Books: The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Vol. 4
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Emile Zola >> The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Vol. 4
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"Which one?" asked the superintendent of the bearers; "that lace banner
over there?"
"Yes, that one on the left."
"Oh! it is a banner offered by Le Puy. The arms are those of Le Puy and
Lourdes linked together by the Rosary. The lace is so fine that if you
crumpled the banner up, you could hold it in the hollow of your hand."
However, Abbe Judaine was now stepping forward; the ceremony was about to
begin. Again did the organs resound, and again was a canticle chanted,
whilst, on the altar, the Blessed Sacrament looked like the sovereign
planet amidst the scintillations of the gold and silver hearts, as
innumerable as stars. And then Pierre lacked the strength to remain there
any longer. Since Marie had Madame de Jonquiere and Raymonde with her,
and they would accompany her back, he might surely go off by himself,
vanish into some shadowy corner, and there, at last, vent his grief. In a
few words he excused himself, giving his appointment with Doctor
Chassaigne as a pretext for his departure. However, another fear suddenly
came to him, that of being unable to leave the building, so densely did
the serried throng of believers bar the open doorway. But immediately
afterwards he had an inspiration, and, crossing the sacristy, descended
into the crypt by the narrow interior stairway.
Deep silence and sepulchral gloom suddenly succeeded to the joyous chants
and prodigious radiance of the Basilica above. Cut in the rock, the crypt
formed two narrow passages, parted by a massive block of stone which
upheld the nave, and conducting to a subterranean chapel under the apse,
where some little lamps remained burning both day and night. A dim forest
of pillars rose up there, a mystic terror reigned in that semi-obscurity
where the mystery ever quivered. The chapel walls remained bare, like the
very stones of the tomb, in which all men must some day sleep the last
sleep. And along the passages, against their sides, covered from top to
bottom with marble votive offerings, you only saw a double row of
confessionals; for it was here, in the lifeless tranquillity of the
bowels of the earth, that sins were confessed; and there were priests,
speaking all languages, to absolve the sinners who came thither from the
four corners of the world.
At that hour, however, when the multitude was thronging the Basilica
above, the crypt had become quite deserted. Not a soul, save Pierre's,
throbbed there ever so faintly; and he, amidst that deep silence, that
darkness, that coolness of the grave, fell upon his knees. It was not,
however, through any need of prayer and worship, but because his whole
being was giving way beneath his crushing mental torment. He felt a
torturing longing to be able to see clearly within himself. Ah! why could
he not plunge even more deeply into the heart of things, reflect,
understand, and at last calm himself.
And it was a fearful agony that he experienced. He tried to remember all
the minutes that had gone by since Marie, suddenly springing from her
pallet of wretchedness, had raised her cry of resurrection. Why had he
even then, despite his fraternal joy in seeing her erect, felt such an
awful sensation of discomfort, as though, indeed, the greatest of all
possible misfortunes had fallen upon him? Was he jealous of the divine
grace? Did he suffer because the Virgin, whilst healing her, had
forgotten him, whose soul was so afflicted? He remembered how he had
granted himself a last delay, fixed a supreme appointment with Faith for
the moment when the Blessed Sacrament should pass by, were Marie only
cured; and she was cured, and still he did not believe, and henceforth
there was no hope, for never, never would he be able to believe. Therein
lay the bare, bleeding sore. The truth burst upon him with blinding
cruelty and certainty--she was saved, he was lost. That pretended miracle
which had restored her to life had, in him, completed the ruin of all
belief in the supernatural. That which he had, for a moment, dreamed of
seeking, and perhaps finding, at Lourdes,--naive faith, the happy faith
of a little child,--was no longer possible, would never bloom again after
that collapse of the miraculous, that cure which Beauclair had foretold,
and which had afterwards come to pass, exactly as had been predicted.
Jealous! No--he was not jealous; but he was ravaged, full of mortal
sadness at thus remaining all alone in the icy desert of his
intelligence, regretting the illusion, the lie, the divine love of the
simpleminded, for which henceforth there was no room in his heart.
A flood of bitterness stifled him, and tears started from his eyes. He
had slipped on to the flagstones, prostrated by his anguish. And, by
degrees, he remembered the whole delightful story, from the day when
Marie, guessing how he was tortured by doubt, had become so passionately
eager for his conversion, taking hold of his hand in the gloom, retaining
it in her own, and stammering that she would pray for him--oh! pray for
him with her whole soul. She forgot herself, she entreated the Blessed
Virgin to save her friend rather than herself if there were but one grace
that she could obtain from her Divine Son. Then came another memory, the
memory of the delightful hours which they had spent together amid the
dense darkness of the trees during the night procession. There, again,
they had prayed for one another, mingled one in the other with so ardent
a desire for mutual happiness that, for a moment, they had attained to
the very depths of the love which gives and immolates itself. And now
their long, tear-drenched tenderness, their pure idyl of suffering, was
ending in this brutal separation; she on her side saved, radiant amidst
the hosannas of the triumphant Basilica; and he lost, sobbing with
wretchedness, bowed down in the depths of the dark crypt in an icy,
grave-like solitude. It was as though he had just lost her again, and
this time forever and forever.
All at once Pierre felt the sharp stab which this thought dealt his
heart. He at last understood his pain--a sudden light illumined the
terrible crisis of woe amidst which he was struggling. He had lost Marie
for the first time on the day when he had become a priest, saying to
himself that he might well renounce his manhood since she, stricken in
her sex by incurable illness, would never be a woman. But behold! she
/was/ cured. Behold! she /had/ become a woman. She had all at once
appeared to him very strong, very beautiful, living, and desirable. He,
who was dead, however, could not become a man again. Never more would he
be able to raise the tombstone which crushed and imprisoned his flesh.
She fled away alone, leaving him in the cold grave. The whole wide world
was opening before her with smiling happiness, with the love which laughs
in the sunlit paths, with the husband, with children, no doubt. Whereas
he, buried, as it were to his shoulders, had naught of his body free,
save his brain, and that remained free, no doubt, in order that he might
suffer the more. She had still been his so long as she had not belonged
to another; and if he had been enduring such agony during the past hour,
it was only through this final rending which, this time, parted her from
him forever and forever.
Then rage shook Pierre from head to foot. He was tempted to return to the
Basilica, and cry the truth aloud to Marie. The miracle was a lie! The
helpful beneficence of an all-powerful Divinity was but so much illusion!
Nature alone had acted, life had conquered once again. And he would have
given proofs: he would have shown how life, the only sovereign, worked
for health amid all the sufferings of this terrestrial sphere. And then
they would have gone off together; they would have fled far, far away,
that they might be happy. But a sudden terror took possession of him.
What! lay hands upon that little spotless soul, kill all belief in it,
fill it with the ruins which worked such havoc in his own soul? It all at
once occurred to him that this would be odious sacrilege. He would
afterwards become horrified with himself, he would look upon himself as
her murderer were he some day to realise that he was unable to give her a
happiness equal to that which she would have lost. Perhaps, too, she
would not believe him. And, moreover, would she ever consent to marry a
priest who had broken his vows? She who would always retain the sweet and
never-to be-forgotten memory of how she had been healed in ecstasy! His
design then appeared to him insane, monstrous, polluting. And his revolt
rapidly subsided, until he only retained a feeling of infinite weariness,
a sensation of a burning, incurable wound--the wound of his poor,
bruised, lacerated heart.
Then, however, amidst his abandonment, the void in which he was whirling,
a supreme struggle began, filling him again with agony. What should he
do? His sufferings made a coward of him, and he would have liked to flee,
so that he might never see Marie again. For he understood very well that
he would now have to lie to her, since she thought that he was saved like
herself, converted, healed in soul, even as she had been healed in body.
She had told him of her joy while dragging her car up the colossal
gradient way. Oh! to have had that great happiness together, together; to
have felt their hearts melt and mingle one in the other! And even then he
had already lied, as he would always be obliged to lie in order that he
might not spoil her pure and blissful illusion. He let the last
throbbings of his veins subside, and vowed that he would find sufficient
strength for the sublime charity of feigning peacefulness of soul, the
rapture of one who is redeemed. For he wished her to be wholly
happy--without a regret, without a doubt--in the full serenity of faith,
convinced that the blessed Virgin had indeed given her consent to their
purely mystical union. What did his torments matter? Later on, perhaps,
he might recover possession of himself. Amidst his desolate solitude of
mind would there not always be a little joy to sustain him, all that joy
whose consoling falsity he would leave to her?
Several minutes again elapsed, and Pierre, still overwhelmed, remained on
the flagstones, seeking to calm his fever. He no longer thought, he no
longer lived; he was a prey to that prostration of the entire being which
follows upon great crises. But, all at once, he fancied he could hear a
sound of footsteps, and thereupon he painfully rose to his feet, and
feigned to be reading the inscriptions graven in the marble votive slabs
along the walls. He had been mistaken--nobody was there; nevertheless,
seeking to divert his mind, he continued perusing the inscriptions, at
first in a mechanical kind of way, and then, little by little, feeling a
fresh emotion steal over him.
The sight was almost beyond imagination. Faith, love, and gratitude
displayed themselves in a hundred, a thousand ways on these marble slabs
with gilded lettering. Some of the inscriptions were so artless as to
provoke a smile. A colonel had sent a sculptured representation of his
foot with the words: "Thou hast preserved it; grant that it may serve
Thee." Farther on you read the line: "May Her protection extend to the
glass trade." And then, by the frankness of certain expressions of
thanks, you realised of what a strange character the appeals had been.
"To Mary the Immaculate," ran one inscription, "from a father of a
family, in recognition of health restored, a lawsuit won, and advancement
gained." However, the memory of these instances faded away amidst the
chorus of soaring, fervent cries. There was the cry of the lovers: "Paul
and Anna entreat Our Lady of Lourdes to bless their union." There was the
cry of the mothers in various forms: "Gratitude to Mary, who has thrice
healed my child."--"Gratitude to Mary for the birth of Antoinette, whom I
dedicate, like myself and all my kin, to Her."--"P. D., three years old,
has been preserved to the love of his parents." And then came the cry of
the wives, the cry, too, of the sick restored to health, and of the souls
restored to happiness: "Protect my husband; grant that my husband may
enjoy good health."--"I was crippled in both legs, and now I am
healed."--"We came, and now we hope."--"I prayed, I wept, and She heard
me." And there were yet other cries, cries whose veiled glow conjured up
thoughts of long romances: "Thou didst join us together; protect us, we
pray Thee."--"To Mary, for the greatest of all blessings." And the same
cries, the same words--gratitude, thankfulness, homage,
acknowledgment,--occurred again and again, ever with the same passionate
fervour. All! those hundreds, those thousands of cries which were forever
graven on that marble, and from the depths of the crypt rose clamorously
to the Virgin, proclaiming the everlasting devotion of the unhappy beings
whom she had succoured.
Pierre did not weary of reading them, albeit his mouth was bitter and
increasing desolation was filling him. So it was only he who had no
succour to hope for! When so many sufferers were listened to, he alone
had been unable to make himself heard! And he now began to think of the
extraordinary number of prayers which must be said at Lourdes from one
end of the year to the other. He tried to cast them up; those said during
the days spent at the Grotto and during the nights spent at the Rosary,
those said at the ceremonies at the Basilica, and those said at the
sunlight and the starlight processions. But this continual entreaty of
every second was beyond computation. It seemed as if the faithful were
determined to weary the ears of the Divinity, determined to extort
favours and forgiveness by the very multitude, the vast multitude of
their prayers. The priests said that it was necessary to offer to God the
acts of expiation which the sins of France required, and that when the
number of these acts of expiation should be large enough, God would smite
France no more. What a harsh belief in the necessity of chastisement!
What a ferocious idea born of the gloomiest pessimism! How evil life must
be if it were indeed necessary that such imploring cries, such cries of
physical and moral wretchedness, should ever and ever ascend to Heaven!
In the midst of all his sadness, Pierre felt deep compassion penetrate
his heart. He was upset by the thought that mankind should be so
wretched, reduced to such a state of woe, so bare, so weak, so utterly
forsaken, that it renounced its own reason to place the one sole
possibility of happiness in the hallucinatory intoxication of dreams.
Tears once more filled his eyes; he wept for himself and for others, for
all the poor tortured beings who feel a need of stupefying and numbing
their pains in order to escape from the realities of the world. He again
seemed to hear the swarming, kneeling crowd of the Grotto, raising the
glowing entreaty of its prayer to Heaven, the multitude of twenty and
thirty thousand souls from whose midst ascended such a fervour of desire
that you seemed to see it smoking in the sunlight like incense. Then
another form of the exaltation of faith glowed, beneath the crypt, in the
Church of the Rosary, where nights were spent in a paradise of rapture,
amidst the silent delights of the communion, the mute appeals in which
the whole being pines, burns, and soars aloft. And as though the cries
raised before the Grotto and the perpetual adoration of the Rosary were
not sufficient, that clamour of ardent entreaty burst forth afresh on the
walls of the crypt around him; and here it was eternised in marble, here
it would continue shrieking the sufferings of humanity even into the
far-away ages. It was the marble, it was the walls themselves praying,
seized by that shudder of universal woe which penetrated even the world's
stones. And, at last, the prayers ascended yet higher, still higher,
soared aloft from the radiant Basilica, which was humming and buzzing
above him, full as it now was of a frantic multitude, whose mighty voice,
bursting into a canticle of hope, he fancied he could hear through the
flagstones of the nave. And it finally seemed to him that he was being
whirled away, transported, as though he were indeed amidst the very
vibrations of that huge wave of prayer, which, starting from the dust of
the earth, ascended the tier of superposed churches, spreading from
tabernacle to tabernacle, and filling even the walls with such pity that
they sobbed aloud, and that the supreme cry of wretchedness pierced its
way into heaven with the white spire, the lofty golden cross, above the
steeple. O Almighty God, O Divinity, Helpful Power, whoever, whatever
Thou mayst be, take pity upon poor mankind and make human suffering
cease!
All at once Pierre was dazzled. He had followed the left-hand passage,
and was coming out into broad daylight, above the inclined ways, and two
affectionate arms at once caught hold of him and clasped him. It was
Doctor Chassaigne, whose appointment he had forgotten, and who had been
waiting there to take him to visit Bernadette's room and Abbe Peyramale's
church. "Oh! what joy must be yours, my child!" exclaimed the good old
man. "I have just learnt the great news, the extraordinary favour which
Our Lady of Lourdes has granted to your young friend. Recollect what I
told you the day before yesterday. I am now at ease--you are saved!"
A last bitterness came to the young priest who was very pale. However, he
was able to smile, and he gently answered: "Yes, we are saved, we are
very happy."
It was the lie beginning; the divine illusion which in a spirit of
charity he wished to give to others.
And then one more spectacle met Pierre's eyes. The principal door of the
Basilica stood wide open, and a red sheet of light from the setting sun
was enfilading the nave from one to the other end. Everything was flaring
with the splendour of a conflagration--the gilt railings of the choir,
the votive offerings of gold and silver, the lamps enriched with precious
stones, the banners with their bright embroideries, and the swinging
censers, which seemed like flying jewels. And yonder, in the depths of
this burning splendour, amidst the snowy surplices and the golden
chasubles, he recognised Marie, with hair unbound, hair of gold like all
else, enveloping her in a golden mantle. And the organs burst into a hymn
of triumph; and the delirious people acclaimed God; and Abbe Judaine, who
had again just taken the Blessed Sacrament from off the altar, raised it
aloft and presented it to their gaze for the last time; and radiantly
magnificent it shone out like a glory amidst the streaming gold of the
Basilica, whose prodigious triumph all the bells proclaimed in clanging,
flying peals.
V
CRADLE AND GRAVE
IMMEDIATELY afterwards, as they descended the steps, Doctor Chassaigne
said to Pierre: "You have just seen the triumph; I will now show you two
great injustices."
And he conducted him into the Rue des Petits-Fosses to visit Bernadette's
room, that low, dark chamber whence she set out on the day the Blessed
Virgin appeared to her.
The Rue des Petits-Fosses starts from the former Rue des Bois, now the
Rue de la Grotte, and crosses the Rue du Tribunal. It is a winding lane,
slightly sloping and very gloomy. The passers-by are few; it is skirted
by long walls, wretched-looking houses, with mournful facades in which
never a window opens. All its gaiety consists in an occasional tree in a
courtyard.
"Here we are," at last said the doctor.
At the part where he had halted, the street contracted, becoming very
narrow, and the house faced the high, grey wall of a barn. Raising their
heads, both men looked up at the little dwelling, which seemed quite
lifeless, with its narrow casements and its coarse, violet pargeting,
displaying the shameful ugliness of poverty. The entrance passage down
below was quite black; an old light iron gate was all that closed it; and
there was a step to mount, which in rainy weather was immersed in the
water of the gutter.
"Go in, my friend, go in," said the doctor. "You have only to push the
gate."
The passage was long, and Pierre kept on feeling the damp wall with his
hand, for fear of making a false step. It seemed to him as if he were
descending into a cellar, in deep obscurity, and he could feel a slippery
soil impregnated with water beneath his feet. Then at the end, in
obedience to the doctor's direction, he turned to the right.
"Stoop, or you may hurt yourself," said M. Chassaigne; "the door is very
low. There, here we are."
The door of the room, like the gate in the street, stood wide open, as if
the place had been carelessly abandoned; and Pierre, who had stopped in
the middle of the chamber, hesitating, his eyes still full of the bright
daylight outside, could distinguish absolutely nothing. He had fallen
into complete darkness, and felt an icy chill about the shoulders similar
to the sensation that might be caused by a wet towel.
But, little by little, his eyes became accustomed to the dimness. Two
windows of unequal size opened on to a narrow, interior courtyard, where
only a greenish light descended, as at the bottom of a well; and to read
there, in the middle of the day, it would be necessary to have a candle.
Measuring about fifteen feet by twelve, the room was flagged with large
uneven stones; while the principal beam and the rafters of the roof,
which were visible, had darkened with time and assumed a dirty, sooty
hue. Opposite the door was the chimney, a miserable plaster chimney, with
a mantelpiece formed of a rotten old plank. There was a sink between this
chimney and one of the windows. The walls, with their decaying,
damp-stained plaster falling off by bits, were full of cracks, and
turning a dirty black like the ceiling. There was no longer any furniture
there; the room seemed abandoned; you could only catch a glimpse of some
confused, strange objects, unrecognisable in the heavy obscurity that
hung about the corners.
After a spell of silence, the doctor exclaimed "Yes, this is the room;
all came from here. Nothing has been changed, with the exception that the
furniture has gone. I have tried to picture how it was placed: the beds
certainly stood against this wall, opposite the windows; there must have
been three of them at least, for the Soubirouses were seven--the father,
mother, two boys, and three girls. Think of that! Three beds filling this
room! Seven persons living in this small space! All of them buried alive,
without air, without light, almost without bread! What frightful misery!
What lowly, pity-awaking poverty!"
But he was interrupted. A shadowy form, which Pierre at first took for an
old woman, entered. It was a priest, however, the curate of the parish,
who now occupied the house. He was acquainted with the doctor.
"I heard your voice, Monsieur Chassaigne, and came down," said he. "So
there you are, showing the room again?"
"Just so, Monsieur l' Abbe; I took the liberty. It does not inconvenience
you?"
"Oh! not at all, not at all! Come as often as you please, and bring other
people."
He laughed in an engaging manner, and bowed to Pierre, who, astonished by
this quiet carelessness, observed: "The people who come, however, must
sometimes plague you?"
The curate in his turn seemed surprised. "Indeed, no! Nobody comes. You
see the place is scarcely known. Every one remains over there at the
Grotto. I leave the door open so as not to be worried. But days and days
often pass without my hearing even the sound of a mouse."
Pierre's eyes were becoming more and more accustomed to the obscurity;
and among the vague, perplexing objects which filled the corners, he
ended by distinguishing some old barrels, remnants of fowl cages, and
broken tools, a lot of rubbish such as is swept away and thrown to the
bottom of cellars. Hanging from the rafters, moreover, were some
provisions, a salad basket full of eggs, and several bunches of big pink
onions.
"And, from what I see," resumed Pierre, with a slight shudder, "you have
thought that you might make use of the room?"
The curate was beginning to feel uncomfortable. "Of course, that's it,"
said he. "What can one do? The house is so small, I have so little space.
And then you can't imagine how damp it is here; it is altogether
impossible to occupy the room. And so, /mon Dieu/, little by little all
this has accumulated here by itself, contrary to one's own desire."
"It has become a lumber-room," concluded Pierre.
"Oh no! hardly that. An unoccupied room, and yet in truth, if you insist
on it, it is a lumber-room!"
His uneasiness was increasing, mingled with a little shame. Doctor
Chassaigne remained silent and did not interfere; but he smiled, and was
visibly delighted at his companion's revolt against human ingratitude.
Pierre, unable to restrain himself, now continued: "You must excuse me,
Monsieur l'Abbe, if I insist. But just reflect that you owe everything to
Bernadette; but for her Lourdes would still be one of the least known
towns of France. And really it seems to me that out of mere gratitude the
parish ought to have transformed this wretched room into a chapel."
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