"Now, ladies, now, gentlemen, it's for a patient," he repeated. "A little
room, I beg of you!"
Buffeted about in this vast ocean, the little vehicle continued to
advance by fits and starts, taking long minutes to get over a few yards
of ground. At one moment you might have thought it swamped, for no sign
of it could be detected. Then, however, it reappeared near the piscinas.
Tender sympathy had at length been awakened for this sick girl, so wasted
by suffering, but still so beautiful. When people had been compelled to
give way before the priest's stubborn pushing, they turned round, but did
not dare to get angry, for pity penetrated them at sight of that thin,
suffering face, shining out amidst a halo of fair hair. Words of
compassion and admiration were heard on all sides: "Ah, the poor
child!"--"Was it not cruel to be infirm at her age?"--"Might the Blessed
Virgin be merciful to her!" Others, however, expressed surprise, struck
as they were by the ecstasy in which they saw her, with her clear eyes
open to the spheres beyond, where she had placed her hope. She beheld
Heaven, she would assuredly be cured. And thus the little car left, as it
were, a feeling of wonder and fraternal charity behind it, as it made its
way with so much difficulty through that human ocean.
Pierre, however, was in despair and at the end of his strength, when some
of the stretcher-bearers came to his aid by forming a path for the
passage of the procession--a path which Berthaud had ordered them to keep
clear by means of cords, which they were to hold at intervals of a couple
of yards.
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