At last a loud whistle resounded, the engine puffed, and Sister Hyacinthe rose up to say: The Magnificat, my children!
IV. MIRACLES
JUST as the train was beginning to move, the door of the compartment in which Pierre and Marie found themselves was opened and a porter pushed a girl of fourteen inside, saying: “There’s a seat here — make haste!”
The others were already pulling long faces and were about to protest, when Sister Hyacinthe exclaimed: “What, is it you, Sophie? So you are going back to see the Blessed Virgin who cured you last year!”
And at the same time Madame de Jonquiere remarked: “Ah! Sophie, my little friend, I am very pleased to see that you are grateful.”
“Why, yes, Sister; why, yes, madame,” answered the girl, in a pretty way.
The carriage door had already been closed again, so that it was necessary that they should accept the presence of this new pilgrim who had fallen from heaven as it were at the very moment when the train, which she had almost missed, was starting off again. She was a slender damsel and would not take up much room. Moreover these ladies knew her, and all the patients had turned their eyes upon her on hearing that the Blessed Virgin had been pleased to cure her. They had now got beyond the station, the engine was still puffing, whilst the wheels increased their speed, and Sister Hyacinthe, clapping her hands, repeated: “Come, come, my children, the Magnificat.”
Whilst the joyful chant arose amidst the jolting of the train, Pierre gazed at Sophie. She was evidently a young peasant girl, the daughter of some poor husbandman of the vicinity of Poitiers, petted by her parents, treated in fact like a young lady since she had become the subject of a miracle, one of the elect, whom the priests of the district flocked to see. She wore a straw hat with pink ribbons, and a grey woollen dress trimmed with a flounce. Her round face although not pretty was a very pleasant one, with a beautifully fresh complexion and clear, intelligent eyes which lent her a smiling, modest air.
When the Magnificat had been sung, Pierre was unable to resist his desire to question Sophie. A child of her age, with so candid an air, so utterly unlike a liar, greatly interested him.
“And so you nearly missed the train, my child?” he said.
“I should have been much ashamed if I had, Monsieur l’Abbe,” she replied. “I had been at the station since twelve o’clock. And all at once I saw his reverence, the priest of Sainte-Radegonde, who knows me well and who called me to him, to kiss me and tell me that it was very good of me to go back to Lourdes. But it seems the train was starting and I only just had time to run on to the platform. Oh! I ran so fast!”
She paused, laughing, still slightly out of breath, but already repenting that she had been so giddy.
“And what is your name, my child?” asked Pierre.
“Sophie Couteau, Monsieur l’Abbe.”
“You do not belong to the town of Poitiers?”
“Oh no! certainly not. We belong to Vivonne, which is seven kilometres away. My father and mother have a little land there, and things would not be so bad if there were not eight children at home — I am the fifth, — fortunately the four older ones are beginning to work.”
“And you, my child, what do you do?”
“I, Monsieur l’Abbe! Oh! I am no great help. Since last year, when I came home cured, I have not been left quiet a single day, for, as you can understand, so many people have come to see me, and then too I have been taken to Monseigneur’s,* and to the convents and all manner of other places. And before all that I was a long time ill. I could not walk without a stick, and each step I took made me cry out, so dreadfully did my foot hurt me.”
* The Bishop’s residence.
“So it was of some injury to the foot that the Blessed Virgin cured you?”
Sophie did not have time to reply, for Sister Hyacinthe, who was listening, intervened: “Of caries of the bones of the left heel, which had been going on for three years,” said she. “The foot was swollen and quite deformed, and there were fistulas giving egress to continual suppuration.”
On hearing this, all the sufferers in the carriage became intensely interested. They no longer took their eyes off this little girl on whom a miracle had been performed, but scanned her from head to foot as though seeking for some sign of the prodigy. Those who were able to stand rose up in order that they might the better see her, and the others, the infirm ones, stretched on their mattresses, strove to raise themselves and turn their heads. Amidst the suffering which had again come upon them on leaving Poitiers, the terror which filled them at the thought that they must continue rolling onward for another fifteen hours, the sudden advent of this child, favoured by Heaven, was like a divine relief, a ray of hope whence they would derive sufficient strength to accomplish the remainder of their terrible journey. The moaning had abated somewhat already, and every face was turned towards the girl with an ardent desire to believe.
This was especially the case with Marie, who, already reviving, joined her trembling hands, and in a gentle supplicating voice said to Pierre, “Question her, pray question her, ask her to tell us everything — cured, O God! cured of such a terrible complaint!”
Madame de Jonquiere, who was quite affected, had leant over the partition to kiss the girl. “Certainly,” said she, “our little friend will tell you all about it. Won’t you, my darling? You will tell us what the Blessed Virgin did for you?”
“Oh, certainly! madame-as much as you like,” answered Sophie with her smiling, modest air, her eyes gleaming with intelligence. Indeed, she wished to begin at once, and raised her right hand with a pretty gesture, as a sign to everybody to be attentive. Plainly enough, she had already acquired the habit of speaking in public.
She could not be seen, however, from some parts of the carriage, and an idea came to Sister Hyacinthe, who said: “Get up on the seat, Sophie, and speak loudly, on account of the noise which the train makes.”
This amused the girl, and before beginning she needed time to become serious again. “Well, it was like this,” said she; “my foot was past cure, I couldn’t even go to church any more, and it had to be kept bandaged, because there was always a lot of nasty matter coming from it. Monsieur Rivoire, the doctor, who had made a cut in it, so as to see inside it, said that he should be obliged to take out a piece of the bone; and that, sure enough, would have made me lame for life. But when I got to Lourdes and had prayed a great deal to the Blessed Virgin, I went to dip my foot in the water, wishing so much that I might be cured that I did not even take the time to pull the bandage off. And everything remained in the water, there was no longer anything the matter with my foot when I took it out.”
A murmur of mingled surprise, wonder, and desire arose and spread among those who heard this marvellous tale, so sweet and soothing to all who were in despair. But the little one had not yet finished. She had simply paused. And now, making a fresh gesture, holding her arms somewhat apart, she concluded: “When I got back to Vivonne and Monsieur Rivoire saw my foot again, he said: ‘Whether it be God or the Devil who has cured this child, it is all the same to me; but