Bartres, a village of four hundred souls, at a league or so
from Lourdes, lay as it were in a desert oasis, sequestered amidst
greenery, and far from any frequented highway. The road dips down, the
few houses are scattered over grassland, divided by hedges and planted
with walnut and chestnut trees, whilst the clear rivulets, which are
never silent, follow the sloping banks beside the pathways, and nothing
rises on high save the small ancient romanesque church, which is perched
on a hillock, covered with graves. Wooded slopes undulate upon all sides.
Bartres lies in a hollow amidst grass of delicious freshness, grass of
intense greenness, which is ever moist at the roots, thanks to the
eternal subterraneous expanse of water which is fed by the mountain
torrents. And Bernadette, who, since becoming a big girl, had paid for
her keep by tending lambs, was wont to take them with her, season after
season, through all the greenery where she never met a soul. It was only
now and then, from the summit of some slope, that she saw the far-away
mountains, the Pic du Midi, the Pic de Viscos, those masses which rose
up, bright or gloomy, according to the weather, and which stretched away
to other peaks, lightly and faintly coloured, vaguely and confusedly
outlined, like apparitions seen in dreams.
Then came the home of the Lagueses, where her cradle was still preserved,
a solitary, silent house, the last of the village. A meadow planted with
pear and apple trees, and only separated from the open country by a
narrow stream which one could jump across, stretched out in front of the
house.
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