“What a good midnight repast we are going to have after the mass!”
II
Ting-a-ring!—a—ring!
The midnight mass is beginning in the chapel of the château, which is a cathedral in miniature, with groined and vaulted roofs, oak wood-work as high as the walls, expanded draperies, and tapers all aglow. And what a lot of people! What grand dresses! First of all, seated in the carved stalls that line the choir, is the Lord of Trinquelague in a coat of salmon-coloured silk, and about him are ranged all the noble lords who have been invited.
On the opposite side, on velvet-covered praying-stools, the old dowager marchioness in flame-coloured brocade, and the youthful Lady of Trinquelague wearing a lofty head-dress of plaited lace in the newest fashion of the French court, have taken their places. Lower down, dressed in black, with punctilious wigs, and shaven faces, like two grave notes among the gay silks and the figured damasks, are seen the bailiff, Thomas Arnoton, and the notary Master Ambroy. Then come the stout major-domos, the pages, the horsemen, the stewards, Dame Barbara, with all her keys hanging at her side on a real silver ring. At the end, on the forms, are the lower class, the female servants, the cotter farmers and their families; and lastly, down there, near the door, which they open and shut very carefully, are messieurs the scullions, who enter in the interval between two sauces, to take a little whiff of mass; and these bring the smell of the repast with them into the church, which now is in high festival and warm from the number of lighted tapers.
Is it the sight of their little white caps that so distracts the celebrant? Is it not rather Garrigou’s bell? that mad little bell which is shaken at the altar foot with an infernal impetuosity that seems all the time to be saying: “Come, let us make haste, make haste.... The sooner we shall have finished, the sooner shall we be at table.” The fact is that every time this devil’s bell tinkles the chaplain forgets his mass, and thinks of nothing but the midnight repast. He fancies he sees the cooks bustling about, the stoves glowing with forge-like fires, the two magnificent turkeys, filled, crammed, marbled with truffles....
Then again he sees, passing along, files of little pages carrying dishes enveloped in tempting vapours, and with them he enters the great hall now prepared for the feast. Oh delight! there is the immense table all laden and luminous, peacocks adorned with their feathers, pheasants spreading out their reddish-brown wings, ruby-coloured decanters, pyramids of fruit glowing amid green boughs, and those wonderful fish Garrigou (ah well, yes, Garrigou!) had mentioned, laid on a couch of fennel, with their pearly scales gleaming as if they had just come out of the water, and bunches of sweet-smelling herbs in their monstrous snouts. So clear is the vision of these marvels that it seems to Dom Balaguère that all these wondrous dishes are served before him on the embroidered altar-cloth, and two or three times instead of the Dominus vobiscum, he finds himself saying the Benedicite. Except these slight mistakes, the worthy man pronounces the service very conscientiously, without skipping a line, without omitting a genuflexion; and all goes tolerably well until the end of the first mass; for you know that on Christmas Day the same officiating priest must celebrate three consecutive masses.
“That’s one done!” says the chaplain to himself with a sigh of relief; then, without losing a moment, he motioned to his clerk, or to him whom he supposed to be his clerk, and...
“Ting-a-ring ... Ting-a-ring, a-ring!”
Now the second mass is beginning, and with it begins also Dom Balaguère’s sin. “Quick, quick, let us make haste,” Garrigou’s bell cries out to him in its shrill little voice, and this time the unhappy celebrant, completely given over to the demon of gluttony, fastens upon the missal and devours its pages with the eagerness of his over-excited appetite. Frantically he bows down, rises up, merely indicates the sign of the cross and the genuflexions, and curtails all his gestures in order to get sooner finished. Scarcely has he stretched out his arms at the gospel, before he is striking his breast at the Confiteor. It is a contest between himself and the clerk as to who shall mumble the faster. Versicles and responses are hurried over and run one into another. The words, half pronounced, without opening the mouth, which would take up too much time, terminate in unmeaning murmurs.