“With pleasure,” I said, “I feel much honored to drink with you,” and I put some drops of wine into my glass. “Oh! oh! what do I see you doing there? Only a few drops in your glass! This will not even wet the cloven feet of the blue devil which is tormenting you. It requires a full glass, an overflowing glass, to drown and finish him. Fill, then, your glass with that precious wine—the best I ever tasted in my whole life.”
“But I cannot drink more than those few drops,” I said.
“Why not?” he replied.
“Because, eight days before her death, my mother wrote me a letter, requesting me to promise her that I would never drink more than two glasses of wine at the same meal. I gave her that promise in my answer, and the very day she got my pledge, she left this world to convey it, written on her heart, into heaven, to the feet of her God!”
“Keep that sacred pledge,” answered the old curate; “but tell me why you are so sad when we are so happy?”
“You already know part of my reasons—if I had drank as much wine as my neighbor, the vicar of St. Gervais, I would probably have filled the room with my shouts of joy, as he does; but you see now that the hands of my deceased, though always dear mother, are on my glass to prevent me from filling it any more, for I have already drank two glasses of wine.”
“But your sadness in such a circumstance is so strange, that we would all like to know its cause.”
“Yes, yes,” said all the priests. “You know that we like you, and we deeply feel for you. Please tell us the reason of this sadness.”
I then answered, “It would be better for me to keep my own secret, for I know I will make a fool of myself here; but as you are unanimous in requesting me to give you the reasons of the mental agony through which I am just passing, you will have them.
“You well know that, through very singular circumstances, I have been prevented, till this day, from attending any of your grand dinners. Twice I had to go to Quebec on these occasions, sometimes I was not well enough to be present—several times I was called to visit some dying person, and at other times the weather, or the roads were too bad to travel; this, then, is the first grand dinner, attended by you all, that I have the honor of attending.