Investigation into the Blessed Virgin (II)

Clerk, please call… Miss Bernadette, from Lourdes … Well, well, well! This one is rather pretty. Her breathing rasps, she is asthmatic. Aquero (meaning "that one" in her local dialect) was a small young lady. Oh! How beautiful she was! Bernadette, you are quite sweet when as you get entangled in your own words. What I would have given for one of your kisses. You would have refused, I know, it is written in red on your card: hates money, idiotic praise, only desires to look after the ill. I forgot to tell you that I was ill in my own way. Clerk, please call… Miss Gilberte Degeimbre, from Beauraing, in Belgium... She is the smallest, wearing a rather short, pleated skirt, above the knees. A wool pompom dances on her chest. She looks like a baby doll or a cuddly stuffed animal. Then she bursts into tears. Why are you crying? For no reason, just because I am so happy. She is beautiful, the Blessed Virgin, she is so young and her face shines. She has blue eyes. Run along now, sweetheart. And stop crying or I’ll join in with you.