In this chapter, three children, including a frail girl named Bernadette, search for firewood along the Gave river. While her companions manage to gather small branches, Bernadette struggles to find anything. Despite her worn-out appearance, Bernadette radiates an innocent grace that captivates those around her. The narrative highlights her simple, yet profound beauty and innocence, drawing a parallel to biblical figures like Ruth and Naomi. Bernadette's character is deeply connected to her patron saint, Saint Bernard.
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THE three children soon left the town behind them, and crossing the bridge, reached the left bank of the Gave. They passed by the mill of M. de Laffitte, and gaining the Ile du Chalet, sought here and there for small fragments of wood, in order to make a little faggot.
By degrees they descended the meadow, following the course of the Gave. The frail child, to whom the mother had hesitated in granting permission to leave the house, walked somewhat in the rear. Less fortunate than her two companions she had not yet found anything, and her apron was empty, while her sister and Jeanne were already furnished with a little load of chips and small branches.
Clad in a worn-out and patched black dress, her delicate visage framed in the white capulet which covered her head, and fell back on her shoulders, with coarse sabots on her feet, she displayed an innocent and rustic grace which charmed the heart even more than the eye.
She was short for her age. Although her childish features were somewhat tanned by the sun, they had lost nothing of their native delicacy. Her hair, black and soft, was almost concealed by her kerchief. Her brow, which was tolerably lofty, was marked by lines of incomparable purity. Under her well-arched eyebrows, her brown eyes—sweeter in her even than blue―possessed a calm and profound beauty, whose magnificent limpidity had never been troubled by any evil passion. It was the simple eye spoken of in the Gospel. The mouth, wonderfully expressive, served as the index of a soul in which habitual goodness and compassion for suffering of every kind held undisputed sway.
Her physiognomy was pleasing, owing to its sweetness and intelligence, and her whole person possessed an extraordinary attraction, which sensibly affected the most elevated regions of the soul. What then was this attraction. I was going to say this ascendancy, and this secret authority in this poor ignorant child clothed in rags. It was the greatest and the rarest thing in the world—the Majesty of Innocence, We have not yet told her name. Her Patron was a great Doctor of the Church—whose genius sheltered itself more especially under the protection of the Mother of God—the author of the Memorare, “Remember, O most pious Virgin Mary,” the admirable Saint Bernard. However, in accordance with a custom which is not without its charm, the great name given to this humble peasant girl had taken a child-like and rustic form. The little girl bore a pretty name, graceful like herself—she was called Bernadette.
She followed her sister and her companion along the meadow by the mill and searched, but in vain, among the grass for some morsels of wood for the hearth at home.
Such must have been the appearance of Ruth, or of Naomi, going to glean in the fields of Boaz.
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