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.