The Three Christmas Masses & Other Christmas Stories by Alphonse Daudet. Alphonse Daudet
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name of Majesté, Jr.
"Ha, ha, ha! Majesté! There are some majesties left in France after all, then!"
And there is no end of merriment, of mincing coquetries. Little trills of laughter rise like the notes of a flute in the air. Some one exclaims suddenly,—
"Champagne! champagne!"
"Nonsense!"
"Yes, indeed, champagne. Come, Countess, what say you to a little Christmas supper?"
They have mistaken M. Majesté's seltzer-water for champagne. They naturally find it somewhat flat. But these poor little ghosts have such unsteady heads! The foam of the seltzer-water somehow excites them and makes them feel like dancing. Minuets are immediately organized. Four rare violinists provided by Nesmond strike out with an old melody by Rameau, full of triplets, quaint and melancholy in its vivacity; and you should see the pretty little grandmothers turn slowly and bow gravely in time with the music.
Their very finery seems freshened and rejuvenated by the sound, and so do the waistcoats of cloth-of-gold, the brocaded coats and diamond-buckled shoes. The panels themselves seem to awake. The old mirror, scratched and dim, which has stood encased in the wall for over two hundred years, recognizes them all, glows softly upon them, showing them their own images with a pale vagueness like a tender regret.
In the midst of all this elegance M. Majesté feels somewhat ill at ease. He is huddled in a corner, and looks on from behind a case of bottles. But gradually the day dawns. Through the glass doors of the store one can see the court growing light, then the top of the windows, then all one side of the great parlor. Before the light of day the figures melt and disappear. The four little violinists alone are belated in a corner; and M. Majesté watches them evaporate as the daylight creeps upon them. In the court below he can just see the vague form of a sedan-chair, a powdered head sprinkled with emeralds, and the last spark of a torch that a lackey has dropped on the pavement, and which blends with the sparks from the wheels of a dray, rumbling in noisily through the open portals.
The Three Low Masses
(Alphonse Daudet)
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