Letters from my Windmill Part 16

Once the procession was over and the saints put back into their chapels, we went to see the bulls and then went on the open air games.

There were men wrestling, the hop, skip and jump, and games of strangle the cat, and pig in the middle, and all the rest of the fun events of the Provencal fairs.... Night was falling by the time we got back to Maillane.

A huge bonfire had been lit in the square, in front of the cafe where Mistral and his friend Zidore were having a party that night... The farandole started up. Paper cut-out lanterns lit up everywhere in the shadows; the young people took their places; and soon, after a trill on the tambourines, a wild, boisterous, round dance started up around the fire. It was a dance that would last all through the night.

After supper, and too tired to keep going, we went into Mistral's modest peasant's bedroom, with two double beds. The walls are bare, and the ceiling beams are visible.... Four years ago, after the academy had given the author of _Mireille_ a prize worth three thousand francs, Madame Mistral had an idea:

--Why don't we wallpaper your bedroom and put a ceiling in? she said to her son.

--Oh, no! replied Mistral.... That's poet's money that is, and not to be touched.

And so the bedroom stayed strictly bare; but as long as the poet's money lasted, anyone needy, knocking on Mistral's door, has always found his purse open....

I had brought the notebook with _Calendal_ into the bedroom to read to myself a pa.s.sage of it before going to sleep. Mistral chose the episode about the pottery. Here it is, in brief:

It is during a meal, somewhere or another. A magnificent Moustier's crockery service is brought out and placed onto the table. At the bottom of every plate, there is a Provencal scene, painted in blue on the enamel. The whole history of the land is represented on them. Each plate of this beautiful crockery has its own verse and the love in those descriptions just has to be seen. There are just so many simple but clever little poems, done with all the charm of the rural idylls of Theocritus.

Whilst Mistral spoke his verses in this beautiful Provencal tongue, more than three quarters Latin, and once spoken by queens, and now only understood by shepherds, I was admiring this man, and considering the ruinous state in which he found his mother tongue and what he had done with it. I was also imagining one of those old palaces of the Princes of Baux which can be seen in the Alpilles: there were no more roofs, no stepped bal.u.s.trades, no gla.s.s in the windows; the trefoils broken in the ribbed vaults, and the coats of arms on the doors were eaten away and covered in moss. Chickens were scratching around in the main courtyard, pigs were wallowing under the fine columned galleries, an a.s.s was grazing in the chapel overgrown with gra.s.s, and pigeons were drinking from the huge rain-water filled fonts. Finally, amongst the rubble, two or three peasant families had built huts for themselves against the walls of the old palace.

Then, one fine day, the son of one the peasants, develops a great pa.s.sion for the grand ruins and is indignant to see them thus profaned.

Quickly, he chases the livestock out of the courtyard and the muses come to help. He rebuilds the great staircase on his own, replaces the wood panelling on the walls, the gla.s.s in the windows, rebuilds the towers, re-gilds the throne room, and puts the one-time immense palace, where Popes and Emperors stayed, back on its pediments.

This restored palace: the Provencal language.

The peasant's son: Mistral.

THE THREE LOW Ma.s.sES

_A Christmas Story._

I

--Two turkeys stuffed with truffles, Garrigou?...

--Yes, reverend, two magnificent turkeys, bursting out of their skins with truffles. I know something about it; it was I who helped to stuff them. It's fair to say that their skins are so tight, that a good roasting would split them....

--Jesus and Mary! I really do love truffles!... Give me my surplice quickly, Garrigou.... Is there anything else, apart from the turkeys, that you have _noticed_ in the kitchen?...

--Oh! All sorts of good things.... We've done nothing but pluck birds since midday; pheasants, hoopoes, hazel grouse, and common grouse.

Feathers flying everywhere. And from the lake; eels, golden carp, trout, and some ...

--How fat are the trout, Garrigou?

--As fat as your arm, reverend.... Enormous!...

--Oh, G.o.d! I think I've seen them.... Have you put wine in the cruets?

--Yes, reverend, I have put wine in the cruets.... But I a.s.sure you, it's nothing compared with what you will want to drink after you leave midnight ma.s.s. If you saw what was in the chateau's dining room, all the flaming carafes full of wine of all types.... And the silver dishes, the carved centre pieces, the flowers, the candelabras.... No one will ever have seen a Christmas dinner like this one. The Marquis has invited all the n.o.ble lords in the neighbourhood. There'll be at least forty at the sitting, not including the bailiff and the scrivener.... Oh, you are really lucky to be among their number, reverend!... There's nothing like sniffing these lovely turkeys, the smell of the truffles follows me around.... Mm....

--Come, come, my child, let us beware of the sin of gluttony, especially on Christmas Eve.... Hurry up, light the candles, and ring the first bell for ma.s.s, as midnight is upon us, and we mustn't be late....

This conversation took place one Christmas Eve in the year of our Lord sixteen hundred and G.o.d knows what, between the reverend Dom Balaguere, old prior of the Barnabites, then service chaplain of the Sires of Trinquelage, and his minor cleric Garrigou. At least he thought it was his minor cleric Garrigou, for, as you may know, that night the devil himself took on the round face and bland features of the young sacristan, in order to tempt the reverend father into the terrible sin of gluttony. So, as the _so-called_ Garrigou was swinging his arms to ring the seigneurial chapel's bells, the reverend managed to put his chasuble back on in the small chateau sacristy, and with a spirit already troubled by gastronomic antic.i.p.ation, he excited it even more as he dressed himself, by going over the menu,

--Roast turkeys ... golden carp ... trout as fat as your arm....

Outside the night-wind blew and broadcasted the music of the bells, as the lights began to appear on the dark side of Mount Ventoux, surmounted by the old towers of the Trinquelage. Tenant farmers'

families were walking to hear midnight ma.s.s at the chateau. They sang as they climbed the hillside in small groups, the fathers in the lead, holding the lantern, their wives, wrapped up against the wind in large, brown mantles, which also acted as a shelter for the children when they snuggled up. Despite the dark and the cold, all these brave folk walked on joyfully, sustained by the thought that, just like every other year, after the ma.s.s, there would be a table stocked up for them in the kitchen downstairs. During the hard climb, a lord's coach, with its leading torch-bearers, and its windows s.h.i.+mmering in the moonlight, occasionally went by. Once, a mule with bells trotted past and the farmers were able to recognise their bailiff by the light of their lanterns, and greeted him as he pa.s.sed:

--Good evening, Master Arnoton!

--Good evening, my dears!

The night was clear, the stars seemed intensified by the cold, and the wind was stinging. Very fine ice crystals slid down their clothes without wetting them, which kept up the tradition of a white Christmas.

At the very top of the hill, the chateau marked the end of their journey, with its ma.s.s of towers and gables. The chapel's clock rose into a dark blue sky, and a host of tiny lights flickered in and out at every window in the murky rear of the building, and looked like sparks running along burning paper.... To reach the chapel, after crossing the drawbridge and pa.s.sing through the rear entrance, you had to cross the main courtyard, full of coaches, valets, and sedan-chairs. It was all lit up by the fire of the torches and flares from the kitchens, which was also the source of a squeaking spit, clattering saucepans, the c.h.i.n.k of crystal and silverware shaken about during the laying of the tables, and a warm steam smelling deliciously of roast meat and strong herbs in fine sauces. This started the farmers, chaplain, bailiff, and everybody else commenting:

--What a splendid Christmas Eve dinner there is in store for us!

II

The bell rings twice!...

Midnight ma.s.s is beginning. The candles are lit and the tapestries draped from top to bottom of the interleaved arches and the oak panelling in the chateau's chapel. It's a veritable cathedral in miniature. And what a congregation there is! And what get-ups they have on! The Sire of Trinquelage is dressed in salmon-pink taffeta in one of the choir's sculptured stalls, with all the other invited n.o.ble Lords sitting near him. Opposite, on a pair of velvet decorated prie-dieus, the old dowager marquise in her flame-red, brocaded dress, and the youthful Lady of Trinquelage, hair done up in a tower of crinkled lace in the latest style of the French court, have taken their places; and lower down, the bailiff, Thomas Arnoton, and the scrivener, Master Ambroy are all in black, and clean shaven, with huge pointed wigs--two quiet notes amongst the loud silks and brocaded damasks. Then the well-fed major-domos, the pages, the stablemen, the stewards, and Lady Barbe, with all her keys hanging by her side on a fine silver key-ring.

Then comes the lower orders on benches; the servants, the tenant-farmers, and their families. Lastly, the male servers, who are lined up against the door, quietly half opening and closing it again, as they pop in and out between making sauces, so they can soak up a bit of the atmosphere of the ma.s.s. As they do this, a whiff of Christmas Eve dinner wafts into the middle of the service, already warmed by so many lit candles.

Is it the sight of these little white birettas which distracts the officiating priest? It's more likely to be Garrigou, with his persistent, little bell incessantly ringing on at the foot of the altar with infernal urgency as if to say:

--Hurry up, hurry up ... the sooner we finish, the sooner we eat.

The simple fact is that with each tinkle of the devilishly insistent bell, the chaplain loses track of the ma.s.s, as his mind totally wanders off into the Christmas Eve banquet. He imagines the cooks buzzing around, the open-hearth blazing furnaces, the steam hissing from half-opened lids, and there, within the steam, two magnificent turkeys, stuffed to bursting, and marbled with truffles....

Even worse, he imagines the lines of pages carrying dishes that breathe out the tempting vapour and accompanies them to the great hall already prepared for the great feast. Oh, such delicacies! Then there is the immense table fully loaded and br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with peac.o.c.ks still covered in their feathered glory, pheasants with their golden brown wings spread wide, the ruby coloured flagons of wine, pyramids of fruit begging to be plucked from the green foliage, and the marvellous fish spread out on a bed of fennel, their pearly scales s.h.i.+ning as if just caught, with a bouquet of aromatic herbs in the gills of these monsters. So life-like is the vision of these marvels, that Dom Balaguere has the impression that these fabulous dishes were served on the embroidered altar cloth, so that instead of saying, _the Lord be with you_ he finds himself saying _grace_. These slight faux-pas aside, he reels off his office conscientiously enough, without fluffing a line or missing a genuflexion. All went well to the end of the first ma.s.s.

But, remember, the celebrant is obliged take three consecutive ma.s.ses on Christmas Day.

--That's one less! sighs the chaplain to himself in blessed relief.

Then, without wasting a second, he nodded to his clerical a.s.sistant, or at least, to what he thought was his clerical a.s.sistant, and ...

The bell rang, again!

The second ma.s.s begins, and with it, the fatal fall into sin of Dom Balaguere.

--Quick, quick, let's hurry up, cries the shrill voice of Garigou's bell, but this time the unlucky celebrant abandons himself utterly to the demon of greed and pounces on the missal, devouring the pages as he lost control of his avidly over-stimulated appet.i.te. He becomes frenzied, he bows down, he rises, takes a sight stab at crossing himself and genuflecting, minimising the gestures, all the quicker to reach the end. His arms, no sooner stretched over the gospels than back thumping his chest for the I confess. Compet.i.tion is joined between him and his cleric to see who finishes first in the mumbling stakes. Verses and responses tumble out and mix together. Half swallowed words through clenched teeth take too long, and so tail off into incomprehensible mutters.

--_Pray for u ..._