“Surely She revisited that spot, in spite of Her apparent desertion, to comfort all comers; She seemed so close at hand, so attentive and so grieving, in the evening as one sat alone by the light of a candle, that the soul seemed to burst open like a pod shedding the fruit of sin, the seeds of evil deeds; and repentance, that had been so tardily evolved, and sometimes so indefinite, became so suddenly despotic and unmistakable that the penitent dropped on his knees by the bed, and buried his head sobbing in the sheets.  Ah, those were evenings of mortal dulness and yet sweetly sad!  The soul was rent, its very fibres laid bare, but was not the Virgin at hand, so pitiful, so motherly, that after, the worst was over She took the bleeding soul in her arms and rocked it to sleep like a sick child.

“Then, during the day, the church afforded a refuge from the frenzy of giddiness that came over one; the eye, bewildered by the precipices on every side, distracted by the sight of the clouds that suddenly gathered below and steamed off in white fleece from the sides of the rocks, found rest under the shelter of those walls.

“And finally, to make up for the horrors of the scene and of the statues, to mitigate the grotesqueness of the inn-servants, who had beards like sappers and clothes like little boys—­the caps, and holland blouses with belts, and shiny black breeches, like cast iron, of the children at the Saint Nicolas school in Paris—­extraordinary characters, souls of divine simplicity expanded there.”

And Durtal recollected the admirable scene he had watched there one morning.

He was sitting on the little plateau, in the icy shade of the church, gazing before him at the graveyard and the motionless swell of mountain tops.  Far away, in the very sky, a string of beads moved on, one by one, on the ribbon of path that edged the precipice.  And by degrees these specks, at first merely dark, assumed the bright hues of dresses, assumed the form of coloured bells surmounted by white knobs, and at last took shape as a line of peasant women wearing white caps.

And still in single file they came down the square.

After crossing themselves as they passed the cemetery, they went each to drink a cup of water at the spring and then turned round; and Durtal, who was watching them, saw this: 

At their head walked an old woman of at least a hundred, very tall and still upright, her head covered by a sort of hood from which her stiff, wavy hair escaped in tangled grey locks like iron wire.  Her face was shrivelled like the peel of an onion, and so thin that, looking at her in profile, daylight could be seen through her skin.

She knelt down at the foot of the first statue, and behind her, her companions, girls of about eighteen for the most part, clasped their hands and shut their eyes; and slowly a change came over them.