The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes | Page 6

ways.
Although Madame Vincent did not understand the other's words, she
realised that she was a prey to great mental affliction, and they
continued looking at one another, the mother, whom the sight of her
dying daughter was killing, and the abandoned wife, whom her passion
cast into throes of death-like agony.
However, Pierre, who, like Marie, had been listening to the
conversation, now intervened. He was astonished that the dressmaker
had not sought free treatment for her little patient. The Association of
Our Lady of Salvation had been founded by the Augustine Fathers of
the Assumption after the Franco-German war, with the object of
contributing to the salvation of France and the defence of the Church
by prayer in common and the practice of charity; and it was this
association which had promoted the great pilgrimage movement, in
particular initiating and unremittingly extending the national

pilgrimage which every year, towards the close of August, set out for
Lourdes. An elaborate organisation had been gradually perfected,
donations of considerable amounts were collected in all parts of the
world, sufferers were enrolled in every parish, and agreements were
signed with the railway companies, to say nothing of the active help of
the Little Sisters of the Assumption and the establishment of the
Hospitality of Our Lady of Salvation, a widespread brotherhood of the
benevolent, in which one beheld men and women, mostly belonging to
society, who, under the orders of the pilgrimage managers, nursed the
sick, helped to transport them, and watched over the observance of
good discipline. A written request was needed for the sufferers to
obtain hospitalisation, which dispensed them from making the smallest
payment in respect either of their journey or their sojourn; they were
fetched from their homes and conveyed back thither; and they simply
had to provide a few provisions for the road. By far the greater number
were recommended by priests or benevolent persons, who
superintended the inquiries concerning them and obtained the needful
papers, such as doctors' certificates and certificates of birth. And, these
matters being settled, the sick ones had nothing further to trouble about,
they became but so much suffering flesh, food for miracles, in the
hands of the hospitallers of either sex.
"But you need only have applied to your parish priest, madame," Pierre
explained. "This poor child is deserving of all sympathy. She would
have been immediately admitted."
"I did not know it, monsieur l'Abbe."
"Then how did you manage?"
"Why, Monsieur l'Abbe, I went to take a ticket at a place which one of
my neighbours, who reads the newspapers, told me about."
She was referring to the tickets, at greatly reduced rates, which were
issued to the pilgrims possessed of means. And Marie, listening to her,
felt great pity for her, and also some shame; for she who was not
entirely destitute of resources had succeeded in obtaining
/hospitalisation/, thanks to Pierre, whereas that mother and her sorry
child, after exhausting their scanty savings, remained without a copper.
However, a more violent jolt of the carriage drew a cry of pain from the
girl. "Oh, father," she said, "pray raise me a little! I can't stay on my
back any longer."

When M. de Guersaint had helped her into a sitting posture, she gave a
deep sigh of relief. They were now at Etampes, after a run of an hour
and a half from Paris, and what with the increased warmth of the sun,
the dust, and the noise, weariness was becoming apparent already.
Madame de Jonquiere had got up to speak a few words of kindly
encouragement to Marie over the partition; and Sister Hyacinthe
moreover again rose, and gaily clapped her hands that she might be
heard and obeyed from one to the other end of the carriage.
"Come, come!" said she, "we mustn't think of our little troubles. Let us
pray and sing, and the Blessed Virgin will be with us."
She herself then began the rosary according to the rite of Our Lady of
Lourdes, and all the patients and pilgrims followed her. This was the
first chaplet--the five joyful mysteries, the Annunciation, the Visitation,
the Nativity, the Purification, and Jesus found in the Temple. Then they
all began to chant the canticle: "Let us contemplate the heavenly
Archangel!" Their voices were lost amid the loud rumbling of the
wheels; you heard but the muffled surging of that human wave, stifling
within the closed carriage which rolled on and on without a pause.
Although M. de Guersaint was a worshipper, he could never follow a
hymn to the end. He got up, sat down again, and finished by resting his
elbow on the partition and conversing in an undertone with a patient
who sat against this same partition in the next compartment. The
patient in question