"It is inconceivable, abbe," said the canon, "the doctor must be right.
I am confounded with what I hear and with what I see. We are actually going to dine with the seven deadly sins."
"M. Henri David!" said the valet.
At this name the countenance of the doctor became grave; he walked up to David, took both his hands with effusive tenderness, and said:
"Pardon me for having insisted upon your acceptance of this invitation, my dear David, but I promised my excellent friend and pupil, Doctor Dufour, who recommended you to me, to try to divert you during your short sojourn in Paris."
"And I feel the need of these diversions, I a.s.sure you, sir. Down there our life is so calm, so regular, that hours slip away unperceived; but here, lost in the turmoil of this great city to which I have become a stranger, I feel these paroxysms of painful sadness, and I thank you a thousand times for having provided for me such an agreeable distraction."
Henri David was talking thus to the doctor when seven o"clock sounded.
The canon uttered a profound sigh of satisfaction as he saw the steward open the folding doors of the dining-room.
CONCLUSION.
At the moment the guests of the doctor were about to enter the dining-room, the valet announced:
"Madame the Marquise de Miranda."
"Luxury," whispered the doctor to the abbe. "I feared she might fail us."
Then offering his arm to Madeleine, more beautiful, more bewitching than ever, the doctor said, as he conducted her to the dining-room:
"I had just begun to despair of the good fortune you had promised me, madame. Listen to me, at my age the happiness of seeing you here again you must know is inexpressible. Ah, if I were only fifty years younger!"
"I would take you for my cavalier, my dear doctor," said the marquise, laughing extravagantly; "I think we have been friends, at the least estimate, for fifty years."
We will not undertake to enumerate the wonders of the doctor"s elegant dining-room. We will limit ourselves to the menu of this dinner,--a menu which each guest, thanks to a delicate forethought, found under his napkin, between two dozen oysters, one from Ostend and the other from Marennes. This menu was written on white vellum, and encased in a little framework of carved silver leaves enamelled with green. Each guest thus knew how to reserve his appet.i.te for such dishes as he preferred. Let us add only that the size of the table and the dining-room was such that, instead of the narrow and inconvenient chairs which force you to eat, so to speak, with the elbows close to the body, each guest, seated in a large and comfortable chair, the feet on a soft carpet, had all the lat.i.tude necessary for the evolutions of his knife and fork. Here is the menu which the canon took with a hand trembling with emotion and read religiously.
MENU FOR DINNER.
_Four Soups._--Soup a la Conde, rich crab soup with white meat of fowl, soup with kouskoussou, consomme with toast.
_Four Releves of Fish._--Head of sturgeon a la G.o.dard, pieces of eel a l"Italienne, salmon a la Chambord, turbot a la Hollandaise.
_Four By-plates._--Croquettes a la royale, morsels of baked lobster tail, soft roe of carps a la Orly, little pies a la reine.
_Four Large Dishes._--Quarter of pickled wild boar, ragout of beef from salt meadows, quarter of veal a la Monglas, roast beef from salt meadows.
_Sixteen Entrees._--Scalloped roebuck a l"Espagnole, fillet of lamb a la Toulouse, slices of duck with orange, sweetbreads with jelly, sweetmeats of beccaficos a la d"Uxelle, meat pie a la Nesle, macaroni a la Parisienne, hot ortolan pie, fillets of pullet from Mans, woodc.o.c.ks with choicest seasoning, quails on toast, rabbit cutlets a la marechale, veal liver with rice, partridge with black pudding a la Richelieu, foie gras a la Provencal, fillet of plover a la Lyonnaise.
_Intermediate._--Punch a la Romaine.
_Birds._--Pheasants sauced and stuffed with truffles, fowl dressed with slices of bacon, turkey stuffed with truffles from Perigord, grouse.
_Ten Side-dishes._--Cardoons with marrow, artichokes a la Napolitaine, broiled mushrooms, Perigord truffles with champagne wine, white truffles of Piedmont with olive oil, celery a la Francaise, lobster stewed with Madeira wine, shrimps stewed with kari from the Indies, lettuce with essence of ham, asparagus and peas.
_Two Large Confections._--Candy ship in rose-coloured cream, temple of sugar candy with pistachios.
Chestnuts with frozen apricots, pineapple jelly with fruits, Bavarian cheese frozen with raspberries, whipped cream with cherry jelly, French cream with black coffee, preserved strawberries.
After reading this menu, the canon, carried away with enthusiasm, and forgetting, we must confess, all conventionalities, rose from his chair, took his knife in one hand and his fork in the other, and, stretching out his arm, said, in a solemn voice:
"Doctor, I swear I will eat it all!"
And in fact the canon did eat all.
And still he had an appet.i.te.
It is useless to say that the exquisite wines, whose delicious ambrosia the canon had already tested, circulated in profusion.
At dessert, Doctor Gasterini rose, holding in his hand a little gla.s.s of iced wine of Constance, and said:
"Ladies, I am going to offer an infernal toast,--a toast as diabolical as if we were joyously banqueting among the d.a.m.ned in the lowest depth of the dining-room in the kingdom of Satan."
"Oh, oh, dear, amiable doctor!" exclaimed all with one voice, "pray what is this infernal toast?"
"To the seven deadly sins!" replied the doctor. "And now, ladies, permit me to express to you the thought which this toast inspires in me. I promised Abbe Ledoux, who has the honour of being seated by the Marquise de Miranda,--I promised the abbe, I repeat, this man of mind, of experience, and learning, but incredulous,--to prove to him by positive, incontrovertible facts, the good that can be achieved in certain instances, and in a certain measure by these tendencies, instincts, and pa.s.sions which we name the seven deadly sins. The whole problem is to regulate them wisely, and to draw from them the best that is possible.
Now, as the d.u.c.h.ess of Senneterre-Maillefort, Madame Florence Michel, and the Marquise de Miranda have for a long time honoured me with their friendship,--as MM. Richard, Yvon Cloarek, and Henri David are my good old friends, I hope that, for the triumph of sound ideas, my amiable guests will have the grace to aid me in rehabilitating these capital sins, that by their excess, owing to the absence of proper control, have been absolutely condemned, and in converting this poor abbe to their possible utility. He sins only through ignorance and obstinacy, it is true, but he does not the less blaspheme these admirable means and sources of energy, happiness, and wealth, which the inexhaustible munificence of the Creator has bestowed upon his creatures. Now, as nothing is more charming than a conversation at dessert, among men of mind, I beg that, in the interest of our unfortunate brother, Abbe Ledoux, the representatives of these various sins will tell us all that they owe to them, both in their own careers and in the success of others."
The proposition of Doctor Gasterini, unanimously welcomed, was carried out with perfect grace and uninterrupted joyousness. Henri David, who was the last but one to speak, interested the guests keenly in recounting the prodigies of devotion and generosity that Envy had inspired in Frederick Bastien, and even tears flowed at the account of the death of that n.o.ble child and that of his angelic mother. Happily the recital of Luxury concluded the dinner, and the lively marquise made the whole company laugh, when speaking of her adventure with the archduke, whose pa.s.sion she did not share. She said that it was easier to induce the Pope"s legate to masquerade as a Hungarian hussar than to make an Austrian archduke comprehend that man was born for liberty.
Moreover, the marquise announced that she contrived a plan of campaign against the old Radetzki, and finally engaged in transforming him into a coal merchant, and making him one of the chief instruments in the liberation of Italy.
"But this snow, dear and beautiful marquise," said the doctor to her, in a low voice, after this recital, "this armour of ice, which renders you apparently disdainful to those whom you inflame, is it never melted by so many fires?"
"No, no, my good doctor," replied the marquise, softly, with a melancholy smile; "the memory of my blond archangel, my ideal and only love, keeps the depths of my heart pure and fresh, like a flower under the snow."
"And I had remorse!" cried the canon, in a transport of delight over his easy digestion. "I was miscreant enough to feel remorse for the indulgence of my appet.i.te."
"Instead of remorse, an excellent dinner gives, on the contrary, even to the most selfish hearts, a singular inclination to charity," replied the doctor, "and if I did not fear I should be anathematised by our critical and dear Abbe Ledoux, I would add that, from the point of view of charity,--from that standpoint, gluttony would have the happiest results."
"Go on," replied the abbe, shrugging his shoulders, as he sipped a little gla.s.s of exquisite cream, flavoured with cinnamon of Madame Amphoux, 1788. "You have already uttered so many absurdities, dear doctor, that one more or less--"
"It depends not on chimeras, utopian schemes, but upon facts, palpable, practical, to-day and to-morrow," interrupted the doctor, "facts which can pour every day considerable sums in the coffers of the benevolent enterprises of Paris! Is that an absurdity?"
"Speak, dear doctor," said the guests, unanimously; "speak! We are all listening to you."
"This is what happened," replied the doctor; "and I regret that the thought did not occur to me sooner. Three days ago I was walking on one of the boulevards, about six o"clock in the evening. Surprised by a heavy shower, I took refuge in a cafe, one of the most fashionable restaurants in Paris. I never dine anywhere else than at home, but to keep myself in countenance, and satisfy my desire for observation, I ordered a few dishes which I did not touch, and, while I was waiting for the rain to stop, I amused myself by observing the persons who were dining. There could be a book, and a curious book, too, written upon the different shades of manner, character, and social and other conditions of people who reveal themselves unconsciously at the solemn hour of dinner. But that is not the question. I made this observation only, that each man, as he seated himself at the table, with an air indifferent, anxious, cheerful, or morose, as the case might be, seemed, in proportion as he dined upon excellent dishes, to yield to a sort of beat.i.tude and inward happiness, which was reflected upon his countenance, that faithful mirror of the soul. As I was seated near one of the windows, I followed with my eye each one as he left the cafe.