Miracles of the Gods: A New Look at the Supernatural (270 page)

Dame de la Grotte'. Since the girl who saw the Madonna was canonized, everything has been given a name with religious associations. Even the hotels are not given the normal names of earthly hostelries: one, for example, is even called Hotel du Vatican. Rome's masters wear ample robes beneath which such things are easily hidden and not a cardinal in the Holy Office blushes.

Disgusted by all this commercialism, I parked my car in the holy garage of a holy hotel for an unholy price. Secretly hoping that the inner illumination would come to me in spite of everything, I mingled with the crowds in front of the basilica. Here at least, in the holy precinct, there were no stalls or pavement salesmen. You were drugged, enveloped in the smell of candles and incense. Familiar, internationally known hymns, mingled with prayers, sounded from stereophonic loudspeakers. The impression was confusing. What should one look at first?

Sick people, in identical wheel-chairs, pushed or pulled by helpers, went past in mile-long queues. The Lord's Prayer. In the big meadow a procession was forming with flags, cross and a statue of the Madonna at its head; a priest was saying prayers into a hand-megaphone. A vast production, staged several times a day.

In rows of ten, the hopeful miracle-believers and cure-seekers, myself among them, advance at a snail's pace, waiting patiently until they can fill their colourful plastic bottles with holy water from Lourdes at the taps which are set into the wall. Many drink it, catching it in their hands so that they can apply it to head or feet. Although it is all in the open air, there is a solemn atmosphere as if we are in the nave of a cathedral. All round hundreds and thousands of candles are burning in a vast dance of lights. The only sounds are praying, whispering and hymn singing. Signs in several languages warn you that you are on holy ground and that anyone who forgets it will be immediately reprimanded by strict guards: they also see to it that those in a hurry do not jump the queue.

Now I have reached the stream of water: I haven't got a bottle. I let it run into my hands, I watch my next-door neighbours. Their faces are marked with pain and rapture, with devotion and worship, with happiness and pride, simply from being here at last, so close to the miracle. Water is collected here in gallon and ten-litre bottles. For personal needs? Or do people finance the cost of a second trip by selling small quantities once they get home?

The phalanx of the hopeful advances step by step to the great goal, the grotto. It is eight metres long, six metres high and twelve metres wide. At a height of about three metres, to the right of the entrance, stands the white marble statue of the Blessed Virgin, on the very spot and supposedly in exactly the same attitude in which she showed herself to the little Bernadette Soubirous [1] in eighteen visions between 11th February and 16th July, 1858. The walls are damp and glistening; the faithful kiss them, kneel on the ground and stare entranced at the marble statue. They pray and many of them weep aloud.

From time to time envelopes are thrown into a metal basket in the rear part of the grotto - petitions to the Blessed Virgin. No stamps! In the middle of the grotto stands an altar with candles burning in front of it, hundreds of candles which make the damp air stickily hot. The sea of flames which I see shining at this moment has been shining incessantly since 18th February, 1858. If there is such a thing as an everlasting flame, it is here in the grotto at Lourdes.

I was as deeply moved by the devout atmosphere at the pilgrims' goal as I was disgusted by the eastern bazaar atmosphere in the town. No one can be so hard-boiled as to be unmoved by what takes place at