The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes | Page 4

with health, gaiety, and innocence.
"But this sun is already roasting us," said she; "pray pull down your
blind as well, madame."
Seated in the corner, near the Sister, was Madame de Jonquiere, who
had kept her little bag on her lap. She slowly pulled down the blind.

Dark, and well built, she was still nice-looking, although she had a
daughter, Raymonde, who was four-and-twenty, and whom for motives
of propriety she had placed in the charge of two lady-hospitallers,
Madame Desagneaux and Madame Volmar, in a first-class carriage.
For her part, directress as she was of a ward of the Hospital of Our
Lady of Dolours at Lourdes, she did not quit her patients; and outside,
swinging against the door of her compartment, was the regulation
placard bearing under her own name those of the two Sisters of the
Assumption who accompanied her. The widow of a ruined man, she
lived with her daughter on the scanty income of four or five thousand
francs a year, at the rear of a courtyard in the Rue Vanneau. But her
charity was inexhaustible, and she gave all her time to the work of the
Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation, an institution whose red cross she
wore on her gown of carmelite poplin, and whose aims she furthered
with the most active zeal. Of a somewhat proud disposition, fond of
being flattered and loved, she took great delight in this annual journey,
from which both her heart and her passion derived contentment.
"You are right, Sister," she said, "we will organise matters. I really
don't know why I am encumbering myself with this bag."
And thereupon she placed it under the seat, near her.
"Wait a moment," resumed Sister Hyacinthe; "you have the water-can
between your legs--it is in your way."
"No, no, it isn't, I assure you. Let it be. It must always be somewhere."
Then they both set their house in order as they expressed it, so that for a
day and a night they might live with their patients as comfortably as
possible. The worry was that they had not been able to take Marie into
their compartment, as she wished to have Pierre and her father near her;
however neighbourly intercourse was easy enough over the low
partition. Moreover the whole carriage, with its five compartments of
ten seats each, formed but one moving chamber, a common room as it
were which the eye took in at a glance from end to end. Between its
wooden walls, bare and yellow, under its white-painted panelled roof, it
showed like a hospital ward, with all the disorder and promiscuous
jumbling together of an improvised ambulance. Basins, brooms, and
sponges lay about, half-hidden by the seats. Then, as the train only
carried such luggage as the pilgrims could take with them, there were
valises, deal boxes, bonnet boxes, and bags, a wretched pile of poor

worn-out things mended with bits of string, heaped up a little bit
everywhere; and overhead the litter began again, what with articles of
clothing, parcels, and baskets hanging from brass pegs and swinging to
and fro without a pause.
Amidst all this frippery the more afflicted patients, stretched on their
narrow mattresses, which took up the room of several passengers, were
shaken, carried along by the rumbling gyrations of the wheels; whilst
those who were able to remain seated, leaned against the partitions,
their faces pale, their heads resting upon pillows. According to the
regulations there should have been one lady-hospitaller to each
compartment. However, at the other end of the carriage there was but a
second Sister of the Assumption, Sister Claire des Anges. Some of the
pilgrims who were in good health were already getting up, eating and
drinking. One compartment was entirely occupied by women, ten
pilgrims closely pressed together, young ones and old ones, all sadly,
pitifully ugly. And as nobody dared to open the windows on account of
the consumptives in the carriage, the heat was soon felt and an
unbearable odour arose, set free as it were by the jolting of the train as
it went its way at express speed.
They had said their chaplets at Juvisy; and six o'clock was striking, and
they were rushing like a hurricane past the station of Bretigny, when
Sister Hyacinthe stood up. It was she who directed the pious exercises,
which most of the pilgrims followed from small, blue-covered books.
"The Angelus, my children," said she with a pleasant smile, a maternal
air which her great youth rendered very charming and sweet.
Then the "Aves" again followed one another, and were drawing to an
end when Pierre and Marie began to feel interested in two women who
occupied the other corner seats of their compartment. One of them, she
who sat at Marie's