THE green landscapes of Poitou were now defiling before them, and Abbe
Pierre Froment, gazing out of the window, watched the trees fly away
till, little by little, he ceased to distinguish them. A steeple appeared
and then vanished, and all the pilgrims crossed themselves. They would
not reach Poitiers until twelve-thirty-five, and the train was still
rolling on amid the growing weariness of that oppressive, stormy day.
Falling into a deep reverie, the young priest no longer heard the words
of the canticle, which sounded in his ears merely like a slow, wavy
lullaby.
Forgetfulness of the present had come upon him, an awakening of the past
filled his whole being. He was reascending the stream of memory,
reascending it to its source. He again beheld the house at Neuilly, where
he had been born and where he still lived, that home of peace and toil,
with its garden planted with a few fine trees, and parted by a quickset
hedge and palisade from the garden of the neighbouring house, which was
similar to his own. He was again three, perhaps four, years old, and
round a table, shaded by the big horse-chestnut tree he once more beheld
his father, his mother, and his elder brother at _dejeuner_. To his
father, Michel Froment, he could give no distinct lineaments; he pictured
him but faintly, vaguely, renowned as an illustrious chemist, bearing the
title of Member of the Institute, and leading a cloistered life in the
laboratory which he had installed in that secluded, deserted suburb.
However he could plainly see his first brother Guillaume, then fourteen
years of age, whom some holiday had brought from college that morning,
and then and even more vividly his mother, so gentle and so quiet, with
eyes so full of active kindliness. Later on he learnt what anguish had
racked that religious soul, that believing woman who, from esteem and
gratitude, had resignedly accepted marriage with an unbeliever, her
senior by fifteen years, to whom her relatives were indebted for great
services. He, Pierre, the tardy offspring of this union, born when his
father was already near his fiftieth year, had only known his mother as a
respectful, conquered woman in the presence of her husband, whom she had
learnt to love passionately, with the frightful torment of knowing,
however, that he was doomed to perdition. And, all at once, another
memory flashed upon the young priest, the terrible memory of the day when
his father had died, killed in his laboratory by an accident, the
explosion of a retort. He, Pierre, had then been five years old, and he
remembered the slightest incidents--his mother’s cry when she had found
the shattered body among the remnants of the chemical appliances, then
her terror, her sobs, her prayers at the idea that God had slain the
unbeliever, damned him for evermore. Not daring to burn his books and
papers, she had contented herself with locking up the laboratory, which
henceforth nobody entered. And from that moment, haunted by a vision of
hell, she had had but one idea, to possess herself of her second son, who
was still so young, to give him a strictly religious training, and
through him to ransom her husband--secure his forgiveness from God.
Guillaume, her elder boy, had already ceased to belong to her, having
grown up at college, where he had been won over by the ideas of the
century; but she resolved that the other, the younger one, should not
leave the house, but should have a priest as tutor; and her secret dream,
her consuming hope, was that she might some day see him a priest himself,
saying his first mass and solacing souls whom the thought of eternity
tortured.
Then between green, leafy boughs, flecked with sunlight, another figure
rose vividly before Pierre’s eyes. He suddenly beheld Marie de Guersaint
as he had seen her one morning through a gap in the hedge dividing the
two gardens. M. de Guersaint, who belonged to the petty Norman
_noblesse_, was a combination of architect and inventor; and he was at
that time busy with a scheme of model dwellings for the poor, to which
churches and schools were to be attached; an affair of considerable
magnitude, planned none too well, however, and in which, with his
customary impetuosity, the lack of foresight of an imperfect artist, he
was risking the three hundred thousand francs that he possessed. A
similarity of religious faith had drawn Madame de Guersaint and Madame
Froment together; but the former was altogether a superior woman,
perspicuous and rigid, with an iron hand which alone prevented her
household from gliding to a catastrophe; and she was bringing up her two
daughters, Blanche and Marie, in principles of narrow piety, the elder
one already being as grave as herself, whilst the younger, albeit very
devout, was still fond of play, with an intensity of life within her
which found vent in gay peals of sonorous laughter. From their early
childhood Pierre and Marie played together, the hedge was ever being
crossed, the two families constantly mingled. And on that clear sunshiny
morning, when he pictured her parting the leafy branches she was already
ten years old. He, who was sixteen, was to enter the seminary on the
following Tuesday. Never had she seemed to him so pretty. Her hair, of a
pure golden hue, was so long that when it was let down it sufficed to
clothe her. Well did he remember her face as it had been, with round
cheeks, blue eyes, red mouth, and skin of dazzling, snowy whiteness. She
was indeed as gay and brilliant as the sun itself, a transplendency. Yet
there were tears at the corners of her eyes, for she was aware of his
coming departure. They sat down together at the far end of the garden, in
the shadow cast by the hedge. Their hands mingled, and their hearts were
very heavy. They had, however, never exchanged any vows amid their
pastimes, for their innocence was absolute. But now, on the eve of
separation, their mutual tenderness rose to their lips, and they spoke
without knowing, swore that they would ever think of one another, and
find one another again, some day, even as one meets in heaven to be very,
very happy. Then, without understanding how it happened, they clasped
each other tightly, to the point of suffocation, and kissed each other’s
face, weeping, the while, hot tears. And it was that delightful memory
which Pierre had ever carried with him, which he felt alive within him
still, after so many years, and after so many painful renunciations.
Just then a more violent shock roused him from his reverie. He turned his
eyes upon the carriage and vaguely espied the suffering beings it
contained--Madame Maze motionless, overwhelmed with grief; little Rose
gently moaning in her mother’s lap; La Grivotte, whom a hoarse cough was
choking. For a moment Sister Hyacinthe’s gay face shone out amidst the
whiteness of her coif and wimple, dominating all the others. The painful
journey was continuing, with a ray of divine hope still and ever shining
yonder. Then everything slowly vanished from Pierre’s eyes as a fresh
wave of memory brought the past back from afar; and nothing of the
present remained save the lulling hymn, the indistinct voices of
dreamland, emerging from the invisible.
Henceforth he was at the seminary. The classrooms, the recreation ground
with its trees, rose up clearly before him. But all at once he only
beheld, as in a mirror, the youthful face which had then been his, and he
contemplated it and scrutinised it, as though it had been the face of a
stranger. Tall and slender, he had an elongated visage, with an unusually
developed forehead, lofty and straight like a tower; whilst his jaws
tapered, ending in a small refined chin. He seemed, in fact, to be all
brains; his mouth, rather large, alone retained an expression of
tenderness. Indeed, when his usually serious face relaxed, his mouth and
eyes acquired an exceedingly soft expression, betokening an unsatisfied,
hungry desire to love, devote oneself, and live. But immediately
afterwards, the look of intellectual passion would come back again, that
intellectuality which had ever consumed him with an anxiety to understand
and know. And it was with surprise that he now recalled those years of
seminary life. How was it that he had so long been able to accept the
rude discipline of blind faith, of obedient belief in everything without
the slightest examination? It had been required of him that he should
absolutely surrender his reasoning faculties, and he had striven to do
so, had succeeded indeed in stifling his torturing need of truth.
Doubtless he had been softened, weakened by his mother’s tears, had been
possessed by the sole desire to afford her the great happiness she dreamt
of. Yet now he remembered certain quiverings of revolt; he found in the
depths of his mind the memory of nights which he had spent in weeping
without knowing why, nights peopled with vague images, nights through
which galloped the free, virile life of the world, when Marie’s face
incessantly returned to him, such as he had seen it one morning, dazzling
and bathed in tears, while she embraced him with her whole soul. And that
alone now remained; his years of religious study with their monotonous
lessons, their ever similar exercises and ceremonies, had flown away into
the same haze, into a vague half-light, full of mortal silence.
Then, just as the train had passed though a station at full speed, with
the sudden uproar of its rush there arose within him a succession of
confused visions. He had noticed a large deserted enclosure, and fancied
that he could see himself within it at twenty years of age. His reverie
was wandering. An indisposition of rather long duration had, however, at
one time interrupted his studies, and led to his being sent into the
country. He had remained for a long time without seeing Marie; during his
vacations spent at Neuilly he had twice failed to meet her, for she was
almost always travelling. He knew that she was very ill, in consequence
of a fall from a horse when she was thirteen, a critical moment in a
girl’s life; and her despairing mother, perplexed by the contradictory
advice of medical men, was taking her each year to a different
watering-place. Then he learnt the startling news of the sudden tragical
death of that mother, who was so severe and yet so useful to her kin. She
had been carried off in five days by inflammation of the lungs, which she
had contracted one evening whilst she was out walking at La Bourboule,
through having taken off her mantle to place it round the shoulders of
Marie, who had been conveyed thither for treatment. It had been necessary
that the father should at once start off to fetch his daughter, who was
mad with grief, and the corpse of his wife, who had been so suddenly torn
from him. And unhappily, after losing her, the affairs of the family went
from bad to worse in the hands of this architect, who, without counting,
flung his fortune into the yawning gulf of his unsuccessful enterprises.
Marie no longer stirred from her couch; only Blanche remained to manage
the household, and she had matters of her own to attend to, being busy
with the last examinations which she had to pass, the diplomas which she
was obstinately intent on securing, foreseeing as she did that she would
someday have to earn her bread.
All at once, from amidst this mass of confused, half-forgotten incidents,
Pierre was conscious of the rise of a vivid vision. Ill-health, he
remembered, had again compelled him to take a holiday. He had just
completed his twenty-fourth year, he was greatly behindhand, having so
far only secured the four minor orders; but on his return a
sub-deaconship would be conferred on him, and an inviolable vow would
bind him for evermore. And the Guersaints’ little garden at Neuilly,
whither he had formerly so often gone to play, again distinctly appeared
before him. Marie’s couch had been rolled under the tall trees at the far
end of the garden near the hedge, they were alone together in the sad
peacefulness of an autumnal afternoon, and he saw Marie, clad in deep
mourning for her mother and reclining there with legs inert; whilst he,
also clad in black, in a cassock already, sat near her on an iron garden
chair. For five years she had been suffering. She was now eighteen, paler
and thinner than formerly, but still adorable with her regal golden hair,
which illness respected. He believed from what he had heard that she was
destined to remain infirm, condemned never to become a woman, stricken
even in her sex. The doctors, who failed to agree respecting her case,
had abandoned her. Doubtless it was she who told him these things that
dreary afternoon, whilst the yellow withered leaves rained upon them.
However, he could not remember the words that they had spoken; her pale
smile, her young face, still so charming though already dimmed by
regretfulness for life, alone remained present with him. But he realised
that she had evoked the far-off day of their parting, on that same spot,
behind the hedge flecked with sunlight; and all that was already as
though dead--their tears, their embrace, their promise to find one
another some day with a certainty of happiness. For although they had
found one another again, what availed it, since she was but a corpse, and
he was about to bid farewell to the life of the world? As the doctors
condemned her, as she would never be woman, nor wife, nor mother, he, on
his side, might well renounce manhood, and annihilate himself, dedicate
himself to God, to whom his mother gave him. And he still felt within him
the soft bitterness of that last interview: Marie smiling painfully at
memory of their childish play and prattle, and speaking to him of the
happiness which he would assuredly find in the service of God; so
penetrated indeed with emotion at this thought, that she had made him
promise that he would let her hear him say his first mass.
But the train was passing the station of Sainte-Maure, and just then a
sudden uproar momentarily brought Pierre’s attention back to the carriage
and its occupants. He fancied that there had been some fresh seizure or
swooning, but the suffering faces that he beheld were still the same,
ever contracted by the same expression of anxious waiting for the divine
succour which was so slow in coming. M. Sabathier was vainly striving to
get his legs into a comfortable position, whilst Brother Isidore raised a
feeble continuous moan like a dying child, and Madame Vetu, a prey to
terrible agony, devoured by her disease, sat motionless, and kept her
lips tightly closed, her face distorted, haggard, and almost black. The
noise which Pierre had heard had been occasioned by Madame de Jonquiere,
who whilst cleansing a basin had dropped the large zinc water-can. And,
despite their torment, this had made the patients laugh, like the simple
souls they were, rendered puerile by suffering. However, Sister
Hyacinthe, who rightly called them her children, children whom she
governed with a word, at once set them saying the chaplet again, pending
the Angelus, which would only be said at Chatellerault, in accordance
with the predetermined programme. And thereupon the “Aves” followed one
after the other, spreading into a confused murmuring and mumbling amidst
the rattling of the coupling irons and noisy growling of the wheels.
Pierre had meantime relapsed into his reverie, and beheld himself as he
had been at six-and-twenty, when ordained a priest. Tardy scruples had
come to him a few days before his ordination, a semi-consciousness that
he was binding himself without having clearly questioned his heart and
mind. But he had avoided doing so, living in the dizzy bewilderment of
his decision, fancying that he had lopped off all human ties and feelings
with a voluntary hatchet-stroke. His flesh had surely died with his
childhood’s innocent romance, that white-skinned girl with golden hair,
whom now he never beheld otherwise than stretched upon her couch of
suffering, her flesh as lifeless as his own. And he had afterwards made
the sacrifice of his mind, which he then fancied even an easier one,
hoping as he did that determination would suffice to prevent him from
thinking. Besides, it was too late, he could not recoil at the last
moment, and if when he pronounced the last solemn vow he felt a secret
terror, an indeterminate but immense regret agitating him, he forgot
everything, saving a divine reward for his efforts on the day when he
afforded his mother the great and long-expected joy of hearing him say
his first mass.
He could still see the poor woman in the little church of Neuilly, which
she herself had selected, the church where the funeral service for his
father had been celebrated; he saw her on that cold November morning,
kneeling almost alone in the dark little chapel, her hands hiding her
face as she continued weeping whilst he raised the Host. It was there
that she had tasted her last happiness, for she led a sad and lonely
life, no longer seeing her elder son, who had gone away, swayed by other
ideas than her own, bent on breaking off all family intercourse since his
brother intended to enter the Church. It was said that Guillaume, a
chemist of great talent, like his father, but at the same time a
Bohemian, addicted to revolutionary dreams, was living in a little house
in the suburbs, where he devoted himself to the dangerous study of
explosive substances; and folks added that he was living with a woman who
had come no one knew whence. This it was which had severed the last tie
between himself and his mother, all piety and propriety. For three years
Pierre had not once seen Guillaume, whom in his childhood he had
worshipped as a kind, merry, and fatherly big brother.
But there came an awful pang to his heart--he once more beheld his mother
lying dead. This again was a thunderbolt, an illness of scarce three
days’ duration, a sudden passing away, as in the case of Madame de
Guersaint. One evening, after a wild hunt for the doctor, he had found
her motionless and quite white. She had died during his absence; and his
lips had ever retained the icy thrill of the last kiss that he had given
her. Of everything else--the vigil, the preparations, the funeral--he
remembered nothing. All that had become lost in the black night of his
stupor and grief, grief so extreme that he had almost died of it--seized
with shivering on his return from the cemetery, struck down by a fever
which during three weeks had kept him delirious, hovering between life
and death. His brother had come and nursed him and had then attended to
pecuniary matters, dividing the little inheritance, leaving him the house
and a modest income and taking his own share in money. And as soon as
Guillaume had found him out of danger he had gone off again, once more
vanishing into the unknown. But then through what a long convalescence
he, Pierre, had passed, buried as it were in that deserted house. He had
done nothing to detain Guillaume, for he realised that there was an abyss
between them. At first the solitude had brought him suffering, but
afterwards it had grown very pleasant, whether in the deep silence of the
rooms which the rare noises of the street did not disturb, or under the
screening, shady foliage of the little garden, where he could spend whole
days without seeing a soul. His favourite place of refuge, however, was
the old laboratory, his father’s cabinet, which his mother for twenty
years had kept carefully locked up, as though to immure within it all the
incredulity and damnation of the past. And despite the gentleness, the
respectful submissiveness which she had shown in former times, she would
perhaps have some day ended by destroying all her husband’s books and
papers, had not death so suddenly surprised her. Pierre, however, had
once more had the windows opened, the writing-table and the bookcase
dusted; and, installed in the large leather arm-chair, he now spent
delicious hours there, regenerated as it were by his illness, brought
back to his youthful days again, deriving a wondrous intellectual delight
from the perusal of the books which he came upon.
The only person whom he remembered having received during those two
months of slow recovery was Doctor Chassaigne, an old friend of his
father, a medical man of real merit, who, with the one ambition of curing
disease, modestly confined himself to the _role_ of the practitioner. It
was in vain that the doctor had sought to save Madame Froment, but he
flattered himself that he had extricated the young priest from grievous
danger; and he came to see him from time to time, to chat with him and
cheer him, talking with him of his father, the great chemist, of whom he
recounted many a charming anecdote, many a particular, still glowing with
the flame of ardent friendship. Little by little, amidst the weak languor
of convalescence, the son had thus beheld an embodiment of charming
simplicity, affection, and good nature rising up before him. It was his
father such as he had really been, not the man of stern science whom he
had pictured whilst listening to his mother. Certainly she had never
taught him aught but respect for that dear memory; but had not her
husband been the unbeliever, the man who denied, and made the angels
weep, the artisan of impiety who sought to change the world that God had
made? And so he had long remained a gloomy vision, a spectre of damnation
prowling about the house, whereas now he became the house’s very light,
clear and gay, a worker consumed by a longing for truth, who had never
desired anything but the love and happiness of all. For his part, Doctor
Chassaigne, a Pyrenean by birth, born in a far-off secluded village where
folks still believed in sorceresses, inclined rather towards religion,
although he had not set his foot inside a church during the forty years
he had been living in Paris. However, his conviction was absolute: if
there were a heaven somewhere, Michel Froment was assuredly there, and
not merely there, but seated upon a throne on the Divinity’s right hand.
Then Pierre, in a few minutes, again lived through the frightful torment
which, during two long months, had ravaged him. It was not that he had
found controversial works of an anti-religious character in the bookcase,
or that his father, whose papers he sorted, had ever gone beyond his
technical studies as a _savant_. But little by little, despite himself,
the light of science dawned upon him, an _ensemble_ of proven phenomena,
which demolished dogmas and left within him nothing of the things which
as a priest he should have believed. It seemed, in fact, as though
illness had renewed him, as though he were again beginning to live and
learn amidst the physical pleasantness of convalescence, that still
subsisting weakness which lent penetrating lucidity to his brain. At the
seminary, by the advice of his masters, he had always kept the spirit of
inquiry, his thirst for knowledge, in check. Much of that which was
taught him there had surprised him; however, he had succeeded in making
the sacrifice of his mind required of his piety. But now, all the
laboriously raised scaffolding of dogmas was swept away in a revolt of
that sovereign mind which clamoured for its rights, and which he could no
longer silence. Truth was bubbling up and overflowing in such an
irresistible stream that he realised he would never succeed in lodging
error in his brain again. It was indeed the total and irreparable ruin of
faith. Although he had been able to kill his flesh by renouncing the
romance of his youth, although he felt that he had altogether mastered
carnal passion, he now knew that it would be impossible for him to make
the sacrifice of his intelligence. And he was not mistaken; it was indeed
his father again springing to life in the depths of his being, and at
last obtaining the mastery in that dual heredity in which, during so many
years, his mother had dominated. The upper part of his face, his
straight, towering brow, seemed to have risen yet higher, whilst the
lower part, the small chin, the affectionate mouth, were becoming less
distinct. However, he suffered; at certain twilight hours when his
kindliness, his need of love awoke, he felt distracted with grief at no
longer believing, distracted with desire to believe again; and it was
necessary that the lighted lamp should be brought in, that he should see
clearly around him and within him, before he could recover the energy and
calmness of reason, the strength of martyrdom, the determination to
sacrifice everything to the peace of his conscience.
Then came the crisis. He was a priest and he no longer believed. This had
suddenly dawned before him like a bottomless abyss. It was the end of his
life, the collapse of everything. What should he do? Did not simple
rectitude require that he should throw off the cassock and return to the
world? But he had seen some renegade priests and had despised them. A
married priest with whom he was acquainted filled him with disgust. All
this, no doubt, was but a survival of his long religious training. He
retained the notion that a priest cannot, must not, weaken; the idea that
when one has dedicated oneself to God one cannot take possession of
oneself again. Possibly, also, he felt that he was too plainly branded,
too different from other men already, to prove otherwise than awkward and
unwelcome among them. Since he had been cut off from them he would remain
apart in his grievous pride; And, after days of anguish, days of struggle
incessantly renewed, in which his thirst for happiness warred with the
energies of his returning health, he took the heroic resolution to remain
a priest, and an honest one. He would find the strength necessary for
such abnegation. Since he had conquered the flesh, albeit unable to
conquer the brain, he felt sure of keeping his vow of chastity, and that
would be unshakable; therein lay the pure, upright life which he was
absolutely certain of living. What mattered the rest if he alone
suffered, if nobody in the world suspected that his heart was reduced to
ashes, that nothing remained of his faith, that he was agonising amidst
fearful falsehood? His rectitude would prove a firm prop; he would follow
his priestly calling like an honest man, without breaking any of the vows
he had taken; he would, in due accordance with the rites, discharge his
duties as a minister of the Divinity, whom he would praise and glorify at
the altar, and distribute as the Bread of Life to the faithful. Who,
then, would dare to impute his loss of faith to him as a crime, even if
this great misfortune should some day become known? And what more could
be asked of him than lifelong devotion to his vow, regard for his
ministry, and the practice of every charity without the hope of any
future reward? In this wise he ended by calming himself, still upright,
still bearing his head erect, with the desolate grandeur of the priest
who himself no longer believes, but continues watching over the faith of
others. And he certainly was not alone; he felt that he had many
brothers, priests with ravaged minds, who had sunk into incredulity, and
who yet, like soldiers without a fatherland, remained at the altar, and,
despite, everything, found the courage to make the divine illusion shine
forth above the kneeling crowds.
On recovering his health Pierre had immediately resumed his service at
the little church of Neuilly. He said his mass there every morning. But
he had resolved to refuse any appointment, any preferment. Months and
years went by, and he obstinately insisted on remaining the least known
and the most humble of those priests who are tolerated in a parish, who
appear and disappear after discharging their duty. The acceptance of any
appointment would have seemed to him an aggravation of his falsehood, a
theft from those who were more deserving than himself. And he had to
resist frequent offers, for it was impossible for his merits to remain
unnoticed. Indeed, his obstinate modesty provoked astonishment at the
archbishop’s palace, where there was a desire to utilise the power which
could be divined in him. Now and again, it is true, he bitterly regretted
that he was not useful, that he did not co-operate in some great work, in
furthering the purification of the world, the salvation and happiness of
all, in accordance with his own ardent, torturing desire. Fortunately his
time was nearly all his own, and to console himself he gave rein to his
passion for work by devouring every volume in his father’s bookcase, and
then again resuming and considering his studies, feverishly preoccupied
with regard to the history of nations, full of a desire to explore the
depths of the social and religious crisis so that he might ascertain
whether it were really beyond remedy.
It was at this time, whilst rummaging one morning in one of the large
drawers in the lower part of the bookcase, that he discovered quite a
collection of papers respecting the apparitions of Lourdes. It was a very
complete set of documents, comprising detailed notes of the
interrogatories to which Bernadette had been subjected, copies of
numerous official documents, and police and medical reports, in addition
to many private and confidential letters of the greatest interest. This
discovery had surprised Pierre, and he had questioned, Doctor Chassaigne
concerning it. The latter thereupon remembered that his friend, Michel
Froment, had at one time passionately devoted himself to the study of
Bernadette’s case; and he himself, a native of the village near Lourdes,
had procured for the chemist a portion of the documents in the
collection. Pierre, in his turn, then became impassioned, and for a whole
month continued studying the affair, powerfully attracted by the
visionary’s pure, upright nature, but indignant with all that had
subsequently sprouted up--the barbarous fetishism, the painful
superstitions, and the triumphant simony. In the access of unbelief which
had come upon him, this story of Lourdes was certainly of a nature to
complete the collapse of his faith. However, it had also excited his
curiosity, and he would have liked to investigate it, to establish beyond
dispute what scientific truth might be in it, and render pure
Christianity the service of ridding it of this scoria, this fairy tale,
all touching and childish as it was. But he had been obliged to
relinquish his studies, shrinking from the necessity of making a journey
to the Grotto, and finding that it would be extremely difficult to obtain
the information which he still needed; and of it all there at last only
remained within him a tender feeling for Bernadette, of whom he could not
think without a sensation of delightful charm and infinite pity.
The days went by, and Pierre led a more and more lonely life. Doctor
Chassaigne had just left for the Pyrenees in a state of mortal anxiety.
Abandoning his patients, he had set out for Cauterets with his ailing
wife, who was sinking more and more each day, to the infinite distress of
both his charming daughter and himself. From that moment the little house
at Neuilly fell into deathlike silence and emptiness. Pierre had no other
distraction than that of occasionally going to see the Guersaints, who
had long since left the neighbouring house, but whom he had found again
in a small lodging in a wretched tenement of the district. And the memory
of his first visit to them there was yet so fresh within him, that he
felt a pang at his heart as he recalled his emotion at sight of the
hapless Marie.
That pang roused him from his reverie, and on looking round he perceived
Marie stretched on the seat, even as he had found her on the day which he
recalled, already imprisoned in that gutter-like box, that coffin to
which wheels were adapted when she was taken out-of-doors for an airing.
She, formerly so brimful of life, ever astir and laughing, was dying of
inaction and immobility in that box. Of her old-time beauty she had
retained nothing save her hair, which clad her as with a royal mantle,
and she was so emaciated that she seemed to have grown smaller again, to
have become once more a child. And what was most distressing was the
expression on her pale face, the blank, frigid stare of her eyes which
did not see, the ever haunting absent look, as of one whom suffering
overwhelmed. However, she noticed that Pierre was gazing at her, and at
once desired to smile at him; but irresistible moans escaped her, and
when she did at last smile, it was like a poor smitten creature who is
convinced that she will expire before the miracle takes place. He was
overcome by it, and, amidst all the sufferings with which the carriage
abounded, hers were now the only ones that he beheld and heard, as though
one and all were summed up in her, in the long and terrible agony of her
beauty, gaiety, and youth.
Then by degrees, without taking his eyes from Marie, he again reverted to
former days, again lived those hours, fraught with a mournful and bitter
charm, which he had often spent beside her, when he called at the sorry
lodging to keep her company. M. de Guersaint had finally ruined himself
by trying to improve the artistic quality of the religious prints so
widely sold in France, the faulty execution of which quite irritated him.
His last resources had been swallowed up in the failure of a
colour-printing firm; and, heedless as he was, deficient in foresight,
ever trusting in Providence, his childish mind continually swayed by
illusions, he did not notice the awful pecuniary embarrassment of the
household; but applied himself to the study of aerial navigation, without
even realising what prodigious activity his elder daughter, Blanche, was
forced to display, in order to earn the living of her two children, as
she was wont to call her father and her sister. It was Blanche who, by
running about Paris in the dust or the mud from morning to evening in
order to give French or music lessons, contrived to provide the money
necessary for the unremitting attentions which Marie required. And Marie
often experienced attacks of despair--bursting into tears and accusing
herself of being the primary cause of their ruin, as for years and years
now it had been necessary to pay for medical attendance and for taking
her to almost every imaginable spring--La Bourboule, Aix, Lamalou,
Amelie-les-Bains, and others. And the outcome of ten years of varied
diagnosis and treatment was that the doctors had now abandoned her. Some
thought her illness to be due to the rupture of certain ligaments, others
believed in the presence of a tumour, others again to paralysis due to
injury to the spinal cord, and as she, with maidenly revolt, refused to
undergo any examination, and they did not even dare to address precise
questions to her, they each contented themselves with their several
opinions and declared that she was beyond cure. Moreover, she now solely
relied upon the divine help, having grown rigidly pious since she had
been suffering, and finding her only relief in her ardent faith. Every
morning she herself read the holy offices, for to her great sorrow she
was unable to go to church. Her inert limbs indeed seemed quite lifeless,
and she had sunk into a condition of extreme weakness, to such a point,
in fact, that on certain days it became necessary for her sister to place
her food in her mouth.
Pierre was thinking of this when all at once he recalled an evening he
had spent with her. The lamp had not yet been lighted, he was seated
beside her in the growing obscurity, and she suddenly told him that she
wished to go to Lourdes, feeling certain that she would return cured. He
had experienced an uncomfortable sensation on hearing her speak in this
fashion, and quite forgetting himself had exclaimed that it was folly to
believe in such childishness. He had hitherto made it a rule never to
converse with her on religious matters, having not only refused to be her
confessor, but even to advise her with regard to the petty uncertainties
of her pietism. In this respect he was influenced by feelings of mingled
shame and compassion; to lie to her of all people would have made him
suffer, and, moreover, he would have deemed himself a criminal had he
even by a breath sullied that fervent pure faith which lent her such
strength against pain. And so, regretting that he had not been able to
restrain his exclamation, he remained sorely embarrassed, when all at
once he felt the girl’s cold hand take hold of his own. And then,
emboldened by the darkness, she ventured in a gentle, faltering voice, to
tell him that she already knew his secret, his misfortune, that
wretchedness, so fearful for a priest, of being unable to believe.
Despite himself he had revealed everything during their chats together,
and she, with the delicate intuition of a friend, had been able to read
his conscience. She felt terribly distressed on his account; she deemed
him, with that mortal moral malady, to be more deserving of pity than
herself. And then as he, thunderstruck, was still unable to find an
answer, acknowledging the truth of her words by his very silence, she
again began to speak to him of Lourdes, adding in a low whisper that she
wished to confide him as well as herself to the protection of the Blessed
Virgin, whom she entreated to restore him to faith. And from that evening
forward she did not cease speaking on the subject, repeating again and
again, that if she went to Lourdes she would be surely cured. But she was
prevented from making the journey by lack of means and she did not even
dare to speak to her sister of the pecuniary question. So two months went
by, and day by day she grew weaker, exhausted by her longing dreams, her
eyes ever turned towards the flashing light of the miraculous Grotto far
away. Pierre then experienced many painful days. He had at first told
Marie that he would not accompany her. But his decision was somewhat
shaken by the thought that if he made up his mind to go, he might profit
by the journey to continue his inquiries with regard to Bernadette, whose
charming image lingered in his heart. And at last he even felt penetrated
by a delightful feeling, an unacknowledged hope, the hope that Marie was
perhaps right, that the Virgin might take pity on him and restore to him
his former blind faith, the faith of the child who loves and does not
question. Oh! to believe, to believe with his whole soul, to plunge into
faith for ever! Doubtless there was no other possible happiness. He
longed for faith with all the joyousness of his youth, with all the love
that he had felt for his mother, with all his burning desire to escape
from the torment of understanding and knowing, and to slumber forever in
the depths of divine ignorance. It was cowardly, and yet so delightful;
to exist no more, to become a mere thing in the hands of the Divinity.
And thus he was at last possessed by a desire to make the supreme
experiment.
A week later the journey to Lourdes was decided upon. Pierre, however,
had insisted on a final consultation of medical men in order to ascertain
if it were really possible for Marie to travel; and this again was a
scene which rose up before him, with certain incidents which he ever
beheld whilst others were already fading from his mind. Two of the
doctors who had formerly attended the patient, and one of whom believed
in the rupture of certain ligaments, whilst the other asserted the case
to be one of medullary paralysis, had ended by agreeing that this
paralysis existed, and that there was also, possibly, some ligamentary
injury. In their opinion all the symptoms pointed to this diagnosis, and
the nature of the case seemed to them so evident that they did not
hesitate to give certificates, each his own, agreeing almost word for
word with one another, and so positive in character as to leave no room
for doubt. Moreover, they thought that the journey was practicable,
though it would certainly prove an exceedingly painful one. Pierre
thereupon resolved to risk it, for he had found the doctors very prudent,
and very desirous to arrive at the truth; and he retained but a confused
recollection of the third medical man who had been called in, a distant
cousin of his named De Beauclair, who was young, extremely intelligent,
but little known as yet, and said by some to be rather strange in his
theories. This doctor, after looking at Marie for a long time, had asked
somewhat anxiously about her parents, and had seemed greatly interested
by what was told him of M. de Guersaint, this architect and inventor with
a weak and exuberant mind. Then he had desired to measure the sufferer’s
visual field, and by a slight discreet touch had ascertained the locality
of the pain, which, under certain pressure, seemed to ascend like a heavy
shifting mass towards the breast. He did not appear to attach importance
to the paralysis of the legs; but on a direct question being put to him
he exclaimed that the girl ought to be taken to Lourdes and that she
would assuredly be cured there, if she herself were convinced of it.
Faith sufficed, said he, with a smile; two pious lady patients of his,
whom he had sent thither during the preceding year, had returned in
radiant health. He even predicted how the miracle would come about; it
would be like a lightning stroke, an awakening, an exaltation of the
entire being, whilst the evil, that horrid, diabolical weight which
stifled the poor girl would once more ascend and fly away as though
emerging by her mouth. But at the same time he flatly declined to give a
certificate. He had failed to agree with his two _confreres_, who treated
him coldly, as though they considered him a wild, adventurous young
fellow. Pierre confusedly remembered some shreds of the discussion which
had begun again in his presence, some little part of the diagnosis framed
by Beauclair. First, a dislocation of the organ, with a slight laceration
of the ligaments, resulting from the patient’s fall from her horse; then
a slow healing, everything returning to its place, followed by
consecutive nervous symptoms, so that the sufferer was now simply beset
by her original fright, her attention fixed on the injured part, arrested
there amidst increasing pain, incapable of acquiring fresh notions unless
it were under the lash of some violent emotion. Moreover, he also
admitted the probability of accidents due to nutrition, as yet
unexplained, and on the course and importance of which he himself would
not venture to give an opinion. However, the idea that Marie _dreamt_ her
disease, that the fearful sufferings torturing her came from an injury
long since healed, appeared such a paradox to Pierre when he gazed at her
and saw her in such agony, her limbs already stretched out lifeless on
her bed of misery, that he did not even pause to consider it; but at that
moment felt simply happy in the thought that all three doctors agreed in
authorising the journey to Lourdes. To him it was sufficient that she
_might_ be cured, and to attain that result he would have followed her to
the end of the world.
Ah! those last days of Paris, amid what a scramble they were spent! The
national pilgrimage was about to start, and in order to avoid heavy
expenses, it had occurred to him to obtain _hospitalisation_ for Marie.
Then he had been obliged to run about in order to obtain his own
admission, as a helper, into the Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation. M.
de Guersaint was delighted with the prospect of the journey, for he was
fond of nature, and ardently desired to become acquainted with the
Pyrenees. Moreover, he did not allow anything to worry him, but was
perfectly willing that the young priest should pay his railway fare, and
provide for him at the hotel yonder as for a child; and his daughter
Blanche, having slipped a twenty-franc piece into his hand at the last
moment, he had even thought himself rich again. That poor brave Blanche
had a little hidden store of her own, savings to the amount of fifty
francs, which it had been absolutely necessary to accept, for she became
quite angry in her determination to contribute towards her sister’s cure,
unable as she was to form one of the party, owing to the lessons which
she had to give in Paris, whose hard pavements she must continue pacing,
whilst her dear ones were kneeling yonder, amidst the enchantments of the
Grotto. And so the others had started on, and were now rolling, ever
rolling along.
As they passed the station of Chatellerault a sudden burst of voices made
Pierre start, and drove away the torpor into which his reverie had
plunged him. What was the matter? Were they reaching Poitiers? But it was
only half-past twelve o’clock, and it was simply Sister Hyacinthe who had
roused him, by making her patients and pilgrims say the Angelus, the
three “Aves” thrice repeated. Then the voices burst forth, and the sound
of a fresh canticle arose, and continued like a lamentation. Fully five
and twenty minutes must elapse before they would reach Poitiers, where it
seemed as if the half-hour’s stoppage would bring relief to every
suffering! They were all so uncomfortable, so roughly shaken in that
malodorous, burning carriage! Such wretchedness was beyond endurance. Big
tears coursed down the cheeks of Madame Vincent, a muttered oath escaped
M. Sabathier usually so resigned, and Brother Isidore, La Grivotte, and
Madame Vetu seemed to have become inanimate, mere waifs carried along by
a torrent. Moreover, Marie no longer answered, but had closed her eyes
and would not open them, pursued as she was by the horrible vision of
Elise Rouquet’s face, that face with its gaping cavities which seemed to
her to be the image of death. And whilst the train increased its speed,
bearing all this human despair onward, under the heavy sky, athwart the
burning plains, there was yet another scare in the carriage. The strange
man had apparently ceased to breathe, and a voice cried out that he was
expiring.