room the
number of persons packed inside it quite surprised him, whilst the
suffocating heat within those wooden walls on which the sun was so
fiercely playing, almost scorched his face. It was a square bare room,
painted a light yellow, with the panes of its single window covered with
whitening, so that the pressing throng outside might see nothing of what
went on within. One dared not even open this window to admit a little
fresh air, for it was no sooner set ajar than a crowd of inquisitive
heads peeped in. The furniture was of a very rudimentary kind, consisting
simply of two deal tables of unequal height placed end to end and not
even covered with a cloth; together with a kind of big "canterbury"
littered with untidy papers, sets of documents, registers and pamphlets,
and finally some thirty rush-seated chairs placed here and there over the
floor and a couple of ragged arm-chairs usually reserved for the
patients.

Doctor Bonamy at once hastened forward to greet Doctor Chassaigne, who
was one of the latest and most glorious conquests of the Grotto. He found
a chair for him and, bowing to Pierre's cassock, also made the young
priest sit down. Then, in the tone of extreme politeness which was
customary with him, he exclaimed: "_Mon cher confrere_, you will kindly
allow me to continue. We were just examining mademoiselle."

He referred to a deaf peasant girl of twenty, who was seated in one of
the arm-chairs. Instead of listening, however, Pierre, who was very
weary, still with a buzzing in his head, contented himself with gazing at
the scene, endeavouring to form some notion of the people assembled in
the room. There were some fifty altogether, many of them standing and
leaning against the walls. Half a dozen, however, were seated at the two
tables, a central position being occupied by the superintendent of the
piscinas, who was constantly consulting a thick register; whilst around
him were a Father of the Assumption and three young seminarists who acted
as secretaries, writing, searching for documents, passing them and
classifying them again after each examination. Pierre, however, took most
interest in a Father of the Immaculate Conception, Father Dargeles, who
had been pointed out to him that morning as being the editor of the
"Journal de la Grotte." This ecclesiastic, whose thin little face, with
its blinking eyes, pointed nose, and delicate mouth was ever smiling, had
modestly seated himself at the end of the l