The bell rings yet again!
The third mass is beginning. The dining room is no more than a few steps away, but, oh dear, as the Christmas Eve feast gets nearer, the unfortunate Balaguère is gripped by a mad, impatient fever of greed. His fantasies get the worse of him, he sees the golden carp, the roast turkeys, they are there, there right before his eyes…. He touches them … he … Oh God!… The steaming dishes, the scented wine; then the little bell frantically cries out,
—Faster, faster, faster!…
Yet how could he go any faster? As it was, his lips barely move. He doesn't even pronounce the words … short of completely fooling God and keeping His mass from Him. And then he even falls into that low state, 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 believe but doesn't go in, jumps over the Our Father altogether, nods at the preface from afar, and goes towards eternal damnation by leaps and bounds. He was closely followed by the infamous, satanic Garrigou, who with his uncanny understanding as number two, lifts up his chasuble for him, turns the pages two at a time, bumps into the lecterns, knocks off birettas, and ceaselessly shakes the small bell harder and harder, faster and faster.
Those present are completely confused. Obliged to base their actions on the 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 in horror at the confusion which is happening….
—The father is going too quickly … we can't follow him, murmurs the old dowager as she distractedly plays with her hair.
Master Arnoton, his large steel-framed glasses on his nose, looks in his prayer book to see where on earth they might be in the service. At heart, none of these dear people, who are also thinking of the feast to come, are at all bothered that the mass is going at such a rate; and when Dom Balaguère, face beaming, turns towards the congregation shouting as loud as possible:The mass is over, it is as with one voice they make the response, so joyously and lively there in the chapel. You would think that they are already sitting at the table for the opening toast of the Christmas Eve feast.
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.
In Paris, oranges have the sorrowful look of windfalls gathered from beneath the trees. At the time they get to you, in the dreary middle of a rainy, cold winter, their brilliant skins, and their strong perfume—or so they seem to your Parisian mediocre tastes—imbue them with a foreign flavour, a hint of Bohemia. Throughout the foggy afternoons, they line the pavements, squashed together in wheelbarrows, lit by the low light of lanterns and wrapped in red paper. A thin, repetitive shout of:
—Valencian oranges, two sous a piece!
accompanies them, often drowned by the sound of cavorting carriages and boisterous buses.
For most Parisians, this fruit, gathered far away, and unremarkably round, with just a clipping of greenery from the tree, reminds them of sweets and desserts. The tissue they're wrapped in, and the parties at which they make their appearance, add to this impression. Come January, thousands of oranges are on the streets and their discarded skins are in the muddy gutters everywhere, looking as though some giant Christmas tree had shaken its branches of artificial fruit all over Paris. There's just about nowhere free of oranges; they are in the carefully arranged shop windows, sorted and prepared; outside prison and hospital gates, among the packets of biscuits and the stacks of apples, and in front of entrances to dances and Sunday street shows. Their exquisite perfume mixes variously with the smell of gas, the noise of old violins, and the dust in the gods at the theatre. It's easy to forget that it takes orange trees to make oranges, for when the fruit arrives from the Midi, by their thousands of boxfuls, the tree itself, pruned and unrecognisable, is hidden in a warm greenhouse for the winter and makes only a brief summer appearance in public gardens in Paris.
To really appreciate oranges, you have to see them in their natural setting; in the Balearics, Sardinia, Corsica, and Algeria; in the sunny blue skies of the warm Mediterranean. I can recall with great pleasure a small orchard of orange trees, at the gates of Blidah, just such a place where their true beauty could be seen! Amongst the dark, glossy, lustred leaves, the fruits had the brilliance of stained glass windows and perfumed the air all around with the same magnificent aura that usually envelops gorgeous flowers. Here and there, gaps in the branches revealed the ramparts of the little town, the minaret of a mosque, the dome of a marabout, and, towering above, the immense Atlas mountains, green at the base, and snow-capped, with drifts of snow here and there.
One night during my stay, a strange phenomenon, not seen for thirty years, occurred; the ice from the freezing zone descended onto the sleeping village, and Blidah woke up transformed, and powdered in white snow. In the light, pure Algerian air, the snow looked like the finest dusting of mother of pearl, and had the lustre of a white peacock's feather. But it was the orange orchard that was the most beautiful thing to be seen. The firm leaves kept the snow intact and upright like sorbets on a lacquered plate, and all the fruits, powdered over with frost, had a wonderful mellowness, a discrete radiance like silk-draped gold. It was all vaguely evocative of a church saint's day; the red cassocks under the lacy robes, and the gilt on a lace altar cloth….
But my most treasured memories concerning oranges come from Barbicaglia, a large garden close to Ajaccio, where I was about to have a siesta in the hottest time of the day. The orange trees were taller and further apart than in Blidah and reached down to the road, behind a ditched hedge. Immediately beyond the road, there was the deep blue sea…. I have had such happy times in that orchard. The orange trees in flower and in fruit, spread their delightful perfume around. Occasionally, a ripe orange, would fall and drop to the ground near me with a dull thud, and I just had to stretch out my hand. They were superb fruit, with their purple, blood-colour flesh inside, and looked exquisite, toning in with the surrounding stunning scenery. Between the leaves, the sea was seen in dazzling blue patches, like shattered glass sparkling in the sea mist. The ever-moving sea disturbed the atmosphere far away and caused a rhythmic murmur that soothed, like being on a boat. Oh, the heat, and the smell of oranges…. It was just so very refreshing to sleep in that orchard at Barbicaglia!
Sometimes, however, at the height of the siesta, a drum-roll would wake me up with a start. The boys of the military band came over there to practice on the road. Through the gaps in the hedge, I could see the brass decoration on the drums and the white aprons on their red trousers. The poor devils came into what little shade was offered by the hedge to hide for a while from the blinding light, pitilessly reflected from the dust on the road. And they played on until they became very, very hot! I forced myself from my dream-like state, and amused myself by throwing them some of the golden, red fruit that I could easily reach. My target drummer stopped. There was a short pause, as he looked around for the source of this superb orange rolling into the ditch beside him, before snatching it up and taking a grateful mouthful without even bothering to peel it.
Right next to Barbicaglia, over a low wall, I overlooked a small, strange garden of an Italianate design in a small plot of land. Its sand-covered paths bordered by bright green box trees and two cypress trees guarding the entrance gave it the look of a Marseille country seat. There was no shade whatsoever. At the far end, there was a white stone building with skylight windows on the ground floor. At first I thought it was a country house, but on closer inspection, I noticed a cross on the roof, and a carved inscription in the stone which I couldn't make out from here. I knew then that it was a Corsican family tomb. These little mausoleums can be seen all around Ajaccio, well-spaced, and surrounded by a garden. The families go there on Sundays, to visit their dead. A setting like that, gives death a less gloomy air than the confusion of cemeteries; and there is only the footsteps of friends to disturb the silence.
From where I was, I could see an old chap shuffling calmly around the paths. All day long, he trimmed the trees, dug the ground over, and watered and dead-headed the flowers with great care. At sunset, he went into the small chapel, where the family dead lay, to put away the spade, the rakes, and the large watering cans, while displaying all the respectful tranquillity and serenity of a cemetery gardener. The man worked with a certain subliminal reverence, and always locked the vault door quietly, as if wary of waking somebody. Within its great and glorious silence, the upkeep of this little garden troubled no one and didn't by any means depress the neighbourhood; in fact, only the immense sea and the infinite sky had more grandeur. This everlasting siesta—surrounded as it was by the overwhelming sights and forces of nature—brought a sense of eternal repose to everything in sight….
I was on my way back from Nîmes, one crushingly hot afternoon in July. As far as the eye could see, the white, blistering road, was turning to clouds of dust between olive groves and small oaks, under a great, silver, hazy sun which filled the whole sky. Not a trace of shade, not a whisper of wind. Nothing except the shimmering of the hot air and the strident cry of the cicadas' incessant din, deafening, hurried, and seeming to harmonise with the immense luminous shimmering…. I had walked for two hours in this desert in the middle of nowhere, when suddenly a group of white houses emerged from the dust cloud in the road in front of me. They were known as the Saint-Vincent coaching inns: five or six farms with long red roofed barns; and a dried up watering hole in a would-be oasis of spindly fig trees. At the end of the village, two large inns faced each other across the road.
There was something striking about these inns and their strange setting. On one side, there was a large, new building, full of life and buzzing with activity. All the doors were ajar; a coach was in front, from which the steaming horses were being unhitched. The disembarked passengers were hurriedly drinking in the partial shade by the walls. There was a courtyard strewn with mules and wagons, and the wagoners were lying down under the outhouses waiting to feel cool. Inside there was the jumbled sound of shouting, swearing, fists banging on the tables, glasses clinking, billiard balls rattling, lemonade corks popping, and above all that racket, a joyful voice, bursting with song loud enough to shake the windows:
The lovely Margoton,Just as soon as night was day,Took her little silver can,To the river made her away….
… The inn on the other side was silent and looked completely abandoned. There was grass under the gate, broken blinds, and a branch of dead holly on the door; all that was left of an old decoration. The entrance steps were supported by stones from the road…. It was so poor and pitiful, that it was a real act of charity to stop there at all, even for a drink.
* * * * *
As I went in, I saw a long gloomy, deserted room, with daylight, bursting in through three large, curtainless, windows, which just made it look even more deserted and gloomy. There were some unsteady tables, with dust-covered glasses long abandoned on them. There was also a broken billiard table which held out its six pockets like begging bowls, a yellow couch, and an old bar, all slumbering on in the heavy, unhealthy heat.
And the flies! Oh, God, the flies! I have never seen so many. They were on the ceiling, stuck to the windows, in the glasses, in clusters everywhere…. When I opened the door, there was a buzzing as if I had just entered a bee hive. At the back of the room, in a window, there was a woman standing, her face pressed against the glass and totally absorbed in looking through it. I called to her twice:
—Hello, landlady!
She turned round slowly and revealed a pitiful peasant's face, wrinkled, cracked, earth coloured, and framed in long strands of brownish lace, like old women wear hereabouts. And yet, she wasn't an old woman, perhaps the tears had wilted her.
—What can I do for you? She asked me, drying her eyes.
—Just a sit down and a drink….
She looked at me, utterly astonished, and didn't move as if she hadn't understood.
—This is an inn, isn't it?
The woman sighed:
—Yes … it's an inn, in a manner of speaking…. But why aren't you over the road like everybody else? It's a much livelier place….
—It's a bit too lively for my liking…. I'd rather stay here.
And without waiting for her reply, I sat down at a table. Once she had satisfied herself that I was genuine, she began to flit to and fro busily, opening drawers, moving bottles, wiping glasses, and flicking the flies away…. You could see that a customer was quite an event for her. Now and then the unfortunate woman would hold her head as if she was despairing of getting to the end of it.
Then she disappeared into a back room; I heard her take up some keys, fiddle with the locks, rummage in the bread bin, huff and puff, do some dusting, wash some plates. And from time to time … a muffled sob…. After a quarter of an hour of this performance, a plate of dried raisins, an old Beaucaire loaf as hard as the dish it came on, and a bottle of cheap wine, were placed before me.
—There you are, said the strange creature, and rushed back to her place at the window.
* * * * *
I tried to engage her in conversation as I was drinking up.
—You don't often get people here do you, madam?
— Oh, no, monsieur, never, no one…. It was very different at the time when we were the only the coaching inn around here. We did the lunches for the hunt during the soter bird season, as well as coaches all the year round…. But since the other place has opened up, we've lost everything…. The world and his wife prefer to go across the way. They find it just too miserable here…. The simple fact is that this place doesn't interest them. I'm not beautiful, I have prickly heat, and my two little girls are dead…. Over there it's very different, there is laughter all the time. A woman from Arles, a beautiful woman with lots of lace and three gold chains round her neck, keeps the place. The driver, her lover, brings in customers for her in the coach. She also has a number of attractive girls for chamber maids…. This also brings lots of business in! She gets all the young people from Bezouces, from Redessan and from Jonquières. The coachmen go out of their way to call in at her place…. As for me, I'm stuck in here all day, all alone, eating my heart out.
She said all that with a distracted, vacant way, forehead still pressed against the window pane. Obviously, there was something in the inn opposite that really interested her…. Suddenly, over the road, a lot started to happen. The coach edged forward in the dust. The sounds of cracking whips and a horn was heard. The young girls squeezed together in the doorway and shouted:
—Goodbye!… Goodbye!… And above all that, the wonderful voice, singing, as before, most beautifully,
Took her little silver can,To the river made her way,She didn't notice by the water,Three young cavaliers, quite near.
The woman's whole body shook on hearing that voice; and she turned towards me and whispered:
—Do you hear that? That's my husband…. Don't you think he has a beautiful voice?
I looked at her, stupefied.
—What? Your husband?… So even he goes over there?
Then, with an apologetic air, but movingly, she said:
—What can you do, monsieur? Men are like that, they don't like tears, and I'm always breaking down, since our little girls died…. Then, this dump of a place, where nobody comes, is so miserable…. Well then, when he gets really fed up, my poor dear José goes over the road for a drink, and, the woman from Arles gets him to sing with that gorgeous voice of his. Hush!… There he goes again. And, trembling, and with huge tears that made her look even more ugly, she stood there in front of the window, hands held out in ecstasy, listening to her José singing to the woman from Arles:
The first was bold and whispered to her,You're so beautiful my dear!
Notes from the Voyage.
This time, I am going to take you away to spend a day a very long way from the windmill in a pretty little Algerian town…. It will be a nice change from the tambourines and cicadas….
… There's rain in the air; the sky is grey; the crests of Mount Zaccar are enveloped in fog; it's a miserable Sunday…. I'm in my small hotel room, lighting one cigarette after another, just trying to take my mind off things…. The hotel library has been put at my disposal. I find an odd volume of Montaigne between a detailed history of hotel registrations and a few Paul de Kock novels. Opening it at random, I re-read the admirable essay on the death of La Boétie…. So, now I'm more dreamy and gloomy than ever…. A few drops of rain are starting to fall, each one leaving a large star in the dust accumulated on the windowsill since last year's rain…. The book slips out of my hands, as I stare hypnotically at the melancholy star for some time….
The town clock strikes two on an oldmaraboutwhose slender, high, white walls I can see from here…. Poor old marabout. Thirty years ago, who would have thought that one day it would have a big municipal dial stuck in its solar plexus, and on Sundays, on the stroke of two, it would give a lead to the churches of Milianah, to sound their bells for Vespers?… There they go now, ringing away…. And not for a brief spell, either…
Without doubt this room is a miserable place. The huge, dawn spinners, known as philosopher's thought spiders, have spun their webs everywhere…. I'm going out.
* * * * *
I'm on the main square, now. Just the place for the military band of the Third Division, not put off by a bit of rain, which has just arranged itself around the conductor. The Brigade General appears at one of the Division windows, surrounded by his fancy women. The sub-prefect is on the square and walks to and fro on the arm of the Justice of the Peace. Half a dozen young Arabs, stripped to the waist, are playing marbles in a corner to the sound of their own ferocious shouting. Elsewhere, an old Jew in rags comes to look for a ray of sunshine he left here yesterday and looks astonished not to find it…. "One, two, three…!" the band launched into an old Talexian mazurka, which Barbary organs used to play, irritatingly, under my window last year. But it moved me to tears today.
Oh, how happy are these musicians of the third! Their eyes fixed on the dotted crochets, drunk on rhythm and noise, only conscious of counting beats. Their whole being was in that hand-sized bit of paper vibrating in brass prongs at the end of their instruments. "One, two, three…!" They have everything they need these fine men, except they never play the national anthem; it makes them home sick…. Alas, I haven't much of a musical ear and this piece irritates me, so I'm off….
* * * * *
Now, where on earth would I be able to have a nice time, on a greySunday like this? I know! Sid'Omar's shop is open. I'm going there.
He may have a shop, Sid'Omar, but he is no shopkeeper. He is a prince of the blood line, the son of a former Dey of Algeria, who was strangled to death by Turkish soldiers…. When his father was killed, he sought refuge in Milianah with his adored mother. He lived there for several years like a fine gentleman philosopher with his greyhounds, falcons, horses, and wives in this attractive and refreshing palace, amongst the orange trees and fountains. Then the French came; we came. Sid'Omar was our enemy at first and allied himself with Abd-el-Kader, but then he fell out with the Emir and surrendered to us. While Sid'Omar was away from Milianah, the Emir took revenge by pillaging his palace. He flattened his orange trees, made off with his horses and wives; and killed his mother, cruelly crushing her throat under the lid of a large chest…. Sid'Omar's anger knew no bounds: within the hour he had enrolled himself in the French army, and we had no better, fiercer soldier, for as long as our war with the Emir lasted. Sid'Omar returned to Milianah; but even today at the merest mention of Abd-el-Kader, he grows pale and his eyes light up.
Sid'Omar is sixty now, and despite his age and the smallpox, his face has stayed rather handsome. He has long eyelashes, with an appealing look and a charming smile; very prince-like. The war ruined him, and all he has left of his former opulence is a farm in the plain of Chélif and a house in Milianah, where he lives a bourgeois life with his three sons, who are being brought up under his aegis. The local bigwigs hold him in some veneration. If a dispute breaks out they are only too happy to let him arbitrate; and his judgement usually carries the weight of law. He seldom goes out; you can usually find him every afternoon next door in a shop which opens onto the road. It is not opulently furnished; the walls are whitewashed, and there are a circular wooden bench, cushions, long pipes, and two braziers…. This is where Sid'Omar gives his audiences and dispenses justice. Hey! Solomon in a shop.
* * * * *
Today is Sunday and there is a good turn out. A dozen leaders, each in their burnous, are squatting all around the room, a large pipe and small fine filigreed eggcup full of coffee to hand. I go in; nobody moves…. From where he is, Sid'Omar gives me his most charming smile by way of a greeting and beckons me to sit next to him on a large yellow silk cushion. He puts a finger to his mouth to indicate that I should listen.
The case is between the leader of the Beni-Zougzougs and a Jew from Milianah, who are having a dispute about a plot of land. The two parties had agreed to put their differences to Sid'Omar and to abide by his judgement. The meeting is set for this very day, and the witnesses are assembled. Surprisingly, it is my Jew, and he is having second thoughts and has come alone, without witnesses, declaring that he would prefer to rely on the judgement of a French Justice of the Peace than on Sid'Omar's…. That was where things stood when I arrived.
The Jew—old, greying beard, brown jacket, blue stockings, and velvet cap—raises his eyes to the sky and rolls them, kisses Sid'Omar's silk slippers, bows his head, kneels down, and clasps his hands together, pleadingly…. I have no Arabic, but from the Jew's miming and from the wordsJoustees of the peace, Joustees of the peace, which he keeps repeating, I get the gist of what he is saying.
—I have no doubts about Sid'Omar, Sid'Omar is wise, Sid'Omar is just…. But, the Joustees of the Peace would be more suitable for our business.
The audience is indignant, and yet remains impassive as Arabs do…. Stretched out on his cushion, his eyes blurred, the amber book to his lips, Sid'Omar—that master of irony—smiles as he listens. Suddenly, at the height of his pleas, the Jew is interrupted by an energeticcaramba!which stops him. Dead. The voice belongs to a Spanish colonial, who has come as a witness for the leader, and who then leaves his place and approaches the Judas Jew, and pours a bucketful of imprecations in all tongues and shades of blue over his head—mixed with other French expressions too gross to repeat…. Sid'Omar's son, who understands French, reddened on hearing such words in front of his father and leaves—keeping up an Arabic tradition. The audience is still impassive, Sid'Omar still smiling on. The Jew stands up and backs towards the door, trembling and scared, and babbles on about his everlasting,Joustees of the Peas, Joustees of the Peas…. He leaves. The Spaniard, furious, is at his heels and meets up with him in the road before hitting him; twice; full in the face…. the Jew falls to his knees, with his arms covering his face. The Spaniard, a little ashamed of himself, comes back into the shop…. As soon as he is safely inside, the Jew gets up with a shifty look at the motley crowd surrounding him. There were people of many races and colours there—Maltese, Minorcans, Negroes, and Arabs, all united—for once—in hating the Jew and loving to see him so maltreated…. The Jew hesitates a while, then grabs an Arab by his burnous:
—You saw him … Achmed, you saw him … you were there!… The Christian hit me … you shall be a witness … yes … yes … you shall be a witness.
The Arab frees his burnous and pushes the Jew away…. He knows nothing; he's seen nothing; he was looking the other way….
—How about you, Kaddour, you saw him…. You saw the Christian strike me … shouts my unfortunate Jew to a big Negro who is impassively peeling a Barbary fig….
The Negro spits his contempt and moves away, he hasn't seen a thing. Neither has the little Maltese, whose coal-black eyes glisten viciously under his biretta; nor the rust-coloured girl from Mahon who, placing a basket of pomegranates on her head, laughs it all, and him, off….
No matter how much the Jew shouts, pleads, demeans himself … no witnesses! Nobody saw anything…. By chance, just then a couple of fellow Zionists pass by. They are humiliated, and cower by a wall. The Jew spots them:
—Quick, quick, brothers. Quick, to the consultant! Quick to theJoustees of the Peas!… The rest of you, you saw him…. you saw him beat the old man up!
As if they'd seen him!… I don't think so.
… Things are getting lively in old Sid'Omar's shop…. The proprietor refills their cups, and relights their pipes. They chat on, and they laugh fit to burst. It's such a pleasure to see a Jew beaten up!… In the middle of the hubbub and smoke, I slip out quietly; I want to wander in the Jewish quarter, to see how my Jew's coreligionists, are taking their brother's outrage….
—Come to dinner tonight, m'sier, the good old Sid'Omar shouted….
I agree and thank him. I go outside. In the Jewish quarter, there is turmoil. The matter has already attracted a lot of attention. Nobody is minding the store. Embroiderers, tailors, and saddlers—all Israel is out on the street…. The men in their velvet caps, and blue woollen stockings fidgeting noisily in groups…. The women, pale, bloated, and unattractive in their thin dresses and gold fronts, have their faces wrapped in black bandages, and are going from group to group, caterwauling…. As I arrive, something starts to move in the crowd. There's an urgency and a crush…. Relying on their witness, my Jew—hero of the hour—passes between two rows of caps, under a hail of exhortations:
—Revenge yourself, brother, revenge us, revenge the Jewish people.Fear nothing; you have the law on your side.
A hideous dwarf, smelling of pitch and old leather, comes to me pitifully, sighing deeply:
—You see! he said to me. We're hard done by, we Jews. How they treat us! He's an old man. Look! They've practically killed him.
It's true, my poor Jew looks more dead than alive. He goes past me—his eyes lifeless, his face haggard—not so much walking as dragging himself along…. Only a huge compensation looks likely to make him feel any better; after all, he is going to the consultant, not to the doctor.
* * * * *
There are almost as many consultants in Algeria as there are grasshoppers. It's a good living, I'd say. In any case, it has the great advantage that you can just walk into it, without passing examinations, or leaving a bond, or being trained. In Paris you become a lawyer; in Algeria a consultant. It's enough to have a bit of French, Spanish, and Arabian, and to have a code of conduct in your saddle bag; but above all else, you need the right temperament for the job.
The agent's functions are very varied: he can be in turn a barrister, solicitor, broker, expert, interpreter, money dealer, commissioner, and public scribe; he is the Jack of all trades of the colony. Only Harpagon has a single Jack of all trades; the rest of the colony has a surfeit, and nowhere more than Milianah, where they can be counted in dozens. Usually, to avoid office expenses, these gentlemen meet their clients in the café in the main square and give their consultations—did I say give?—between the appetiser and the after dinner wine.
The dignified Jew is making his way towards the café in the main square, with the two witnesses at his side. I will leave them to it.
* * * * *
As I leave the Jewish quarter, I go past the Arab Bureau. From outside, with its slate grey roof and French flag flying above, it could be taken for the village town hall. I know the interpreter, so I go in and have a cigarette with him. In between fags, this sunless Sunday has turned out quite well.
The yard in front of the Bureau is packed with shabbily dressed Arabs. Fifteen of them, in their burnouses, are squatting there along the wall, turning it into a sort of lobby. This Bedouin area—despite being in the open air—gives off a very strong smell of human flesh. Moving quickly past…. I find the interpreter occupied with two large, loud-mouthed Arabs, quite naked under their filthy blankets, madly miming some story or other about a stolen chain. I sit down on a mat in a corner and look on…. The Milianah's interpreter's uniform is very fetching, and how well he carries it! They are made for each other. The uniform is sky blue with black frogging and shiny gold buttons. With fair tightly curled hair and a light-skin, he cuts a fine figure, this hussar in blue, and is full of fun and strange tales. He is naturally talkative—he speaks many languages, and is a bit of a religious sceptic; he knew Renan at the Oriental School!—a great amateur sportsman, he is equally at ease in an Arab tent or at the Sub-prefect's soirées. He dances the mazurka as well as anyone, and makes couscous better than anyone. To sum up, he's a Parisian, and he's my sort of man. No wonder the women are mad about him…. He is a sharp dresser, and only the Arab Bureau's sergeant is in the same league, the sergeant—who, with his uniform of fine material and mother of pearl buttoned leggings, causes envy, and despair, in the garrison. Our man is on attachment to the Bureau, and he is excused fatigues and is often seen in the streets, white gloved, his hair freshly curled, and large files under his arm. He is admired and he is feared. He is authoritative.
To be sure, this story of the stolen chain threatens to become an epic.Bye-bye! I shan't wait for the end.
The Bureau area is in uproar as I leave. The crowd is crushing round a tall, pale, proud, local man dressed in a black burnous. A week ago, this man fought a panther in the Zaccar. The panther is dead; but the man has lost half his left arm. In the morning and at night he comes to have his wounds dressed at the Bureau, and every time, he is stopped in the yard and has to re-tell his story. He speaks slowly, with beautifully guttural voice. From time to time he pulls his burnous to one side and shows his left arm, strapped to his chest and wrapped in bloody blankets.
* * * * *
The moment I come into the street a violent storm breaks. Rain, thunder, lightning, sirocco…. Quickly, I take shelter in the first available doorway, and fall amongst a bunch of bohemians, crowded into the archways of a Moorish courtyard. It adjoins the Milianah mosque, and is a regular refuge for the Muslim destitute. They call it theCourtyard of the Poor.
Large, emaciated, lousy, and threatening, greyhounds range around me. Backed up against the gallery pillars, I try to keep control of myself and don't talk to anyone, as I try to look unconcernedly at the rain bouncing off the flagstones. The bohemians are lying about carelessly. Close by me is a young woman, almost beautiful, with her breasts and legs uncovered, and thick iron bracelets on her wrists and ankles. She is singing a strange tune consisting of three melancholic, nasal notes, while she is breast feeding a naked, reddish-bronze child, and fills a mortar with barley with her free arm. The wind-blown rain sometimes soaks the arms of the nursing woman and the body of the child. The bohemian girl completely ignores this and keeps singing during the gusts, while still piling up the barley and giving suck.
The storm abates and gives me a chance to leave the courtyard of Miracles and make my way towards dinner at Sid'Omar's, now imminent…. As I cross the main square, I run into my Jew of recent memory again. He is leaning on his consultant; his witnesses are following happily behind him, and a bunch of naughty, little Jewish boys skip around him…. They are all beaming. The consultant is taking charge of the affair; he will ask for two thousand francs compensation from the tribunal.
* * * * *
Dinner at Sid'Omar's is sumptuous. The dining room opens onto a Moorish courtyard, where two or three fountains are playing…. It's an excellent Turkish meal, whose highlights arepoulet aux amandes, couscous à la vanille, andtortue à la viande—a bit heavy, but a gourmet meal nevertheless—and biscuits made with honey calledbouchées du kadi…. For wine—nothing but champagne. Sid'Omar managed to drink some despite Muslim law—while the servers were looking away…. After dinner we go into our host's room where we are served with sweetmeats, pipes, and coffee…. The furnishings of this room are sparse: a divan, several mats, and a large high bed at the back scattered with gold embroidered red cushions…. A Turkish painting of the exploits of a certain Hamadi hangs upon the wall. Turkish painters only seem to use one colour per canvas. This canvas is decidedly green. The sea, the sky, the ships, even the admiral himself, everything is green, and deep green at that!… Arabs usually retire early, so, once I have finished my coffee and smoked my pipe, I bid goodnight to my host and leave him to his wives.
* * * * *
Now, where to round off my evening? Well, it's too early for bed, the spahi soldiers haven't sounded the retreat on their bugles, yet. Moreover, Sid'Omar's gold cushions were dancing fabulous farandoles round me and making sleep impossible…. I'm outside the theatre, let's go in for a moment.
The Milianah theatre is an old fur store, refurbished as far as possible to make a stage and auditorium. The lighting is made up of large oil lamps which are refilled during the interval. The audience stands; only the orchestra sits, but on benches. The galleries are quite swish with cane chairs…. All around the room there is a long, dark corridor with no wooden flooring…. You might as well be in the street, it has absolutely nothing in it. The play has already started when I arrive. The actors aren't at all bad, the men at least; they get their training from life…. They are mainly amateurs, soldiers of the third division, and the regiment is proud of them and supports them every night.
As for the women, well!… It always is and always will be the same in small provincial theatres, the women are always pretentious, artificial, and overact outrageously…. And yet, among the women there are two very young Jewesses, beginners at the drama, who catch my eye…. Their parents are in the audience and seem enchanted. They are convinced that their daughters are going to earn a fortune on the stage. The legendary Rachel, Israeli millionaire, and actress, has an orient-wide reputation with the Jews.
Nothing could be more comical and pathetic than these two little Jewesses on the boards…. They stand timidly in a corner of the scene, powdered, made-up, and as stiff as a board in low cut dresses. They are cold and they are embarrassed. Occasionally, they gabble a phrase without understanding its meaning, and as they speak, gaze vacantly into the auditorium.
* * * * *
I leave the theatre…. I hear shouting in the surrounding blackness from somewhere in the square…. Some Maltese settling a point, no doubt, at the point of a knife….I return slowly along the ramparts to the hotel. A gorgeous scent of oranges and thujas wafts up from the plain. The air is mild and the sky almost clear…. At the end of the road, yonder, an old, walled phantom reaches upwards—the debris of some old temple. This wall is sacred. Every day, Arab women come to hang ex-voto gifts, bits of haiks and foutas, long tresses of red hair tied with silver wire, and bits of burnous…. All this dances about in the warm breeze, lit by a narrow ray of moonlight….
Just one more souvenir of Algeria and then—back to the windmill!…
I couldn't sleep the night I arrived at the farm of the Sahel. Maybe it was the new country, the stress of the voyage, the barking jackals, on top of the irritating, oppressive, and completely asphyxiating heat. It felt as though the mosquito nets were keeping the air out with the insects…. As I opened my window at first light, I saw a heavy summer mist, slow-moving, fringed with black and pink, and floating in the air like smoke over a battle field. Not a leaf moved in the lovely gardens stretched out before me, where, the well-spaced vines, that gave such sweet wine, were enjoying full sunshine on the slopes. There were also European fruit trees sheltered in a shady spot, and small orange and mandarin trees in long, closely packed lines. Everything had the same gloomy look about it, with that certain limpness of leaf waiting for the storm. Even the banana trees, those great, pale-green reeds, usually on the move as some light breeze tangles their fine, light foliage, stood straight and silent in their symmetrical plumage.
I stayed there for a while looking at this fabulous plantation, where seemingly all types of the world's trees could be found, each one giving exotic flowers and fruit, in its proper season. Between the wheat fields and the massive cork-oaks, a stream shone, and refreshed—the eye at least—on an airless morning. As I approved the fineness and order of it all: the beautiful farm with its Moorish arcades and terraces, brilliantly white in the dawn, and its surrounding stables and barns, I recalled that it was twenty years since these brave settlers set up home in the valley of the Sahel. At first, they found only a workman's shack, and ground haphazardly planted with dwarf palms and mastic trees. Everything was yet to be done; everything to be built. At any time, there could be an attack from Arabs. They had to leave the plough out for cover in case of a shoot-out. Then there was the sickness, the ophthalmia, the fevers; and the failed harvest, the groping inexperience, and the fight against a narrow-minded administration—always putting off its prevarications. What a world of work, and fatigue, and having to watch their backs all the time!
Even now, despite the end of the bad times, and the hard-won good fortune, both the settler and his wife were up before anyone else on the farm. At an ungodly hour they could be heard coming and going, overlooking the workers' coffee, in the huge kitchens on the ground floor. Shortly afterwards, a bell was rung and the workmen set out for the day's work. There were some Burgundy wine-growers, Kabyle workers in rags and red tarbooshes, bare-legged Mahonian terrace workers, Maltese, and people from Lucca; men from many places and therefore more difficult to manage. Outside the door, the farmer curtly gave out the day's work to everyone. When he was finished, this fine man looked up and scrutinised the sky anxiously. Then, he noticed me at the window:
—Awful growing weather, he told me, here comes the sirocco.
In fact, as the sun rose waves of hot, suffocating air came in from the south as though an oven door had briefly opened. We didn't know where to put ourselves or what to do. The whole morning was like this. We took coffee sitting on mats in the gallery, without finding the will power to move or speak. The dogs, stretched out, hoping the flagstones would keep them cool, looked utterly washed out. Lunch picked us up a bit; it was a generous if singular meal, and included carp, trout, wild boar, hedgehog, Staouëli butter, Crescian wines, guavas, and bananas. All in all, an improbability of delicacies which nevertheless reflected the complex variety of nature which surrounded us…. We were just about to get up from the table, when shouts rang out from behind the closed French window, shouts that guaranteed that we would soon experience first-hand the furnace-like heat in the garden:
—Locusts! Locusts!
My host paled, as any man would who had been told of an impending catastrophe, and we shot outside. For ten minutes, in the farmhouse, once so calm, there was the sound of running footsteps, and indistinct voices lost in the sudden panic. From the shade of the dormitories, the servants rushed outside banging and clanging anything that came to hand; sticks, forks, flails, copper cauldrons, basins, saucepans. The shepherds blew their horns, others blew their conches or their hunting horns; a fearfully discordant racket, soon overlaid by the shrill voices of the Arab women ululating as they rushed out from nearby caves. Sometimes, setting up a great racket and a resonant vibration in the air is enough to send the locusts away, or at least to stop them coming down.
So, where were they then, these awful creatures? In a sky vibrant with heat, I saw nothing except a solitary cloud forming on the horizon, a dense, copper-coloured, hail-cloud, but making a din like a storm in a forest. It was the locusts. They flew en masse, suspended on their long, thin wings and despite all the shouting and effort, they just kept on coming, casting a huge, threatening shadow over the plain. Soon they were overhead. The edges of the cloud frayed momentarily and then broke away, as some of them, distinct and reddish, peeled off from the rest like the first few drops of a shower. Then, the whole cloud burst and a hailstorm of insects fell thick, fast, and loud. As far as the eye could see, the fields were completely obliterated by locusts. And they were enormous; each one as big as a finger.
Then the killing began to a hideous squelching sound like straw being crushed. The heaving soil was turned over using harrows, mattocks, and ploughs. But the more you killed, the more of them there were. They swarmed in waves, their front legs all tangled up, their back legs leaping for dear life—sometimes into the path of the horses harnessed up for this bizarre work. The farm dogs, and some from the caves, were released onto the fields, and fell amongst them crunching them in a frenzy. Then, two companies of Turks following their buglers came to the aid of the colonists, and the massacre changed complexion completely.
They didn't crush the locusts, they burnt them with a wide sprinkling of gunpowder.
I was drained by all this killing and sickened by the smell, so I went back into the farmhouse, but there were almost as many in there. They had come in through the open doors and windows and down the chimney. On the woodwork and curtains, already stripped, they crawled, fell, fluttered, and climbed up the white wall, casting huge shadows making them look even uglier. And there was just no getting away from the awful stench.
Later, we had to do without water with our meal as the tanks, basins, wells, and fish ponds were all covered over with dead locusts. In the evening, in my room, where many had been killed, I heard a buzzing under the furniture, and the cracking of wing cases, which sounded like plant pods bursting in the sweltering heat. Naturally, I couldn't sleep again. Besides, everybody else was still noisily busy all over the farm. Flames were spreading over the ground from one end of the plain to the other; the Turks were still in their killing fields.
The next day, opening my window, I could see that the locusts were gone. But what total devastation they left behind. There wasn't a single flower, or a blade of grass; everything was black, charred, and eaten away. Only the banana, apricot, peach, and mandarin trees could be recognised by the outline of their stripped branches, but lacking the charm and flourish of the leaves which only yesterday had been their living essence. The rooms and the water tanks were being washed out. Everywhere, labourers were digging into the ground destroying the locusts' eggs. Each sod of soil was carefully examined and turned over. But it broke their hearts to see the thousands of white, sap-filled roots in the crumbling, still-fertile soil….
—Drink this, friend,; and tell me what you think of it.
At this, the priest of Graveson, with all the care of a jeweller counting pearls, poured me two fingers of what proved to be a fresh, golden, cordial, sparklingly exquisite liqueur…. It warmed the cockles of my heart.
—It's Father Gaucher's elixir, the pleasure and toast of Provence, crowed the kind man, it's made at the White Canons' Monastery, a few kilometres from your windmill…. Now, isn't that worth all the Chartreuses in the world?… And if you'd like to know the amusing story of this delightful elixir, listen to this….
The presbytery's dining room was genuine, and calm, with little pictures of the Stations of the Cross, and attractive, clear curtains starched like a surplice. It was in there that the priest began this short, and lightly sceptical and irreverent story, in the manner of Erasmus, but completely without art, or malicious intent.
* * * * *
Twenty years ago, the Norbertian monks, called the White Canons in Provence, hit some really hard times. To see their living conditions at that time was to feel their pain.
Their great wall and St. Pacôme's tower were crumbling away. The cloister was disappearing under the weeds, the columns were splitting, and the stone saints were collapsing in their niches. There was no stained glass window unbroken; nor door still on its hinges. Within the chapels and the inner cloister, the Rhone wind entered, just like in the Camargue, blowing out candles, bending the lead and breaking the glass, and skimming the holy water from its font. Tellingly sadly, the convent bell hung as silent as an empty dovecote, forcing the penniless Fathers to call to matins with an almond wood clapper!…
Oh, the woeful White Canons. I can still see them in procession on Corpus Christi day, sadly filing past in their patched capes—pale, emaciated, as befitted their mainly watermelon diet—followed by his grace the abbot, head lowered, shamed by his tarnished crosier, and his eaten away, white, wool mitre. The lady followers of the brotherhood were reduced to tears of pity in the procession, and the well-built banner-carriers were tittering quietly amongst themselves as the poor monks appeared,
—Those who dream together, starve together
The fact is that the unfortunate White Canons had come to the point where they were wondering if they wouldn't be better off finding a place in the real world with every man for himself.
One day when this grave matter was under discussion in the chapter, the prior was informed that Brother Gaucher wanted to be heard in the assembly…. Brother Gaucher was the monastery cowherd, which meant that he spent his entire day wandering around the cloister, driving two old, emaciated cows from one archway to another, to graze the grass in the gaps in the paving. He had been looked after for twelve years by an old woman from the Baux country, known as aunty Bégon, before he was taken in by the monks. The unfortunate cowherd had been unable to learn anything but how to look after his cattle and to recite his Our Father; and then only in the Provencal language, as he was too dull witted for anything else, and about as sharp as a butter-knife. Otherwise, he was a fervent Christian, although a touch extreme, at ease in a hair shirt and doing self-chastisement with commendable vigour, and, oh, brother, his strong arms!…
As he entered the chapter room, simple and uncouth, and greeted the assembly with a sort of curtsey, the Prior, Canons, Treasurer, in fact, everybody began to laugh. His greying hair, goatee beard and slightly wild eyes, always had this effect. It didn't bother Brother Gaucher, though.
—Reverend Fathers, he said meekly, as he twiddled with his rosary of olive pips, Although it's very true that empty vessels make the most noise, I want you to know that by further furrowing my already poor, furrowed brow, I think I have found a way to deliver us from our hardship.
—This is what I propose. You all know about aunty Bégon, the kind woman who looked after me when I was little. (May her soul rest in peace, the old vixen! She used to sing filthy songs after drinking.) I must tell you, Reverend Fathers, that when she was alive, she was as familiar with the herbs of the mountainside, as the old Corsican blackbird. Now, before she died, she developed a unique elixir made from several different kinds of herbs that we had gathered in the Alpilles…. All this was a long time ago, but, with the help of St. Augustine, and your permission, Father Abbot, I should, if I search thoroughly, be able to find the ingredients for this elixir. We will then only have to bottle it, and sell it at a good profit. This would allow the community to quietly fill its coffers, like our brother Trappists and … and their liqueur, Grand Chartreu …
Before he could finish, the Prior had stood up and leapt round his neck. The Canons shook him by the hand. But it was the treasurer, who was more moved than all the others, and respectfully kissed the edge of Brother Gaucher's frayed hood…. Each one then went back to his seat and the chapter, still in session, elected to entrust the cows to Brother Thrasybule, so that Brother Gaucher could dedicate himself to making his elixir.
* * * * *
How what trials and tribulations the good Brother underwent to retrieve aunty Bégon's recipe, history doesn't tell us. But what you can be assured of, is that after only six months the White Canons' elixir was very popular. Throughout the districts of Avignon and Arles there wasn't a single farm which didn't have a store room containing a small brown earthenware bottle showing the arms of Provence, and a silver label depicting a monk in ecstasy, standing amongst the bottles of sweet wine and jars of picholine olives. The elixir sold in a big way, and the house of the White Canons soon became wealthy. St. Pacôme's tower was rebuilt. The Prior gloried in a new mitre, the church was fitted with finely worked stained glass; and in the fine filigree stone work of the bell tower, a whole range of bells, large and small, rang out their first fulsome peal on one fine Easter morning.
Brother Gaucher, the poor lay Brother, whose rustic charms, who had so enlivened the chapter, is no longer to be found there. From now on, he is known only as the Reverend Father Gaucher, a capable man of great learning. He lives apart from the many petty concerns of the cloister, locked all day in his distillery, while thirty monks scour the mountainside collecting pungent herbs for him…. The distillery was in an old unused chapel at the very bottom of the Canons' garden, and no one, not even the Prior himself, had a right of access. The innocence of the good Fathers had transformed it into a place of mystery and wonder. If, on occasion, a bold and curious young monk made use of the climbing vines to reach the rose window of the door, he would scramble down soon enough, alarmed by the sight of Father Gaucher, who looked like a bearded magician, leaning over his flames, holding his elixir-strength-gauge. All around, there were pink stoneware retorts, huge stills, coiled glass condensers, and all sorts of bizarre equipment, which gleamed eerily in the red light from the stained glass windows….
At nightfall, as the last angelus bell was ringing, the door of this mysterious place silently opened, and the Reverend Father Gaucher emerged to attend the evening church service. It warmed the heart to see him greeted with such joy as he crossed the monastery grounds. The brothers rushed to be at his side. They said:
—Hush! That's the Father with his secret!…
The Treasurer used to join him and spoke to him humbly….
With these adulations ringing in his ears, the Father walked on, mopping his brow, and placed his wide brimmed tricorne hat on the back of his head, where it gave all the appearance of a halo, and looked complacently around at the great courtyard planted with orange trees, and the new working weathercocks on the blue roofs. In the sparklingly white cloister—between the elegant columns decorated with flowers—the Canons, in new clothes, were filing past in pairs, in renewed health and well-being.
—It's thanks to me they can enjoy all that! the Reverend thought; and each time he did, he flushed with pride.
But, the unfortunate man was to be well punished for his pride, as you will see….
* * * * *
Who would have thought, that one evening, during the service, he would come to church in an extraordinarily agitated state: red-faced, out of breath, his cowl askew, and so beside himself, that as he took the holy water, he wet his sleeves up to the elbow. At first, it was thought it was the embarrassment of coming late, but he was then seen bowing deeply to the organ and the gallery instead of genuflecting to the high altar, and then breezing quickly across the church, and wandering about for five minutes looking for his stall. After all this, once seated, he turned to right and left, smiling beatifically, prompting a murmur of astonishment that spread down the three naves. From prayer book to prayer book the whisper went,
—What on earth is the matter with Father Gaucher?… What's wrong withFather Gaucher?
Twice, the Prior struck his crosier impatiently on the flagstones to command silence…. Over at the back of the choir, the psalms were still echoing out, but without any responses….
Suddenly, right in the middle of theAve Verum, Father Gaucher slumped back into his stall and began singing in a piercing voice:
In Paris, there was a White Canon,Who went all the way with a black nun….
This caused everyone great dismay, and they all stood up. Somebody said:
—Take him out … he's possessed!
The Canons crossed themselves. His Grace's crosier was clattering madly away…. But Father Gaucher, was oblivious to all this; and two monks were obliged to carry him out through the little choir door, struggling as if he were being exorcised, and continuing with his hmm … tune….
* * * * *
Very early the next day, the unhappy Father was in the Prior's oratory on his knees, in floods of tears, showing his contrition:
—It's the elixir, your Grace, which caught me out, he said, striking his chest. The good Prior himself was very moved to see him so grieved and penitent.
—Come, come, Father Gaucher, calm down. All this will disappear like dew in the sunshine…. After all, worse things happen at sea. Lots of people begin to sing when they are a little… hmm, hmm! We must hope that novices wouldn't have understood it…. For the moment, let's see, tell me just how this thing came to pass…. You were trying out the liqueur, weren't you? You were perhaps a little generous with your measure…. Yes, yes, I understand…. It's just like Brother Schwartz, the inventor of gunpowder: you succumbed to your own invention…. Tell me, my dear friend, is it really necessary to test this terrific liqueur on yourself?
—Alas, yes your Grace … the elixir-strength-gauge tells me the degree of the alcohol, but for the smoothness of the finished product, I can trust nothing but my own palate….
—Oh yes, that's right … but if I might press you a little further … when you taste the elixir in that way, does it seem good to you? Is it enjoyable?…
—Yes, I'm afraid it does your Grace, admitted the miserable Father, flushing…. For two nights now, I found it had such a bouquet, such an aroma!… The devil himself has played this dirty trick on me…. From now on, I am determined only to try it by means of the elixir-strength-gauge. Never mind if the liqueur is not good enough, and if it isn't quite a diamond of a drink….
—Hold it right there, interrupted the Prior, sharply, We must not risk upsetting the customers…. All you need to do for the moment, as a precaution, is to keep a eye on yourself…. Let's see, how much does it take to fully establish the quality?… Lets say twenty drops…. It would need a hell of a devil to catch you out with just twenty drops…. Moreover, to avoid any possibility of accident, I am giving you a dispensation not to have to come to church. You can have a private evening service in the distillery…. And now, you may go in peace, Reverend, but … be sure to count the drops.
Unfortunately, it was no use counting the drops…. The demon held of him anyway, and having held him, wouldn't let go.
So, now it was the distillery that heard theunusualservice!
* * * * *
In the daytime all went well … for a while. The Father was quite relaxed: he prepared the stoves, the stills, and carefully selected the herbs, fine, grey, dentate, the very scented essence of Provencal sunshine…. But in the evening while the basic ingredients were infusing and the elixir was cooling down in the large red coppers, the poor man's torture began.
—… Seventeen … eighteen … nineteen … twenty!…
The drops fell tantalisingly from the pipette into the silver-gilt goblet. These twenty, the Father swallowed in one go, almost without tasting them. Oh! How he would have loved to drink the health of that twenty first drop! To escape temptation, he had to lose himself in prayer kneeling at the far end of the laboratory. Unfortunately, the still warm liqueur was still releasing a hint of aromatic fumes, which swirled around him, and led him on regardless towards the vats…. The liqueur was of such a lovely golden green colour…. Poised above it, his nostrils aquiver, he stirred it very gently with his pipette, and in the twinkling eddies, which were spreading throughout the emerald ambrosia, he thought he saw the sparkling, laughing eyes of aunty Bégon looking back at him….
—Oh! Alright! Just one more drop!
One drop, yes. And then another. And another, and another, and another, until his goblet almost overflowed. By now, his struggle was over, and he collapsed into a large armchair, his body cast off, his eyelids half closed, in pleasure—and in pain—as he continued to sip his sinful cup and said with sweet remorse:
—Oh! I'm damned if I do…. I'm damned if I don't….
But the worst was still to come. As he reached the end of the diabolical liqueur, he recalled, by who knows what spell, some of the dirty songs of aunty Bégon:In Paris there was a White Canon… and so on….
Imagine the fuss the next day, when his neighbouring cell mates joked to him knowingly:
—Hey! Hey! Father Gaucher, you were well off your head last night when you went to bed.
It all ended in tears, recriminations, fasting, the hair shirt, and chastisement, of course. But nothing, nothing could defeat the demon of the drink, and every evening, at the same time, the same story.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, the orders were flooding into the abbey, and it was a blessing. They came from Nîmes, Aix, Avignon, Marseilles…. Day by day the monastery was gradually turning into a factory. There were Brother packers, Brother labellers, Brother accountants, and even Brother wagoners. The service to the Lord, though, was getting well and truly lost, despite the odd peal of bells. But, I can reveal to you that the poor folk of the area weren't losing out by it….
And then, one fine Sunday morning, as the Treasurer was reading out his end of year report before the whole chapter, and the good Brothers, wide eyed and smiling, were listening, Father Gaucher rushed into the meeting shouting:
—It's all over…. I am doing no more…. I want my cows back.
—So what's wrong, Father Gaucher? asked the Prior, who could well imagine something of what was wrong.
—What is wrong, your Grace?… What is wrong is that I am making an eternity of hell fire and forks for myself…. It is wrong that I am drinking, and I am drinking like a sot….
—But I told you to count the drops.
—Oh! Yes, of course, count the drops! Actually, I count by tumblers these days…. Yes, Reverends, that's how bad things are. Three flagons every evening…. You must understand that this can't continue…. Have the elixir made by whomever you choose…. But, may I burn in God-sent fire, if I have anything more to do with it.
This sobered up the chapter, at least.
—But, wretched man, you will ruin us! the treasurer shouted, brandishing his account book.
—Would you rather that I am damned?
With that the Prior stood up:
—Reverends, he said, stretching out his elegant white hand with its shining pastoral ring, there is a way to settle this…. It's in the evening, isn't it, my dear son, when the demon tempts you?…
—Yes, Prior, regularly every evening…. As well as that, as the night approaches, I get, begging your pardon, the sweats, which grip me just like Capitou's ass when he sees them coming to saddle him.
—Well then, let me reassure you…. Henceforth, every evening, during the service, we will say, for your benefit, the prayer of St. Augustine, to which a plenary indulgence is attached…. After that, you are covered no matter what happens…. It brings absolution during the actual commission of the sin.
—Oh that's really excellent! Thank you so much, Prior!
And without asking for more, Father Gaucher went happily back to his stills, walking on air.
Actually, from that moment, every evening, at the end of the last service of the day, the celebrant never forgot to add:
—Let us pray for our unfortunate Father Gaucher, who is sacrificing his soul for the benefit of the community…. Pray for us, Lord….
And while, on all the white hoods of the Brothers, prostrated in the shade of the naves, the prayer fluttered like a slight breeze on snow, elsewhere, at the back of the monastery, behind the flickering reddened glass of the distillery, Father Gaucher could be heard singing at the top of his voice,
In Paris, there was a White Canon,Who went all the way with a black nun….
* * * * *
… Here, the good priest paused, horrified:
—Mercy me! If my parishioners could only hear me!