And he was
without bad thoughts, without resistance, hoping with fervour, he also,
that they might both be healed! Oh! that he might be convinced by her
cure, that he might believe like her, that they might be saved together!
He wished to pray, ardently, as she herself did. But in spite of himself
he was preoccupied by the crowd, that limitless crowd, among which he
found it so difficult to drown himself, disappear, become nothing more
than a leaf in the forest, lost amidst the rustle of all the leaves. He
could not prevent himself from analysing and judging it. He knew that for
four days past it had been undergoing all the training of suggestion;
there had been the fever of the long journey, the excitement of the new
landscapes, the days spent before the splendour of the Grotto, the
sleepless nights, and all the exasperating suffering, ravenous for
illusion. Then, again, there had been the all-besetting prayers, those
hymns, those litanies, which agitated it without a pause. Another priest
had followed Father Massias in the pulpit, a little thin, dark Abbe, whom
Pierre heard hurling appeals to the Virgin and Jesus in a lashing voice
which resounded like a whip.
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