第 11 页

cases, with one anointment; and this he made upon the man's lips, those

livid parted lips from between which only a faint breath escaped, whilst

the rest of his face, with its lowered eyelids, already seemed

indistinct, again merged into the dust of the earth.

"_Per istam sanctam unctionem_," said the Father, "_et suam piissimam

misericordiam indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum, auditum,

odoratum, gustum, tactum, deliquisti_."*

* Through this holy unction and His most tender mercy may the

Lord pardon thee whatever sins thou hast committed by thy sight,

hearing, etc.

The remainder of the ceremony was lost amid the hurry and scramble of the

departure. Father Massias scarcely had time to wipe off the oil with the

little piece of cotton-wool which Sister Hyacinthe held in readiness,

before he had to leave the compartment and get into his own as fast as

possible, setting the case containing the Holy Oils in order as he did

so, whilst the pilgrims finished repeating the final prayer.

"We cannot wait any longer! It is impossible!" repeated the

station-master as he bustled about. "Come, come, make haste everybody!"

At last then they were about to resume their journey. Everybody sat down,

returned to his or her corner again. Madame de Jonquiere, however, had

changed her place, in order to be nearer La Grivotte, whose condition

still worried her, and she was now seated in front of M. Sabathier, who

remained waiting with silent resignation. Moreover, Sister Hyacinthe had

not returned to her compartment, having decided to remain near the

unknown man so that she might watch over him and help him. By following

this course, too, she was able to minister to Brother Isidore, whose

sufferings his sister Marthe was at a loss to assuage. And Marie, turning

pale, felt the jolting of the train in her ailing flesh, even before it

had resumed its journey under the heavy sun, rolling onward once more

with its load of sufferers stifling in the pestilential atmosphere of the

over-heated carriages.

At last a loud whistle resounded, the engine puffed, and Sister Hyacinthe

rose up to say: The _Magnificat_, my children!

IV. MIRACLES

JUST as the train was beginning to move, the door of the compartment in

which Pierre and Marie found themselves was opened and a porter pushed a

girl of fourteen inside, saying: "There's a seat here--make haste!"

The others were already pulling long faces and were about to protest,

when Sister Hyacinthe exclaimed: "What, is it you, Sophie? So you are

going back to see the Blessed Virgin who cured you last year!"

And at the same time Madame de Jonquiere remarked: "Ah! Sophie, my little

friend, I am very pleased to see that you are grateful."

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

The carriage door had already been closed again, so that it was necessary

that they should accept the presence of this new pilgrim who had fallen

from heaven as it were at the very moment when the train, which she had

almost missed, was starting off again. She was a slender damsel and would

not take up much room. Moreover these ladies knew her, and all the

patients had turned their eyes upon her on hearing that the Blessed

Virgin had been pleased to cure her. They had now got beyond the station,

the engine was still puffing, whilst the wheels increased their speed,

and Sister Hyacinthe, clapping her hands, repeated: "Come, come, my

children, the _Magnificat_."

Whilst the joyful chant arose amidst the jolting of the train, Pierre

gazed at Sophie. She was evidently a young peasant girl, the daughter of

some poor husbandman of the vicinity of Poitiers, petted by her parents,

treated in fact like a young lady since she had become the subject of a

miracle, one of the elect, whom the priests of the district flocked to

see. She wore a straw hat with pink ribbons, and a grey woollen dress

trimmed with a flounce. Her round face although not pretty was a very

pleasant one, with a beautifully fresh complexion and clear, intelligent

eyes which lent her a smiling, modest air.

When the _Magnificat_ had been sung, Pierre was unable to resist his

desire to question Sophie. A child of her age, with so candid an air, so

utterly unlike a liar, greatly interested him.

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

"I should have been much ashamed if I had, Monsieur l'Abbe," she replied.

"I had been at the station since twelve o'clock. And all at once I saw

his reverence, the priest of Sainte-Radegonde, who knows me well and who

called me to him, to kiss me and tell me that it was very good of me to

go back to Lourdes. But it seems the train was starting and I only just

had time to run on to the platform. Oh! I ran so fast!"

She paused, laughing, still slightly out of breath, but already repenting

that she had been so giddy.

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

"Sophie Couteau, Monsieur l'Abbe."

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

"Oh no! certainly not. We belong to Vivonne, which is seven kilometres

away. My father and mother have a little land there, and things would not

be so bad if there were not eight children at home--I am the

fifth,--fortunately the four older ones are beginning to work."

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

"I, Monsieur l'Abbe! Oh! I am no great help. Since last year, when I came

home cured, I have not been left quiet a single day, for, as you can

understand, so many people have come to see me, and then too I have been

taken to Monseigneur's,* and to the convents and all manner of other

places. And before all that I was a long time ill. I could not walk

without a stick, and each step I took made me cry out, so dreadfully did

my foot hurt me."

* The Bishop's residence.

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

Sophie did not have time to reply, for Sister Hyacinthe, who was

listening, intervened: "Of caries of the bones of the left heel, which

had been going on for three years," said she. "The foot was swollen and

quite deformed, and there were fistulas giving egress to continual

suppuration."

On hearing this, all the sufferers in the carriage became intensely

interested. They no longer took their eyes off this little girl on whom a

miracle had been performed, but scanned her from head to foot as though

seeking for some sign of the prodigy. Those who were able to stand rose

up in order that they might the better see her, and the others, the

infirm ones, stretched on their mattresses, strove to raise themselves

and turn their heads. Amidst the suffering which had again come upon them

on leaving Poitiers, the terror which filled them at the thought that

they must continue rolling onward for another fifteen hours, the sudden

advent of this child, favoured by Heaven, was like a divine relief, a ray

of hope whence they would derive sufficient strength to accomplish the

remainder of their terrible journey. The moaning had abated somewhat

already, and every face was turned towards the girl with an ardent desire

to believe.

This was especially the case with Marie, who, already reviving, joined

her trembling hands, and in a gentle supplicating voice said to Pierre,

"Question her, pray question her, ask her to tell us everything--cured, O

God! cured of such a terrible complaint!"

Madame de Jonquiere, who was quite affected, had leant over the partition

to kiss the girl. "Certainly," said she, "our little friend will tell you

all about it. Won't you, my darling? You will tell us what the Blessed

Virgin did for you?"

"Oh, certainly! madame-as much as you like," answered Sophie with her

smiling, modest air, her eyes gleaming with intelligence. Indeed, she

wished to begin at once, and raised her right hand with a pretty gesture,

as a sign to everybody to be attentive. Plainly enough, she had already

acquired the habit of speaking in public.

She could not be seen, however, from some parts of the carriage, and an

idea came to Sister Hyacinthe, who said: "Get up on the seat, Sophie, and

speak loudly, on account of the noise which the train makes."

This amused the girl, and before beginning she needed time to become

serious again. "Well, it was like this," said she; "my foot was past

cure, I couldn't even go to church any more, and it had to be kept

bandaged, because there was always a lot of nasty matter coming from it.

Monsieur Rivoire, the doctor, who had made a cut in it, so as to see

inside it, said that he should be obliged to take out a piece of the

bone; and that, sure enough, would have made me lame for life. But when I

got to Lourdes and had prayed a great deal to the Blessed Virgin, I went

to dip my foot in the water, wishing so much that I might be cured that I

did not even take the time to pull the bandage off. And everything

remained in the water, there was no longer anything the matter with my

foot when I took it out."

A murmur of mingled surprise, wonder, and desire arose and spread among

those who heard this marvellous tale, so sweet and soothing to all who

were in despair. But the little one had not yet finished. She had simply

paused. And now, making a fresh gesture, holding her arms somewhat apart,

she concluded: "When I got back to Vivonne and Monsieur Rivoire saw my

foot again, he said: 'Whether it be God or the Devil who has cured this

child, it is all the same to me; but in all truth she _is_ cured.'"

This time a burst of laughter rang out. The girl spoke in too recitative

a way, having repeated her story so many times already that she knew it

by heart. The doctor's remark was sure to produce an effect, and she

herself laughed at it in advance, certain as she was that the others

would laugh also. However, she still retained her candid, touching air.

But she had evidently forgotten some particular, for Sister Hyacinthe, a

glance from whom had foreshadowed the doctor's jest, now softly prompted

her "And what was it you said to Madame la Comtesse, the superintendent

of your ward, Sophie?"

"Ah! yes. I hadn't brought many bandages for my foot with me, and I said

to her, 'It was very kind of the Blessed Virgin to cure me the first day,

as I should have run out of linen on the morrow.'"

This provoked a fresh outburst of delight. They all thought her so nice,

to have been cured like that! And in reply to a question from Madame de

Jonquiere, she also had to tell the story of her boots, a pair of

beautiful new boots which Madame la Comtesse had given her, and in which

she had run, jumped, and danced about, full of childish delight. Boots!

think of it, she who for three years had not even been able to wear a

slipper.

Pierre, who had become grave, waxing pale with the secret uneasiness

which was penetrating him, continued to look at her. And he also asked

her other questions. She was certainly not lying, and he merely suspected

a slow distortion of the actual truth, an easily explained embellishment

of the real facts amidst all the joy she felt at being cured and becoming

an important little personage. Who now knew if the cicatrisation of her

injuries, effected, so it was asserted, completely, instantaneously, in a

few seconds, had not in reality been the work of days? Where were the

witnesses?

Just then Madame de Jonquiere began to relate that she had been at the

hospital at the time referred to. "Sophie was not in my ward," said she,

"but I had met her walking lame that very morning--"

Pierre hastily interrupted the lady-hospitaller. "Ah! you saw her foot

before and after the immersion?"

"No, no! I don't think that anybody was able to see it, for it was bound

round with bandages. She told you that the bandages had fallen into the

piscina." And, turning towards the child, Madame de Jonquiere added, "But

she will show you her foot--won't you, Sophie? Undo your shoe."

The girl took off her shoe, and pulled down her stocking, with a

promptness and ease of manner which showed how thoroughly accustomed she

had become to it all. And she not only stretched out her foot, which was

very clean and very white, carefully tended indeed, with well-cut, pink

nails, but complacently turned it so that the young priest might examine

it at his ease. Just below the ankle there was a long scar, whose whity

seam, plainly defined, testified to the gravity of the complaint from

which the girl had suffered.

"Oh! take hold of the heel, Monsieur l'Abbe," said she. "Press it as hard

as you like. I no longer feel any pain at all."

Pierre made a gesture from which it might have been thought that he was

delighted with the power exercised by the Blessed Virgin. But he was

still tortured by doubt. What unknown force had acted in this case? Or

rather what faulty medical diagnosis, what assemblage of errors and

exaggerations, had ended in this fine tale?

All the patients, however, wished to see the miraculous foot, that

outward and visible sign of the divine cure which each of them was going

in search of. And it was Marie, sitting up in her box, and already

feeling less pain, who touched it first. Then Madame Maze, quite roused

from her melancholy, passed it on to Madame Vincent, who would have

kissed it for the hope which it restored to her. M. Sabathier had

listened to all the explanations with a beatific air; Madame Vetu, La

Grivotte, and even Brother Isidore opened their eyes, and evinced signs

of interest; whilst the face of Elise Rouquet had assumed an

extraordinary expression, transfigured by faith, almost beatified. If a

sore had thus disappeared, might not her own sore close and disappear,

her face retaining no trace of it save a slight scar, and again becoming

such a face as other people had? Sophie, who was still standing, had to