WHEN Pierre and M. de Guersaint got outside they began walking slowly
amidst the ever-growing stream of the Sundayfied crowd. The sky was a
bright blue, the sun warmed the whole town, and there was a festive
gaiety in the atmosphere, the keen delight that attends those great fairs
which bring entire communities into the open air. When they had descended
the crowded footway of the Avenue de la Grotte, and had reached the
corner of the Plateau de la Merlasse, they found their way barred by a
throng which was flowing backward amidst a block of vehicles and stamping
of horses. “There is no hurry, however,” remarked M. de Guersaint. “My
idea is to go as far as the Place du Marcadal in the old town; for the
servant girl at the hotel told me of a hairdresser there whose brother
lets out conveyances cheaply. Do you mind going so far?”
“I?” replied Pierre. “Go wherever you like, I’ll follow you.”
“All right--and I’ll profit by the opportunity to have a shave.”
They were nearing the Place du Rosaire, and found themselves in front of
the lawns stretching to the Gave, when an encounter again stopped them.
Mesdames Desagneaux and Raymonde de Jonquiere were here, chatting gaily
with Gerard de Peyrelongue. Both women wore light-coloured gowns, seaside
dresses as it were, and their white silk parasols shone in the bright
sunlight. They imparted, so to say, a pretty note to the scene--a touch
of society chatter blended with the fresh laughter of youth.
“No, no,” Madame Desagneaux was saying, “we certainly can’t go and visit
your ‘ordinary’ like that--at the very moment when all your comrades are
eating.”
Gerard, however, with a very gallant air, insisted on their accompanying
him, turning more particularly towards Raymonde, whose somewhat massive
face was that day brightened by the radiant charm of health.
“But it is a very curious sight, I assure you,” said the young man, “and
you would be very respectfully received. Trust yourself to me,
mademoiselle. Besides, we should certainly find M. Berthaud there, and he
would be delighted to do you the honours.”
Raymonde smiled, her clear eyes plainly saying that she was quite
agreeable. And just then, as Pierre and M. de Guersaint drew near in
order to present their respects to the ladies, they were made acquainted
with the question under discussion. The “ordinary” was a kind of
restaurant or _table d’hote_ which the members of the Hospitality of Our
Lady of Salvation--the bearers, the hospitallers of the Grotto, the
piscinas, and the hospitals--had established among themselves with the
view of taking their meals together at small cost. Many of them were not
rich, for they were recruited among all classes; however, they had
contrived to secure three good meals for the daily payment of three
francs apiece. And in fact they soon had provisions to spare and
distributed them among the poor. Everything was in their own management;
they purchased their own supplies, recruited a cook and a few waiters,
and did not disdain to lend a hand themselves, in order that everything
might be comfortable and orderly.
“It must be very interesting,” said M, de Guersaint, when these
explanations had been given him. “Let us go and see it, if we are not in
the way.”
Little Madame Desagneaux thereupon gave her consent. “Well, if we are
going in a party,” said she, “I am quite willing. But when this gentleman
first proposed to take Raymonde and me, I was afraid that it might not be
quite proper.”
Then, as she began to laugh, the others followed her example. She had
accepted M. de Guersaint’s arm, and Pierre walked beside her on the other
hand, experiencing a sudden feeling of sympathy for this gay little
woman, who was so full of life and so charming with her fair frizzy hair
and creamy complexion.
Behind them came Raymonde, leaning upon Gerard’s arm and talking to him
in the calm, staid voice of a young lady who holds the best principles
despite her air of heedless youth. And since here was the husband whom
she had so often dreamt of, she resolved that she would this time secure
him, make him beyond all question her own. She intoxicated him with the
perfume of health and youth which she diffused, and at the same time
astonished him by her knowledge of housewifely duties and of the manner
in which money may be economised even in the most trifling matters; for
having questioned him with regard to the purchases which he and his
comrades made for their “ordinary,” she proceeded to show him that they
might have reduced their expenditure still further.
Meantime M. de Guersaint and Madame Desagneaux were also chatting
together: “You must be fearfully tired, madame,” said the architect.
But with a gesture of revolt, and an exclamation of genuine anger, she
replied: “Oh no, indeed! Last night, it is true, fatigue quite overcame
me at the hospital; I sat down and dozed off, and Madame de Jonquiere and
the other ladies were good enough to let me sleep on.” At this the others
again began to laugh; but still with the same angry air she continued:
“And so I slept like a log until this morning. It was disgraceful,
especially as I had sworn that I would remain up all night.” Then,
merriment gaining upon her in her turn, she suddenly burst into a
sonorous laugh, displaying her beautiful white teeth. “Ah! a pretty nurse
I am, and no mistake! It was poor Madame de Jonquiere who had to remain
on her legs all the time. I tried to coax her to come out with us just
now. But she preferred to take a little rest.”
Raymonde, who overheard these words, thereupon raised her voice to say:
“Yes, indeed, my poor mamma could no longer keep on her feet. It was I
who compelled her to lie down, telling her that she could go to sleep
without any uneasiness, for we should get on all right without her--”
So saying, the girl gave Gerard a laughing glance. He even fancied that
he could detect a faint squeeze of the fresh round arm which was resting
on his own, as though, indeed, she had wished to express her happiness at
being alone with him so that they might settle their own affairs without
any interference. This quite delighted him; and he began to explain that
if he had not had _dejeuner_ with his comrades that day, it was because
some friends had invited him to join them at the railway-station
refreshment-room at ten o’clock, and had not given him his liberty until
after the departure of the eleven-thirty train.
“Ah! the rascals!” he suddenly resumed. “Do you hear them, mademoiselle?”
The little party was now nearing its destination, and the uproarious
laughter and chatter of youth rang out from a clump of trees which
concealed the old zinc and plaster building in which the “ordinary” was
installed. Gerard began by taking the visitors into the kitchen, a very
spacious apartment, well fitted up, and containing a huge range and an
immense table, to say nothing of numerous gigantic cauldrons. Here,
moreover, the young man called the attention of his companions to the
circumstance that the cook, a fat, jovial-looking man, had the red cross
pinned on his white jacket, being himself a member of the pilgrimage.
Then, pushing open a door, Gerard invited his friends to enter the common
room.
It was a long apartment containing two rows of plain deal tables; and the
only other articles of furniture were numerous rush-seated tavern chairs,
with an additional table which served as a sideboard. The whitewashed
walls and the flooring of shiny, red tiles looked, however, extremely
clean amidst this intentional bareness, which was similar to that of a
monkish refectory. But, the feature of the place which more particularly
struck you, as you crossed the threshold, was the childish gaiety which
reigned there; for, packed together at the tables, were a hundred and
fifty hospitallers of all ages, eating with splendid appetites, laughing,
applauding, and singing, with their mouths full. A wondrous fraternity
united these men, who had flocked to Lourdes from every province of
France, and who belonged to all classes, and represented every degree of
fortune. Many of them knew nothing of one another, save that they met
here and elbowed one another during three days every year, living
together like brothers, and then going off and remaining in absolute
ignorance of each other during the rest of the twelvemonth. Nothing could
be more charming, however, than to meet again at the next pilgrimage,
united in the same charitable work, and to spend a few days of hard
labour and boyish delight in common once more; for it all became, as it
were, an “outing” of a number of big fellows, let loose under a lovely
sky, and well pleased to be able to enjoy themselves and laugh together.
And even the frugality of the table, with the pride of managing things
themselves, of eating the provisions which they had purchased and cooked,
added to the general good humour.
“You see,” explained Gerard, “we are not at all inclined to be sad,
although we have so much hard work to get through. The Hospitality
numbers more than three hundred members, but there are only about one
hundred and fifty here at a time, for we have had to organise two
successive services, so that there may always be some of us on duty at
the Grotto and the hospitals.”
The sight of the little party of visitors assembled on the threshold of
the room seemed to have increased the general delight; and Berthaud, the
superintendent of the bearers, who was lunching at the head of one of the
tables, gallantly rose up to receive the ladies.
“But it smells very nice,” exclaimed Madame Desagneaux in her giddy way.
“Won’t you invite us to come and taste your cookery to-morrow?”
“Oh! we can’t ask ladies,” replied Berthaud, laughing. “But if you
gentlemen would like to join us to-morrow we should be extremely pleased
to entertain you.”
He had at once noticed the good understanding which prevailed between
Gerard and Raymonde, and seemed delighted at it, for he greatly wished
his cousin to make this match. He laughed pleasantly, at the enthusiastic
gaiety which the young girl displayed as she began to question him. “Is
not that the Marquis de Salmon-Roquebert,” she asked, “who is sitting
over yonder between those two young men who look like shop assistants?”
“They are, in fact, the sons of a small stationer at Tarbes,” replied
Berthaud; “and that is really the Marquis, your neighbour of the Rue de
Lille, the owner of that magnificent mansion, one of the richest and most
noble men of title in France. You see how he is enjoying our mutton
stew!”
It was true, the millionaire Marquis seemed delighted to be able to board
himself for his three francs a day, and to sit down at table in genuine
democratic fashion by the side of petty _bourgeois_ and workmen who would
not have dared to accost him in the street. Was not that chance table
symbolical of social communion, effected by the joint practice of
charity? For his part, the Marquis was the more hungry that day, as he
had bathed over sixty patients, sufferers from all the most abominable
diseases of unhappy humanity, at the piscinas that morning. And the scene
around him seemed like a realisation of the evangelical commonalty; but
doubtless it was so charming and so gay simply because its duration was
limited to three days.
Although M. de Guersaint had but lately risen from table, his curiosity
prompted him to taste the mutton stew, and he pronounced it perfect.
Meantime, Pierre caught sight of Baron Suire, the director of the
Hospitality, walking about between the rows of tables with an air of some
importance, as though he had allotted himself the task of keeping an eye
on everything, even on the manner in which his staff fed itself. The
young priest thereupon remembered the ardent desire which Marie had
expressed to spend the night in front of the Grotto, and it occurred to
him that the Baron might be willing to give the necessary authorisation.
“Certainly,” replied the director, who had become quite grave whilst
listening to Pierre, “we do sometimes allow it; but it is always a very
delicate matter! You assure me at all events that this young person is
not consumptive? Well, well, since you say that she so much desires it I
will mention the matter to Father Fourcade and warn Madame de Jonquiere,
so that she may let you take the young lady away.”
He was in reality a very good-natured fellow, albeit so fond of assuming
the air of an indispensable man weighed down by the heaviest
responsibilities. In his turn he now detained the visitors, and gave them
full particulars concerning the organisation of the Hospitality. Its
members said prayers together every morning. Two board meetings were held
each day, and were attended by all the heads of departments, as well as
by the reverend Fathers and some of the chaplains. All the hospitallers
took the Sacrament as frequently as possible. And, moreover, there were
many complicated tasks to be attended to, a prodigious rotation of
duties, quite a little world to be governed with a firm hand. The Baron
spoke like a general who each year gains a great victory over the spirit
of the age; and, sending Berthaud back to finish his _dejeuner_, he
insisted on escorting the ladies into the little sanded courtyard, which
was shaded by some fine trees.
“It is very interesting, very interesting,” repeated Madame Desagneaux.
“We are greatly obliged to you for your kindness, monsieur.”
“Don’t mention it, don’t mention it, madame,” answered the Baron. “It is
I who am pleased at having had an opportunity to show you my little
army.”
So far Gerard had not quitted Raymonde’s side; but M. de Guersaint and
Pierre were already exchanging glances suggestive of leave-taking, in
order that they might repair by themselves to the Place du Marcadal, when
Madame Desagneaux suddenly remembered that a friend had requested her to
send her a bottle of Lourdes water. And she thereupon asked Gerard how
she was to execute this commission. The young man began to laugh. “Will
you again accept me as a guide?” said he. “And by the way, if these
gentlemen like to come as well, I will show you the place where the
bottles are filled, corked, packed in cases, and then sent off. It is a
curious sight.”
M. de Guersaint immediately consented; and all five of them set out
again, Madame Desagneaux still between the architect and the priest,
whilst Raymonde and Gerard brought up the rear. The crowd in the burning
sunlight was increasing; the Place du Rosaire was now overflowing with an
idle sauntering mob resembling some concourse of sight-seers on a day of
public rejoicing.
The bottling and packing shops were situated under one of the arches on
the left-hand side of the Place. They formed a suite of three apartments
of very simple aspect. In the first one the bottles were filled in the
most ordinary of fashions. A little green-painted zinc barrel, not unlike
a watering-cask, was dragged by a man from the Grotto, and the
light-coloured bottles were then simply filled at its tap, one by one;
the blouse-clad workman entrusted with the duty exercising no particular
watchfulness to prevent the water from overflowing. In fact there was
quite a puddle of it upon the ground. There were no labels on the
bottles; the little leaden capsules placed over the corks alone bore an
inscription, and they were coated with a kind of ceruse, doubtless to
ensure preservation. Then came two other rooms which formed regular
packing shops, with carpenters’ benches, tools, and heaps of shavings.
The boxes, most frequently made for one bottle or for two, were put
together with great care, and the bottles were deposited inside them, on
beds of fine wood parings. The scene reminded one in some degree of the
packing halls for flowers at Nice and for preserved fruits at Grasse.
Gerard went on giving explanations with a quiet, satisfied air. “The
water,” he said, “really comes from the Grotto, as you can yourselves
see, so that all the foolish jokes which one hears really have no basis.
And everything is perfectly simple, natural, and goes on in the broad
daylight. I would also point out to you that the Fathers don’t sell the
water as they are accused of doing. For instance, a bottle of water here
costs twenty centimes,* which is only the price of the bottle itself. If
you wish to have it sent to anybody you naturally have to pay for the
packing and the carriage, and then it costs you one franc and seventy
centimes.** However, you are perfectly at liberty to go to the source and
fill the flasks and cans and other receptacles that you may choose to
bring with you.”
* Four cents, U.S.A.
** About 32 cents, U.S.A.
Pierre reflected that the profits of the reverend Fathers in this respect
could not be very large ones, for their gains were limited to what they
made by manufacturing the boxes and supplying the bottles, which latter,
purchased by the thousand, certainly did not cost them so much as twenty
centimes apiece. However, Raymonde and Madame Desagneaux, as well as M.
de Guersaint, who had such a lively imagination, experienced deep
disappointment at sight of the little green barrel, the capsules, sticky
with ceruse, and the piles of shavings lying around the benches. They had
doubtless imagined all sorts of ceremonies, the observance of certain
rites in bottling the miraculous water, priests in vestments pronouncing
blessings, and choir-boys singing hymns of praise in pure crystalline
voices. For his part, Pierre, in presence of all this vulgar bottling and
packing, ended by thinking of the active power of faith. When one of
those bottles reaches some far-away sick-room, and is unpacked there, and
the sufferer falls upon his knees, and so excites himself by
contemplating and drinking the pure water that he actually brings about
the cure of his ailment, there must truly be a most extraordinary plunge
into all-powerful illusion.
“Ah!” exclaimed Gerard as they came out, “would you like to see the
storehouse where the tapers are kept, before going to the offices? It is
only a couple of steps away.”
And then, not even waiting for their answer, he led them to the opposite
side of the Place du Rosaire. His one desire was to amuse Raymonde, but,
in point of fact, the aspect of the place where the tapers were stored
was even less entertaining than that of the packing-rooms which they had
just left. This storehouse, a kind of deep vault under one of the
right-hand arches of the Place, was divided by timber into a number of
spacious compartments, in which lay an extraordinary collection of
tapers, classified according to size. The overplus of all the tapers
offered to the Grotto was deposited here; and such was the number of
these superfluous candles that the little conveyances stationed near the
Grotto railing, ready to receive the pilgrims’ offerings, had to be
brought to the storehouse several times a day in order to be emptied
there, after which they were returned to the Grotto, and were promptly
filled again. In theory, each taper that was offered ought to have been
burnt at the feet of the Virgin’s statue; but so great was the number of
these offerings, that, although a couple of hundred tapers of all sizes
were kept burning by day and night, it was impossible to exhaust the
supply, which went on increasing and increasing. There was a rumour that
the Fathers could not even find room to store all this wax, but had to
sell it over and over again; and, indeed, certain friends of the Grotto
confessed, with a touch of pride, that the profit on the tapers alone
would have sufficed to defray all the expenses of the business.
The quantity of these votive candles quite stupefied Raymonde and Madame
Desagneaux. How many, how many there were! The smaller ones, costing from
fifty centimes to a franc apiece, were piled up in fabulous numbers. M.
de Guersaint, desirous of getting at the exact figures, quite lost
himself in the puzzling calculation he attempted. As for Pierre, it was
in silence that he gazed upon this mass of wax, destined to be burnt in
open daylight to the glory of God; and although he was by no means a
rigid utilitarian, and could well understand that some apparent acts of
extravagance yield an illusive enjoyment and satisfaction which provide
humanity with as much sustenance as bread, he could not, on the other
hand, refrain from reflecting on the many benefits which might have been
conferred on the poor and the ailing with the money represented by all
that wax, which would fly away in smoke.
“But come, what about that bottle which I am to send off?” abruptly asked
Madame Desagneaux.
“We will go to the office,” replied Gerard. “In five minutes everything
will be settled.”
They had to cross the Place du Rosaire once more and ascend the stone
stairway leading to the Basilica. The office was up above, on the left
hand, at the corner of the path leading to the Calvary. The building was
a paltry one, a hut of lath and plaster which the wind and the rain had
reduced to a state of ruin. On a board outside was the inscription:
“Apply here with reference to Masses, Offerings, and Brotherhoods.
Forwarding office for Lourdes water. Subscriptions to the ‘Annals of O.
L. of Lourdes.’” How many millions of people must have already passed
through this wretched shanty, which seemed to date from the innocent days
when the foundations of the adjacent Basilica had scarcely been laid!
The whole party went in, eager to see what might be inside. But they
simply found a wicket at which Madame Desagneaux had to stop in order to
give her friend’s name and address; and when she had paid one franc and
seventy centimes, a small printed receipt was handed her, such as you
receive on registering luggage at a railway station.
As soon as they were outside again Gerard pointed to a large building
standing two or three hundred yards away, and resumed: “There, that is
where the Fathers reside.”
“But we see nothing of them,” remarked Pierre.
This observation so astonished the young man that he remained for a
moment without replying. “It’s true,” he at last said, “we do not see
them, but then they give up the custody of everything--the Grotto and all
the rest--to the Fathers of the Assumption during the national
pilgrimage.”
Pierre looked at the building which had been pointed out to him, and
noticed that it was a massive stone pile resembling a fortress. The
windows were closed, and the whole edifice looked lifeless. Yet
everything at Lourdes came from it, and to it also everything returned.
It seemed, in fact, to the young priest that he could hear the silent,
formidable rake-stroke which extended over the entire valley, which
caught hold of all who had come to the spot, and placed both the gold and
the blood of the throng in the clutches of those reverend Fathers!
However, Gerard just then resumed in a low voice “But come, they do show
themselves, for here is the reverend superior, Father Capdebarthe
himself.”
An ecclesiastic was indeed just passing, a man with the appearance of a
peasant, a knotty frame, and a large head which looked as though carved
with a billhook. His opaque eyes were quite expressionless, and his face,
with its worn features, had retained a loamy tint, a gloomy, russet
reflection of the earth. Monseigneur Laurence had really made a politic
selection in confiding the organisation and management of the Grotto to
those Garaison missionaries, who were so tenacious and covetous, for the
most part sons of mountain peasants and passionately attached to the
soil.
However, the little party now slowly retraced its steps by way of the
Plateau de la Merlasse, the broad boulevard which skirts the inclined way
on the left hand and leads to the Avenue de la Grotte. It was already
past one o’clock, but people were still eating their _dejeuners_ from one
to the other end of the overflowing town. Many of the fifty thousand
pilgrims and sight-seers collected within it had not yet been able to sit
down and eat; and Pierre, who had left the _table d’hote_ still crowded,
who had just seen the hospitallers squeezing together so gaily at the
“ordinary,” found more and more tables at each step he took. On all sides
people were eating, eating without a pause. Hereabouts, however, in the
open air, on either side of the broad road, the hungry ones were humble
folk who had rushed upon the tables set up on either footway--tables
formed of a couple of long boards, flanked by two forms, and shaded from
the sun by narrow linen awnings. Broth and coffee were sold at these
places at a penny a cup. The little loaves heaped up in high baskets also
cost a penny apiece. Hanging from the poles which upheld the awnings were
sausages, chitterlings, and hams. Some of the open-air _restaurateurs_
were frying potatoes, and others were concocting more or less savoury
messes of inferior meat and onions. A pungent smoke, a violent odour,
arose into the sunlight, mingling with the dust which was raised by the
continuous tramp of the promenaders. Rows of people, moreover, were
waiting at each cantine, so that each time a party rose from table fresh
customers took possession of the benches ranged beside the
oilcloth-covered planks, which were so narrow that there was scarcely
room for two bowls of soup to be placed side by side. And one and all
made haste, and devoured with the ravenous hunger born of their fatigue,
that insatiable appetite which so often follows upon great moral shocks.
In fact, when the mind had exhausted itself in prayer, when everything
physical had been forgotten amidst the mental flight into the legendary
heavens, the human animal suddenly appeared, again asserted itself, and
began to gorge. Moreover, under that dazzling Sunday sky, the scene was
like that of a fair-field with all the gluttony of a merrymaking
community, a display of the delight which they felt in living, despite
the multiplicity of their abominable ailments and the dearth of the
miracles they hoped for.
“They eat, they amuse themselves; what else can one expect?” remarked
Gerard, guessing the thoughts of his amiable companions.
“Ah! poor people!” murmured Pierre, “they have a perfect right to do so.”
He was greatly touched to see human nature reassert itself in this
fashion. However, when they had got to the lower part of the boulevard
near the Grotto, his feelings were hurt at sight of the desperate
eagerness displayed by the female vendors of tapers and bouquets, who
with the rough fierceness of conquerors assailed the passers-by in bands.
They were mostly young women, with bare heads, or with kerchiefs tied
over their hair, and they displayed extraordinary effrontery. Even the
old ones were scarcely more discreet. With parcels of tapers under their
arms, they brandished the one which they offered for sale and even thrust
it into the hand of the promenader. “Monsieur,” “madame,” they called,
“buy a taper, buy a taper, it will bring you luck!” One gentleman, who
was surrounded and shaken by three of the youngest of these harpies,
almost lost the skirts of his frock-coat in attempting to escape their
clutches. Then the scene began afresh with the bouquets--large round
bouquets they were, carelessly fastened together and looking like
cabbages. “A bouquet, madame!” was the cry. “A bouquet for the Blessed
Virgin!” If the lady escaped, she heard muttered insults behind her.
Trafficking, impudent trafficking, pursued the pilgrims to the very
outskirts of the Grotto. Trade was not merely triumphantly installed in
every one of the shops, standing close together and transforming each
street into a bazaar, but it overran the footways and barred the road
with hand-carts full of chaplets, medals, statuettes, and religious
prints. On all sides people were buying almost to the same extent as they
ate, in order that they might take away with them some souvenir of this
holy Kermesse. And the bright gay note of this commercial eagerness, this
scramble of hawkers, was supplied by the urchins who rushed about through
the crowd, crying the “Journal de la Grotte.” Their sharp, shrill voices
pierced the ear: “The ‘Journal de la Grotte,’ this morning’s number, two
sous, the ‘Journal de la Grotte.’”
Amidst the continual pushing which accompanied the eddying of the
ever-moving crowd, Gerard’s little party became separated. He and
Raymonde remained behind the others. They had begun talking together in
low tones, with an air of smiling intimacy, lost and isolated as they
were in the dense crowd. And Madame Desagneaux at last had to stop, look
back, and call to them: “Come on, or we shall lose one another!”
As they drew near, Pierre heard the girl exclaim: “Mamma is so very busy;
speak to her before we leave.” And Gerard thereupon replied: “It is
understood. You have made me very happy, mademoiselle.”
Thus the husband had been secured, the marriage decided upon, during this
charming promenade among the sights of Lourdes. Raymonde had completed
her conquest, and Gerard had at last taken a resolution, realising how
gay and sensible she was, as she walked beside him leaning on his arm.
M. de Guersaint, however, had raised his eyes, and was heard inquiring:
“Are not those people up there, on that balcony, the rich folk who made
the journey in the same train as ourselves?--You know whom I mean, that
lady who is so very ill, and whose husband and sister accompany her?”
He was alluding to the Dieulafays; and they indeed were the persons whom
he now saw on the balcony of a suite of rooms which they had rented in a
new house overlooking the lawns of the Rosary. They here occupied a
first-floor, furnished with all the luxury that Lourdes could provide,
carpets, hangings, mirrors, and many other things, without mentioning a
staff of servants despatched beforehand from Paris. As the weather was so
fine that afternoon, the large armchair on which lay the poor ailing
woman had been rolled on to the balcony. You could see her there, clad in
a lace _peignoir_. Her husband, always correctly attired in a black
frock-coat, stood beside her on her right hand, whilst her sister, in a
delightful pale mauve gown, sat on her left smiling and leaning over
every now and then so as to speak to her, but apparently receiving no
reply.
“Oh!” declared little Madame Desagneaux, “I have often heard people speak
of Madame Jousseur, that lady in mauve. She is the wife of a diplomatist
who neglects her, it seems, in spite of her great beauty; and last year
there was a deal of talk about her fancy for a young colonel who is well
known in Parisian society. It is said, however, in Catholic _salons_ that
her religious principles enabled her to conquer it.”
They all five remained there, looking up at the balcony. “To think,”
resumed Madame Desagneaux, “that her sister, poor woman, was once her
living portrait.” And, indeed, there was an expression of greater
kindliness and more gentle gaiety on Madame Dieulafay’s face. And now you
see her--no different from a dead woman except that she is above instead
of under ground--with her flesh wasted away, reduced to a livid, boneless
thing which they scarcely dare to move. Ah! the unhappy woman!
Raymonde thereupon assured the others that Madame Dieulafay, who had been
married scarcely two years previously, had brought all the jewellery
given her on the occasion of her wedding to offer it as a gift to Our
Lady of Lourdes; and Gerard confirmed this assertion, saying that the
jewellery had been handed over to the treasurer of the Basilica that very
morning with a golden lantern studded with gems and a large sum of money
destined for the relief of the poor. However, the Blessed Virgin could
not have been touched as yet, for the sufferer’s condition seemed, if
anything, to be worse.
From that moment Pierre no longer beheld aught save that young woman on
that handsome balcony, that woeful, wealthy creature lying there high
above the merrymaking throng, the Lourdes mob which was feasting and
laughing in the Sunday sunshine. The two dear ones who were so tenderly
watching over her--her sister who had forsaken her society triumphs, her
husband who had forgotten his financial business, his millions dispersed
throughout the world--increased, by their irreproachable demeanour, the
woefulness of the group which they thus formed high above all other
heads, and face to face with the lovely valley. For Pierre they alone
remained; and they were exceedingly wealthy and exceedingly wretched.
However, lingering in this wise on the footway with their eyes upturned,
the five promenaders narrowly escaped being knocked down and run over,
for at every moment fresh vehicles were coming up, for the most part
landaus drawn by four horses, which were driven at a fast trot, and whose
bells jingled merrily. The occupants of these carriages were tourists,
visitors to the waters of Pau, Bareges, and Cauterets, whom curiosity had
attracted to Lourdes, and who were delighted with the fine weather and
quite inspirited by their rapid drive across the mountains. They would
remain at Lourdes only a few hours; after hastening to the Grotto and the
Basilica in seaside costumes, they would start off again, laughing, and
well pleased at having seen it all. In this wise families in light
attire, bands of young women with bright parasols, darted hither and
thither among the grey, neutral-tinted crowd of pilgrims, imparting to
it, in a yet more pronounced manner, the aspect of a fair-day mob, amidst
which folks of good society deign to come and amuse themselves.
All at once Madame Desagneaux raised a cry “What, is it you, Berthe?” And
thereupon she embraced a tall, charming brunette who had just alighted
from a landau with three other young women, the whole party smiling and
animated. Everyone began talking at once, and all sorts of merry
exclamations rang out, in the delight they felt at meeting in this
fashion. “Oh! we are at Cauterets, my dear,” said the tall brunette. “And
as everybody comes here, we decided to come all four together. And your
husband, is he here with you?”
Madame Desagneaux began protesting: “Of course not,” said she. “He is at
Trouville, as you ought to know. I shall start to join him on Thursday.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” resumed the tall brunette, who, like her friend,
seemed to be an amiable, giddy creature, “I was forgetting; you are here
with the pilgrimage.”
Then Madame Desagneaux offered to guide her friends, promising to show
them everything of interest in less than a couple of hours; and turning
to Raymonde, who stood by, smiling, she added “Come with us, my dear;
your mother won’t be anxious.”
The ladies and Pierre and M. de Guersaint thereupon exchanged bows: and
Gerard also took leave, tenderly pressing Raymonde’s hand, with his eyes
fixed on hers, as though to pledge himself definitively. The women
swiftly departed, directing their steps towards the Grotto, and when
Gerard also had gone off, returning to his duties, M. de Guersaint said
to Pierre: “And the hairdresser on the Place du Marcadal, I really must
go and see him. You will come with me, won’t you?”
“Of course I will go wherever you like. I am quite at your disposal as
Marie does not need us.”
Following the pathways between the large lawns which stretch out in front
of the Rosary, they reached the new bridge, where they had another
encounter, this time with Abbe des Hermoises, who was acting as guide to
two young married ladies who had arrived that morning from Tarbes.
Walking between them with the gallant air of a society priest, he was
showing them Lourdes and explaining it to them, keeping them well away,
however, from its more repugnant features, its poor and its ailing folk,
its odour of low misery, which, it must be admitted, had well-nigh
disappeared that fine, sunshiny day. At the first word which M. de
Guersaint addressed to him with respect to the hiring of a vehicle for
the trip to Gavarnie, the Abbe was seized with a dread lest he should be
obliged to leave his pretty lady-visitors: “As you please, my dear sir,”
he replied. “Kindly attend to the matter, and--you are quite right, make
the cheapest arrangements possible, for I shall have two ecclesiastics of
small means with me. There will be four of us. Let me know at the hotel
this evening at what hour we shall start.”
Thereupon he again joined his lady-friends, and led them towards the
Grotto, following the shady path which skirts the Gave, a cool,
sequestered path well suited for lovers’ walks.
Feeling somewhat tired, Pierre had remained apart from the others,
leaning against the parapet of the new bridge. And now for the first time
he was struck by the prodigious number of priests among the crowd. He saw
all varieties of them swarming across the bridge: priests of correct mien
who had come with the pilgrimage and who could be recognised by their air
of assurance and their clean cassocks; poor village priests who were far
more timid and badly clothed, and who, after making sacrifices in order
that they might indulge in the journey, would return home quite scared
and, finally, there was the whole crowd of unattached ecclesiastics who
had come nobody knew whence, and who enjoyed such absolute liberty that
it was difficult to be sure whether they had even said their mass that
morning. They doubtless found this liberty very agreeable; and thus the
greater number of them, like Abbe des Hermoises, had simply come on a
holiday excursion, free from all duties, and happy at being able to live
like ordinary men, lost, unnoticed as they were in the multitude around
them. And from the young, carefully groomed and perfumed priest, to the
old one in a dirty cassock and shoes down at heel, the entire species had
its representative in the throng--there were corpulent ones, others but
moderately fat, thin ones, tall ones and short ones, some whom faith had
brought and whom ardour was consuming, some also who simply plied their
calling like worthy men, and some, moreover, who were fond of intriguing,
and who were only present in order that they might help the good cause.
However, Pierre was quite surprised to see such a stream of priests pass
before him, each with his special passion, and one and all hurrying to
the Grotto as one hurries to a duty, a belief, a pleasure, or a task. He
noticed one among the number, a very short, slim, dark man with a
pronounced Italian accent, whose glittering eyes seemed to be taking a
plan of Lourdes, who looked, indeed, like one of those spies who come and
peer around with a view to conquest; and then he observed another one, an
enormous fellow with a paternal air, who was breathing hard through
inordinate eating, and who paused in front of a poor sick woman, and
ended by slipping a five-franc piece into her hand.
Just then, however, M. de Guersaint returned: “We merely have to go down
the boulevard and the Rue Basse,” said he.
Pierre followed him without answering. He had just felt his cassock on
his shoulders for the first time that afternoon, for never had it seemed
so light to him as whilst he was walking about amidst the scramble of the
pilgrimage. The young fellow was now living in a state of mingled
unconsciousness and dizziness, ever hoping that faith would fall upon him
like a lightning flash, in spite of all the vague uneasiness which was
growing within him at sight of the things which he beheld. However, the
spectacle of that ever-swelling stream of priests no longer wounded his
heart; fraternal feelings towards these unknown colleagues had returned
to him; how many of them there must be who believed no more than he did
himself, and yet, like himself, honestly fulfilled their mission as
guides and consolers!
“This boulevard is a new one, you know,” said M. de Guersaint, all at
once raising his voice. “The number of houses built during the last
twenty years is almost beyond belief. There is quite a new town here.”
The Lapaca flowed along behind the buildings on their right and, their
curiosity inducing them to turn into a narrow lane, they came upon some
strange old structures on the margin of the narrow stream. Several
ancient mills here displayed their wheels; among them one which
Monseigneur Laurence had given to Bernadette’s parents after the
apparitions. Tourists, moreover, were here shown the pretended abode of
Bernadette, a hovel whither the Soubirous family had removed on leaving
the Rue des Petits Fosses, and in which the young girl, as she was
already boarding with the Sisters of Nevers, can have but seldom slept.
At last, by way of the Rue Basse, Pierre and his companion reached the
Place du Marcadal.
This was a long, triangular, open space, the most animated and luxurious
of the squares of the old town, the one where the cafes, the chemists,
all the finest shops were situated. And, among the latter, one showed
conspicuously, coloured as it was a lively green, adorned with lofty
mirrors, and surmounted by a broad board bearing in gilt letters the
inscription: “Cazaban, Hairdresser”.
M. de Guersaint and Pierre went in, but there was nobody in the salon and
they had to wait. A terrible clatter of forks resounded from the
adjoining room, an ordinary dining-room transformed into a _table
d’hote_, in which some twenty people were having _dejeuner_ although it
was already two o’clock. The afternoon was progressing, and yet people
were still eating from one to the other end of Lourdes. Like every other
householder in the town, whatever his religious convictions might be,
Cazaban, in the pilgrimage season, let his bedrooms, surrendered his
dining-room, end sought refuge in his cellar, where, heaped up with his
family, he ate and slept, although this unventilated hole was no more
than three yards square. However, the passion for trading and moneymaking
carried all before it; at pilgrimage time the whole population
disappeared like that of a conquered city, surrendering even the beds of
its women and its children to the pilgrims, seating them at its tables,
and supplying them with food.
“Is there nobody here?” called M. de Guersaint after waiting a moment.
At last a little man made his appearance, Cazaban himself, a type of the
knotty but active Pyrenean, with a long face, prominent cheek-bones, and
a sunburned complexion spotted here and there with red. His big,
glittering eyes never remained still; and the whole of his spare little
figure quivered with incessant exuberance of speech and gesture.
“For you, monsieur--a shave, eh?” said he. “I must beg your pardon for
keeping you waiting; but my assistant has gone out, and I was in there
with my boarders. If you will kindly sit down, I will attend to you at
once.”
Thereupon, deigning to operate in person, Cazaban began to stir up the
lather and strop the razor. He had glanced rather nervously, however, at
the cassock worn by Pierre, who without a word had seated himself in a
corner and taken up a newspaper in the perusal of which he appeared to be
absorbed.
A short interval of silence followed; but it was fraught with suffering
for Cazaban, and whilst lathering his customer’s chin he began to
chatter: “My boarders lingered this morning such a long time at the
Grotto, monsieur, that they have scarcely sat down to _dejeuner_. You can
hear them, eh? I was staying with them out of politeness. However, I owe
myself to my customers as well, do I not? One must try to please
everybody.”
M. de Guersaint, who also was fond of a chat, thereupon began to question
him: “You lodge some of the pilgrims, I suppose?”
“Oh! we all lodge some of them, monsieur; it is necessary for the town,”
replied the barber.
“And you accompany them to the Grotto?”
At this, however, Cazaban revolted, and, holding up his razor, he
answered with an air of dignity “Never, monsieur, never! For five years
past I have not been in that new town which they are building.”
He was still seeking to restrain himself, and again glanced at Pierre,
whose face was hidden by the newspaper. The sight of the red cross pinned
on M. de Guersaint’s jacket was also calculated to render him prudent;
nevertheless his tongue won the victory. “Well, monsieur, opinions are
free, are they not?” said he. “I respect yours, but for my part I don’t
believe in all that phantasmagoria! Oh I’ve never concealed it! I was
already a republican and a freethinker in the days of the Empire. There
were barely four men of those views in the whole town at that time. Oh!
I’m proud of it.”
He had begun to shave M. de Guersaint’s left cheek and was quite
triumphant. From that moment a stream of words poured forth from his
mouth, a stream which seemed to be inexhaustible. To begin with, he
brought the same charges as Majeste against the Fathers of the Grotto. He
reproached them for their dealings in tapers, chaplets, prints, and
crucifixes, for the disloyal manner in which they competed with those who
sold those articles as well as with the hotel and lodging-house keepers.
And he was also wrathful with the Blue Sisters of the Immaculate
Conception, for had they not robbed him of two tenants, two old ladies,
who spent three weeks at Lourdes each year? Moreover you could divine
within him all the slowly accumulated, overflowing spite with which the
old town regarded the new town--that town which had sprung up so quickly
on the other side of the castle, that rich city with houses as big as
palaces, whither flowed all the life, all the luxury, all the money of
Lourdes, so that it was incessantly growing larger and wealthier, whilst
its elder sister, the poor, antique town of the mountains, with its
narrow, grass-grown, deserted streets, seemed near the point of death.
Nevertheless the struggle still continued; the old town seemed determined
not to die, and, by lodging pilgrims and opening shops on her side,
endeavoured to compel her ungrateful junior to grant her a share of the
spoils. But custom only flowed to the shops which were near the Grotto,
and only the poorer pilgrims were willing to lodge so far away; so that
the unequal conditions of the struggle intensified the rupture and turned
the high town and the low town into two irreconcilable enemies, who
preyed upon one another amidst continual intrigues.
“Ah, no! They certainly won’t see me at their Grotto,” resumed Cazaban,
with his rageful air. “What an abusive use they make of that Grotto of
theirs! They serve it up in every fashion! To think of such idolatry,
such gross superstition in the nineteenth century! Just ask them if they
have cured a single sufferer belonging to the town during the last twenty
years! Yet there are plenty of infirm people crawling about our streets.
It was our folk that benefited by the first miracles; but it would seem
that the miraculous water has long lost all its power, so far as we are
concerned. We are too near it; people have to come from a long distance
if they want it to act on them. It’s really all too stupid; why, I
wouldn’t go there even if I were offered a hundred francs!”
Pierre’s immobility was doubtless irritating the barber. He had now begun
to shave M. de Guersaint’s right cheek; and was inveighing against the
Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, whose greed for gain was the one
cause of all the misunderstanding. These Fathers who were at home there,
since they had purchased from the Municipality the land on which they
desired to build, did not even carry out the stipulations of the contract
they had signed, for there were two clauses in it forbidding all trading,
such as the sale of the water and of religious articles. Innumerable
actions might have been brought against them. But they snapped their
fingers, and felt themselves so powerful that they no longer allowed a
single offering to go to the parish, but arranged matters so that the
whole harvest of money should be garnered by the Grotto and the Basilica.
And, all at once, Cazaban candidly exclaimed: “If they were only
reasonable, if they would only share with us!” Then, when M. de Guersaint
had washed his face, and reseated himself, the hairdresser resumed: “And
if I were to tell you, monsieur, what they have done with our poor town!
Forty years ago all the young girls here conducted themselves properly, I
assure you. I remember that in my young days when a young man was wicked
he generally had to go elsewhere. But times have changed, our manners are
no longer the same. Nowadays nearly all the girls content themselves with
selling candles and nosegays; and you must have seen them catching hold
of the passers-by and thrusting their goods into their hands! It is
really shameful to see so many bold girls about! They make a lot of
money, acquire lazy habits, and, instead of working during the winter,
simply wait for the return of the pilgrimage season. And I assure you
that the young men don’t need to go elsewhere nowadays. No, indeed! And
add to all this the suspicious floating element which swells the
population as soon as the first fine weather sets in--the coachmen, the
hawkers, the cantine keepers, all the low-class, wandering folk reeking
with grossness and vice--and you can form an idea of the honest new town
which they have given us with the crowds that come to their Grotto and
their Basilica!”
Greatly struck by these remarks, Pierre had let his newspaper fall and
begun to listen. It was now, for the first time, that he fully realised
the difference between the two Lourdes--old Lourdes so honest and so
pious in its tranquil solitude, and new Lourdes corrupted, demoralised by
the circulation of so much money, by such a great enforced increase of
wealth, by the ever-growing torrent of strangers sweeping through it, by
the fatal rotting influence of the conflux of thousands of people, the
contagion of evil examples. And what a terrible result it seemed when one
thought of Bernadette, the pure, candid girl kneeling before the wild
primitive grotto, when one thought of all the naive faith, all the
fervent purity of those who had first begun the work! Had they desired
that the whole countryside should be poisoned in this wise by lucre and
human filth? Yet it had sufficed that the nations should flock there for
a pestilence to break out.
Seeing that Pierre was listening, Cazaban made a final threatening
gesture as though to sweep away all this poisonous superstition. Then,
relapsing into silence, he finished cutting M. de Guersaint’s hair.
“There you are, monsieur!”
The architect rose, and it was only now that he began to speak of the
conveyance which he wished to hire. At first the hairdresser declined to
enter into the matter, pretending that they must apply to his brother at
the Champ Commun; but at last he consented to take the order. A
pair-horse landau for Gavarnie was priced at fifty francs. However, he
was so pleased at having talked so much, and so flattered at hearing
himself called an honest man, that he eventually agreed to charge only
forty francs. There were four persons in the party, so this would make
ten francs apiece. And it was agreed that they should start off at about
two in the morning, so that they might get back to Lourdes at a tolerably
early hour on the Monday evening.
“The landau will be outside the Hotel of the Apparitions at the appointed
time,” repeated Cazaban in his emphatic way. “You may rely on me,
monsieur.”
Then he began to listen. The clatter of crockery did not cease in the
adjoining room. People were still eating there with that impulsive
voracity which had spread from one to the other end of Lourdes. And all
at once a voice was heard calling for more bread.
“Excuse me,” hastily resumed Cazaban, “my boarders want me.” And
thereupon he rushed away, his hands still greasy through fingering the
comb.
The door remained open for a second, and on the walls of the dining-room
Pierre espied various religious prints, and notably a view of the Grotto,
which surprised him; in all probability, however, the hairdresser only
hung these engravings there during the pilgrimage season by way of
pleasing his boarders.
It was now nearly three o’clock. When the young priest and M. de
Guersaint got outside they were astonished at the loud pealing of bells
which was flying through the air. The parish church had responded to the
first stroke of vespers chiming at the Basilica; and now all the
convents, one after another, were contributing to the swelling peals. The
crystalline notes of the bell of the Carmelites mingled with the grave
notes of the bell of the Immaculate Conception; and all the joyous bells
of the Sisters of Nevers and the Dominicans were jingling together. In
this wise, from morning till evening on fine days of festivity, the
chimes winged their flight above the house-roofs of Lourdes. And nothing
could have been gayer than that sonorous melody resounding in the broad
blue heavens above the gluttonous town, which had at last lunched, and
was now comfortably digesting as it strolled about in the sunlight.