Une demoiselle tenoit,
 Qui avec les vaslets venoit,
 Bele et gente et bien acesmee. 
 Quant cle fu leans antree
 Atot le graal qu’ele tint
 Une si granz clartez i vint
 Qu’ausi perdirent les chandoiles
 Lor clarte come les estoiles
 Qant li solauz luist et la lune. 
 Apres celi an revint une
 Qui tint un tailleor d’argent.

Le graal qui aloit devant
 De fin or esmere estoit,
 Pierres precieuses avoit
 El graal de maintes menieres
 Des plus riches et des plus chieres
 Qui en mer ne en terre soient. 
 Totes autres pierres passoient
 Celes del graal sanz dotance.

Tot ainsi con passa la lance
 Par devant le lit trespasserent
 Et d’une chambre a l’autre alerent. 
 Et li vaslet les vit passer,
 Ni n’osa mire demander
 Del graal cui l’an an servoit.

And, within, the hall was bright
 As any hall could be with light
 Of candles in a house at night. 
 So, while of this and that they talked,
 A squire from a chamber walked,
 Bearing a white lance in his hand,
 Grasped by the middle, like a wand;
 And, as he passed the chimney wide,
 Those seated by the fireside,
 And all the others, caught a glance
 Of the white steel and the white lance. 
 As they looked, a drop of blood
 Down the lance’s handle flowed;
 Down to where the youth’s hand stood. 
 From the lance-head at the top
 They saw run that crimson drop.... 
 Presently came two more squires,
 In their hands two chandeliers,
 Of fine gold in enamel wrought. 
 Each squire that the candle brought
 Was a handsome chevalier. 
 There burned in every chandelier
 Two lighted candles at the least. 
 A damsel, graceful and well dressed,
 Behind the squires followed fast
 Who carried in her hands a graal;
 And as she came within the hall
 With the graal there came a light So brilliant that the candles all
 Lost clearness, as the stars at night
 When moon shines, or in day the sun. 
 After her there followed one
 Who a dish of silver bore.

The graal, which had gone before,
 Of gold the finest had been made,
 With precious stones had been inlaid,
 Richest and rarest of each kind
 That man in sea or earth could find. 
 All other jewels far surpassed
 Those which the holy graal enchased.

Just as before had passed the lance
 They all before the bed advance,
 Passing straightway through the hall,
 And the knight who saw them pass
 Never ventured once to ask
 For the meaning of the graal.

The simplicity of this narration gives a certain dramatic effect to the mystery, like seeing a ghost in full daylight, but Christian carried simplicity further still.  He seemed either to feel, or to want others to feel, the reality of the adventure and the miracle, and he followed up the appearance of the graal by a solid meal in the style of the twelfth century, such as one expects to find in “Ivanhoe” or the “Talisman.”  The knight sat down with his host to the best dinner that the county of Champagne afforded, and they ate their haunch of venison with the graal in full view.  They drank their Champagne wine of various sorts, out of gold cups:—­