Эмиль Золя
The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Volume 1
All at once, however, she felt frightened; and addressing Madame de Jonquiere, she hastily exclaimed, "Pray pass me the vinegar bottle at once – I can no longer hear him breathe."
For an instant, indeed, the man's faint breathing had ceased. His eyes were still closed, his lips parted; he could not have been paler, he had an ashen hue, and was cold. And the carriage was rolling along with its ceaseless rattle of coupling-irons; the speed of the train seemed even to have increased.
"I will rub his temples," resumed Sister Hyacinthe. "Help me, do!"
But, at a more violent jolt of the train, the man suddenly fell from the seat, face downward.
"Ah! /mon Dieu/, help me, pick him up!"
They picked him up, and found him dead. And they had to seat him in his corner again, with his back resting against the woodwork. He remained there erect, his torso stiffened, and his head wagging slightly at each successive jolt. Thus the train continued carrying him along, with the same thundering noise of wheels, while the engine, well pleased, no doubt, to be reaching its destination, began whistling shrilly, giving vent to quite a flourish of delirious joy as it sped through the calm night.
And then came the last and seemingly endless half-hour of the journey, in company with that wretched corpse. Two big tears had rolled down Sister Hyacinthe's cheeks, and with her hands joined she had begun to pray. The whole carriage shuddered with terror at sight of that terrible companion who was being taken, too late alas! to the Blessed Virgin.
Hope, however, proved stronger than sorrow or pain, and although all the sufferings there assembled awoke and grew again, irritated by overwhelming weariness, a song of joy nevertheless proclaimed the sufferers' triumphal entry into the Land of Miracles. Amidst the tears which their pains drew from them, the exasperated and howling sick began to chant the "Ave maris Stella" with a growing clamour in which lamentation finally turned into cries of hope.
Marie had again taken Pierre's hand between her little feverish fingers. "Oh, /mon Dieu!/" said she, "to think that poor man is dead, and I feared so much that it was I who would die before arriving. And we are there – there at last!"
The priest was trembling with intense emotion. "It means that you are to be cured, Marie," he replied, "and that I myself shall be cured if you pray for me – "
The engine was now whistling in a yet louder key in the depths of the bluish darkness. They were nearing their destination. The lights of Lourdes already shone out on the horizon. Then the whole train again sang a canticle – the rhymed story of Bernadette, that endless ballad of six times ten couplets, in which the Angelic Salutation ever returns as a refrain, all besetting and distracting, opening to the human mind the portals of the heaven of ecstasy: —
"It was the hour for ev'ning pray'r;
Soft bells chimed on the chilly air.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
"The maid stood on the torrent's bank,
A breeze arose, then swiftly sank.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
"And she beheld, e'en as it fell,
The Virgin on Massabielle.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
"All white appeared the Lady chaste,
A zone of Heaven round her waist.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
"Two golden roses, pure and sweet,
Bloomed brightly on her naked feet.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
"Upon her arm, so white and round,
Her chaplet's milky pearls were wound.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!
"The maiden prayed till, from her eyes,
The vision sped to Paradise.
Ave, ave, ave Maria!"
