Pierre himself at last grew interested, although there was, so far,
little to see.
Some thirty thousand people were assembled, and, every moment there were
fresh arrivals. All carried candles, the lower parts of which were
wrapped in white paper, on which a picture of Our Lady of Lourdes was
printed in blue ink. However, these candles were not yet lighted, and the
only illumination that you perceived above the billowy sea of heads was
the bright, forge-like glow of the taper-lighted Grotto. A great buzzing
arose, whiffs of human breath blew hither and thither, and these alone
enabled you to realise that thousands of serried, stifling creatures were
gathered together in the black depths, like a living sea that was ever
eddying and spreading. There were even people hidden away under the trees
beyond the Grotto, in distant recesses of the darkness of which one had
no suspicion.
At last a few tapers began to shine forth here and there, like sudden
sparks of light spangling the obscurity at random. Their number rapidly
increased, eyots of stars were formed, whilst at other points there were
meteoric trails, milky ways, so to say, flowing midst the constellations.
The thirty thousand tapers were being lighted one by one, their beams
gradually increasing in number till they obscured the bright glow of the
Grotto and spread, from one to the other end of the promenade, the small
yellow flames of a gigantic brasier.
"Oh! how beautiful it is, Pierre!" murmured Marie; "it is like the
resurrection of the humble, the bright awakening of the souls of the
poor.
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