However, as Bernadette indignantly protested whenever she was
asked to perform a miracle, she was not forewarned, but simply called to
take the sick child to the infirmary. And she did so, and when she stood
the child on the ground it walked. It was cured.
Ah! how many times must Bartres and her free childhood spent watching her
lambs--the years passed among the hills, in the long grass, in the leafy
woods--have returned to her during the hours she gave to her dreams when
weary of praying for sinners! No one then fathomed her soul, no one could
say if involuntary regrets did not rend her wounded heart. One day she
spoke some words, which her historians have preserved, with the view of
making her passion more touching. Cloistered far away from her mountains,
confined to a bed of sickness, she exclaimed: "It seems to me that I was
made to live, to act, to be ever on the move, and yet the Lord will have
me remain motionless." What a revelation, full of terrible testimony and
immense sadness! Why should the Lord wish that dear being, all grace and
gaiety, to remain motionless? Could she not have honoured Him equally
well by living the free, healthy life that she had been born to live? And
would she not have done more to increase the world's happiness and her
own if, instead of praying for sinners, her constant occupation, she had
given her love to the husband who might have been united to her and to
the children who might have been born to her? She, so gay and so active,
would, on certain evenings, become extremely depressed.
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