eager as they were
to escape for a moment from that cage of wretchedness where their limbs
had been quite numbed by the seven hours' journey which they had so far
gone. Madame Maze had at once drawn apart, straying with melancholy face
to the far end of the platform, where she found herself all alone; Madame
Vetu, stupefied by her sufferings, had found sufficient strength to take
a few steps, and sit down on a bench, in the full sunlight, where she did
not even feel the burning heat; whilst Elise Rouquet, who had had the
decency to cover her face with a black wrap, and was consumed by a desire
for fresh water, went hither and thither in search of a drinking
fountain. And meantime Madame Vincent, walking slowly, carried her little
Rose about in her arms, trying to smile at her, and to cheer her by
showing her some gaudily coloured picture bills, which the child gravely
gazed at, but did not see.

Pierre had the greatest possible difficulty in making his way through the
crowd inundating the platform. No effort of imagination could enable one
to picture the living torrent of ailing and healthy beings which the
train had here set down--a mob of more than a thousand persons just
emerging from suffocation, and bustling, hurrying hither and thither.
Each carriage had contributed its share of wretchedness, like some
hospital ward suddenly evacuated; and it was now possible to form an idea
of the frightful amount of suffering which this terrible white train
carried along with it, this train which disseminated a legend of horror
wheresoever it passed. Some infirm sufferers were dragging themselves
about, others were being carried, and many remained in a heap on the
platform. There were sudden pushes, violent calls, innumerable displays
of distracted eagerness to reach the refreshment-room and the _buvette_.
Each and all made haste, going wheresoever their wants called them. This
stoppage of half an hour's duration, the only stoppage there would be
before reaching Lourdes, was, after all, such a short one. And the only
gay note, amidst all the black cassocks and the threadbare garments of
the poor, never of any precise shade of colour, was supplied by the
smiling whiteness of the Little Sisters of the Assumption, all bright and
active in their snowy coifs, wimples, and aprons.

When Pierre at last reached the cantine van near the middle of the train,
he found it already besieged. There was here a petroleum stove, with a
small su