Bernadette relates the incident:# "As we could not go any further, my two companions went through the water in front of the Grotto, so I was left alone on the other side. I asked the two others to help me throw stones into the water to see if I could cross without taking off my shoes and stockings, but it was no good. So I came back in front of the Grotto. Hardly had I taken off my first stocking when I heard a noise as if a sudden wind blew. I turned my head and looked at the meadow and I saw that the trees were still. I went on taking off my stockings and again I heard the same sound, and as I lifted up my head to look at the Grotto, I saw a Lady in white. I was a little frightened and, thinking it must be an illusion, I rubbed my eyes, but in vain. I still saw the Lady. Then I put my hand in my pocket and took out my rosary. I wanted to make the sign of the Cross but I could not lift my hand to my forehead. Then I was seized by a great fear. The Lady took up the rosary she held in her hands and she made the Sign of the Cross. I tried again to make it and this time I could. My great fear went as soon as I had made the Sign of the Cross. I knelt down and said the rosary before this beautiful Lady. When the rosary was ended she beckoned me to go nearer but I did not dare to. Then she disappeared. I set about taking off my other stocking so as to cross the narrow stream in front of the Grotto and went home." ("St. Bernadette," Aileen Mary Clegg, Cath. Truth Society, Dublin, by permission.)
Bernadette was questioned interminably on the apparitions at Massabielle. Another account quotes her words on another occasion in more detail: "I had just begun to take off my first stocking when suddenly I heard a great noise like the sound of a storm. I looked to the right, to the left, under the trees of the river, but nothing moved; I thought I was mistaken. I went on taking off my shoes and stockings, when I heard a fresh noise like the first. Then I was frightened and stood straight up. I lost all power of speech and thought, when, turning my head toward the grotto, I saw at one of the openings of the rock a bush, one only, moving as if it were very windy. Almost at the same time there came out of the interior of the grotto a golden colored cloud, and soon after a Lady, young and beautiful, exceedingly beautiful, the like of whom I had never seen, came and placed herself at the entrance of the opening above the bush. She looked at me immediately, smiled at me and signed me to advance, as if she had been my mother. All fear had left me, but I seemed to know no longer where I was. I rubbed my eyes, I shut them, I opened them; but the Lady was still there continuing to smile at me and making me understand that I was not mistaken. Without thinking of what I was doing, I took my rosary in my hands and fell on my knees. The Lady made a sign of approval with her head and took into her hands a rosary which hung on Her right arm. When I attempted to begin the rosary and tried to lift my hand to my forehead, my arm remained paralyzed, and it was only after the Lady had signed herself that I could do the same. The Lady left me to pray all alone; she passed the beads of her rosary between her fingers but she said nothing; only at the end of each decade did She say the 'Gloria' with me.
"When the recitation of the rosary was finished, the Lady returned to the interior of the rock and the golden cloud disappeared with her."
The Lady had the appearance of "a young girl, sixteen, or seventeen years old. She wore a white dress drawn in at the waist by a blue ribbon whose ends hung down. On her head she wore a long white veil so as almost to cover her hair. Her feet were bare but nearly covered by the folds of ha dress, except at the tip where a yellow rose shone on each.

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