the miracles, on the point of recounting the prodigious triumph of the
Grotto, when Sister Hyacinthe, awaking with a start from the ecstasy
into which the narrative had plunged her, hastily rose to her feet.
“Really, really,” said she, “there is no sense in it. It will soon be
eleven o’clock.”
This was true. They had left Morceux behind them, and would now soon be
at Mont de Marsan. So Sister Hyacinthe clapped her hands once more, and
added: “Silence, my children, silence!”
This time they did not dare to rebel, for they felt she was in the
right; they were unreasonable. But how greatly they regretted not
hearing the continuation, how vexed they were that the story should
cease when only half told! The ten women in the farther compartment
even let a murmur of disappointment escape them; whilst the sick, their
faces still outstretched, their dilated eyes gazing upon the light of
hope, seemed to be yet listening. Those miracles which ever and ever
returned to their minds and filled them with unlimited, haunting,
supernatural joy.
“And don’t let me hear anyone breathe, even,” added Sister Hyacinthe
gaily, “or otherwise I shall impose penance on you.”
Madame de Jonquiere laughed good-naturedly. “You must obey, my
children,” she said; “be good and get to sleep, so that you may have
strength to pray at the Grotto to-morrow with all your hearts.”
Then silence fell, nobody spoke any further; and the only sounds were
those of the rumbling of the wheels and the jolting of the train as it
was carried along at full speed through the black night.
Pierre, however, was unable to sleep. Beside him, M. de Guersaint was
already snoring lightly, looking very happy despite the hardness of his
seat. For a time the young priest saw Marie’s eyes wide open, still
full of all the radiance of the marvels that he had related. For a long
while she kept them ardently fixed upon his own, but at last closed
them, and then he knew not whether she was sleeping, or with eyelids
simply closed was living the everlasting miracle over again. Some of
the sufferers were dreaming aloud, giving vent to bursts of laughter
which unconscious moans interrupted. Perhaps they beheld the Archangels
opening their flesh to wrest their diseases from them. Others, restless
with insomnia, turned over and over, stifling their sobs and gazing
fixedly into the darkness. And, with a shudder born of all the mystery
he had evoked, Pierre, distracted, no longer master of himself in that
delirious sphere of fraternal suffering, ended by hating his very mind,
and, drawn into close communion with all those humble folks, sought to
believe like them. What could be the use of that physiological inquiry
into Bernadette’s case, so full of gaps and intricacies? Why should he
not accept her as a messenger from the spheres beyond, as one of the
elect chosen for the divine mystery? Doctors were but ignorant men with
rough and brutal hands, and it would be so delightful to fall asleep in
childlike faith, in the enchanted gardens of the impossible. And for a
moment indeed he surrendered himself, experiencing a delightful feeling
of comfort, no longer seeking to explain anything, but accepting the
Visionary with her sumptuous /cortege/ of miracles, and relying on God
to think and determine for him. Then he looked out through the window,
which they did not dare to open on account of the consumptive patients,
and beheld the immeasurable night which enwrapped the country across
which the train was fleeing. The storm must have burst forth there; the
sky was now of an admirable nocturnal purity, as though cleansed by the
masses of fallen water. Large stars shone out in the dark velvet, alone
illumining, with their mysterious gleams, the silent, refreshed fields,
which incessantly displayed only the black solitude of slumber. And
across the Landes, through the valleys, between the hills, that
carriage of wretchedness and suffering rolled on and on, over-heated,
pestilential, rueful, and wailing, amidst the serenity of the august
night, so lovely and so mild.
They had passed Riscle at one in the morning. Between the jolting, the
painful, the hallucinatory silence still continued. At two o’clock, as
they reached Vic-de-Bigorre, low moans were heard; the bad state of the
line, with the unbearable spreading tendency of the train’s motion, was
sorely shaking the patients. It was only at Tarbes, at half-past two,
that silence was at length broken, and that morning prayers were said,
though black night still reigned around them. There came first the
“Pater,” and then the “Ave,” the “Credo,” and the supplication to God
to grant them the happiness of a glorious day.
“O God, vouchsafe me sufficient strength that I may avoid all that is
evil, do all that is good, and suffer uncomplainingly every pain.”
And now there was to be no further stoppage until they reached Lourdes.
Barely three more quarters of an hour, and Lourdes, with all its vast
hopes, would blaze forth in the midst of that night, so long and cruel.
Their painful awakening was enfevered by the thought; a final agitation
arose amidst the morning discomfort, as the abominable sufferings began
afresh.
Sister Hyacinthe, however, was especially anxious about the strange
man, whose sweat-covered face she had been continually wiping. He had
so far managed to keep alive, she watching him without a pause, never
having once closed her eyes, but unremittingly listening to his faint
breathing with the stubborn desire to take him to the holy Grotto
before he died.
All at once, however, she felt frightened; and addressing Madame de
Jonquiere, she hastily exclaimed, “Pray pass me the vinegar bottle at
once—I can no longer hear him breathe.”
For an instant, indeed, the man’s faint breathing had ceased. His eyes
were still closed, his lips parted; he could not have been paler, he
had an ashen hue, and was cold. And the carriage was rolling along with
its ceaseless rattle of coupling-irons; the speed of the train seemed
even to have increased.
“I will rub his temples,” resumed Sister Hyacinthe. “Help me, do!”
But, at a more violent jolt of the train, the man suddenly fell from
the seat, face downward.
“Ah! /mon Dieu/, help me, pick him up!”
They picked him up, and found him dead. And they had to seat him in his
corner again, with his back resting against the woodwork. He remained
there erect, his torso stiffened, and his head wagging slightly at each
successive jolt. Thus the train continued carrying him along, with the
same thundering noise of wheels, while the engine, well pleased, no
doubt, to be reaching its destination, began whistling shrilly, giving
vent to quite a flourish of delirious joy as it sped through the calm
night.
And then came the last and seemingly endless half-hour of the journey,
in company with that wretched corpse. Two big tears had rolled down
Sister Hyacinthe’s cheeks, and with her hands joined she had begun to
pray. The whole carriage shuddered with terror at sight of that
terrible companion who was being taken, too late alas! to the Blessed
Virgin.
Hope, however, proved stronger than sorrow or pain, and although all
the sufferings there assembled awoke and grew again, irritated by
overwhelming weariness, a song of joy nevertheless proclaimed the
sufferers’ triumphal entry into the Land of Miracles. Amidst the tears
which their pains drew from them, the exasperated and howling sick
began to chant the “Ave maris Stella” with a growing clamour in which
lamentation finally turned into cries of hope.
Marie had again taken Pierre’s hand between her little feverish
fingers. “Oh, /mon Dieu!/” said she, “to think that poor man is dead,
and I feared so much that it was I who would die before arriving. And
we are there—there at last!”
The priest was trembling with intense emotion. “It means that you are
to be cured, Marie,” he replied, “and that I myself shall be cured if
you pray for me—”
The engine was now whistling in a yet louder key in the depths of the
bluish darkness. They were nearing their destination. The lights of
Lourdes already shone out on the horizon. Then the whole train again
sang a canticle—the rhymed story of Bernadette, that endless ballad of
six times ten couplets, in which the Angelic Salutation ever returns as
a refrain, all besetting and distracting, opening to the human mind the
portals of the heaven of ecstasy:—
“It was the hour for ev’ning pray’r;
Soft bells chimed on the chilly air.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“The maid stood on the torrent’s bank,
A breeze arose, then swiftly sank.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“And she beheld, e’en as it fell,
The Virgin on Massabielle.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“All white appeared the Lady chaste,
A zone of Heaven round her waist.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“Two golden roses, pure and sweet,
Bloomed brightly on her naked feet.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“Upon her arm, so white and round,
Her chaplet’s milky pearls were wound.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“The maiden prayed till, from her eyes,
The vision sped to Paradise.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!”