Five minutes later, all lords, with the chaplain in the middle, are
seated in the great hall. Everything is lit up in the chateau, which
resounded with singing, shouting, laughter, and buzzing. The venerable
Dom Balaguère is plunging his fork into a grouse wing and drowning his
sinful remorse under a sea of wine and meat juices. The poor holy man
eats and drinks so much that he dies in the night suffering a terrible
heart attack, with no time to repent. So, the next morning, he arrives
in a heaven full of rumours about the night's revelries, and I leave it
for 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 of
virtue.... Ah! You have stolen a midnight mass from Me.... Oh, yes you
did! You will pay for your sin three hundred times over, in the proper
place, and you will enter paradise only when you will have celebrated
three hundred midnight masses, in your own chapel, in front of all
those who have sinned with you, through your most grievous fault....
Well, that's that, the true story of Dom Balaguère as told in the land
of the olive. The chateau of Trinquelage is no more, but the chapel
still 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 the
threshold. There are birds' nests in the corner of the altar and in the
window openings, from where the stained glass is long departed.
However, it is said that every year at Christmas, a supernatural light
moves amongst the ruins, and when the peasants go to the mass and
Christmas Eve meals, they can see this ghostly chapel lit by invisible
candles, which burn in the open air, even in a blizzard. Laugh if you
will, but a winegrower in the area named Garrigue, no doubt a
descendant of Garrigou, assures me that once, when he was a bit merry
at Christmas, he got lost in the mountain around Trinquelage. This is
what 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 top
of the clock tower. It was an ancient bell which sounded as if it were
coming from far away. Soon, Garrigue saw flickering lights making
vague, restless shadows on the road. Under the chapel's porch, someone
was walking and whispering:
--Good evening, Master Arnoton!
--Good evening, good evening, folks!...
When everyone had gone in, the winegrower, a very brave man, approached
carefully, and, looking through the broken door, was met by a very
strange sight, indeed. All the people whom he had seen pass were
positioned around the choir in the ruined nave, as though the old
benches were still there. There were beautiful women in brocade and
lace-draped hair, lords in colourful finery from head to toe, and
peasants in floral jackets like those our grandfathers used to wear.
Everything gave the impression of being old, dusty, faded, and worn
out. Sometimes, nocturnal birds, regular visitors to the chapel,
attracted by the lights, came to flap around the candles whose flame
went straight upwards but looked dim as if seen through gauze. There
was a certain person in large, steel-framed glasses, who kept shaking
his tall, black wig where one of the birds was completely entangled,
its wings silently thrashing about, much to the amusement of
Garrigue....
Deep inside, a little old man with a childish build, on his knees in
the middle of the choir, was desperately and soundlessly shaking a
clapper-less hand bell, while a priest in old, gold vestments was
coming and going and toing and froing in front of the altar, and saying
prayers, not a syllable of which could be heard. It was Dom Balaguère,
of course, in the middle of his third low mass.