Before sunrise, an immense crowd, consisting of several thousand persons, had assembled in front of and all around the Grotto, on the banks of the Gave and in the meadow-island. It was the hour when Bernadette usually came. She arrived enveloped in her white capulet, followed by some of her family, her mother or her sister. Her parents had attended during her ecstacy the day before; they had seen her transfigured, and now they believed.
The child passed through the crowd, which respectfully made way for her, simply in a composed and unembarrassed manner; and, without appearing to be conscious of the universal attention she excited, she proceeded, as if she was doing the simplest thing in the world, to kneel down and pray beneath the niche around which the wild rose festooned its branches.
A few moments afterwards, you might have seen her brow light up and become radiant. The blood, however, did not mantle her visage; on the contrary, she grew slightly pale, as if nature somewhat succombed in presence of the Apparition which manifested itself to her. All her features assumed a lofty and still more lofty expression, and entered, as it were, a superior region, a country of glory, significant of sentiments and things which are not found here below. Her mouth, half-open, was gasping with admiration, and seemed to aspire to heaven. Her eyes, fixed and blissful, contemplated an invisible beauty, which no one else perceived, but whose presence was felt by all, seen by all, so to say, by reverberation on the countenance of the child. This poor little peasant girl, so ordinary in her habitual state, seemed to have ceased to belong to this earth.
It was the Angel of Innocence, leaving the world for a moment behind and falling in adoration at the moment the eternal gates are opened and the first view of Paradise flashes on the sight.
All those who have seen Bernadette in this state of ecstacy, speak of the sight as of something entirely unparalleled on earth. The impression made upon them is as strong now, after the lapse of ten years, as on the first day.
What is also remarkable, although her attention was entirely absorbed by the contemplation of the Virgin, full of Grace, she was, to a certain degree, conscious of what was passing around her.
At a certain moment her taper went out; she stretched out her hand that the person nearest to her might relight it.
Some one having wished to touch the wild rose with a stick, she eagerly made him a sign to desist, and an expression of fear passed over her countenance.
“I was afraid,” she said, afterwards, with simplicity, “that he might have touched the ‘Lady’ and done her harm.”
One of the observers, whose name we have already mentioned, Doctor Dozons, was at her side.
“There is nothing here,” he thought, “either of the rigidity of catalepsy or of the unconscious ecstacy of hallucination; it is an extraordinary fact, of a class entirely unknown to Medical Science.”
He took the child’s arm and felt her pulse. To this she did not appear to pay any attention. Her pulse was perfectly calm, and beat as regularly as when she was in her ordinary state.
“There is, consequently, no morbid excitement,” observed the learned Doctor to himself, more and more unsettled in his views.
At that moment the youthful Seer advanced, on her knees, a few paces forward into the Grotto. The Apparition had removed from her original place, and it was now through the interior opening that Bernadette was able to perceive her.
The glance of the Blessed Virgin seemed, in a moment, to run over the whole earth, after which she fixed it, impregnated with sorrow, on Bernadette, who still remained kneeling.
“What is the matter with you? What must be done?” murmured the child.
“Pray for sinners,” replied the Mother of the human race.”
On perceiving the eternal serenity of the Blessed Virgin thus veiled with sorrow as with a cloud, the heart of the poor shepherd-girl experienced all at once a feeling of cruel suffering. An inexpressible sorrow spread itself over her features. From her eyes, which remained wide open and constantly fixed on the Apparition, two tears rolled upon her cheeks and staid there without falling.
A ray of joy returned at length to light up her countenance, for the Virgin had herself doubtless turned her glance in the direction of Hope, and had contemplated, in the heart of the Father, the inexhaustible source of infinite mercy which descends on the world in the name of Jesus, and by the hands of the Church.
It was at this moment that the Apparition disappeared. The Queen of Heaven had just re-entered her kingdom.
The aureole, as was its wont, lingered a few moments, and then became gradually obliterated like a luminous mist which melts and disappears in the air.
The features of Bernadette lost by degrees their lofty expression. It seemed as if she passed from the land of sunshine into that of shade, and the ordinary type of earth resumed possession of that countenance which, but a moment before, had been transfigured.
She was now nothing more than a humble shepherd-girl,—a little peasant,—with nothing outwardly to distinguish her from other children.
The crowd pressed around her, panting for breath, and in an extraordinary state of anxiety, emotion, and pious recollection. We shall have, elsewhere, an opportunity of describing their bearing.
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