And thus many weak-handed women lingered there a long time, the water dripping on their feet.

Those who had no cans to fill at least came to drink and wash their faces.
Pierre noticed one young man who drank seven small glassfuls of water, and washed his eyes seven times without wiping them.

Others were drinking out of shells, tin goblets, and leather cups.

And he was particularly interested by the sight of Elise Rouquet, who, thinking it useless to go to the piscinas to bathe the frightful sore which was eating away her face, had contented herself with employing the water of the fountain as a lotion, every two hours since her arrival that morning.

She knelt down, threw back her fichu, and for a long time applied a handkerchief to her face--a handkerchief which she had soaked with the miraculous fluid like a sponge; and the crowd around rushed upon the fountain in such fury that folks no longer noticed her diseased face, but washed themselves and drank from the same pipe at which she constantly moistened her handkerchief.
Just then, however, Gerard, who passed by dragging M.Sabathier to the piscinas, called to Pierre, whom he saw unoccupied, and asked him to come and help him, for it would not be an easy task to move and bathe this helpless victim of ataxia.