Likewise, a man who had lent an axe had
one of his feet crushed on the morrow by the fall of a block of stone.*
It was in the midst of jeers and hisses that the Commissary carried off
the pots of flowers, the tapers which he found burning, the coppers and
the silver hearts which lay upon the sand. People clenched their fists,
and covertly called him "thief" and "murderer." Then the posts for the
palisades were planted in the ground, and the rails were nailed to the
crossbars, no little labour being performed to shut off the Mystery, in
order to bar access to the Unknown, and put the miracles in prison. And
the civil authorities were simple enough to imagine that it was all over,
that those few bits of boarding would suffice to stay the poor people who
hungered for illusion and hope.
* Both of these accidents were interpreted as miracles.--Trans.
But as soon as the new religion was proscribed, forbidden by the law as
an offence, it began to burn with an inextinguishable flame in the depths
of every soul. Believers came to the river bank in far greater numbers,
fell upon their knees at a short distance from the Grotto, and sobbed
aloud as they gazed at the forbidden heaven. And the sick, the poor
ailing folks, who were forbidden to seek cure, rushed on the Grotto
despite all prohibitions, slipped in whenever they could find an aperture
or climbed over the palings when their strength enabled them to do so, in
the one ardent desire to steal a little of the water.
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