§6
For our “feast of the four birthdays” I wrote out a regular programme, which was honoured by the special attention of Golitsyn, one of the Commissioners at our trial, who asked me if the programme had been carried out exactly.
“À la lettre!” I replied. He shrugged his shoulders, as if his own life had been a succession of Good Fridays spent in a monastery.
Our suppers were generally followed by a lively discussion over a question of the first importance, which was this—how ought the punch to be made? Up to this point, the eating and drinking went on usually in perfect harmony, like a bill in parliament which is carried nem. con. But over the punch everyone had his own view; and the previous meal enlivened the discussion. Was the punch to be set on fire now, or to be set on fire later? How was it to be set on fire? Was champagne or sauterne to be used to put it out? Was the pineapple to be put in while it was still alight, or not?
“While it’s burning, of course! Then all the flavour will pass into the punch.”
“Nonsense! The pineapple floats and will get burnt. That will simply spoil it.”
“That is all rubbish,” cries Ketcher, high above the rest; “but I’ll tell you what does matter—we must put out the candles.”
When the candles were out, all faces looked blue in the flickering light of the punch. The room was not large, and the burning rum soon raised the temperature to a tropical height. All were thirsty, but the punch was not ready. But Joseph, a French waiter sent from the restaurant, rose to the occasion: he brewed a kind of antithesis to the punch—an iced drink compounded of various wines with a foundation of brandy; and as he poured in the French wine, he explained, like a true son of the grande nation, that the wine owed its excellence to having twice crossed the equator—“Oui, oui, messieurs, deux fois l’équateur, messieurs!”
Joseph’s cup was as cold as the North Pole. When it was finished, there was no need of any further liquid; but Ketcher now called out, “Time to put out the punch!” He was stirring a fiery lake in a soup-tureen, while the last lumps of sugar hissed and bubbled as they melted.
In goes the champagne, and the flame turns red and careers over the surface of the punch, looking somehow angry and menacing.
Then a desperate shout: “My good man, are you mad? The wax is dropping straight off the bottle into the punch!”
“Well, just you try yourself, in this heat, to hold the bottle so that the wax won’t melt!”
“You should knock it off first, of course,” continues the critic.
“The cups, the cups—have we enough to go round? How many are we—ten, twelve, fourteen? That’s right.”
“We’ve not got fourteen cups.”
“Then the rest must take glasses.”
“The glasses will crack.”
“Not a bit of it, if you put the spoon in.”
The candles are re-lit, the last little tongue of flame darts to the centre of the bowl, twirls round, and disappears.
And all admit that the punch is a success, a splendid success.