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sous, the 'Journal de la Grotte.'"

Amidst the continual pushing which accompanied the eddying of the

ever-moving crowd, Gerard's little party became separated. He and

Raymonde remained behind the others. They had begun talking together in

low tones, with an air of smiling intimacy, lost and isolated as they

were in the dense crowd. And Madame Desagneaux at last had to stop, look

back, and call to them: "Come on, or we shall lose one another!"

As they drew near, Pierre heard the girl exclaim: "Mamma is so very busy;

speak to her before we leave." And Gerard thereupon replied: "It is

understood. You have made me very happy, mademoiselle."

Thus the husband had been secured, the marriage decided upon, during this

charming promenade among the sights of Lourdes. Raymonde had completed

her conquest, and Gerard had at last taken a resolution, realising how

gay and sensible she was, as she walked beside him leaning on his arm.

M. de Guersaint, however, had raised his eyes, and was heard inquiring:

"Are not those people up there, on that balcony, the rich folk who made

the journey in the same train as ourselves?--You know whom I mean, that

lady who is so very ill, and whose husband and sister accompany her?"

He was alluding to the Dieulafays; and they indeed were the persons whom

he now saw on the balcony of a suite of rooms which they had rented in a

new house overlooking the lawns of the Rosary. They here occupied a

first-floor, furnished with all the luxury that Lourdes could provide,

carpets, hangings, mirrors, and many other things, without mentioning a

staff of servants despatched beforehand from Paris. As the weather was so

fine that afternoon, the large armchair on which lay the poor ailing

woman had been rolled on to the balcony. You could see her there, clad in

a lace _peignoir_. Her husband, always correctly attired in a black

frock-coat, stood beside her on her right hand, whilst her sister, in a

delightful pale mauve gown, sat on her left smiling and leaning over

every now and then so as to speak to her, but apparently receiving no

reply.

"Oh!" declared little Madame Desagneaux, "I have often heard people speak

of Madame Jousseur, that lady in mauve. She is the wife of a diplomatist

who neglects her, it seems, in spite of her great beauty; and last year

there was a deal of talk about her fancy for a young colonel who is well

known in Parisian society. It is said, however, in Catholic _salons_ that

her religious principles enabled her to conquer it."

They all five remained there, looking up at the balcony. "To think,"

resumed Madame Desagneaux, "that her sister, poor woman, was once her

living portrait." And, indeed, there was an expression of greater

kindliness and more gentle gaiety on Madame Dieulafay's face. And now you

see her--no different from a dead woman except that she is above instead

of under ground--with her flesh wasted away, reduced to a livid, boneless

thing which they scarcely dare to move. Ah! the unhappy woman!

Raymonde thereupon assured the others that Madame Dieulafay, who had been

married scarcely two years previously, had brought all the jewellery

given her on the occasion of her wedding to offer it as a gift to Our

Lady of Lourdes; and Gerard confirmed this assertion, saying that the

jewellery had been handed over to the treasurer of the Basilica that very

morning with a golden lantern studded with gems and a large sum of money

destined for the relief of the poor. However, the Blessed Virgin could

not have been touched as yet, for the sufferer's condition seemed, if

anything, to be worse.

From that moment Pierre no longer beheld aught save that young woman on

that handsome balcony, that woeful, wealthy creature lying there high

above the merrymaking throng, the Lourdes mob which was feasting and

laughing in the Sunday sunshine. The two dear ones who were so tenderly

watching over her--her sister who had forsaken her society triumphs, her

husband who had forgotten his financial business, his millions dispersed

throughout the world--increased, by their irreproachable demeanour, the

woefulness of the group which they thus formed high above all other

heads, and face to face with the lovely valley. For Pierre they alone

remained; and they were exceedingly wealthy and exceedingly wretched.

However, lingering in this wise on the footway with their eyes upturned,

the five promenaders narrowly escaped being knocked down and run over,

for at every moment fresh vehicles were coming up, for the most part

landaus drawn by four horses, which were driven at a fast trot, and whose

bells jingled merrily. The occupants of these carriages were tourists,

visitors to the waters of Pau, Bareges, and Cauterets, whom curiosity had

attracted to Lourdes, and who were delighted with the fine weather and

quite inspirited by their rapid drive across the mountains. They would

remain at Lourdes only a few hours; after hastening to the Grotto and the

Basilica in seaside costumes, they would start off again, laughing, and

well pleased at having seen it all. In this wise families in light

attire, bands of young women with bright parasols, darted hither and

thither among the grey, neutral-tinted crowd of pilgrims, imparting to

it, in a yet more pronounced manner, the aspect of a fair-day mob, amidst

which folks of good society deign to come and amuse themselves.

All at once Madame Desagneaux raised a cry "What, is it you, Berthe?" And

thereupon she embraced a tall, charming brunette who had just alighted

from a landau with three other young women, the whole party smiling and

animated. Everyone began talking at once, and all sorts of merry

exclamations rang out, in the delight they felt at meeting in this

fashion. "Oh! we are at Cauterets, my dear," said the tall brunette. "And

as everybody comes here, we decided to come all four together. And your

husband, is he here with you?"

Madame Desagneaux began protesting: "Of course not," said she. "He is at

Trouville, as you ought to know. I shall start to join him on Thursday."

"Yes, yes, of course," resumed the tall brunette, who, like her friend,

seemed to be an amiable, giddy creature, "I was forgetting; you are here

with the pilgrimage."

Then Madame Desagneaux offered to guide her friends, promising to show

them everything of interest in less than a couple of hours; and turning

to Raymonde, who stood by, smiling, she added "Come with us, my dear;

your mother won't be anxious."

The ladies and Pierre and M. de Guersaint thereupon exchanged bows: and

Gerard also took leave, tenderly pressing Raymonde's hand, with his eyes

fixed on hers, as though to pledge himself definitively. The women

swiftly departed, directing their steps towards the Grotto, and when

Gerard also had gone off, returning to his duties, M. de Guersaint said

to Pierre: "And the hairdresser on the Place du Marcadal, I really must

go and see him. You will come with me, won't you?"

"Of course I will go wherever you like. I am quite at your disposal as

Marie does not need us."

Following the pathways between the large lawns which stretch out in front

of the Rosary, they reached the new bridge, where they had another

encounter, this time with Abbe des Hermoises, who was acting as guide to

two young married ladies who had arrived that morning from Tarbes.

Walking between them with the gallant air of a society priest, he was

showing them Lourdes and explaining it to them, keeping them well away,

however, from its more repugnant features, its poor and its ailing folk,

its odour of low misery, which, it must be admitted, had well-nigh

disappeared that fine, sunshiny day. At the first word which M. de

Guersaint addressed to him with respect to the hiring of a vehicle for

the trip to Gavarnie, the Abbe was seized with a dread lest he should be

obliged to leave his pretty lady-visitors: "As you please, my dear sir,"

he replied. "Kindly attend to the matter, and--you are quite right, make

the cheapest arrangements possible, for I shall have two ecclesiastics of

small means with me. There will be four of us. Let me know at the hotel

this evening at what hour we shall start."

Thereupon he again joined his lady-friends, and led them towards the

Grotto, following the shady path which skirts the Gave, a cool,

sequestered path well suited for lovers' walks.

Feeling somewhat tired, Pierre had remained apart from the others,

leaning against the parapet of the new bridge. And now for the first time

he was struck by the prodigious number of priests among the crowd. He saw

all varieties of them swarming across the bridge: priests of correct mien

who had come with the pilgrimage and who could be recognised by their air

of assurance and their clean cassocks; poor village priests who were far

more timid and badly clothed, and who, after making sacrifices in order

that they might indulge in the journey, would return home quite scared

and, finally, there was the whole crowd of unattached ecclesiastics who

had come nobody knew whence, and who enjoyed such absolute liberty that

it was difficult to be sure whether they had even said their mass that

morning. They doubtless found this liberty very agreeable; and thus the

greater number of them, like Abbe des Hermoises, had simply come on a

holiday excursion, free from all duties, and happy at being able to live

like ordinary men, lost, unnoticed as they were in the multitude around

them. And from the young, carefully groomed and perfumed priest, to the

old one in a dirty cassock and shoes down at heel, the entire species had

its representative in the throng--there were corpulent ones, others but

moderately fat, thin ones, tall ones and short ones, some whom faith had

brought and whom ardour was consuming, some also who simply plied their

calling like worthy men, and some, moreover, who were fond of intriguing,

and who were only present in order that they might help the good cause.

However, Pierre was quite surprised to see such a stream of priests pass

before him, each with his special passion, and one and all hurrying to

the Grotto as one hurries to a duty, a belief, a pleasure, or a task. He

noticed one among the number, a very short, slim, dark man with a

pronounced Italian accent, whose glittering eyes seemed to be taking a

plan of Lourdes, who looked, indeed, like one of those spies who come and

peer around with a view to conquest; and then he observed another one, an

enormous fellow with a paternal air, who was breathing hard through

inordinate eating, and who paused in front of a poor sick woman, and

ended by slipping a five-franc piece into her hand.

Just then, however, M. de Guersaint returned: "We merely have to go down

the boulevard and the Rue Basse," said he.

Pierre followed him without answering. He had just felt his cassock on

his shoulders for the first time that afternoon, for never had it seemed

so light to him as whilst he was walking about amidst the scramble of the

pilgrimage. The young fellow was now living in a state of mingled

unconsciousness and dizziness, ever hoping that faith would fall upon him

like a lightning flash, in spite of all the vague uneasiness which was

growing within him at sight of the things which he beheld. However, the

spectacle of that ever-swelling stream of priests no longer wounded his

heart; fraternal feelings towards these unknown colleagues had returned

to him; how many of them there must be who believed no more than he did

himself, and yet, like himself, honestly fulfilled their mission as

guides and consolers!

"This boulevard is a new one, you know," said M. de Guersaint, all at

once raising his voice. "The number of houses built during the last

twenty years is almost beyond belief. There is quite a new town here."

The Lapaca flowed along behind the buildings on their right and, their

curiosity inducing them to turn into a narrow lane, they came upon some

strange old structures on the margin of the narrow stream. Several

ancient mills here displayed their wheels; among them one which

Monseigneur Laurence had given to Bernadette's parents after the

apparitions. Tourists, moreover, were here shown the pretended abode of

Bernadette, a hovel whither the Soubirous family had removed on leaving

the Rue des Petits Fosses, and in which the young girl, as she was

already boarding with the Sisters of Nevers, can have but seldom slept.

At last, by way of the Rue Basse, Pierre and his companion reached the

Place du Marcadal.

This was a long, triangular, open space, the most animated and luxurious

of the squares of the old town, the one where the cafes, the chemists,

all the finest shops were situated. And, among the latter, one showed

conspicuously, coloured as it was a lively green, adorned with lofty

mirrors, and surmounted by a broad board bearing in gilt letters the

inscription: "Cazaban, Hairdresser".

M. de Guersaint and Pierre went in, but there was nobody in the salon and

they had to wait. A terrible clatter of forks resounded from the

adjoining room, an ordinary dining-room transformed into a _table

d'hote_, in which some twenty people were having _dejeuner_ although it

was already two o'clock. The afternoon was progressing, and yet people

were still eating from one to the other end of Lourdes. Like every other

householder in the town, whatever his religious convictions might be,

Cazaban, in the pilgrimage season, let his bedrooms, surrendered his

dining-room, end sought refuge in his cellar, where, heaped up with his

family, he ate and slept, although this unventilated hole was no more

than three yards square. However, the passion for trading and moneymaking

carried all before it; at pilgrimage time the whole population

disappeared like that of a conquered city, surrendering even the beds of

its women and its children to the pilgrims, seating them at its tables,

and supplying them with food.

"Is there nobody here?" called M. de Guersaint after waiting a moment.