第 73 页

at once been transported from one to another town, parted by centuries.

He had left the solitude, the slumbering peacefulness of old Lourdes,

which the dead light of the vellum had increased, to fall at last into

new Lourdes, sparkling with brightness and noisy with the crowd. Ten

o'clock had just struck, and extraordinary animation reigned on the

footways, where before breakfast an entire people was hastening to

complete its purchases, so that it might have nothing but its departure

to think of afterwards. The thousands of pilgrims of the national

pilgrimage streamed along the thoroughfares and besieged the shops in a

final scramble. You would have taken the cries, the jostling, and the

sudden rushes for those at some fair just breaking up amidst a ceaseless

roll of vehicles. Many, providing themselves with provisions for the

journey, cleared the open-air stalls where bread and slices of sausages

and ham were sold. Others purchased fruit and wine; baskets were filled

with bottles and greasy parcels until they almost burst. A hawker who was

wheeling some cheeses about on a small truck saw his goods carried off as

if swept away by the wind. But what the crowd more particularly purchased

were religious articles, and those hawkers whose barrows were loaded with

statuettes and sacred engravings were reaping golden gains. The customers

at the shops stood in strings on the pavement; the women were belted with

immense chaplets, had Blessed Virgins tucked under their arms, and were

provided with cans which they meant to fill at the miraculous spring.

Carried in the hand or slung from the shoulder, some of them quite plain

and others daubed over with a Lady of Lourdes in blue paint, these cans

held from one to ten quarts apiece; and, shining with all the brightness

of new tin, clashing, too, at times with the sharp jingle of stew-pans,

they added a gay note to the aspect of the noisy multitude. And the fever

of dealing, the pleasure of spending one's money, of returning home with

one's pockets crammed with photographs and medals, lit up all faces with

a holiday expression, transforming the radiant gathering into a

fair-field crowd with appetites either beyond control or satisfied.

On the Plateau de la Merlasse, M. de Guersaint for a moment felt tempted

to enter one of the finest and most patronised shops, on the board over

which were these words in large letters: "Soubirous, Brother of

Bernadette."

"Eh! what if we were to make our purchases there? It would be more

appropriate, more interesting to remember."

However, he passed on, repeating that they must see everything first of

all.

Pierre had looked at the shop kept by Bernadette's brother with a heavy

heart. It grieved him to find the brother selling the Blessed Virgin whom

the sister had beheld. However, it was necessary to live, and he had

reason to believe that, beside the triumphant Basilica resplendent with

gold, the visionary's relatives were not making a fortune, the

competition being so terrible. If on the one hand the pilgrims left

millions behind them at Lourdes, on the other there were more than two

hundred dealers in religious articles, to say nothing of the hotel and

lodging-house keepers, to whom the largest part of the spoils fell; and

thus the gain, so eagerly disputed, ended by being moderate enough after

all. Along the Plateau on the right and left of the repository kept by

Bernadette's brother, other shops appeared, an uninterrupted row of them,

pressing one against the other, each occupying a division of a long

wooden structure, a sort of gallery erected by the town, which derived

from it some sixty thousand francs a year. It formed a regular bazaar of

open stalls, encroaching on the pavements so as to tempt people to stop

as they passed along. For more than three hundred yards no other trade

was plied: a river of chaplets, medals, and statuettes streamed without

end behind the windows; and in enormous letters on the boards above

appeared the venerated names of Saint Roch, Saint Joseph, Jerusalem, The

Immaculate Virgin, The Sacred Heart of Mary, all the names in Paradise

that were most likely to touch and attract customers.

"Really," said M. de Guersaint, "I think it's the same thing all over the

place. Let us go anywhere." He himself had had enough of it, this

interminable display was quite exhausting him.

"But as you promised to make the purchases at Majeste's," said Marie, who

was not, in the least tired, "the best thing will be to go back."

"That's it; let's return to Majeste's place."

But the rows of shops began again in the Avenue de la Grotte. They

swarmed on both sides; and among them here were jewellers, drapers, and

umbrella-makers, who also dealt in religious articles. There was even a

confectioner who sold boxes of pastilles _a l'eau de Lourdes_, with a

figure of the Virgin on the cover. A photographer's windows were crammed

with views of the Grotto and the Basilica, and portraits of Bishops and

reverend Fathers of all Orders, mixed up with views of famous sites in

the neighbouring mountains. A bookseller displayed the last Catholic

publications, volumes bearing devout titles, and among them the

innumerable works published on Lourdes during the last twenty years, some

of which had had a wonderful success, which was still fresh in memory. In

this broad, populous thoroughfare the crowd streamed along in more open

order; their cans jingled, everyone was in high spirits, amid the bright

sunrays which enfiladed the road from one end to the other. And it seemed

as if there would never be a finish to the statuettes, the medals, and

the chaplets; one display followed another; and, indeed, there were miles

of them running through the streets of the entire town, which was ever

the same bazaar selling the same articles.

In front of the Hotel of the Apparitions M. de Guersaint again hesitated.

"Then it's decided, we are going to make our purchases there?" he asked.

"Certainly," said Marie. "See what a beautiful shop it is!"

And she was the first to enter the establishment, which was, in fact, one

of the largest in the street, occupying the ground-floor of the hotel on

the left hand. M. de Guersaint and Pierre followed her.

Apolline, the niece of the Majestes, who was in charge of the place, was

standing on a stool, taking some holy-water vases from a top shelf to

show them to a young man, an elegant bearer, wearing beautiful yellow

gaiters. She was laughing with the cooing sound of a dove, and looked

charming with her thick black hair and her superb eyes, set in a somewhat

square face, which had a straight forehead, chubby cheeks, and full red

lips. Jumping lightly to the ground, she exclaimed: "Then you don't think

that this pattern would please madame, your aunt?"

"No, no," answered the bearer, as he went off. "Obtain the other pattern.

I shall not leave until to-morrow, and will come back."

When Apolline learnt that Marie was the young person visited by the

miracle of whom Madame Majeste had been talking ever since the previous

day, she became extremely attentive. She looked at her with her merry

smile, in which there was a dash of surprise and covert incredulity.

However, like the clever saleswoman that she was, she was profuse in

complimentary remarks. "Ah, mademoiselle, I shall be so happy to sell to

you! Your miracle is so beautiful! Look, the whole shop is at your

disposal. We have the largest choice."

Marie was ill at ease. "Thank you," she replied, "you are very good. But

we have only come to buy a few small things."

"If you will allow us," said M. de Guersaint, "we will choose ourselves."

"Very well. That's it, monsieur. Afterwards we will see!"

And as some other customers now came in, Apolline forgot them, returned

to her duties as a pretty saleswoman, with caressing words and seductive

glances, especially for the gentlemen, whom she never allowed to leave

until they had their pockets full of purchases.

M. de Guersaint had only two francs left of the louis which Blanche, his

eldest daughter, had slipped into his hand when he was leaving, as

pocket-money; and so he did not dare to make any large selection. But

Pierre declared that they would cause him great pain if they did not

allow him to offer them the few things which they would like to take away

with them from Lourdes. It was therefore understood that they would first

of all choose a present for Blanche, and then Marie and her father should

select the souvenirs that pleased them best.

"Don't let us hurry," repeated M. de Guersaint, who had become very gay.

"Come, Marie, have a good look. What would be most likely to please

Blanche?"

All three looked, searched, and rummaged. But their indecision increased

as they went from one object to another. With its counters, show-cases,

and nests of drawers, furnishing it from top to bottom, the spacious shop

was a sea of endless billows, overflowing with all the religious

knick-knacks imaginable. There were the chaplets: skeins of chaplets

hanging along the walls, and heaps of chaplets lying in the drawers, from

humble ones costing twenty sons a dozen, to those of sweet-scented wood,

agate, and lapis-lazuli, with chains of gold or silver; and some of them,

of immense length, made to go twice round the neck or waist, had carved

beads, as large as walnuts, separated by death's-heads. Then there were

the medals: a shower of medals, boxes full of medals, of all sizes, of

all metals, the cheapest and the most precious. They bore different

inscriptions, they represented the Basilica, the Grotto, or the

Immaculate Conception; they were engraved, _repoussees_, or enamelled,

executed with care, or made by the gross, according to the price. And

next there were the Blessed Virgins, great and small, in zinc, wood,

ivory, and especially plaster; some entirely white, others tinted in

bright colours, in accordance with the description given by Bernadette;

the amiable and smiling face, the extremely long veil, the blue sash, and

the golden roses on the feet, there being, however, some slight

modification in each model so as to guarantee the copyright. And there

was another flood of other religious objects: a hundred varieties of

scapularies, a thousand different sorts of sacred pictures: fine

engravings, large chromo-lithographs in glaring colours, submerged

beneath a mass of smaller pictures, which were coloured, gilded,

varnished, decorated with bouquets of flowers, and bordered with lace

paper. And there was also jewellery: rings, brooches, and bracelets,

loaded with stars and crosses, and ornamented with saintly figures.

Finally, there was the Paris article, which rose above and submerged all

the rest: pencil-holders, purses, cigar-holders, paperweights,

paper-knives, even snuff-boxes; and innumerable other objects on which

the Basilica, Grotto, and Blessed Virgin ever and ever appeared,

reproduced in every way, by every process that is known. Heaped together

pell-mell in one of the cases reserved to articles at fifty centimes

apiece were napkin-rings, egg-cups, and wooden pipes, on which was carved

the beaming apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes.

Little by little, M. de Guersaint, with the annoyance of a man who prides

himself on being an artist, became disgusted and quite sad. "But all this

is frightful, frightful!" he repeated at every new article he took up to

look at.

Then he relieved himself by reminding Pierre of the ruinous attempt which

he had made to improve the artistic quality of religious prints. The

remains of his fortune had been lost in that attempt, and the thought

made him all the more angry, in presence of the wretched productions with

which the shop was crammed. Had anyone ever seen things of such idiotic,

pretentious, and complicated ugliness! The vulgarity of the ideas and the

silliness of the expressions portrayed rivalled the commonplace character

of the composition. You were reminded of fashion-plates, the covers of

boxes of sweets, and the wax dolls' heads that revolve in hairdressers'

windows; it was an art abounding in false prettiness, painfully childish,

with no really human touch in it, no tone, and no sincerity. And the

architect, who was wound up, could not stop, but went on to express his

disgust with the buildings of new Lourdes, the pitiable disfigurement of

the Grotto, the colossal monstrosity of the inclined ways, the disastrous

lack of symmetry in the church of the Rosary and the Basilica, the former

looking too heavy, like a corn market, whilst the latter had an anaemical

structural leanness with no kind of style but the mongrel.

"Ah! one must really be very fond of God," he at last concluded, "to have

courage enough to come and adore Him amidst such horrors! They have

failed in everything, spoilt everything, as though out of pleasure. Not

one of them has experienced that moment of true feeling, of real

naturalness and sincere faith, which gives birth to masterpieces. They

are all clever people, but all plagiarists; not one has given his mind

and being to the undertaking. And what must they not require to inspire

them, since they have failed to produce anything grand even in this land

of miracles?"

Pierre did not reply, but he was very much struck by these reflections,

which at last gave him an explanation of a feeling of discomfort that he

had experienced ever since his arrival at Lourdes. This discomfort arose

from the difference between the modern surroundings and the faith of past

ages which it sought to resuscitate. He thought of the old cathedrals

where quivered that faith of nations; he pictured the former attributes

of worship--the images, the goldsmith's work, the saints in wood and

stone--all of admirable power and beauty of expression. The fact was that

in those ancient times the workmen had been true believers, had given

their whole souls and bodies and all the candour of their feelings to