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in the same compartment with him! And she resolved that she would change

her seat at the first station they should stop at. Only there would be no

stoppage for a long time. The position was becoming terrible, the more so

as the man's head again fell back.

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

What was to be done, _mon Dieu_? The Sister was aware that one of the

Fathers of the Assumption, Father Massias, was in the train with the Holy

Oils, ready to administer extreme unction to the dying; for every year

some of the patients passed away during the journey. But she did not dare

to have recourse to the alarm signal. Moreover, in the _cantine_ van

where Sister Saint Francois officiated, there was a doctor with a little

medicine chest. If the sufferer should survive until they reached

Poitiers, where there would be half an hour's stoppage, all possible help

might be given to him.

But on the other hand he might suddenly expire. However, they ended by

becoming somewhat calmer. The man, though still unconscious, began to

breathe in a more regular manner, and seemed to fall asleep.

"To think of it, to die before getting there," murmured Marie with a

shudder, "to die in sight of the promised land!" And as her father sought

to reassure her she added: "I am suffering--I am suffering dreadfully

myself."

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

you."

She could no longer remain seated, and it became necessary to replace her

in a recumbent position in her narrow coffin. Her father and the priest

had to take every precaution in doing so, for the slightest hurt drew a

moan from her. And she lay there breathless, like one dead, her face

contracted by suffering, and surrounded by her regal fair hair. They had

now been rolling on, ever rolling on for nearly four hours. And if the

carriage was so greatly shaken, with an unbearable spreading tendency, it

was from its position at the rear part of the train. The coupling irons

shrieked, the wheels growled furiously; and as it was necessary to leave

the windows partially open, the dust came in, acrid and burning; but it

was especially the heat which grew terrible, a devouring, stormy heat

falling from a tawny sky which large hanging clouds had slowly covered.

The hot carriages, those rolling boxes where the pilgrims ate and drank,

where the sick lay in a vitiated atmosphere, amid dizzying moans,

prayers, and hymns, became like so many furnaces.

And Marie was not the only one whose condition had been aggravated;

others also were suffering from the journey. Resting in the lap of her

despairing mother, who gazed at her with large, tear-blurred eyes, little

Rose had ceased to stir, and had grown so pale that Madame Maze had twice

leant forward to feel her hands, fearful lest she should find them cold.

At each moment also Madame Sabathier had to move her husband's legs, for

their weight was so great, said he, that it seemed as if his hips were

being torn from him. Brother Isidore too had just begun to cry out,

emerging from his wonted torpor; and his sister had only been able to

assuage his sufferings by raising him, and clasping him in her arms. La

Grivotte seemed to be asleep, but a continuous hiccoughing shook her, and

a tiny streamlet of blood dribbled from her mouth. Madame Vetu had again

vomited, Elise Rouquet no longer thought of hiding the frightful sore

open on her face. And from the man yonder, breathing hard, there still

came a lugubrious rattle, as though he were at every moment on the point

of expiring. In vain did Madame de Jonquiere and Sister Hyacinthe lavish

their attentions on the patients, they could but slightly assuage so much

suffering. At times it all seemed like an evil dream--that carriage of

wretchedness and pain, hurried along at express speed, with a continuous

shaking and jolting which made everything hanging from the pegs--the old

clothes, the worn-out baskets mended with bits of string--swing to and

fro incessantly. And in the compartment at the far end, the ten female

pilgrims, some old, some young, and all pitifully ugly, sang on without a

pause in cracked voices, shrill and dreary.

Then Pierre began to think of the other carriages of the train, that

white train which conveyed most, if not all, of the more seriously

afflicted patients; these carriages were rolling along, all displaying

similar scenes of suffering among the three hundred sick and five hundred

healthy pilgrims crowded within them. And afterwards he thought of the

other trains which were leaving Paris that day, the grey train and the

blue train* which had preceded the white one, the green train, the yellow

train, the pink train, the orange train which were following it. From

hour to hour trains set out from one to the other end of France. And he

thought, too, of those which that same morning had started from Orleans,

Le Mans, Poitiers, Bordeaux, Marseilles, and Carcassonne. Coming from all

parts, trains were rushing across that land of France at the same hour,

all directing their course yonder towards the holy Grotto, bringing

thirty thousand patients and pilgrims to the Virgin's feet. And he

reflected that other days of the year witnessed a like rush of human

beings, that not a week went by without Lourdes beholding the arrival of

some pilgrimage; that it was not merely France which set out on the

march, but all Europe, the whole world; that in certain years of great

religious fervour there had been three hundred thousand, and even five

hundred thousand, pilgrims and patients streaming to the spot.

* Different-coloured tickets are issued for these trains; it is for

this reason that they are called the white, blue, and grey trains,

etc.--Trans.

Pierre fancied that he could hear those flying trains, those trains from

everywhere, all converging towards the same rocky cavity where the tapers

were blazing. They all rumbled loudly amid the cries of pain and snatches

of hymns wafted from their carriages. They were the rolling hospitals of

disease at its last stage, of human suffering rushing to the hope of

cure, furiously seeking consolation between attacks of increased

severity, with the ever-present threat of death--death hastened,

supervening under awful conditions, amidst the mob-like scramble. They

rolled on, they rolled on again and again, they rolled on without a

pause, carrying the wretchedness of the world on its way to the divine

illusion, the health of the infirm, the consolation of the afflicted.

And immense pity overflowed from Pierre's heart, human compassion for all

the suffering and all the tears that consumed weak and naked men. He was

sad unto death and ardent charity burnt within him, the unextinguishable

flame as it were of his fraternal feelings towards all things and beings.

When they left the station of Saint Pierre des Corps at half-past ten,

Sister Hyacinthe gave the signal, and they recited the third chaplet, the

five glorious mysteries, the Resurrection of Our Lord, the Ascension of

Our Lord, the Mission of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption of the Most

Blessed Virgin, the Crowning of the Most Blessed Virgin. And afterwards

they sang the canticle of Bernadette, that long, long chant, composed of

six times ten couplets, to which the ever recurring Angelic Salutation

serves as a refrain--a prolonged lullaby slowly besetting one until it

ends by penetrating one's entire being, transporting one into ecstatic

sleep, in delicious expectancy of a miracle.

II. PIERRE AND MARIE

THE green landscapes of Poitou were now defiling before them, and Abbe

Pierre Froment, gazing out of the window, watched the trees fly away

till, little by little, he ceased to distinguish them. A steeple appeared

and then vanished, and all the pilgrims crossed themselves. They would

not reach Poitiers until twelve-thirty-five, and the train was still

rolling on amid the growing weariness of that oppressive, stormy day.

Falling into a deep reverie, the young priest no longer heard the words

of the canticle, which sounded in his ears merely like a slow, wavy

lullaby.

Forgetfulness of the present had come upon him, an awakening of the past

filled his whole being. He was reascending the stream of memory,

reascending it to its source. He again beheld the house at Neuilly, where

he had been born and where he still lived, that home of peace and toil,

with its garden planted with a few fine trees, and parted by a quickset

hedge and palisade from the garden of the neighbouring house, which was

similar to his own. He was again three, perhaps four, years old, and

round a table, shaded by the big horse-chestnut tree he once more beheld

his father, his mother, and his elder brother at _dejeuner_. To his

father, Michel Froment, he could give no distinct lineaments; he pictured

him but faintly, vaguely, renowned as an illustrious chemist, bearing the

title of Member of the Institute, and leading a cloistered life in the

laboratory which he had installed in that secluded, deserted suburb.

However he could plainly see his first brother Guillaume, then fourteen

years of age, whom some holiday had brought from college that morning,

and then and even more vividly his mother, so gentle and so quiet, with

eyes so full of active kindliness. Later on he learnt what anguish had

racked that religious soul, that believing woman who, from esteem and

gratitude, had resignedly accepted marriage with an unbeliever, her

senior by fifteen years, to whom her relatives were indebted for great

services. He, Pierre, the tardy offspring of this union, born when his

father was already near his fiftieth year, had only known his mother as a

respectful, conquered woman in the presence of her husband, whom she had

learnt to love passionately, with the frightful torment of knowing,

however, that he was doomed to perdition. And, all at once, another

memory flashed upon the young priest, the terrible memory of the day when

his father had died, killed in his laboratory by an accident, the

explosion of a retort. He, Pierre, had then been five years old, and he

remembered the slightest incidents--his mother's cry when she had found

the shattered body among the remnants of the chemical appliances, then

her terror, her sobs, her prayers at the idea that God had slain the

unbeliever, damned him for evermore. Not daring to burn his books and

papers, she had contented herself with locking up the laboratory, which

henceforth nobody entered. And from that moment, haunted by a vision of

hell, she had had but one idea, to possess herself of her second son, who

was still so young, to give him a strictly religious training, and

through him to ransom her husband--secure his forgiveness from God.

Guillaume, her elder boy, had already ceased to belong to her, having

grown up at college, where he had been won over by the ideas of the

century; but she resolved that the other, the younger one, should not

leave the house, but should have a priest as tutor; and her secret dream,

her consuming hope, was that she might some day see him a priest himself,

saying his first mass and solacing souls whom the thought of eternity

tortured.

Then between green, leafy boughs, flecked with sunlight, another figure

rose vividly before Pierre's eyes. He suddenly beheld Marie de Guersaint

as he had seen her one morning through a gap in the hedge dividing the

two gardens. M. de Guersaint, who belonged to the petty Norman

_noblesse_, was a combination of architect and inventor; and he was at

that time busy with a scheme of model dwellings for the poor, to which

churches and schools were to be attached; an affair of considerable

magnitude, planned none too well, however, and in which, with his

customary impetuosity, the lack of foresight of an imperfect artist, he

was risking the three hundred thousand francs that he possessed. A

similarity of religious faith had drawn Madame de Guersaint and Madame

Froment together; but the former was altogether a superior woman,

perspicuous and rigid, with an iron hand which alone prevented her

household from gliding to a catastrophe; and she was bringing up her two

daughters, Blanche and Marie, in principles of narrow piety, the elder

one already being as grave as herself, whilst the younger, albeit very

devout, was still fond of play, with an intensity of life within her

which found vent in gay peals of sonorous laughter. From their early

childhood Pierre and Marie played together, the hedge was ever being

crossed, the two families constantly mingled. And on that clear sunshiny

morning, when he pictured her parting the leafy branches she was already

ten years old. He, who was sixteen, was to enter the seminary on the

following Tuesday. Never had she seemed to him so pretty. Her hair, of a

pure golden hue, was so long that when it was let down it sufficed to

clothe her. Well did he remember her face as it had been, with round

cheeks, blue eyes, red mouth, and skin of dazzling, snowy whiteness. She

was indeed as gay and brilliant as the sun itself, a transplendency. Yet

there were tears at the corners of her eyes, for she was aware of his

coming departure. They sat down together at the far end of the garden, in

the shadow cast by the hedge. Their hands mingled, and their hearts were

very heavy. They had, however, never exchanged any vows amid their

pastimes, for their innocence was absolute. But now, on the eve of

separation, their mutual tenderness rose to their lips, and they spoke

without knowing, swore that they would ever think of one another, and

find one another again, some day, even as one meets in heaven to be very,

very happy. Then, without understanding how it happened, they clasped

each other tightly, to the point of suffocation, and kissed each other's

face, weeping, the while, hot tears. And it was that delightful memory

which Pierre had ever carried with him, which he felt alive within him

still, after so many years, and after so many painful renunciations.

Just then a more violent shock roused him from his reverie. He turned his

eyes upon the carriage and vaguely espied the suffering beings it