"Where I come from," interposes the poor Southerner, "holiday feasts
last so long that the bread that's new at the beginning is stale at
the end!"
"There's a jolly wine--it doesn't look much, that little wine where
I come from; but if it hasn't fifteen degrees of alcohol it hasn't
anything!"
Fouillade speaks then of a red wine which is almost violet, which
stands dilution as well as if it had been brought into the world to
that end.
"We've got the jurancon wine," said a Bearnais, "the
real thing, not what they sell you for jurancon, which comes
from Paris; indeed, I know one of the makers."
"If it comes to that," said Fouillade, "in our country we've got
muscatels of every sort, all the colors of the rainbow, like
patterns of silk stuff. You come home with me some time, and every
day you shall taste a nonsuch, my boy."
"Sounds like a wedding feast," said the grateful soldier.
So it comes about that Fouillade is agitated by the vinous memories
into which he has plunged, which recall to him as well the dear
perfume of garlic on that far-off table. The vapors of the blue wine
in big bottles, and the liqueur wines so delicately varied, mount to
his head amid the sluggish and mournful storm that fills the barn.
Suddenly he calls to mind that there is settled in the village where
they are quartered a tavern-keeper who is a native of
Beziers, called Magnac. Magnac had said to him, "Come and see
me, mon camarade, one of these mornings, and we'll drink some wine
from down there, we will! I've several bottles of it, and you shall
tell me what you think of it.
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