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

his chest for the I confess. Competition is joined between himand his cleric to see who finishes first in the mumbling stakes. Versesand responses tumble out and mix together. Half swallowed words throughclenched teeth take too long, and so tail off into incomprehensiblemutters.

—Pray for u …

—Thro … my fau …

Like frenzied grape-pickers treading the grapes from the vat, theysquelched around in the Latin of the mass, slopping it all over theplace.

—Lor … b'ith … yo… says Balaguère.

—An … wi … yo … spi't … replies Garrigou; and the busylittle bell is more or less continuously in action jangling in theirears, acting like the bells they put on post-horses to make them gallopfaster. To be sure, at this rate the second low mass is quicklydispatched.

—And the second one done! says the completely breathless chaplain.Then, without time for another breath, flushed and sweating, he rushesdown the altar steps and….

The bell rings yet again!

The third mass is beginning. The dining room is no more than a fewsteps away, but, oh dear, as the Christmas Eve feast gets nearer, theunfortunate Balaguère is gripped by a mad, impatient fever of greed.His fantasies get the worse of him, he sees the golden carp, the roastturkeys, they are there, there right before his eyes…. He touchesthem … he … Oh God!… The steaming dishes, the scented wine; thenthe little bell frantically cries out,

—Faster, faster, faster!…

Yet how could he go any faster? As it was, his lips barely move. Hedoesn't even pronounce the words … short of completely fooling Godand keeping His mass from Him. And then he even falls into that lowstate, the poor unfortunate man!… Going from bad to worse temptation,he begins to skip a verse, and then two. Then the epistle is too long,so he cuts it, skims over the gospel reading, looks in at the I believebut doesn't go in, jumps over the Our Father altogether, nods at thepreface from afar, and goes towards eternal damnation by leaps andbounds. He was closely followed by the infamous, satanic Garrigou, whowith his uncanny understanding as number two, lifts up his chasuble forhim, turns the pages two at a time, bumps into the lecterns, knocks offbirettas, and ceaselessly shakes the small bell harder and harder,faster and faster.

Those present are completely confused. Obliged to base their actions onthe priest's words not one of which they understand, some stand up,while others kneel; sit down, while others stand. The Christmas star,yonder on its journey across the heavens towards the stable, pales inhorror at the confusion which is happening….

—The father is going too quickly … we can't follow him, murmurs theold dowager as she distractedly plays with her hair.

Master Arnoton, his large steel-framed glasses on his nose, looks inhis prayer book to see where on earth they might be in the service. Atheart, none of these dear people, who are also thinking of the feast tocome, are at all bothered that the mass is going at such a rate; andwhen Dom Balaguère, face beaming, turns towards the congregationshouting as loud as possible: The mass is over, it is as with onevoice they make the response, so joyously and lively there in thechapel. You would think that they are already sitting at the table forthe opening toast of the Christmas Eve feast.

III

Five minutes later, all lords, with the chaplain in the middle, areseated in the great hall. Everything is lit up in the chateau, whichresounded with singing, shouting, laughter, and buzzing. The venerableDom Balaguère is plunging his fork into a grouse wing and drowning hissinful remorse under a sea of wine and meat juices. The poor holy maneats and drinks so much that he dies in the night suffering a terribleheart attack, with no time to repent. So, the next morning, he arrivesin a heaven full of rumours about the night's revelries, and I leave itfor you to judge how he is received.

—Depart from me, you dismal Christian!, the sovereign judge, Our Lord,says to him. Your error is gross enough to wipe away a whole life ofvirtue…. Ah! You have stolen a midnight mass from Me…. Oh, yes youdid! You will pay for your sin three hundred times over, in the properplace, and you will enter paradise only when you will have celebratedthree hundred midnight masses, in your own chapel, in front of allthose who have sinned with you, through your most grievous fault….

Well, that's that, the true story of Dom Balaguère as told in the landof the olive. The chateau of Trinquelage is no more, but the chapelstill remains in a copse of green oaks at the top of Mount Ventoux.Now, it has a wind-blown, ramshackle door and grass grows over thethreshold. There are birds' nests in the corner of the altar and in thewindow openings, from where the stained glass is long departed.However, it is said that every year at Christmas, a supernatural lightmoves amongst the ruins, and when the peasants go to the mass andChristmas Eve meals, they can see this ghostly chapel lit by invisiblecandles, which burn in the open air, even in a blizzard. Laugh if youwill, but a winegrower in the area named Garrigue, no doubt adescendant of Garrigou, assures me that once, when he was a bit merryat Christmas, he got lost in the mountain around Trinquelage. This iswhat he saw….

Until eleven o'clock at night … nothing. Everything was silent, dark,and still. Suddenly, towards midnight, a hand bell rang at the very topof the clock tower. It was an ancient bell which sounded as if it werecoming from far away. Soon, Garrigue saw flickering lights makingvague, restless shadows on the road. Under the chapel's porch, someonewas walking and whispering:

—Good evening, Master Arnoton!

—Good evening, good evening, folks!…

When everyone had gone in, the winegrower, a very brave man, approachedcarefully, and, looking through the broken door, was met by a verystrange sight, indeed. All the people whom he had seen pass werepositioned around the choir in the ruined nave, as though the oldbenches were still there. There were beautiful women in brocade andlace-draped hair, lords in colourful