ocket-glass in the
hands of a woman near her, a huge, dropsical creature, who was very
coquettish; and having borrowed it, she leant it against the bolster, and
then, with infinite care, began to fasten her fichu as elegantly as
possible about her head, in order to hide her distorted features.
Meanwhile, erect in front of her, little Sophie watched her with an air
of profound interest.

It was Abbe Judaine who gave the signal for starting on the journey to
the Grotto. He wished, he said, to accompany his dear suffering daughters
thither, whilst the lady-hospitallers and the Sisters remained in the
ward, so as to put things in some little order again. Then the ward was
at once emptied, the patients being carried down-stairs amidst renewed
tumult. And Pierre, having replaced Marie's box upon its wheels, took the
first place in the _cortege_, which was formed of a score of little
handcarts, bath-chairs, and litters. The other wards, however, were also
emptying, the courtyard became crowded, and the _defile_ was organised in
haphazard fashion. There was soon an interminable train descending the
rather steep slope of the Avenue de la Grotte, so that Pierre was already
reaching the Plateau de la Merlasse when the last stretchers were barely
leaving the precincts of the hospital.

It was eight o'clock, and the sun, already high, a triumphant August sun,
was flaming in the great sky, which was beautifully clear. It seemed as
if the blue of the atmosphere, cleansed by the storm of the previous
night, were quite new, fresh with youth. And the frightful _defile_, a
perfect "Cour des Miracles" of human woe, rolled along the sloping
pavement amid all the brilliancy of that radiant morning. There was no
end to the train of abominations; it appeared to grow longer and longer.
No order was observed, ailments of all kinds were jumbled together; it
seemed like the clearing of some inferno where the most monstrous
maladies, the rare and awful cases which provoke a shudder, had been
gathered together. Eczema, roseola, elephantiasis, presented a long array
of doleful victims. Well-nigh vanished diseases reappeared; one old woman
was affected with leprosy, another was, covered with impetiginous lichen
like a tree which has rotted in the shade. Then came the dropsical ones,
inflated like wine-skins; and beside some stretchers there dangled hands
twisted by rheumatism, while from others protruded feet swollen by oedema
beyond all recognition,