ess lay in ignorance and falsehood? Contagion would surely
end by acting; he would become nothing more than a grain of sand among
innumerable other grains, one of the humblest among the humble ones under
the millstone, who trouble not about the power that crushes them. But
just at that second, when he hoped that he had killed the old man in him,
that he had annihilated himself along with his will and intelligence, the
stubborn work of thought, incessant and invincible, began afresh in the
depths of his brain. Little by little, notwithstanding his efforts to the
contrary, he returned to his inquiries, doubted, and sought the truth.
What was the unknown force thrown off by this crowd, the vital fluid
powerful enough to work the few cures that really occurred? There was
here a phenomenon that no physiologist had yet studied. Ought one to
believe that a multitude became a single being, as it were, able to
increase the power of auto-suggestion tenfold upon itself? Might one
admit that, under certain circumstances of extreme exaltation, a
multitude became an agent of sovereign will compelling the obedience of
matter? That would have explained how sudden cure fell at times upon the
most sincerely excited of the throng. The breaths of all of them united
in one breath, and the power that acted was a power of consolation, hope,
and life.

This thought, the outcome of his human charity, filled Pierre with
emotion. For another moment he was able to regain possession of himself,
and prayed for the cure of all, deeply touched by the belief that he
himself might in some degree contribute towards the cure of Marie. But
all at once, without knowing what transition of ideas led to it, a
recollection returned to him of the medical consultation which he had
insisted upon prior to the young girl's departure for Lourdes. The scene
rose before him with extraordinary clearness and precision; he saw the
room with its grey, blue-flowered wall-paper, and he heard the three
doctors discuss and decide. The two who had given certificates
diagnosticating paralysis of the marrow spoke discreetly, slowly, like
esteemed, well-known, perfectly honourable practitioners; but Pierre
still heard the warm, vivacious voice of his cousin Beauclair, the third
doctor, a young man of vast and daring intelligence, who was treated
coldly by his colleagues as being of an adventurous turn of mind. And at
this supreme moment Pierre was surprised to find in his memory th