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live, ay, let us live forever!

This wild cry, the cry of man's furious desire for life, came in broken

accents, 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 from

giving way under the unconscious pressure of the crowd. Baron Suire, in

despair, kept on making signs, begging someone to come to his assistance;

for the Grotto was now invaded, and the march past had become the mere

trampling of a flock rushing to its passion. In vain did Gerard again

leave 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 everybody

rushed in, passing like a torrent between the flaring candles, throwing

bouquets and letters to the Virgin, and kissing the rock, which the

pressure of millions of inflamed lips had polished. It was faith run

wild, 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, raise

loud exclamations at sight of the sufferers lying on the stretchers

before them. One of them was so greatly impressed by the pallid face of

Brother Isidore, whose large dilated eyes were still fixed on the statue

of the Virgin, that she crossed herself, and, overcome by devout

admiration, murmured: "Oh! look at that one; see how he is praying with

his whole heart, and how he gazes on Our Lady of Lourdes!"

The other peasant woman thereupon replied "Oh! she will certainly cure

him, he is so beautiful!"

Indeed, as the dead man lay there, his eyes still fixedly staring whilst

he continued his prayer of love and faith, his appearance touched every

heart. No one in that endless, streaming throng could behold him without

feeling edified.

III. MARIE'S CURE

IT was good Abbe Judaine who was to carry the Blessed Sacrament in the

four-o'clock procession. Since the Blessed Virgin had cured him of a

disease of the eyes, a miracle with which the Catholic press still

resounded, he had become one of the glories of Lourdes, was given the

first place, and honoured with all sorts of attentions.

At half-past three he rose, wishing to leave the Grotto, but the

extraordinary concourse of people quite frightened him, and he feared he

would be late if he did not succeed in getting out of it. Fortunately

help came to him in the person of Berthaud. "Monsieur le Cure," exclaimed

the superintendent of the bearers, "don't attempt to pass out by way of

the Rosary; you would never arrive in time. The best course is to ascend

by 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 a

path 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 we

manage to pass with the procession presently?"

This procession was Berthaud's remaining anxiety. Even on ordinary days

it provoked wild excitement, which forced him to take special measures;

and what would now happen, as it wended its way through this dense

multitude of thirty thousand persons, consumed by such a fever of faith,

already on the verge of divine frenzy? Accordingly, in a sensible way, he

took advantage of this opportunity to give Abbe Judaine the best advice.

"Ah! Monsieur le Cure, pray impress upon your colleagues of the clergy

that they must not leave any space between their ranks; they should come

on slowly, one close behind the other. And, above all, the banners should

be firmly grasped, so that they may not be overthrown. As for yourself,

Monsieur le Cure, see that the canopy-bearers are strong, tighten the

cloth around the monstrance, and don't be afraid to carry it in both

hands with all your strength."

A little frightened by this advice, the priest went on expressing his

thanks. "Of course, of course; you are very good," said he. "Ah!

monsieur, how much I am indebted to you for having helped me to escape

from all those people!"

Then, free at last, he hastened towards the Basilica by the narrow

serpentine path which climbs the hill; while his companion again plunged

into the mob, to return to his post of inspection.

At that same moment Pierre, who was bringing Marie to the Grotto in her

little cart, encountered on the other side, that of the Place du Rosaire,

the impenetrable wall formed by the crowd. The servant at the hotel had

awakened him at three o'clock, so that he might go and fetch the young

girl at the hospital. There seemed to be no hurry; they apparently had

plenty of time to reach the Grotto before the procession. However, that

immense throng, that resisting, living wall, through which he did not

know how to break, began to cause him some uneasiness. He would never

succeed in passing with the little car if the people did not evince some

obligingness. "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 Grotto

sparkling in the distance, and standing on tiptoe so as to lose nothing

of the sight, did not move, however. Besides, the clamour of the litanies

was so loud at this moment that they did not even hear the young priest's

entreaties.

Then Pierre began again: "Pray stand on one side, gentlemen; allow me to

pass. A little room for a sick person. Come, please, listen to what I am

saying!"

But the men, beside themselves, in a blind, deaf rapture, would stir no

more than the women.

Marie, however, smiled serenely, as if ignorant of the impediments, and

convinced that nothing in the world could prevent her from going to her

cure. However, when Pierre had found an aperture, and begun to work his

way through the moving mass, the situation became more serious. From all

parts the swelling human waves beat against the frail chariot, and at

times threatened to submerge it. At each step it became necessary to

stop, wait, and again entreat the people. Pierre had never before felt

such 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 thrill

in its midst, a peculiar atmosphere that upset him. And, in spite of his

affection for the humble, the ugliness of the features around him, the

common, sweating faces, the evil breath, and the old clothes, smelling of

poverty, made him suffer even to nausea.

"Now, ladies, now, gentlemen, it's for a patient," he repeated. "A little

room, I beg of you!"

Buffeted about in this vast ocean, the little vehicle continued to

advance by fits and starts, taking long minutes to get over a few yards

of ground. At one moment you might have thought it swamped, for no sign

of it could be detected. Then, however, it reappeared near the piscinas.

Tender sympathy had at length been awakened for this sick girl, so wasted

by suffering, but still so beautiful. When people had been compelled to

give way before the priest's stubborn pushing, they turned round, but did

not dare to get angry, for pity penetrated them at sight of that thin,

suffering face, shining out amidst a halo of fair hair. Words of

compassion and admiration were heard on all sides: "Ah, the poor

child!"--"Was it not cruel to be infirm at her age?"--"Might the Blessed

Virgin be merciful to her!" Others, however, expressed surprise, struck

as they were by the ecstasy in which they saw her, with her clear eyes

open to the spheres beyond, where she had placed her hope. She beheld

Heaven, she would assuredly be cured. And thus the little car left, as it

were, a feeling of wonder and fraternal charity behind it, as it made its

way with so much difficulty through that human ocean.

Pierre, however, was in despair and at the end of his strength, when some

of the stretcher-bearers came to his aid by forming a path for the

passage of the procession--a path which Berthaud had ordered them to keep

clear by means of cords, which they were to hold at intervals of a couple

of yards. From that moment the young priest was able to drag Marie along

in 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 longer

move in this reserved space, where the crowd seemed to increase every

minute. And, quite exhausted by the painful journey he had just

accomplished, Pierre reflected what a prodigious concourse of people

there 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 now

realised, however, that she wished to speak to him, and accordingly bent

over her. "And my father," she inquired, "is he here? Hasn't he returned

from his excursion?"

Pierre had to answer that M. de Guersaint had not returned, and that he

had doubtless been delayed against his will. And thereupon she merely

added with a smile: "Ah I poor father, won't he be pleased when he finds

me cured!"

Pierre looked at her with tender admiration. He did not remember having

ever seen her looking so adorable since the slow wasting of sickness had

begun. Her hair, which alone disease had respected, clothed her in gold.

Her thin, delicate face had assumed a dreamy expression, her eyes

wandering away to the haunting thought of her sufferings, her features

motionless, as if she had fallen asleep in a fixed thought until the

expected shock of happiness should waken her. She was absent from

herself, ready, however, to return to consciousness whenever God might

will it. And, indeed, this delicious infantile creature, this little girl

of three-and-twenty, still a child as when an accident had struck her,

delaying her growth, preventing her from becoming a woman, was at last

ready to receive the visit of the angel, the miraculous shock which would

draw her out of her torpor and set her upright once more. Her morning

ecstasy continued; she had clasped her hands, and a leap of her whole

being had ravished her from earth as soon as she had perceived the image

of the Blessed Virgin yonder. And now she prayed and offered herself

divinely.

It was an hour of great mental trouble for Pierre. He felt that the drama

of his priestly life was about to be enacted, and that if he did not

recover faith in this crisis, it would never return to him. And he was

without bad thoughts, without resistance, hoping with fervour, he also,

that they might both be healed! Oh! that he might be convinced by her

cure, 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 himself

he was preoccupied by the crowd, that limitless crowd, among which he

found it so difficult to drown himself, disappear, become nothing more

than a leaf in the forest, lost amidst the rustle of all the leaves. He

could not prevent himself from analysing and judging it. He knew that for

four days past it had been undergoing all the training of suggestion;

there had been the fever of the long journey, the excitement of the new

landscapes, the days spent before the splendour of the Grotto, the

sleepless nights, and all the exasperating suffering, ravenous for

illusion. Then, again, there had been the all-besetting prayers, those

hymns, those litanies, which agitated it without a pause. Another priest

had followed Father Massias in the pulpit, a little thin, dark Abbe, whom

Pierre heard hurling appeals to the Virgin and Jesus in a lashing voice

which resounded like a whip. Father Massias and Father Fourcade had

remained at the foot of the pulpit, and were now directing the cries of

the crowd, whose lamentations rose in louder and louder tones beneath the

limpid sunlight. The general exaltation had yet increased; it was the

hour when the violence done to Heaven at last produced the miracles.

All at once a paralytic rose up and walked towards the Grotto, holding

his crutch in the air; and this crutch, waving like a flag above the

swaying heads, wrung loud applause from the faithful. They were all on

the look-out for prodigies, they awaited them with the certainty that

they would take place, innumerable and wonderful. Some eyes seemed to

behold them, and feverish voices pointed them out. Another woman had been

cured! Another! Yet another! A deaf person had heard, a mute had spoken,

a consumptive had revived! What, a consumptive? Certainly, that was a

daily occurrence! Surprise was no longer possible; you might have

certified that an amputated leg was growing again without astonishing

anyone. Miracle-working became the actual state of nature, the usual

thing, quite commonplace, such was its abundance. The most incredible

stories seemed quite simple to those overheated imaginations, given what

they expected from the Blessed Virgin. And you should have heard the

tales that went about, the quiet affirmations, the expressions of

absolute certainty which were exchanged whenever a delirious patient

cried out that she was cured. Another! Yet another! However, a piteous

voice would at times exclaim: "Ah! she's cured; that one; she's lucky,

she is!"

Already, at the Verification Office, Pierre had suffered from this

credulity of the folk among whom he lived. But here it surpassed

everything he could have imagined; and he was exasperated by the

extravagant things he heard people say in such a placid fashion, with the

open smiles of children. Accordingly he tried to absorb himself in his

thoughts and listen to nothing. "O God!" he prayed, "grant that my reason

may be annihilated, that I may no longer desire to understand, that I may

accept the unreal and impossible." For a moment he thought the spirit of