was slumbering inside its wooden fence, it was none the less more than
half built. The vaulted aisles were already erected. And the imperfect
pile remained there like a threat, for the town might some day attempt to
finish it. Like Abbe Peyramale, therefore, it must be killed for good,
turned into an irreparable ruin. The secret labour therefore continued, a
work of refined cruelty and slow destruction. To begin with, the new
parish priest, a simple-minded creature, was cowed to such a point that
he no longer opened the envelopes containing remittances for the parish;
all the registered letters were at once taken to the Fathers. Then the
site selected for the new parish church was criticised, and the diocesan
architect was induced to draw up a report stating that the old church was
still in good condition and of ample size for the requirements of the
community. Moreover, influence was brought to bear on the Bishop, and
representations were made to him respecting the annoying features of the
pecuniary difficulties which had arisen with the contractor. With a
little imagination poor Peyramale was transformed into a violent,
obstinate madman, through whose undisciplined zeal the Church had almost
been compromised. And, at last, the Bishop, forgetting that he himself
had blessed the foundation-stone, issued a pastoral letter laying the
unfinished church under interdict, and prohibiting all religious services
in it. This was the supreme blow. Endless lawsuits had already begun; the
contractor, who had only received two hundred thousand francs for the
five hundred thousand francs' worth of work which had been executed, had
taken proceedings against Abbe Peyramale's heir-at-law, the vestry, and
the town, for the last still refused to pay over the amount which it had
voted. At first the Prefect's Council declared itself incompetent to deal
with the case, and when it was sent back to it by the Council of State,
it rendered a judgment by which the town was condemned to pay the hundred
thousand francs and the heir-at-law to finish the church. At the same
time the vestry was put out of court. However, there was a fresh appeal
to the Council of State, which quashed this judgment, and condemned the
vestry, and, in default, the heir-at-law, to pay the contractor. Neither
party being solvent, matters remained in this position. The lawsuits had
lasted fifteen years. The town had now resignedly paid over the hundred
thousand francs, and only two hundred thousand remained owing to the
contractor. However, the costs and the accumulated interest had so
increased the amount of indebtedness that it had risen to six hundred
thousand francs; and as, on the other hand, it was estimated that four
hundred thousand francs would be required to finish the church, a million
was needed to save this young ruin from certain destruction. The Fathers
of the Grotto were thenceforth able to sleep in peace; they had
assassinated the poor church; it was as dead as Abbe Peyramale himself.
The bells of the Basilica rang out triumphantly, and Father Sempe reigned
as a victor at the conclusion of that great struggle, that dagger warfare
in which not only a man but stones also had been done to death in the
shrouding gloom of intriguing sacristies. And old Lourdes, obstinate and
unintelligent, paid a hard penalty for its mistake in not giving more
support to its minister, who had died struggling, killed by his love for
his parish, for now the new town did not cease to grow and prosper at the
expense of the old one. All the wealth flowed to the former: the Fathers
of the Grotto coined money, financed hotels and candle shops, and sold
the water of the source, although a clause of their agreement with the
municipality expressly prohibited them from carrying on any commercial
pursuits.
The whole region began to rot and fester; the triumph of the Grotto had
brought about such a passion for lucre, such a burning, feverish desire
to possess and enjoy, that extraordinary perversion set in, growing worse
and worse each day, and changing Bernadette's peaceful Bethlehem into a
perfect Sodom or Gomorrah. Father Sempe had ensured the triumph of his
Divinity by spreading human abominations all around and wrecking
thousands of souls. Gigantic buildings rose from the ground, five or six
millions of francs had already been expended, everything being sacrificed
to the stern determination to leave the poor parish out in the cold and
keep the entire plunder for self and friends. Those costly, colossal
gradient ways had only been erected in order to avoid compliance with the
Virgin's express desire that the faithful should come to the Grotto in
procession. For to go down from the Basilica by the incline on the left,
and climb up to it again by the incline on the right, could certainly not
be called going to the Grotto in procession: it was simply so much
revolving in a circle. However, the Fathers cared little about that; they
had succeeded in compelling people to start from their premises and
return to them, in order that they might be the sole proprietors of the
affair, the opulent farmers who garnered the whole harvest. Abbe
Peyramale lay buried in the crypt of his unfinished, ruined church, and
Bernadette, who had long since dragged out her life of suffering in the
depths of a convent far away, was now likewise sleeping the eternal sleep
under a flagstone in a chapel.
Deep silence fell when Doctor Chassaigne had finished this long
narrative. Then, with a painful effort, he rose to his feet again: "It
will soon be ten o'clock, my dear child," said he, "and I want you to
take a little rest. Let us go back."
Pierre followed him without speaking; and they retraced their steps
toward the town at a more rapid pace.
"Ah! yes," resumed the doctor, "there were great iniquities and great
sufferings in it all. But what else could you expect? Man spoils and
corrupts the most beautiful things. And you cannot yet understand all the
woeful sadness of the things of which I have been talking to you. You
must see them, lay your hand on them. Would you like me to show you
Bernadette's room and Abbe Peyramale's unfinished church this evening?"
"Yes, I should indeed," replied Pierre.
"Well, I will meet you in front of the Basilica after the four-o'clock
procession, and you can come with me."
Then they spoke no further, each becoming absorbed in his reverie once
more.
The Gave, now upon their right hand, was flowing through a deep gorge, a
kind of cleft into which it plunged, vanishing from sight among the
bushes. But at intervals a clear stretch of it, looking like unburnished
silver, would appear to view; and, farther on, after a sudden turn in the
road, they found it flowing in increased volume across a plain, where it
spread at times into glassy sheets which must often have changed their
beds, for the gravelly soil was ravined on all sides. The sun was now
becoming very hot, and was already high in the heavens, whose limpid
azure assumed a deeper tinge above the vast circle of mountains.
And it was at this turn of the road that Lourdes, still some distance
away, reappeared to the eyes of Pierre and Doctor Chassaigne. In the
splendid morning atmosphere, amid a flying dust of gold and purple rays,
the town shone whitely on the horizon, its houses and monuments becoming
more and more distinct at each step which brought them nearer. And the
doctor, still silent, at last waved his arm with a broad, mournful
gesture in order to call his companion's attention to this growing town,
as though to a proof of all that he had been telling him. There, indeed,
rising up in the dazzling daylight, was the evidence which confirmed his
words.
The flare of the Grotto, fainter now that the sun was shining, could
already be espied amidst the greenery. And soon afterwards the gigantic
monumental works spread out: the quay with its freestone parapet skirting
the Gave, whose course had been diverted; the new bridge connecting the
new gardens with the recently opened boulevard; the colossal gradient
ways, the massive church of the Rosary, and, finally, the slim, tapering
Basilica, rising above all else with graceful pride. Of the new town
spread all around the monuments, the wealthy city which had sprung, as
though by enchantment, from the ancient impoverished soil, the great
convents and the great hotels, you could, at this distance, merely
distinguish a swarming of white facades and a scintillation of new
slates; whilst, in confusion, far away, beyond the rocky mass on which
the crumbling castle walls were profiled against the sky, appeared the
humble roofs of the old town, a jumble of little time-worn roofs,
pressing timorously against one another. And as a background to this
vision of the life of yesterday and to-day, the little and the big Gers
rose up beneath the splendour of the everlasting sun, and barred the
horizon with their bare slopes, which the oblique rays were tingeing with
streaks of pink and yellow.
Doctor Chassaigne insisted on accompanying Pierre to the Hotel of the
Apparitions, and only parted from him at its door, after reminding him of
their appointment for the afternoon. It was not yet eleven o'clock.
Pierre, whom fatigue had suddenly mastered, forced himself to eat before
going to bed, for he realised that want of food was one of the chief
causes of the weakness which had come over him. He fortunately found a
vacant seat at the /table d'hote/, and made some kind of a /dejeuner/,
half asleep all the time, and scarcely knowing what was served to him.
Then he went up-stairs and flung himself on his bed, after taking care to
tell the servant to awake him at three o'clock.
However, on lying down, the fever that consumed him at first prevented
him from closing his eyes. A pair of gloves, forgotten in the next room,
had reminded him of M. de Guersaint, who had left for Gavarnie before
daybreak, and would only return in the evening. What a delightful gift
was thoughtlessness, thought Pierre. For his own part, with his limbs
worn out by weariness and his mind distracted, he was sad unto death.
Everything seemed to conspire against his willing desire to regain the
faith of his childhood. The tale of Abbe Peyramale's tragic adventures
had simply aggravated the feeling of revolt which the story of
Bernadette, chosen and martyred, had implanted in his breast. And thus he
asked himself whether his search after the truth, instead of restoring
his faith, would not rather lead him to yet greater hatred of ignorance
and credulity, and to the bitter conviction that man is indeed all alone
in the world, with naught to guide him save his reason.
At last he fell asleep, but visions continued hovering around him in his
painful slumber. He beheld Lourdes, contaminated by Mammon, turned into a
spot of abomination and perdition, transformed into a huge bazaar, where
everything was sold, masses and souls alike! He beheld also Abbe
Peyramale, dead and slumbering under the ruins of his church, among the
nettles which ingratitude had sown there. And he only grew calm again,
only tasted the delights of forgetfulness when a last pale, woeful vision
had faded from his gaze--a vision of Bernadette upon her knees in a
gloomy corner at Nevers, dreaming of her far-away work, which she was
never, never to behold.