M. Sabathier paused, he wished his wife to push his legs a little more to
the left; and Pierre looked at him, astonished to find such obstinate
faith in a man of intellect, in one of those university professors who,
as a rule, are such Voltairians. How could the belief in miracles have
germinated and taken root in this man's brain? As he himself said, great
suffering alone explained this need of illusion, this blossoming of
eternal and consolatory hope.

"And my wife and I," resumed the ex-professor, "are dressed, you see, as
poor folks, for I wished to go as a mere pauper this year, and applied
for /hospitalisation/ in a spirit of humility in order that the Blessed
Virgin might include me among the wretched, her children--only, as I did
not wish to take the place of a real pauper, I gave fifty francs to the
Hospitalite, and this, as you are aware, gives one the right to have a
patient of one's own in the pilgrimage. I even know my patient. He was
introduced to me at the railway station. He is suffering from
tuberculosis, it appears, and seemed to me very low, very low."

A fresh interval of silence ensued. "Well," said M. Sabathier at last,
"may the Blessed Virgin save him also, she who can do everything. I shall
be so happy; she will have loaded me with favours."

Then the three men, isolating themselves from the others, went on
conversing together, at first on medical subjects, and at last diverging
into a discussion on romanesque architecture, /a propos/ of a steeple
which they had perceived on a hillside, and which every pilgrim had
saluted with a sign of the cross. Swayed once more by the habits of
cultivated intellect, the young priest and his two companions forgot
themselves together in the midst of their fellow-passengers, all those
poor, suffering, simple-minded folk, whom wretchedness stupefied. Another