Nevertheless the struggle still continued; the old town seemed determined
not to die, and, by lodging pilgrims and opening shops on her side,
endeavoured to compel her ungrateful junior to grant her a share of the
spoils. But custom only flowed to the shops which were near the Grotto,
and only the poorer pilgrims were willing to lodge so far away; so that
the unequal conditions of the struggle intensified the rupture and turned
the high town and the low town into two irreconcilable enemies, who
preyed upon one another amidst continual intrigues.
"Ah, no! They certainly won't see me at their Grotto," resumed Cazaban,
with his rageful air. "What an abusive use they make of that Grotto of
theirs! They serve it up in every fashion! To think of such idolatry,
such gross superstition in the nineteenth century! Just ask them if they
have cured a single sufferer belonging to the town during the last twenty
years! Yet there are plenty of infirm people crawling about our streets.
It was our folk that benefited by the first miracles; but it would seem
that the miraculous water has long lost all its power, so far as we are
concerned. We are too near it; people have to come from a long distance
if they want it to act on them. It's really all too stupid; why, I
wouldn't go there even if I were offered a hundred francs!"
Pierre's immobility was doubtless irritating the barber. He had now begun
to shave M. de Guersaint's right cheek; and was inveighing against the
Fathers of the Immaculate Conception, whose greed for gain was the one
cause of all the misunderstanding.
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