From that day forward, as soon as one of these witching damsels began her incantation, I cried out:
"Hold! Enough! Bring it all in."
Then I would eat the least distasteful of the messes, and leave the rest. I can assure you the hotel did not make much profit out of me.
This is how the dinner is served:
The "duchess" begins by flinging a spoon and knife and fork down on the table in front of you. It is for you to set them straight, and I would advise you to do so without any murmuring. When you have taken your soup, the said "duchess" brings you a plate, around which she places a dozen little oval dishes in a symmetrical fashion that one can but admire.
The first little dish contains fish, and a teaspoonful of sauce of some kind. It is needless to inquire the name of this sauce. All the fish sauces are the same; only the name varies. The second apparently contains a little lump of raw beef; the third, a slice of roast turkey; the fourth, mashed potatoes; the fifth, a stewed tomato; the sixth, cranberry sauce; the seventh, chicken salad; the eighth, some rice-pudding; and the last contains (horrible dictu!) a slice of apple-tart, with a large helping of cheese in the middle of it. These two things are eaten together, and are consequently served on the same dish.
You begin at the left. The fish presents no obstacle but its bones, and is soon disposed of. You turn your attention to the next dish on the right, and attack the beef. It is impregnable; you can make no impression upon it. You pass. The turkey is not obdurate, and you fall to on that, making little raids on the potatoes, tomatoes, and cranberry sauce between each mouthful. Thanks to the many climates of America (the thermometer varies in winter from 75 above zero in the south to 45 below in the north), you have turkey and cranberry sauce all the winter, strawberries six months of the year, and tomatoes almost all the year round.
Oh, the turkey and cranberry sauce! I ate enough of that dish to satisfy me for the rest of my days. No more turkey with cranberry sauce for me, though I should live to be a hundred!
Of course, all the meats placed around your plate soon begin to cool, and you have no choice but to bolt your food, diving with knife and fork into the little dishes right and left as dexterously as you can.
Finally you come to the apple-tart, on the extreme right. You carefully lift the cheese, and, placing it aside, prepare to eat your sweets without the strange seasoning. Unhappily, the pastry has become impregnated with an odour of roquefort, and again you pass. A vanilla ice terminates your repast.