The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Volume 5Zola, Émile
General
The Three Cities Trilogy: Lourdes, Volume 5
Zola, Émile
Catholics -- Fiction; Christian pilgrims and pilgrimages -- Fiction; Clergy -- Fiction; Lourdes (France) -- Fiction
"Poor woman!" murmured Marie. "Take courage, and pray to the Blessed
Virgin for the succour which she never refuses to the afflicted."
But at this Madame Vincent shook with rage. "It isn't true!" she cried.
"The Blessed Virgin doesn't care a rap about me. She doesn't tell the
truth! Why did she deceive me? I should never have gone to Lourdes if I
hadn't heard that voice in a church. My little girl would still be alive,
and perhaps the doctors would have saved her. I, who would never set my
foot among the priests formerly! Ah! I was right! I was right! There's no
Blessed Virgin at all!"
And in this wise, without resignation, without illusion, without hope,
she continued blaspheming with the coarse fury of a woman of the people,
shrieking the sufferings of her heart aloud in such rough fashion that
Sister Hyacinthe had to intervene: "Be quiet, you unhappy woman! It is
God who is making you suffer, to punish you."
The scene had already lasted a long time, and as they passed Riscle at
full speed the Sister again clapped her hands and gave the signal for the
chanting of the "Laudate Mariam." "Come, come, my children," she
exclaimed, "all together, and with all your hearts:
"In heav'n, on earth,
All voices raise,
In concert sing
My Mother's praise:
/Laudate, laudate, laudate Mariam/!"
Madame Vincent, whose voice was drowned by this canticle of love, now
only sobbed, with her hands pressed to her face. Her revolt was over, she
was again strengthless, weak like a suffering woman whom grief and
weariness have stupefied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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