ached ecclesiastics who
had come nobody knew whence, and who enjoyed such absolute liberty that
it was difficult to be sure whether they had even said their mass that
morning. They doubtless found this liberty very agreeable; and thus the
greater number of them, like Abbe des Hermoises, had simply come on a
holiday excursion, free from all duties, and happy at being able to live
like ordinary men, lost, unnoticed as they were in the multitude around
them. And from the young, carefully groomed and perfumed priest, to the
old one in a dirty cassock and shoes down at heel, the entire species had
its representative in the throng--there were corpulent ones, others but
moderately fat, thin ones, tall ones and short ones, some whom faith had
brought and whom ardour was consuming, some also who simply plied their
calling like worthy men, and some, moreover, who were fond of intriguing,
and who were only present in order that they might help the good cause.
However, Pierre was quite surprised to see such a stream of priests pass
before him, each with his special passion, and one and all hurrying to
the Grotto as one hurries to a duty, a belief, a pleasure, or a task. He
noticed one among the number, a very short, slim, dark man with a
pronounced Italian accent, whose glittering eyes seemed to be taking a
plan of Lourdes, who looked, indeed, like one of those spies who come and
peer around with a view to conquest; and then he observed another one, an
enormous fellow with a paternal air, who was breathing hard through
inordinate eating, and who paused in front of a poor sick woman, and
ended by slipping a five-franc piece into her hand.

Just then, however, M. de Guersaint returned: "We merely have to go down
the boulevard and the Rue Basse," said he.

Pierre followed him without answering. He had just felt his cassock on
his shoulders for the first time that afternoon, for never had it seemed
so light to him as whilst he was walking about amidst the scramble of the
pilgrimage. The young fellow was now living in a state of mingled
unconsciousness and dizziness, ever hoping that faith would fall upon him
like a lightning flash, in spite of all the vague uneasiness which was
growing within him at sight of the things which he beheld. However, the
spectacle of that ever-swelling stream of priests no longer wounded his
heart; fraternal feelings towards these unknown colleagues had returned
to him; how many of them there must be who bel