o the middle of the service, already warmed by so
many lit candles.

Is it the sight of these little white birettas which distracts the
officiating priest? It's more likely to be Garrigou, with his
persistent, little bell incessantly ringing on at the foot of the altar
with infernal urgency as if to say:

--Hurry up, hurry up ... the sooner we finish, the sooner we eat.

The simple fact is that with each tinkle of the devilishly insistent
bell, the chaplain loses track of the mass, as his mind totally wanders
off into the Christmas Eve banquet. He imagines the cooks buzzing
around, the open-hearth blazing furnaces, the steam hissing from
half-opened lids, and there, within the steam, two magnificent turkeys,
stuffed to bursting, and marbled with truffles....

Even worse, he imagines the lines of pages carrying dishes that breathe
out the tempting vapour and accompanies them to the great hall already
prepared for the great feast. Oh, such delicacies! Then there is the
immense table fully loaded and brimming over with peacocks still
covered in their feathered glory, pheasants with their golden brown
wings spread wide, the ruby coloured flagons of wine, pyramids of fruit
begging to be plucked from the green foliage, and the marvellous fish
spread out on a bed of fennel, their pearly scales shining as if just
caught, with a bouquet of aromatic herbs in the gills of these
monsters. So life-like is the vision of these marvels, that Dom
Balaguere has the impression that these fabulous dishes were served on
the embroidered altar cloth, so that instead of saying, _the Lord be
with you_ he finds himself saying _grace_. These slight faux-pas aside,
he reels off his office conscientiously enough, without fluffing a line
or missing a genuflexion. All went well to the end of the first mass.
But, remember, the celebrant is obliged take three consecutive masses
on Christmas Day.

--That's one less! sighs the chaplain to himself in blessed relief.
Then, without wasting a second, he nodded to his clerical assistant, or
at least, to what he thought was his clerical assistant, and ...

The bell rang, again!

The second mass begins, and with it, the fatal fall into sin of Dom
Balaguere.

--Quick, quick, let's hurry up, cries the shrill voice of Garigou's
bell, but this time the unlucky celebrant abandons himself utterly to
the demon of greed and pounces on the missal, devouring the pages as he
lost control of his avidly over-stimu