Luxury - Gluttony: Two of the Seven Cardinal Sins

"It is he, himself," replied the doctor, extending his hand to the old man, as he said, "Welcome, good Richard, the abbé was just speaking to me of you."

"Of me, dear doctor?"

"Or, if you prefer it, of your wonderful endowments at Chaillot."

"Ah, doctor," said the old man, "you must render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, — my son is the founder of those charitable institutions."

"Let us see, my good Richard," replied the doctor, "if you had not been as thorough a miser as your friend, Ramon, your worthy son would not have been able to make your name blessed everywhere as he has done."

"As to that, doctor, it is the pure truth, and, too, I confess to you that there is not a day I do not thank God, from this fact, for having made me the most avaricious of men."

"And how is your son's friend, the Marquis of Saint-Hérem?"

"He came to visit us yesterday with his wife. His household is the very pearl of establishments. He invited us to visit his castle just erected in the valley of Chevreuse. They say that no palace in Paris equals it in splendour. It seems that for three years fifteen hundred artisans have been at work on it, without counting the terraces of the park, which alone have employed the force of four villages, and, as the marquis pays handsomely, you can conceive what comfort has been spread abroad through the neighbourhoods around his castle."

"Well, then, my good Richard, you confess that, if the uncle of the marquis had not had the same avarice which you possessed, this generous fellow would not have been able to give work to so many families."

"That is true, my dear doctor, so, under the name of Saint-Ramon, as the marquis has jestingly christened his uncle, the memory of this famous miser is blessed by everybody."

"It is inconceivable, abbé," 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 assure 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 abbé. "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 appetite 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 latitude 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 à la Condé, rich crab soup with white meat of fowl, soup with kouskoussou, consommé with toast.

Four Relevés of Fish.— Head of sturgeon à la Godard, pieces of eel à l'Italienne, salmon à la Chambord, turbot à la Hollandaise.

Four By-plates.— Croquettes à la royale, morsels of baked lobster tail, soft roe of carps à la Orly, little pies à la reine.

Four Large Dishes.— Quarter of pickled wild boar, ragout of beef from salt meadows, quarter of veal à la Monglas, roast beef from salt meadows.

Sixteen Entrées.— Scalloped roebuck à l'Espagnole, fillet of lamb à la Toulouse, slices of duck with orange, sweetbreads with jelly, sweetmeats of beccaficos à la d'Uxelle, meat pie à la Nesle, macaroni à la Parisienne, hot ortolan pie, fillets of pullet from Mans, woodcocks with choicest seasoning, quails on toast, rabbit cutlets à la maréchale, veal liver with rice, partridge with black pudding à la Richelieu, foie gras à la Provençal, fillet of plover à la Lyonnaise.

Intermediate.— Punch à la Romaine.

Birds.— Pheasants sauced and stuffed with truffles, fowl dressed with slices of bacon, turkey stuffed with truffles from Périgord, grouse.

Ten Side-dishes.— Cardoons with marrow, artichokes à la Napolitaine, broiled mushrooms, Périgord truffles with champagne wine, white truffles of Piedmont with olive oil, celery à la Française, 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 appetite.

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 glass 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 damned 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 Abbé Ledoux, who has the honour of being seated by the Marquise de Miranda, — I promised the abbé, 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 passions 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 Duchess 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 abbé 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, Abbé 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 noble 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 passion 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 appetite."

"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 Abbé Ledoux, I would add that, from the point of view of charity, — from that standpoint, gluttony would have the happiest results."