XII
Connected with those enthralling first tales, now that I come to think of it, is the development of certain simple tastes in food which have endured through a life not altogether devoid of gastronomic discrimination. Among these may be mentioned a special delight in lentils—later on extended to other members of the pulse tribe, but in its origin especially concerned with lentils. It is to be noted that the Epitome rendering of what in the Authorised Version appears as red pottage is un plat de lentilles. Now lentils, stewed in some toothsome reddish sauce ‹not innocent of the savoury onion› was a standing Friday dish in the refectory at Delescluzes ‹together, be it said, with a Saint Jean fish-pie—Saint Jean being the equivalent of our own mediæval “Poor John,” otherwise salt cod›. The small boy, however, who was destined, at the maturity of time, to become the Master of the House at the Villino Loki, was allowed a fair mutton chop of his own by special compact with M. Delescluze, as a concession to his Protestant heresy.
THE DELECTABLE LENTIL
The arrangement had been made when the dietary of the jours maigres came, quite accidentally, to the knowledge of his anxious parents. Such a concession might have bidden fair to scandalize the youthful republic at dinner time—if not perhaps on purely dogmatic ground, at least upon a question of invidious privilege. But it happened that the intended beneficiary of the bi-weekly côtelette had been struck by that puzzling tale of Esau’s birthright so readily exchanged for a plat de lentilles.—Red pottage had become invested with an almost mystical quality.
There is often a good deal of auto-suggestion connected with matters of food pleasure. At any rate the Friday plat de lentilles ranked among the most desirable of eatable things, in his young opinion. The answer to the jeer that greeted him from the neighbour on his right, as the appetizing grill was laid by the grinning attendant for the first time upon the wooden board before him, was a prompt offer of half the flesh portion for the whole of his allowance of pulse—and a similar disposal of the remainder on the left-hand side. One chop for two plates of the savoury mess: the barter, as far as the pleasures of the table were concerned, was one of gain, for all parties. It had the further advantage of cutting at the root of conversational unpleasantness. The exchange of a single fat, heretical chop for two helpings of orthodox meagre fare became an established compact—one, it must be said, which demanded not only secrecy but adroitness for its fulfilment.
The redistribution of the courses was usually carried out under the shelter of an enormous broc ‹a relic of conventual furniture›, the French representative of our old English Black Jack; an obese, jug-like, wooden contrivance with iron hoops, containing something better than a gallon of the anodyne mixture called abondance—one part thin red wine to four of water. It was a supply which could, without danger to sobriety, be drawn upon, as the regulation had it, à discretion.
The parties to this lentil transaction, which took place at the end of the long table farthest from the eyes of the presiding usher, had to bid for turns.... Where are you this day, you the only two whilom reprobate amateurs of chops on fast days whose names I can yet recall? You, Victor de Mussy, with the notable store of infantile catches and conundrums? And you, Guilleaume Moreau, of more plebeian stamp, who used to look up words for me in the dictionary—a task I truly loathed—at the rate of three words for one bec-de-plume? If you are still in the land of the living, I would take a fair bet that it never occurs to you now to order, of your own accord, a dish of lentils!
THE INCOMPARABLE ORANGE