Letters From My Windmill (13 page)

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 balustrades, no glass 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
ass was grazing in the chapel overgrown with grass, 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
passion 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 glass 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.

A Christmas Story.

—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, God! I think I've seen them…. Have you put wine in the cruets?

—Yes, reverend, I have put wine in the cruets…. But I assure you,
it's nothing compared with what you will want to drink after you leave
midnight mass. 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 noble 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 mass, 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 God knows what, between the reverend Dom Balaguère,
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 anticipation, 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 mass 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 mass, 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 shimmering 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 passed:

—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 mass 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 passing 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
chink 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!

The bell rings twice!…

Midnight mass 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 noble 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 mass. 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 mass, 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 brimming over with peacocks 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 shining 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
Balaguère 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 mass.
But, remember, the celebrant is obliged take three consecutive masses
on Christmas Day.

—That's one less! sighs the chaplain to himself in blessèd relief.
Then, without wasting a second, he nodded to his clerical assistant, or
at least, to what he thought was his clerical assistant, and …

The bell rang, again!

The second mass begins, and with it, the fatal fall into sin of Dom
Balaguère.

—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 appetite. 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. Competition 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 …

—
Thro … my fau …

Like frenzied grape-pickers treading the grapes from the vat, they
squelched around in the Latin of the mass, slopping it all over the
place.

—
Lor … b'ith … yo…
says Balaguère.

—
An … wi … yo … spi't …
replies Garrigou; and the busy
little bell is more or less continuously in action jangling in their
ears, acting like the bells they put on post-horses to make them gallop
faster. To be sure, at this rate the second low mass is quickly
dispatched.

—And the second one done! says the completely breathless chaplain.
Then, without time for another breath, flushed and sweating, he rushes
down the altar steps and….

The bell rings yet again!

The third mass is beginning. The dining room is no more than a few
steps away, but, oh dear, as the Christmas Eve feast gets nearer, the
unfortunate Balaguère is gripped by a mad, impatient fever of greed.
His fantasies get the worse of him, he sees the golden carp, the roast
turkeys, they are there, there right before his eyes…. He touches
them … he … Oh God!… The steaming dishes, the scented wine; then
the little bell frantically cries out,

—Faster, faster, faster!…

Yet how could he go any faster? As it was, his lips barely move. He
doesn't even pronounce the words … short of completely fooling God
and keeping His mass from Him. And then he even falls into that low
state, the poor unfortunate man!… Going from bad to worse temptation,
he begins to skip a verse, and then two. Then the epistle is too long,
so he cuts it, skims over the gospel reading, looks in at the I believe
but doesn't go in, jumps over the Our Father altogether, nods at the
preface from afar, and goes towards eternal damnation by leaps and
bounds. He was closely followed by the infamous, satanic Garrigou, who
with his uncanny understanding as number two, lifts up his chasuble for
him, turns the pages two at a time, bumps into the lecterns, knocks off
birettas, and ceaselessly shakes the small bell harder and harder,
faster and faster.

Those present are completely confused. Obliged to base their actions on
the priest's words not one of which they understand, some stand up,
while others kneel; sit down, while others stand. The Christmas star,
yonder on its journey across the heavens towards the stable, pales in
horror at the confusion which is happening….

—The father is going too quickly … we can't follow him, murmurs the
old dowager as she distractedly plays with her hair.

Master Arnoton, his large steel-framed glasses on his nose, looks in
his prayer book to see where on earth they might be in the service. At
heart, none of these dear people, who are also thinking of the feast to
come, are at all bothered that the mass is going at such a rate; and
when Dom Balaguère, face beaming, turns towards the congregation
shouting as loud as possible:
The mass is over
, it is as with one
voice they make the response, so joyously and lively there in the
chapel. You would think that they are already sitting at the table for
the opening toast of the Christmas Eve feast.