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 Balaguère 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 blessèd 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 Balaguère. --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-stimulated appetite. He becomes frenzied, he bows down, he rises, takes a sight stab at crossing himself and genuflecting, minimising the gestures, all the quicker to reach the end. His arms, no sooner stretched over the gospels than back thumping his chest for the I confess. Competition is joined between him and his cleric to see who finishes first in the mumbling stakes. Verses and responses tumble out and mix together. Half swallowed words through clenched teeth take too long, and so tail off into incomprehensible mutters. --_Pray for u ..._ --_Thro ... my fau ..._ Like frenzied grape-pickers treading the grapes from the vat, they squelched around in the Latin of the mass, slopping it all over the place. --_Lor ... b'ith ... yo..._ says Balaguère.