第 18 页

her future career, he who, the first, had seen her little soul blossom in

his pious hands. And yet all the unknown forces that had sprung from that

sequestered village, from that nook of greenery where superstition and

poverty of intelligence prevailed, were still making themselves felt,

disturbing the brains of men, disseminating the contagion of the

mysterious. It was remembered that a shepherd of Argeles, speaking of the

rock of Massabielle, had prophesied that great things would take place

there. Other children, moreover, now fell in ecstasy with their eyes

dilated and their limbs quivering with convulsions, but these only saw

the devil. A whirlwind of madness seemed to be passing over the region.

An old lady of Lourdes declared that Bernadette was simply a witch and

that she had herself seen the toad's foot in her eye. But for the others,

for the thousands of pilgrims who hastened to the spot, she was a saint,

and they kissed her garments. Sobs burst forth and frenzy seemed to seize

upon the souls of the beholders, when she fell upon her knees before the

Grotto, a lighted taper in her right hand, whilst with the left she told

the beads of her rosary. She became very pale and quite beautiful,

transfigured, so to say. Her features gently ascended in her face,

lengthened into an expression of extraordinary beatitude, whilst her eyes

filled with light, and her lips parted as though she were speaking words

which could not be heard. And it was quite certain that she had no will

of her own left her, penetrated as she was by a dream, possessed by it to

such a point in the confined, exclusive sphere in which she lived, that

she continued dreaming it even when awake, and thus accepted it as the

only indisputable reality, prepared to testify to it even at the cost of

her blood, repeating it over and over again, obstinately, stubbornly

clinging to it, and never varying in the details she gave. She did not

lie, for she did not know, could not and would not desire anything apart

from it.

Forgetful of the flight of time, Pierre was now sketching a charming

picture of old Lourdes, that pious little town, slumbering at the foot of

the Pyrenees. The castle, perched on a rock at the point of intersection

of the seven valleys of Lavedan, had formerly been the key of the

mountain districts. But, in Bernadette's time, it had become a mere

dismantled, ruined pile, at the entrance of a road leading nowhere.

Modern life found its march stayed by a formidable rampart of lofty,

snow-capped peaks, and only the trans-Pyrenean railway--had it been

constructed--could have established an active circulation of social life

in that sequestered nook where human existence stagnated like dead water.

Forgotten, therefore, Lourdes remained slumbering, happy and sluggish

amidst its old-time peacefulness, with its narrow, pebble-paved streets

and its bleak houses with dressings of marble. The old roofs were still

all massed on the eastern side of the castle; the Rue de la Grotte, then

called the Rue du Bois, was but a deserted and often impassable road; no

houses stretched down to the Gave as now, and the scum-laden waters

rolled through a perfect solitude of pollard willows and tall grass. On

week-days but few people passed across the Place du Marcadal, such as

housewives hastening on errands, and petty cits airing their leisure

hours; and you had to wait till Sundays or fair days to find the

inhabitants rigged out in their best clothes and assembled on the Champ

Commun, in company with the crowd of graziers who had come down from the

distant tablelands with their cattle. During the season when people

resort to the Pyrenean-waters, the passage of the visitors to Cauterets

and Bagneres also brought some animation; _diligences_ passed through the

town twice a day, but they came from Pau by a wretched road, and had to

ford the Lapaca, which often overflowed its banks. Then climbing the

steep ascent of the Rue Basse, they skirted the terrace of the church,

which was shaded by large elms. And what soft peacefulness prevailed in

and around that old semi-Spanish church, full of ancient carvings,

columns, screens, and statues, peopled with visionary patches of gilding

and painted flesh, which time had mellowed and which you faintly

discerned as by the light of mystical lamps! The whole population came

there to worship, to fill their eyes with the dream of the mysterious.

There were no unbelievers, the inhabitants of Lourdes were a people of

primitive faith; each corporation marched behind the banner of its saint,

brotherhoods of all kinds united the entire town, on festival mornings,

in one large Christian family. And, as with some exquisite flower that

has grown in the soil of its choice, great purity of life reigned there.

There was not even a resort of debauchery for young men to wreck their

lives, and the girls, one and all, grew up with the perfume and beauty of

innocence, under the eyes of the Blessed Virgin, Tower of Ivory and Seat

of Wisdom.

And how well one could understand that Bernadette, born in that holy

soil, should flower in it, like one of nature's roses budding in the

wayside bushes! She was indeed the very florescence of that region of

ancient belief and rectitude; she would certainly not have sprouted

elsewhere; she could only appear and develop there, amidst that belated

race, amidst the slumberous peacefulness of a childlike people, under the

moral discipline of religion. And what intense love at once burst forth

all around her! What blind confidence was displayed in her mission, what

immense consolation and hope came to human hearts on the very morrow of

the first miracles! A long cry of relief had greeted the cure of old

Bourriette recovering his sight, and of little Justin Bouhohorts coming

to life again in the icy water of the spring. At last, then, the Blessed

Virgin was intervening in favour of those who despaired, forcing that

unkind mother, Nature, to be just and charitable. This was divine

omnipotence returning to reign on earth, sweeping the laws of the world

aside in order to work the happiness of the suffering and the poor. The

miracles multiplied, blazed forth, from day to day more and more

extraordinary, like unimpeachable proof of Bernadette's veracity. And she

was, indeed, the rose of the divine garden, whose deeds shed perfume, the

rose who beholds all the other flowers of grace and salvation spring into

being around her.

Pierre had reached this point of his story, and was again enumerating the

miracles, on the point of recounting the prodigious triumph of the

Grotto, when Sister Hyacinthe, awaking with a start from the ecstasy into

which the narrative had plunged her, hastily rose to her feet. "Really,

really," said she, "there is no sense in it. It will soon be eleven

o'clock."

This was true. They had left Morceux behind them, and would now soon be

at Mont de Marsan. So Sister Hyacinthe clapped her hands once more, and

added: "Silence, my children, silence!"

This time they did not dare to rebel, for they felt she was in the right;

they were unreasonable. But how greatly they regretted not hearing the

continuation, how vexed they were that the story should cease when only

half told! The ten women in the farther compartment even let a murmur of

disappointment escape them; whilst the sick, their faces still

outstretched, their dilated eyes gazing upon the light of hope, seemed to

be yet listening. Those miracles which ever and ever returned to their

minds and filled them with unlimited, haunting, supernatural joy.

"And don't let me hear anyone breathe, even," added Sister Hyacinthe

gaily, "or otherwise I shall impose penance on you."

Madame de Jonquiere laughed good-naturedly. "You must obey, my children,"

she said; "be good and get to sleep, so that you may have strength to

pray at the Grotto to-morrow with all your hearts."

Then silence fell, nobody spoke any further; and the only sounds were

those of the rumbling of the wheels and the jolting of the train as it

was carried along at full speed through the black night.

Pierre, however, was unable to sleep. Beside him, M. de Guersaint was

already snoring lightly, looking very happy despite the hardness of his

seat. For a time the young priest saw Marie's eyes wide open, still full

of all the radiance of the marvels that he had related. For a long while

she kept them ardently fixed upon his own, but at last closed them, and

then he knew not whether she was sleeping, or with eyelids simply closed

was living the everlasting miracle over again. Some of the sufferers were

dreaming aloud, giving vent to bursts of laughter which unconscious moans

interrupted. Perhaps they beheld the Archangels opening their flesh to

wrest their diseases from them. Others, restless with insomnia, turned

over and over, stifling their sobs and gazing fixedly into the darkness.

And, with a shudder born of all the mystery he had evoked, Pierre,

distracted, no longer master of himself in that delirious sphere of

fraternal suffering, ended by hating his very mind, and, drawn into close

communion with all those humble folks, sought to believe like them. What

could be the use of that physiological inquiry into Bernadette's case, so

full of gaps and intricacies? Why should he not accept her as a messenger

from the spheres beyond, as one of the elect chosen for the divine

mystery? Doctors were but ignorant men with rough and brutal hands, and

it would be so delightful to fall asleep in childlike faith, in the

enchanted gardens of the impossible. And for a moment indeed he

surrendered himself, experiencing a delightful feeling of comfort, no

longer seeking to explain anything, but accepting the Visionary with her

sumptuous _cortege_ of miracles, and relying on God to think and

determine for him. Then he looked out through the window, which they did

not dare to open on account of the consumptive patients, and beheld the

immeasurable night which enwrapped the country across which the train was

fleeing. The storm must have burst forth there; the sky was now of an

admirable nocturnal purity, as though cleansed by the masses of fallen

water. Large stars shone out in the dark velvet, alone illumining, with

their mysterious gleams, the silent, refreshed fields, which incessantly

displayed only the black solitude of slumber. And across the Landes,

through the valleys, between the hills, that carriage of wretchedness and

suffering rolled on and on, over-heated, pestilential, rueful, and

wailing, amidst the serenity of the august night, so lovely and so mild.

They had passed Riscle at one in the morning. Between the jolting, the

painful, the hallucinatory silence still continued. At two o'clock, as

they reached Vic-de-Bigorre, low moans were heard; the bad state of the

line, with the unbearable spreading tendency of the train's motion, was

sorely shaking the patients. It was only at Tarbes, at half-past two,

that silence was at length broken, and that morning prayers were said,

though black night still reigned around them. There came first the

"Pater," and then the "Ave," the "Credo," and the supplication to God to

grant them the happiness of a glorious day.

"O God, vouchsafe me sufficient strength that I may avoid all that is

evil, do all that is good, and suffer uncomplainingly every pain."

And now there was to be no further stoppage until they reached Lourdes.

Barely three more quarters of an hour, and Lourdes, with all its vast

hopes, would blaze forth in the midst of that night, so long and cruel.

Their painful awakening was enfevered by the thought; a final agitation

arose amidst the morning discomfort, as the abominable sufferings began

afresh.

Sister Hyacinthe, however, was especially anxious about the strange man,

whose sweat-covered face she had been continually wiping. He had so far

managed to keep alive, she watching him without a pause, never having

once closed her eyes, but unremittingly listening to his faint breathing

with the stubborn desire to take him to the holy Grotto before he died.

All at once, however, she felt frightened; and addressing Madame de

Jonquiere, she hastily exclaimed, "Pray pass me the vinegar bottle at

once--I can no longer hear him breathe."

For an instant, indeed, the man's faint breathing had ceased. His eyes

were still closed, his lips parted; he could not have been paler, he had

an ashen hue, and was cold. And the carriage was rolling along with its

ceaseless rattle of coupling-irons; the speed of the train seemed even to

have increased.

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

But, at a more violent jolt of the train, the man suddenly fell from the

seat, face downward.

"Ah! _mon Dieu_, help me, pick him up!"

They picked him up, and found him dead. And they had to seat him in his

corner again, with his back resting against the woodwork. He remained

there erect, his torso stiffened, and his head wagging slightly at each

successive jolt. Thus the train continued carrying him along, with the

same thundering noise of wheels, while the engine, well pleased, no

doubt, to be reaching its destination, began whistling shrilly, giving

vent to quite a flourish of delirious joy as it sped through the calm

night.

And then came the last and seemingly endless half-hour of the journey, in

company with that wretched corpse. Two big tears had rolled down Sister

Hyacinthe's cheeks, and with her hands joined she had begun to pray. The

whole carriage shuddered with terror at sight of that terrible companion

who was being taken, too late alas! to the Blessed Virgin.

Hope, however, proved stronger than sorrow or pain, and although all the

sufferings there assembled awoke and grew again, irritated by

overwhelming weariness, a song of joy nevertheless proclaimed the

sufferers' triumphal entry into the Land of Miracles. Amidst the tears

which their pains drew from them, the exasperated and howling sick began