Diou nous fagué la graci de voir l’an qué ven
Se sian pas mai, siguen pas men.”[[1]]
[1]. Let us be merry! God make us merry! Hidden fires come, all good things come! May God give us grace to see the coming year. If there be not more of us, let there not be fewer.
After which the bumper of wine was handed round and every one drank. Still guided by his mother, the child then took hold of one end of the Provençal Yule log, and the old man of the other, and together they marched back to the dining-hall and solemnly deposited the log in the hearth, where it promptly began to blaze.
Thus by this quaint old custom did they celebrate the near advent of the coming year. The old man and the child, each a symbol—Tiberge of the past, little Savinien of the future, the fire of the Yule log the warmth of the sun. Every one clapped their hands, the noise became deafening, and Jaume Deydier’s stentorian voice, crying: “A table, les amis!” could scarce be heard above the din. After that they all sat at the table and the business of the banquet began.
Nicolette alone was silent, smiling, outwardly as merry as any of them; she sat at the head of her father’s table, and went about her duties as mistress of the house with that strange sense of unreality that had haunted her this past year still weighing on her heart.
In the years of her childhood—the years that were gone—Tan-tan and Micheline were always allowed to come and spend Christmas Eve at the mas. Even grandmama, dour, haughty grandmama, realised the necessity of allowing children to be gay and happy on what is essentially the children’s festival. So Tan-tan and Micheline used to come, and for several years it was Tan-tan who used to pour the wine over the log, and he was so proud because he knew the prescribed ditty by heart, and never had to be prompted. He spoke them with such an air, that she, Nicolette, who was little more than a baby then, would gaze on him wide-eyed with admiration. And one year there had been a great commotion, because old Métastase, who was said to be one hundred years old, and whose hands trembled like the leaves of the old aspen tree down by the Lèze, had dropped the log right in the middle of the floor, and the women had screamed, and even the men were scared, as it was supposed to be an evil omen: but Tan-tan was not afraid. He just stood there, and as calm as a young god commanded Métastase to pick up the log again, and when it was at last safely deposited upon the hearth, he had glanced round at the assembled company and remarked coolly: “It is not more difficult than that!” whereupon every one had laughed, and the incident was forgotten.
Then another time——
But what was the good of thinking about all that? They were gone, those dear, good times. Tan-tan was no more. He was M. le Comte de Ventadour, affianced to a beautiful girl whom he loved so passionately, that at even when he held her in his arms, the nightingale came out of his retreat amidst the branches of mimosa trees and sang a love song as an accompaniment to the murmur of her kisses.
Soon after eleven o’clock the whole party set out to walk to Manosque for the midnight Mass at the little church there. Laughing, joking, singing, the merry troup wound its way along the road that leads up to the village perched upon the mountain-side, girls and boys with their arms around each other, older men and women soberly bringing up the rear. Overhead the canopy of the sky of a luminous indigo was studded with stars, and way away in the east the waning moon, cool and mysterious, shed its honey-coloured lustre over mountain peaks and valley, picked out the winding road with its fairy-light, till it gleamed lemon-golden like a ribbon against the leafy slopes, and threw fantastic shadows in the way of the lively throng. Some of them sang as they went along, for your Provençal has the temperament of the South in its highest degree, and when he is happy he bursts into song. And to-night the pale moon was golden, the blue of the sky like a sheet of sapphire and myriads of stars proclaimed the reign of beauty and of poesy: the night air was mild, with just a touch in it of snow-cooled breeze that came from over snow-capped Luberon: it was heavy with the fragrance of pines and eucalyptus and rosemary which goes to the head like wine. So men and maids, as they walked, held one another close, and their lips met in the pauses of their song.