At last, however, the time came when the lights no longer
ascended, for they had reached the summit of the hill and had begun to
disappear at the last turn of the road.
Exclamations were rising from the crowd. "They are passing behind the
Basilica," said one. "Oh! it will take them twenty minutes before they
begin coming down on the other side," remarked another. "Yes, madame,"
said a third, "there are thirty thousand of them, and an hour will go by
before the last of them leaves the Grotto."
Ever since the start a sound of chanting had risen above the low rumbling
of the crowd. The hymn of Bernadette was being sung, those sixty couplets
between which the Angelic Salutation, with its all-besetting rhythm, was
ever returning as a refrain. When the sixty couplets were finished they
were sung again; and that lullaby of "Ave, ave, ave Maria!" came back
incessantly, stupefying the mind, and gradually transporting those
thousands of beings into a kind of wide-awake dream, with a vision of
Paradise before their eyes. And, indeed, at night-time when they were
asleep, their beds would rock to the eternal tune, which they still and
ever continued singing.
"Are we going to stop here?" asked M. de Guersaint, who speedily got
tired of remaining in any one spot. "We see nothing but the same thing
over and over again."
Marie, who had informed herself by listening to what was said in the
crowd, thereupon exclaimed: "You were quite right, Pierre; it would be
much better to go back yonder under the trees.
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