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"Ah!" she said, "how many, how many distressed souls there are! For each of those little flames is a suffering soul seeking deliverance, is it not?" Pierre had to lean over in order to hear her, for since the procession had been streaming by, so near to them, they had been deafened by the sound of the endless canticle, the hymn of Bernadette.
And at the same time the everlasting canticle was again heard, but so lightly, for the procession was far away, that it seemed as yet merely like the rustle of a coming storm, stirring the leaves of the trees. "Ah! I said so," muttered M. de Guersaint; "one ought to be at the Calvary to see everything."
The sublimest canticle to be heard on earth is the stammering of the human soul on the lips of infancy. That confused chirruping of a thought, that is as yet no more than an instinct, has in it one knows not what sort of artless appeal to the eternal justice; or is it a protest uttered on the threshold before entering in, a protest meek and poignant?
Wagner was willing to yield to the desire for a ballet, but he could not place it where the habits of the opera-going public demanded it. Instead, he remodelled the overture and, sacrificing the coda which brought back a return of the canticle of the pilgrims, he lengthened the middle portion to fit an extended choreographic scene, and with it led into the opera without a break.
At last they all three found themselves out of the crowd, near one of the arches, on a deserted spot where they were able to breathe for a moment. They now heard nothing but the distant canticle with its besetting refrain, and they only saw the reflection of the tapers, hovering like a luminous cloud in the neighbourhood of the Basilica.
Less commercial, but quite as importunate, are the correspondents who belong to literary societies, and who have undertaken to read, before these select circles, papers upon every conceivable subject, from the Bride of the Canticle to the divorce laws of France. They regret their own ignorance as well they may and blandly ask for aid. There is no limit to demands of this character.
Then a sublime expression came over Patience's face, and lifting his strong arms to heaven, he exclaimed: "The words of the canticle! Now let me depart in peace; for mine eyes have seen him I yearned for." The hidalgo said nothing; he raised his hat as usual; then sitting down he turned pale and shut his eyes.
Strident whistles pierced the night, then suddenly ceased, and you only heard the panting of the steam and the dull roar of the wheels gradually slackening their speed. Then the canticle became distinctly audible, the song of Bernadette with the ever-recurring "Aves" of its refrain, which the whole train was chanting in chorus.
And at the far end there was again the compartment full of women, the ten close-packed female pilgrims, some young, some old, and all looking pitifully ugly as they violently chanted the canticle in cracked and woeful voices. "At what time shall we reach Paris?" M. de Guersaint inquired of Pierre. "To-morrow at about two in the afternoon, I think," the priest replied.
The canticle, for a moment interrupted by these words, was about to recommence, and would not, apparently, have soon come to an end, had not the performers been disturbed by violent knocks at the door. The joyous company within heard the report of their scout, and were in a terrible fright.
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