And afterwards they sang the canticle:
"O Virgin, in thy help I put my trust."
Then Pierre fell into a deep reverie. His glance had turned towards the
now sunlit landscape, the continual flight of which seemed to lull his
thoughts. The noise of the wheels was making him dizzy, and he ended by
no longer recognising the familiar horizon of this vast suburban expanse
with which he had once been acquainted. They still had to pass Bretigny
and Juvisy, and then, in an hour and a half at the utmost, they would at
last be at Paris. So the great journey was finished! the inquiry, which
he had so much desired to make, the experiment which he had attempted
with so much passion, were over! He had wished to acquire certainty, to
study Bernadette's case on the spot, and see if grace would not come back
to him in a lightning flash, restoring him his faith. And now he had
settled the point--Bernadette had dreamed through the continual torments
of her flesh, and he himself would never believe again. And this forced
itself upon his mind like a brutal fact: the simple faith of the child
who kneels and prays, the primitive faith of young people, bowed down by
an awe born of their ignorance, was dead. Though thousands of pilgrims
might each year go to Lourdes, the nations were no longer with them; this
attempt to bring about the resurrection of absolute faith, the faith of
dead-and-gone centuries, without revolt or examination, was fatally
doomed to fail.
Pages:
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184