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The Three Christmas Masses & Other Christmas Stories by Alphonse Daudet
Table of Contents
A Christmas Supper in the Marais (Alphonse Daudet)
The Three Low Masses (Alphonse Daudet)
I
II
III
Salvette and Bernadou (Alphonse Daudet)
I
II
III
The Three Christmas Masses (Alphonse Daudet)
I
II
III
A Love-Passage from a Wandering Cossack
Alphonse Daudet
Published by
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"Merciful saints! they will set the house on fire!" thinks M. Majesté; and having recovered from his stupor, he makes an effort to shake the numbness from his legs, and hurries down into the court, where the footmen have just lighted a great bonfire. M. Majesté goes up to them, speaks to them; but they do not answer; they stand there chatting among themselves softly, and not the faintest breath issues from their lips into the freezing shadow of the night. M. Majesté is somewhat put out. He is reassured, however, when he realizes that this great fire with its long straight flames is a most peculiar fire, which emits no heat,—which simply glows, but does not burn. The good man therefore sets his mind at rest, goes upstairs again, and makes his way into the store.
These stores on the first floor must have been grand reception-halls in their day. Particles of tarnished gold still cling to the angles. Mythological frescos circle about the ceilings, wind round the mirrors, hover above the doorways, vague and subdued, like bygone memories. Unfortunately there are no curtains or furniture anywhere, nothing but baskets, great cases filled with leaden-headed siphons, and the withered limb of an old lilac bush rising in black outline outside the window. M. Majesté enters. He finds the rooms crowded and brilliantly illumined. He bows, but nobody seems to notice him. The women, in their satin wraps, lean on their cavaliers' arms and flirt with ceremonious, mincing graces. They promenade, chat, separate into groups. All these old marquises really seem quite at home. One little shade stops, all of a quiver, before a painted pier-glass; then she glances smilingly at a Diana that rises out of the wood-work, lithe and roseate, with a crescent on her brow.
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