by Eugène Sue
“My friend,” pursued the canon, “from this day you are mine; your conditions will be mine. I am rich; good cheer is my only passion, and for you I will not be a master, but an admirer. Never, my friend, never, have you been better appreciated. You have told me yourself you work only for art, and you prove it, for I declare openly you are the greatest master cook of the world. The miracle that you have wrought to-day, not only in restoring my appetite, but in increasing it as I tasted your masterpieces (even at this hour I feel able to enjoy another breakfast), this miracle, I say, places you outside of the line of ordinary cooks. We will never part, my dear friend; all that you ask I will grant; you can take other assistants, other subalterns, if you desire to do so. I wish to spare you all fatigue; your health is too precious to me to permit you to compromise it, for henceforth, — I feel it there,” and Dom Diégo put his fat hand on his stomach,— “henceforth, I shall not know how to live without you, and—”
“So,” cried the cook, interrupting the canon, and smiling with a sarcastic air, “so you have breakfasted well, my lord canon?”
“Have I breakfasted well, my dear friend! Let me tell you I owe you the enjoyment of an hour and a quarter. An inexpressible enjoyment, without intermission except when your services were interrupted, and these intermissions were filled with delight. Hovering between hope and remembrance, was I not expecting new pleasures with an insatiable longing? You ask me if I have breakfasted well! Pablo will tell you that I have wept with tenderness. That is my reply.”
“I have been permitted, my lord, to send you some wines as accompaniments, because good dishes without good wines are like a beautiful woman without soul. Now, have you found these wines palatable, my lord?”
“Palatable! Great God, what blasphemy! Inestimable samples of all known nectars — palatable! Wines whose value could not be paid, if you exchanged them, bottle for bottle, with liquid gold — palatable! Come now, my dear friend, your modesty is exaggerated, as you seemed a moment ago to exaggerate your immense talent. But I recognise the fact that, if your genius should be boasted to hyperbole, there would still remain more than half untold.”
“I have still more wine of this quality,” said the cook, coldly; “for twenty-five years I have been preparing a tolerable cellar for myself.”
“But this tolerable cellar, my dear friend, must have cost you millions?”
“It has cost me nothing, my lord.”
“Nothing.”
“They are all so many gifts to my humble merit.”
“I am by no means astonished, my dear friend, but what are you going to do with this cellar, which is rich enough to be the envy of a king? Ah, if you desired to surrender to me the whole, or a part of it, I would not hesitate to make any sacrifice for its possession; because, as you have just said with so much significance, good dishes without good wines are like a beautiful woman without soul. Now, these wines accompany your productions so admirably that — I—”
The cook interrupted Dom Diégo with a sarcastic, sneering laugh.
“You laugh, my friend?” said the canon, greatly surprised. “You laugh?”
“Yes, my lord, I laugh.”
“And at what, my friend?”
“At your gratitude to me, my lord canon.”
“My friend, I do not understand you.”
“Ah, Lord Dom Diégo! you believe that your good angel — and I picture him to myself, fat and chubby, dressed as I am, like a cook, and wearing pheasant wings on the back of his white robe! — ah, you believe, I say, my lord canon, that your good angel has sent me to you!”
“My dear friend,” said Dom Diégo, stretching his large eyes, and feeling very uncomfortable on account of the cook’s sardonic humour, “my dear friend, I pray you, explain yourself clearly.”
“My lord canon, this day will prove a fatal one for you.”
“Great God! what do you say?”
“My lord canon!” replied the cook, his arms crossed and his eyes fixed in a threatening manner on the canon.
And he took a step toward Dom Diégo, who recoiled from him with an expression of pain.
“My lord canon, look at me well.”
“I — I — am looking at you,” stammered Dom Diégo, “but—”
“My lord canon, my face shall pursue you everywhere, in your sleep and in your waking hours! You shall see me always before you, with my cotton cap and white jacket, like a terrible and fantastic apparition.”
“Ah, my God! it is all up with me!” murmured the canon, terrified. “My presentiments did not deceive me; this appetite was too miraculous, these dishes, these wines, too supernatural not to have some awful mystery, some infernal magic in them.”
Just at this critical moment the canon fortunately saw his majordomo enter.
“My lord,” said Pablo, “the lawyer has just arrived; you know the lawyer who—”
“Pablo, stop there!” cried Dom Diégo, seizing his majordomo by the arm and drawing him near to himself. “Do not leave me.”
“My God, sir! what is the matter?” said Pablo. “You seem to be frightened.”
“Ah, Pablo, if you only knew,” said Dom Diégo, in a low, whining voice, without daring to turn his eyes away from the cook.
“My lord,” replied Pablo, “I told you the lawyer had arrived.”
“What lawyer, Pablo?”
“The one who comes to draw up in legal form your demand for the arrest of Captain Horace, guilty of the abduction of Senora Dolores.”
“Pablo, it is impossible to occupy myself now with business. I have no head — I must be dreaming. Ah, if you only knew what had happened! This cook — oh, my presentiments!”
“Then, my lord, I am going to send the lawyer away.”
“No!” cried the canon, “no, it is this miserable Captain Horace who is the cause of all my ills. If he had not destroyed my appetite, I should have already breakfasted this morning when this tempter in a white jacket introduced himself here, and I would not have been the victim of his sorcery. No,” added Dom Diégo, in a paroxysm of anger, “tell this lawyer to wait; he shall write my complaint this very hour. But first let me get out of this awful perplexity,” added he, throwing a frightened glance at the silent and formidable cook. “I must know what this mysterious being wants of me to terrify me so. Tell the lawyer to enter my study, and do not leave me, Pablo.”
The majordomo went to say a few words outside of the door to the lawyer, who entered an adjacent room, and the canon, the majordomo, and the cook remained alone.
Dom Diégo, encouraged by the presence of Pablo, tried to reassure himself, and said to the man in the white jacket, who still preserved his unruffled and sardonic demeanour:
“See, my good friend, let us talk seriously. It is neither a question of good or of bad angels, but of a man who possesses tremendous talent, — I am speaking of you, — whom I would like to attach to my household at whatever price it may cost. We were discussing the cellar of divine wines, for the acquisition of which I would esteem no sacrifice too much. I speak to you with all the sincerity of my soul, my dear and good friend; reply to me in the same way.”
Then the canon whispered to his majordomo:
“Pablo, do you stand between him and me.”
“Then,” replied the cook, “I will speak to you with equal sincerity, my lord canon, and first, let me repeat, I will be the desolation, the despair of your life.”
“You?”
“I.”
“Pablo, do you hear him? What have I done to him? My God!” murmured Dom Diégo, “what grudge has he?”
“Remember well my words, my lord canon. In comparison with the marvellous repast I have served you, the best dishes will seem insipid, the best wines bitter, and your appetite, awakened a moment by my power, will be again destroyed when I am no longer there to resurrect it.”
“But, my friend,” cried the canon, “you are thinking then of—”
The man in the cotton cap and white jacket again interrupte
d the canon and said:
“In recalling the delicacies which I have made you enjoy a moment, you will be like the fallen angels, who recall the celestial joys of paradise only to regret them in the midst of lamentation and gnashing of teeth.”
“My good friend, I pray you one word!”
“You will gnash your teeth, canon!” cried the cook, in a solemn voice, which sounded in the depths of Dom Diégo’s soul like the blast of the trumpet of the last judgment. “You will be as a soul, — no, you have no soul, you will be like a stomach, scenting, hunting, touching all the choicest dishes that can be served, and crying with terrible groanings as you recall this morning’s breakfast: ‘Alas! alas! my appetite has passed like a shadow; those exquisite dishes I will taste no more! alas! alas!’ Then in your despair you will become lean, — do you hear me, canon? — you will become lean.”
“Great God! Pablo, what is this wretched man saying?”
“Until the present, in spite of your loss of appetite, you have lived upon your fat, like rats in winter, but henceforth you will suffer the double and terrible blow of the loss of appetite 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 Diégo, 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 God! 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 Diégo?”
“And now,” continued the cook, pitilessly, “farewell, canon, farewell for ever.”
“Farewell, farewell for ever,” cried Dom Diégo, 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 Diégo, 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 Diégo. 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 Diégo 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 Diégo, recoiled two steps, and put himself in a defensive attitude 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 Diégo, had been so mercilessly abandoned by the strange and inimitable cook of whom we have spoken.
In the home of the Abbé Ledoux, the following scene occurred between him and the canon.
The threatening predictions of the great cook were beginning to be realised. Dom Diégo, 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 attitude betrayed abject misery, responded in a mournful tone to the questions of the abbé, 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 Diégo; 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, abbé, 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 à 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 God! 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 appetite; 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, abbé, 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 abbé, already provoked by this recital of Dom Diégo’s gastronomic nightmare, “you are enough to damn 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 fortitude to pass 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 appetite, — 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, abbé, abbé, I have never loved, but since these three days I comprehend all that is exclusive in love; I comprehend how a man passionately 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 abbé, looking at Dom Diégo with anxiety, “do you know that all this will result in delirium — in insanity?”
“Eh, my God! I know it well, abbé, 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 pass, in the hope of meeting him. Great God! 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 God! my God! how wretched I am!” he cried.
“What a double brute! He will be a fool, if he is not one already,” said the abbé 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.”
