"It was you
yourself who supplied my father with memoranda about Bernadette, your
little fellow-villager as you used to call her; and it was you, too, who
spoke to me at such length about her, when, later on, I took a momentary
interest in her story. In your eyes she was simply an ailing child, prone
to hallucinations, infantile, but self-conscious of her acts, deficient
of will-power. Recollect our chats together, my doubts, and the healthy
reason which you again enabled me, to acquire!"
Pierre was feeling very moved, for was not this the strangest of
adventures? He a priest, who in a spirit of resignation had formerly
endeavoured to believe, had ended by completely losing all faith through
intercourse with this same doctor, who was then an unbeliever, but whom
he now found converted, conquered by the supernatural, whilst he himself
was racked by the torture of no longer believing.
"You who would only rely on accurate facts," he said, "you who based
everything on observation! Do you renounce science then?"
Chassaigne, hitherto quiet, with a sorrowful smile playing on his lips,
now made a violent gesture expressive of sovereign contempt. "Science
indeed!" he exclaimed. "Do I know anything? Can I accomplish anything?
You asked me just now what malady it was that killed my poor Marguerite.
But I do not know! I, whom people think so learned, so well armed against
death, I understood nothing of it, and I could do nothing--not even
prolong my daughter's life for a single hour! And my wife, whom I found
in bed already cold, when on the previous evening she had lain down in
much better health and quite gay--was I even capable of foreseeing what
ought to have been done in her case? No, no! for me at all events,
science has become bankrupt.
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