ss, she exclaimed: "It seems to me that I was
made to live, to act, to be ever on the move, and yet the Lord will have
me remain motionless." What a revelation, full of terrible testimony and
immense sadness! Why should the Lord wish that dear being, all grace and
gaiety, to remain motionless? Could she not have honoured Him equally
well by living the free, healthy life that she had been born to live? And
would she not have done more to increase the world's happiness and her
own if, instead of praying for sinners, her constant occupation, she had
given her love to the husband who might have been united to her and to
the children who might have been born to her? She, so gay and so active,
would, on certain evenings, become extremely depressed. She turned gloomy
and remained wrapped in herself, as though overcome by excess of pain. No
doubt the cup was becoming too bitter. The thought of her life's
perpetual renunciation was killing her.

Did Bernadette often think of Lourdes whilst she was at Saint-Gildard?
What knew she of the triumph of the Grotto, of the prodigies which were
daily transforming the land of miracles? These questions were never
thoroughly elucidated. Her companions were forbidden to talk to her of
such matters, which remained enveloped in absolute, continual silence.
She herself did not care to speak of them; she kept silent with regard to
the mysterious past, and evinced no desire to know the present, however
triumphant it might be. But all the same did not her heart, in
imagination, fly away to the enchanted country of her childhood, where
lived her kith and kin, where all her life-ties had been formed, where
she had left the most extraordinary dream that ever human being dreamt?
Surely she must have sometimes travelled the beautiful journey of memory,
she must have known the main features of the great events that had taken
place at Lourdes. What she most dreaded was to go there herself, and, she
always refused to do so, knowing full well that she could not remain
unrecognised, and fearful of meeting the crowds whose adoration awaited
her. What glory would have been hers had she been headstrong, ambitious,
domineering! She would have returned to the holy spot of her visions,
have worked miracles there, have become a priestess, a female pope, with
the infallibility and sovereignty of one of the elect, a friend of the
Blessed Virgin. But the Fathers never really feared this, although
express orders had be