Free The Avignon Quintet by Lawrence Durrell Page B

To the left a covered bread-trough above which hung the large salt and flour boxes of immediate use together with the bread-holder – a sort of cage or cradle in dark wood, ornamented with locks and hinges of polished iron.
    On the opposite side of the room was the tall curiously carved Provençal buffet, solid and capacious, and shining under its glossy varnish, the colour of salad oil. Then, to the left of it, the grandfather clock – a clock which was so much of a martinet that it assertively struck the hours in duplicate. Some old rush-bottomed chairs stood about awkwardly – for there was no real thought about luxury or even comfort here. The order of things was ancestral, traditional; history was the present, and one did not conceive of altering things, but simply asserting their traditional place in life, and in nature. As well try to alter the course of the planets. Beyond the bread-trough hung a long-shanked steel balance with a brass dish suspended by delicate brass chains, all brilliant with scouring by soap, flour and sand. Then among a straggle of farm implements standing against one wall was an ancient fowling piece resting in wooden crutches driven between two broken flags. The walls were heavily decorated with sentimental lithographs and oleographs, depicting scenes from the local folklore of the region; and, inevitably, with numberless old family pictures, now all faded away into a sepia anonymity – faces of unforgotten people and events, harvests, picnics and bullfights, tree-plantings, bull-brandings, weddings and first communions. A whole life of austere toil and harmless joy of which this room had been the centre, the pivot.
    But the wine was going about now and the most important supper of the whole year was in full sail. By old tradition it has always been a “lean” supper, so that in comparison with other feast days it might have seemed a trifle frugal. Nevertheless the huge dish of ra ï to exhaled a wonderful fragrance: this was a ragout of mixed fish presented in a sauce flavoured with wine and capers. Chicken flamed in Cognac. The long brown loaves cracked and crackled under the fingers of the feasters like the olive branches in the fireplace. The first dish emptied at record speed, and its place was taken by a greater bowl of Rhône pan-fish, and yet another of white cod. These in turn led slowly to the dishes of snails, the whitish large veined ones that feed on the vine-leaves. They had been tucked back into their shells and were extracted with the aid of strong curved thorns, three or four inches long, broken from the wild acacia. As the wine was replenished after the first round, toasts began to fly around.
    Then followed the choice supporting dishes like white cardes or cardon , the delicious stem of a giant thistle which resembles nothing so much as an overgrown branch of celery. These stems are blanched and then cooked in white sauce – I have never tasted them anywhere else. The flavour is one of the most exquisite one can encounter in the southern regions of France; yet it is only a common field-vegetable. So it went on, our last dinner, to terminate at last with a whole anthology of sweetmeats and nuts and winter melons. The fire was restoked and the army of wine-bottles gave place to a smaller phalanx of brandies, Armagnacs and Marcs, to offset the large bowls of coffee from which rose plumes of fragrance.
    Now old Jan’s wife placed before the three lovers a deep silver sugar bowl full of white sugar. It lay there before them in the plenitude of its sweetness like a silver paunch. The three spoons she had placed in it stood upright, waiting for them to help themselves before the rest of the company. The toasts and the jests now began to subside, sinking towards the ground like expiring fireworks, and the time for more serious business was approaching. By tradition every year Piers made a speech which gave an account of the year’s work, bestowing praise or censure as he