the flocking peoples the bread of
consolation and illusion, the delicious bread of hope, for which
suffering humanity ever hungers with a hunger that nothing will ever
appease. And it was not merely the physical sores which cried aloud for
cure, the whole of man's moral and intellectual being likewise shrieked
forth its wretchedness, with an insatiable yearning for happiness. To be
happy, to place the certainty of life in faith, to lean till death should
come upon that one strong staff of travel--such was the desire exhaled by
every breast, the desire which made every moral grief bend the knee,
imploring a continuance of grace, the conversion of dear ones, the
spiritual salvation of self and those one loved. The mighty cry spread
from pole to pole, ascended and filled all the regions of space: To be
happy, happy for evermore, both in life and in death!

And Pierre saw the suffering beings around him lose all perception of the
jolting and recover their strength as league by league they drew nearer
to the miracle. Even Madame Maze grew talkative, certain as she felt that
the Blessed Virgin would restore her husband to her. With a smile on her
face Madame Vincent gently rocked her little Rose in her arms, thinking
that she was not nearly so ill as those all but lifeless children who,
after being plunged in the icy water, sprang out and played. M. Sabathier
jested with M. de Guersaint, and explained to him that, next October,
when he had recovered the use of his legs, he should go on a trip to
Rome--a journey which he had been postponing for fifteen years and more.
Madame Vetu, quite calmed, feeling nothing but a slight twinge in the
stomach, imagined that she was hungry, and asked Madame de Jonquiere to
let her dip some strips of bread in a glass of milk; whilst Elise
Rouquet, forgetting her sores, ate some grapes, with face uncovered. And
in La Grivotte who was sitting up and Brother Isidore who had ceased
moaning, all those fine stories had left a pleasant fever, to such a
point that, impatient to be cured, they grew anxious to know the time.
For a minute also the man, the strange man, resuscitated. Whilst Sister
Hyacinthe was again wiping the cold sweat from his brow, he raised his
eyelids, and a smile momentarily brightened his pallid countenance. Yet
once again he, also, had hoped.

Marie was still holding Pierre's fingers in her own small, warm hand. It
was seven o'clock, they were not due at Bordeaux till half-past