Pierre grew rather anxious on finding that the crowd became more and more compact as he advanced. Already on reaching the Place du Rosaire it was difficult to take another forward step. “There is no hope of getting to the Grotto yet awhile,” he said. “The best course would be to turn into one of the pathways behind the pilgrims’ shelter-house and wait there.”
Marie, however, greatly desired to see the procession start. “Oh! pray try to go as far as the Gave,” said she. “I shall then see everything from a distance; I don’t want to go near.”
M. de Guersaint, who was equally inquisitive, seconded this proposal. “Don’t be uneasy,” he said to Pierre. “I am here behind, and will take care to let nobody jostle her.”
Pierre had to begin pulling the little vehicle again. It took him a quarter of an hour to pass under one of the arches of the inclined way on the left hand, so great was the crush of pilgrims at that point. Then, taking a somewhat oblique course, he ended by reaching the quay beside the Gave, where there were only some spectators standing on the sidewalk, so that he was able to advance another fifty yards. At last he halted, and backed the little car against the quay parapet, in full view of the Grotto. “Will you be all right here?” he asked.
“Oh yes, thank you. Only you must sit me up; I shall then be able to see much better.”
M. de Guersaint raised her into a sitting posture, and then for his part climbed upon the stonework running from one to the other end of the quay. A mob of inquisitive people had already scaled it in part, like sight-seers waiting for a display of fireworks; and they were all raising themselves on tiptoe, and craning their necks to get a better view. Pierre himself at last grew interested, although there was, so far, little to see.
Some thirty thousand people were assembled, and, every moment there were fresh arrivals. All carried candles, the lower parts of which were wrapped in white paper, on which a picture of Our Lady of Lourdes was printed in blue ink. However, these candles were not yet lighted, and the only illumination that you perceived above the billowy sea of heads was the bright, forge-like glow of the taper-lighted Grotto. A great buzzing arose, whiffs of human breath blew hither and thither, and these alone enabled you to realise that thousands of serried, stifling creatures were gathered together in the black depths, like a living sea that was ever eddying and spreading. There were even people hidden away under the trees beyond the Grotto, in distant recesses of the darkness of which one had no suspicion.
At last a few tapers began to shine forth here and there, like sudden sparks of light spangling the obscurity at random. Their number rapidly increased, eyots of stars were formed, whilst at other points there were meteoric trails, milky ways, so to say, flowing midst the constellations. The thirty thousand tapers were being lighted one by one, their beams gradually increasing in number till they obscured the bright glow of the Grotto and spread, from one to the other end of the promenade, the small yellow flames of a gigantic brasier.
“Oh! how beautiful it is, Pierre!” murmured Marie; “it is like the resurrection of the humble, the bright awakening of the souls of the poor.”
“It is superb, superb!” repeated M. de Guersaint, with impassioned artistic satisfaction. “Do you see those two trails of light yonder, which intersect one another and form a cross?”