The attack
subsided, but weakness was coming back, so extreme that the wretched
woman was scarcely able to stammer: "Oh, it is nothing, nothing at all; I
am cured, I am cured, completely cured!"
Pierre was thoroughly upset: This sudden, overwhelming relapse had sent
an icy chill through the whole carriage. Many of the passengers raised
themselves up and looked at La Grivotte with terror in their eyes. Then
they dived down into their corners again, and nobody spoke, nobody
stirred any further. Pierre, for his part, reflected on the curious
medical aspect of this girl's case. Her strength had come back to her
over yonder. She had displayed a ravenous appetite, she had walked long
distances with a dancing gait, her face quite radiant the while; and now
she had spat blood, her cough had broken out afresh, she again had the
heavy ashen face of one in the last agony. Her ailment had returned to
her with brutal force, victorious over everything. Was this, then, some
special case of phthisis complicated by neurosis? Or was it some other
malady, some unknown disease, quietly continuing its work in the midst of
contradictory diagnosis? The sea of error and ignorance, the darkness
amidst which human science is still struggling, again appeared to Pierre.
And he once more saw Doctor Chassaigne shrugging his shoulders with
disdain, whilst Doctor Bonamy, full of serenity, quietly continued his
verification work, absolutely convinced that nobody would be able to
prove to him the impossibility of his miracles any more than he himself
could have proved their possibility.
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