Would you like me to go down and fetch him?"
But Pierre declined the offer. "No, no," he replied, "Marie will be
sensible. I will read her a few consoling pages by-and-by, and then she
will rest."
For the moment, however, the girl still remained obstinately silent. One
of the two lanterns was hanging from the wall close by, and Pierre could
distinctly see her thin face, rigid and motionless like stone. Then,
farther away, in the adjoining bed, he perceived Elise Rouquet, who was
sound asleep and no longer wore her fichu, but openly displayed her face,
the ulcerations of which still continued to grow paler. And on the young
priest's left hand was Madame Vetu, now greatly weakened, in a hopeless
state, unable to doze off for a moment, shaken as she was by a continuous
rattle. He said a few kind words to her, for which she thanked him with a
nod; and, gathering her remaining strength together, she was at last able
to say: "There were several cures to-day; I was very pleased to hear of
them."
On a mattress at the foot of her bed was La Grivotte, who in a fever of
extraordinary activity kept on sitting up to repeat her favourite phrase:
"I am cured, I am cured!" And she went on to relate that she had eaten
half a fowl for dinner, she who had been unable to eat for long months
past. Then, too, she had followed the torchlight procession on foot
during nearly a couple of hours, and she would certainly have danced till
daybreak had the Blessed Virgin only been pleased to give a ball.
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