IT was eight o’clock, and Marie was so impatient that she could not keep
still, but continued going to the window, as if she wished to inhale all
the air of the vast, expanse and the immense sky. Ah! what a pleasure to
be able to run about the streets, across the squares, to go everywhere as
far as she might wish. And to show how strong she was, to have the pride
of walking leagues in the presence of everyone, now that the Blessed
Virgin had cured her! It was an irresistible impulsion, a flight of her
entire being, her blood, and her heart.
However, just as she was setting out she made up her mind that her first
visit with her father ought to be to the Grotto, where both of them had
to thank Our Lady of Lourdes. Then they would be free; they would have
two long hours before them, and might walk wherever they chose, before
she returned to lunch and pack up her few things at the hospital.
“Well, is everyone ready?” repeated M. de Guersaint. “Shall we make a
move?”
Pierre took his hat, and all three went down-stairs, talking very loud
and laughing on the staircase, like boisterous school-boys going for
their holidays. They had almost reached the street, when at the doorway
Madame Majeste rushed forward. She had evidently been waiting for them to
go out.
“Ah! mademoiselle; ah! gentlemen, allow me to congratulate you,” she
said. “We have heard of the extraordinary favour that has been granted
you; we are so happy, so much flattered, when the Blessed Virgin is
pleased to select one of our customers!”
Her dry, harsh face was melting with amiability, and she observed the
miraculously healed girl with the fondest of eyes. Then she impulsively
called her husband, who was passing: “Look, my dear! It’s mademoiselle;
it’s mademoiselle.”
Majeste’s clean-shaven face, puffed out with yellow fat, assumed a happy
and grateful expression. “Really, mademoiselle, I cannot tell you how
honoured we feel,” said he. “We shall never forget that your papa put up
at our place. It has already excited the envy of many people.”
While he spoke Madame Majeste stopped the other travellers who were going
out, and with a sign summoned the families already seated in the
dining-room; indeed, she would have called in the whole street if they
had given her time, to show that she had in her house the miracle at
which all Lourdes had been marvelling since the previous day. People
ended by collecting there, a crowd gathered little by little, while she
whispered in the ear of each “Look! that’s she; the young party, you
know, the young party who--”
But all at once she exclaimed: “I’ll go and fetch Apolline from the shop;
I must show mademoiselle to Apolline.”
Thereupon, however, Majeste, in a very dignified way, restrained her.
“No,” he said, “leave Apolline; she has three ladies to serve already.
Mademoiselle and these gentlemen will certainly not leave Lourdes without
making a few purchases. The little souvenirs that one carries away with
one are so pleasant to look at later on! And our customers make a point
of never buying elsewhere than here, in the shop which we have annexed to
the hotel.”
“I have already offered my services,” added Madame Majeste, “and I renew
them. Apolline will be so happy to show mademoiselle all our prettiest
articles, at prices, too, which are incredibly low! Oh! there are some
delightful things, delightful!”
Marie was becoming impatient at being detained in this manner, and Pierre
was suffering from the increasing curiosity which they were arousing. As
for M. de Guersaint, he enjoyed this popularity and triumph of his
daughter immensely, and promised to return.
“Certainly,” said he, “we will purchase a few little knick-knacks. Some
souvenirs for ourselves, and some presents that we shall have to make,
but later on, when we come back.”
At last they escaped and descended the Avenue de la Grotte. The weather
was again superb after the storms of the two preceding nights. Cooled by
the rain, the morning air was delicious amidst the gaiety which the
bright sun shed around. A busy crowd, well pleased with life, was already
hurrying along the pavements. And what pleasure it all was for Marie, to
whom everything seemed new, charming, inappreciable! In the morning she
had had to allow Raymonde to lend her a pair of boots, for she had taken
good care not to put any in her portmanteau, superstitiously fearing that
they might bring her bad luck. However, Raymonde’s boots fitted her
admirably, and she listened with childish delight to the little heels
tapping merrily on the flagstones. And she did not remember having ever
seen houses so white, trees so green, and passers-by so happy. All her
senses seemed holiday-making, endowed with a marvellously delicate
sensibility; she heard music, smelt distant perfumes, savoured the air
greedily, as though it were some delicious fruit. But what she
considered, above all, so nice, so charming, was to walk along in this
wise on her father’s arm. She had never done so before, although she had
felt the desire for years, as for one of those impossible pleasures with
which people occupy their minds when invalided. And now her dream was
realised and her heart beat with joy. She pressed against her father, and
strove to walk very upright and look very handsome, so as to do him
honour. And he was quite proud, as happy as she was, showing, exhibiting
her, overcome with joy at the thought that she belonged to him, that she
was his blood, his flesh, his daughter, henceforth beaming with youth and
health.
As they were all three crossing the Plateau de la Merlasse, already
obstructed by a band of candle and bouquet sellers running after the
pilgrims, M. de Guersaint exclaimed, “We are surely not going to the
Grotto empty-handed!”
Pierre, who was walking on the other side of Marie, himself brightened by
her merry humour, thereupon stopped, and they were at once surrounded by
a crowd of female hawkers, who with eager fingers thrust their goods into
their faces. “My beautiful young lady! My good gentleman! Buy of me, of
me, of me!” Such was the onslaught that it became necessary to struggle
in order to extricate oneself. M. de Guersaint ended by purchasing the
largest nosegay he could see--a bouquet of white marguerites, as round
and hard as a cabbage--from a handsome, fair-haired, well developed girl
of twenty, who was extremely bold both in look and manner. It only cost
twenty sons, and he insisted on paying for it out of his own little
purse, somewhat abashed meantime by the girl’s unblushing effrontery.
Then Pierre in his turn settled for the three candles which Marie had
taken from an old woman, candles at two francs each, a very reasonable
price, as she repeatedly said. And on being paid, the old creature, who
had an angular face, covetous eyes, and a nose like the beak of a bird of
prey, returned profuse and mellifluous thanks: “May Our Lady of Lourdes
bless you, my beautiful young lady! May she cure you of your complaints,
you and yours!” This enlivened them again, and they set out once more,
all three laughing, amused like children at the idea that the good
woman’s wish had already been accomplished.
At the Grotto Marie wished to file off at once, in order to offer the
bouquet and candles herself before even kneeling down. There were not
many people there as yet, and having gone to the end of the line their
turn came after waiting some three or four minutes. And with what
enraptured glances did she then examine everything--the altar of engraved
silver, the harmonium-organ, the votive offerings, the candle-holders,
streaming with wax blazing in broad daylight. She was now inside that
Grotto which she had hitherto only seen from her box of misery; she
breathed there as in Paradise itself, steeped rapturously in a pleasant
warmth and odour, which slightly oppressed her. When she had placed the
tapers at the bottom of the large basket, and had raised herself on
tiptoe to fix the bouquet on one of the spears of the iron railing, she
imprinted a long kiss upon the rock, below the statue of the Blessed
Virgin, at the very spot, indeed, which millions of lips had already
polished. And the stone received a kiss of love in which she put forth
all the strength of her gratitude, a kiss with which her heart melted.
When she was once more outside, Marie prostrated and humbled herself in
an almost endless act of thanksgiving. Her father also had knelt down
near her, and mingled the fervour of his gratitude with hers. But he
could not remain doing the same thing for long. Little by little he
became uneasy, and ended by bending down to his daughter’s ear to tell
her that he had a call to make which he had previously forgotten.
Assuredly the best course would be for her to remain where she was,
praying, and waiting for him. While she completed her devotions he would
hurry along and get his troublesome errand over; and then they might walk
about at ease wheresoever they liked. She did not understand him, did not
even hear him, but simply nodded her head, promising that she would not
move, and then such tender faith again took possession of her that her
eyes, fixed on the white statue of the Virgin, filled with tears.
When M. de Guersaint had joined Pierre, who had remained a short distance
off, he gave him the following explanation. “My dear fellow,” he said,
“it’s a matter of conscience; I formally promised the coachman who drove
us to Gavarnie that I would see his master and tell him the real cause of
our delay. You know whom I mean--the hairdresser on the Place du
Marcadal. And, besides, I want to get shaved.”
Pierre, who felt uneasy at this proposal, had to give way in face of the
promise that they would be back within a quarter of an hour. Only, as the
distance seemed long, he on his side insisted on taking a trap which was
standing at the bottom of the Plateau de la Merlasse. It was a sort of
greenish cabriolet, and its driver, a fat fellow of about thirty, with
the usual Basque cap on his head, was smoking a cigarette whilst waiting
to be hired. Perched sideways on the seat with his knees wide apart, he
drove them on with the tranquil indifference of a well-fed man who
considers himself the master of the street.
“We will keep you,” said Pierre as he alighted, when they had reached the
Place du Marcadal.
“Very well, very well, Monsieur l’Abbe! I’ll wait for you!” And then,
leaving his lean horse in the hot sun, the driver went to chat and laugh
with a strong, dishevelled servant-girl who was washing a dog in the
basin of the neighbouring fountain.
Cazaban, as it happened, was just then on the threshold of his shop, the
lofty windows and pale green painting of which enlivened the dull Place,
which was so deserted on week-days. When he was not pressed with work he
delighted to parade in this manner, standing between his two windows,
which pots of pomatum and bottles of perfumery decorated with bright
shades of colour.
He at once recognised the gentlemen. “Very flattered, very much honoured.
Pray walk in, I beg of you,” he said.
Then, at the first words which M. de Guersaint said to him to excuse the
man who had driven him to Gavarnie, he showed himself well disposed. Of
course it was not the man’s fault; he could not prevent wheels coming to
pieces, or storms falling. So long as the travellers did not complain all
was well.
“Oh!” thereupon exclaimed M. de Guersaint, “it’s a magnificent country,
never to be forgotten.”
“Well, monsieur, as our neighbourhood pleases you, you must come and see
us again; we don’t ask anything better,” said Cazaban; and, on the
architect seating himself in one of the arm-chairs and asking to be
shaved, he began to bustle about.
His assistant was still absent, running errands for the pilgrims whom he
lodged, a whole family, who were taking a case of chaplets, plaster
Virgins, and framed engravings away with them. You heard a confused
tramping of feet and violent bursts of conversation coming from the first
floor, all the helter-skelter of people whom the approaching departure
and the packing of purchases lying hither and thither drove almost crazy.
In the adjoining dining-room, the door of which had remained open, two
children were draining the dregs of some cups of chocolate which stood
about amidst the disorder of the breakfast service. The whole of the
house had been let, entirely given over, and now had come the last hours
of this invasion which compelled the hairdresser and his wife to seek
refuge in the narrow cellar, where they slept on a small camp-bed.
While Cazaban was rubbing M. de Guersaint’s cheeks with soap-suds, the
architect questioned him. “Well, are you satisfied with the season?”
“Certainly, monsieur, I can’t complain. As you hear, my travellers are
leaving to-day, but I am expecting others to-morrow morning; barely
sufficient time for a sweep out. It will be the same up to October.”
Then, as Pierre remained standing, walking about the shop and looking at
the walls with an air of impatience, he turned round politely and said:
“Pray be seated, Monsieur l’Abbe; take a newspaper. It will not be long.”
The priest having thanked him with a nod, and refusing to sit down, the
hairdresser, whose tongue was ever itching to talk, continued: “Oh! as
for myself, I am always busy, my house is renowned for the cleanliness of
the beds and the excellence of the fare. Only the town is not satisfied.
Ah, no! I may even say that I have never known so much discontent here.”
He became silent for a moment, and shaved his customer’s left cheek; then
again pausing in his work he suddenly declared with a cry, wrung from him
by conviction, “The Fathers of the Grotto are playing with fire,
monsieur, that is all I have to say.”
From that moment, however, the vent-plug was withdrawn, and he talked and
talked and talked again. His big eyes rolled in his long face with
prominent cheek-bones and sunburnt complexion sprinkled with red, while
the whole of his nervous little body continued on the jump, agitated by
his growing exuberance of speech and gesture. He returned to his former
indictment, and enumerated all the many grievances that the old town had
against the Fathers. The hotel-keepers complained; the dealers in
religious fancy articles did not take half the amount they ought to have
realised; and, finally, the new town monopolised both the pilgrims and
the cash; there was now no possibility for anyone but the keepers of the
lodging-houses, hotels, and shops open in the neighbourhood of the Grotto
to make any money whatever. It was a merciless struggle, a deadly
hostility increasing from day to day, the old city losing a little of its
life each season, and assuredly destined to disappear,--to be choked,
assassinated, by the young town. Ah! their dirty Grotto! He would rather
have his feet cut off than tread there. Wasn’t it heart-rending, that
knick-knack shop which they had stuck beside it? A shameful thing, at
which a bishop had shown himself so indignant that it was said he had
written to the Pope! He, Cazaban, who flattered himself with being a
freethinker and a Republican of the old days, who already under the
Empire had voted for the Opposition candidates, assuredly had the right
to declare that he did not believe in their dirty Grotto, and that he did
not care a fig for it!
“Look here, monsieur,” he continued; “I am going to tell you a fact. My
brother belongs to the municipal council, and it’s through him that I
know it. I must tell you first of all that we now have a Republican
municipal council, which is much worried by the demoralisation of the
town. You can no longer go out at night without meeting girls in the
streets--you know, those candle hawkers! They gad about with the drivers
who come here when the season commences, and swell the suspicious
floating population which comes no one knows whence. And I must also
explain to you the position of the Fathers towards the town. When they
purchased the land at the Grotto they signed an agreement by which they
undertook not to engage in any business there. Well, they have opened a
shop in spite of their signature. Is not that an unfair rivalry, unworthy
of honest people? So the new council decided on sending them a deputation
to insist on the agreement being respected, and enjoining them to close
their shop at once. What do you think they answered, monsieur? Oh! what
they have replied twenty times before, what they will always answer, when
they are reminded of their engagements: ‘Very well, we consent to keep
them, but we are masters at our own place, and we’ll close the Grotto!’”
He raised himself up, his razor in the air, and, repeating his words, his
eyes dilated by the enormity of the thing, he said, “‘We’ll close the
Grotto.’”
Pierre, who was continuing his slow walk, suddenly stopped and said in
his face, “Well! the municipal council had only to answer, ‘Close it.’”
At this Cazaban almost choked; the blood rushed to his face, he was
beside himself, and stammered out “Close the Grotto?--Close the Grotto?”
“Certainly! As the Grotto irritates you and rends your heart; as it’s a
cause of continual warfare, injustice, and corruption. Everything would
be over, we should hear no more about it. That would really be a capital
solution, and if the council had the power it would render you a service
by forcing the Fathers to carry out their threat.”
As Pierre went on speaking, Cazaban’s anger subsided. He became very calm
and somewhat pale, and in the depths of his big eyes the priest detected
an expression of increasing uneasiness. Had he not gone too far in his
passion against the Fathers? Many ecclesiastics did not like them;
perhaps this young priest was simply at Lourdes for the purpose of
stirring-up an agitation against them. Then who knows?--it might possibly
result in the Grotto being closed later on. But it was by the Grotto that
they all lived. If the old city screeched with rage at only picking up
the crumbs, it was well pleased to secure even that windfall; and the
freethinkers themselves, who coined money with the pilgrims, like
everyone else, held their tongues, ill at ease, and even frightened, when
they found people too much of their opinion with regard to the
objectionable features of new Lourdes. It was necessary to be prudent.
Cazaban thereupon returned to M. de Guersaint, whose other cheek he began
shaving, murmuring the while in an off-hand manner: “Oh! what I say about
the Grotto is not because it troubles me much in reality, and, besides,
everyone must live.”
In the dining-room, the children, amidst deafening shouts, had just
broken one of the bowls, and Pierre, glancing through the open doorway,
again noticed the engravings of religious subjects and the plaster Virgin
with which the hairdresser had ornamented the apartment in order to
please his lodgers. And just then, too, a voice shouted from the first
floor that the trunk was ready, and that they would be much obliged if
the assistant would cord it as soon as he returned.
However, Cazaban, in the presence of these two gentlemen whom, as a
matter of fact, he did not know, remained suspicious and uneasy, his
brain haunted by all sorts of disquieting suppositions. He was in despair
at the idea of having to let them go away without learning anything about
them, especially after having exposed himself. If he had only been able
to withdraw the more rabid of his biting remarks about the Fathers.
Accordingly, when M. de Guersaint rose to wash his chin, he yielded to a
desire to renew the conversation.
“Have you heard talk of yesterday’s miracle? The town is quite upside
down with it; more than twenty people have already given me an account of
what occurred. Yes, it seems they obtained an extraordinary miracle, a
paralytic young lady got up and dragged her invalid carriage as far as
the choir of the Basilica.”
M. de Guersaint, who was about to sit down after wiping himself, gave a
complacent laugh. “That young lady is my daughter,” he said.
Thereupon, under this sudden and fortunate flash of enlightenment,
Cazaban became all smiles. He felt reassured, and combed M. de
Guersaint’s hair with a masterly touch, amid a returning exuberance of
speech and gesture. “Ah! monsieur, I congratulate you, I am flattered at
having you in my hands. Since the young lady your daughter is cured, your
father’s heart is at ease. Am I not right?”
And he also found a few pleasant words for Pierre. Then, when he had
decided to let them go, he looked at the priest with an air of
conviction, and remarked, like a sensible man, desirous of coming to a
conclusion on the subject of miracles: “There are some, Monsieur l’Abbe,
which are good fortunes for everybody. From time to time we require one
of that description.”
Outside, M. de Guersaint had to go and fetch the coachman, who was still
laughing with the servant-girl, while her dog, dripping with water, was
shaking itself in the sun. In five minutes the trap brought them back to
the bottom of the Plateau de la Merlasse. The trip had taken a good
half-hour. Pierre wanted to keep the conveyance, with the idea of showing
Marie the town without giving her too much fatigue. So, while the father
ran to the Grotto to fetch his daughter, he waited there beneath the
trees.
The coachman at once engaged in conversation with the priest. He had lit
another cigarette and showed himself very familiar. He came from a
village in the environs of Toulouse, and did not complain, for he earned
good round sums each day at Lourdes. You fed well there, said he, you
amused yourself, it was what you might call a good neighbourhood. He said
these things with the _abandon_ of a man who was not troubled with
religious scruples, but yet did not forget the respect which he owed to
an ecclesiastic.
At last, from the top of his box, where he remained half lying down,
dangling one of his legs, he allowed this remark to fall slowly from his
lips: “Ah! yes, Monsieur l’Abbe, Lourdes has caught on well, but the
question is whether it will all last long!”
Pierre, who was very much struck by the remark, was pondering on its
involuntary profundity, when M. de Guersaint reappeared, bringing Marie
with him. He had found her kneeling on the same spot, in the same act of
faith and thankfulness, at the feet of the Blessed Virgin; and it seemed
as if she had brought all the brilliant light of the Grotto away in her
eyes, so vividly did they sparkle with divine joy at her cure. She would
not entertain a proposal to keep the trap. No, no! she preferred to go on
foot; she did not care about seeing the town, so long as she might for
another hour continue walking on her father’s arm through the gardens,
the streets, the squares, anywhere they pleased! And, when Pierre had
paid the driver, it was she who turned into a path of the Esplanade
garden, delighted at being able to saunter in this wise beside the turf
and the flower beds, under the great trees. The grass, the leaves, the
shady solitary walks where you heard the everlasting rippling of the
Gave, were so sweet and fresh! But afterwards she wished to return by way
of the streets, among the crowd, that she might find the agitation,
noise, and life, the need of which possessed her whole being.
In the Rue St. Joseph, on perceiving the panorama, where the former
Grotto was depicted, with Bernadette kneeling down before it on the day
of the miracle of the candle, the idea occurred to Pierre to go in. Marie
became as happy as a child; and even M. de Guersaint was full of innocent
delight, especially when he noticed that among the batch of pilgrims who
dived at the same time as themselves into the depths of the obscure
corridor, several recognised in his daughter the girl so miraculously
healed the day before, who was already famous, and whose name flew from
mouth to mouth. Up above, on the circular platform, when they came out
into the diffuse light, filtering through a vellum, there was a sort of
ovation around Marie; soft whispers, beatifical glances, a rapture of
delight in seeing, following, and touching her. Now glory had come, she
would be loved in that way wherever she went, and it was not until the
showman who gave the explanations had placed himself at the head of the
little party of visitors, and begun to walk round, relating the incident
depicted on the huge circular canvas, nearly five hundred feet in length,
that she was in some measure forgotten. The painting represented the
seventeenth apparition of the Blessed Virgin to Bernadette, on the day
when, kneeling before the Grotto during her vision, she had heedlessly
left her hand on the flame of the candle without burning it. The whole of
the old primitive landscape of the Grotto was shown, the whole scene was
set out with all its historical personages: the doctor verifying the
miracle watch in hand, the Mayor, the Commissary of Police, and the
Public Prosecutor, whose names the showman gave out, amidst the amazement
of the public following him.
Then, by an unconscious transition of ideas, Pierre recalled the remark
which the driver of the cabriolet had made a short time previously:
“Lourdes has caught on well, but the question is whether it will all last
long.” That, in fact, was the question. How many venerated sanctuaries
had thus been built already, at the bidding of innocent chosen children,
to whom the Blessed Virgin had shown herself! It was always the same
story beginning afresh: an apparition; a persecuted shepherdess, who was
called a liar; next the covert propulsion of human misery hungering after
illusion; then propaganda, and the triumph of the sanctuary shining like
a star; and afterwards decline, and oblivion, when the ecstatic dream of
another visionary gave birth to another sanctuary elsewhere. It seemed as
if the power of illusion wore away; that it was necessary in the course
of centuries to displace it, set it amidst new scenery, under fresh
circumstances, in order to renew its force. La Salette had dethroned the
old wooden and stone Virgins that had healed; Lourdes had just dethroned
La Salette, pending the time when it would be dethroned itself by Our
Lady of to-morrow, she who will show her sweet, consoling features to
some pure child as yet unborn. Only, if Lourdes had met with such rapid,
such prodigious fortune, it assuredly owed it to the little sincere soul,
the delightful charm of Bernadette. Here there was no deceit, no
falsehood, merely the blossoming of suffering, a delicate sick child who
brought to the afflicted multitude her dream of justice and equality in
the miraculous. She was merely eternal hope, eternal consolation.
Besides, all historical and social circumstances seem to have combined to
increase the need of this mystical flight at the close of a terrible
century of positivist inquiry; and that was perhaps the reason why
Lourdes would still long endure in its triumph, before becoming a mere
legend, one of those dead religions whose powerful perfume has
evaporated.
Ah! that ancient Lourdes, that city of peace and belief, the only
possible cradle where the legend could come into being, how easily Pierre
conjured it up before him, whilst walking round the vast canvas of the
Panorama! That canvas said everything; it was the best lesson of things
that could be seen. The monotonous explanations of the showman were not
heard; the landscape spoke for itself. First of all there was the Grotto,
the rocky hollow beside the Gave, a savage spot suitable for
reverie--bushy slopes and heaps of fallen stone, without a path among
them; and nothing yet in the way of ornamentation--no monumental quay, no
garden paths winding among trimly cut shrubs; no Grotto set in order,
deformed, enclosed with iron railings; above all, no shop for the sale of
religious articles, that simony shop which was the scandal of all pious
souls. The Virgin could not have selected a more solitary and charming
nook wherein to show herself to the chosen one of her heart, the poor
young girl who came thither still possessed by the dream of her painful
nights, even whilst gathering dead wood. And on the opposite side of the
Gave, behind the rock of the castle, was old Lourdes, confident and
asleep. Another age was then conjured up; a small town, with narrow
pebble-paved streets, black houses with marble dressings, and an antique,
semi-Spanish church, full of old carvings, and peopled with visions of
gold and painted flesh. Communication with other places was only kept up
by the Bagneres and Cauterets _diligences_, which twice a day forded the
Lapaca to climb the steep causeway of the Rue Basse. The spirit of the
century had not breathed on those peaceful roofs sheltering a belated
population which had remained childish, enclosed within the narrow limits
of strict religious discipline. There was no debauchery; a slow antique
commerce sufficed for daily life, a poor life whose hardships were the
safeguards of morality. And Pierre had never better understood how
Bernadette, born in that land of faith and honesty, had flowered like a
natural rose, budding on the briars of the road.
“It’s all the same very curious,” observed M. de Guersaint when they
found themselves in the street again. “I’m not at all sorry I saw it.”
Marie was also laughing with pleasure. “One would almost think oneself
there. Isn’t it so, father? At times it seems as if the people were going
to move. And how charming Bernadette looks on her knees, in ecstasy,
while the candle flame licks her fingers without burning them.”
“Let us see,” said the architect; “we have only an hour left, so we must
think of making our purchases, if we wish to buy anything. Shall we take
a look at the shops? We certainly promised Majeste to give him the
preference; but that does not prevent us from making a few inquiries. Eh!
Pierre, what do you say?”
“Oh! certainly, as you like,” answered the priest. “Besides, it will give
us a walk.”
And he thereupon followed the young girl and her father, who returned to
the Plateau de la Merlasse. Since he had quitted the Panorama he felt as
though he no longer knew where he was. It seemed to him as if he had all
at once been transported from one to another town, parted by centuries.
He had left the solitude, the slumbering peacefulness of old Lourdes,
which the dead light of the vellum had increased, to fall at last into
new Lourdes, sparkling with brightness and noisy with the crowd. Ten
o’clock had just struck, and extraordinary animation reigned on the
footways, where before breakfast an entire people was hastening to
complete its purchases, so that it might have nothing but its departure
to think of afterwards. The thousands of pilgrims of the national
pilgrimage streamed along the thoroughfares and besieged the shops in a
final scramble. You would have taken the cries, the jostling, and the
sudden rushes for those at some fair just breaking up amidst a ceaseless
roll of vehicles. Many, providing themselves with provisions for the
journey, cleared the open-air stalls where bread and slices of sausages
and ham were sold. Others purchased fruit and wine; baskets were filled
with bottles and greasy parcels until they almost burst. A hawker who was
wheeling some cheeses about on a small truck saw his goods carried off as
if swept away by the wind. But what the crowd more particularly purchased
were religious articles, and those hawkers whose barrows were loaded with
statuettes and sacred engravings were reaping golden gains. The customers
at the shops stood in strings on the pavement; the women were belted with
immense chaplets, had Blessed Virgins tucked under their arms, and were
provided with cans which they meant to fill at the miraculous spring.
Carried in the hand or slung from the shoulder, some of them quite plain
and others daubed over with a Lady of Lourdes in blue paint, these cans
held from one to ten quarts apiece; and, shining with all the brightness
of new tin, clashing, too, at times with the sharp jingle of stew-pans,
they added a gay note to the aspect of the noisy multitude. And the fever
of dealing, the pleasure of spending one’s money, of returning home with
one’s pockets crammed with photographs and medals, lit up all faces with
a holiday expression, transforming the radiant gathering into a
fair-field crowd with appetites either beyond control or satisfied.
On the Plateau de la Merlasse, M. de Guersaint for a moment felt tempted
to enter one of the finest and most patronised shops, on the board over
which were these words in large letters: “Soubirous, Brother of
Bernadette.”
“Eh! what if we were to make our purchases there? It would be more
appropriate, more interesting to remember.”
However, he passed on, repeating that they must see everything first of
all.
Pierre had looked at the shop kept by Bernadette’s brother with a heavy
heart. It grieved him to find the brother selling the Blessed Virgin whom
the sister had beheld. However, it was necessary to live, and he had
reason to believe that, beside the triumphant Basilica resplendent with
gold, the visionary’s relatives were not making a fortune, the
competition being so terrible. If on the one hand the pilgrims left
millions behind them at Lourdes, on the other there were more than two
hundred dealers in religious articles, to say nothing of the hotel and
lodging-house keepers, to whom the largest part of the spoils fell; and
thus the gain, so eagerly disputed, ended by being moderate enough after
all. Along the Plateau on the right and left of the repository kept by
Bernadette’s brother, other shops appeared, an uninterrupted row of them,
pressing one against the other, each occupying a division of a long
wooden structure, a sort of gallery erected by the town, which derived
from it some sixty thousand francs a year. It formed a regular bazaar of
open stalls, encroaching on the pavements so as to tempt people to stop
as they passed along. For more than three hundred yards no other trade
was plied: a river of chaplets, medals, and statuettes streamed without
end behind the windows; and in enormous letters on the boards above
appeared the venerated names of Saint Roch, Saint Joseph, Jerusalem, The
Immaculate Virgin, The Sacred Heart of Mary, all the names in Paradise
that were most likely to touch and attract customers.
“Really,” said M. de Guersaint, “I think it’s the same thing all over the
place. Let us go anywhere.” He himself had had enough of it, this
interminable display was quite exhausting him.
“But as you promised to make the purchases at Majeste’s,” said Marie, who
was not, in the least tired, “the best thing will be to go back.”
“That’s it; let’s return to Majeste’s place.”
But the rows of shops began again in the Avenue de la Grotte. They
swarmed on both sides; and among them here were jewellers, drapers, and
umbrella-makers, who also dealt in religious articles. There was even a
confectioner who sold boxes of pastilles _a l’eau de Lourdes_, with a
figure of the Virgin on the cover. A photographer’s windows were crammed
with views of the Grotto and the Basilica, and portraits of Bishops and
reverend Fathers of all Orders, mixed up with views of famous sites in
the neighbouring mountains. A bookseller displayed the last Catholic
publications, volumes bearing devout titles, and among them the
innumerable works published on Lourdes during the last twenty years, some
of which had had a wonderful success, which was still fresh in memory. In
this broad, populous thoroughfare the crowd streamed along in more open
order; their cans jingled, everyone was in high spirits, amid the bright
sunrays which enfiladed the road from one end to the other. And it seemed
as if there would never be a finish to the statuettes, the medals, and
the chaplets; one display followed another; and, indeed, there were miles
of them running through the streets of the entire town, which was ever
the same bazaar selling the same articles.
In front of the Hotel of the Apparitions M. de Guersaint again hesitated.
“Then it’s decided, we are going to make our purchases there?” he asked.
“Certainly,” said Marie. “See what a beautiful shop it is!”
And she was the first to enter the establishment, which was, in fact, one
of the largest in the street, occupying the ground-floor of the hotel on
the left hand. M. de Guersaint and Pierre followed her.
Apolline, the niece of the Majestes, who was in charge of the place, was
standing on a stool, taking some holy-water vases from a top shelf to
show them to a young man, an elegant bearer, wearing beautiful yellow
gaiters. She was laughing with the cooing sound of a dove, and looked
charming with her thick black hair and her superb eyes, set in a somewhat
square face, which had a straight forehead, chubby cheeks, and full red
lips. Jumping lightly to the ground, she exclaimed: “Then you don’t think
that this pattern would please madame, your aunt?”
“No, no,” answered the bearer, as he went off. “Obtain the other pattern.
I shall not leave until to-morrow, and will come back.”
When Apolline learnt that Marie was the young person visited by the
miracle of whom Madame Majeste had been talking ever since the previous
day, she became extremely attentive. She looked at her with her merry
smile, in which there was a dash of surprise and covert incredulity.
However, like the clever saleswoman that she was, she was profuse in
complimentary remarks. “Ah, mademoiselle, I shall be so happy to sell to
you! Your miracle is so beautiful! Look, the whole shop is at your
disposal. We have the largest choice.”
Marie was ill at ease. “Thank you,” she replied, “you are very good. But
we have only come to buy a few small things.”
“If you will allow us,” said M. de Guersaint, “we will choose ourselves.”
“Very well. That’s it, monsieur. Afterwards we will see!”
And as some other customers now came in, Apolline forgot them, returned
to her duties as a pretty saleswoman, with caressing words and seductive
glances, especially for the gentlemen, whom she never allowed to leave
until they had their pockets full of purchases.
M. de Guersaint had only two francs left of the louis which Blanche, his
eldest daughter, had slipped into his hand when he was leaving, as
pocket-money; and so he did not dare to make any large selection. But
Pierre declared that they would cause him great pain if they did not
allow him to offer them the few things which they would like to take away
with them from Lourdes. It was therefore understood that they would first
of all choose a present for Blanche, and then Marie and her father should
select the souvenirs that pleased them best.
“Don’t let us hurry,” repeated M. de Guersaint, who had become very gay.
“Come, Marie, have a good look. What would be most likely to please
Blanche?”
All three looked, searched, and rummaged. But their indecision increased
as they went from one object to another. With its counters, show-cases,
and nests of drawers, furnishing it from top to bottom, the spacious shop
was a sea of endless billows, overflowing with all the religious
knick-knacks imaginable. There were the chaplets: skeins of chaplets
hanging along the walls, and heaps of chaplets lying in the drawers, from
humble ones costing twenty sons a dozen, to those of sweet-scented wood,
agate, and lapis-lazuli, with chains of gold or silver; and some of them,
of immense length, made to go twice round the neck or waist, had carved
beads, as large as walnuts, separated by death’s-heads. Then there were
the medals: a shower of medals, boxes full of medals, of all sizes, of
all metals, the cheapest and the most precious. They bore different
inscriptions, they represented the Basilica, the Grotto, or the
Immaculate Conception; they were engraved, _repoussees_, or enamelled,
executed with care, or made by the gross, according to the price. And
next there were the Blessed Virgins, great and small, in zinc, wood,
ivory, and especially plaster; some entirely white, others tinted in
bright colours, in accordance with the description given by Bernadette;
the amiable and smiling face, the extremely long veil, the blue sash, and
the golden roses on the feet, there being, however, some slight
modification in each model so as to guarantee the copyright. And there
was another flood of other religious objects: a hundred varieties of
scapularies, a thousand different sorts of sacred pictures: fine
engravings, large chromo-lithographs in glaring colours, submerged
beneath a mass of smaller pictures, which were coloured, gilded,
varnished, decorated with bouquets of flowers, and bordered with lace
paper. And there was also jewellery: rings, brooches, and bracelets,
loaded with stars and crosses, and ornamented with saintly figures.
Finally, there was the Paris article, which rose above and submerged all
the rest: pencil-holders, purses, cigar-holders, paperweights,
paper-knives, even snuff-boxes; and innumerable other objects on which
the Basilica, Grotto, and Blessed Virgin ever and ever appeared,
reproduced in every way, by every process that is known. Heaped together
pell-mell in one of the cases reserved to articles at fifty centimes
apiece were napkin-rings, egg-cups, and wooden pipes, on which was carved
the beaming apparition of Our Lady of Lourdes.
Little by little, M. de Guersaint, with the annoyance of a man who prides
himself on being an artist, became disgusted and quite sad. “But all this
is frightful, frightful!” he repeated at every new article he took up to
look at.
Then he relieved himself by reminding Pierre of the ruinous attempt which
he had made to improve the artistic quality of religious prints. The
remains of his fortune had been lost in that attempt, and the thought
made him all the more angry, in presence of the wretched productions with
which the shop was crammed. Had anyone ever seen things of such idiotic,
pretentious, and complicated ugliness! The vulgarity of the ideas and the
silliness of the expressions portrayed rivalled the commonplace character
of the composition. You were reminded of fashion-plates, the covers of
boxes of sweets, and the wax dolls’ heads that revolve in hairdressers’
windows; it was an art abounding in false prettiness, painfully childish,
with no really human touch in it, no tone, and no sincerity. And the
architect, who was wound up, could not stop, but went on to express his
disgust with the buildings of new Lourdes, the pitiable disfigurement of
the Grotto, the colossal monstrosity of the inclined ways, the disastrous
lack of symmetry in the church of the Rosary and the Basilica, the former
looking too heavy, like a corn market, whilst the latter had an anaemical
structural leanness with no kind of style but the mongrel.
“Ah! one must really be very fond of God,” he at last concluded, “to have
courage enough to come and adore Him amidst such horrors! They have
failed in everything, spoilt everything, as though out of pleasure. Not
one of them has experienced that moment of true feeling, of real
naturalness and sincere faith, which gives birth to masterpieces. They
are all clever people, but all plagiarists; not one has given his mind
and being to the undertaking. And what must they not require to inspire
them, since they have failed to produce anything grand even in this land
of miracles?”
Pierre did not reply, but he was very much struck by these reflections,
which at last gave him an explanation of a feeling of discomfort that he
had experienced ever since his arrival at Lourdes. This discomfort arose
from the difference between the modern surroundings and the faith of past
ages which it sought to resuscitate. He thought of the old cathedrals
where quivered that faith of nations; he pictured the former attributes
of worship--the images, the goldsmith’s work, the saints in wood and
stone--all of admirable power and beauty of expression. The fact was that
in those ancient times the workmen had been true believers, had given
their whole souls and bodies and all the candour of their feelings to
their productions, just as M. de Guersaint said. But nowadays architects
built churches with the same practical tranquillity that they erected
five-storey houses, just as the religious articles, the chaplets, the
medals, and the statuettes were manufactured by the gross in the populous
quarters of Paris by merrymaking workmen who did not even follow their
religion. And thus what slopwork, what toymakers’, ironmongers’ stuff it
all was! of a prettiness fit to make you cry, a silly sentimentality fit
to make your heart turn with disgust! Lourdes was inundated, devastated,
disfigured by it all to such a point as to quite upset persons with any
delicacy of taste who happened to stray through its streets. It clashed
jarringly with the attempted resuscitation of the legends, ceremonies,
and processions of dead ages; and all at once it occurred to Pierre that
the social and historical condemnation of Lourdes lay in this, that faith
is forever dead among a people when it no longer introduces it into the
churches it builds or the chaplets it manufactures.
However, Marie had continued examining the shelves with the impatience of
a child, hesitating, and finding nothing which seemed to her worthy of
the great dream of ecstasy which she would ever keep within her.
“Father,” she said, “it is getting late; you must take me back to the
hospital; and to make up my mind, look, I will give Blanche this medal
with the silver chain. After all it’s the most simple and prettiest thing
here. She will wear it; it will make her a little piece of jewellery. As
for myself, I will take this statuette of Our Lady of Lourdes, this small
one, which is rather prettily painted. I shall place it in my room and
surround it with fresh flowers. It will be very nice, will it not?”
M. de Guersaint approved of her idea, and then busied himself with his
own choice. “O dear! oh dear! how embarrassed I am!” said he.
He was examining some ivory-handled penholders capped with pea-like
balls, in which were microscopic photographs, and while bringing one of
the little holes to his eye to look in it he raised an exclamation of
mingled surprise and pleasure. “Hallo! here’s the Cirque de Gavarnie! Ah!
it’s prodigious; everything is there; how can that colossal panorama have
been got into so small a space? Come, I’ll take this penholder; it’s
curious, and will remind me of my excursion.”
Pierre had simply chosen a portrait of Bernadette, the large photograph
which represents her on her knees in a black gown, with a handkerchief
tied over her hair, and which is said to be the only one in existence
taken from life. He hastened to pay, and they were all three on the point
of leaving when Madame Majeste entered, protested, and positively
insisted on making Marie a little present, saying that it would bring her
establishment good-fortune. “I beg of you, mademoiselle, take a
scapulary,” said she. “Look among those there. The Blessed Virgin who
chose you will repay me in good luck.”
She raised her voice and made so much fuss that the purchasers filling
the shop were interested, and began gazing at the girl with envious eyes.
It was popularity bursting out again around her, a popularity which ended
even by reaching the street when the landlady went to the threshold of
the shop, making signs to the tradespeople opposite and putting all the
neighbourhood in a flutter.
“Let us go,” repeated Marie, feeling more and more uncomfortable.
But her father, on noticing a priest come in, detained her. “Ah! Monsieur
l’Abbe des Hermoises!”
It was in fact the handsome Abbe, clad in a cassock of fine cloth
emitting a pleasant odour, and with an expression of soft gaiety on his
fresh-coloured face. He had not noticed his companion of the previous
day, but had gone straight to Apolline and taken her on one side. And
Pierre overheard him saying in a subdued tone: “Why didn’t you bring me
my three-dozen chaplets this morning?”
Apolline again began laughing with the cooing notes of a dove, and looked
at him sideways, roguishly, without answering.
“They are for my little penitents at Toulouse. I wanted to place them at
the bottom of my trunk; and you offered to help me pack my linen.”
She continued laughing, and her pretty eyes sparkled.
“However, I shall not leave before to-morrow. Bring them me to-night,
will you not? When you are at liberty. It’s at the end of the street, at
Duchene’s.”
Thereupon, with a slight movement of her red lips, and in a somewhat
bantering way, which left him in doubt as to whether she would keep her
promise, she replied: “Certainly, Monsieur l’Abbe, I will go.”
They were now interrupted by M. de Guersaint, who came forward to shake
the priest’s hand. And the two men at once began talking again of the
Cirque de Gavarnie: they had had a delightful trip, a most pleasant time,
which they would never forget. Then they enjoyed a laugh at the expense
of their two companions, ecclesiastics of slender means, good-natured
fellows, who had much amused them. And the architect ended by reminding
his new friend that he had kindly promised to induce a personage at
Toulouse, who was ten times a millionaire, to interest himself in his
studies on navigable balloons. “A first advance of a hundred thousand
francs would be sufficient,” he said.
“You can rely on me,” answered Abbe des Hermoises. “You will not have
prayed to the Blessed Virgin in vain.”
However, Pierre, who had kept Bernadette’s portrait in his hand, had just
then been struck by the extraordinary likeness between Apolline and the
visionary. It was the same rather massive face, the same full thick
mouth, and the same magnificent eyes; and he recollected that Madame
Majeste had already pointed out to him this striking resemblance, which
was all the more peculiar as Apolline had passed through a similar
poverty-stricken childhood at Bartres before her aunt had taken her with
her to assist in keeping the shop. Bernadette! Apolline! What a strange
association, what an unexpected reincarnation at thirty years’ distance!
And, all at once, with this Apolline, who was so flightily merry and
careless, and in regard to whom there were so many odd rumours, new
Lourdes rose before his eyes: the coachmen, the candle-girls, the persons
who let rooms and waylaid tenants at the railway station, the hundreds of
furnished houses with discreet little lodgings, the crowd of free
priests, the lady hospitallers, and the simple passers-by, who came there
to satisfy their appetites. Then, too, there was the trading mania
excited by the shower of millions, the entire town given up to lucre, the
shops transforming the streets into bazaars which devoured one another,
the hotels living gluttonously on the pilgrims, even to the Blue Sisters
who kept a _table d’hote_, and the Fathers of the Grotto who coined money
with their God! What a sad and frightful course of events, the vision of
pure Bernadette inflaming multitudes, making them rush to the illusion of
happiness, bringing a river of gold to the town, and from that moment
rotting everything. The breath of superstition had sufficed to make
humanity flock thither, to attract abundance of money, and to corrupt
this honest corner of the earth forever. Where the candid lily had
formerly bloomed there now grew the carnal rose, in the new loam of
cupidity and enjoyment. Bethlehem had become Sodom since an innocent
child had seen the Virgin.
“Eh? What did I tell you?” exclaimed Madame Majeste, perceiving that
Pierre was comparing her niece with the portrait. “Apolline is Bernadette
all over!”
The young girl approached with her amiable smile, flattered at first by
the comparison.
“Let’s see, let’s see!” said Abbe des Hermoises, with an air of lively
interest.
He took the photograph in his turn, compared it with the girl, and then
exclaimed in amazement: “It’s wonderful; the same features. I had not
noticed it before. Really I’m delighted--”
“Still I fancy she had a larger nose,” Apolline ended by remarking.
The Abbe then raised an exclamation of irresistible admiration: “Oh! you
are prettier, much prettier, that’s evident. But that does not matter,
anyone would take you for two sisters.”
Pierre could not refrain from laughing, he thought the remark so
peculiar. Ah! poor Bernadette was absolutely dead, and she had no sister.
She could not have been born again; it would have been impossible for her
to exist in the region of crowded life and passion which she had made.
At length Marie went off leaning on her father’s arm, and it was agreed
that they would both call and fetch her at the hospital to go to the
station together. More than fifty people were awaiting her in the street
in a state of ecstasy. They bowed to her and followed her; and one woman
even made her infirm child, whom she was bringing back from the Grotto,
touch her gown.