"Come, come, let us hurry! The sooner we despatch the service, the sooner we go to supper."
The fact of the matter is that at every peal from this little devil of a bell, the chaplain forgets his Mass and allows his mind to wander to the Christmas supper. He evokes visions of busy kitchens, with ovens glowing like furnaces, warm vapors rising from under tin lids, and through these vapors, two superb turkeys, stuffed, crammed, mottled with truffles. Or then again, he sees long files of little pages carrying great dishes wrapped in their tempting fumes, and with them he is about to enter the dining-hall. What ecstasy! Here stands the immense table, laden and dazzling with peacocks dressed in their feathers, pheasants spreading their bronzed wings, ruby-colored decanters, pyramids of luscious fruit amid the foliage, and those wonderful fish that Garrigou spoke of (Garrigou, forsooth!) reclining on a bed of fennel, their pearly scales looking as if they were just from the pond, and a bunch of pungent herbs in their monster-like nostrils. This beatific vision is so vivid that Dom Balaguère actually fancies that the glorious dishes are being served before him, on the very embroideries of the altar-cloth, and instead of saying Dominus vobiscum, he catches himself saying the Benedicite.
With the exception of these slight mistakes the worthy man rattled off the service conscientiously, without skipping a line, or omitting a genuflection, and all went well to the end of the first Mass. For you must know that on Christmas the same officiating priest is obliged to say three Masses consecutively.
"So much for one!" thought the chaplain, with a sigh of relief; and without losing a second, he motioned his clerk, or him whom he believed to be his clerk, and—
Ding, ling, ling! Ding, ling, ling!
The second Mass has begun—and with it Dom Balaguère's sin. "Come, let us hurry!" says Garrigou's bell, in a shrill, devilish little voice, at the mere sound of which the unfortunate priest pounces upon the missal and devours its pages with all the avidity of his over-excited brain. He kneels and rises frantically, barely sketches the sign of the cross and the genuflections, and shortens all of his gestures in order to get through sooner. He scarcely extends his arms at the Gospel, or strikes his breast at the Confiteor. Between him and his little clerk it is hard to tell who mumbles the faster. The words, half uttered between their teeth,—for it would take them too long to open their lips every time,—die out into unintelligible murmurs,—
Oremus—ps—ps—ps—
Meâ culpa—pâ—pâ—
Like hurried vintagers crushing the grapes in the mash-tuns, they both splashed about in the Latin of the service, spattering it in every direction.