Luxury-Gluttony Part 62

"My boy," said Doctor Gasterini to his nephew, "these gentlemen would like to know how many sailors you patron fishers employ in your boats."

"Each boat employs eight or ten men and a cabin-boy," replied patron Thomas. "You see, my dear uncle, that makes quite a fine array of men, when you think of the number of fis.h.i.+ng-boats on the coasts of France, from Bayonne to Dunkerque, and from Perpignan to Cannes."

"And what pay do these men get, my boy?" asked the doctor.

"We buy boats and nets in common, and divide the produce of the fish, and when a sailor is carried away by a big wave, his widow and children succeed to the father's portion; in a word, we work in an a.s.sociation, all for each, and each for all, and I a.s.sure you that when it is necessary to throw our nets or draw them in, to furl a sail or give it to the winds, there is no idler among us. All work with a good heart."

"Very well, my brave boy," said the doctor. "But, my lord canon," added he, turning to Dom Diego, "as a true gourmand, you shall taste scalloped salmon with truffles, and sole minced in the Venetian style. Here we promote one of the n.o.blest industries of the country, and it also contributes to the amelioration of the condition of our marine service.

Let this thought, canon, take possession of your mind when you eat sturgeon baked in its own liquor, flavoured highly with Bayonne ham and oyster sauce, mingled with Madeira wine!"

At these words, Dom Diego opened mechanically his large mouth and shut it, pa.s.sing his tongue over his lips, with a sigh of greedy desire.

Abbe Ledoux, too discerning not to comprehend the doctor's intention, betrayed increasing resentment, but did not utter a word. The physician affected not to perceive the vexation of his guest. Taking Dom Diego by the arm, he said, as he conducted him to the third stall:

"Honestly, my lord canon, did you ever see anything more beautiful, more charming, than this?"

"Never, oh, never!" exclaimed Dom Diego, clasping his hands in admiration, "although the confections of my country are considered the finest in the world."

Nor was there, indeed, anything more captivating or more beautiful than this third stall, where was displayed in cups or porcelain dishes everything that the most refined epicureans could imagine in preserves, confections, and sweetmeats. In one place, crystallised sugar enveloped sparkling stalact.i.tes of the most beautiful fruits; in another, pyramids of all kinds, variegated with the brightest colours,--red with lozenges of rose, green with frozen pistachios shading into tints of lemon; farther on, oranges, limes, cedras, all covered with a snowy coating of sugar. Again, transparent jellies, made from Rouen apples, and currant jellies from Bar, shone with the prismatic brilliancy of ruby and topaz.

Still farther, wide slabs of nougat from Ma.r.s.eilles, white as fresh cream, served as pedestals for columns of chocolate made in Bayonne, and apricot paste from Montpellier. Boxes of preserved fruit from Touraine, as fresh as if they had just been gathered, and in their gorgeous colouring resembling Florentine mosaics, charmed the eyes of the beholder.

A young and pretty woman, a niece of Dr. Gasterini, presided at this exhibition of sweets, and welcomed her uncle with an amiable smile.

"I present to you, gentlemen, my niece Augustine, one of the first confectioners in Paris, a true artist, who carves and paints in sugar, and her masterpieces are literally the crack dainties of Paris; but this specimen of her ability is nothing: in about a fortnight her shop on Vivienne Street will show a fine display, and I am sure you will see there some marvellous productions of her skill."

"Certainly, my dear uncle," replied the smiling mistress of the stall, "we will have the newest sweetmeats, the richest boxes, the most cleverly woven baskets of dainties, and the prettiest little bags, and for all these accessories we have a workshop where we employ thirty artisans, without counting, you understand, all the persons engaged in the laboratory."

"What is the matter with you, my dear abbe?" asked the doctor of this saintly man. "You seem to be quite gloomy. Are you vexed to see that gluttony controls all sorts of industries and productions which count for so much in the commercial progress of France? Zounds, man, you have not reached the end yet!"

"Well, well," replied the abbe, under constraint, "I see what you are coming to, you wicked man, but I will have a response for all. Go on, go on, I do not say a word, but I do not think the less."

"I am at your service for discussion, my dear abbe, but in the meanwhile, my lord canon," continued the doctor, turning to Dom Diego, "you ought to be already partially convinced, since you see that you can, without remorse, enjoy the rarest fruits, the most delicate fish, and the most delicious sweetmeats. And more, as I have told you before, since you are a rich man, the consumption of these dainties is for you an imperative social duty, for the more you consume the greater impetus you give to production."

"And I realise that in my specialty I am at the height of this n.o.ble and patriotic mission!" exclaimed the canon, with enthusiasm. "You give me, dear doctor, the consciousness of duty performed."

"I did not expect less from the loftiness of your soul, my lord canon,"

replied the physician, "but a day will come when this kind mission of consumer that you accept with such proud interest will be more generally disseminated, and we will talk of that another time, but before pa.s.sing on to the next stall I must ask your indulgence for my poor nephew Leonard, who presides at the exhibition you are going to see."

"Why my indulgence, doctor?"

"Because, you see, my nephew Leonard follows a rather dangerous calling, but he has followed the bent of his inclination. This devil of a boy has been reared like a savage. Put to nurse with a peasant woman living on the frontier of the forest of Senart, he was so puny for a long time that I allowed him to remain in the country until he was twelve years old. The peasant woman's husband was an arrant poacher, and my nephew had his b.u.mp for the chase as well developed as a hunting hound. You can judge what his bloodhound propensities would become under the tutelage of such a foster-parent. At the age of six years, sickly as he was, Leonard pa.s.sed the whole day in the woods, busy with traps for rabbits, hares, and pheasants. At ten years the little man inaugurated his career as a hunter by killing a superb roebuck, one winter night, by the light of the moon. I was ignorant of all that. When, however, he was twelve years old, he seemed to have grown strong enough, and I placed him at school. Three days after, he scaled the walls which surrounded the boarding-school and returned to the forest of Senart. In a word, canon, nothing has been able to conquer the boy's pa.s.sion for hunting. And, unfortunately, I confess that I became an accomplice by making him a present of a newly invented gun, so perfect and handy that it would make of you, my dear abbe, as accomplished a hunter as my nephew. He is not alone. Thousands of families live upon the superfluous game of rich proprietors who hunt, not from necessity, but because they find it an amus.e.m.e.nt. So, my lord canon, in tasting a leg of jerked venison, a hash of young partridge, or a thigh of roasted pheasant,--I could not do you the wrong of supposing you would prefer the wing,--you can a.s.sure yourself that you are contributing to the support of a number of poor households."

CHAPTER XIII.

The doctor, having concluded his eulogy upon the chase, approached his nephew's stall, and, with a significant gesture, pointed out to the canon and the abbe the finest exhibition of game that could be imagined.

The English gamekeepers, great masters of the art of grouping game, thus making real pictures of dead nature, would have recognised the superiority of Leonard.

Imagine a knotty, umbrageous tree six or seven feet high, standing in the middle of this stall. At the foot of the tree were grouped, on a bed of bright green fern, a young wild boar, a magnificent fallow deer, two years old, the proper age for venison, and two fine roebucks. These animals were lying in a restful position, the head gently bent over the shoulder, as if they were in their accustomed haunts in the depths of the forest. Long flexible branches of ivy fell from the lower boughs of the tree, among whose glossy leaves could be seen hares and rabbits, alternating with the wild geese of ashen-gray colour, wild ducks with green heads and feathers tipped with white, pheasants with scarlet eyes and necks of changeable blue and plumage s.h.i.+ning like burnished copper; and silver-coloured bustards, a bird of pa.s.sage quite rare in our climate. Here and there, branches of holly with purple berries, and the rosy bloom of heather mingled gracefully with the game disposed at different heights. Then came groups of woodc.o.c.ks, gray partridges, red partridges, gold-coloured plovers, water-hens as black as ebony, with yellow beaks; upon the highest boughs the most delicate game was suspended,--quails, thrushes, fig-p.e.c.k.e.rs, and rails, those kings of the plain; and finally, at the top of the tree, a magnificent heath-c.o.c.k, caught, no doubt, in the mountains of Ardennes, seemed to open his broad wings of brown, touched with blue, and hover over this hecatomb of game.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_The most delicate game was suspended._"

Original etching by Adrian Marcel.]

Leonard, an agile, slender lad with a fawn-coloured eye, and frank, resolute face, contemplated his work with admiration, giving here and there a finis.h.i.+ng touch, contrasting the red of a partridge with the green branch of a juniper-tree, or the s.h.i.+ning ebony of a water-hen with the bright rose of the heather bloom.

"I have informed these gentlemen of your frightful trade, my bad boy,"

said Doctor Gasterini to his nephew Leonard, with a smile. "My lord canon and the saintly abbe will pray for the salvation of your soul."

"Oh, oh, my good uncle!" replied Leonard, good-naturedly, "I would rather have them pray for success in shooting the two finest deer, as company for the wild boar I have killed, whose head and fillets I present to you, uncle."

"Alas, alas, he is incorrigible!" said Doctor Gasterini, "and unhappily, my lord canon, you have no idea of the deliciousness of the flavour peculiar to the minced fillets and properly stuffed head of a year-old wild boar, seasoned a la Saint Hubert! Ah, my dear canon, how rich, how juicy! It was right to put this divine dish under the protection of the patron saint of the chase. But let us pa.s.s on," continued the doctor, preceding Dom Diego, who was fascinated and dazzled by a display entirely novel to him, for such wealth of game is unknown in Spain.

"Oh, how grand is Nature in her creations!" said the canon; "what a marvellous scale of pleasures for the palate from the monstrous wild boar to the fig-p.e.c.k.e.r,--that exquisite little bird! Glory, glory to thee, eternal grat.i.tude to thee," added he, in the manner of an ejaculatory prayer.

"Bravo, Dom Diego!" cried the doctor, "now are you in the right."

"Now he is in materialism, in paganism, and the grossest pantheism,"

said the intractable abbe. "You will d.a.m.n him, doctor, you will destroy his soul!"

"Still a little patience, my dear abbe," replied the doctor, walking toward another stall. "Soon, in spite of yourself, you will be convinced that I speak truly in extolling the excellence of gluttony, or rather you will think as I do, although you will take occasion to deny the evidence. Now, canon, you are going to see how this gluttony, so dear to you and me, becomes one of the causes of the progress of agriculture, the real basis of the prosperity of the country. And with this subject let me introduce to you my nephew Mathurin, a tiller of those salt meadows, which nourish the only beasts worthy of the gourmand, and which give him those invaluable legs of mutton, those unsurpa.s.sed cutlets, those fillets of wonderful beef which even England envies us. I present to you also my nephew Mathurin's wife, native of Le Mans, and familiar with that ill.u.s.trious school of fattening animals, which produces those pullets and capons known as one of the glories and riches of France."

The shop of farmer Mathurin was undeniably less picturesque, less pretty, and by no means so showy as the others, but it had, by way of compensation, an attractive and dignified simplicity.

Upon large screens of willow branches, covered with thyme, sage, rosemary, tarragon, and other aromatic herbs, were displayed, in Herculean size, monstrous pieces of beef for roasting, fabulous sirloins, marvellous loins of veal, and those legs and saddles of mutton, and unparalleled cutlets, which have filled the hundred mouths of Rumour with the incomparable flavour of the famous beasts of the salt meadows.

Although raw, this delicious meat, surrounded with sweet and pungent herbs, was so delicate and of such a tempting red with its fat of immaculate whiteness, that the glances which Dom Diego threw upon these specimens of bovine and ovine industry, were nothing less than carnivorous. Half hidden among cl.u.s.ters of water-cresses was a collection of pullets, capons, pure India c.o.c.ks, and a species of fowl called tardillons, so round and fat and plump, and with a satin skin of such delicacy, that more than one pretty woman might have envied them.

"Oh, how pretty they are! how lovely they are!" stammered the canon.

"Oh, it is enough to make one lose his head!"

"Ah, my dear canon," said the doctor, "pray, what will you say when the charming pallor of these pullets will turn into gold by the fires of the turnspit? when, distended almost to breaking by truffles made bluish under their delicate epidermis, this satin skin becomes rosy until it sheds the tear-drops of purple juice, watered by the slow distillation of its fat, as exquisitely delicate as the fat of a quail."

"Enough, doctor!" cried the canon, excited, "enough, I pray you, of braving scandal. I will attack one of those adorable pullets, without the least respect to its present condition."

"Calm yourself, my Lord Dom Diego," said the doctor, smiling, "the dinner hour approaches and you can then pay your homage to two sisters of these adorable fowls."

Then, addressing his nephew Mathurin, the doctor said:

"My boy, these gentlemen think the produce of your farm very wonderful."

"The gentlemen are very kind, dear uncle," replied Mathurin, "but it is the cattle of one who chooses and loves the work! I do not fear the English or the Ardennois, upon the flavour of my beef, my veal, or my mutton from the salt meadows which make my reputation and my fortune.

Because, you see, gentlemen, the prime object of agriculture is to make food, as we say. The cattle produce the manure, the manure the pasture, the pasture the fertility of the earth, and the fertility of the earth gives provision and pasturage to the cattle. All is bound together: the more the cattle is finely fattened, the better it is for the eater, according to our proverb; the better it sells, the better is the manure and consequently better is the culture. So with the poultry of Mathurin; without doubt, it is a great expense and requires many persons on the farm, for perhaps, gentlemen, you will not believe that to fatten one of these capons and one of these pullets as you see them here, we must open the beak and, fifteen or twenty times a day, put down the throat little b.a.l.l.s of barley flour and milk, and that, too, for three months! But we get a famous product, because each capon brings us more than a weak mutton or veal. But immense care is necessary. So, with the advice of this dear uncle, whose advice is always good, we show every year at Christmas what we do on the farm. In the evening, upon the return of the cattle, the first two beeves which enter the stable, the finest or the poorest, no matter, chance decides it, are set aside; it is the same with the first six calves; afterward, when, the cages of the fowls are opened, the first dozen capons, the first dozen pullets, and the first dozen c.o.c.ks which come out are set aside."