All the women and girls of Lourdes constantly carry a rosary upon their person. It is the authentic tool of their piety. The hands of poor hard-working women have not the habit of stillness. A prayer with empty hands would be no proper observance for them. But the prayer of the rosary is to them a sort of heavenly manual toil, an invisible needle work, a knitting or embroidering busily wrought of the 50 Hail Marys and the nine other invocations of their string of beads. He who tells a sufficient number of beads in the course of the years will have woven a goodly web with which someday the divine compassion can cover a portion of his guilt. The lips, one may say, murmur but automatically the words of the angel to the Virgin, yet the soul traverses the pastures of holiness.

Who does not lose that spontaneity of nature once he knows that hundreds of thousands of eyes are fixed upon him?

Frangoinette Gozos, one of the neighbours, the butcher’s
daughter, raised her voice in conventional consolation: “Dear
Croisine, don’t lament so. You should be happy. You don’t
want your child to drag himself through life as a hopeless crip-
ple, do you? He’s baptized and without sin. You’ll have an
angel waiting for you up above.”

The mother pressed her head against the child’s bed. It is
easy for these women to seek to console her. In this hour she
had no prayer more ardent than that her child be permitted
to drag himself through life as a cripple. If only he would
live! She had not the slightest desire for an angel to wait for
her above. Wild fancies beset her mind. One image haunted
her: Bernadette dipping her head into the basin of the spring.
Suddenly the lightning of cognition pierced the heart of
Croisine Bouhouhorts. This dipping and laving was no vague
and vain ceremony but a very purposeful mode of action
which the lady, through Bernadette, was constantly urging
upon others.

She leaped to her feet with a wild cry. Her mind was made
up. She snatched the child from the big basket that served him
as cradle, wrapped him in an apron, and rushed forth from the
house. The lightning of intuitive perception had been so pow-
erful that she had not even stopped to wrap the child in a
warm covering. Jean Bouhouhorts and the women, convinced
that grief had robbed Croisine of her understanding, followed
her with loud cries. Leaping actually like a madwoman, she
raced with her burden through the streets and soon brought
the whole town to its feet. In her race with death she con-
tinued to gain; not even her husband could keep up with her.
But a great crowd followed her in the direction of the grotto.

Bathed in sweat, she broke down at the rim of the spring’s
basin with just strength enough left to immerse the child in the
water up to its neck. “Accept him or give him back to me, O
Virgin,” she stammered in her utter confusion. She paid no
attention to the women who were saying to her: “You’re kill-
ing the baby. . . . The water is ice-cold.”

“If I can’t save him, I’ll kill him; what’s the difference?”
Croisine panted again and again. They tried to snatch the child
from her. She bared her teeth and hissed. It was not safe to
approach her. So they let her be, and a stillness as of death en-
sued. Naught was heard save the agonized rattle in the child’s
throat. Then that died too.

Suddenly one of the women beside the basin said: “Blessed
Virgin, the child is crying out. . .

It was true. The thin squeak of a new-born infant’s voice
could be heard for several seconds. The people looked at one
another and were pale. Croisine, having bathed her child for
exactly fifteen minutes, wrapped it again in the apron, pressed
it to her bosom, and raced off. When at last the heavily mov-
ing mass of men arrived at the Bouhouhorts dwelling next to
the Cachot they saw Croisine with widespread arms of warn-
ing at the door. She whispered: “Quiet! He is sleeping ... * my
child is sleeping. . .

The child continued to sleep all that day and the night fol-
lowing. Next morning it drank with unknown eagerness two
glasses of milk. Thereupon Bouhouhorts went to work. A few
minutes later Croisine went to Babou’s well to fetch water.
When she came back she saw the child sitting up in its basket
for the first time in its life. She wanted to cry out but could
not. The child laughed a laugh as of victory. Brief hoarse cries
issued from the woman’s breast, wails of bliss. The first heal-
ing, the first miracle, had happened. In Lourdes.

An hour later people by the hundreds streamed up and
down the narrow Rue des Petites Fossees. At the bedside of
the child stood two physicians. Dr. Dozous had asked Dr. La-
crampe to be with him, for they had not been able to reach
Dr. Peyrus, who had at times treated the child. The Lacrampes
belonged to the first families of Lourdes and the physician of
that name, himself very wealthy, practised only sporadically.
Dr. Dozous had brought with him his book of case histories.
After both physicians had given the child a thorough examina-
tion the municipal physician opened his book and read: “ ‘Justin
Marie Adolar Duconte Bouhouhorts, born February 1856.
Pronounced case of rickets. Severe catarrh of the colon, March
1856. August 25, high temperature, violent convulsions, reflexes
noticeable. Next day: reflexes absent, temperature normal.
Tubercular meningitis? Progressive paralysis of lower extremi-
ties. Death a matter of hours.’ (No entries for an extended
period.) ‘Diagnosis hesitates between meningitis and poliomy-
elitis. Complete paralysis of the legs. . . .”

Dozous let the heavy book sink. “You see, Doctor, how com-
plete my records are. That’s because I report all interesting
cases to our colleagues in Paris.”

In the room of the Bouhouhorts about fifteen wide-eyed
neighbours reverentially surrounded the two physicians. The
latter paid no attention to the mere laity but in the consecrated
Greek and Latin of their guild celebrated the services of sci-
ence, which the laity for its part heard with the same shudder
of awe that it felt in the presence of the offices of the Church.

“I examined this child for the last time three days ago,”
Dozous declared. “There was no change in the total paralysis
of the thighs. Yon yourself observed the atrophies and contrac-
tions, my dear colleague. Meanwhile, however, a new innerva-
tion has doubtless set in. Palpation leaves little doubt of the
fresh muscular substance. Satisfy yourself once more.”

“If your diagnosis was correct,” Lacrampe said, “these find-
ings are inadmissible. Were the nerves of the motor-system
really destroyed? Couldn’t we assume a mere atrophy due to
rickets?”

“Sorry, colleague. I am bound to stick to my diagnosis ”

Lacrampe shrugged his shoulders. “Then we’re face to face
with a medical mystery. A cold bath produces nerve substance
out of the void. Have you so much faith in hydrotherapy, my
dear Dozous?”

A weary irony appeared on the face of the municipal physi-
cian. “I prescribe cold baths to fat people who don’t feel well
as an ascetic practice to correct gluttony and lassitude.”

“Then would you assume a traumatic process here— healing
through the shock of fright?”

“Ask me something easier, my dear colleague.”

“Then what remains but to assume that in the water of
Massabielle there is present an unknown and powerful thera-
peutic substance? . . .”

Dozous picked up his hat and gloves. “At all events, I’ll re-
port on this case immediately to both Charcot and Voisin.”

Lacrampe was frightened. “Don’t do that, my dear colleague.
The gods of science would rock with Homeric laughter over
the state of medicine in Lourdes. That wouldn’t be an agree-
able thing for us.”

“It is not an agreeable thing for us,” Dozous affirmed dryly.
“I, too, am not accustomed to believe things I cannot see.”

Where the last vestige of the world’s meaning is obliterated in a soul – a very rare occurrence – madness assumes mastery. Thence it comes that ages which deny the divine meaningfulness of the universe are smitten even to blood by collective madness, however reasonable and enlightened they may be in their own conceit.

Sadly the dean (Dean Peyramale) had said to the bishop: “Bernadette is still
so young.” The bishop had replied: “She will grow older,” and
he carefully saw to Bernadette’s growing older before the final
judgment concerning the lady and herself could possibly be
pronounced. Between the miraculous and its acknowledgment
as such the bishop sought to place the densest isolating sub-
stance known to man— time. He followed very precisely the
wise rules of Benedict XIV, as these are laid down in the fifty-
second chapter of the third book of his great work, On the
Elevation and Canonization of Saints . Time is the sharpest of
all acids, a supreme test it is. Only the purest and heaviest gold
can withstand its action. Any lighter metal, though with a
value of its own, is finally corroded and dissolved. Most things
that stir men for a day are not more than a dream on that day’s
morrow. The memory of the most glorious as well as of the
most grievous days in the history of peoples pales at the cock-
crow of a new sensation. The matter of Lourdes had been dis-
cussed in the press beyond all proper measure. The bishop had
a right to hope that now, toward the end of the first year, the
excitement would be allayed. Perhaps at the end of another
year no one would any longer speak of Massabielle, and the
story of the visions and healings would remain a lovely mem-
ory without important consequences. Therefore Monseigneur
Bertrand Severe Laurence had granted his commission four
whole years for the execution of its task. Within that period
the material was to be examined, tested, and tabulated, but no
final conclusion was to be drawn. For a great space of time is
more potent in the cognition of truth than the operation of any
human intelligence, however acute. It remained, for instance,
to be seen whether the miraculous cures would continue or
cease. It would likewise be seen whether the popular movement
which had spread from Lourdes all over the country were to
be lasting or if it had been but a fleeting mood evoked from
masses wearied by the nihilism of the upper classes. By the
long interval of waiting the bishop sought finally to subject the
supernatural principle itself to the severest testing of its authen-
ticity.