And still
passionately chanting its canticle, the fearful /cortege/ rolled on,
through nature in festive array. Under the dazzling sky, past the
mountains of gold and purple, amidst the centenarian trees, symbolical of
health, the running waters whose freshness was eternal, that /cortege/
still and ever marched on with its sufferers, whom nature, if not God,
had condemned, those who were afflicted with skin diseases, those whose
flesh was eaten away, those who were dropsical and inflated like
wine-skins, and those whom rheumatism and paralysis had twisted into
postures of agony. And the victims of hydrocephalus followed, with the
dancers of St. Vitus, the consumptives, the rickety, the epileptic, the
cancerous, the goitrous, the blind, the mad, and the idiotic. "Ave, ave,
ave, Maria!" they sang; and the stubborn plaint acquired increased
volume, as nearer and nearer to the Grotto it bore that abominable
torrent of human wretchedness and pain, amidst all the fright and horror
of the passers-by, who stopped short, unable to stir, their hearts frozen
as this nightmare swept before their eyes.
Pierre and Marie were the first to pass under the lofty arcade of one of
the terraced inclines. And then, as they followed the quay of the Gave,
they all at once came upon the Grotto. And Marie, whom Pierre wheeled as
near to the railing as possible, was only able to raise herself in her
little conveyance, and murmur: "O most Blessed Virgin, Virgin most
loved!"
She had seen neither the entrances to the piscinas nor the twelve-piped
fountain, which she had just passed; nor did she distinguish any better
the shop on her left hand where crucifixes, chaplets, statuettes,
pictures, and other religious articles were sold, or the stone pulpit on
her right which Father Massias already occupied.
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