Meanwhile the train rolled, still rolled along. Madame de Jonquiere,
after putting her head out of the window, informed them that they were
approaching Etampes. And, when they had left that station behind them,
Sister Hyacinthe gave the signal, and they recited the third chaplet of
the Rosary, the five glorious mysteries--the Resurrection of Our Lord,
the Ascension of Our Lord, the Mission of the Holy Ghost, the Assumption
of the Most Blessed Virgin, and the Crowning of the Most Blessed Virgin.
And afterwards they sang the canticle:
"O Virgin, in thy help I put my trust."
Then Pierre fell into a deep reverie. His glance had turned towards the
now sunlit landscape, the continual flight of which seemed to lull his
thoughts. The noise of the wheels was making him dizzy, and he ended by
no longer recognising the familiar horizon of this vast suburban expanse
with which he had once been acquainted. They still had to pass Bretigny
and Juvisy, and then, in an hour and a half at the utmost, they would at
last be at Paris. So the great journey was finished! the inquiry, which
he had so much desired to make, the experiment which he had attempted
with so much passion, were over! He had wished to acquire certainty, to
study Bernadette's case on the spot, and see if grace would not come back
to him in a lightning flash, restoring him his faith. And now he had
settled the point--Bernadette had dreamed through the continual torments
of her flesh, and he himself would never believe again.
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