IX.
Above the grotto, before which Marie and Jeanne, busily employed and bent toward the ground, were gathering sticks, in the rude niche formed by the rock, surrounded by a heavenly glory, stood a lady of matchless beauty.
The ineffable radiance which floated around her did not hurt the eyes, like the brightness of the sun. On the contrary, this aureole of soft and gentle light irresistibly attracted the glance, which it seemed to relieve and fill with pleasure. It was like the gleam of the morning-star. But there was nothing vague or misty about the apparition. It had not the shifting contour of a fantastic vision; it was a reality, a human body, which to the eye seemed palpable as our own flesh, and which resembled the figure of an ordinary human person in all respects, except that it was surrounded by a luminous halo, and was radiant with celestial beauty. The lady was of medium height. She looked very youthful, like one who had attained her twentieth year, without losing any of the tender delicacy of girlhood, which usually fades so soon. This beauty bore in her countenance the impress of everlasting durability. Moreover, in her features the heavenly lines blended, without disturbing their mutual harmony, the peculiar charms of the four seasons of human life. The innocent candor of the child, the spotless purity of the virgin, the calm tenderness of the loftiest maternity, a wisdom surpassing the lore of centuries, blended together without effacing each other, in this wonderful and youthful countenance. To whom shall we liken her in this sinful world, where the rays of beauty are scattered, broken, or discolored, and seldom reach us without some impure mixture? Every image, every comparison would only abase this unspeakable type. No majesty, no excellence, no simplicity here below could ever give us an idea whereby we might better understand it. It is not with the lamps of earth that we can light up the stars of heaven.
The regularity and ideal beauty of these features surpassed all description. It could only be said that their oval curve was of infinite grace, that the eyes were blue and of a tenderness that sank through the heart of the beholder to its very depths. The lips wore an expression of heavenly goodness and mildness. The brow was like the seat of the highest wisdom; that wisdom which combines universal knowledge with boundless virtue.
Her garments were of an unknown fabric, woven in the mysterious looms which serve to robe the lily of the valley; for they were white as the stainless mountain snows, and yet more splendid than the raiment of Solomon in all his glory. The vesture, long and trailing in chaste folds, revealed her virginal feet, which lightly pressed the broad branch of eglantine, and on each of which blossomed the golden mystical rose.
From her waist a sky-blue cincture, loosely tied, hung, in long bands, to the instep of her foot. Behind, and enveloping in its fulness her arms and shoulders, a white veil descended from her head to the hem of her robes. No ring, no necklace, no diadem or gem; none of those ornaments were there that human vanity loves to parade. A chaplet, whose drops of milky white slid on a golden cord, hung from her hands, fervently clasped together. The beads glided through her fingers. Yet the lips of this Queen of Virgins remained motionless. Instead of reciting the rosary, she was, perhaps, listening to the eternal echo in her own heart of that first Ave! and the deep murmur of invocation ever rising from this earth of ours. Each bead was undoubtedly a shower of heavenly graces that fell upon souls like the liquid diamonds into the chalice of the flower.
She kept silence; but later, her own words and the miraculous facts which we shall have to record, were to attest that she was truly the Immaculate Virgin, the sinless and stainless among women, Mary, the Mother of God.
This wonderful apparition looked upon Bernadette, who, as we have seen, shrinking and speechless, had fallen upon her knees.