Abbe
Peyramale lay buried in the crypt of his unfinished, ruined church, and
Bernadette, who had long since dragged out her life of suffering in the
depths of a convent far away, was now likewise sleeping the eternal sleep
under a flagstone in a chapel.
Deep silence fell when Doctor Chassaigne had finished this long
narrative. Then, with a painful effort, he rose to his feet again: "It
will soon be ten o'clock, my dear child," said he, "and I want you to
take a little rest. Let us go back."
Pierre followed him without speaking; and they retraced their steps
toward the town at a more rapid pace.
"Ah! yes," resumed the doctor, "there were great iniquities and great
sufferings in it all. But what else could you expect? Man spoils and
corrupts the most beautiful things. And you cannot yet understand all the
woeful sadness of the things of which I have been talking to you. You
must see them, lay your hand on them. Would you like me to show you
Bernadette's room and Abbe Peyramale's unfinished church this evening?"
"Yes, I should indeed," replied Pierre.
"Well, I will meet you in front of the Basilica after the four-o'clock
procession, and you can come with me."
Then they spoke no further, each becoming absorbed in his reverie once
more.
The Gave, now upon their right hand, was flowing through a deep gorge, a
kind of cleft into which it plunged, vanishing from sight among the
bushes. But at intervals a clear stretch of it, looking like unburnished
silver, would appear to view; and, farther on, after a sudden turn in the
road, they found it flowing in increased volume across a plain, where it
spread at times into glassy sheets which must often have changed their
beds, for the gravelly soil was ravined on all sides.
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