And meantime Madame Vincent, walking slowly, carried her little Rose about in her arms, trying to smile at her, and to cheer her by showing her some gaudily coloured picture bills, which the child gravely gazed at, but did not see.
Pierre had the greatest possible difficulty in making his way through the crowd inundating the platform.

No effort of imagination could enable one to picture the living torrent of ailing and healthy beings which the train had here set down--a mob of more than a thousand persons just emerging from suffocation, and bustling, hurrying hither and thither.
Each carriage had contributed its share of wretchedness, like some hospital ward suddenly evacuated; and it was now possible to form an idea of the frightful amount of suffering which this terrible white train carried along with it, this train which disseminated a legend of horror wheresoever it passed.

Some infirm sufferers were dragging themselves about, others were being carried, and many remained in a heap on the platform.

There were sudden pushes, violent calls, innumerable displays of distracted eagerness to reach the refreshment-room and the _buvette_.
Each and all made haste, going wheresoever their wants called them.

This stoppage of half an hour's duration, the only stoppage there would be before reaching Lourdes, was, after all, such a short one.