“Oh, yes! but meanwhile we shan’t grow again. How indifferent men are! they don’t get attached to anything. Think of the love ciphers that we carved with a knife on the bark of an oak tree; I looked forward to seeing them again. There was an A and a V intertwined in a heart.”
“They probably served to warm some old annuitant’s feet, or to boil the kettle for some respectable family.”
“That’s it—make soup with my heart; that’s very pleasant to think of! I shan’t cut any more letters on trees.—Ah! here’s the Tournebride luckily; I was afraid they’d cut that down too.”
The Tournebride was the most famous restaurant in Romainville forest; but for all that, it would not have been safe to order a charlotte russe there, or a karik à l’Indienne, because the landlord would have thought that you were talking Tartar, or making fun of him, and would tell you to go to Noisy-le-Sec for your dinner. But if you confined your ambition to a bill-of-fare dainty enough for the worthy bourgeois of Rue Saint-Denis, and very popular among the young work-girls who came to Romainville with their sweethearts, you might be certain of being satisfied at the Tournebride, which is only three gun-shots from the keeper’s lodge, on the road leading to Romainville village.
Auguste and Virginie entered the inn, and, as is usual in country restaurants, they went through the kitchen to reach the salons and the private rooms. They enjoyed the sight of veal-stews, cutlets, and beef piqué; and as such restaurants had no printed bill-of-fare, the kitchen took the place of one. When you walked through, you saw all the saucepans, and you inhaled the combined odors of five or six ragouts, which might stand you instead of soup, but which was less agreeable after you had dined.
The host welcomed his guests with a smiling face, his cotton cap over his ear; as he answered questions he ran from one saucepan to another, and spitted a pigeon as he extolled his beefsteak.
“Let’s make up our minds at once what we’ll have,” said Virginie, who was accustomed to country restaurants. “Is the beefsteak tender?”
“Oh! delicious, madame.”
“With kidneys, eh, my friend?”
“Yes, they are essential.—Have you any kidneys, monsieur l’hôte?”