" On two other occasions, at somewhat long
intervals, April 7 and July l6, she again appeared: the first time to
perform the miracle of the lighted taper, that taper above which the
child, plunged in ecstasy, for a long time unconsciously left her hand,
without burning it; and the second time to bid Bernadette farewell, to
favour her with a last smile, and a last inclination of the head full of
charming politeness. This made eighteen apparitions all told; and never
again did the Lady show herself.
Whilst Pierre went on with his beautiful, marvellous story, so soothing
to the wretched, he evoked for himself a vision of that pitiable, lovable
Bernadette, whose sufferings had flowered so wonderfully. As a doctor had
roughly expressed it, this girl of fourteen, at a critical period of her
life, already ravaged, too, by asthma, was, after all, simply an
exceptional victim of hysteria, afflicted with a degenerate heredity and
lapsing into infancy. If there were no violent crises in her case, if
there were no stiffening of the muscles during her attacks, if she
retained a precise recollection of her dreams, the reason was that her
case was peculiar to herself, and she added, so to say, a new and very
curious form to all the forms of hysteria known at the time. Miracles
only begin when things cannot be explained; and science, so far, knows
and can explain so little, so infinitely do the phenomena of disease vary
according to the nature of the patient! But how many shepherdesses there
had been before Bernadette who had seen the Virgin in a similar way,
amidst all the same childish nonsense! Was it not always the same story,
the Lady clad in light, the secret confided, the spring bursting forth,
the mission which had to be fulfilled, the miracles whose enchantments
would convert the masses? And was not the personal appearance of the
Virgin always in accordance with a poor child's dreams--akin to some
coloured figure in a missal, an ideal compounded of traditional beauty,
gentleness, and politeness.
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