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."

The abbé 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, abbé, this tempter came from hell. It is not given to any human being to be such a cook. Ah, abbé, 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 abbé, 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 abbé continued:

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

"Alas! abbé, it is the loss of my appetite."

"Be it so, my brother, and who has caused the loss of your appetite?"

"That wretch!" cried the canon, irritated, "that infamous Captain Horace."

"That is true; well, I will always preach to you the forgiveness of injuries, my dear brother; but, too, I must recommend to you an inexorable severity against sacrilege."

"What sacrilege, abbé?"

"Have not Captain Horace and one of his sailors dared to leap over the sacred walls of the convent where you had shut up your niece? Have they not had the audacity to carry away the miserable girl, whom happily we have recaptured? This enormity in other times might have been punished with fire, and one day it will be punished with eternal fire."

"And this villain of a captain will only have what he deserves," cried Dom Diégo, ferociously; "yes, he will cook--he will roast on Satan's spit by a slow fire, all eternity, where he will be moistened with gravy of melted lead, after having been larded with red-hot iron. Such will be his punishment, I earnestly hope."

"So may it be, but while waiting this eternal expiation, why not punish him here below? Why have you had the culpable weakness to give up your demand for the arrest of this miscreant? I need not remind you that this man is the first cause of all that you call your ills,--that is, the loss of your appetite."

"That is true, he is a great criminal."

"Then, my brother, why, I ask again, have you been so weak as to renounce your pursuit of him? You do not reply, you seem to be embarrassed."

"It is that--"

"It is what?"

"Alas, abbé, you are going to scold me, to lecture me again."

"Explain yourself, my brother."

"What shall I say? It is his fault, for, since he has disappeared, all my thoughts come from him and return to him."

"Who, he?"

"This angel or this demon."

"What angel--what demon?"

"The cook."

"Again the cook?"

"Always!"

"Come," said the abbé, shrugging his shoulders, "do explain yourself, my brother."

"Well, then, abbé, know that the day after the fatal day when I breakfasted as I shall never breakfast again, alas! when my despair was at its height, I received a mysterious note."

"And what did this contain, my brother?"

"Here it is."

"You have kept it."

"It is perhaps his cherished handwriting," murmured the canon, with a melancholy accent.

And he handed the note to Abbé Ledoux, who read as follows:

* * * * *

"MY LORD CANON:--There remains perhaps one means of seeing me again.

"You now know the delights with which I am able to surfeit you.

"You also know the terrible torments which my absence inflicts.

"Before yesterday, not having felt these torments in all their anguish, you presumed to refuse what I expected of you.

"To-day, as past sufferings will be a guarantee for the sufferings to come, listen to me.

"You can put an end to these sufferings.

"For that, you must grant me three things.

"I demand the first to-day; in eight days the second; in fifteen days the third.

"I proportion the importance of my demands to the progress of your suffering, because the more you suffer, the more you will regret me and show yourself docile.

"Here is my first demand:

"Send back by the bearer of this note, your nonsuit of all complaint against Captain Horace.

"Give me by this act a proof of your desire to satisfy me, and then you will be able to hope that you may find again

APPETITE."