While the benches before the Grotto and the vast reserved space were
filling with sick people, handcarts, and stretchers, the crowd, the
immense crowd, swayed about on the outskirts. Starting from the Place du
Rosaire, it extended to the bottom of the promenade along the Gave, where
the pavement throughout its entire length was black with people, so dense
a human sea that all circulation was prevented. On the parapet was an
interminable line of women--most of them seated, but some few standing so
as to see the better--and almost all carrying silk parasols, which, with
holiday-like gaiety, shimmered in the sunlight. The managers had wished
to keep a path open in order that the sick might be brought along; but it
was ever being invaded and obstructed, so that the carts and stretchers
remained on the road, submerged and lost until a bearer freed them.
Nevertheless, the great tramping was that of a docile flock, an innocent,
lamb-like crowd; and it was only the involuntary pushing, the blind
rolling towards the light of the candles that had to be contended
against.
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