CHAPTER V.[*][*] It should, perhaps, be mentioned here that the publication of "The Triumph of Death" began in the Mattino, of Naples, on February 12, 1893, while the publication of Émile Zola's work "Lourdes" only began in theGil Blas, of Paris, on April 15, 1894.—TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.Since dawn, train after train had vomited immense waves of humanity on the platforms of the Casalbordino Station. People from the villages and market towns mingled with fraternities from the most distant hamlets who had not wished, or been able, to make the pilgrimage on foot. They precipitated themselves in a tumult from the carriages, shouting, gesticulating, and pushing each other to storm the wagons and coaches, amid the cracking of whips and the tinkling of bells; or, again, they fell into line, in long files, behind a crucifix, and, when their procession started on the dusty road, they struck up the hymn.Already frightened by the size of the crowd, George and Hippolyte turned instinctively toward the sea close by, to wait until the crowd dispersed. A field of hemp undulated peacefully before the blue background of the waters. The sails shone like flames on the clear horizon.George said to his companion:"Aren't you afraid? I fear the fatigue will hurt you."She replied:"Do not be alarmed; I am strong. Besides, to deserve a favor, must one not suffer a little?"He replied, smiling:"Are you going to ask a favor?""Yes, only one.""But are we not in the state of mortal sin?""That is true.""Well, then?""I shall ask, just the same."They had brought with them old Colas, who, acquainted with the localities and usages, served them as a guide. As soon as the door of their compartment was disencumbered they descended, and got into a coach which started off at a gallop, with a great tinkling of bells. The horses were decorated and plumed likebarberi. The drivers wore peacocks' feathers in their hats, and did not cease flourishing their whips, accompanying the deafening cracks with hoarse cries.Hippolyte, tormented by impatience and extraordinary uneasiness, as if this day were to realize some great event for her, asked the old man:"How long will it take to get there?""Half an hour at the most.""Is the church very old?""No, signora. I can still remember the time when it didn't exist. Fifty years ago, there was only a small chapel."He drew from his pocket a sheet of paper folded in four, unfolded it, and showed it to George."You can read it. It's the history of the church."It was a picture, with the legend at the bottom. The Virgin, in a cloud of angels, was seated on an olive-tree, and an old man was adoring her, prostrated at the foot of the trunk. This old man was named Alexander Muzio: and this is the story as told by the legend:"In the year of Our Lord 1527, during the evening of the 10th of June, the Sunday of the Pentecost, a storm broke over the district of Casalbordino and devastated the vines, the corn, and the olive-groves. The following morning, an old septuagenarian of Pollutro, Alexander Muzio, proprietor of a wheat field at Pinno del Lago, started on his way to visit it. His heart sank at the sight of the damaged crops; but, in his profound humility, he praised the justice of God. Very devoted to the Holy Virgin, he was telling his beads while walking, when, at the end of the valley, he heard the bell ringing at the elevation of the Mass. He immediately kneeled down and concentrated all his fervor for the prayer. But while he prayed he saw himself surrounded by a brilliancy which eclipsed that of the sun, and in this brilliancy appeared to him the Mother of Mercy, robed in azure; and she spoke to him sweetly: 'Go and carry the news. Let a temple be raised on this spot, and I will distribute my favors here. Go to thy field, and thou wilt find thy wheat intact.' She disappeared with her crown of angels. And the old man rose, went as far as his field, found his wheat intact. Then he hastened to Pollutro, saw the curate Mariano d' Iddone, related to him the prodigy. In a few seconds the news had spread all over the Casalbordino district. The entire population ran to the holy spot, saw the dry soil around the tree, saw undulate the prosperous harvest, recognized the miracle, and shed tears of penitence and feeling. Soon afterwards the Vicar of Arabona laid the first stone of a chapel, and the proxies for the edification were Geronimo di Geronimo and Giovanni Fatalone, Casalesians. On the altar they painted the Virgin, with the old Alexander prostrated in the act of adoration."The legend was simple, commonplace, similar to a hundred others founded on miracle. Since that first act of mercy, it was in the name of the Virgin that ships were saved from the tempest, lands from the hail, travellers from robbers, sick people from death. Placed amidst an unfortunate people, the Image was an inexhaustible source of salvation."Of all the Madonnas in the world, ours is the one who does most good," said Colas di Sciampagne, kissing the sacred sheet before replacing it in his bosom. "They say that another vision has been seen in the kingdom. But ours is the best. Don't be afraid. She's worth all the others——"His tone and his attitude displayed that sectarian fanaticism which fires the blood of all idolaters, and which, at times, in the region of the Abruzzi, impels populations to ferocious wars for the supremacy of an idol. The old man, like all his brothers in belief, did not conceive the Divine Being outside of the painted image; it was in the image that he saw and adored the real presence of the celestial personage. The Image upon the altar, for him, was a creature of flesh and bones; she breathed, smiled, winked, bowed her head, made gestures with her hand. And everywhere it was the same thing: all the sacred statues, in wood, wax, bronze, or silver, lived a real life in their vile substance or precious metal. When they became old, when they broke, or were destroyed in the course of the years, they did not give way to new statues without giving savage signs of their anger. One day a fragment of a bust, become unrecognizable and confounded with firewood, had splurted blood under the axe and uttered threatening words. Another fragment, planed and arranged among the staves of a vat, had manifested its supernatural character by causing the apparition in the water of its primitive and integral form."Hey, there!" cried the old man to a pedestrian, who was painfully walking in the suffocating dust along the curbstone. "Hey, there, Aligi!"He turned towards his guests, adding with commiseration:"He's a good Christian, a man of hereabouts. He's going to carry his vow. He is convalescent. Do you see, signora, how winded he is? Will you let him ride on the front seat?""Yes, yes. Stop, stop!" said Hippolyte, affected.The carriage stopped."Run, Aligi! The gentlefolk are kind to you. Come, get up!"The good Christian approached. He was gasping, bent over his stick, covered with dust, bathed in perspiration, dazed by the sun. A collar of reddish beard surrounded his chin from one ear to the other, and framed his face dotted with freckles; locks of reddish hair emerged from under his hat, sticking to the forehead and temples; his hollow eyes, converging towards the base of the nose, of no precise color, recalled those of epileptics. Gasping and hoarsely, he said:"Thanks! God will reward you. May the Madonna protect you! But I can't ride."He held in his right hand an object wrapped in a white handkerchief."Is that your offering?" asked Colas. "Let us see."The man opened the corners of the handkerchief, and showed a waxen leg as livid as the leg of a cadaver and on it was painted a festering sore. The heat had softened it and made it shiny, as if moist with sweat."Don't you see it's melting?"And Colas stretched out his hand to feel it."It's soft. If you go on walking, it'll drip on to the road."Aligi repeated:"I can't ride. I made a vow to go on foot."And, not without anxiety, he examined the leg by raising it to the level of his oblique eyes.On this scorching road, amid this dust, under this great strong light, nothing sadder could be imagined than this emaciated man and that livid thing, repugnant as an amputated limb, which was to perpetuate the memory of a sore on walls already covered by silent and motionless effigies of so many infirmities visited upon human flesh through all the centuries."Hey, there!"And the horses resumed their trot.After the small hills were left behind, the road crossed a plain rich in harvests, almost ripe. The old man, with his senile loquaciousness, related the episodes of Aligi's malady, spoke of the gangrenous sore cured by the Virgin's finger. To the right and left of the road the sweet ears of corn surpassed the hedges, suggesting a beautiful overflowing cup."There's the Sanctuary!" exclaimed Hippolyte.And she pointed to a red brick edifice which rose in the centre of a great, encumbered plain.A few moments later, the carriage rejoined the crowd.CHAPTER VI.It was a marvellous and terrible spectacle, unheard of, without resemblance to any conglomeration ever seen before, whether of men or things; a pell-mell so strange, so violent and incongruous, that it exceeded the most troubled dreams of nightmare. All the ugliness of the eternal islet, all the shameful vices, all the stupors; all the spasms and all the deformities of the baptized flesh, all the tears of repentance, all the mockery of the debauchee; insanity, cupidity, cunning, lewdness, stupidity, fear, mortal fatigue, stony indifference, silent despair; sacred choirs, demoniacal shrieks, acrobatic performances, the chiming of bells, the blasts of trumpets, discordant cries, roars, sighs; the crackling of fires beneath cauldrons, heaps of fruits and sugared delicacies, shop windows full of utensils, draperies, arms, jewels, rosaries; the obscene contortions of dancing girls, the convulsions of epileptics, the blows exchanged in angry brawls, the flight of the hunted thief through the surging mob; the scum of the worst corruptions vomited from out the filthy alleys of distant towns and cast upon an ignorant and amazed multitude; clouds of parasites, like gadflies about cattle, falling upon the compact crowd, incapable of self-defence; every base temptation for the brutal appetite, every fraud, every immodesty was exhibited in broad daylight—a pell-mell of everything was there, seething and fermenting around the House of the Virgin.This House was a massive red brick structure, of vulgar architecture, devoid of ornamentation. Against the exterior walls, against the pillars of the portal, peddlers of sacred objects had established their tents, arranged their stalls, and sold their wares. Close by were erected canvas booths, conical in shape, ornamented with large pictures representing bloody battles and cannibal feasts. At the entrance, sinister-looking men, of ignoble and equivocal appearance, trumpeted and vociferated. Shameless women, with enormous legs, swollen abdomens, flabby breasts, clad in dirty tights and bespangled rags, glorified, in extravagant jargon, the marvels hidden by the red curtain behind them. One of these tattered ribalds, who looked like a monster engendered by a dwarf and a sow, gave kisses from her sticky lips to a lascivious monkey, while near her a clown, covered with powder and carmine, struck an ear-splitting bell with frantic fury.The processions arrived in long files, preceded by their cross-bearers, chanting the hymn. The women held each other by a corner of their dresses and walked like ecstatics, stupefied, their eyes wide open and fixed. Those of Trigno wore robes of scarlet plush with a thousand folds, caught up in the middle of the back, almost under the shoulders, and crossed at the hips by a multicolored scarf which raised the dress, tightened it, and formed a swelling like a hump. And as, broken by fatigue, they wended their way—bent, their limbs staggering, dragging shoes heavy as lead, they had the appearance of strange, gibbous animals. Many had goitres; and their golden necklaces glistened beneath the sunburnt swellings.Viva Maria!Above the crowd appeared the soothsayers, seated in front, opposite each other, on a small, raised platform. Their head-bandage permitted a view only of the loquacious mouth, tireless, full of saliva. They spoke in a sing-song tone, raising and lowering their voices, their nodding heads keeping time with the music. At intervals they reswallowed the superabundant saliva, with a light, whistling sound. One of them displayed a greasy playing-card, crying, "This is the anchor of good hope!" Another, from whose enormous mouth darted in and out, between decayed teeth, a tongue covered with a yellowish ecuma, leaned her whole person towards the auditors, having on her knees her large varicose hands and in the hollow of her lap a heap of copper coins. The auditors, very attentive, did not lose a word, did not wink, did not make a single gesture. But, from time to time, they moistened their parched lips with their tongues.Viva Maria!New bands of pilgrims arrived, passed, disappeared. Here and there, in the shadow of the booths, under big blue parasols, or even in the sun, old women, broken by fatigue, lay on the dry grass, sleeping, their bodies bent forward, their faces between their hands. Others, seated in a ring, their legs wide apart, painfully and silently chewing carrots and bread, caring for naught, indifferent to the surrounding tumult; and one saw the too large mouthfuls pass with effort down their gullets as yellow and wrinkled as the membrane of a tortoise. Several were covered with sores, scabs or scars, without teeth, without eyelashes, without hair; they did not sleep, did not eat; they lay motionless and resigned, as if they awaited death; and upon their poor carcasses whirled a cloud of thick and eager flies as over carrion in a ditch.But in the booths, beneath the tents heated by the mid-day sun, around the posts driven in the earth and ornamented with branches, was exercised the voracity of those who had laboriously scraped together until this day a few savings so as to accomplish the sacred vow, and also to satisfy an enormous desire to indulge in the feast, long anticipated during the meagre meals and rude toil. One saw their faces bent over their porringers, the movements of their grinding jaws, the gestures of their hands which rend, all their brutish actions in a desperate struggle with the unaccustomed aliments. Large saucepans full of a violet-colored mass were smoking in circular holes in the ground, transformed into furnaces; and the appetizing vapors spread all around. One young girl, lank and greenish as a locust, offered long rows of cheese, shaped like little horses, birds, or flowers. A man who had a face as smooth and soft as a woman's, with gold rings in his ears, with hands and arms colored by aniline like dyers', offered for sale sorbets which looked like poison.Viva Maria!New bands arrived, passed by. The mob surged about the portal, unable to penetrate into the church, already invaded and jammed. Jugglers, sharpers, sharks, gamesters, thieves, charlatans of all kinds, called them, misled them, cajoled them. This brotherhood of plunder scented its prey from afar, struck it like a thunderbolt, never missed its aim. They allured the simpleton in a thousand ways, raising in him the hope of rapid and sure gains; with infinite artifice, they persuaded him to take chances—they excited in him an almost feverish cupidity. Then, when he had lost all prudence and all clearsightedness, they robbed him of his last penny, merciless, by the easiest and quickest frauds; and they left him stupefied and miserable, laughing in his face and sneaking away. But the example did not prevent the others from falling into the trap. Each, deeming himself more clever and less gullible, offered to avenge his ridiculed comrade, and plunged furiously to his ruin. Incalculable privations, supported without respite in order to make a little money, amounting to the savings of an entire year scraped together penny by penny from the vital necessities—those inexpressible privations which make the avarice of the countryman as sordid and as greedy as that of mendicants—were all revealed in the trembling, callous hand which drew the money from the bottom of the pocket to expose it to chance.Viva Maria!New bands arrived, passed by. A constantly renewed torrent persisted in cleaving the confused and surging mob; a cadence, always the same, rose above the medley of all the acclamations. Gradually, against this rumbling background of discordant sounds, the ear no longer discerned anything but the distinct name of Mary. The hymn triumphed over the uproar. The continuous and unchained tide battered the walls of the Sanctuary heated by the sun.Viva Maria!Viva Maria!For a few minutes longer George and Hippolyte, dismayed, afflicted, contemplated this formidable crowd, from which arose a nauseating stench, from which emerged here and there the painted faces of mimes and the hooded faces of the fortune-tellers. Disgust arose in their throats, impelled them to flee; and yet the attraction of this human spectacle was stronger, retained them in this heaped-up horde, led them to the spots where the worst misery was exhibited, where the worst excesses of cruelty, ignorance, and fraud were revealed, where voices howled or tears streamed."Let us get nearer the church," said Hippolyte, who, forgetting herself, seemed to be invaded by the flame of insanity diffused by the passing bands, whose wild fanaticism seemed to increase in fury as the sun beat down more furiously on their heads."Are you not tired?" asked George, taking her hands. "If you like, we'll go away. We'll look for some place where we can rest. I'm afraid it may hurt you. We will go if you like.""No, no; I am strong. I can stand it. Let us get nearer. Let us enter the church. You see, everybody is going there. Do you hear how they are shouting?" She was visibly suffering. Her mouth was convulsed, the muscles of her face contracted; and her hand constantly tormented George's arm. But her gaze never left the door of the Sanctuary, nor that veil of bluish smoke through which, by turns, scintillated and disappeared the little flames of the wax tapers."Do you hear how they are shouting?"She staggered. The cries resembled those of a massacre, as if men and women were cutting each other's throats, were struggling in oceans of blood.Colas said:"They are asking favors."The old man had not left his guests for an instant; he had taken a thousand pains to open a passage for them in the crowd, to make a little space about them."Do you want to go there?" he asked.Hippolyte made up her mind."Yes, let us go."Colas preceded them, pushing right and left with his elbows in order to get near the portals. Hippolyte no longer touched the ground, almost carried in the arms of George, who summoned all his strength in order to support her and himself. A female beggar pursued them, kept at their heels, pleading for charity in a lamentable tone, stretching out her hand, at times advancing it so far as to touch them. And they saw nothing but this senile hand, deformed by large knots at the joints, of a bluish yellow, with long violet-hued nails, with the skin peeling between the fingers—such a hand as might belong to a sick and decrepit monkey.Finally they arrived at the portal; and they leaned back against one of the pillars, near the stand of a vender of rosaries.The processions, while waiting their turn to enter, marched around the church; they turned, turned without cease—heads uncovered, behind the cross-bearers, without ever interrupting their chant. Men and women carried a stick surmounted either with a cross or a bunch of flowers, and leaned upon it with all the weight of their fatigue. Their brows dripped with perspiration; streams of perspiration rolled down their cheeks, soaked their clothes. The men had their shirts open at their breasts, the neck bare, the arms bare; and on their hands, on their wrists, on the backs of their arms, on their breasts, the skin was checkered with marks tattooed in indigo, in commemoration of sanctuaries visited, of favors received, of vows accomplished. Every deformity of muscle or bone, every variety of physical ugliness, every indelible imprint left by manual toil, intemperateness, and disease: heads pointed and flat, bald or woolly, covered with scars or excrescences; eyes white and opaque as globes of butter-milk, eyes glaucous and sad like those of large, lonely frogs; flat noses as if crushed by the blow of a fist, or hooked like the beaks of vultures, or long and fat like trunks, or almost destroyed by eating ulcers; cheeks red-veined like the bunches of the vine in Autumn, or yellowish and wrinkled like the belly of a ruminant, or bristling with reddish hairs like the spears of maize; mouths as thin as the gash of a razor, or wide open and flabby like over-ripe figs, or shrunken and shrivelled like dry leaves, or furnished with teeth as formidable as those of a wild boar; hare-lips, goitres, erysipelas, scrofulas, pustules—all the horrors of the human flesh passed, in the light of the sun, before the House of the Virgin.Viva Maria!Each band had its cross-bearer and its chief. The leader was a strong-limbed, violent man, who incessantly stimulated the faithful by the yells and actions of a maniac, sinking the laggards on their backs, dragging the exhausted old men, swearing at the women who interrupted the hymn to take breath. An olive-colored giant, whose eyes glittered beneath a great shock of black hair, dragged along three women by the three cords of three halters. Another woman marched in front, naked in a sack from which only her head and arms appeared. Another, long and emaciated, with a livid face and whitish eyes, marched along like a somnambulist, without chanting, without ever turning, displaying on her breast a red sash resembling the bloody bandage of a mortal wound; and every moment she tottered, as if her limbs had no longer sufficient strength to support her, and she were about to fall to rise no more. Another, wild as a beast of prey, a true rustic Fury, with a blood-colored mantle wound around her bony shanks, with glittering embroideries on her bosom, like scales on a fish, brandished a black crucifix to guide and excite her detachment. Another wore on her head a cradle covered with a sombre cloth, like Liberata on the funereal night.Viva Maria!They turned, turned without cease; hastening their steps, raising their voices, exciting themselves more and more to yell and gesticulate like demons. Virgins, almost bald at the top of their heads, their scant hair flowing loose and almost impregnated with olive-oil, stupid as sheep, advanced in files, each holding her hand on the shoulder of her companion, her eyes fixed on the ground, and full of repentance: miserable creatures whose wombs were destined to perpetuate in the baptized flesh, without enjoyment, the instincts and sadness of the primeval beast. In a sort of deep coffin carried by four men lay a paralytic, suffocating from obesity, with dangling hands, twisted and knotted like roots by a frightful case of gout. A continual trembling shook his hands; an abundant sweat dropped from his brow and bald head, streaming down his big face, colored like a faded rose, covered with fine network like the spleen of an ox. And he wore a number of scapularies suspended from his neck, with the picture of the Image spread over his abdomen. He wheezed and lamented as if already seized by the terrors of the impending death-agony; round about him was an unbearable stench, as of putrefying flesh; he exhaled from every pore the atrocious torments which the last palpitations of life caused him. And yet he did not wish to die, and so as not to die he had himself carried in a coffin to the feet of the Mother. Not far from him, other vigorous men, experienced in carrying massive statues on high standards at holy festivals, dragged a lunatic by the arms; and the lunatic struggled in their grasp, shrieking, his clothes in tatters, foaming at the mouth, his eyes starting from their sockets, the veins of his neck swollen, his hair dishevelled, as black in the face as a hanged man. Aligi also passed, the man elect by grace, paler now than his waxen limb. And once more they all went by again in their endless turning: the three women led by halters passed; the Fury with the black crucifix passed; and passed also the taciturn woman with the bloody scarf; and she carrying the cradle on her head; and she dressed in a sack, imprisoned in her mortification, bathed in silent tears which gushed from beneath her lowered eyelids, a figure of the distant ages, isolated in the crowd, as if enveloped in a breath of ancient penitential rigor, and resurrecting in George's soul the great and spotless Clementine basilica, whose rude, primitive crypt reminded him of the Christians of the ninth century, the time of Ludovic II.Viva Maria!They turned and turned, without ever stopping, hastening their steps, raising their voices, almost crazed by the sun which beat upon their heads, excited by the yells of the fanatics and by the acclamations heard within the church as they passed before the door, carried away by a terrific frenzy which impelled them to sanguinary sacrifices, to the tortures of the flesh, to the most inhuman tests. They turned, turned, impatient to enter, impatient to prostrate themselves on the sacred stone, to fill with their tears the furrows worn there by thousands upon thousands of knees. They turned, turned, increasing in number, pushing, jostling, with such an accordance of fury that they appeared no longer a conglomeration of individuals, but a compact mass, some kind of blind matter projected by a vertiginous power.Viva Maria!Viva Maria!In the mass, a young man suddenly fell down, struck by an attack of epilepsy. His neighbors surrounded him, carried him away from the whirlpool. Others, numerous, left the mob which occupied the esplanade, and ran to see the sight."What has happened?" asked Hippolyte, growing paler, with an extraordinary change in her face and voice."Nothing, nothing—a sunstroke," replied George, taking her by the arm, and trying to lead her away.But Hippolyte had understood. She had seen two men forcibly open the jaws of the epileptic, and insert a key in his mouth, doubtless to prevent his biting his tongue. And, at the thought, she felt in her own teeth that horrible grating, and an instinctive shudder shook her to the inner-most depths of her being, there where the "sacred evil" slept with a possibility of awakening.Colas di Sciampagne said:"It is someone who has the Saint Donat malady. Don't be afraid.""Let us go—let us go away!" insisted George, uneasy, dismayed, trying to lead his companion elsewhere."What if she were similarly taken, all at once," he thought. "What if the disease attacked her here, in the midst of this crowd?"A chill ran through him. He recalled the letters dated from Caronno, those letters in which she had made the frightful revelation in hopeless terms. And again, as then, he imagined: "Her hands, pallid and shrivelled, and between the fingers the torn-out curl of hair.""Let us go away! Do you want to enter the church?"She remained silent, stupefied, as if by a blow on the head."Shall we enter?" repeated George, shaking her, and attempting to dissimulate his own anxiety.He would have liked to ask, also: "Of what are you thinking?" But he did not dare. He saw in Hippolyte's eyes such profound sadness that he felt his heart oppressed and a choking sensation in his throat. Then, the suspicion that this silence and stupor might be the precursors of an imminent attack filled him with a sort of panicky terror.Without reflection, he stammered:"Are you ill?"These anxious words, which were a confession of his suspicion, which revealed his secret fear, increased still more the trouble of the two lovers."No, no," she said, with a visible shudder, benumbed with horror, and pressed close to George, that he might defend her from the peril.Hemmed in by the mob, dismayed, disgusted, miserable like the others, as needful of pity and help as the rest, crushed like the others beneath the weight of their mortal flesh, both, for a moment, felt in veritable communion with the multitude in the midst of which they trembled and suffered; both, for a moment, forgot in the immensity of human sorrow the limits of their souls.It was Hippolyte who was the first to turn towards the church, towards the great portal, towards that veil of bluish smoke through which, by turns, scintillated and disappeared the little flames of the wax tapers."Let us go in," she said, in a choking voice, without leaving George's side.Colas remarked that it was impossible to enter by the main entrance."But," he added, "I know another door—follow me."With great difficulty they forced a passage. And yet, a false energy sustained them; a blind obstinacy impelled them on, almost like that displayed by the fanatics in their endless turning. They had caught the contagion. From now on George no longer felt he was master of himself. His nerves dominated him, imposed on him the disorder and excess of their sensations."Follow me!" repeated the old man, stemming the torrent by sheer strength of his elbows, and struggling fiercely to protect his guests against the crush.They entered by a side door into a sort of sacristy, from which could be seen, through a bluish smoke, the walls entirely covered by votive offerings of wax suspended there in proof of the miracles accomplished by the Virgin. Limbs, arms, hands, feet, breasts, shapeless pieces representing tumors, gangrenes, and ulcers, horrid representations of monstrous maladies, pictures of violet and crimson sores which cried out from the pallor of the wax—all these objects, motionless on the four high walls, had a mortuary appearance, horrifying and frightful, evoking the image of a charnel-house where are piled up all the limbs amputated in a hospital. Heaps of human bodies encumbered the pavement, inert; and in the heap appeared livid faces, bleeding mouths, dusty faces, bald heads, white hair. They were nearly all old people, prostrated by a spasm in front of the altar, carried in arms, and heaped in piles like cadavers in time of a pest. Another old man arrived from the church, carried in the arms of two men who were sobbing: the motion caused his head to hang now on his chest, now on his shoulder; drops of blood rained on his shirt front from lacerations of his nose, lips, and chin. Behind him continued the hopeless cries of anguish, imploring the favor which this old man had not obtained."Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"It was an unheard-of clamor, more atrocious than the yells of a man burnt alive without hope of salvation; more terrible than the cry of shipwrecked sailors condemned to a certain death upon the nocturnal sea."Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"A thousand arms were stretched towards the altar with savage frenzy. The women dragged themselves along on their knees, sobbing, tearing out their hair, striking their hips, bruising their foreheads on the stones, twisting as if in convulsions or possessed. Many, on all fours, sustaining the entire weight of their horizontal bodies on their elbows and naked toes, advanced gradually towards the altar. They crawled along like reptiles, they gathered themselves together, springing on their toes, with progressive propulsions, and beneath their petticoats could be seen their callous yellow soles, the projecting and pointed ankle-bones of their feet. At times the hands seconded the efforts of the elbows, trembling around the mouth which kissed the dust, near the tongue which traced in this dust the sign of the cross, with a saliva mixed with blood. And the crawling bodies passed over these bloody tracings without effacing them, whilst, before each head, a man erect struck the pavement with the tip of a stick in order to indicate the right way to the altar."Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"Kinswomen, dragging themselves along on their knees on each side of the furrow, superintended the votive agony. From time to time they leaned forward to encourage their unfortunate sisters. When the latter seemed about to faint, they went to their relief, supported them under the arms, or fanned their heads with a cloth. While doing this they shed hot tears; and wept even more copiously when they assisted the old men or adolescents, acquitting themselves of the same vows. For there were not only women, but also old men, adults, adolescents, who, to approach the altar, to be worthy to lift their eyes towards the Image, subjected themselves to this torment. Each placed his tongue on the spot where another had already left a wet trace; each struck his forehead or his chin on the spot where another had already left a shred of his skin, a drop of his blood, of his sweat, and of his tears. Suddenly a long ray of sunlight penetrated the large portal into the interstices of the crowd, illuminating the soles of the shrunken feet, calloused by the arid soil or mountainous rocks, so deformed that they appeared less the feet of human beings than the feet of beasts; illuminating bald and hairy heads, white with old age, or light brown or black, supported by bull-like necks which swelled in the effort, or shaking and weak like the greenish head of an old turtle, out of his shell, or like a disinterred skull still bearing a few grayish locks and a few shreds of reddish skin.Now and then, over this swarm of reptiles, a blue wave of incense spread slowly, veiling for a moment this humility, this hope, and this bodily pain, as if in compassion. New patients forced a passage, presented themselves at the altar to solicit the miracle; and their shadows and their voices covered the prostrate bodies that seemed as if they would never be able to rise."Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"The mothers exposed their dried-up breasts, which they showed to the Virgin, imploring the blessing of milk, while behind them their kinswomen carried the emaciated children, almost dying, who uttered wailing cries. Wives prayed for the fecundity of their sterile womb, and gave as offerings their clothes and marriage jewels."Holy Virgin, have mercy on me, in the name of the Son whom thou dost bear in thine arms!"They prayed at first in low tones, tearfully reciting their woes, as if they were having a secret conversation with the Image, as if the Image were bending forward from above to listen to their lamentations. Then, gradually, they exalted themselves almost to the point of fury, insanity, as if they wished, by their acclamations and insane gestures, to compel consent to the prodigy. They summoned all their energy to utter a superhuman shriek capable of reaching the very bottom of the Virgin's heart."Have mercy on us! Have mercy on us!"And they stopped, staring anxiously, with their dilated and fixed eyes, in the hope of surprising, finally, a sign upon the visage of the celestial person who scintillated in a reflection of jewels between the columns of the inaccessible altar.Another wave of fanatics arrived, took their places, spread out along the entire length of the railing. Tumultuous cries and violent gestures alternated with their offerings. Inside the railing which intercepted the access to the large altar, priests received in their fat and white hands the moneys and trinkets. In the act of tendering the right or left hand, on either side, they balanced themselves like caged beasts in a menagerie. Behind them, the clerks held large metal plates on which the offerings jinglingly accumulated. On one side, near the door of the sacristy, other priests were stooping over a table: they were counting the money and examining the jewels, while one of them, bony and brownish, made entries with a quill pen in a large ledger. They each performed this task in turn, and then left it to officiate. From time to time the bell sounded, and the censer was elevated amidst a cloud of smoke. Long, bluish waves rolled around the tonsured heads and dispersed on the other side of the railing. The sacred perfume mingled with the human stench."Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix ...Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi."At times, during unexpected and terrible pauses like those of a hurricane, when the crowd was oppressed by the anguish of expectation, one could distinctly hear the Latin words:"Concede nos famulos tuos."Beneath the large portal advanced with pomp a married couple, escorted by all their relatives in a blaze of gold, in a rustling of silk. The spouse, young and vigorous, had a head like a barbarian queen, with thick and joining eyebrows, wavy and shining black hair, a fleshy and blood-red mouth, in which the incisive, irregular teeth raised the upper lip, shaded with a virile shadow. A necklace of large gold beads was wound thrice around her neck; large gold hoops embellished with filigree work hung from her ears, on her cheeks; a corsage scintillating like a coat of mail confined her bosom. She marched gravely, entirely absorbed in her thoughts, scarcely winking her eyelids, holding her ringed hand on her husband's shoulder. The husband was also young, of medium stature, almost beardless, very pale and with an expression of profound sadness, as if devoured by a sad secret. The appearance of both seemed to indicate the fatality of a primitive mystery.Whispers spread around their passage. They themselves neither spoke nor turned their heads, followed by their parents, men and women, entwined in a chain by their arms, as if about to perform an ancient dance. "What vow were they accomplishing? What favors were they asking?"The news spread in a low tone from mouth to mouth: they asked for the young man a return of genital virility, of which some evil influence doubtless had deprived him. The virginity of his spouse still remained intact; the conjugal couch was still immaculate.When they were near to the railing they both raised their eyes toward the Image silently; and they remained a few moments motionless, absorbed in the same mute supplication. But, behind them, the two mothers extended their arms, agitated their dried and wrinkled hands, which on the marriage day had distributed in vain the augural grain. They stretched out their arms and cried:"Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"With slow gestures, the wife removed the rings from her fingers and offered them. Then she took out the heavy golden hoops. Then she took off her hereditary necklace. All this wealth she offered at the altar."Take it, blessed Virgin! Take it, most Holy Mary of Miracles!" cried the mothers, with voices already rendered hoarse by their cries, with demonstrations redoubled by fervor, each glancing at the other sidewise to see that her neighbor was not surpassing her in ardor in the eyes of the attentive crowd."Take it! Take it!"They saw the gold fall, fall into the hands of the impassive priest; then they heard the precious metal jingle on the clerk's plate, coin acquired by dint of the persistent toil of several generations, preserved for years and years at the bottom of the strong box, and brought to light again at every new wedding-day. They beheld fall the family wealth, fall, disappear forever. The immensity of the sacrifice plunged them into despair, and their distress extended to their kinsmen. The relatives ended by uttering piercing shrieks altogether. The young man alone remained silent, keeping constantly fixed on the Image his eyes, from which gushed two streams of silent tears.Then there was a pause, during which one could hear the Latin words of the service and the cadence chanted by the processions which were still turning around the church. Then the couple resumed their first position, and, their eyes still fixed on the Image, slowly fell back.A new band, yelling furiously, now interposed between them and the railing. For a few seconds the young woman towered a head above the tumult, despoiled now of all her bridal jewelry, but more beautiful and more vigorous, enveloped in a sort of Dionysiac mystery, exhaling over this barbaric multitude a breath as of very ancient life; and she disappeared, never to be forgotten. Exalted far beyond the time and the reality, George's gaze followed her until she disappeared. His soul lived in the horror of an unknown world; in the presence of a nameless people, associated with rites of very obscure origin. The faces of men and women appeared to him as if in a delirious vision, marked with the stamp of a humanity other than his own, and formed of a different substance; and the looks, the motions, and the voices, and all the perceptible signs, struck him with stupor, as if they had had no analogy with the habitual human expressions which he had known up to then. Certain figures exercised over him a sudden magnetic attraction. He followed them in the crowd, dragging Hippolyte with him; he gazed after them on tiptoe; he watched all their actions; he felt their cries reverberate in his own heart; he felt himself invaded by the same madness; he himself felt a brutal desire to shout and gesticulate.From time to time Hippolyte and he glanced at each other; they saw each other pale, convulsed, aghast, exhausted. But neither one proposed to leave the terrible place, as if they lacked the strength to do so. Jostled by the mob, almost carried away at times, they wandered here and there in the midst of the uproar, holding hands or arms, while the old man made continuous efforts to help and protect them. A procession, coming up, forced them against the railing. During several minutes they remained there, prisoners, closed in on all sides, enveloped by the smoke of the incense, deafened by the cries, suffocated by the heat, in the thickest part of the gesticulating and insanity."Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"It was the reptile women, who, arrived at last, rose to their feet. One among them was carried by her relatives, rigid as a corpse. They stood her on her feet; they shook her. She seemed dead. Her face was all dusty, the skin flayed from her nose and forehead, her mouth full of blood. Those who helped her blew in her face to bring her back to consciousness, wiped her mouth with a cloth which became crimson, shook her again and called her by name. All at once her head fell back; then she threw herself against the railing, grasped the iron bars, stiffened her whole body, and began to scream like a woman in delivery.She yelled and struggled, drowning every other clamor. A torrent of tears inundated her face, washing off the dust and blood."Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"And behind her, by her sides, other women surged, tottered, reanimated themselves, implored:"Mercy! Mercy!"They lost their voices, grew pale, broke down heavily, and were carried away inert masses, while others again seemed to surge up from below ground."Mercy! Mercy!"These shrieks, which rent the breasts that emitted them; these syllables repeated without cease, with the persistence of the same unconquerable faith; this thick smoke, which overhung like the cloud of a tempest; this contact of bodies, this mixture of breaths, the sight of this blood and these tears—all this made that at one moment the entire multitude found itself possessed by a single soul, became a single being, miserable and terrible, having but one gesture, but one voice, but one convulsion, but one frenzy. All the evils melted into one single evil, which the Virgin should destroy; all the hopes melted into one single hope, which the Virgin should grant."Mercy! Mercy!"And, beneath the scintillating Image, the little flames of the waxen tapers trembled before this wind of passion.
CHAPTER V.[*]
[*] It should, perhaps, be mentioned here that the publication of "The Triumph of Death" began in the Mattino, of Naples, on February 12, 1893, while the publication of Émile Zola's work "Lourdes" only began in theGil Blas, of Paris, on April 15, 1894.—TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
Since dawn, train after train had vomited immense waves of humanity on the platforms of the Casalbordino Station. People from the villages and market towns mingled with fraternities from the most distant hamlets who had not wished, or been able, to make the pilgrimage on foot. They precipitated themselves in a tumult from the carriages, shouting, gesticulating, and pushing each other to storm the wagons and coaches, amid the cracking of whips and the tinkling of bells; or, again, they fell into line, in long files, behind a crucifix, and, when their procession started on the dusty road, they struck up the hymn.
Already frightened by the size of the crowd, George and Hippolyte turned instinctively toward the sea close by, to wait until the crowd dispersed. A field of hemp undulated peacefully before the blue background of the waters. The sails shone like flames on the clear horizon.
George said to his companion:
"Aren't you afraid? I fear the fatigue will hurt you."
She replied:
"Do not be alarmed; I am strong. Besides, to deserve a favor, must one not suffer a little?"
He replied, smiling:
"Are you going to ask a favor?"
"Yes, only one."
"But are we not in the state of mortal sin?"
"That is true."
"Well, then?"
"I shall ask, just the same."
They had brought with them old Colas, who, acquainted with the localities and usages, served them as a guide. As soon as the door of their compartment was disencumbered they descended, and got into a coach which started off at a gallop, with a great tinkling of bells. The horses were decorated and plumed likebarberi. The drivers wore peacocks' feathers in their hats, and did not cease flourishing their whips, accompanying the deafening cracks with hoarse cries.
Hippolyte, tormented by impatience and extraordinary uneasiness, as if this day were to realize some great event for her, asked the old man:
"How long will it take to get there?"
"Half an hour at the most."
"Is the church very old?"
"No, signora. I can still remember the time when it didn't exist. Fifty years ago, there was only a small chapel."
He drew from his pocket a sheet of paper folded in four, unfolded it, and showed it to George.
"You can read it. It's the history of the church."
It was a picture, with the legend at the bottom. The Virgin, in a cloud of angels, was seated on an olive-tree, and an old man was adoring her, prostrated at the foot of the trunk. This old man was named Alexander Muzio: and this is the story as told by the legend:
"In the year of Our Lord 1527, during the evening of the 10th of June, the Sunday of the Pentecost, a storm broke over the district of Casalbordino and devastated the vines, the corn, and the olive-groves. The following morning, an old septuagenarian of Pollutro, Alexander Muzio, proprietor of a wheat field at Pinno del Lago, started on his way to visit it. His heart sank at the sight of the damaged crops; but, in his profound humility, he praised the justice of God. Very devoted to the Holy Virgin, he was telling his beads while walking, when, at the end of the valley, he heard the bell ringing at the elevation of the Mass. He immediately kneeled down and concentrated all his fervor for the prayer. But while he prayed he saw himself surrounded by a brilliancy which eclipsed that of the sun, and in this brilliancy appeared to him the Mother of Mercy, robed in azure; and she spoke to him sweetly: 'Go and carry the news. Let a temple be raised on this spot, and I will distribute my favors here. Go to thy field, and thou wilt find thy wheat intact.' She disappeared with her crown of angels. And the old man rose, went as far as his field, found his wheat intact. Then he hastened to Pollutro, saw the curate Mariano d' Iddone, related to him the prodigy. In a few seconds the news had spread all over the Casalbordino district. The entire population ran to the holy spot, saw the dry soil around the tree, saw undulate the prosperous harvest, recognized the miracle, and shed tears of penitence and feeling. Soon afterwards the Vicar of Arabona laid the first stone of a chapel, and the proxies for the edification were Geronimo di Geronimo and Giovanni Fatalone, Casalesians. On the altar they painted the Virgin, with the old Alexander prostrated in the act of adoration."
The legend was simple, commonplace, similar to a hundred others founded on miracle. Since that first act of mercy, it was in the name of the Virgin that ships were saved from the tempest, lands from the hail, travellers from robbers, sick people from death. Placed amidst an unfortunate people, the Image was an inexhaustible source of salvation.
"Of all the Madonnas in the world, ours is the one who does most good," said Colas di Sciampagne, kissing the sacred sheet before replacing it in his bosom. "They say that another vision has been seen in the kingdom. But ours is the best. Don't be afraid. She's worth all the others——"
His tone and his attitude displayed that sectarian fanaticism which fires the blood of all idolaters, and which, at times, in the region of the Abruzzi, impels populations to ferocious wars for the supremacy of an idol. The old man, like all his brothers in belief, did not conceive the Divine Being outside of the painted image; it was in the image that he saw and adored the real presence of the celestial personage. The Image upon the altar, for him, was a creature of flesh and bones; she breathed, smiled, winked, bowed her head, made gestures with her hand. And everywhere it was the same thing: all the sacred statues, in wood, wax, bronze, or silver, lived a real life in their vile substance or precious metal. When they became old, when they broke, or were destroyed in the course of the years, they did not give way to new statues without giving savage signs of their anger. One day a fragment of a bust, become unrecognizable and confounded with firewood, had splurted blood under the axe and uttered threatening words. Another fragment, planed and arranged among the staves of a vat, had manifested its supernatural character by causing the apparition in the water of its primitive and integral form.
"Hey, there!" cried the old man to a pedestrian, who was painfully walking in the suffocating dust along the curbstone. "Hey, there, Aligi!"
He turned towards his guests, adding with commiseration:
"He's a good Christian, a man of hereabouts. He's going to carry his vow. He is convalescent. Do you see, signora, how winded he is? Will you let him ride on the front seat?"
"Yes, yes. Stop, stop!" said Hippolyte, affected.
The carriage stopped.
"Run, Aligi! The gentlefolk are kind to you. Come, get up!"
The good Christian approached. He was gasping, bent over his stick, covered with dust, bathed in perspiration, dazed by the sun. A collar of reddish beard surrounded his chin from one ear to the other, and framed his face dotted with freckles; locks of reddish hair emerged from under his hat, sticking to the forehead and temples; his hollow eyes, converging towards the base of the nose, of no precise color, recalled those of epileptics. Gasping and hoarsely, he said:
"Thanks! God will reward you. May the Madonna protect you! But I can't ride."
He held in his right hand an object wrapped in a white handkerchief.
"Is that your offering?" asked Colas. "Let us see."
The man opened the corners of the handkerchief, and showed a waxen leg as livid as the leg of a cadaver and on it was painted a festering sore. The heat had softened it and made it shiny, as if moist with sweat.
"Don't you see it's melting?"
And Colas stretched out his hand to feel it.
"It's soft. If you go on walking, it'll drip on to the road."
Aligi repeated:
"I can't ride. I made a vow to go on foot."
And, not without anxiety, he examined the leg by raising it to the level of his oblique eyes.
On this scorching road, amid this dust, under this great strong light, nothing sadder could be imagined than this emaciated man and that livid thing, repugnant as an amputated limb, which was to perpetuate the memory of a sore on walls already covered by silent and motionless effigies of so many infirmities visited upon human flesh through all the centuries.
"Hey, there!"
And the horses resumed their trot.
After the small hills were left behind, the road crossed a plain rich in harvests, almost ripe. The old man, with his senile loquaciousness, related the episodes of Aligi's malady, spoke of the gangrenous sore cured by the Virgin's finger. To the right and left of the road the sweet ears of corn surpassed the hedges, suggesting a beautiful overflowing cup.
"There's the Sanctuary!" exclaimed Hippolyte.
And she pointed to a red brick edifice which rose in the centre of a great, encumbered plain.
A few moments later, the carriage rejoined the crowd.
CHAPTER VI.
It was a marvellous and terrible spectacle, unheard of, without resemblance to any conglomeration ever seen before, whether of men or things; a pell-mell so strange, so violent and incongruous, that it exceeded the most troubled dreams of nightmare. All the ugliness of the eternal islet, all the shameful vices, all the stupors; all the spasms and all the deformities of the baptized flesh, all the tears of repentance, all the mockery of the debauchee; insanity, cupidity, cunning, lewdness, stupidity, fear, mortal fatigue, stony indifference, silent despair; sacred choirs, demoniacal shrieks, acrobatic performances, the chiming of bells, the blasts of trumpets, discordant cries, roars, sighs; the crackling of fires beneath cauldrons, heaps of fruits and sugared delicacies, shop windows full of utensils, draperies, arms, jewels, rosaries; the obscene contortions of dancing girls, the convulsions of epileptics, the blows exchanged in angry brawls, the flight of the hunted thief through the surging mob; the scum of the worst corruptions vomited from out the filthy alleys of distant towns and cast upon an ignorant and amazed multitude; clouds of parasites, like gadflies about cattle, falling upon the compact crowd, incapable of self-defence; every base temptation for the brutal appetite, every fraud, every immodesty was exhibited in broad daylight—a pell-mell of everything was there, seething and fermenting around the House of the Virgin.
This House was a massive red brick structure, of vulgar architecture, devoid of ornamentation. Against the exterior walls, against the pillars of the portal, peddlers of sacred objects had established their tents, arranged their stalls, and sold their wares. Close by were erected canvas booths, conical in shape, ornamented with large pictures representing bloody battles and cannibal feasts. At the entrance, sinister-looking men, of ignoble and equivocal appearance, trumpeted and vociferated. Shameless women, with enormous legs, swollen abdomens, flabby breasts, clad in dirty tights and bespangled rags, glorified, in extravagant jargon, the marvels hidden by the red curtain behind them. One of these tattered ribalds, who looked like a monster engendered by a dwarf and a sow, gave kisses from her sticky lips to a lascivious monkey, while near her a clown, covered with powder and carmine, struck an ear-splitting bell with frantic fury.
The processions arrived in long files, preceded by their cross-bearers, chanting the hymn. The women held each other by a corner of their dresses and walked like ecstatics, stupefied, their eyes wide open and fixed. Those of Trigno wore robes of scarlet plush with a thousand folds, caught up in the middle of the back, almost under the shoulders, and crossed at the hips by a multicolored scarf which raised the dress, tightened it, and formed a swelling like a hump. And as, broken by fatigue, they wended their way—bent, their limbs staggering, dragging shoes heavy as lead, they had the appearance of strange, gibbous animals. Many had goitres; and their golden necklaces glistened beneath the sunburnt swellings.
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
Above the crowd appeared the soothsayers, seated in front, opposite each other, on a small, raised platform. Their head-bandage permitted a view only of the loquacious mouth, tireless, full of saliva. They spoke in a sing-song tone, raising and lowering their voices, their nodding heads keeping time with the music. At intervals they reswallowed the superabundant saliva, with a light, whistling sound. One of them displayed a greasy playing-card, crying, "This is the anchor of good hope!" Another, from whose enormous mouth darted in and out, between decayed teeth, a tongue covered with a yellowish ecuma, leaned her whole person towards the auditors, having on her knees her large varicose hands and in the hollow of her lap a heap of copper coins. The auditors, very attentive, did not lose a word, did not wink, did not make a single gesture. But, from time to time, they moistened their parched lips with their tongues.
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
New bands of pilgrims arrived, passed, disappeared. Here and there, in the shadow of the booths, under big blue parasols, or even in the sun, old women, broken by fatigue, lay on the dry grass, sleeping, their bodies bent forward, their faces between their hands. Others, seated in a ring, their legs wide apart, painfully and silently chewing carrots and bread, caring for naught, indifferent to the surrounding tumult; and one saw the too large mouthfuls pass with effort down their gullets as yellow and wrinkled as the membrane of a tortoise. Several were covered with sores, scabs or scars, without teeth, without eyelashes, without hair; they did not sleep, did not eat; they lay motionless and resigned, as if they awaited death; and upon their poor carcasses whirled a cloud of thick and eager flies as over carrion in a ditch.
But in the booths, beneath the tents heated by the mid-day sun, around the posts driven in the earth and ornamented with branches, was exercised the voracity of those who had laboriously scraped together until this day a few savings so as to accomplish the sacred vow, and also to satisfy an enormous desire to indulge in the feast, long anticipated during the meagre meals and rude toil. One saw their faces bent over their porringers, the movements of their grinding jaws, the gestures of their hands which rend, all their brutish actions in a desperate struggle with the unaccustomed aliments. Large saucepans full of a violet-colored mass were smoking in circular holes in the ground, transformed into furnaces; and the appetizing vapors spread all around. One young girl, lank and greenish as a locust, offered long rows of cheese, shaped like little horses, birds, or flowers. A man who had a face as smooth and soft as a woman's, with gold rings in his ears, with hands and arms colored by aniline like dyers', offered for sale sorbets which looked like poison.
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
New bands arrived, passed by. The mob surged about the portal, unable to penetrate into the church, already invaded and jammed. Jugglers, sharpers, sharks, gamesters, thieves, charlatans of all kinds, called them, misled them, cajoled them. This brotherhood of plunder scented its prey from afar, struck it like a thunderbolt, never missed its aim. They allured the simpleton in a thousand ways, raising in him the hope of rapid and sure gains; with infinite artifice, they persuaded him to take chances—they excited in him an almost feverish cupidity. Then, when he had lost all prudence and all clearsightedness, they robbed him of his last penny, merciless, by the easiest and quickest frauds; and they left him stupefied and miserable, laughing in his face and sneaking away. But the example did not prevent the others from falling into the trap. Each, deeming himself more clever and less gullible, offered to avenge his ridiculed comrade, and plunged furiously to his ruin. Incalculable privations, supported without respite in order to make a little money, amounting to the savings of an entire year scraped together penny by penny from the vital necessities—those inexpressible privations which make the avarice of the countryman as sordid and as greedy as that of mendicants—were all revealed in the trembling, callous hand which drew the money from the bottom of the pocket to expose it to chance.
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
New bands arrived, passed by. A constantly renewed torrent persisted in cleaving the confused and surging mob; a cadence, always the same, rose above the medley of all the acclamations. Gradually, against this rumbling background of discordant sounds, the ear no longer discerned anything but the distinct name of Mary. The hymn triumphed over the uproar. The continuous and unchained tide battered the walls of the Sanctuary heated by the sun.
Viva Maria!Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
For a few minutes longer George and Hippolyte, dismayed, afflicted, contemplated this formidable crowd, from which arose a nauseating stench, from which emerged here and there the painted faces of mimes and the hooded faces of the fortune-tellers. Disgust arose in their throats, impelled them to flee; and yet the attraction of this human spectacle was stronger, retained them in this heaped-up horde, led them to the spots where the worst misery was exhibited, where the worst excesses of cruelty, ignorance, and fraud were revealed, where voices howled or tears streamed.
"Let us get nearer the church," said Hippolyte, who, forgetting herself, seemed to be invaded by the flame of insanity diffused by the passing bands, whose wild fanaticism seemed to increase in fury as the sun beat down more furiously on their heads.
"Are you not tired?" asked George, taking her hands. "If you like, we'll go away. We'll look for some place where we can rest. I'm afraid it may hurt you. We will go if you like."
"No, no; I am strong. I can stand it. Let us get nearer. Let us enter the church. You see, everybody is going there. Do you hear how they are shouting?" She was visibly suffering. Her mouth was convulsed, the muscles of her face contracted; and her hand constantly tormented George's arm. But her gaze never left the door of the Sanctuary, nor that veil of bluish smoke through which, by turns, scintillated and disappeared the little flames of the wax tapers.
"Do you hear how they are shouting?"
She staggered. The cries resembled those of a massacre, as if men and women were cutting each other's throats, were struggling in oceans of blood.
Colas said:
"They are asking favors."
The old man had not left his guests for an instant; he had taken a thousand pains to open a passage for them in the crowd, to make a little space about them.
"Do you want to go there?" he asked.
Hippolyte made up her mind.
"Yes, let us go."
Colas preceded them, pushing right and left with his elbows in order to get near the portals. Hippolyte no longer touched the ground, almost carried in the arms of George, who summoned all his strength in order to support her and himself. A female beggar pursued them, kept at their heels, pleading for charity in a lamentable tone, stretching out her hand, at times advancing it so far as to touch them. And they saw nothing but this senile hand, deformed by large knots at the joints, of a bluish yellow, with long violet-hued nails, with the skin peeling between the fingers—such a hand as might belong to a sick and decrepit monkey.
Finally they arrived at the portal; and they leaned back against one of the pillars, near the stand of a vender of rosaries.
The processions, while waiting their turn to enter, marched around the church; they turned, turned without cease—heads uncovered, behind the cross-bearers, without ever interrupting their chant. Men and women carried a stick surmounted either with a cross or a bunch of flowers, and leaned upon it with all the weight of their fatigue. Their brows dripped with perspiration; streams of perspiration rolled down their cheeks, soaked their clothes. The men had their shirts open at their breasts, the neck bare, the arms bare; and on their hands, on their wrists, on the backs of their arms, on their breasts, the skin was checkered with marks tattooed in indigo, in commemoration of sanctuaries visited, of favors received, of vows accomplished. Every deformity of muscle or bone, every variety of physical ugliness, every indelible imprint left by manual toil, intemperateness, and disease: heads pointed and flat, bald or woolly, covered with scars or excrescences; eyes white and opaque as globes of butter-milk, eyes glaucous and sad like those of large, lonely frogs; flat noses as if crushed by the blow of a fist, or hooked like the beaks of vultures, or long and fat like trunks, or almost destroyed by eating ulcers; cheeks red-veined like the bunches of the vine in Autumn, or yellowish and wrinkled like the belly of a ruminant, or bristling with reddish hairs like the spears of maize; mouths as thin as the gash of a razor, or wide open and flabby like over-ripe figs, or shrunken and shrivelled like dry leaves, or furnished with teeth as formidable as those of a wild boar; hare-lips, goitres, erysipelas, scrofulas, pustules—all the horrors of the human flesh passed, in the light of the sun, before the House of the Virgin.
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
Each band had its cross-bearer and its chief. The leader was a strong-limbed, violent man, who incessantly stimulated the faithful by the yells and actions of a maniac, sinking the laggards on their backs, dragging the exhausted old men, swearing at the women who interrupted the hymn to take breath. An olive-colored giant, whose eyes glittered beneath a great shock of black hair, dragged along three women by the three cords of three halters. Another woman marched in front, naked in a sack from which only her head and arms appeared. Another, long and emaciated, with a livid face and whitish eyes, marched along like a somnambulist, without chanting, without ever turning, displaying on her breast a red sash resembling the bloody bandage of a mortal wound; and every moment she tottered, as if her limbs had no longer sufficient strength to support her, and she were about to fall to rise no more. Another, wild as a beast of prey, a true rustic Fury, with a blood-colored mantle wound around her bony shanks, with glittering embroideries on her bosom, like scales on a fish, brandished a black crucifix to guide and excite her detachment. Another wore on her head a cradle covered with a sombre cloth, like Liberata on the funereal night.
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
They turned, turned without cease; hastening their steps, raising their voices, exciting themselves more and more to yell and gesticulate like demons. Virgins, almost bald at the top of their heads, their scant hair flowing loose and almost impregnated with olive-oil, stupid as sheep, advanced in files, each holding her hand on the shoulder of her companion, her eyes fixed on the ground, and full of repentance: miserable creatures whose wombs were destined to perpetuate in the baptized flesh, without enjoyment, the instincts and sadness of the primeval beast. In a sort of deep coffin carried by four men lay a paralytic, suffocating from obesity, with dangling hands, twisted and knotted like roots by a frightful case of gout. A continual trembling shook his hands; an abundant sweat dropped from his brow and bald head, streaming down his big face, colored like a faded rose, covered with fine network like the spleen of an ox. And he wore a number of scapularies suspended from his neck, with the picture of the Image spread over his abdomen. He wheezed and lamented as if already seized by the terrors of the impending death-agony; round about him was an unbearable stench, as of putrefying flesh; he exhaled from every pore the atrocious torments which the last palpitations of life caused him. And yet he did not wish to die, and so as not to die he had himself carried in a coffin to the feet of the Mother. Not far from him, other vigorous men, experienced in carrying massive statues on high standards at holy festivals, dragged a lunatic by the arms; and the lunatic struggled in their grasp, shrieking, his clothes in tatters, foaming at the mouth, his eyes starting from their sockets, the veins of his neck swollen, his hair dishevelled, as black in the face as a hanged man. Aligi also passed, the man elect by grace, paler now than his waxen limb. And once more they all went by again in their endless turning: the three women led by halters passed; the Fury with the black crucifix passed; and passed also the taciturn woman with the bloody scarf; and she carrying the cradle on her head; and she dressed in a sack, imprisoned in her mortification, bathed in silent tears which gushed from beneath her lowered eyelids, a figure of the distant ages, isolated in the crowd, as if enveloped in a breath of ancient penitential rigor, and resurrecting in George's soul the great and spotless Clementine basilica, whose rude, primitive crypt reminded him of the Christians of the ninth century, the time of Ludovic II.
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
They turned and turned, without ever stopping, hastening their steps, raising their voices, almost crazed by the sun which beat upon their heads, excited by the yells of the fanatics and by the acclamations heard within the church as they passed before the door, carried away by a terrific frenzy which impelled them to sanguinary sacrifices, to the tortures of the flesh, to the most inhuman tests. They turned, turned, impatient to enter, impatient to prostrate themselves on the sacred stone, to fill with their tears the furrows worn there by thousands upon thousands of knees. They turned, turned, increasing in number, pushing, jostling, with such an accordance of fury that they appeared no longer a conglomeration of individuals, but a compact mass, some kind of blind matter projected by a vertiginous power.
Viva Maria!Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
Viva Maria!
In the mass, a young man suddenly fell down, struck by an attack of epilepsy. His neighbors surrounded him, carried him away from the whirlpool. Others, numerous, left the mob which occupied the esplanade, and ran to see the sight.
"What has happened?" asked Hippolyte, growing paler, with an extraordinary change in her face and voice.
"Nothing, nothing—a sunstroke," replied George, taking her by the arm, and trying to lead her away.
But Hippolyte had understood. She had seen two men forcibly open the jaws of the epileptic, and insert a key in his mouth, doubtless to prevent his biting his tongue. And, at the thought, she felt in her own teeth that horrible grating, and an instinctive shudder shook her to the inner-most depths of her being, there where the "sacred evil" slept with a possibility of awakening.
Colas di Sciampagne said:
"It is someone who has the Saint Donat malady. Don't be afraid."
"Let us go—let us go away!" insisted George, uneasy, dismayed, trying to lead his companion elsewhere.
"What if she were similarly taken, all at once," he thought. "What if the disease attacked her here, in the midst of this crowd?"
A chill ran through him. He recalled the letters dated from Caronno, those letters in which she had made the frightful revelation in hopeless terms. And again, as then, he imagined: "Her hands, pallid and shrivelled, and between the fingers the torn-out curl of hair."
"Let us go away! Do you want to enter the church?"
She remained silent, stupefied, as if by a blow on the head.
"Shall we enter?" repeated George, shaking her, and attempting to dissimulate his own anxiety.
He would have liked to ask, also: "Of what are you thinking?" But he did not dare. He saw in Hippolyte's eyes such profound sadness that he felt his heart oppressed and a choking sensation in his throat. Then, the suspicion that this silence and stupor might be the precursors of an imminent attack filled him with a sort of panicky terror.
Without reflection, he stammered:
"Are you ill?"
These anxious words, which were a confession of his suspicion, which revealed his secret fear, increased still more the trouble of the two lovers.
"No, no," she said, with a visible shudder, benumbed with horror, and pressed close to George, that he might defend her from the peril.
Hemmed in by the mob, dismayed, disgusted, miserable like the others, as needful of pity and help as the rest, crushed like the others beneath the weight of their mortal flesh, both, for a moment, felt in veritable communion with the multitude in the midst of which they trembled and suffered; both, for a moment, forgot in the immensity of human sorrow the limits of their souls.
It was Hippolyte who was the first to turn towards the church, towards the great portal, towards that veil of bluish smoke through which, by turns, scintillated and disappeared the little flames of the wax tapers.
"Let us go in," she said, in a choking voice, without leaving George's side.
Colas remarked that it was impossible to enter by the main entrance.
"But," he added, "I know another door—follow me."
With great difficulty they forced a passage. And yet, a false energy sustained them; a blind obstinacy impelled them on, almost like that displayed by the fanatics in their endless turning. They had caught the contagion. From now on George no longer felt he was master of himself. His nerves dominated him, imposed on him the disorder and excess of their sensations.
"Follow me!" repeated the old man, stemming the torrent by sheer strength of his elbows, and struggling fiercely to protect his guests against the crush.
They entered by a side door into a sort of sacristy, from which could be seen, through a bluish smoke, the walls entirely covered by votive offerings of wax suspended there in proof of the miracles accomplished by the Virgin. Limbs, arms, hands, feet, breasts, shapeless pieces representing tumors, gangrenes, and ulcers, horrid representations of monstrous maladies, pictures of violet and crimson sores which cried out from the pallor of the wax—all these objects, motionless on the four high walls, had a mortuary appearance, horrifying and frightful, evoking the image of a charnel-house where are piled up all the limbs amputated in a hospital. Heaps of human bodies encumbered the pavement, inert; and in the heap appeared livid faces, bleeding mouths, dusty faces, bald heads, white hair. They were nearly all old people, prostrated by a spasm in front of the altar, carried in arms, and heaped in piles like cadavers in time of a pest. Another old man arrived from the church, carried in the arms of two men who were sobbing: the motion caused his head to hang now on his chest, now on his shoulder; drops of blood rained on his shirt front from lacerations of his nose, lips, and chin. Behind him continued the hopeless cries of anguish, imploring the favor which this old man had not obtained.
"Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"
It was an unheard-of clamor, more atrocious than the yells of a man burnt alive without hope of salvation; more terrible than the cry of shipwrecked sailors condemned to a certain death upon the nocturnal sea.
"Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"
A thousand arms were stretched towards the altar with savage frenzy. The women dragged themselves along on their knees, sobbing, tearing out their hair, striking their hips, bruising their foreheads on the stones, twisting as if in convulsions or possessed. Many, on all fours, sustaining the entire weight of their horizontal bodies on their elbows and naked toes, advanced gradually towards the altar. They crawled along like reptiles, they gathered themselves together, springing on their toes, with progressive propulsions, and beneath their petticoats could be seen their callous yellow soles, the projecting and pointed ankle-bones of their feet. At times the hands seconded the efforts of the elbows, trembling around the mouth which kissed the dust, near the tongue which traced in this dust the sign of the cross, with a saliva mixed with blood. And the crawling bodies passed over these bloody tracings without effacing them, whilst, before each head, a man erect struck the pavement with the tip of a stick in order to indicate the right way to the altar.
"Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"
Kinswomen, dragging themselves along on their knees on each side of the furrow, superintended the votive agony. From time to time they leaned forward to encourage their unfortunate sisters. When the latter seemed about to faint, they went to their relief, supported them under the arms, or fanned their heads with a cloth. While doing this they shed hot tears; and wept even more copiously when they assisted the old men or adolescents, acquitting themselves of the same vows. For there were not only women, but also old men, adults, adolescents, who, to approach the altar, to be worthy to lift their eyes towards the Image, subjected themselves to this torment. Each placed his tongue on the spot where another had already left a wet trace; each struck his forehead or his chin on the spot where another had already left a shred of his skin, a drop of his blood, of his sweat, and of his tears. Suddenly a long ray of sunlight penetrated the large portal into the interstices of the crowd, illuminating the soles of the shrunken feet, calloused by the arid soil or mountainous rocks, so deformed that they appeared less the feet of human beings than the feet of beasts; illuminating bald and hairy heads, white with old age, or light brown or black, supported by bull-like necks which swelled in the effort, or shaking and weak like the greenish head of an old turtle, out of his shell, or like a disinterred skull still bearing a few grayish locks and a few shreds of reddish skin.
Now and then, over this swarm of reptiles, a blue wave of incense spread slowly, veiling for a moment this humility, this hope, and this bodily pain, as if in compassion. New patients forced a passage, presented themselves at the altar to solicit the miracle; and their shadows and their voices covered the prostrate bodies that seemed as if they would never be able to rise.
"Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"
The mothers exposed their dried-up breasts, which they showed to the Virgin, imploring the blessing of milk, while behind them their kinswomen carried the emaciated children, almost dying, who uttered wailing cries. Wives prayed for the fecundity of their sterile womb, and gave as offerings their clothes and marriage jewels.
"Holy Virgin, have mercy on me, in the name of the Son whom thou dost bear in thine arms!"
They prayed at first in low tones, tearfully reciting their woes, as if they were having a secret conversation with the Image, as if the Image were bending forward from above to listen to their lamentations. Then, gradually, they exalted themselves almost to the point of fury, insanity, as if they wished, by their acclamations and insane gestures, to compel consent to the prodigy. They summoned all their energy to utter a superhuman shriek capable of reaching the very bottom of the Virgin's heart.
"Have mercy on us! Have mercy on us!"
And they stopped, staring anxiously, with their dilated and fixed eyes, in the hope of surprising, finally, a sign upon the visage of the celestial person who scintillated in a reflection of jewels between the columns of the inaccessible altar.
Another wave of fanatics arrived, took their places, spread out along the entire length of the railing. Tumultuous cries and violent gestures alternated with their offerings. Inside the railing which intercepted the access to the large altar, priests received in their fat and white hands the moneys and trinkets. In the act of tendering the right or left hand, on either side, they balanced themselves like caged beasts in a menagerie. Behind them, the clerks held large metal plates on which the offerings jinglingly accumulated. On one side, near the door of the sacristy, other priests were stooping over a table: they were counting the money and examining the jewels, while one of them, bony and brownish, made entries with a quill pen in a large ledger. They each performed this task in turn, and then left it to officiate. From time to time the bell sounded, and the censer was elevated amidst a cloud of smoke. Long, bluish waves rolled around the tonsured heads and dispersed on the other side of the railing. The sacred perfume mingled with the human stench.
"Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix ...Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi."
"Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix ...Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi."
"Ora pro nobis, sancta Dei Genitrix ...
Ut digni efficiamur promissionibus Christi."
At times, during unexpected and terrible pauses like those of a hurricane, when the crowd was oppressed by the anguish of expectation, one could distinctly hear the Latin words:
"Concede nos famulos tuos."
"Concede nos famulos tuos."
"Concede nos famulos tuos."
Beneath the large portal advanced with pomp a married couple, escorted by all their relatives in a blaze of gold, in a rustling of silk. The spouse, young and vigorous, had a head like a barbarian queen, with thick and joining eyebrows, wavy and shining black hair, a fleshy and blood-red mouth, in which the incisive, irregular teeth raised the upper lip, shaded with a virile shadow. A necklace of large gold beads was wound thrice around her neck; large gold hoops embellished with filigree work hung from her ears, on her cheeks; a corsage scintillating like a coat of mail confined her bosom. She marched gravely, entirely absorbed in her thoughts, scarcely winking her eyelids, holding her ringed hand on her husband's shoulder. The husband was also young, of medium stature, almost beardless, very pale and with an expression of profound sadness, as if devoured by a sad secret. The appearance of both seemed to indicate the fatality of a primitive mystery.
Whispers spread around their passage. They themselves neither spoke nor turned their heads, followed by their parents, men and women, entwined in a chain by their arms, as if about to perform an ancient dance. "What vow were they accomplishing? What favors were they asking?"
The news spread in a low tone from mouth to mouth: they asked for the young man a return of genital virility, of which some evil influence doubtless had deprived him. The virginity of his spouse still remained intact; the conjugal couch was still immaculate.
When they were near to the railing they both raised their eyes toward the Image silently; and they remained a few moments motionless, absorbed in the same mute supplication. But, behind them, the two mothers extended their arms, agitated their dried and wrinkled hands, which on the marriage day had distributed in vain the augural grain. They stretched out their arms and cried:
"Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"
With slow gestures, the wife removed the rings from her fingers and offered them. Then she took out the heavy golden hoops. Then she took off her hereditary necklace. All this wealth she offered at the altar.
"Take it, blessed Virgin! Take it, most Holy Mary of Miracles!" cried the mothers, with voices already rendered hoarse by their cries, with demonstrations redoubled by fervor, each glancing at the other sidewise to see that her neighbor was not surpassing her in ardor in the eyes of the attentive crowd.
"Take it! Take it!"
They saw the gold fall, fall into the hands of the impassive priest; then they heard the precious metal jingle on the clerk's plate, coin acquired by dint of the persistent toil of several generations, preserved for years and years at the bottom of the strong box, and brought to light again at every new wedding-day. They beheld fall the family wealth, fall, disappear forever. The immensity of the sacrifice plunged them into despair, and their distress extended to their kinsmen. The relatives ended by uttering piercing shrieks altogether. The young man alone remained silent, keeping constantly fixed on the Image his eyes, from which gushed two streams of silent tears.
Then there was a pause, during which one could hear the Latin words of the service and the cadence chanted by the processions which were still turning around the church. Then the couple resumed their first position, and, their eyes still fixed on the Image, slowly fell back.
A new band, yelling furiously, now interposed between them and the railing. For a few seconds the young woman towered a head above the tumult, despoiled now of all her bridal jewelry, but more beautiful and more vigorous, enveloped in a sort of Dionysiac mystery, exhaling over this barbaric multitude a breath as of very ancient life; and she disappeared, never to be forgotten. Exalted far beyond the time and the reality, George's gaze followed her until she disappeared. His soul lived in the horror of an unknown world; in the presence of a nameless people, associated with rites of very obscure origin. The faces of men and women appeared to him as if in a delirious vision, marked with the stamp of a humanity other than his own, and formed of a different substance; and the looks, the motions, and the voices, and all the perceptible signs, struck him with stupor, as if they had had no analogy with the habitual human expressions which he had known up to then. Certain figures exercised over him a sudden magnetic attraction. He followed them in the crowd, dragging Hippolyte with him; he gazed after them on tiptoe; he watched all their actions; he felt their cries reverberate in his own heart; he felt himself invaded by the same madness; he himself felt a brutal desire to shout and gesticulate.
From time to time Hippolyte and he glanced at each other; they saw each other pale, convulsed, aghast, exhausted. But neither one proposed to leave the terrible place, as if they lacked the strength to do so. Jostled by the mob, almost carried away at times, they wandered here and there in the midst of the uproar, holding hands or arms, while the old man made continuous efforts to help and protect them. A procession, coming up, forced them against the railing. During several minutes they remained there, prisoners, closed in on all sides, enveloped by the smoke of the incense, deafened by the cries, suffocated by the heat, in the thickest part of the gesticulating and insanity.
"Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"
It was the reptile women, who, arrived at last, rose to their feet. One among them was carried by her relatives, rigid as a corpse. They stood her on her feet; they shook her. She seemed dead. Her face was all dusty, the skin flayed from her nose and forehead, her mouth full of blood. Those who helped her blew in her face to bring her back to consciousness, wiped her mouth with a cloth which became crimson, shook her again and called her by name. All at once her head fell back; then she threw herself against the railing, grasped the iron bars, stiffened her whole body, and began to scream like a woman in delivery.
She yelled and struggled, drowning every other clamor. A torrent of tears inundated her face, washing off the dust and blood.
"Madonna! Madonna! Madonna!"
And behind her, by her sides, other women surged, tottered, reanimated themselves, implored:
"Mercy! Mercy!"
They lost their voices, grew pale, broke down heavily, and were carried away inert masses, while others again seemed to surge up from below ground.
"Mercy! Mercy!"
These shrieks, which rent the breasts that emitted them; these syllables repeated without cease, with the persistence of the same unconquerable faith; this thick smoke, which overhung like the cloud of a tempest; this contact of bodies, this mixture of breaths, the sight of this blood and these tears—all this made that at one moment the entire multitude found itself possessed by a single soul, became a single being, miserable and terrible, having but one gesture, but one voice, but one convulsion, but one frenzy. All the evils melted into one single evil, which the Virgin should destroy; all the hopes melted into one single hope, which the Virgin should grant.
"Mercy! Mercy!"
And, beneath the scintillating Image, the little flames of the waxen tapers trembled before this wind of passion.