Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Rome & Paris. Эмиль Золя
picked him up, and found him dead. And they had to seat him in his corner again, with his back resting against the woodwork. He remained there erect, his torso stiffened, and his head wagging slightly at each successive jolt. Thus the train continued carrying him along, with the same thundering noise of wheels, while the engine, well pleased, no doubt, to be reaching its destination, began whistling shrilly, giving vent to quite a flourish of delirious joy as it sped through the calm night.
And then came the last and seemingly endless half-hour of the journey, in company with that wretched corpse. Two big tears had rolled down Sister Hyacinthe’s cheeks, and with her hands joined she had begun to pray. The whole carriage shuddered with terror at sight of that terrible companion who was being taken, too late alas! to the Blessed Virgin.
Hope, however, proved stronger than sorrow or pain, and although all the sufferings there assembled awoke and grew again, irritated by overwhelming weariness, a song of joy nevertheless proclaimed the sufferers’ triumphal entry into the Land of Miracles. Amidst the tears which their pains drew from them, the exasperated and howling sick began to chant the “Ave maris Stella” with a growing clamour in which lamentation finally turned into cries of hope.
Marie had again taken Pierre’s hand between her little feverish fingers. “Oh, mon Dieu!” said she, “to think that poor man is dead, and I feared so much that it was I who would die before arriving. And we are there — there at last!”
The priest was trembling with intense emotion. “It means that you are to be cured, Marie,” he replied, “and that I myself shall be cured if you pray for me—”
The engine was now whistling in a yet louder key in the depths of the bluish darkness. They were nearing their destination. The lights of Lourdes already shone out on the horizon. Then the whole train again sang a canticle — the rhymed story of Bernadette, that endless ballad of six times ten couplets, in which the Angelic Salutation ever returns as a refrain, all besetting and distracting, opening to the human mind the portals of the heaven of ecstasy: —
“It was the hour for ev’ning pray’r;
Soft bells chimed on the chilly air.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“The maid stood on the torrent’s bank,
A breeze arose, then swiftly sank.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“And she beheld, e’en as it fell,
The Virgin on Massabielle.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“All white appeared the Lady chaste,
A zone of Heaven round her waist.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“Two golden roses, pure and sweet,
Bloomed brightly on her naked feet.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“Upon her arm, so white and round,
Her chaplet’s milky pearls were wound.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
“The maiden prayed till, from her eyes,
The vision sped to Paradise.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!”
THE SECOND DAY
I. THE TRAIN ARRIVES
IT was twenty minutes past three by the clock of the Lourdes railway station, the dial of which was illumined by a reflector. Under the slanting roof sheltering the platform, a hundred yards or so in length, some shadowy forms went to and fro, resignedly waiting. Only a red signal light peeped out of the black countryside, far away.
Two of the promenaders suddenly halted. The taller of them, a Father of the Assumption, none other indeed than the Reverend Father Fourcade, director of the national pilgrimage, who had reached Lourdes on the previous day, was a man of sixty, looking superb in his black cloak with its large hood. His fine head, with its clear, domineering eyes and thick grizzly beard, was the head of a general whom an intelligent determination to conquer inflames. In consequence, however, of a sudden attack of gout he slightly dragged one of his legs, and was leaning on the shoulder of his companion, Dr. Bonamy, the practitioner attached to the Miracle Verification Office, a short, thickset man, with a square-shaped, cleanshaven face, which had dull, blurred eyes and a tranquil cast of features.
Father Fourcade had stopped to question the stationmaster whom he perceived running out of his office. “Will the white train be very late, monsieur?” he asked.
“No, your reverence. It hasn’t lost more than ten minutes; it will be here at the half-hour. It’s the Bayonne train which worries me; it ought to have passed through already.”
So saying, he ran off to give an order; but soon came back again, his slim, nervous figure displaying marked signs of agitation. He lived, indeed, in a state of high fever throughout the period of the great pilgrimages. Apart from the usual service, he that day expected eighteen trains, containing more than fifteen thousand passengers. The grey and the blue trains which had started from Paris the first had already arrived at the regulation hour. But the delay in the arrival of the white train was very troublesome, the more so as the Bayonne express — which passed over the same rails — had not yet been signalled. It was easy to understand, therefore, what incessant watchfulness was necessary, not a second passing without the entire staff of the station being called upon to exercise its vigilance.
“In ten minutes, then?” repeated Father Fourcade.
“Yes, in ten minutes, unless I’m obliged to close the line!” cried the stationmaster as he hastened into the telegraph office.
Father Fourcade and the doctor slowly resumed their promenade. The thing which astonished them was that no serious accident had ever happened in the midst of such a fearful scramble. In past times, especially, the most terrible disorder had prevailed. Father Fourcade complacently recalled the first pilgrimage which he had organised and led, in 1875; the terrible endless journey without pillows or mattresses, the patients exhausted, half dead, with no means of reviving them at hand; and then the arrival at Lourdes, the train evacuated in confusion, no materiel in readiness, no straps, nor stretchers, nor carts. But now there was a powerful organisation; a hospital awaited the sick, who were no longer reduced to lying upon straw in sheds. What a shock for those unhappy ones! What force of will in the man of faith who led them to the scene of miracles! The reverend Father smiled gently at the thought of the work which he had accomplished.
Then, still leaning on the doctor’s shoulder, he began to question him: “How many pilgrims did you have last year?” he asked.
“About two hundred thousand. That is still the average. In the year of the Coronation of the Virgin the figure rose to five hundred thousand. But to bring that about an exceptional occasion was needed with a great effort of propaganda. Such vast masses cannot be collected together every day.”
A pause followed, and then Father Fourcade murmured: “No doubt. Still the blessing of Heaven attends our endeavours; our work thrives more and more. We have collected more than two hundred thousand francs in donations for this journey, and God will be with us, there will be many cures for you to proclaim tomorrow, I am sure of it.” Then, breaking off, he inquired: “Has not Father Dargeles come here?”
Dr. Bonamy waved his hand as though to say that he did not know. Father Dargeles was the editor of the “Journal de la Grotte.” He belonged to the Order of the Fathers of the Immaculate Conception whom the Bishop had installed at Lourdes and who were the absolute masters there; though, when the Fathers