Part 16 (1/2)

Once the procession was over and the saints put back into their chapels, 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 strangle the cat, and pig in the middle, and all the rest of the fun events of the Provencal fairs.... Night was falling by the time we got back to Maillane.

A huge bonfire had been lit in the square, in front of the cafe where Mistral and his friend Zidore were having a party that night... The farandole started up. Paper cut-out lanterns lit up everywhere in the shadows; the young people took their places; and soon, after a trill on the tambourines, a wild, boisterous, round dance started up around the fire. It was a dance that would last all through the night.

After supper, and too tired to keep going, we went into Mistral's modest peasant's bedroom, with two double beds. The walls are bare, and the ceiling beams are visible.... Four years ago, after the academy had given 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 to her son.

--Oh, no! replied Mistral.... That's poet's money that is, and not to be touched.

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

I had brought the notebook with _Calendal_ into the bedroom to read to myself a pa.s.sage of it before going to sleep. Mistral chose the episode about the pottery. Here it is, in brief:

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

Whilst Mistral spoke his verses in this beautiful Provencal tongue, more than three quarters Latin, and once spoken by queens, and now only understood by shepherds, I was admiring this man, and considering the ruinous state in which he found his mother tongue and what he had done with it. I was also imagining one of those old palaces of the Princes of Baux which can be seen in the Alpilles: there were no more roofs, no stepped bal.u.s.trades, no gla.s.s in the windows; the trefoils broken in the ribbed vaults, and the coats of arms on the doors were eaten away and covered in moss. Chickens were scratching around in the main courtyard, pigs were wallowing under the fine columned galleries, an a.s.s was grazing in the chapel overgrown with gra.s.s, and pigeons were drinking from the huge rain-water filled fonts. Finally, amongst the rubble, two or three peasant families had built huts for themselves against the walls of the old palace.

Then, one fine day, the son of one the peasants, develops a great pa.s.sion for the grand ruins and is indignant to see them thus profaned.

Quickly, he chases the livestock out of the courtyard and the muses come to help. He rebuilds the great staircase on his own, replaces the wood panelling on the walls, the gla.s.s in the windows, rebuilds the towers, 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 Ma.s.sES

_A Christmas Story._

I

--Two turkeys stuffed with truffles, Garrigou?...

--Yes, reverend, two magnificent turkeys, bursting out of their skins with truffles. I know something about it; it was I who helped to stuff them. It's fair to say that their skins are so tight, that a good roasting would split them....

--Jesus and Mary! I really do love truffles!... Give me my surplice quickly, 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 birds since 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, G.o.d! I think I've seen them.... Have you put wine in the cruets?

--Yes, reverend, I have put wine in the cruets.... But I a.s.sure you, it's nothing compared with what you will want to drink after you leave midnight ma.s.s. If you saw what was in the chateau's dining room, all the flaming carafes full of wine of all types.... And the silver dishes, the carved centre pieces, the flowers, the candelabras.... No one will ever have seen a Christmas dinner like this one. The Marquis has invited all the n.o.ble lords in the neighbourhood. There'll be at least forty at the sitting, not including the bailiff and the scrivener.... Oh, you are really lucky to be among their number, reverend!... There's nothing like sniffing these lovely turkeys, the smell of the truffles follows me around.... Mm....