In the moonlight, a vine was there, silent. The upright vine-stocks were twined around the reeds like around agile thyrses; and the streaming branches, diaphanous against the luminous horizon with a thousand intertwinings of their subtle ribs, in the perfect immobility of mineral things, and with an appearance of indescribably fragile and ephemeral crystal, had neither terrestrial reality nor any communion with the environing forms, but seemed to be the last visible fragment of an allegorical world conceived by a theurgy and about to fade away.
Spontaneously arose in George's memory the verse of the hymn: "Vinea mea coram me est."
CHAPTER V.[*]
[*] It should, perhaps, be mentioned here that the publication of "The Triumph of Death" began in the Mattino, of Naples, on February 12, 1893, while the publication of Émile Zola's work "Lourdes" only began in the Gil Blas, of Paris, on April 15, 1894.—TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
Since dawn, train after train had vomited immense waves of humanity on the platforms of the Casalbordino Station. People from the villages and market towns mingled with fraternities from the most distant hamlets who had not wished, or been able, to make the pilgrimage on foot. They precipitated themselves in a tumult from the carriages, shouting, gesticulating, and pushing each other to storm the wagons and coaches, amid the cracking of whips and the tinkling of bells; or, again, they fell into line, in long files, behind a crucifix, and, when their procession started on the dusty road, they struck up the hymn.
Already frightened by the size of the crowd, George and Hippolyte turned instinctively toward the sea close by, to wait until the crowd dispersed. A field of hemp undulated peacefully before the blue background of the waters. The sails shone like flames on the clear horizon.
George said to his companion:
"Aren't you afraid? I fear the fatigue will hurt you."
She replied:
"Do not be alarmed; I am strong. Besides, to deserve a favor, must one not suffer a little?"