IMMEDIATELY afterwards, as they descended the steps, Doctor Chassaigne
said to Pierre: “You have just seen the triumph; I will now show you two
great injustices.”
And he conducted him into the Rue des Petits-Fosses to visit Bernadette’s
room, that low, dark chamber whence she set out on the day the Blessed
Virgin appeared to her.
The Rue des Petits-Fosses starts from the former Rue des Bois, now the
Rue de la Grotte, and crosses the Rue du Tribunal. It is a winding lane,
slightly sloping and very gloomy. The passers-by are few; it is skirted
by long walls, wretched-looking houses, with mournful facades in which
never a window opens. All its gaiety consists in an occasional tree in a
courtyard.
“Here we are,” at last said the doctor.
At the part where he had halted, the street contracted, becoming very
narrow, and the house faced the high, grey wall of a barn. Raising their
heads, both men looked up at the little dwelling, which seemed quite
lifeless, with its narrow casements and its coarse, violet pargeting,
displaying the shameful ugliness of poverty. The entrance passage down
below was quite black; an old light iron gate was all that closed it; and
there was a step to mount, which in rainy weather was immersed in the
water of the gutter.
“Go in, my friend, go in,” said the doctor. “You have only to push the
gate.”
The passage was long, and Pierre kept on feeling the damp wall with his
hand, for fear of making a false step. It seemed to him as if he were
descending into a cellar, in deep obscurity, and he could feel a slippery
soil impregnated with water beneath his feet. Then at the end, in
obedience to the doctor’s direction, he turned to the right.
“Stoop, or you may hurt yourself,” said M. Chassaigne; “the door is very
low. There, here we are.”
The door of the room, like the gate in the street, stood wide open, as if
the place had been carelessly abandoned; and Pierre, who had stopped in
the middle of the chamber, hesitating, his eyes still full of the bright
daylight outside, could distinguish absolutely nothing. He had fallen
into complete darkness, and felt an icy chill about the shoulders similar
to the sensation that might be caused by a wet towel.
But, little by little, his eyes became accustomed to the dimness. Two
windows of unequal size opened on to a narrow, interior courtyard, where
only a greenish light descended, as at the bottom of a well; and to read
there, in the middle of the day, it would be necessary to have a candle.
Measuring about fifteen feet by twelve, the room was flagged with large
uneven stones; while the principal beam and the rafters of the roof,
which were visible, had darkened with time and assumed a dirty, sooty
hue. Opposite the door was the chimney, a miserable plaster chimney, with
a mantelpiece formed of a rotten old plank. There was a sink between this
chimney and one of the windows. The walls, with their decaying,
damp-stained plaster falling off by bits, were full of cracks, and
turning a dirty black like the ceiling. There was no longer any furniture
there; the room seemed abandoned; you could only catch a glimpse of some
confused, strange objects, unrecognisable in the heavy obscurity that
hung about the corners.
After a spell of silence, the doctor exclaimed “Yes, this is the room;
all came from here. Nothing has been changed, with the exception that the
furniture has gone. I have tried to picture how it was placed: the beds
certainly stood against this wall, opposite the windows; there must have
been three of them at least, for the Soubirouses were seven--the father,
mother, two boys, and three girls. Think of that! Three beds filling this
room! Seven persons living in this small space! All of them buried alive,
without air, without light, almost without bread! What frightful misery!
What lowly, pity-awaking poverty!”
But he was interrupted. A shadowy form, which Pierre at first took for an
old woman, entered. It was a priest, however, the curate of the parish,
who now occupied the house. He was acquainted with the doctor.
“I heard your voice, Monsieur Chassaigne, and came down,” said he. “So
there you are, showing the room again?”
“Just so, Monsieur l’ Abbe; I took the liberty. It does not inconvenience
you?”
“Oh! not at all, not at all! Come as often as you please, and bring other
people.”
He laughed in an engaging manner, and bowed to Pierre, who, astonished by
this quiet carelessness, observed: “The people who come, however, must
sometimes plague you?”
The curate in his turn seemed surprised. “Indeed, no! Nobody comes. You
see the place is scarcely known. Every one remains over there at the
Grotto. I leave the door open so as not to be worried. But days and days
often pass without my hearing even the sound of a mouse.”
Pierre’s eyes were becoming more and more accustomed to the obscurity;
and among the vague, perplexing objects which filled the corners, he
ended by distinguishing some old barrels, remnants of fowl cages, and
broken tools, a lot of rubbish such as is swept away and thrown to the
bottom of cellars. Hanging from the rafters, moreover, were some
provisions, a salad basket full of eggs, and several bunches of big pink
onions.
“And, from what I see,” resumed Pierre, with a slight shudder, “you have
thought that you might make use of the room?”
The curate was beginning to feel uncomfortable. “Of course, that’s it,”
said he. “What can one do? The house is so small, I have so little space.
And then you can’t imagine how damp it is here; it is altogether
impossible to occupy the room. And so, _mon Dieu_, little by little all
this has accumulated here by itself, contrary to one’s own desire.”
“It has become a lumber-room,” concluded Pierre.
“Oh no! hardly that. An unoccupied room, and yet in truth, if you insist
on it, it is a lumber-room!”
His uneasiness was increasing, mingled with a little shame. Doctor
Chassaigne remained silent and did not interfere; but he smiled, and was
visibly delighted at his companion’s revolt against human ingratitude.
Pierre, unable to restrain himself, now continued: “You must excuse me,
Monsieur l’Abbe, if I insist. But just reflect that you owe everything to
Bernadette; but for her Lourdes would still be one of the least known
towns of France. And really it seems to me that out of mere gratitude the
parish ought to have transformed this wretched room into a chapel.”
“Oh! a chapel!” interrupted the curate. “It is only a question of a human
creature: the Church could not make her an object of worship.”
“Well, we won’t say a chapel, then; but at all events there ought to be
some lights and flowers--bouquets of roses constantly renewed by the
piety of the inhabitants and the pilgrims. In a word, I should like some
little show of affection--a touching souvenir, a picture of
Bernadette--something that would delicately indicate that she deserves to
have a place in all hearts. This forgetfulness and desertion are
shocking. It is monstrous that so much dirt should have been allowed to
accumulate!”
The curate, a poor, thoughtless, nervous man, at once adopted Pierre’s
views: “In reality, you are a thousand times right,” said he; “but I
myself have no power, I can do nothing. Whenever they ask me for the
room, to set it to rights, I will give it up and remove my barrels,
although I really don’t know where else to put them. Only, I repeat, it
does not depend on me. I can do nothing, nothing at all!” Then, under the
pretext that he had to go out, he hastened to take leave and run away
again, saying to Doctor Chassaigne: “Remain, remain as long as you
please; you are never in my way.”
When the doctor once more found himself alone with Pierre he caught hold
of both his hands with effusive delight. “Ah, my dear child,” said he,
“how pleased you have made me! How admirably you expressed to him all
that has been boiling in my own heart so long! Like you, I thought of
bringing some roses here every morning. I should have simply had the room
cleaned, and would have contented myself with placing two large bunches
of roses on the mantelpiece; for you know that I have long felt deep
affection for Bernadette, and it seemed to me that those roses would be
like the very flowering and perfume of her memory. Only--only--” and so
saying he made a despairing gesture, “only courage failed me. Yes, I say
courage, no one having yet dared to declare himself openly against the
Fathers of the Grotto. One hesitates and recoils in the fear of stirring
up a religious scandal. Fancy what a deplorable racket all this would
create. And so those who are as indignant as I am are reduced to the
necessity of holding their tongues--preferring a continuance of silence
to anything else.” Then, by way of conclusion, he added: “The ingratitude
and rapacity of man, my dear child, are sad things to see. Each time I
come into this dim wretchedness, my heart swells and I cannot restrain my
tears.”
He ceased speaking, and neither of them said another word, both being
overcome by the extreme melancholy which the surroundings fostered. They
were steeped in gloom. The dampness made them shudder as they stood there
amidst the dilapidated walls and the dust of the old rubbish piled upon
either side. And the idea returned to them that without Bernadette none
of the prodigies which had made Lourdes a town unique in the world would
have existed. It was at her voice that the miraculous spring had gushed
forth, that the Grotto, bright with candles, had opened. Immense works
were executed, new churches rose from the ground, giant-like causeways
led up to God. An entire new city was built, as if by enchantment, with
gardens, walks, quays, bridges, shops, and hotels. And people from the
uttermost parts of the earth flocked thither in crowds, and the rain of
millions fell with such force and so abundantly that the young city
seemed likely to increase indefinitely--to fill the whole valley, from
one to the other end of the mountains. If Bernadette had been suppressed
none of those things would have existed, the extraordinary story would
have relapsed into nothingness, old unknown Lourdes would still have been
plunged in the sleep of ages at the foot of its castle. Bernadette was
the sole labourer and creatress; and yet this room, whence she had set
out on the day she beheld the Virgin, this cradle, indeed, of the miracle
and of all the marvellous fortune of the town, was disdained, left a prey
to vermin, good only for a lumber-room, where onions and empty barrels
were put away.
Then the other side of the question vividly appeared in Pierre’s mind,
and he again seemed to see the triumph which he had just witnessed, the
exaltation of the Grotto and Basilica, while Marie, dragging her little
car, ascended behind the Blessed Sacrament, amidst the clamour of the
multitude. But the Grotto especially shone out before him. It was no
longer the wild, rocky cavity before which the child had formerly knelt
on the deserted bank of the torrent; it was a chapel, transformed and
enriched, a chapel illumined by a vast number of candles, where nations
marched past in procession. All the noise, all the brightness, all the
adoration, all the money, burst forth there in a splendour of constant
victory. Here, at the cradle, in this dark, icy hole, there was not a
soul, not a taper, not a hymn, not a flower. Of the infrequent visitors
who came thither, none knelt or prayed. All that a few tender-hearted
pilgrims had done in their desire to carry away a souvenir had been to
reduce to dust, between their fingers, the half-rotten plank serving as a
mantelshelf. The clergy ignored the existence of this spot of misery,
which the processions ought to have visited as they might visit a station
of glory. It was there that the poor child had begun her dream, one cold
night, lying in bed between her two sisters, and seized with a fit of her
ailment while the whole family was fast asleep. It was thence, too, that
she had set out, unconsciously carrying along with her that dream, which
was again to be born within her in the broad daylight and to flower so
prettily in a vision such as those of the legends. And no one now
followed in her footsteps. The manger was forgotten, and left in
darkness--that manger where had germed the little humble seed which over
yonder was now yielding such prodigious harvests, reaped by the workmen
of the last hour amidst the sovereign pomp of ceremonies.
Pierre, whom the great human emotion of the story moved to tears, at last
summed up his thoughts in three words, saying in a low voice, “It is
Bethlehem.”
“Yes,” remarked Doctor Chassaigne, in his turn, “it is the wretched
lodging, the chance refuge, where new religions are born of suffering and
pity. And at times I ask myself if all is not better thus: if it is not
better that this room should remain in its actual state of wretchedness
and abandonment. It seems to me that Bernadette has nothing to lose by
it, for I love her all the more when I come to spend an hour here.”
He again became silent, and then made a gesture of revolt: “But no, no! I
cannot forgive it--this ingratitude sets me beside myself. I told you I
was convinced that Bernadette had freely gone to cloister herself at
Nevers. But although no one smuggled her away, what a relief it was for
those whom she had begun to inconvenience here! And they are the same
men, so anxious to be the absolute masters, who at the present time
endeavour by all possible means to wrap her memory in silence. Ah! my
dear child, if I were to tell you all!”
Little by little he spoke out and relieved himself. Those Fathers of the
Grotto, who showed such greed in trading on the work of Bernadette,
dreaded her still more now that she was dead than they had done whilst
she was alive. So long as she had lived, their great terror had assuredly
been that she might return to Lourdes to claim a portion of the spoil;
and her humility alone reassured them, for she was in nowise of a
domineering disposition, and had herself chosen the dim abode of
renunciation where she was destined to pass away. But at present their
fears had increased at the idea that a will other than theirs might bring
the relics of the visionary back to Lourdes; that, thought had, indeed,
occurred to the municipal council immediately after her death; the town
had wished to raise a tomb, and there had been talk of opening a
subscription. The Sisters of Nevers, however, formally refused to give up
the body, which they said belonged to them. Everyone felt that the
Sisters were acting under the influence of the Fathers, who were very
uneasy, and energetically bestirred themselves to prevent by all means in
their power the return of those venerated ashes, in whose presence at
Lourdes they foresaw a possible competition with the Grotto itself. Could
they have imagined some such threatening occurrence as this--a monumental
tomb in the cemetery, pilgrims proceeding thither in procession, the sick
feverishly kissing the marble, and miracles being worked there amidst a
holy fervour? This would have been disastrous rivalry, a certain
displacement of all the present devotion and prodigies. And the great,
the sole fear, still and ever returned to them, that of having to divide
the spoils, of seeing the money go elsewhere should the town, now taught
by experience, know how to turn the tomb to account.
The Fathers were even credited with a scheme of profound craftiness. They
were supposed to have the secret idea of reserving Bernadette’s remains
for themselves; the Sisters of Nevers having simply undertaken to keep it
for them within the peaceful precincts of their chapel. Only, they were
waiting, and would not bring it back until the affluence of the pilgrims
should decrease. What was the use of a solemn return at present, when
crowds flocked to the place without interruption and in increasing
numbers? Whereas, when the extraordinary success of Our Lady of Lourdes
should decline, like everything else in this world, one could imagine
what a reawakening of faith would attend the solemn, resounding ceremony
at which Christendom would behold the relics of the chosen one take
possession of the soil whence she had made so many marvels spring. And
the miracles would then begin again on the marble of her tomb before the
Grotto or in the choir of the Basilica.
“You may search,” continued Doctor Chassaigne, “but you won’t find a
single official picture of Bernadette at Lourdes. Her portrait is sold,
but it is hung no where, in no sanctuary. It is systematic forgetfulness,
the same sentiment of covert uneasiness as that which has wrought silence
and abandonment in this sad chamber where we are. In the same way as they
are afraid of worship at her tomb, so are they afraid of crowds coming
and kneeling here, should two candles burn or a couple of bouquets of
roses bloom upon this chimney. And if a paralytic woman were to rise
shouting that she was cured, what a scandal would arise, how disturbed
would be those good traders of the Grotto on seeing their monopoly
seriously threatened! They are the masters, and the masters they intend
to remain; they will not part with any portion of the magnificent farm
that they have acquired and are working. Nevertheless they tremble--yes,
they tremble at the memory of the workers of the first hour, of that
little girl who is still so great in death, and for whose huge
inheritance they burn with such greed that after having sent her to live
at Nevers, they dare not even bring back her corpse, but leave it
imprisoned beneath the flagstones of a convent!”
Ah! how wretched was the fate of that poor creature, who had been cut off
from among the living, and whose corpse in its turn was condemned to
exile! And how Pierre pitied her, that daughter of misery, who seemed to
have been chosen only that she might suffer in her life and in her death!
Even admitting that an unique, persistent will had not compelled her to
disappear, still guarding her even in her tomb, what a strange succession
of circumstances there had been--how it seemed as if someone, uneasy at
the idea of the immense power she might grasp, had jealously sought to
keep her out of the way! In Pierre’s eyes she remained the chosen one,
the martyr; and if he could no longer believe, if the history of this
unfortunate girl sufficed to complete within him the ruin of his faith,
it none the less upset him in all his brotherly love for mankind by
revealing a new religion to him, the only one which might still fill his
heart, the religion of life, of human sorrow.
Just then, before leaving the room, Doctor Chassaigne exclaimed: “And
it’s here that one must believe, my dear child. Do you see this obscure
hole, do you think of the resplendent Grotto, of the triumphant Basilica,
of the town built, of the world created, the crowds that flock to
Lourdes! And if Bernadette was only hallucinated, only an idiot, would
not the outcome be more astonishing, more inexplicable still? What! An
idiot’s dream would have sufficed to stir up nations like this! No! no!
The Divine breath which alone can explain prodigies passed here.”
Pierre was on the point of hastily replying “Yes!” It was true, a breath
had passed there, the sob of sorrow, the inextinguishable yearning
towards the Infinite of hope. If the dream of a suffering child had
sufficed to attract multitudes, to bring about a rain of millions and
raise a new city from the soil, was it not because this dream in a
measure appeased the hunger of poor mankind, its insatiable need of being
deceived and consoled? She had once more opened the Unknown, doubtless at
a favourable moment both socially and historically; and the crowds had
rushed towards it. Oh! to take refuge in mystery, when reality is so
hard, to abandon oneself to the miraculous, since cruel nature seems
merely one long injustice! But although you may organise the Unknown,
reduce it to dogmas, make revealed religions of it, there is never
anything at the bottom of it beyond the appeal of suffering, the cry of
life, demanding health, joy, and fraternal happiness, and ready to accept
them in another world if they cannot be obtained on earth. What use is it
to believe in dogmas? Does it not suffice to weep and love?
Pierre, however, did not discuss the question. He withheld the answer
that was on his lips, convinced, moreover, that the eternal need of the
supernatural would cause eternal faith to abide among sorrowing mankind.
The miraculous, which could not be verified, must be a food necessary to
human despair. Besides, had he not vowed in all charity that he would not
wound anyone with his doubts?
“What a prodigy, isn’t it?” repeated the doctor.
“Certainly,” Pierre ended by answering. “The whole human drama has been
played, all the unknown forces have acted in this poor room, so damp and
dark.”
They remained there a few minutes more in silence; they walked round the
walls, raised their eyes toward the smoky ceiling, and cast a final
glance at the narrow, greenish yard. Truly it was a heart-rending sight,
this poverty of the cobweb level, with its dirty old barrels, its
worn-out tools, its refuse of all kinds rotting in the corners in heaps.
And without adding a word they at last slowly retired, feeling extremely
sad.
It was only in the street that Doctor Chassaigne seemed to awaken. He
gave a slight shudder and hastened his steps, saying: “It is not
finished, my dear child; follow me. We are now going to look at the other
great iniquity.” He referred to Abbe Peyramale and his church.
They crossed the Place du Porche and turned into the Rue Saint Pierre; a
few minutes would suffice them. But their conversation had again fallen
on the Fathers of the Grotto, on the terrible, merciless war waged by
Father Sempe against the former Cure of Lourdes. The latter had been
vanquished, and had died in consequence, overcome by feelings of
frightful bitterness; and, after thus killing him by grief, they had
completed the destruction of his church, which he had left unfinished,
without a roof, open to the wind and to the rain. With what a glorious
dream had that monumental edifice filled the last year of the Cure’s
life! Since he had been dispossessed of the Grotto, driven from the work
of Our Lady of Lourdes, of which he, with Bernadette, had been the first
artisan, his church had become his revenge, his protestation, his own
share of the glory, the House of the Lord where he would triumph in his
sacred vestments, and whence he would conduct endless processions in
compliance with the formal desire of the Blessed Virgin. Man of authority
and domination as he was at bottom, a pastor of the multitude, a builder
of temples, he experienced a restless delight in hurrying on the work,
with the lack of foresight of an eager man who did not allow indebtedness
to trouble him, but was perfectly contented so long as he always had a
swarm of workmen busy on the scaffoldings. And thus he saw his church
rise up, and pictured it finished, one bright summer morning, all new in
the rising sun.
Ah! that vision constantly evoked gave him courage for the struggle,
amidst the underhand, murderous designs by which he felt himself to be
enveloped. His church, towering above the vast square, at last rose in
all its colossal majesty. He had decided that it should be in the
Romanesque style, very large, very simple, its nave nearly three hundred
feet long, its steeple four hundred and sixty feet high. It shone out
resplendently in the clear sunlight, freed on the previous day of the
last scaffolding, and looking quite smart in its newness, with its broad
courses of stone disposed with perfect regularity. And, in thought, he
sauntered around it, charmed with its nudity, its stupendous candour, its
chasteness recalling that of a virgin child, for there was not a piece of
sculpture, not an ornament that would have uselessly loaded it. The roofs
of the nave, transept, and apse were of equal height above the
entablature, which was decorated with simple mouldings. In the same way
the apertures in the aisles and nave had no other adornments than
archivaults with mouldings, rising above the piers. He stopped in thought
before the great coloured glass windows of the transept, whose roses were
sparkling; and passing round the building he skirted the semicircular
apse against which stood the vestry building with its two rows of little
windows; and then he returned, never tiring of his contemplation of that
regal ordonnance, those great lines standing out against the blue sky,
those superposed roofs, that enormous mass of stone, whose solidity
promised to defy centuries. But, when he closed his eyes he, above all
else, conjured up, with rapturous pride, a vision of the facade and
steeple; down below, the three portals, the roofs of the two lateral ones
forming terraces, while from the central one, in the very middle of the
facade, the steeple boldly sprang. Here again columns resting on piers
supported archivaults with simple mouldings. Against the gable, at a
point where there was a pinnacle, and between the two lofty windows
lighting the nave, was a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes under a canopy. Up
above, were other bays with freshly painted luffer-boards. Buttresses
started from the ground at the four corners of the steeple-base, becoming
less and less massive from storey to storey, till they reached the spire,
a bold, tapering spire in stone, flanked by four turrets and adorned with
pinnacles, and soaring upward till it vanished in the sky. And to the
parish priest of Lourdes it seemed as if it were his own fervent soul
which had grown and flown aloft with this spire, to testify to his faith
throughout the ages, there on high, quite close to God.
At other times another vision delighted him still more. He thought he
could see the inside of his church on the day of the first solemn mass he
would perform there. The coloured windows threw flashes of fire brilliant
like precious stones; the twelve chapels, the aisles, were beaming with
lighted candles. And he was at the high altar of marble and gold; and the
fourteen columns of the nave in single blocks of Pyrenean marble,
magnificent marble purchased with money that had come from the four
corners of Christendom, rose up supporting the vaulted roof, while the
sonorous voices of the organs filled the whole building with a hymn of
joy. A multitude of the faithful was gathered there, kneeling on the
flags in front of the choir, which was screened by ironwork as delicate
as lace, and covered with admirably carved wood. The pulpit, the regal
present of a great lady, was a marvel of art cut in massive oak. The
baptismal fonts had been hewn out of hard stone by an artist of great
talent. Pictures by masters ornamented the walls. Crosses, pyxes,
precious monstrances, sacred vestments, similar to suns, were piled up in
the vestry cupboards. And what a dream it was to be the pontiff of such a
temple, to reign there after having erected it with passion, to bless the
crowds who hastened to it from the entire earth, while the flying peals
from the steeple told the Grotto and Basilica that they had over there,
in old Lourdes, a rival, a victorious sister, in whose great nave God
triumphed also!
After following the Rue Saint Pierre for a moment, Doctor Chassaigne and
his companion turned into the little Rue de Langelle.
“We are coming to it,” said the doctor. But though Pierre looked around
him he could see no church. There were merely some wretched hovels, a
whole district of poverty, littered with foul buildings. At length,
however, at the bottom of a blind alley, he perceived a remnant of the
half-rotten palings which still surrounded the vast square site bordered
by the Rue Saint Pierre, the Rue de Bagneres, the Rue de Langelle, and
the Rue des Jardins.
“We must turn to the left,” continued the doctor, who had entered a
narrow passage among the rubbish. “Here we are!”
And the ruin suddenly appeared amidst the ugliness and wretchedness that
masked it.
The whole great carcase of the nave and the aisles, the transept and the
apse was standing. The walls rose on all sides to the point where the
vaulting would have begun. You entered as into a real church, you could
walk about at ease, identifying all the usual parts of an edifice of this
description. Only when you raised your eyes you saw the sky; the roofs
were wanting, the rain could fall and the wind blow there freely. Some
fifteen years previously the works had been abandoned, and things had
remained in the same state as the last workman had left them. What struck
you first of all were the ten pillars of the nave and the four pillars of
the choir, those magnificent columns of Pyrenean marble, each of a single
block, which had been covered with a casing of planks in order to protect
them from damage. The bases and capitals were still in the rough,
awaiting the sculptors. And these isolated columns, thus cased in wood,
had a mournful aspect indeed. Moreover, a dismal sensation filled you at
sight of the whole gaping enclosure, where grass had sprung up all over
the ravaged, bumpy soil of the aisles and the nave, a thick cemetery
grass, through which the women of the neighbourhood had ended by making
paths. They came in to spread out their washing there. And even now a
collection of poor people’s washing--thick sheets, shirts in shreds, and
babies’ swaddling clothes--was fast drying in the last rays of the sun,
which glided in through the broad, empty bays.
Slowly, without speaking, Pierre and Doctor Chassaigne walked round the
inside of the church. The ten chapels of the aisles formed a species of
compartments full of rubbish and remnants. The ground of the choir had
been cemented, doubtless to protect the crypt below against
infiltrations; but unfortunately the vaults must be sinking; there was a
hollow there which the storm of the previous night had transformed into a
little lake. However, it was these portions of the transept and the apse
which had the least suffered. Not a stone had moved; the great central
rose windows above the triforium seemed to be awaiting their coloured
glass, while some thick planks, forgotten atop of the walls of the apse,
might have made anyone think that the workmen would begin covering it the
next day. But, when Pierre and the doctor had retraced their steps, and
went out to look at the facade, the lamentable woefulness of the young
ruin was displayed to their gaze. On this side, indeed, the works had not
been carried forward to anything like the same extent: the porch with its
three portals alone was built, and fifteen years of abandonment had
sufficed for the winter weather to eat into the sculptures, the small
columns and the archivaults, with a really singular destructive effect,
as though the stones, deeply penetrated, destroyed, had melted away
beneath tears. The heart grieved at the sight of the decay which had
attacked the work before it was even finished. Not yet to be, and
nevertheless to crumble away in this fashion under the sky! To be
arrested in one’s colossal growth, and simply strew the weeds with ruins!
They returned to the nave, and were overcome by the frightful sadness
which this assassination of a monument provoked. The spacious plot of
waste ground inside was littered with the remains of scaffoldings, which
had been pulled down when half rotten, in fear lest their fall might
crush people; and everywhere amidst the tall grass were boards, put-logs,
moulds for arches, mingled with bundles of old cord eaten away by damp.
There was also the long narrow carcase of a crane rising up like a
gibbet. Spade-handles, pieces of broken wheelbarrows, and heaps of
greenish bricks, speckled with moss and wild convolvuli in bloom, were
still lying among the forgotten materials. In the beds of nettles you
here and there distinguished the rails of a little railway laid down for
the trucks, one of which was lying overturned in a corner. But the
saddest sight in all this death of things was certainly the portable
engine which had remained in the shed that sheltered it. For fifteen
years it had been standing there cold and lifeless. A part of the roof of
the shed had ended by falling in upon it, and now the rain drenched it at
every shower. A bit of the leather harness by which the crane was worked
hung down, and seemed to bind the engine like a thread of some gigantic
spider’s web. And its metal-work, its steel and copper, was also
decaying, as if rusted by lichens, covered with the vegetation of old
age, whose yellowish patches made it look like a very ancient,
grass-grown machine which the winters had preyed upon. This lifeless
engine, this cold engine with its empty firebox and its silent boiler,
was like the very soul of the departed labour vainly awaiting the advent
of some great charitable heart, whose coming through the eglantine and
the brambles would awaken this sleeping church in the wood from its heavy
slumber of ruin.
At last Doctor Chassaigne spoke: “Ah!” he said, “when one thinks that
fifty thousand francs would have sufficed to prevent such a disaster!
With fifty thousand francs the roof could have been put on, the heavy
work would have been saved, and one could have waited patiently. But they
wanted to kill the work just as they had killed the man.” With a gesture
he designated the Fathers of the Grotto, whom he avoided naming. “And to
think,” he continued, “that their annual receipts are eight hundred
thousand francs. However, they prefer to send presents to Rome to
propitiate powerful friends there.”
In spite of himself, he was again opening hostilities against the
adversaries of Cure Peyramale. The whole story caused a holy anger of
justice to haunt him. Face to face with those lamentable ruins, he
returned to the facts--the enthusiastic Cure starting on the building of
his beloved church, and getting deeper and deeper into debt, whilst
Father Sempe, ever on the lookout, took advantage of each of his
mistakes, discrediting him with the Bishop, arresting the flow of
offerings, and finally stopping the works. Then, after the conquered man
was dead, had come interminable lawsuits, lawsuits lasting fifteen years,
which gave the winters time to devour the building. And now it was in
such a woeful state, and the debt had risen to such an enormous figure,
that all seemed over. The slow death, the death of the stones, was
becoming irrevocable. The portable engine beneath its tumbling shed would
fall to pieces, pounded by the rain and eaten away by the moss.
“I know very well that they chant victory,” resumed the doctor; “that
they alone remain. It is just what they wanted--to be the absolute
masters, to have all the power, all the money for themselves alone. I may
tell you that their terror of competition has even made them intrigue
against the religious Orders that have attempted to come to Lourdes.
Jesuits, Dominicans, Benedictines, Capuchins, and Carmelites have made
applications at various times, and the Fathers of the Grotto have always
succeeded in keeping them away. They only tolerate the female Orders, and
will only have one flock. And the town belongs to them; they have opened
shop there, and sell God there wholesale and retail!”
Walking slowly, he had while speaking returned to the middle of the nave,
amidst the ruins, and with a sweeping wave of the arm he pointed to all
the devastation surrounding him. “Look at this sadness, this frightful
wretchedness! Over yonder the Rosary and Basilica cost them three
millions of francs.” *
* About 580,000 dollars.
Then, as in Bernadette’s cold, dark room, Pierre saw the Basilica rise
before him, radiant in its triumph. It was not here that you found the
realisation of the dream of Cure Peyramale, officiating and blessing
kneeling multitudes while the organs resounded joyfully. The Basilica,
over yonder, appeared, vibrating with the pealing of its bells, clamorous
with the superhuman joy of an accomplished miracle, all sparkling with
its countless lights, its banners, its lamps, its hearts of silver and
gold, its clergy attired in gold, and its monstrance akin to a golden
star. It flamed in the setting sun, it touched the heavens with its
spire, amidst the soaring of the milliards of prayers which caused its
walls to quiver. Here, however, was the church that had died before being
born, the church placed under interdict by a mandamus of the Bishop, the
church falling into dust, and open to the four winds of heaven. Each
storm carried away a little more of the stones, big flies buzzed all
alone among the nettles which had invaded the nave; and there were no
other devotees than the poor women of the neighbourhood, who came thither
to turn their sorry linen, spread upon the grass.
It seemed amidst the mournful silence as though a low voice were sobbing,
perhaps the voice of the marble columns weeping over their useless beauty
under their wooden shirts. At times birds would fly across the deserted
apse uttering a shrill cry. Bands of enormous rats which had taken refuge
under bits of the lowered scaffoldings would fight, and bite, and bound
out of their holes in a gallop of terror. And nothing could have been more
heart-rending than the sight of this pre-determined ruin, face to face
with its triumphant rival, the Basilica, which beamed with gold.
Again Doctor Chassaigne curtly said, “Come.”
They left the church, and following the left aisle, reached a door,
roughly fashioned out of a few planks nailed together; and, when they had
passed down a half-demolished wooden staircase, the steps of which shook
beneath their feet, they found themselves in the crypt.
It was a low vault, with squat arches, on exactly the same plan as the
choir. The thick, stunted columns, left in the rough, also awaited their
sculptors. Materials were lying about, pieces of wood were rotting on the
beaten ground, the whole vast hall was white with plaster in the
abandonment in which unfinished buildings are left. At the far end, three
bays, formerly glazed, but in which not a pane of glass remained, threw a
clear, cold light upon the desolate bareness of the walls.
And there, in the middle, lay Cure Peyramale’s corpse. Some pious friends
had conceived the touching idea of thus burying him in the crypt of his
unfinished church. The tomb stood on a broad step and was all marble. The
inscriptions, in letters of gold, expressed the feelings of the
subscribers, the cry of truth and reparation that came from the monument
itself. You read on the face: “This tomb has been erected by the aid of
pious offerings from the entire universe to the blessed memory of the
great servant of Our Lady of Lourdes.” On the right side were these words
from a Brief of Pope Pius IX.: “You have entirely devoted yourself to
erecting a temple to the Mother of God.” And on the left were these words
from the New Testament: “Happy are they who suffer persecution for
justice’ sake.” Did not these inscriptions embody the true plaint, the
legitimate hope of the vanquished man who had fought so long in the sole
desire of strictly executing the commands of the Virgin as transmitted to
him by Bernadette? She, Our Lady of Lourdes, was there personified by a
slender statuette, standing above the commemorative inscription, against
the naked wall whose only decorations were a few bead wreaths hanging
from nails. And before the tomb, as before the Grotto, were five or six
benches in rows, for the faithful who desired to sit down.
But with another gesture of sorrowful compassion, Doctor Chassaigne had
silently pointed out to Pierre a huge damp spot which was turning the
wall at the far end quite green. Pierre remembered the little lake which
he had noticed up above on the cracked cement flooring of the
choir--quite a quantity of water left by the storm of the previous night.
Infiltration had evidently commenced, a perfect stream ran down, invading
the crypt, whenever there was heavy rain. And they both felt a pang at
their hearts when they perceived that the water was trickling along the
vaulted roof in narrow threads, and thence falling in large, regular
rhythmical drops upon the tomb. The doctor could not restrain a groan.
“Now it rains,” he said; “it rains on him!”
Pierre remained motionless, in a kind of awe. In the presence of that
falling water, at the thought of the blasts which must rush at winter
time through the glassless windows, that corpse appeared to him both
woeful and tragic. It acquired a fierce grandeur, lying there alone in
its splendid marble tomb, amidst all the rubbish, at the bottom of the
crumbling ruins of its own church. It was the solitary guardian, the dead
sleeper and dreamer watching over the empty spaces, open to all the birds
of night. It was the mute, obstinate, eternal protest, and it was
expectation also. Cure Peyramale, stretched in his coffin, having all
eternity before him to acquire patience, there, without weariness,
awaited the workmen who would perhaps return thither some fine April
morning. If they should take ten years to do so, he would be there, and
if it should take them a century, he would be there still. He was waiting
for the rotten scaffoldings up above, among the grass of the nave, to be
resuscitated like the dead, and by the force of some miracle to stand
upright once more, along the walls. He was waiting, too, for the
moss-covered engine to become all at once burning hot, recover its
breath, and raise the timbers for the roof. His beloved enterprise, his
gigantic building, was crumbling about his head, and yet with joined
hands and closed eyes he was watching over its ruins, watching and
waiting too.
In a low voice, the doctor finished the cruel story, telling how, after
persecuting Cure Peyramale and his work, they persecuted his tomb. There
had formerly been a bust of the Cure there, and pious hands had kept a
little lamp burning before it. But a woman had one day fallen with her
face to the earth, saying that she had perceived the soul of the
deceased, and thereupon the Fathers of the Grotto were in a flutter. Were
miracles about to take place there? The sick already passed entire days
there, seated on the benches before the tomb. Others knelt down, kissed
the marble, and prayed to be cured. And at this a feeling of terror
arose: supposing they should be cured, supposing the Grotto should find a
competitor in this martyr, lying all alone, amidst the old tools left
there by the masons! The Bishop of Tarbes, informed and influenced,
thereupon published the mandamus which placed the church under interdict,
forbidding all worship there and all pilgrimages and processions to the
tomb of the former priest of Lourdes. As in the case of Bernadette, his
memory was proscribed, his portrait could be found, officially, nowhere.
In the same manner as they had shown themselves merciless against the
living man, so did the Fathers prove merciless to his memory. They
pursued him even in his tomb. They alone, again nowadays, prevented the
works of the church from being proceeded with, by raising continual
obstacles, and absolutely refusing to share their rich harvest of alms.
And they seemed to be waiting for the winter rains to fall and complete
the work of destruction, for the vaulted roof of the crypt, the walls,
the whole gigantic pile to crumble down upon the tomb of the martyr, upon
the body of the defeated man, so that he might be buried beneath them and
at last pounded to dust!
“Ah!” murmured the doctor, “I, who knew him so valiant, so enthusiastic
in all noble labour! Now, you see it, it rains, it rains on him!”
Painfully, he set himself on his knees and found relief in a long prayer.
Pierre, who could not pray, remained standing. Compassionate sorrow was
overflowing from his heart. He listened to the heavy drops from the roof
as one by one they broke on the tomb with a slow rhythmical pit-a-pat,
which seemed to be numbering the seconds of eternity, amidst the profound
silence. And he reflected on the eternal misery of this world, on the
choice which suffering makes in always falling on the best. The two great
makers of Our Lady of Lourdes, Bernadette and Cure Peyramale, rose up in
the flesh again before him, like woeful victims, tortured during their
lives and exiled after their deaths. That alone, indeed, would have
completed within him the destruction of his faith; for the Bernadette,
whom he had just found at the end of his researches, was but a human
sister, loaded with every dolour. But none the less he preserved a tender
brotherly veneration for her, and two tears slowly trickled down his
cheeks.