ot know! I, whom people think so learned, so well armed against
death, I understood nothing of it, and I could do nothing--not even
prolong my daughter's life for a single hour! And my wife, whom I found
in bed already cold, when on the previous evening she had lain down in
much better health and quite gay--was I even capable of foreseeing what
ought to have been done in her case? No, no! for me at all events,
science has become bankrupt. I wish to know nothing; I am but a fool and
a poor old man!"

He spoke like this in a furious revolt against all his past life of pride
and happiness. Then, having become calm again, he added: "And now I only
feel a frightful remorse. Yes, a remorse which haunts me, which ever
brings me here, prowling around the people who are praying. It is remorse
for not having in the first instance come and humbled myself at that
Grotto, bringing my two dear ones with me. They would have knelt there
like those women whom you see, I should have knelt beside them, and
perhaps the Blessed Virgin would have cured and preserved them. But, fool
that I was, I only knew how to lose them! It is my fault."

Tears were now streaming from his eyes. "I remember," he continued, "that
in my childhood at Bartres, my mother, a peasant woman, made me join my
hands and implore God's help each morning. The prayer she taught me came
back to my mind, word for word, when I again found myself alone, as weak,
as lost, as a little child. What would you have, my friend? I joined my
hands as in my younger days, I felt too wretched, too forsaken, I had too
keen a need of a superhuman help, of a divine power which should think
and determine for me, which should lull me and carry me on with its
eternal prescience. How great at first was the confusion, the aberration
of my poor brain, under the frightful, heavy blow which fell upon it! I
spent a score of nights without being able to sleep, thinking that I
should surely go mad. All sorts of ideas warred within me; I passed
through periods of revolt when I shook my fist at Heaven, and then I
lapsed into humility, entreating God to take me in my turn. And it was at
last a conviction that there must be justice, a conviction that there
must be love, which calmed me by restoring me my faith. You knew my
daughter, so tall and strong, so beautiful, so brimful of life. Would it
not be the most monstrous injustice if for her, who did not know life,
there should be nothing beyond the tomb?