"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.
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