Luxury-Gluttony Part 56

"Great G.o.d! Pablo, what is this wretched man saying?"

"Until the present, in spite of your loss of appet.i.te, you have lived upon your fat, like rats in winter, but henceforth you will suffer the double and terrible blow of the loss of appet.i.te and the ceaseless regrets that I will leave to you. You will become lean, canon, yes, your cheeks will be flabby, your triple chin will melt like wax in the sun, your enormous stomach will become flat like a leather bottle exhausted of its contents, your complexion, so radiant to-day, will grow yellow under the constant flow of your tears, and you will become lean, scraggy, and livid as an anchorite living on roots and water,--do you hear, canon?"

"Pablo," murmured Dom Diego, shutting his eyes, and leaning on his majordomo, "support me. I feel as if I were struck with death. It seems to me I see my own ghost, such as this demon portrays. Yes, Pablo, I see myself lean, scraggy, livid. Oh, my G.o.d! it is frightful! it is horrible! It is the divine punishment for my sin of gluttony."

"My lord, calm yourself," said the majordomo.

And addressing the cook with mingled fear and anger, he said:

"Do you undertake to tyrannise over such an excellent and venerable a man as the Lord Dom Diego?"

"And now," continued the cook, pitilessly, "farewell, canon, farewell for ever."

"Farewell, farewell for ever," cried Dom Diego, with a violent start, as if he had received an electric shock. "What! can it be true? you will abandon me for ever. Oh, no, no, I see all now: in making me regret your loss so deeply, you wish to put your services at a higher price. Well, then, speak, how much must you have?"

"Ah, ah, ah, ah!" shouted the man with the cotton cap and white jacket, bursting into Mephistophelian laughter, and walking slowly toward the door.

"No, no," cried the canon, clasping his hands; "no, you will not abandon me thus,--it would be atrocious, it would be savage, it would be to leave an unfortunate traveller in the middle of a burning desert, after having given him the delight of an oasis full of shade and freshness."

"You ought to have been a great preacher in your time, canon," said the man in the white jacket, continuing his march toward the door.

"Mercy, mercy!" cried Dom Diego, in a voice choked with tears. "Ah, indeed, it is no longer the artist, the cook of genius with whom I plead; it is the man,--it is to one like myself that I bend the knee,--oh, see me, and beseech him not to leave a brother in hopeless woe."

"Yes, and see me at your knees, too, my lord cook!" cried the worthy majordomo, excited by the emotion of his master, and like him, falling on his knees; "a very humble poor creature joins his prayer to that of the Lord Dom Diego. Alas! do not abandon him, he will die!"

"Yes," replied the cook, with a Satanic burst of laughter, "he will die, and he will die lean."

The last sarcasm changed the despair of Dom Diego to fury. He rose quickly, and, notwithstanding his obesity, threw himself upon the cook, crying:

"Come to me, Pablo; the monster shall not cook for anybody, his death only can deliver me from his infernal persecution!"

"My lord," cried the majordomo, less excited than his master, "what are you doing? Grief makes you wild."

Fortunately, the man in the white jacket, at the first aggressive movement of Dom Diego, recoiled two steps, and put himself in a defensive att.i.tude by means of a large kitchen knife which he brandished in one hand, while in the other he held a sharp larding-pin.

At the sight of the formidable knife and larding-pin, drawn like a dagger, the murderous exasperation of the canon was dispelled; but the violence of his emotions, the heat of his blood, and the state of his digestion produced such a revolution that he tottered and fell unconscious in the arms of the majordomo, who, too weak to sustain such a weight, himself sank to the floor, screaming with all his strength:

"Help! help!"

Then the man in the white jacket disappeared, with a last resounding burst of laughter which would have done honour to Satan himself, and terrified the majordomo almost to death.

CHAPTER IX.

Many days had elapsed since the canon, Dom Diego, had been so mercilessly abandoned by the strange and inimitable cook of whom we have spoken.

In the home of the Abbe Ledoux, the following scene occurred between him and the canon.

The threatening predictions of the great cook were beginning to be realised. Dom Diego, pale, dejected, with a complexion yellowed by abstinence,--for all dishes seemed to him tasteless and nauseating since the marvellous breakfast of which he constantly dreamed,--would scarcely have been recognised. His enormous stomach had already lost its rotundity, and the poor man, whose physiognomy and att.i.tude betrayed abject misery, responded in a mournful tone to the questions of the abbe, who, walking up and down the parlour in the greatest agitation, addressed him in a rude and angry tone:

"In truth, you have not the least energy, Dom Diego; you have fallen into a desperate state of apathy."

"That is easy for you to say," murmured the canon, in a grieved tone. "I would like very much to see you in my place, alas!"

"Oh, come now, this is shameful!"

"Abuse me, abbe, curse me; but what do you want? Since this accursed man has abandoned me I live no longer, I eat no longer, I sleep no longer!

Ah, he well said, 'My memory and my face will pursue you everywhere, canon!' In fact, I am always thinking of the Guinea fowl eggs, the trout, and the roast a la Sardanapalus. And he, I see him always and everywhere in his white jacket and cotton cap. It is like a hallucination. To-night, even, yielding myself to a feverish, nervous slumber, I dreamed of this demon."

"Better and better, canon."

"What a nightmare! My G.o.d! what a horrible nightmare! He had served me with one of those exquisite, divine dishes, which he alone has the genius to produce, and he said to me, with his sardonic air, 'Eat, canon, eat.' It was, I recollect,--I see it still,--a delicious reed-bird with orange sauce. I had a devouring appet.i.te; I took my knife and fork to carve the adorable little bird; I was carving it into slices, golden outside and rosy within, and veined with such fine, delicate fat. A thousand little drops of rosy juice appeared on the flesh, like so many drops of dew, to such a point was it roasted. I steeped it in several spoonfuls of orange sauce whose flavour tickled my palate, before I tasted it. I took on the end of my fork a royal mouthful; I opened my mouth. Suddenly the ferocious laughter of my executioner resounded, and horror! I had on the end of my fork only a great piece of rancid, glutinous, infected yellow bacon. 'Eat, canon, why do you not eat?' repeated this accursed man, in his strident voice.

'Why do you not eat?' And in spite of myself, in spite of my terrible repugnance, I ate! Yes, abbe, I ate this disgusting bacon. Oh, when I think of it,--bah! it was horrible. And I awoke, bathed in tears. Night before last another odious dream. It was about eel-pout livers, and--"

"Go to the devil, canon!" cried the abbe, already provoked by this recital of Dom Diego's gastronomic nightmare, "you are enough to d.a.m.n a saint with your maudlin prattle."

"Prattle!" cried the canon, in despair. "What! here for eight days I have been able to swallow only a few spoonfuls of chocolate,--so faint, so disheartened am I. What! I have had the fort.i.tude to pa.s.s two hours seated in the museums of Chevet and Bontoux, those famous cooks, hoping that perhaps the sight of their rare collections of comestibles would excite in me some desire of appet.i.te,--and nothing, nothing. No, the recollection of that celestial breakfast was there, always there, annihilating everything by the sole power of a cherished memory. Ah, abbe, abbe, I have never loved, but since these three days I comprehend all that is exclusive in love; I comprehend how a man pa.s.sionately in love remains indifferent to the sight of the most beautiful creature in the world, dreaming, alas!--three times alas!--only of the adored object which he regrets."

"But, canon," said the abbe, looking at Dom Diego with anxiety, "do you know that all this will result in delirium--in insanity?"

"Eh, my G.o.d! I know it well, abbe, I am losing my head. This cursed seducer has carried away my life and thought with him. In the street, I gaze into the faces of all who pa.s.s, in the hope of meeting him. Great G.o.d! if this good luck would only happen! Oh, he would not be insensible to my prayers. 'Cruel, perfidious man,' I would say, 'look at me. See on my features the mark of my sufferings! Will you be without pity? No, no; mercy, mercy!'"

And the canon, falling back in his armchair, covered his face with his hands and burst into sobs.

"My G.o.d! my G.o.d! how wretched I am!" he cried.

"What a double brute! He will be a fool, if he is not one already," said the abbe to himself. "I will not complain of it, because, his insanity once established, he will not leave our house, and whether it is he or his niece little matters."

The abbe approached the canon with compunction, and said to him, gently:

"Come, my brother, be reasonable, calm yourself, perhaps we ought to see in what has happened the punishment of Heaven."

"I think with you, abbe, this tempter came from h.e.l.l. It is not given to any human being to be such a cook. Ah, abbe, I must be a great sinner, for my punishment is terrible!"

"You have indeed surrendered yourself, without measure, without restraint, to one of the foulest of the capital sins,--gluttony, my dear brother,--and I repeat to you Heaven punishes you, as is its law, in the very thing by which you have sinned."

"But after all, what is my crime? I have simply used the admirable gifts of the Creator, for in fact it is not I who, in order to enjoy them, have created pheasants, ortolans, fat livers, salmon trout, truffles, oysters, lobsters, wines, and--"

"My brother, my brother!" cried the abbe, interrupting this appetising enumeration, "your words savour of materialism, pantheism, heresy! You are not in a state of mind to listen to me as I refute these impious, abominable systems which lead directly to paganism. But there is one indisputable fact, which is, that you suffer, my brother, you suffer cruelly; it is for us to bind up your wounds, my tender brother, it is for us to comfort them with balm and honey."

At these words the canon made an involuntary grimace, because, in his gastronomic monomania, the idea of honey and balm was especially distasteful.

The abbe continued:

"Let us see, my dear brother, let us return to the cause of all your ills."