"Before we part, Monsieur Hermann will, I trust, tell one more German story to terrify us?"These words were said at dessert by a pale fair girl, who had read, no doubt, the tales of Hoffmann and the novels of Walter Scott.She was the only daughter of the banker, a charming young creature whose education was then being finished at the Gymnase, the plays of which she adored.At this moment the guests were in that happy state of laziness and silence which follows a delicious dinner, especially if we have presumed too far on our digestive powers.Leaning back in their chairs, their wrists lightly resting on the edge of the table, they were indolently playing with the gilded blades of their dessert-knives.When a dinner comes to this declining moment some guests will be seen to play with a pear seed; others roll crumbs of bread between their fingers and thumbs; lovers trace indistinct letters with fragments of fruit; misers count the stones on their plate and arrange them as a manager marshals his supernumeraries at the back of the stage.These are little gastronomic felicities which Brillat-Savarin, otherwise so complete an author, overlooked in his book.The footmen had disappeared.The dessert was like a squadron after a battle: all the dishes were disabled, pillaged, damaged; several were wandering around the table, in spite of the efforts of the mistress of the house to keep them in their places.Some of the persons present were gazing at pictures of Swiss scenery, symmetrically hung upon the gray-toned walls of the dining-room.Not a single guest was bored; in fact, Inever yet knew a man who was sad during his digestion of a good dinner.We like at such moments to remain in quietude, a species of middle ground between the reverie of a thinker and the comfort of the ruminating animals; a condition which we may call the material melancholy of gastronomy.
So the guests now turned spontaneously to the excellent German, delighted to have a tale to listen to, even though it might prove of no interest.During this blessed interregnum the voice of a narrator is always delightful to our languid senses; it increases their negative happiness.I, a seeker after impressions, admired the faces about me, enlivened by smiles, beaming in the light of the wax candles, and somewhat flushed by our late good cheer; their diverse expressions producing piquant effects seen among the porcelain baskets, the fruits, the glasses, and the candelabra.
All of a sudden my imagination was caught by the aspect of a guest who sat directly in front of me.He was a man of medium height, rather fat and smiling, having the air and manner of a stock-broker, and apparently endowed with a very ordinary mind.Hitherto I had scarcely noticed him, but now his face, possibly darkened by a change in the lights, seemed to me to have altered its character; it had certainly grown ghastly; violet tones were spreading over it; you might have thought it the cadaverous head of a dying man.Motionless as the personages painted on a diorama, his stupefied eyes were fixed on the sparkling facets of a cut-glass stopper, but certainly without observing them; he seemed to be engulfed in some weird contemplation of the future or the past.When I had long examined that puzzling face I began to reflect about it."Is he ill?" I said to myself."Has he drunk too much wine? Is he ruined by a drop in the Funds? Is he thinking how to cheat his creditors?""Look!" I said to my neighbor, pointing out to her the face of the unknown man, "is that an embryo bankrupt?""Oh, no!" she answered, "he would be much gayer." Then, nodding her head gracefully, she added, "If that man ever ruins himself I'll tell it in Pekin! He possesses a million in real estate.That's a former purveyor to the imperial armies; a good sort of man, and rather original.He married a second time by way of speculation; but for all that he makes his wife extremely happy.He has a pretty daughter, whom he refused for many years to recognize; but the death of his son, unfortunately killed in a duel, has compelled him to take her home, for he could not otherwise have children.The poor girl has suddenly become one of the richest heiresses in Paris.The death of his son threw the poor man into an agony of grief, which sometimes reappears on the surface."At that instant the purveyor raised his eyes and rested them upon me;that glance made me quiver, so full was it of gloomy thought.But suddenly his face grew lively; he picked up the cut-glass stopper and put it, with a mechanical movement, into a decanter full of water that was near his plate, and then he turned to Monsieur Hermann and smiled.
After all, that man, now beatified by gastronomical enjoyments, hadn't probably two ideas in his brain, and was thinking of nothing.
Consequently I felt rather ashamed of wasting my powers of divination "in anima vili,"--of a doltish financier.
While I was thus making, at a dead loss, these phrenological observations, the worthy German had lined his nose with a good pinch of snuff and was now beginning his tale.It would be difficult to reproduce it in his own language, with his frequent interruptions and wordy digressions.Therefore, I now write it down in my own way;leaving out the faults of the Nuremburger, and taking only what his tale may have had of interest and poesy with the coolness of writers who forget to put on the title pages of their books: "Translated from the German."