The sun was now
becoming very hot, and was already high in the heavens, whose limpid
azure assumed a deeper tinge above the vast circle of mountains.
And it was at this turn of the road that Lourdes, still some distance
away, reappeared to the eyes of Pierre and Doctor Chassaigne. In the
splendid morning atmosphere, amid a flying dust of gold and purple rays,
the town shone whitely on the horizon, its houses and monuments becoming
more and more distinct at each step which brought them nearer. And the
doctor, still silent, at last waved his arm with a broad, mournful
gesture in order to call his companion's attention to this growing town,
as though to a proof of all that he had been telling him. There, indeed,
rising up in the dazzling daylight, was the evidence which confirmed his
words.
The flare of the Grotto, fainter now that the sun was shining, could
already be espied amidst the greenery. And soon afterwards the gigantic
monumental works spread out: the quay with its freestone parapet skirting
the Gave, whose course had been diverted; the new bridge connecting the
new gardens with the recently opened boulevard; the colossal gradient
ways, the massive church of the Rosary, and, finally, the slim, tapering
Basilica, rising above all else with graceful pride. Of the new town
spread all around the monuments, the wealthy city which had sprung, as
though by enchantment, from the ancient impoverished soil, the great
convents and the great hotels, you could, at this distance, merely
distinguish a swarming of white facades and a scintillation of new
slates; whilst, in confusion, far away, beyond the rocky mass on which
the crumbling castle walls were profiled against the sky, appeared the
humble roofs of the old town, a jumble of little time-worn roofs,
pressing timorously against one another.
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