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!...