A Year in Provence(69)

The level of conversation was deafening; men and women who are used to talking to each other across a vineyard find it difficult to adjust their volume, and the room echoed and boomed with voices that had been developed to compete with the Mistral. But, if the voices had come straight in from the fields, the clothes were definitely from the Sunday-best armoire: dark suits and shirts whose collars looked uncomfortably tight around weatherbeaten necks for the men; vividly colored and elaborate dresses for the women. One couple, more couture conscious than the rest, had outfits of startling splendor. The woman shimmered in a dress of gray bugle beads, and small matching gray feathers were sewn to the back of her stockings so that her legs appeared to flutter when she walked. Her husband wore a white jacket trimmed with black piping, a frilled shirt with more black piping, and black evening trousers. Either his nerve or his resources had run out at that point, because his shoes were sensible, thick-soled and brown. Nevertheless, we felt sure that they were the couple to watch when the dancing started.

We found our friend and his family. He was glancing around the room, looking puzzled and almost ill-at-ease, and we thought that the solemnity of the occasion had brought on an attack of Confrère’s nerves. The problem, however, was altogether more serious.

“I can’t see a bar anywhere,” he said. “Can you?”

There were barrels of wine against one of the walls. There were bottles of wine on the tables. We were in a village that would float on a sea of Côtes du Rhône if all the caves were emptied, but there was no bar. And, now that we studied our fellow revelers, we made another worrying discovery. Nobody was holding a glass.

We were prevented from making an indiscreet grab at a bottle on the nearest table by a fanfare on the loudspeaker system, and the Confrères filed in and took up their position behind the table on the dais—a dozen or more figures in cloaks and wide-brimmed hats, some holding parchment scrolls, one with an imposingly fat book. Any moment now, we thought, the vin d’honneur would be served to signal the start of the ceremony.

The mayor embraced the microphone and delivered the opening speech. The senior Confrère gave a speech. His assistant, the keeper of the fat book, gave a speech. One by one the three new Confrères were summoned to the dais and eulogized at length for their love of wine and good fellowship. One by one, they replied with speeches accepting the honors bestowed upon them. I detected a certain huskiness in the voice of our friend which others may have mistaken for emotion. I knew it to be thirst.

As a finale, we were asked to join in the singing of a song written in the Provençal language by Frédéric Mistral.

“Coupo santo e versanto,” we sang in praise of the sainted and overflowing goblet, “A-de-reng beguen en troupo lou vin pur de nostre plant”—let us all drink together the pure wine of our growth, and about time too. The investiture had taken just over an hour, and not a drop had passed anyone’s lips.

There was a noticeable eagerness to be seated, and at last the sainted goblets were filled, emptied, and refilled. An air of relief spread throughout the tables, and we were able to relax and consider the menu.

Quail in aspic came first; the heads, which we were told cost two francs each, were detachable and could be used again at a future banquet. Then there was sea bass. These were mere preliminaries, the chef’s limbering-up exercises before attacking the sirloin of Charolais beef en croûte. But, before that, there was a small and deadly item described as a Trou Provençal—a sorbet made with the minimum of water and the maximum of marc. Its purpose, so we were told, was to clear the palate; in fact it was sufficiently powerful to anesthetize not only the palate, but the sinus passages and the front portion of the skull as well. But the chef knew what he was doing. After the initial jolt of frozen alcohol wore off, I could feel a hollowness in the stomach—the trou—and I could face the rest of the long meal with some hope of being able to finish it.

The beef made its entrance to the strains of a second fanfare, and was paraded around the tables by the waiters and waitresses before being served. The white wine gave way to the pride of the local winegrowers, a formidably heavy red, and the courses kept coming until, after the serving of soufflés and champagne, it was time to rise up and dance.

The band was of the old school, clearly not interested in performing for people who simply like to hop up and down; they wanted to see dancing. There were waltzes and quicksteps and several numbers that might have been gavottes, but for me the highlight of the evening was the tango interlude. I don’t think it is given to many of us to witness fifty or sixty couples in the advanced stages of inebriation attempting the swoops and turns and heel-stamping flourishes of the true tango artist, and it was a sight I shall never forget. Elbows were cocked, heads flicked from side to side, desperate and off-balance charges were made with twinkling feet from one end of the room to the other, potential collision and disaster were everywhere. One diminutive man danced blind, his head sunk into the décolletage of his taller partner. The couple in bugle beads and frilled shirt, molded together at the groin with their backs arching outward, lunged and dipped through the crowd with a dexterity unknown outside the tango palaces of Buenos Aires.