They lost their voices, grew pale, broke down heavily, and were carried away inert masses, while others again seemed to surge up from below ground.
"Mercy! Mercy!"
These shrieks, which rent the breasts that emitted them; these syllables repeated without cease, with the persistence of the same unconquerable faith; this thick smoke, which overhung like the cloud of a tempest; this contact of bodies, this mixture of breaths, the sight of this blood and these tears—all this made that at one moment the entire multitude found itself possessed by a single soul, became a single being, miserable and terrible, having but one gesture, but one voice, but one convulsion, but one frenzy. All the evils melted into one single evil, which the Virgin should destroy; all the hopes melted into one single hope, which the Virgin should grant.
"Mercy! Mercy!"
And, beneath the scintillating Image, the little flames of the waxen tapers trembled before this wind of passion.
CHAPTER VII.
George and Hippolyte were now seated in the open air, away from the turmoil, beneath the trees, stupefied and faint, like two shipwrecked people escaped from peril, mute, almost without power of thought, although, from time to time, a shudder at the recent horror again ran through them. Hippolyte's eyes were red from crying. Both, in the Sanctuary, at the tragic moment, had been seized by a common delirium; and, from fear of madness, they had taken flight.
They were now seated away from the turmoil, at the extreme end of the esplanade, beneath the trees. This corner was almost deserted. One only saw there, around several twisted olive-tree trunks, groups of beasts of burden with empty pack-saddles, in an immobility of lifeless forms; and they cast a sad aspect over the shade of the trees. In the distance could be heard the murmur of the swarming multitude; one heard the cadences of the sacred chants, the blasts of the trumpets, the ringing of the bells; one perceived the pilgrimages developing into long files, turning around the church, entering it and leaving it.
"Do you want to sleep?" asked George, who noticed that Hippolyte was closing her eyes.
"No; but I have no longer the courage to look——"