries ofphysical and moral wretchedness, should ever and ever ascend to Heaven!

In the midst of all his sadness, Pierre felt deep compassion penetratehis heart. He was upset by the thought that mankind should be sowretched, reduced to such a state of woe, so bare, so weak, so utterlyforsaken, that it renounced its own reason to place the one solepossibility of happiness in the hallucinatory intoxication of dreams. Tears once more filled his eyes; he wept for himself and for others, forall the poor tortured beings who feel a need of stupefying and numbingtheir pains in order to escape from the realities of the world. He againseemed to hear the swarming, kneeling crowd of the Grotto, raising theglowing entreaty of its prayer to Heaven, the multitude of twenty andthirty thousand souls from whose midst ascended such a fervour of desirethat you seemed to see it smoking in the sunlight like incense. Thenanother form of the exaltation of faith glowed, beneath the crypt, in theChurch of the Rosary, where nights were spent in a paradise of rapture, amidst the silent delights of the communion, the mute appeals in whichthe whole being pines, burns, and soars aloft. And as though the criesraised before the Grotto and the perpetual adoration of the Rosary werenot sufficient, that clamour of ardent entreaty burst forth afresh on thewalls of the crypt around him; and here it was eternised in marble, hereit would continue shrieking the sufferings of humanity even into thefar-away ages. It was the marble, it was the walls themselves praying, seized by that shudder of universal woe which penetrated even the world'sstones. And, at last, the prayers ascended yet higher, still higher, soared aloft from the radiant Basilica, which was humming and buzzingabove him, full as it now was of a frantic multitude, whose mighty voice, bursting into a canticle of hope, he fancied he could hear through theflagstones of the nave. And it finally seemed to him that he was beingwhirled away, transported, as though he were indeed amidst the veryvibrations of that huge wave of prayer, which, starting from the dust ofthe earth, ascended the tier of superposed churches, spreading fromtabernacle to tabernacle, and filling even the walls with such pity thatthey sobbed aloud, and that the supreme cry of wretchedness pierced itsway into heaven with the white spire, the lofty golden cross, above thesteeple. O Almighty God, O Divinity, Helpful Power, whoever, whateverThou mayst be, take pity upon poor mankind and make human sufferingcease!

All at once Pierre was dazzled. He had followed the left-hand passage, and was coming out into broad daylight, above the inclined ways, and twoaffectionate arms at once caught hold of him and clasped him. It wasDoctor Chassaigne, whose appointment he had forgotten, and who had beenwaiting there to take him to visit Bernadette's room and Abbe Peyramale'schurch. "Oh! what joy must be yours, my child!" exclaimed the good oldman. "I have just learnt the great news, the extraordinary favour whichOur Lady of Lourdes has granted to your young friend. Recollect what Itold you the day before yesterday. I am now at ease--you are saved!"

A last bitterness came to the young priest who was very pale. However, hewas able to smile, and he gently answered: "Yes, we are saved, we arevery happy. "

It was the lie beginning; the divine illusion which in a spirit ofcharity he wished to give to others. 

And then one more spectacle met Pierre's eyes. The principal door of theBasilica stood wide open, and a red sheet of light from the setting sunwas enfilading the nave from one to the other end. Everything was flaringwith the splendour of a conflagration--the gilt railings of the choir, the votive offerings of gold and silver, the lamps enriched with preciousstones, the banners with their bright embroideries, and the swingingcensers, which seemed like flying jewels. And yonder, in the depths ofthis burning splendour, amidst the snowy surplices and the goldenchasubles, he recognised Marie, with hair unbound, hair of gold like allelse, enveloping her in a golden mantle. And the organs burst into a hymnof triumph; and the delirious people acclaimed God; and Abbe Judaine, whohad again just taken the Blessed Sacrament from off the altar, raised italoft and presented it to their gaze for the last time; and radiantlymagnificent it shone out like a glory amidst the streaming gold of theBasilica, whose prodigious triumph all the bells proclaimed in clanging, flying peals. 

V

CRADLE AND GRAVE

IMMEDIATELY afterwards, as they descended the steps, Doctor Chassaignesaid to Pierre: "You have just seen the triumph; I will now show you twogreat injustices. "

And he conducted him into the Rue des Petits-Fosses to visit Bernadette'sroom, that low, dark chamber whence she set out on the day the BlessedVirgin appeared to her. 

The Rue des Petits-Fosses starts from the former Rue des Bois, now theRue de la Grotte, and crosses the Rue du Tribunal. It is a winding lane, slightly sloping and very gloomy. The passers-by are few; it is skirtedby long walls, wretched-looking houses, with mournful facades in whichnever a window opens. All its gaiety consists in an occasional tree in acourtyard. 

"Here we are, " at last said the doctor. 

At the part where he had halted, the street contracted, becoming verynarrow, and the house faced the high, grey wall of a barn. Raising theirheads, both men looked up at the little dwelling, which seemed quitelifeless, with its narrow casements and its coarse, violet pargeting, displaying the shameful ugliness of poverty. The entrance passage downbelow was quite black; an old light iron gate was all that closed it; andthere was a step to mount, which in rainy weather was immersed in thewater of the gutter. 

"Go in, my friend, go in, " said the doctor. "You have only to push thegate. "

The passage was long, and Pierre kept on feeling the damp wall with hishand, for fear of making a false step. It seemed to him as if he weredescending into a cellar, in deep obscurity, and he could feel a slipperysoil impregnated with water beneath his feet. Then at the end, inobedience to the doctor's direction, he turned to the right. 

"Stoop, or you may hurt yourself, " said M. Chassaigne; "the door is verylow. There, here we are. "

The door of the room, like the gate in the street, stood wide open, as ifthe place had been carelessly abandoned; and Pierre, who had stopped inthe middle of the chamber, hesitating, his eyes still full of the brightdaylight outside, could distinguish absolutely nothing. He had falleninto complete darkness, and felt an icy chill about the shoulders similarto the sensation that might be caused by a wet towel. 

But, little by little, his eyes became accustomed to the dimness. Twowindows of unequal size opened on to a narrow, interior courtyard, whereonly a greenish light descended, as at the bottom of a well; and to readthere, in the middle of the day, it would be necessary to have a candle. Measuring about fifteen feet by twelve, the room was flagged with largeuneven stones; while the principal beam and the rafters of the roof, which were visible, had darkened with time and assumed a dirty, sootyhue. Opposite the door was the chimney, a miserable plaster chimney, witha mantelpiece formed of a rotten old plank. There was a sink between thischimney and one of the windows. The walls, with their decaying, damp-stained plaster falling off by bits, were full of cracks, andturning a dirty black like the ceiling. There was no longer any furniturethere; the room seemed abandoned; you could only catch a glimpse of someconfused, strange objects, unrecognisable in the heavy obscurity thathung about the corners. 

After a spell of silence, the doctor exclaimed "Yes, this is the room;all came from here. Nothing has been changed, with the exception that thefurniture has gone. I have tried to picture how it was placed: the bedscertainly stood against this wall, opposite the windows; there must havebeen three of them at least, for the Soubirouses were seven--the father, mother, two boys, and three girls. Think of that! Three beds filling thisroom! Seven persons living in this small space! All of them buried alive, without air, without light, almost without bread! What frightful misery!What lowly, pity-awaking poverty!"

But he was interrupted. A shadowy form, which Pierre at first took for anold woman, entered. It was a priest, however, the curate of the parish, who now occupied the house. He was acquainted with the doctor. 

"I heard your voice, Monsieur Chassaigne, and came down, " said he. "Sothere you are, showing the room again?"

"Just so, Monsieur l' Abbe; I took the liberty. It does not inconvenienceyou?"

"Oh! not at all, not at all! Come as often as you please, and bring otherpeople. "

He laughed in an engaging manner, and bowed to Pierre, who, astonished bythis quiet carelessness, observed: "The people who come, however, mustsometimes plague you?"

The curate in his turn seemed surprised. "Indeed, no! Nobody comes. Yousee the place is scarcely known. Every one remains over there at theGrotto. I leave the door open so as not to be worried. But days and daysoften pass without my hearing even the sound of a mouse. "

Pierre's eyes were becoming more and more accustomed to the obscurity;and among the vague, perplexing objects which filled the corners, heended by distinguishing some old barrels, remnants of fowl cages, andbroken tools, a lot of rubbish such as is swept away and thrown to thebottom of cellars. Hanging from the rafters, moreover, were someprovisions, a salad basket full of eggs, and several bunches of big pinkonions. 

"And, from what I see, " resumed Pierre, with a slight shudder, "you havethought that you might make use of the room?"

The curate was beginning to feel uncomfortable. "Of course, that's it, "said he. "What can one do? The house is so small, I have so little space. And then you can't imagine how damp it is here; it is altogetherimpossible to occupy the room. And so, /mon Dieu/, little by little allthis has accumulated here by itself, contrary to one's own desire. "

"It has become a lumber-room, " concluded Pierre. 

"Oh no! hardly that. An unoccupied room, and yet in truth, if you insiston it, it is a lumber-room!"

His uneasiness was increasing, mingled with a little shame. DoctorChassaigne remained silent and did not interfere; but he smiled, and wasvisibly delighted at his companion's revolt against human ingratitude. Pierre, unable to restrain himself, now continued: "You must excuse me, Monsieur l'Abbe, if I insist. But just reflect that you owe everything toBernadette; but for her Lourdes would still be one of the least knowntowns of France. And really it seems to me that out of mere gratitude theparish ought to have transformed this wretched room into a chapel. "

"Oh! a chapel!" interrupted the curate. "It is only a question of a humancreature: the Church could not make her an object of worship. "

"Well, we won't say a chapel, then; but at all events there ought to besome lights and flowers--bouquets of roses constantly renewed by thepiety of the inhabitants and the pilgrims. In a word, I should like somelittle show of affection--a touching souvenir, a picture ofBernadette--something that would delicately indicate that she deserves tohave a place in all hearts. This forgetfulness and desertion areshocking. It is monstrous that so much dirt should have been allowed toaccumulate!"

The curate, a poor, thoughtless, nervous man, at once adopted Pierre'sviews: "In reality, you are a thousand times right, " said he; "but Imyself have no power, I can do nothing. Whenever they ask me for theroom, to set it to rights, I will give it up and remove my barrels, although I really don't know where else to put them. Only, I repeat, itdoes not depend on me. I can do nothing, nothing at all!" Then, under thepretext that he had to go out, he hastened to take leave and run awayagain, saying to Doctor Chassaigne: "Remain, remain as long as youplease; you are never in my way. "

When the doctor once more found himself alone with Pierre he caught holdof both his hands with effusive delight. "Ah, my dear child, " said he, "how pleased you have made me! How admirably you expressed to him allthat has been boiling in my own heart so long! Like you, I thought ofbringing some roses here every morning. I should have simply had the roomcleaned, and would have contented myself with placing two large bunchesof roses on the mantelpiece; for you know that I have long felt deepaffection for Bernadette, and it seemed to me that those roses would belike the very flowering and perfume of her memory. Only--only--" and sosaying he made a despairing gesture, "only courage failed me. Yes, I saycourage, no one having yet dared to declare himself openly against theFathers of the Grotto. One hesitates and recoils in the fear of stirringup a religious scandal. Fancy what a deplorable racket all this wouldcreate. And so those who are as indignant as I am are reduced to thenecessity of holding their tongues--preferring a continuance of silenceto anything else. " Then, by way of conclusion, he added: "The ingratitudeand rapacity of man, my dear child, are sad things to see. Each time Icome into this dim wretchedness, my heart swells and I cannot restrain mytears. "

He ceased speaking, and neither of them said another word, both beingovercome by the extreme melancholy which the surroundings fostered. Theywere steeped in gloom. The dampness made them shudder as they stood thereamidst the dilapidated walls and the dust of the old rubbish piled uponeither side. And the idea returned to them that without Bernadette noneof the prodigies which had made Lourdes a town unique in the world wouldhave existed. It was at her voice that the miraculous spring had gushedforth, that the Grotto, bright with candles, had opened. Immense workswere executed, new churches rose from the ground, giant-like causewaysled up to God. An entire new city was built, as if by enchantment, withgardens, walks, quays, bridges, shops, and hotels. And people from theuttermost parts of the earth flocked thither in crowds, and the rain ofmillions fell with such force and so abundantly that the young cityseemed likely to increase indefinitely--to fill the whole valley, fromone to the other end of the mountains. If Bernadette had been suppressednone of those things would have existed, the extraordinary story wouldhave relapsed into nothingness, old unknown Lourdes would still have beenplunged in the sleep of ages at the foot of its castle. Bernadette wasthe sole labourer and creatress; and yet this room, whence she had setout on the day she beheld the Virgin, this cradle, indeed, of the miracleand of all the marvellous fortune of the town, was disdained, left a preyto vermin, good only for a lumber-room, where onions and empty barrelswere put away. 

Then the other side of the question vividly appeared in Pierre's mind, and he again seemed to see the triumph which he had just witnessed, theexaltation of the Grotto and Basilica, while Marie, dragging her littlecar, ascended behind the Blessed Sacrament, amidst the clamour of themultitude. But the Grotto especially shone out before him. It was nolonger the wild, rocky cavity before which the child had formerly knelton the deserted bank of the torrent; it was a chapel, transformed andenriched, a chapel illumined by a vast number of candles, where nationsmarched past in procession. All the noise, all the brightness, all theadoration, all the money, burst forth there in a splendour of constantvictory. Here, at the cradle, in this dark, icy hole, there was not asoul, not a taper, not a hymn, not a flower. Of the infrequent visitorswho came thither, none knelt or prayed. All that a few tender-heartedpilgrims had done in their desire to carry away a souvenir had been toreduce to dust, between their fingers, the half-rotten plank serving as amantelshelf. The clergy ignored the existence of this spot of misery, which the processions ought to have visited as they might visit a stationof glory. It was there that the poor child had begun her dream, one coldnight, lying in bed between her two sisters, and seized with a fit of herailment while the whole family was fast asleep. It was thence, too, thatshe had set out, unconsciously carrying along with her that dream, whichwas again to be born within her in the broad daylight and to flower soprettily in a vision such as those of the legends. And no one nowfollowed in her footsteps. The manger was forgotten, and left indarkness--that manger where had germed the little humble seed which overyonder was now yielding such prodigious harvests, reaped by the workmenof the last hour amidst the sovereign pomp of ceremonies. 

Pierre, whom the great human emotion of the story moved to tears, at lastsummed up his thoughts in three words, saying in a low voice, "It isBethlehem. "

"Yes, " remarked Doctor Chassaigne, in his turn, "it is the wretchedlodging, the chance refuge, where new religions are born of suffering andpity. And at times I ask myself if all is not better thus: if it is notbetter that this room should remain in its actual state of wretchednessand abandonment. It seems to me that Bernadette has nothing to lose byit, for I love her all the more when I come to spend an hour here. "

He again became silent, and then made a gesture of revolt: "But no, no! Icannot forgive it--this ingratitude sets me beside myself. I told you Iwas convinced that Bernadette had freely gone to cloister herself atNevers. But although no one smuggled her away, what a relief it was forthose whom she had begun to inconvenience here! And they are the samemen, so anxious to be the absolute masters, who at the present timeendeavour by all possible means to wrap her memory in silence. Ah! mydear child, if I were to tell you all!"

Little by little he spoke out and relieved himself. Those Fathers of theGrotto, who showed such greed in trading on the work of Bernadette, dreaded her still more now that she was dead than they had done whilstshe was alive. So long as she had lived, their great terror had assuredlybeen that she might return to Lourdes to claim a portion of the spoil;and her humility alone reassured them, for she was in nowise of adomineering disposition, and had herself chosen the dim abode ofrenunciation where she was destined to pass away. But at present theirfears had increased at the idea that a will other than theirs might bringthe relics of the visionary back to Lourdes; that, thought had, indeed, occurred to the municipal council immediately after her death; the townhad wished to raise a tomb, and there had been talk of opening asubscription. The Sisters of Nevers, however, formally refused to give upthe body, which they said belonged to them. Everyone felt that theSisters were acting under the influence of the Fathers, who were veryuneasy, and energetically bestirred themselves to prevent by all means intheir power the return of those venerated ashes, in whose presence atLourdes they foresaw a possible competition with the Grotto itself. Couldthey have imagined some such threatening occurrence as this--a monumentaltomb in the cemetery, pilgrims proceeding thither in procession, the sickfeverishly kissing the marble, and miracles being worked there amidst aholy fervour? This would have been disastrous rivalry, a certaindisplacement of all the present devotion and prodigies. And the great, the sole fear, still and ever returned to them, that of having to dividethe spoils, of seeing the money go elsewhere should the town, now taughtby experience, know how to turn the tomb to account. 

The Fathers were even credited with a scheme of profound craftiness. Theywere supposed to have the secret idea of reserving Bernadette's remainsfor themselves; the Sisters of Nevers having simply undertaken to keep itfor them within the peaceful precincts of their chapel. Only, they werewaiting, and would not bring it back until the affluence of the pilgrimsshould decrease. What was the use of a solemn return at present, whencrowds flocked to the place without interruption and in increasingnumbers? Whereas, when the extraordinary success of Our Lady of Lourdesshould decline, like everything else in this world, one could imaginewhat a reawakening of faith would attend the solemn, resounding ceremonyat which Christendom would behold the relics of the chosen one takepossession of the soil whence she had made so many marvels spring. Andthe miracles would then begin again on the marble of her tomb before theGrotto or in the choir of the Basilica. 

"You may search, " continued Doctor Chassaigne, "but you won't find asingle official picture of Bernadette at Lourdes. Her portrait is sold, but it is hung no where, in no sanctuary. It is systematic forgetfulness, the same sentiment of covert uneasiness as that which has wrought silenceand abandonment in this sad chamber where we are. In the same way as theyare afraid of worship at her tomb, so are they afraid of crowds comingand kneeling here, should two candles burn or a couple of bouquets ofroses bloom upon this chimney. And if a paralytic woman were to riseshouting that she was cured, what a scandal would arise, how disturbedwould be those good traders of the Grotto on seeing their monopolyseriously threatened! They are the masters, and the masters they intendto remain; they will not part with any portion of the magnificent farmthat they have acquired and are working. Nevertheless they tremble--yes, they tremble at the memory of the workers of the first hour, of thatlittle girl who is still so great in death, and for whose hugeinheritance they burn with such greed that after having sent her to liveat Nevers, they dare not even bring back her corpse, but leave itimprisoned beneath the flagstones of a convent!"

Ah! how wretched was the fate of that poor creature, who had been cut offfrom among the living, and whose corpse in its turn was condemned toexile! And how Pierre pitied her, that daughter of misery, who seemed tohave been chosen only that she might suffer in her life and in her death!Even admitting that an unique, persistent will had not compelled her todisappear, still guarding her even in her tomb, what a strange successionof circumstances there had been--how it seemed as if someone, uneasy atthe idea of the immense power she might grasp, had jealously sought tokeep her out of the way! In Pierre's eyes she remained the chosen one, the martyr; and if he could no longer believe, if the history of thisunfortunate girl sufficed to complete within him the ruin of his faith, it none the less upset him in all his brotherly love for mankind byrevealing a new religion to him, the only one which might still fill hisheart, the religion of life, of human sorrow. 

Just then, before leaving the room, Doctor Chassaigne exclaimed: "Andit's here that one must believe, my dear child. Do you see this obscurehole, do you think of the resplendent Grotto, of the triumphant Basilica, of the town built, of the world created, the crowds that flock toLourdes! And if Bernadette was only hallucinated, only an idiot, wouldnot the outcome be more astonishing, more inexplicable still? What! Anidiot's dream would have sufficed to stir up nations like this! No! no!The Divine breath which alone can explain prodigies passed here. "

Pierre was on the point of hastily replying "Yes!" It was true, a breathhad passed there, the sob of sorrow, the inextinguishable yearningtowards the Infinite of hope. If the dream of a suffering child hadsufficed to attract multitudes, to bring about a rain of millions andraise a new city from the soil, was it not because this dream in ameasure appeased the hunger of poor mankind, its insatiable need of beingdeceived and consoled? She had once more opened the Unknown, doubtless ata favourable moment both socially and historically; and the crowds hadrushed towards it. Oh! to take refuge in mystery, when reality is sohard, to abandon oneself to the miraculous, since cruel nature seemsmerely one long injustice! But although you may organise the Unknown, reduce it to dogmas, make revealed religions of it, there is neveranything at the bottom of it beyond the appeal of suffering, the cry oflife, demanding health, joy, and fraternal happiness, and ready to acceptthem in another world if they cannot be obtained on earth. What use is itto believe in dogmas? Does it not suffice to weep and love?

Pierre, however, did not discuss the question. He withheld the answerthat was on his lips, convinced, moreover, that the eternal need of thesupernatural would cause eternal faith to abide among sorrowing mankind. The miraculous, which could not be verified, must be a food necessary tohuman despair. Besides, had he not vowed in all charity that he would notwound anyone with his doubts?

"What a prodigy, isn't it?" repeated the doctor. 

"Certainly, " Pierre ended by answering. "The whole human drama has beenplayed, all the unknown forces have acted in this poor room, so damp anddark. "

They remained there a few minutes more in silence; they walked round thewalls, raised their eyes toward the smoky ceiling, and cast a finalglance at the narrow, greenish yard. Truly it was a heart-rending sight, this poverty of the cobweb level, with its dirty old barrels, itsworn-out tools, its refuse of all kinds rotting in the corners in heaps. And without adding a word they at last slowly retired, feeling extremelysad. 

It was only in the street that Doctor Chassaigne seemed to awaken. Hegave a slight shudder and hastened his steps, saying: "It is notfinished, my dear child; follow me. We are now going to look at the othergreat iniquity. " He referred to Abbe Peyramale and his church. 

They crossed the Place du Porche and turned into the Rue Saint Pierre; afew minutes would suffice them. But their conversation had again fallenon the Fathers of the Grotto, on the terrible, merciless war waged byFather Sempe against the former Cure of Lourdes. The latter had beenvanquished, and had died in consequence, overcome by feelings offrightful bitterness; and, after thus killing him by grief, they hadcompleted the destruction of his church, which he had left unfinished, without a roof, open to the wind and to the rain. With what a gloriousdream had that monumental edifice filled the last year of the Cure'slife! Since he had been dispossessed of the Grotto, driven from the workof Our Lady of Lourdes, of which he, with Bernadette, had been the firstartisan, his church had become his revenge, his protestation, his ownshare of the glory, the House of the Lord where he would triumph in hissacred vestments, and whence he would conduct endless processions incompliance with the formal desire of the Blessed Virgin. Man of authorityand domination as he was at bottom, a pastor of the multitude, a builderof temples, he experienced a restless delight in hurrying on the work, with the lack of foresight of an eager man who did not allow indebtednessto trouble him, but was perfectly contented so long as he always had aswarm of workmen busy on the scaffoldings. And thus he saw his churchrise up, and pictured it finished, one bright summer morning, all new inthe rising sun. 

Ah! that vision constantly evoked gave him courage for the struggle, amidst the underhand, murderous designs by which he felt himself to beenveloped. His church, towering above the vast square, at last rose inall its colossal majesty. He had decided that it should be in theRomanesque style, very large, very simple, its nave nearly three hundredfeet long, its steeple four hundred and sixty feet high. It shone outresplendently in the clear sunlight, freed on the previous day of thelast scaffolding, and looking quite smart in its newness, with its broadcourses of stone disposed with perfect regularity. And, in thought, hesauntered around it, charmed with its nudity, its stupendous candour, itschasteness recalling that of a virgin child, for there was not a piece ofsculpture, not an ornament that would have uselessly loaded it. The roofsof the nave, transept, and apse were of equal height above theentablature, which was decorated with simple mouldings. In the same waythe apertures in the aisles and nave had no other adornments thanarchivaults with mouldings, rising above the piers. He stopped in thoughtbefore the great coloured glass windows of the transept, whose roses weresparkling; and passing round the building he skirted the semicircularapse against which stood the vestry building with its two rows of littlewindows; and then he returned, never tiring of his contemplation of thatregal ordonnance, those great lines standing out against the blue sky, those superposed roofs, that enormous mass of stone, whose soliditypromised to defy centuries. But, when he closed his eyes he, above allelse, conjured up, with rapturous pride, a vision of the facade andsteeple; down below, the three portals, the roofs of the two lateral onesforming terraces, while from the central one, in the very middle of thefacade, the steeple boldly sprang. Here again columns resting on pierssupported archivaults with simple mouldings. Against the gable, at apoint where there was a pinnacle, and between the two lofty windowslighting the nave, was a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes under a canopy. Upabove, were other bays with freshly painted luffer-boards. Buttressesstarted from the ground at the four corners of the steeple-base, becomingless and less massive from storey to storey, till they reached the spire, a bold, tapering spire in stone, flanked by four turrets and adorned withpinnacles, and soaring upward till it vanished in the sky. And to theparish priest of Lourdes it seemed as if it were his own fervent soulwhich had grown and flown aloft with this spire, to testify to his faiththroughout the ages, there on high, quite close to God. 

At other times another vision delighted him still more. He thought hecould see the inside of his church on the day of the first solemn mass hewould perform there. The coloured windows threw flashes of fire brilliantlike precious stones; the twelve chapels, the aisles, were beaming withlighted candles. And he was at the high altar of marble and gold; and thefourteen columns of the nave in single blocks of Pyrenean marble, magnificent marble purchased with money that had come from the fourcorners of Christendom, rose up supporting the vaulted roof, while thesonorous voices of the organs filled the whole building with a hymn ofjoy. A multitude of the faithful was gathered there, kneeling on theflags in front of the choir, which was screened by ironwork as delicateas lace, and covered with admirably carved wood. The pulpit, the regalpresent of a great lady, was a marvel of art cut in massive oak. Thebaptismal fonts had been hewn out of hard stone by an artist of greattalent. Pictures by masters ornamented the walls. Crosses, pyxes, precious monstrances, sacred vestments, similar to suns, were piled up inthe vestry cupboards. And what a dream it was to be the pontiff of such atemple, to reign there after having erected it with passion, to bless thecrowds who hastened to it from the entire earth, while the flying pealsfrom the steeple told the Grotto and Basilica that they had over there, in old Lourdes, a rival, a victorious sister, in whose great nave Godtriumphed also!

After following the Rue Saint Pierre for a moment, Doctor Chassaigne andhis companion turned into the little Rue de Langelle. 

"We are coming to it, " said the doctor. But though Pierre looked aroundhim he could see no church. There were merely some wretched hovels, awhole district of poverty, littered with foul buildings. At length, however, at the bottom of a blind alley, he perceived a remnant of thehalf-rotten palings which still surrounded the vast square site borderedby the Rue Saint Pierre, the Rue de Bagneres, the Rue de Langelle, andthe Rue des Jardins. 

"We must turn to the left, " continued the doctor, who had entered anarrow passage among the rubbish. "Here we are!"

And the ruin suddenly appeared amidst the ugliness and wretchedness thatmasked it. 

The whole great carcase of the nave and the aisles, the transept and theapse was standing. The walls rose on all sides to the point where thevaulting would have begun. You entered as into a real church, you couldwalk about at ease, identifying all the usual parts of an edifice of thisdescription. Only when you raised your eyes you saw the sky; the roofswere wanting, the rain could fall and the wind blow there freely. Somefifteen years previously the works had been abandoned, and things hadremained in the same state as the last workman had left them. What struckyou first of all were the ten pillars of the nave and the four pillars ofthe choir, those magnificent columns of Pyrenean marble, each of a singleblock, which had been covered with a casing of planks in order to protectthem from damage. The bases and capitals were still in the rough, awaiting the sculptors. And these isolated columns, thus cased in wood, had a mournful aspect indeed. Moreover, a dismal sensation filled you atsight of the whole gaping enclosure, where grass had sprung up all overthe ravaged, bumpy soil of the aisles and the nave, a thick cemeterygrass, through which the women of the neighbourhood had ended by makingpaths. They came in to spread out their washing there. And even now acollection of poor people's washing--thick sheets, shirts in shreds, andbabies' swaddling clothes--was fast drying in the last rays of the sun, which glided in through the broad, empty bays. 

Slowly, without speaking, Pierre and Doctor Chassaigne walked round theinside of the church. The ten chapels of the aisles formed a species ofcompartments full of rubbish and remnants. The ground of the choir hadbeen cemented, doubtless to protect the crypt below againstinfiltrations; but unfortunately the vaults must be sinking; there was ahollow there which the storm of the previous night had transformed into alittle lake. However, it was these portions of the transept and the apsewhich had the least suffered. Not a stone had moved; the great centralrose windows above the triforium seemed to be awaiting their colouredglass, while some thick planks, forgotten atop of the walls of the apse, might have made anyone think that the workmen would begin covering it thenext day. But, when Pierre and the doctor had retraced their steps, andwent out to look at the facade, the lamentable woefulness of the youngruin was displayed to their gaze. On this side, indeed, the works had notbeen carried forward to anything like the same extent: the porch with itsthree portals alone was built, and fifteen years of abandonment hadsufficed for the winter weather to eat into the sculptures, the smallcolumns and the archivaults, with a really singular destructive effect, as though the stones, deeply penetrated, destroyed, had melted awaybeneath tears. The heart grieved at the sight of the decay which hadattacked the work before it was even finished. Not yet to be, andnevertheless to crumble away in this fashion under the sky! To bearrested in one's colossal growth, and simply strew the weeds with ruins!

They returned to the nave, and were overcome by the frightful sadnesswhich this assassination of a monument provoked. The spacious plot ofwaste ground inside was littered with the remains of scaffoldings, whichhad been pulled down when half rotten, in fear lest their fall mightcrush people; and everywhere amidst the tall grass were boards, put-logs, moulds for arches, mingled with bundles of old cord eaten away by damp. There was also the long narrow carcase of a crane rising up like agibbet. Spade-handles, pieces of broken wheelbarrows, and heaps ofgreenish bricks, speckled with moss and wild convolvuli in bloom, werestill lying among the forgotten materials. In the beds of nettles youhere and there distinguished the rails of a little railway laid down forthe trucks, one of which was lying overturned in a corner. But thesaddest sight in all this death of things was certainly the portableengine which had remained in the shed that sheltered it. For fifteenyears it had been standing there cold and lifeless. A part of the roof ofthe shed had ended by falling in upon it, and now the rain drenched it atevery shower. A bit of the leather harness by which the crane was workedhung down, and seemed to bind the engine like a thread of some giganticspider's web. And its metal-work, its steel and copper, was alsodecaying, as if rusted by lichens, covered with the vegetation of oldage, whose yellowish patches made it look like a very ancient, grass-grown machine which the winters had preyed upon. This lifelessengine, this cold engine with its empty firebox and its silent boiler, was like the very soul of the departed labour vainly awaiting the adventof some great charitable heart, whose coming through the eglantine andthe brambles would awaken this sleeping church in the wood from its heavyslumber of ruin. 

At last Doctor Chassaigne spoke: "Ah!" he said, "when one thinks thatfifty thousand francs would have sufficed to prevent such a disaster!With fifty thousand francs the roof could have been put on, the heavywork would have been saved, and one could have waited patiently. But theywanted to kill the work just as they had killed the man. " With a gesturehe designated the Fathers of the Grotto, whom he avoided naming. "And tothink, " he continued, "that their annual receipts are eight hundredthousand francs. However, they prefer to send presents to Rome topropitiate powerful friends there. "

In spite of himself, he was again opening hostilities against theadversaries of Cure Peyramale. The whole story caused a holy anger ofjustice to haunt him. Face to face with those lamentable ruins, hereturned to the facts--the enthusiastic Cure starting on the building ofhis beloved church, and getting deeper and deeper into debt, whilstFather Sempe, ever on the lookout, took advantage of each of hismistakes, discrediting him with the Bishop, arresting the flow ofofferings, and finally stopping the works. Then, after the conquered manwas dead, had come interminable lawsuits, lawsuits lasting fifteen years, which gave the winters time to devour the building. And now it was insuch a woeful state, and the debt had risen to such an enormous figure, that all seemed over. The slow death, the death of the stones, wasbecoming irrevocable. The portable engine beneath its tumbling shed wouldfall to pieces, pounded by the rain and eaten away by the moss. 

"I know very well that they chant victory, " resumed the doctor; "thatthey alone remain. It is just what they wanted--to be the absolutemasters, to have all the power, all the money for themselves alone. I maytell you that their terror of competition has even made them intrigueagainst the religious Orders that have attempted to come to Lourdes. Jesuits, Dominicans, Benedictines, Capuchins, and Carmelites have madeapplications at various times, and the Fathers of the Grotto have alwayssucceeded in keeping them away. They only tolerate the female Orders, andwill only have one flock. And the town belongs to them; they have openedshop there, and sell God there wholesale and retail!"

Walking slowly, he had while speaking returned to the middle of the nave, amidst the ruins, and with a sweeping wave of the arm he pointed to allthe devastation surrounding him. "Look at this sadness, this frightfulwretchedness! Over yonder the Rosary and Basilica cost them threemillions of francs. "*

 * About 580, 000 dollars. 

Then, as in Bernadette's cold, dark room, Pierre saw the Basilica risebefore him, radiant in its triumph. It was not here that you found therealisation of the dream of Cure Peyramale, officiating and blessingkneeling multitudes while the organs resounded joyfully. The Basilica, over yonder, appeared, vibrating with the pealing of its bells, clamorouswith the superhuman joy of an accomplished miracle, all sparkling withits countless lights, its banners, its lamps, its hearts of silver andgold, its clergy attired in gold, and its monstrance akin to a goldenstar. It flamed in the setting sun, it touched the heavens with itsspire, amidst the soaring of the milliards of prayers which caused itswalls to quiver. Here, however, was the church that had died before beingborn, the church placed under interdict by a mandamus of the Bishop, thechurch falling into dust, and open to the four winds of heaven. Eachstorm carried away a little more of the stones, big flies buzzed allalone among the nettles which had invaded the nave; and there were noother devotees than the poor women of the neighbourhood, who came thitherto turn their sorry linen, spread upon the grass. 

It seemed amidst the mournful silence as though a low voice were sobbing, perhaps the voice of the marble columns weeping over their useless beautyunder their wooden shirts. At times birds would fly across the desertedapse uttering a shrill cry. Bands of enormous rats which had taken refugeunder bits of the lowered scaffoldings would fight, and bite, and boundout of their holes in a gallop of terror. And nothing could have been moreheart-rending than the sight of this pre-determined ruin, face to facewith its triumphant rival, the Basilica, which beamed with gold. 

Again Doctor Chassaigne curtly said, "Come. "

They left the church, and following the left aisle, reached a door, roughly fashioned out of a few planks nailed together; and, when they hadpassed down a half-demolished wooden staircase, the steps of which shookbeneath their feet, they found themselves in the crypt. 

It was a low vault, with squat arches, on exactly the same plan as thechoir. The thick, stunted columns, left in the rough, also awaited theirsculptors. Materials were lying about, pieces of wood were rotting on thebeaten ground, the whole vast hall was white with plaster in theabandonment in which unfinished buildings are left. At the far end, threebays, formerly glazed, but in which not a pane of glass remained, threw aclear, cold light upon the desolate bareness of the walls. 

And there, in the middle, lay Cure Peyramale's corpse. Some pious friendshad conceived the touching idea of thus burying him in the crypt of hisunfinished church. The tomb stood on a broad step and was all marble. Theinscriptions, in letters of gold, expressed the feelings of thesubscribers, the cry of truth and reparation that came from the monumentitself. You read on the face: "This tomb has been erected by the aid ofpious offerings from the entire universe to the blessed memory of thegreat servant of Our Lady of Lourdes. " On the right side were these wordsfrom a Brief of Pope Pius IX. : "You have entirely devoted yourself toerecting a temple to the Mother of God. " And on the left were these wordsfrom the New Testament: "Happy are they who suffer persecution forjustice' sake. " Did not these inscriptions embody the true plaint, thelegitimate hope of the vanquished man who had fought so long in the soledesire of strictly executing the commands of the Virgin as transmitted tohim by Bernadette? She, Our Lady of Lourdes, was there personified by aslender statuette, standing above the commemorative inscription, againstthe naked wall whose only decorations were a few bead wreaths hangingfrom nails. And before the tomb, as before the Grotto, were five or sixbenches in rows, for the faithful who desired to sit down. 

But with another gesture of sorrowful compassion, Doctor Chassaigne hadsilently pointed out to Pierre a huge damp spot which was turning thewall at the far end quite green. Pierre remembered the little lake whichhe had noticed up above on the cracked cement flooring of thechoir--quite a quantity of water left by the storm of the previous night. Infiltration had evidently commenced, a perfect stream ran down, invadingthe crypt, whenever there was heavy rain. And they both felt a pang attheir hearts when they perceived that the water was trickling along thevaulted roof in narrow threads, and thence falling in large, regularrhythmical drops upon the tomb. The doctor could not restrain a groan. "Now it rains, " he said; "it rains on him!"

Pierre remained motionless, in a kind of awe. In the presence of thatfalling water, at the thought of the blasts which must rush at wintertime through the glassless windows, that corpse appeared to him bothwoeful and tragic. It acquired a fierce grandeur, lying there alone inits splendid marble tomb, amidst all the rubbish, at the bottom of thecrumbling ruins of its own church. It was the solitary guardian, the deadsleeper and dreamer watching over the empty spaces, open to all the birdsof night. It was the mute, obstinate, eternal protest, and it wasexpectation also. Cure Peyramale, stretched in his coffin, having alleternity before him to acquire patience, there, without weariness, awaited the workmen who would perhaps return thither some fine Aprilmorning. If they should take ten years to do so, he would be there, andif it should take them a century, he would be there still. He was waitingfor the rotten scaffoldings up above, among the grass of the nave, to beresuscitated like the dead, and by the force of some miracle to standupright once more, along the walls. He was waiting, too, for themoss-covered engine to become all at once burning hot, recover itsbreath, and raise the timbers for the roof. His beloved enterprise, hisgigantic building, was crumbling about his head, and yet with joinedhands and closed eyes he was watching over its ruins, watching andwaiting too. 

In a low voice, the doctor finished the cruel story, telling how, afterpersecuting Cure Peyramale and his work, they persecuted his tomb. Therehad formerly been a bust of the Cure there, and pious hands had kept alittle lamp burning before it. But a woman had one day fallen with herface to the earth, saying that she had perceived the soul of thedeceased, and thereupon the Fathers of the Grotto were in a flutter. Weremiracles about to take place there? The sick already passed entire daysthere, seated on the benches before the tomb. Others knelt down, kissedthe marble, and prayed to be cured. And at this a feeling of terrorarose: supposing they should be cured, supposing the Grotto should find acompetitor in this martyr, lying all alone, amidst the old tools leftthere by the masons! The Bishop of Tarbes, informed and influenced, thereupon published the mandamus which placed the church under interdict, forbidding all worship there and all pilgrimages and processions to thetomb of the former priest of Lourdes. As in the case of Bernadette, hismemory was proscribed, his portrait could be found, officially, nowhere. In the same manner as they had shown themselves merciless against theliving man, so did the Fathers prove merciless to his memory. Theypursued him even in his tomb. They alone, again nowadays, prevented theworks of the church from being proceeded with, by raising continualobstacles, and absolutely refusing to share their rich harvest of alms. And they seemed to be waiting for the winter rains to fall and completethe work of destruction, for the vaulted roof of the crypt, the walls, the whole gigantic pile to crumble down upon the tomb of the martyr, uponthe body of the defeated man, so that he might be buried beneath them andat last pounded to dust!

"Ah!" murmured the doctor, "I, who knew him so valiant, so enthusiasticin all noble labour! Now, you see it, it rains, it rains on him!"

Painfully, he set himself on his knees and found relief in a long prayer. 

Pierre, who could not pray, remained standing. Compassionate sorrow wasoverflowing from his heart. He listened to the heavy drops from the roofas one by one they broke on the tomb with a slow rhythmical pit-a-pat, which seemed to be numbering the seconds of eternity, amidst the profoundsilence. And he reflected on the eternal misery of this world, on thechoice which suffering makes in always falling on the best. The two greatmakers of Our Lady of Lourdes, Bernadette and Cure Peyramale, rose up inthe flesh again before him, like woeful victims, tortured during theirlives and exiled after their deaths. That alone, indeed, would havecompleted within him the destruction of his faith; for the Bernadette, whom he had just found at the end of his researches, was but a humansister, loaded with every dolour. But none the less he preserved a tenderbrotherly veneration for her, and two tears slowly trickled down hischeeks.