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.
[Illustration: children eating at table]
[Sidenote: 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!
* * * * *
[Sidenote: THE INCOMPARABLE ORANGE]
Another persistent “nostril memory,” as I have said, is that of the
orange. It is a curious one. Of a certainty I must have eaten of the
golden apple many a time before that notable night when I was first
taken to a theatre. And yet it is invariably that delirious occasion
which is recalled, for however fleeting a moment, when the bursting of
the essential oil cells of an orange peel sends forth its fragrance.
[Illustration: child leaning over]
The drama was “_Bas-de-Cuir_”—an adaptation of Fenimore Cooper’s Red
Indian tale “Leather Stocking.” When I say that the part of “Leather
Stocking” was taken by Frederic Lemaitre—personified genius of the old
Romantic Melodrama!—that the playhouse was _Les Folies Dramatiques_—it
will be patent to anyone familiar with the annals of the Paris stage
that I refer to a very distant period. I could not have been more than
eight years old. In those days, apparently, the custom, delectable to
the boys if less so to their elders, of consuming oranges between the
acts had not yet fallen into desuetude.
It is very odd. There are as we know a large number of recognized
methods of eating an orange: from the elaborate and super-epicurean
Japanese dissection within the skin, which removes every pellicule and
every pip out of the fruit, preparatory to “spooning” the pure pulp,
with or without sugar, down to the simple suction known as “Mattie’s
way.” Whatever be the process, the effect never fails if I stand by: as
sure as the first puff of fresh orange peel meets me, so is my mind
instantly brought back to some scene connected with “Leather Stocking”;
to some sense of the very first dramatic emotion ever known—the silent
laughter of the trapper; the faint, distant war yell of the Huron; the
darting of the bark canoe down the rapid; the crack of a gun: the flare
of the camp fire—what not? It is, of course, but a transient flash now,
but there it always starts, harking, for a second or so, back half a
century in the middle of completely unrelated thoughts and in
surroundings the least likely to evoke the past—in the silence of a sick
bedside, or amid the hot dustiness of a holiday crowd; or even, at
dessert time, in the company of some fair neighbour whose young, healthy
powers of table enjoyment enable her to conclude a regular dinner with a
whole orange eaten in the appreciative and fragrant manner known as _à
la Maltaise_.
Scent alone, and that only for a second at a time, possesses this
fantastic power. The taste of marmalade, for instance, is fraught with
no special memories. As for the pleasure of sight in connexion with the
orange, it is now concentrated upon the half-dozen trees—in pots, but
bravely bearing year by year their little burden of fruit destined to
grow for purely ornamental and “Italian” effect within doors at the
Villino.
What a marvel would an orange be considered, had it not become an object
of our everyday life! We take it as a matter of course; but how much
poorer would the world suddenly seem if oranges became henceforth
unobtainable! And the lemon! If lemons cost a guinea apiece, I once
heard a physician say who had a special experience of its wide-reaching
healing powers, then would mankind appreciate the treasure it has at
hand! One-half of its being, and by no means the less important, the
rind, is deplorably neglected. We deal with it as with a practically
worthless husk. If we more generally understood the value of its
ethereal oil, we might save ourselves many a spell of unaccountable
physical depression. I can personally testify to numerous instances of
feverish bouts cured solely by a hot decoction of lemon zest.
A similar virtue, by the way, seems to reside in the leaves of the
Citrus Limonum. In southern countries—especially, I am told, in Spanish
America—these leaves are obtainable in the dry state, and used as a
febrifuge and alternative “tea,” or rather tisane, with marked results.
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