BUILT, so far as it extends, by a charitable Canon, and left unfinished
through lack of money, the Hospital of Our Lady of Dolours is a vast
pile, four storeys high, and consequently far too lofty, since it is
difficult to carry the sufferers to the topmost wards. As a rule the
building is occupied by a hundred infirm and aged paupers; but at the
season of the national pilgrimage these old folks are for three days
sheltered elsewhere, and the hospital is let to the Fathers of the
Assumption, who at times lodge in it as many as five and six hundred
patients. Still, however closely packed they may be, the accommodation
never suffices, so that the three or four hundred remaining sufferers
have to be distributed between the Hospital of Salvation and the town
hospital, the men being sent to the former and the women to the latter
institution.
That morning at sunrise great confusion prevailed in the sand-covered
courtyard of Our Lady of Dolours, at the door of which a couple of
priests were mounting guard. The temporary staff, with its formidable
supply of registers, cards, and printed formulas, had installed itself in
one of the ground-floor rooms on the previous day. The managers were
desirous of greatly improving upon the organisation of the preceding
year. The lower wards were this time to be reserved to the most helpless
sufferers; and in order to prevent a repetition of the cases of mistaken
identity which had occurred in the past, very great care was to be taken
in filling in and distributing the admission cards, each of which bore
the name of a ward and the number of a bed. It became difficult, however,
to act in accordance with these good intentions in presence of the
torrent of ailing beings which the white train had brought to Lourdes,
and the new formalities so complicated matters that the patients had to
be deposited in the courtyard as they arrived, to wait there until it
became possible to admit them in something like an orderly manner. It was
the scene witnessed at the railway station all over again, the same
woeful camping in the open, whilst the bearers and the young seminarists
who acted as the secretary’s assistants ran hither and thither in
bewilderment.
“We have been over-ambitious, we wanted to do things too well!” exclaimed
Baron Suire in despair.
There was much truth in his remark, for never had a greater number of
useless precautions been taken, and they now discovered that, by some
inexplicable error, they had allotted not the lower--but the
higher-placed wards to the patients whom it was most difficult to move.
It was impossible to begin the classification afresh, however, and so as
in former years things must be allowed to take their course, in a
haphazard way. The distribution of the cards began, a young priest at the
same time entering each patient’s name and address in a register.
Moreover, all the _hospitalisation_ cards bearing the patients’ names and
numbers had to be produced, so that the names of the wards and the
numbers of the beds might be added to them; and all these formalities
greatly protracted the _defile_.
Then there was an endless coming and going from the top to the bottom of
the building, and from one to the other end of each of its four floors.
M. Sabathier was one of the first to secure admittance, being placed in a
ground-floor room which was known as the Family Ward. Sick men were there
allowed to have their wives with them; but to the other wards of the
hospital only women were admitted. Brother Isidore, it is true, was
accompanied by his sister; however, by a special favour it was agreed
that they should be considered as conjoints, and the missionary was
accordingly placed in the bed next to that allotted to M. Sabathier. The
chapel, still littered with plaster and with its unfinished windows
boarded up, was close at hand. There were also various wards in an
unfinished state; still these were filled with mattresses, on which
sufferers were rapidly placed. All those who could walk, however, were
already besieging the refectory, a long gallery whose broad windows
looked into an inner courtyard; and the Saint-Frai Sisters, who managed
the hospital at other times, and had remained to attend to the cooking,
began to distribute bowls of coffee and chocolate among the poor women
whom the terrible journey had exhausted.
“Rest yourselves and try to gain a little strength,” repeated Baron
Suire, who was ever on the move, showing himself here, there, and
everywhere in rapid succession. “You have three good hours before you, it
is not yet five, and their reverences have given orders that you are not
to be taken to the Grotto until eight o’clock, so as to avoid any
excessive fatigue.”
Meanwhile, up above on the second floor, Madame de Jonquiere had been one
of the first to take possession of the Sainte-Honorine Ward of which she
was the superintendent. She had been obliged to leave her daughter
Raymonde downstairs, for the regulations did not allow young girls to
enter the wards, where they might have witnessed sights that were
scarcely proper or else too horrible for such eyes as theirs. Raymonde
had therefore remained in the refectory as a helper; however, little
Madame Desagneaux, being a lady-hospitaller, had not left the
superintendent, and was already asking her for orders, in her delight
that she should at last be able to render some assistance.
“Are all these beds properly made, madame?” she inquired; “perhaps I had
better make them afresh with Sister Hyacinthe.”
The ward, whose walls were painted a light yellow, and whose few windows
admitted but little light from an inner yard, contained fifteen beds,
standing in two rows against the walls.
“We will see by-and-by,” replied Madame de Jonquiere with an absorbed
air. She was busy counting the beds and examining the long narrow
apartment. And this accomplished she added in an undertone: “I shall
never have room enough. They say that I must accommodate twenty-three
patients. We shall have to put some mattresses down.”
Sister Hyacinthe, who had followed the ladies after leaving Sister
Saint-Francois and Sister Claire des Anges in a small adjoining apartment
which was being transformed into a linen-room, then began to lift up the
coverlets and examine the bedding. And she promptly reassured Madame
Desagneaux with regard to her surmises. “Oh! the beds are properly made,”
she said; “everything is very clean too. One can see that the Saint-Frai
Sisters have attended to things themselves. The reserve mattresses are in
the next room, however, and if madame will lend me a hand we can place
some of them between the beds at once.
“Oh, certainly!” exclaimed young Madame Desagneaux, quite excited by the
idea of carrying mattresses about with her weak slender arms.
It became necessary for Madame de Jonquiere to calm her. “By-and-by,”
said the lady-superintendent; “there is no hurry. Let us wait till our
patients arrive. I don’t much like this ward, it is so difficult to air.
Last year I had the Sainte-Rosalie Ward on the first floor. However, we
will organise matters, all the same.”
Some other lady-hospitallers were now arriving, quite a hiveful of busy
bees, all eager to start on their work. The confusion which so often
arose was, in fact, increased by the excessive number of nurses, women of
the aristocracy and upper-middle class, with whose fervent zeal some
little vanity was blended. There were more than two hundred of them, and
as each had to make a donation on joining the Hospitality of Our Lady of
Salvation, the managers did not dare to refuse any applicants, for fear
lest they might check the flow of alms-giving. Thus the number of
lady-hospitallers increased year by year. Fortunately there were among
them some who cared for nothing beyond the privilege of wearing the red
cloth cross, and who started off on excursions as soon as they reached
Lourdes. Still it must be acknowledged that those who devoted themselves
were really deserving, for they underwent five days of awful fatigue,
sleeping scarcely a couple of hours each night, and living in the midst
of the most terrible and repulsive spectacles. They witnessed the death
agonies, dressed the pestilential sores, cleaned up, changed linen,
turned the sufferers over in their beds, went through a sickening and
overwhelming labour to which they were in no wise accustomed. And thus
they emerged from it aching all over, tired to death, with feverish eyes
flaming with the joy of the charity which so excited them.
“And Madame Volmar?” suddenly asked Madame Desagneaux. “I thought we
should find her here.”
This was apparently a subject which Madame de Jonquiere did not care to
have discussed; for, as though she were aware of the truth and wished to
bury it in silence, with the indulgence of a woman who compassionates
human wretchedness, she promptly retorted: “Madame Volmar isn’t strong,
she must have gone to the hotel to rest. We must let her sleep.”
Then she apportioned the beds among the ladies present, allotting two to
each of them; and this done they all finished taking possession of the
place, hastening up and down and backwards and forwards in order to
ascertain where the offices, the linen-room, and the kitchens were
situated.
“And the dispensary?” then asked one of the ladies.
But there was no dispensary. There was no medical staff even. What would
have been the use of any?--since the patients were those whom science had
given up, despairing creatures who had come to beg of God the cure which
powerless men were unable to promise them. Logically enough, all
treatment was suspended during the pilgrimage. If a patient seemed likely
to die, extreme unction was administered. The only medical man about the
place was the young doctor who had come by the white train with his
little medicine chest; and his intervention was limited to an endeavour
to assuage the sufferings of those patients who chanced to ask for him
during an attack.
As it happened, Sister Hyacinthe was just bringing Ferrand, whom Sister
Saint-Francois had kept with her in a closet near the linen-room which he
proposed to make his quarters. “Madame,” said he to Madame de Jonquiere,
“I am entirely at your disposal. In case of need you will only have to
ring for me.”
She barely listened to him, however, engaged as she was in a quarrel with
a young priest belonging to the management with reference to a deficiency
of certain utensils. “Certainly, monsieur, if we should need a soothing
draught,” she answered, and then, reverting to her discussion, she went
on: “Well, Monsieur l’Abbe, you must certainly get me four or five more.
How can we possibly manage with so few? Things are bad enough as it is.”
Ferrand looked and listened, quite bewildered by the extraordinary
behaviour of the people amongst whom he had been thrown by chance since
the previous day. He who did not believe, who was only present out of
friendship and charity, was amazed at this extraordinary scramble of
wretchedness and suffering rushing towards the hope of happiness. And, as
a medical man of the new school, he was altogether upset by the careless
neglect of precautions, the contempt which was shown for the most simple
teachings of science, in the certainty which was apparently felt that, if
Heaven should so will it, cure would supervene, sudden and resounding,
like a lie given to the very laws of nature. But if this were the case,
what was the use of that last concession to human prejudices--why engage
a doctor for the journey if none were wanted? At this thought the young
man returned to his little room, experiencing a vague feeling of shame as
he realised that his presence was useless, and even a trifle ridiculous.
“Get some opium pills ready all the same,” said Sister Hyacinthe, as she
went back with him as far as the linen-room. “You will be asked for some,
for I feel anxious about some of the patients.”
While speaking she looked at him with her large blue eyes, so gentle and
so kind, and ever lighted by a divine smile. The constant exercise which
she gave herself brought the rosy flush of her quick blood to her skin
all dazzling with youthfulness. And like a good friend who was willing
that he should share the work to which she gave her heart, she added:
“Besides, if I should need somebody to get a patient in or out of bed,
you will help me, won’t you?”
Thereupon, at the idea that he might be of use to her, he was pleased
that he had come and was there. In his mind’s eye, he again beheld her at
his bedside, at the time when he had so narrowly escaped death, nursing
him with fraternal hands, with the smiling, compassionate grace of a
sexless angel, in whom there was something more than a comrade, something
of a woman left. However, the thought never occurred to him that there
was religion, belief, behind her.
“Oh! I will help you as much as you like, Sister,” he replied. “I belong
to you, I shall be so happy to serve you. You know very well what a debt
of gratitude I have to pay you.”
In a pretty way she raised her finger to her lips so as to silence him.
Nobody owed her anything. She was merely the servant of the ailing and
the poor.
At this moment a first patient was making her entry into the
Sainte-Honorine Ward. It was Marie, lying in her wooden box, which
Pierre, with Gerard’s assistance, had just brought up-stairs. The last to
start from the railway station, she had secured admission before the
others, thanks to the endless complications which, after keeping them all
in suspense, now freed them according to the chance distribution of the
admission cards. M. de Guersaint had quitted his daughter at the hospital
door by her own desire; for, fearing the hotels would be very full, she
had wished him to secure two rooms for himself and Pierre at once. Then,
on reaching the ward, she felt so weary that, after venting her chagrin
at not being immediately taken to the Grotto, she consented to be laid on
a bed for a short time.
“Come, my child,” repeated Madame de Jonquiere, “you have three hours
before you. We will put you to bed. It will ease you to take you out of
that case.”
Thereupon the lady-superintendent raised her by the shoulders, whilst
Sister Hyacinthe held her feet. The bed was in the central part of the
ward, near a window. For a moment the poor girl remained on it with her
eyes closed, as though exhausted by being moved about so much. Then it
became necessary that Pierre should be readmitted, for she grew very
fidgety, saying that there were things which she must explain to him.
“Pray don’t go away, my friend,” she exclaimed when he approached her.
“Take the case out on to the landing, but stay there, because I want to
be taken down as soon as I can get permission.”
“Do you feel more comfortable now?” asked the young priest.
“Yes, no doubt--but I really don’t know. I so much want to be taken
yonder to the Blessed Virgin’s feet.”
However, when Pierre had removed the case, the successive arrivals of the
other patients supplied her with some little diversion. Madame Vetu, whom
two bearers had brought up-stairs, holding her under the arms, was laid,
fully dressed, on the next bed, where she remained motionless, scarce
breathing, with her heavy, yellow, cancerous mask. None of the patients,
it should be mentioned, were divested of their clothes, they were simply
stretched out on the beds, and advised to go to sleep if they could
manage to do so. Those whose complaints were less grievous contented
themselves with sitting down on their mattresses, chatting together, and
putting the things they had brought with them in order. For instance,
Elise Rouquet, who was also near Marie, on the other side of the latter’s
bed, opened her basket to take a clean fichu out of it, and seemed sorely
annoyed at having no hand-glass with her. In less than ten minutes all
the beds were occupied, so that when La Grivotte appeared, half carried
by Sister Hyacinthe and Sister Claire des Anges, it became necessary to
place some mattresses on the floor.
“Here! here is one,” exclaimed Madame Desagneaux; “she will be very well
here, out of the draught from the door.”
Seven other mattresses were soon added in a line, occupying the space
between the rows of beds, so that it became difficult to move about. One
had to be very careful, and follow narrow pathways which had been left
between the beds and the mattresses. Each of the patients had retained
possession of her parcel, or box, or bag, and round about the improvised
shakedowns were piles of poor old things, sorry remnants of garments,
straying among the sheets and the coverlets. You might have thought
yourself in some woeful infirmary, hastily organised after some great
catastrophe, some conflagration or earthquake which had thrown hundreds
of wounded and penniless beings into the streets.
Madame de Jonquiere made her way from one to the other end of the ward,
ever and ever repeating, “Come, my children, don’t excite yourselves; try
to sleep a little.”
However, she did not succeed in calming them, and indeed, she herself,
like the other lady-hospitallers under her orders, increased the general
fever by her own bewilderment. The linen of several patients had to be
changed, and there were other needs to be attended to. One woman,
suffering from an ulcer in the leg, began moaning so dreadfully that
Madame Desagneaux undertook to dress her sore afresh; but she was not
skilful, and despite all her passionate courage she almost fainted, so
greatly was she distressed by the unbearable odour. Those patients who
were in better health asked for broth, bowlfuls of which began to
circulate amidst the calls, the answers, and the contradictory orders
which nobody executed. And meanwhile, let loose amidst this frightful
scramble, little Sophie Couteau, who remained with the Sisters, and was
very gay, imagined that it was playtime, and ran, and jumped, and hopped
in turn, called and petted first by one and then by another, dear as she
was to all alike for the miraculous hope which she brought them.
However, amidst this agitation, the hours went by. Seven o’clock had just
struck when Abbe Judaine came in. He was the chaplain of the
Sainte-Honorine Ward, and only the difficulty of finding an unoccupied
altar at which he might say his mass had delayed his arrival. As soon as
he appeared, a cry of impatience arose from every bed.
“Oh! Monsieur le Cure, let us start, let us start at once!”
An ardent desire, which each passing minute heightened and irritated, was
upbuoying them, like a more and more devouring thirst, which only the
waters of the miraculous fountain could appease. And more fervently than
any of the others, La Grivotte, sitting up on her mattress, and joining
her hands, begged and begged that she might be taken to the Grotto. Was
there not a beginning of the miracle in this--in this awakening of her
will power, this feverish desire for cure which enabled her to set
herself erect? Inert and fainting on her arrival, she was now seated,
turning her dark glances in all directions, waiting and watching for the
happy moment when she would be removed. And colour also was returning to
her livid face. She was already resuscitating.
“Oh! Monsieur le Cure, pray do tell them to take me--I feel that I shall
be cured,” she exclaimed.
With a loving, fatherly smile on his good-natured face, Abbe Judaine
listened to them all, and allayed their impatience with kind words. They
would soon set out; but they must be reasonable, and allow sufficient
time for things to be organised; and besides, the Blessed Virgin did not
like to have violence done her; she bided her time, and distributed her
divine favours among those who behaved themselves the best.
As he paused before Marie’s bed and beheld her, stammering entreaties
with joined hands, he again paused. “And you, too, my daughter, you are
in a hurry?” he said. “Be easy, there is grace enough in heaven for you
all.”
“I am dying of love, Father,” she murmured in reply. “My heart is so
swollen with prayers, it stifles me--”
He was greatly touched by the passion of this poor emaciated child, so
harshly stricken in her youth and beauty, and wishing to appease her, he
called her attention to Madame Vetu, who did not move, though with her
eyes wide open she stared at all who passed.
“Look at madame, how quiet she is!” he said. “She is meditating, and she
does right to place herself in God’s hands, like a little child.”
However, in a scarcely audible voice, a mere breath, Madame Vetu
stammered: “Oh! I am suffering, I am suffering.”
At last, at a quarter to eight o’clock, Madame de Jonquiere warned her
charges that they would do well to prepare themselves. She herself,
assisted by Sister Hyacinthe and Madame Desagneaux, buttoned several
dresses, and put shoes on impotent feet. It was a real toilette, for they
all desired to appear to the greatest advantage before the Blessed
Virgin. A large number had sufficient sense of delicacy to wash their
hands. Others unpacked their parcels, and put on clean linen. On her
side, Elise Rouquet had ended by discovering a little pocket-glass in the
hands of a woman near her, a huge, dropsical creature, who was very
coquettish; and having borrowed it, she leant it against the bolster, and
then, with infinite care, began to fasten her fichu as elegantly as
possible about her head, in order to hide her distorted features.
Meanwhile, erect in front of her, little Sophie watched her with an air
of profound interest.
It was Abbe Judaine who gave the signal for starting on the journey to
the Grotto. He wished, he said, to accompany his dear suffering daughters
thither, whilst the lady-hospitallers and the Sisters remained in the
ward, so as to put things in some little order again. Then the ward was
at once emptied, the patients being carried down-stairs amidst renewed
tumult. And Pierre, having replaced Marie’s box upon its wheels, took the
first place in the _cortege_, which was formed of a score of little
handcarts, bath-chairs, and litters. The other wards, however, were also
emptying, the courtyard became crowded, and the _defile_ was organised in
haphazard fashion. There was soon an interminable train descending the
rather steep slope of the Avenue de la Grotte, so that Pierre was already
reaching the Plateau de la Merlasse when the last stretchers were barely
leaving the precincts of the hospital.
It was eight o’clock, and the sun, already high, a triumphant August sun,
was flaming in the great sky, which was beautifully clear. It seemed as
if the blue of the atmosphere, cleansed by the storm of the previous
night, were quite new, fresh with youth. And the frightful _defile_, a
perfect “Cour des Miracles” of human woe, rolled along the sloping
pavement amid all the brilliancy of that radiant morning. There was no
end to the train of abominations; it appeared to grow longer and longer.
No order was observed, ailments of all kinds were jumbled together; it
seemed like the clearing of some inferno where the most monstrous
maladies, the rare and awful cases which provoke a shudder, had been
gathered together. Eczema, roseola, elephantiasis, presented a long array
of doleful victims. Well-nigh vanished diseases reappeared; one old woman
was affected with leprosy, another was, covered with impetiginous lichen
like a tree which has rotted in the shade. Then came the dropsical ones,
inflated like wine-skins; and beside some stretchers there dangled hands
twisted by rheumatism, while from others protruded feet swollen by oedema
beyond all recognition, looking, in fact, like bags full of rags. One
woman, suffering from hydrocephalus, sat in a little cart, the dolorous
motions of her head bespeaking her grievous malady. A tall girl afflicted
with chorea--St. Vitus’s dance--was dancing with every limb, without a
pause, the left side of her face being continually distorted by sudden,
convulsive grimaces. A younger one, who followed, gave vent to a bark, a
kind of plaintive animal cry, each time that the tic douloureux which was
torturing her twisted her mouth and her right cheek, which she seemed to
throw forward. Next came the consumptives, trembling with fever,
exhausted by dysentery, wasted to skeletons, with livid skins, recalling
the colour of that earth in which they would soon be laid to rest; and
there was one among them who was quite white, with flaming eyes, who
looked indeed like a death’s head in which a torch had been lighted. Then
every deformity of the contractions followed in succession--twisted
trunks, twisted arms, necks askew, all the distortions of poor creatures
whom nature had warped and broken; and among these was one whose right
hand was thrust back behind her ribs whilst her head fell to the left
resting fixedly upon her shoulder. Afterwards came poor rachitic girls
displaying waxen complexions and slender necks eaten away by sores, and
yellow-faced women in the painful stupor which falls on those whose
bosoms are devoured by cancers; whilst others, lying down with their
mournful eyes gazing heavenwards, seemed to be listening to the throbs of
the tumours which obstructed their organs. And still more and more went
by; there was always something more frightful to come; this woman
following that other one increased the general shudder of horror. From
the neck of a girl of twenty who had a crushed, flattened head like a
toad’s, there hung so large a goitre that it fell even to her waist like
the bib of an apron. A blind woman walked along, her head erect, her face
pale like marble, displaying the acute inflammation of her poor,
ulcerated eyes. An aged woman stricken with imbecility, afflicted with
dreadful facial disfigurements, laughed aloud with a terrifying laugh.
And all at once an epileptic was seized with convulsions, and began
foaming on her stretcher, without, however, causing any stoppage of the
procession, which never slackened its march, lashed onward as it was by
the blizzard of feverish passion which impelled it towards the Grotto.
The bearers, the priests, and the ailing ones themselves had just
intonated a canticle, the song of Bernadette, and all rolled along amid
the besetting “Aves,” so that the little carts, the litters, and the
pedestrians descended the sloping road like a swollen and overflowing
torrent of roaring water. At the corner of the Rue Saint-Joseph, near the
Plateau de la Merlasse, a family of excursionists, who had come from
Cauterets or Bagneres, stood at the edge of the footway, overcome with
profound astonishment. These people were evidently well-to-do
_bourgeois_, the father and mother very correct in appearance and
demeanour, while their two big girls, attired in light-coloured dresses,
had the smiling faces of happy creatures who are amusing themselves. But
their first feeling of surprise was soon followed by terror, a growing
terror, as if they beheld the opening of some pesthouse of ancient times,
some hospital of the legendary ages, evacuated after a great epidemic.
The two girls became quite pale, while the father and the mother felt icy
cold in presence of that endless _defile_ of so many horrors, the
pestilential emanations of which were blown full in their faces. O God!
to think that such hideousness, such filth, such suffering, should exist!
Was it possible--under that magnificently radiant sun, under those broad
heavens so full of light and joy whither the freshness of the Gave’s
waters ascended, and the breeze of morning wafted the pure perfumes of
the mountains!
When Pierre, at the head of the _cortege_, reached the Plateau de la
Merlasse, he found himself immersed in that clear sunlight, that fresh
and balmy air. He turned round and smiled affectionately at Marie; and as
they came out on the Place du Rosaire in the morning splendour, they were
both enchanted with the lovely panorama which spread around them.
In front, on the east, was Old Lourdes, lying in a broad fold of the
ground beyond a rock. The sun was rising behind the distant mountains,
and its oblique rays clearly outlined the dark lilac mass of that
solitary rock, which was crowned by the tower and crumbling walls of the
ancient castle, once the redoubtable key of the seven valleys. Through
the dancing, golden dust you discerned little of the ruined pile except
some stately outlines, some huge blocks of building which looked as
though reared by Cyclopean hands; and beyond the rock you but vaguely
distinguished the discoloured, intermingled house-roofs of the old town.
Nearer in than the castle, however, the new town--the rich and noisy city
which had sprung up in a few years as though by miracle--spread out on
either hand, displaying its hotels, its stylish shops, its lodging-houses
all with white fronts smiling amidst patches of greenery. Then there was
the Gave flowing along at the base of the rock, rolling clamorous, clear
waters, now blue and now green, now deep as they passed under the old
bridge, and now leaping as they careered under the new one, which the
Fathers of the Immaculate Conception had built in order to connect the
Grotto with the railway station and the recently opened Boulevard. And as
a background to this delightful picture, this fresh water, this greenery,
this gay, scattered, rejuvenated town, the little and the big Gers arose,
two huge ridges of bare rock and low herbage, which, in the projected
shade that bathed them, assumed delicate tints of pale mauve and green,
fading softly into pink.
Then, upon the north, on the right bank of the Gave, beyond the hills
followed by the railway line, the heights of La Buala ascended, their
wooded slopes radiant in the morning light. On that side lay Bartres.
More to the left arose the Serre de Julos, dominated by the Miramont.
Other crests, far off, faded away into the ether. And in the foreground,
rising in tiers among the grassy valleys beyond the Gave, a number of
convents, which seemed to have sprung up in this region of prodigies like
early vegetation, imparted some measure of life to the landscape. First,
there was an Orphan Asylum founded by the Sisters of Nevers, whose vast
buildings shone brightly in the sunlight. Next came the Carmelite
convent, on the highway to Pau, just in front of the Grotto; and then
that of the Assumptionists higher up, skirting the road to Poueyferre;
whilst the Dominicans showed but a corner of their roofs, sequestered in
the far-away solitude. And at last appeared the establishment of the
Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, those who were called the Blue
Sisters, and who had founded at the far end of the valley a home where
they received well-to-do lady pilgrims, desirous of solitude, as
boarders.
At that early hour all the bells of these convents were pealing joyfully
in the crystalline atmosphere, whilst the bells of other convents, on the
other, the southern horizon, answered them with the same silvery strains
of joy. The bell of the nunnery of Sainte Clarissa, near the old bridge,
rang a scale of gay, clear notes, which one might have fancied to be the
chirruping of a bird. And on this side of the town, also, there were
valleys that dipped down between the ridges, and mountains that upreared
their bare sides, a commingling of smiling and of agitated nature, an
endless surging of heights amongst which you noticed those of Visens,
whose slopes the sunlight tinged ornately with soft blue and carmine of a
rippling, moire-like effect.
However, when Marie and Pierre turned their eyes to the west, they were
quite dazzled. The sun rays were here streaming on the large and the
little Beout with their cupolas of unequal height. And on this side the
background was one of gold and purple, a dazzling mountain on whose sides
one could only discern the road which snaked between the trees on its way
to the Calvary above. And here, too, against the sunlit background,
radiant like an aureola, stood out the three superposed churches which at
the voice of Bernadette had sprung from the rock to the glory of the
Blessed Virgin. First of all, down below, came the church of the Rosary,
squat, circular, and half cut out of the rock, at the farther end of an
esplanade on either side of which, like two huge arms, were colossal
gradient ways ascending gently to the Crypt church. Vast labour had been
expended here, a quarryful of stones had been cut and set in position,
there were arches as lofty as naves supporting the gigantic terraced
avenues which had been constructed so that the processions might roll
along in all their pomp, and the little conveyances containing sick
children might ascend without hindrance to the divine presence. Then came
the Crypt, the subterranean church within the rock, with only its low
door visible above the church of the Rosary, whose paved roof, with its
vast promenade, formed a continuation of the terraced inclines. And at
last, from the summit sprang the Basilica, somewhat slender and frail,
recalling some finely chased jewel of the Renascence, and looking very
new and very white--like a prayer, a spotless dove, soaring aloft from
the rocks of Massabielle. The spire, which appeared the more delicate and
slight when compared with the gigantic inclines below, seemed like the
little vertical flame of a taper set in the midst of the vast landscape,
those endless waves of valleys and mountains. By the side, too, of the
dense greenery of the Calvary hill, it looked fragile and candid, like
childish faith; and at sight of it you instinctively thought of the
little white arm, the little thin hand of the puny girl, who had here
pointed to Heaven in the crisis of her human sufferings. You could not
see the Grotto, the entrance of which was on the left, at the base of the
rock. Beyond the Basilica, the only buildings which caught the eye were
the heavy square pile where the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception had
their abode, and the episcopal palace, standing much farther away, in a
spreading, wooded valley. And the three churches were flaming in the
morning glow, and the rain of gold scattered by the sun rays was sweeping
the whole countryside, whilst the flying peals of the bells seemed to be
the very vibration of the light, the musical awakening of the lovely day
that was now beginning.
Whilst crossing the Place du Rosaire, Pierre and Marie glanced at the
Esplanade, the public walk with its long central lawn skirted by broad
parallel paths and extending as far as the new bridge. Here, with face
turned towards the Basilica, was the great crowned statue of the Virgin.
All the sufferers crossed themselves as they went by. And still
passionately chanting its canticle, the fearful _cortege_ rolled on,
through nature in festive array. Under the dazzling sky, past the
mountains of gold and purple, amidst the centenarian trees, symbolical of
health, the running waters whose freshness was eternal, that _cortege_
still and ever marched on with its sufferers, whom nature, if not God,
had condemned, those who were afflicted with skin diseases, those whose
flesh was eaten away, those who were dropsical and inflated like
wine-skins, and those whom rheumatism and paralysis had twisted into
postures of agony. And the victims of hydrocephalus followed, with the
dancers of St. Vitus, the consumptives, the rickety, the epileptic, the
cancerous, the goitrous, the blind, the mad, and the idiotic. “Ave, ave,
ave, Maria!” they sang; and the stubborn plaint acquired increased
volume, as nearer and nearer to the Grotto it bore that abominable
torrent of human wretchedness and pain, amidst all the fright and horror
of the passers-by, who stopped short, unable to stir, their hearts frozen
as this nightmare swept before their eyes.
Pierre and Marie were the first to pass under the lofty arcade of one of
the terraced inclines. And then, as they followed the quay of the Gave,
they all at once came upon the Grotto. And Marie, whom Pierre wheeled as
near to the railing as possible, was only able to raise herself in her
little conveyance, and murmur: “O most Blessed Virgin, Virgin most
loved!”
She had seen neither the entrances to the piscinas nor the twelve-piped
fountain, which she had just passed; nor did she distinguish any better
the shop on her left hand where crucifixes, chaplets, statuettes,
pictures, and other religious articles were sold, or the stone pulpit on
her right which Father Massias already occupied. Her eyes were dazzled by
the splendour of the Grotto; it seemed to her as if a hundred thousand
tapers were burning there behind the railing, filling the low entrance
with the glow of a furnace and illuminating, as with star rays, the
statue of the Virgin, which stood, higher up, at the edge of a narrow
ogive-like cavity. And for her, apart from that glorious apparition,
nothing existed there, neither the crutches with which a part of the
vault had been covered, nor the piles of bouquets fading away amidst the
ivy and the eglantine, nor even the altar placed in the centre near a
little portable organ over which a cover had been thrown. However, as she
raised her eyes above the rock, she once more beheld the slender white
Basilica profiled against the sky, its slight, tapering spire soaring
into the azure of the Infinite like a prayer.
“O Virgin most powerful--Queen of the Virgins--Holy Virgin of Virgins!”
Pierre had now succeeded in wheeling Marie’s box to the front rank,
beyond the numerous oak benches which were set out here in the open air
as in the nave of a church. Nearly all these benches were already
occupied by those sufferers who could sit down, while the vacant spaces
were soon filled with litters and little vehicles whose wheels became
entangled together, and on whose close-packed mattresses and pillows all
sorts of diseases were gathered pell-mell. Immediately on arriving, the
young priest had recognised the Vignerons seated with their sorry child
Gustave in the middle of a bench, and now, on the flagstones, he caught
sight of the lace-trimmed bed of Madame Dieulafay, beside whom her
husband and sister knelt in prayer. Moreover, all the patients of Madame
de Jonquiere’s carriage took up position here--M. Sabathier and Brother
Isidore side by side, Madame Vetu reclining hopelessly in a conveyance,
Elise Rouquet seated, La Grivotte excited and raising herself on her
clenched hands. Pierre also again perceived Madame Maze, standing
somewhat apart from the others, and humbling herself in prayer; whilst
Madame Vincent, who had fallen on her knees, still holding her little
Rose in her arms, presented the child to the Virgin with ardent entreaty,
the distracted gesture of a mother soliciting compassion from the mother
of divine grace. And around this reserved space was the ever-growing
throng of pilgrims, the pressing, jostling mob which gradually stretched
to the parapet overlooking the Gave.
“O Virgin most merciful,” continued Marie in an undertone, “Virgin most
faithful, Virgin conceived without sin!”
Then, almost fainting, she spoke no more, but with her lips still moving,
as though in silent prayer, gazed distractedly at Pierre. He thought that
she wished to speak to him and leant forward: “Shall I remain here at
your disposal to take you to the piscina by-and-by?” he asked.
But as soon as she understood him she shook her head. And then in a
feverish way she said: “No, no, I don’t want to be bathed this morning.
It seems to me that one must be truly worthy, truly pure, truly holy
before seeking the miracle! I want to spend the whole morning in
imploring it with joined hands; I want to pray, to pray with all my
strength and all my soul--” She was stifling, and paused. Then she added:
“Don’t come to take me back to the hospital till eleven o’clock. I will
not let them take me from here till then.”
However, Pierre did not go away, but remained near her. For a moment, he
even fell upon his knees; he also would have liked to pray with the same
burning faith, to beg of God the cure of that poor sick child, whom he
loved with such fraternal affection. But since he had reached the Grotto
he had felt a singular sensation invading him, a covert revolt, as it
were, which hampered the pious flight of his prayer. He wished to
believe; he had spent the whole night hoping that belief would once more
blossom in his soul, like some lovely flower of innocence and candour, as
soon as he should have knelt upon the soil of that land of miracle. And
yet he only experienced discomfort and anxiety in presence of the
theatrical scene before him, that pale stiff statue in the false light of
the tapers, with the chaplet shop full of jostling customers on the one
hand, and the large stone pulpit whence a Father of the Assumption was
shouting “Aves” on the other. Had his soul become utterly withered then?
Could no divine dew again impregnate it with innocence, render it like
the souls of little children, who at the slightest caressing touch of the
sacred legend give themselves to it entirely?
Then, while his thoughts were still wandering, he recognised Father
Massias in the ecclesiastic who occupied the pulpit. He had formerly
known him, and was quite stirred by his sombre ardour, by the sight of
his thin face and sparkling eyes, by the eloquence which poured from his
large mouth as he offered violence to Heaven to compel it to descend upon
earth. And whilst he thus examined Father Massias, astonished at feeling
himself so unlike the preacher, he caught sight of Father Fourcade, who,
at the foot of the pulpit, was deep in conference with Baron Suire. The
latter seemed much perplexed by something which Father Fourcade said to
him; however he ended by approving it with a complaisant nod. Then, as
Abbe Judaine was also standing there, Father Fourcade likewise spoke to
him for a moment, and a scared expression came over the Abbe’s broad,
fatherly face while he listened; nevertheless, like the Baron, he at last
bowed assent.
Then, all at once, Father Fourcade appeared in the pulpit, erect, drawing
up his lofty figure which his attack of gout had slightly bent; and he
had not wished that Father Massias, his well-loved brother, whom he
preferred above all others, should altogether go down the narrow
stairway, for he had kept him upon one of the steps, and was leaning on
his shoulder. And in a full, grave voice, with an air of sovereign
authority which caused perfect silence to reign around, he spoke as
follows:
“My dear brethren, my dear sisters, I ask your forgiveness for
interrupting your prayers, but I have a communication to make to you, and
I have to ask the help of all your faithful souls. We had a very sad
accident to deplore this morning, one of our brethren died in one of the
trains by which you came to Lourdes, died just as he was about to set
foot in the promised land.”
A brief pause followed and Father Fourcade seemed to become yet taller,
his handsome face beaming with fervour, amidst his long, streaming, royal
beard.
“Well, my dear brethren, my dear sisters,” he resumed, “in spite of
everything, the idea has come to me that we ought not to despair. Who
knows if God Almighty did not will that death in order that He might
prove His Omnipotence to the world? It is as though a voice were speaking
to me, urging me to ascend this pulpit and ask your prayers for this man,
this man who is no more, but whose life is nevertheless in the hands of
the most Blessed Virgin who can still implore her Divine Son in his
favour. Yes, the man is here, I have caused his body to be brought
hither, and it depends on you, perhaps, whether a brilliant miracle shall
dazzle the universe, if you pray with sufficient ardour to touch the
compassion of Heaven. We will plunge the man’s body into the piscina and
we will entreat the Lord, the master of the world, to resuscitate him, to
give unto us this extraordinary sign of His sovereign beneficence!”
An icy thrill, wafted from the Invisible, passed through the listeners.
They had all become pale, and though the lips of none of them had opened,
it seemed as if a murmur sped through their ranks amidst a shudder.
“But with what ardour must we not pray!” violently resumed Father
Fourcade, exalted by genuine faith. “It is your souls, your whole souls,
that I ask of you, my dear brothers, my dear sisters, it is a prayer in
which you must put your hearts, your blood, your very life with whatever
may be most noble and loving in it! Pray with all your strength, pray
till you no longer know who you are, or where you are; pray as one loves,
pray as one dies, for that which we are about to ask is so precious, so
rare, so astounding a grace that only the energy of our worship can
induce God to answer us. And in order that our prayers may be the more
efficacious, in order that they may have time to spread and ascend to the
feet of the Eternal Father, we will not lower the body into the piscina
until four o’clock this afternoon. And now my dear brethren, now my dear
sisters, pray, pray to the most Blessed Virgin, the Queen of the Angels,
the Comforter of the Afflicted!”
Then he himself, distracted by emotion, resumed the recital of the
rosary, whilst near him Father Massias burst into sobs. And thereupon the
great anxious silence was broken, contagion seized upon the throng, it
was transported and gave vent to shouts, tears, and confused stammered
entreaties. It was as though a breath of delirium were sweeping by,
reducing men’s wills to naught, and turning all these beings into one
being, exasperated with love and seized with a mad desire for the
impossible prodigy.
And for a moment Pierre had thought that the ground was giving way
beneath him, that he was about to fall and faint. But with difficulty he
managed to rise from his knees and slowly walked away.