第 86 页

and two big dogs. Then Pierre's reverie again diverged, and he thought of

that trial in which Guillaume had been mentioned, like one suspected of

having compromising friendships amongst the most violent revolutionaries.

It was related, too, that the young man had, after long researches,

discovered the formula of a terrible explosive, one pound of which would

suffice to blow up a cathedral. And Pierre then thought of those

Anarchists who wished to renew and save the world by destroying it. They

were but dreamers, horrible dreamers; yet dreamers in the same way as

those innocent pilgrims whom he had seen kneeling at the Grotto in an

enraptured flock. If the Anarchists, if the extreme Socialists, demanded

with violence the equality of wealth, the sharing of all the enjoyments

of the world, the pilgrims on their side demanded with tears equality of

health and an equitable sharing of moral and physical peace. The latter

relied on miracles, the former appealed to brute force. At bottom,

however, it was but the same exasperated dream of fraternity and justice,

the eternal desire for happiness--neither poor nor sick left, but bliss

for one and all. And, in fact, had not the primitive Christians been

terrible revolutionaries for the pagan world, which they threatened, and

did, indeed, destroy? They who were persecuted, whom the others sought to

exterminate, are to-day inoffensive, because they have become the Past.

The frightful Future is ever the man who dreams of a future society; even

as to-day it is the madman so wildly bent on social renovation that he

harbours the great black dream of purifying everything by the flame of

conflagrations. This seemed monstrous to Pierre. Yet, who could tell?

Therein, perchance, lay the rejuvenated world of to-morrow.

Astray, full of doubts, he nevertheless, in his horror of violence, made

common cause with old society now reduced to defend itself, unable though

he was to say whence would come the new Messiah of Gentleness, in whose

hands he would have liked to place poor ailing mankind. A new religion,

yes, a new religion. But it is not easy to invent one, and he knew not to

what conclusion to come between the ancient faith, which was dead, and

the young faith of to-morrow, as yet unborn. For his part, in his

desolation, he was only sure of keeping his vow, like an unbelieving

priest watching over the belief of others, chastely and honestly

discharging his duties, with the proud sadness that he had been unable to

renounce his reason as he had renounced his flesh. And for the rest, he

would wait.

However, the train rolled on between large parks, and the engine gave a

prolonged whistle, a joyful flourish, which drew Pierre from his

reflections. The others were stirring, displaying emotion around him. The

train had just left Juvisy, and Paris was at last near at hand, within a

short half-hour's journey. One and all were getting their things

together: the Sabathiers were remaking their little parcels, Elise

Rouquet was giving a last glance at her mirror. For a moment Madame de

Jonquiere again became anxious concerning La Grivotte, and decided that

as the girl was in such a pitiful condition she would have her taken

straight to a hospital on arriving; whilst Marie endeavoured to rouse

Madame Vincent from the torpor in which she seemed determined to remain.

M. de Guersaint, who had been indulging in a little siesta, also had to

be awakened. And at last, when Sister Hyacinthe had clapped her hands,

the whole carriage intonated the "Te Deum," the hymn of praise and

thanksgiving. "_Te Deum, laudamus, te Dominum confitemur_." The voices

rose amidst a last burst of fervour. All those glowing souls returned

thanks to God for the beautiful journey, the marvellous favours that He

had already bestowed on them, and would bestow on them yet again.

At last came the fortifications. The two o'clock sun was slowly

descending the vast, pure heavens, so serenely warm. Distant smoke, a

ruddy smoke, was rising in light clouds above the immensity of Paris like

the scattered, flying breath of that toiling colossus. It was Paris in

her forge, Paris with her passions, her battles, her ever-growling

thunder, her ardent life ever engendering the life of to-morrow. And the

white train, the woeful train of every misery and every dolour, was

returning into it all at full speed, sounding in higher and higher

strains the piercing flourishes of its whistle-calls. The five hundred

pilgrims, the three hundred patients, were about to disappear in the vast

city, fall again upon the hard pavement of life after the prodigious

dream in which they had just indulged, until the day should come when

their need of the consolation of a fresh dream would irresistibly impel

them to start once more on the everlasting pilgrimage to mystery and

forgetfulness.

Ah! unhappy mankind, poor ailing humanity, hungering for illusion, and in

the weariness of this waning century distracted and sore from having too

greedily acquired science; it fancies itself abandoned by the physicians

of both the mind and the body, and, in great danger of succumbing to

incurable disease, retraces its steps and asks the miracle of its cure of

the mystical Lourdes of a past forever dead! Yonder, however, Bernadette,

the new Messiah of suffering, so touching in her human reality,

constitutes the terrible lesson, the sacrifice cut off from the world,

the victim condemned to abandonment, solitude, and death, smitten with

the penalty of being neither woman, nor wife, nor mother, because she

beheld the Blessed Virgin.

THE END

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