elves up and looked at La Grivotte with terror in their eyes. Then
they dived down into their corners again, and nobody spoke, nobody
stirred any further. Pierre, for his part, reflected on the curious
medical aspect of this girl's case. Her strength had come back to her
over yonder. She had displayed a ravenous appetite, she had walked long
distances with a dancing gait, her face quite radiant the while; and now
she had spat blood, her cough had broken out afresh, she again had the
heavy ashen face of one in the last agony. Her ailment had returned to
her with brutal force, victorious over everything. Was this, then, some
special case of phthisis complicated by neurosis? Or was it some other
malady, some unknown disease, quietly continuing its work in the midst of
contradictory diagnosis? The sea of error and ignorance, the darkness
amidst which human science is still struggling, again appeared to Pierre.
And he once more saw Doctor Chassaigne shrugging his shoulders with
disdain, whilst Doctor Bonamy, full of serenity, quietly continued his
verification work, absolutely convinced that nobody would be able to
prove to him the impossibility of his miracles any more than he himself
could have proved their possibility.

"Oh! I am not frightened," La Grivotte continued, stammering. "I am
cured, completely cured; they all told me so, over yonder."

Meantime the carriage was rolling, rolling along, through the black
night. Each of its occupants was making preparations, stretching himself
out in order to sleep more comfortably. They compelled Madame Vincent to
lie down on the seat, and gave her a pillow on which to rest her poor
pain-racked head; and then, as docile as a child, quite stupefied, she
fell asleep in a nightmare-like torpor, with big, silent tears still
flowing from her closed eyes. Elise Rouquet, who had a whole seat to
herself, was also getting ready to lie down, but first of all she made
quite an elaborate toilet, tying the black wrap which had served to hide
her sore about her head, and then again peering into her glass to see if
this headgear became her, now that the swelling of her lip had subsided.
And again did Pierre feel astonished at sight of that sore, which was
certainly healing, if not already healed--that face, so lately a
monster's face, which one could now look at without feeling horrified.
The sea of incertitude stretched before him once more. Was it even a real
lupus? Might it not rather be som