The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Volume 1Zola, Émile
Religion
The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Volume 1
Zola, Émile
Catholics -- Fiction; Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages -- Fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Lourdes (France) -- Fiction
Marguerite Coupel, who had suffered from phthisis for three years, and
the upper part of whose lungs is destroyed by tuberculosis, rises up
and goes off, radiant with health. Madame de la Riviere, who spits
blood, who is ever covered with a cold perspiration, whose nails have
already acquired a violet tinge, who is indeed on the point of drawing
her last breath, requires but a spoonful of the water to be
administered to her between her teeth, and lo! the rattles cease, she
sits up, makes the responses to the litanies, and asks for some broth.
Julie Jadot requires four spoonfuls; but then she could no longer hold
up her head, she was of such a delicate constitution that disease had
reduced her to nothing; and yet, in a few days, she becomes quite fat.
Anna Catry, who is in the most advanced stage of the malady, with her
left lung half destroyed by a cavity, is plunged five times into the
cold water, contrary to all the dictates of prudence, and she is cured,
her lung is healthy once more. Another consumptive girl, condemned by
fifteen doctors, has asked nothing, has simply fallen on her knees in
the Grotto, by chance as it were, and is afterwards quite surprised at
having been cured /au passage/, through the lucky circumstance of
having been there, no doubt, at the hour when the Blessed Virgin, moved
to pity, allows miracles to fall from her invisible hands.
Miracles and yet more miracles! They rained down like the flowers of
dreams from a clear and balmy sky. Some of them were touching, some of
them were childish. An old woman, who, having her hand anchylosed, had
been incapable of moving it for thirty years, washes it in the water
and is at once able to make the sign of the Cross. Sister Sophie, who
barked like a dog, plunges into the piscina and emerges from it with a
clear, pure voice, chanting a canticle. Mustapha, a Turk, invokes the
White Lady and recovers the use of his right eye by applying a compress
to it. An officer of Turcos was protected at Sedan; a cuirassier of
Reichsoffen would have died, pierced in the heart by a bullet, if this
bullet after passing though his pocket-book had not stayed its flight
on reaching a little picture of Our Lady of Lourdes! And, as with the
men and women, so did the children, the poor, suffering little ones,
find mercy; a paralytic boy of five rose and walked after being held
for five minutes under the icy jet of the spring; another one, fifteen
years of age, who, lying in bed, could only raise an inarticulate cry,
sprang out of the piscina, shouting that he was cured; another one, but
two years old, a poor tiny fellow who had never been able to walk,
remained for a quarter of an hour in the cold water and then,
invigorated and smiling, took his first steps like a little man! And
for all of them, the little ones as well as the adults, the pain was
acute whilst the miracle was being accomplished; for the work of repair
could not be effected without causing an extraordinary shock to the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account