“I own my delusion: I did.”
“It is not cooked yet!”
“Oh! well, I can wait!”
“And officiate too!” said the lady; “in a word, this is one of the Regent’s cooking nights.”
Scarcely had I received this explanation, before there was a general adjournment to an inner apartment, where all the necessary articles of cooking were ready to our hand.
“The Regent led the way,
To light us to our prey,”
and, with an irresistible gravity and importance of demeanour, entered upon the duties of chef. In a very short time we were all engaged. Nothing could exceed the zest with which every one seemed to enter into the rites of the kitchen. You would have imagined they had been born scullions, they handled the batterie de cuisine so naturally. As for me, I sought protection with Madame de Savori; and as, fortunately, she was very deeply skilled in the science, she had occasion to employ me in many minor avocations which her experience taught her would not be above my comprehension.
After we had spent a certain time in this dignified occupation, we returned to the salle a manger. The attendants placed the dishes on the table, and we all fell to. Whether out of self-love to their own performances, or complaisance to the performances of others, I cannot exactly say, but certain it is that all the guests acquitted themselves a merveille: you would not have imagined the Regent the only one who had gone without dinner to eat the more at supper. Even that devoted wife to her cher bon mari, who had so severely dwelt upon the good Regent’s infirmity, occupied herself with an earnestness that would have seemed almost wolf-like in a famished grenadier.
Very slight indeed was the conversation till the supper was nearly over; then the effects of the wine became more perceptible. The Regent was the first person who evinced that he had eaten sufficiently to be able to talk. Utterly dispensing with the slightest veil of reserve or royalty, he leaned over the table, and poured forth a whole tide of jests. The guests then began to think it was indecorous to stuff themselves any more, and, as well as they were able, they followed their host’s example. But the most amusing personages were the buffoons: they mimicked and joked, and lampooned and lied, as if by inspiration. As the bottle circulated, and talk grew louder, the lampooning and the lying were not, however, confined to the buffoons. On the contrary, the best born and best bred people seemed to excel the most in those polite arts. Every person who boasted a fair name or a decent reputation at court was seized, condemned, and mangled in an instant. And how elaborately the good folks slandered! It was no hasty word and flippant repartee which did the business of the absent: there was a precision, a polish, a labour of malice, which showed that each person had brought so many reputations already cut up. The good-natured convivialists differed from all other backbiters that I have ever met, in the same manner as the toads of Surinam differ from all other toads; namely, their venomous offspring were not half formed, misshapen tadpoles of slander, but sprang at once into life,—well shaped and fully developed.
“Chantons!” cried the Regent, whose eyes, winking and rolling, gave token of his approaching state which equals the beggar to the king; “let us have a song. Noce, lift up thy voice, and let us hear what the Tokay has put into thy head!”