The patients were now returning from the
Grotto in bands, and the ward, hitherto so calm, so full of sunshine, was
again filling with the tumult of wretchedness and pain--deep coughing and
feeble shuffling, mingled with a noisome smell--a pitiful display, in
fact, of well-nigh every human infirmity.
II
THE SERVICE AT THE GROTTO
ON that day, Monday, the crowd at the Grotto, was enormous. It was the
last day that the national pilgrimage would spend at Lourdes, and Father
Fourcade, in his morning address, had said that it would be necessary to
make a supreme effort of fervour and faith to obtain from Heaven all that
it might be willing to grant in the way of grace and prodigious cure. So,
from two o'clock in the afternoon, twenty thousand pilgrims were
assembled there, feverish, and agitated by the most ardent hopes. From
minute to minute the throng continued increasing, to such a point,
indeed, that Baron Suire became alarmed, and came out of the Grotto to
say to Berthaud: "My friend, we shall be overwhelmed, that's certain.
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