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growing up around her, the life that everybody led, the joys and sorrows

that her own parents had known, and which her children would have had to

know in their turn. But little by little all vanished, and she again

found herself in her chair of suffering, imprisoned between four cold

walls, with no other desire than a longing one for a speedy death, since

she had been denied a share of the poor common happiness of this world.

Bernadette's ailments increased each year. It was, in fact, the

commencement of her passion, the passion of this new child-Messiah, who

had come to bring relief to the unhappy, to announce to mankind the

religion of divine justice and equality in the face of miracles which

flouted the laws of impassible nature. If she now rose it was only to

drag herself from chair to chair for a few days at a time, and then she

would have a relapse and be again forced to take to her bed. Her

sufferings became terrible. Her hereditary nervousness, her asthma,

aggravated by cloister life, had probably turned into phthisis. She

coughed frightfully, each fit rending her burning chest and leaving her

half dead. To complete her misery, caries of the right knee-cap

supervened, a gnawing disease, the shooting pains of which caused her to

cry aloud. Her poor body, to which dressings were continually being

applied, became one great sore, which was irritated by the warmth of her

bed, by her prolonged sojourn between sheets whose friction ended by

breaking her skin. One and all pitied her; those who beheld her martyrdom

said that it was impossible to suffer more, or with greater fortitude.

She tried some of the Lourdes water, but it brought her no relief. Lord,

Almighty King, why cure others and not cure her? To save her soul? Then

dost Thou not save the souls of the others? What an inexplicable

selection! How absurd that in the eternal evolution of worlds it should

be necessary for this poor being to be tortured! She sobbed, and again

and again said in order to keep up her courage: "Heaven is at the end,

but how long the end is in coming!" There was ever the idea that

suffering is the test, that it is necessary to suffer upon earth if one

would triumph elsewhere, that suffering is indispensable, enviable, and

blessed. But is this not blasphemous, O Lord? Hast Thou not created youth

and joy? Is it Thy wish that Thy creatures should enjoy neither the sun,

nor the smiling Nature which Thou hast created, nor the human affections

with which Thou hast endowed their flesh? She dreaded the feeling of

revolt which maddened her at times, and wished also to strengthen herself

against the disease which made her groan, and she crucified herself in

thought, extending her arms so as to form a cross and unite herself to

Jesus, her limbs against His limbs, her mouth against His mouth,

streaming the while with blood like Him, and steeped like Him in

bitterness! Jesus died in three hours, but a longer agony fell to her,

who again brought redemption by pain, who died to give others life. When

her bones ached with agony she would sometimes utter complaints, but she

reproached herself immediately. "Oh! how I suffer, oh! how I suffer! but

what happiness it is to bear this pain!" There can be no more frightful

words, words pregnant with a blacker pessimism. Happy to suffer, O Lord!

but why, and to what unknown and senseless end? Where is the reason in

this useless cruelty, in this revolting glorification of suffering, when

from the whole of humanity there ascends but one desperate longing for

health and happiness?

In the midst of her frightful sufferings, however, Sister Marie-Bernard

took the final vows on September 22, 1878. Twenty years had gone by since

the Blessed Virgin had appeared to her, visiting her as the Angel had

visited the Virgin, choosing her as the Virgin had been chosen, amongst

the most lowly and the most candid, that she might hide within her the

secret of King Jesus. Such was the mystical explanation of that election

of suffering, the _raison d'etre_ of that being who was so harshly

separated from her fellows, weighed down by disease, transformed into the

pitiable field of every human affliction. She was the "garden inclosed"*

that brings such pleasure to the gaze of the Spouse. He had chosen her,

then buried her in the death of her hidden life. And even when the

unhappy creature staggered beneath the weight of her cross, her

companions would say to her: "Do you forget that the Blessed Virgin

promised you that you should be happy, not in this world, but in the

next?" And with renewed strength, and striking her forehead, she would

answer: "Forget? no, no! it is here!" She only recovered temporary energy

by means of this illusion of a paradise of glory, into which she would

enter escorted by seraphims, to be forever and ever happy. The three

personal secrets which the Blessed Virgin had confided to her, to arm her

against evil, must have been promises of beauty, felicity, and

immortality in heaven. What monstrous dupery if there were only the

darkness of the earth beyond the grave, if the Blessed Virgin of her

dream were not there to meet her with the prodigious guerdons she had

promised! But Bernadette had not a doubt; she willingly undertook all the

little commissions with which her companions naively entrusted her for

Heaven: "Sister Marie-Bernard, you'll say this, you'll say that, to the

Almighty." "Sister Marie-Bernard, you'll kiss my brother if you meet him

in Paradise." "Sister Marie-Bernard, give me a little place beside you

when I die." And she obligingly answered each one: "Have no fear, I will

do it!" Ah! all-powerful illusion, delicious repose, power ever reviving

and consolatory!

* Song of Solomon iv. 12.

And then came the last agony, then came death.

On Friday, March 28, 1879, it was thought that she would not last the

night. She had a despairing longing for the tomb, in order that she might

suffer no more, and live again in heaven. And thus she obstinately

refused to receive extreme unction, saying that twice already it had

cured her. She wished, in short, that God would let her die, for it was

more than she could bear; it would have been unreasonable to require that

she should suffer longer. Yet she ended by consenting to receive the

sacraments, and her last agony was thereby prolonged for nearly three

weeks. The priest who attended her frequently said: "My daughter, you

must make the sacrifice of your life"; and one day, quite out of

patience, she sharply answered him: "But, Father, it is no sacrifice." A

terrible saying, that also, for it implied disgust at _being_, furious

contempt for existence, and an immediate ending of her humanity, had she

had the power to suppress herself by a gesture. It is true that the poor

girl had nothing to regret, that she had been compelled to banish

everything from her life, health, joy, and love, so that she might leave

it as one casts off a soiled, worn, tattered garment. And she was right;

she condemned her useless, cruel life when she said: "My passion will

finish only at my death; it will not cease until I enter into eternity."

And this idea of her passion pursued her, attaching her more closely to

the cross with her Divine Master. She had induced them to give her a

large crucifix; she pressed it vehemently against her poor maidenly

breast, exclaiming that she would like to thrust it into her bosom and

leave it there. Towards the end, her strength completely forsook her, and

she could no longer grasp the crucifix with her trembling hands. "Let it

be tightly tied to me," she prayed, "that I may feel it until my last

breath!" The Redeemer upon that crucifix was the only spouse that she was

destined to know; His bleeding kiss was to be the only one bestowed upon

her womanhood, diverted from nature's course. The nuns took cords, passed

them under her aching back, and fastened the crucifix so roughly to her

bosom that it did indeed penetrate it.

At last death took pity upon her. On Easter Monday she was seized with a

great fit of shivering. Hallucinations perturbed her, she trembled with

fright, she beheld the devil jeering and prowling around her. "Be off, be

off, Satan!" she gasped; "do not touch me, do not carry me away!" And

amidst her delirium she related that the fiend had sought to throw

himself upon her, that she had felt his mouth scorching her with all the

flames of hell. The devil in a life so pure, in a soul without sin! what

for, O Lord! and again I ask it, why this relentless suffering, intense

to the very last, why this nightmare-like ending, this death troubled

with such frightful fancies, after so beautiful a life of candour,

purity, and innocence? Could she not fall asleep serenely in the

peacefulness of her chaste soul? But doubtless so long as breath remained

in her body it was necessary to leave her the hatred and dread of life,

which is the devil. It was life which menaced her, and it was life which

she cast out, in the same way that she denied life when she reserved to

the Celestial Bridegroom her tortured, crucified womanhood. That dogma of

the Immaculate Conception, which her dream had come to strengthen, was a

blow dealt by the Church to woman, both wife and mother. To decree that

woman is only worthy of worship on condition that she be a virgin, to

imagine that virgin to be herself born without sin, is not this an insult

to Nature, the condemnation of life, the denial of womanhood, whose true

greatness consists in perpetuating life? "Be off, be off, Satan! let me

die without fulfilling Nature's law." And she drove the sunshine from the

room and the free air that entered by the window, the air that was sweet

with the scent of flowers, laden with all the floating germs which

transmit love throughout the whole vast world.

On the Wednesday after Easter (April 16th), the death agony commenced. It

is related that on the morning of that day one of Bernadette's

companions, a nun attacked with a mortal illness and lying in the

infirmary in an adjoining bed, was suddenly healed upon drinking a glass

of Lourdes water. But she, the privileged one, had drunk of it in vain.

God at last granted her the signal favour which she desired by sending

her into the good sound sleep of the earth, in which there is no more

suffering. She asked pardon of everyone. Her passion was consummated;

like the Saviour, she had the nails and the crown of thorns, the scourged

limbs, the pierced side. Like Him she raised her eyes to heaven, extended

her arms in the form of a cross, and uttered a loud cry: "My God!" And,

like Him, she said, towards three o'clock: "I thirst." She moistened her

lips in the glass, then bowed her head and expired.

Thus, very glorious and very holy, died the Visionary of Lourdes,

Bernadette Soubirous, Sister Marie-Bernard, one of the Sisters of Charity

of Nevers. During three days her body remained exposed to view, and vast

crowds passed before it; a whole people hastened to the convent, an

interminable procession of devotees hungering after hope, who rubbed

medals, chaplets, pictures, and missals against the dead woman's dress,

to obtain from her one more favour, a fetish bringing happiness. Even in

death her dream of solitude was denied her: a mob of the wretched ones of

this world rushed to the spot, drinking in illusion around her coffin.

And it was noticed that her left eye, the eye which at the time of the

apparitions had been nearest to the Blessed Virgin, remained obstinately

open. Then a last miracle amazed the convent: the body underwent no

change, but was interred on the third day, still supple, warm, with red

lips, and a very white skin, rejuvenated as it were, and smelling sweet.

And to-day Bernadette Soubirous, exiled from Lourdes, obscurely sleeps

her last sleep at Saint Gildard, beneath a stone slab in a little chapel,

amidst the shade and silence of the old trees of the garden, whilst

yonder the Grotto shines resplendently in all its triumph.

Pierre ceased speaking; the beautiful, marvellous story was ended. And

yet the whole carriage was still listening, deeply impressed by that

death, at once so tragic and so touching. Compassionate tears fell from

Marie's eyes, while the others, Elise Rouquet, La Grivotte herself, now

calmer, clasped their hands and prayed to her who was in heaven to

intercede with the Divinity to complete their cure. M. Sabathier made a

big sign of the cross, and then ate a cake which his wife had bought him

at Poitiers.

M. de Guersaint, whom sad things always upset, had fallen asleep again in

the middle of the story. And there was only Madame Vincent, with her face

buried in her pillow, who had not stirred, like a deaf and blind

creature, determined to see and hear nothing more.

Meanwhile the train rolled, still rolled along. Madame de Jonquiere,

after putting her head out of the window, informed them that they were

approaching Etampes. And, when they had left that station behind them,

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

the Rosary, 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, and the Crowning of the Most Blessed Virgin.

And afterwards they sang the canticle:

"O Virgin, in thy help I put my trust."

Then Pierre fell into a deep reverie. His glance had turned towards the

now sunlit landscape, the continual flight of which seemed to lull his

thoughts. The noise of the wheels was making him dizzy, and he ended by

no longer recognising the familiar horizon of this vast suburban expanse

with which he had once been acquainted. They still had to pass Bretigny

and Juvisy, and then, in an hour and a half at the utmost, they would at

last be at Paris. So the great journey was finished! the inquiry, which

he had so much desired to make, the experiment which he had attempted

with so much passion, were over! He had wished to acquire certainty, to