Letters From My Windmill Alphonse Daudet (top 10 ebook reader .txt) 📖

thewind, in the candle light and the sunlight, amongst the Psalms, thelitanies, with the bells ringing a full peal.

Once the procession was over and the saints put back into theirchapels, we went to see the bulls and then went on the open air games.There were men wrestling, the hop, skip and jump, and games of stranglethe cat, and pig in the middle, and all the rest of the fun events ofthe Provencal fairs…. Night was falling by the time we got back toMaillane.

A huge bonfire had been lit in the square, in front of the café whereMistral and his friend Zidore were having a party that night… Thefarandole started up. Paper cut-out lanterns lit up everywhere in theshadows; the young people took their places; and soon, after a trill onthe tambourines, a wild, boisterous, round dance started up around thefire. It was a dance that would last all through the night.

* * * * *

After supper, and too tired to keep going, we went into Mistral'smodest peasant's bedroom, with two double beds. The walls are bare, andthe ceiling beams are visible…. Four years ago, after the academy hadgiven the author of Mireille a prize worth three thousand francs,Madame Mistral had an idea:

—Why don't we wallpaper your bedroom and put a ceiling in? she said toher son.

—Oh, no! replied Mistral…. That's poet's money that is, and not tobe touched.

And so the bedroom stayed strictly bare; but as long as the poet'smoney lasted, anyone needy, knocking on Mistral's door, has alwaysfound his purse open….

I had brought the notebook with Calendal into the bedroom to read tomyself a passage of it before going to sleep. Mistral chose the episodeabout the pottery. Here it is, in brief:

It is during a meal, somewhere or another. A magnificent Moustier'scrockery service is brought out and placed onto the table. At thebottom of every plate, there is a Provencal scene, painted in blue onthe enamel. The whole history of the land is represented on them. Eachplate of this beautiful crockery has its own verse and the love inthose descriptions just has to be seen. There are just so many simplebut clever little poems, done with all the charm of the rural idylls ofTheocritus.

Whilst Mistral spoke his verses in this beautiful Provencal tongue,more than three quarters Latin, and once spoken by queens, and now onlyunderstood by shepherds, I was admiring this man, and considering theruinous state in which he found his mother tongue and what he had donewith it. I was also imagining one of those old palaces of the Princesof Baux which can be seen in the Alpilles: there were no more roofs, nostepped balustrades, no glass in the windows; the trefoils broken inthe ribbed vaults, and the coats of arms on the doors were eaten awayand covered in moss. Chickens were scratching around in the maincourtyard, pigs were wallowing under the fine columned galleries, anass was grazing in the chapel overgrown with grass, and pigeons weredrinking from the huge rain-water filled fonts. Finally, amongst therubble, two or three peasant families had built huts for themselvesagainst the walls of the old palace.

Then, one fine day, the son of one the peasants, develops a greatpassion for the grand ruins and is indignant to see them thus profaned.Quickly, he chases the livestock out of the courtyard and the musescome to help. He rebuilds the great staircase on his own, replaces thewood panelling on the walls, the glass in the windows, rebuilds thetowers, 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.

THE THREE LOW MASSES

A Christmas Story.

I

—Two turkeys stuffed with truffles, Garrigou?…

—Yes, reverend, two magnificent turkeys, bursting out of their skinswith truffles. I know something about it; it was I who helped to stuffthem. It's fair to say that their skins are so tight, that a goodroasting would split them….

—Jesus and Mary! I really do love truffles!… Give me my surplicequickly, 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 birdssince 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 leavemidnight mass. If you saw what was in the chateau's dining room, allthe flaming carafes full of wine of all types…. And the silverdishes, the carved centre pieces, the flowers, the candelabras…. Noone will ever have seen a Christmas dinner like this one. The Marquishas invited all the noble lords in the neighbourhood. There'll be atleast forty at the sitting, not including the bailiff and thescrivener…. Oh, you are really lucky to be among their number,reverend!… There's nothing like sniffing these lovely turkeys, thesmell 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 ringthe first bell for mass, as midnight is upon us, and we mustn't belate….

This conversation took place one Christmas Eve in the year of our Lordsixteen hundred and God knows what, between the reverend Dom Balaguère,old prior of the Barnabites, then service chaplain of the Sires ofTrinquelage, and his minor cleric Garrigou. At least he thought it washis minor cleric Garrigou, for, as you may know, that night the devilhimself took on the round face and bland features of the youngsacristan, in order to tempt the reverend father into the terrible sinof gluttony. So, as the so-called Garrigou was swinging his arms toring the seigneurial chapel's bells, the reverend managed to put hischasuble back on in the small chateau sacristy, and with a spiritalready troubled by gastronomic anticipation, he excited it even moreas he dressed