discretely, are the scullions, who steal in, between two sauces, to get
a little of the Mass, carrying an odor of the revelry into the church,
all in its gay attire and warm with so many burning candles.

Is it a glimpse of their little white caps that distracts the celebrant
of the Mass? Or, it may be the clangor made by Garrigou's bells, that
pulsating sound which shakes the altar with an infernal vibration and
seems to say all the time:

"Hurry up, hurry up. We'll soon be done; we'll soon be at table!"

The fact is, that each time it sounds--that peal of the devil--the
chaplain forgets his Mass and thinks of nothing but the coming revel. He
pictures to himself the uproar of the kitchens; the furnace heated like
a blacksmith's forge; the vapor of opening trenchers, and in that vapor
two magnificent turkeys, buttered, tender, bursting with truffles.

Or, perhaps he saw pass the files of little pages bearing dishes
enveloped in tempting steam, and, with them, entered the grand saloon
already prepared for the feast. O deliciousness! behold the immense
table all set and sparkling; the peacocks in their plumes; the pheasants
with their open wings of reddish-brown; the ruby-colored flagons; the
pyramids of fruit peeping from green branches; and those marvellous fish
of which Garrigou told (ah! well, yes, Garrigou!) held aloft on a bed of
fennel, the mother-of-pearl scales as bright as when they came from the
water, with a bouquet of odorous herbs in their monster-like nostrils.
So distinct is the vision of these marvels, that it seems to Dom
Balaguère as if all the wonderful dishes are served before him on the
embroideries of the altar-cloth; and two or three times, in place of
_Dominus vobiscum_, he is surprised to find himself repeating the