by Eugène Sue
“Do you know, Dom Diégo,” asked the abbé, with a bitter smile, “who Doctor Gasterini is?”
“But,” stammered the canon, wiping the perspiration from his brow, for he had been making superhuman efforts to penetrate the mystery, “everything is so complicated — so strange — that—”
“Doctor Gasterini,” cried the abbé, “is the uncle of Captain Horace! Do you understand now, Dom Diégo, the diabolical trick the doctor has played you? Do you understand that he has played upon your deplorable gluttony in order to get such a hold on you that he might induce you to abandon your pursuit of Captain Horace, his nephew, and afterward to induce you to consent to the marriage of your niece and the captain? Do you understand at last to what point you have been duped? Do you see the depth of the abyss you have escaped?”
“My God! this great cook a doctor! And he is the uncle of Captain Horace!” murmured the canon, stunned by the revelation. “He is not a real cook! Oh, illusion of illusions!”
The doctor remained silent and imperturbable.
“Hey, have you been duped enough?” asked the abbé. “Have you played a sufficiently ridiculous rôle? And do you now believe that the illustrious Doctor Gasterini, one of the princes of science, who has fifty thousand a year income, would hire himself to you as a cook? Was I wrong in saying that you had been made a scoff and jeer for other persons’ amusement?”
Every word from the abbé exasperated the anger, the grief, and the despair of the canon. The last remark above all. “Do you think the celebrated Doctor Gasterini would hire himself for wages,” gave a mortal blow to the last illusions that Dom Diégo cherished. Turning to the doctor, he said, with an ill-concealed anger:
“Ah, sir, do you recollect the evil you have done me? I may die of it, perhaps, but I will have my revenge, if not on you, at least on that rascal, your nephew, and on my unworthy niece, who, no doubt, is also in this abominable intrigue!”
“Well, courage, Dom Diégo; this righteous vengeance will not tarry,” said Abbé Ledoux.
Then he turned to the doctor, and said, sarcastically:
“Ah, doctor, you are doubtless a very shrewd, clever man, but you know the best players sometimes lose the best games, and you will lose this one!”
“Perhaps,” said the doctor, smiling; “who knows?”
“Come, my dear abbé, come,” cried the canon, pale and exasperated; “come, let us see the king’s attorney, and then we will hasten the departure of my niece.”
And, turning to the doctor, he said:
“To employ arms so perfidious, so disloyal! to deceive a confiding and inoffensive man with this odious Machiavellism! I who have eaten with my eyes shut, I who have taken delight upon the very brink of an abyss! Ah, sir, it is abominable, but I will have my revenge!”
“And this very instant,” said the abbé. “Come, Dom Diégo, follow me. A thousand pardons, my dear doctor, to leave you so abruptly, but you understand moments are precious.”
The canon, boiling with rage, was about to follow the abbé when Doctor Gasterini said, in a calm voice:
“Canon, a word if you please.”
“If you listen to him, you are lost, Dom Diégo!” cried the abbé, dragging the canon with him. “The evil spirit himself is not more insidious than this infernal doctor. Decide for yourself after the trick he has played on you. Come, come!”
“Canon,” said the doctor, seizing Dom Diégo by the right sleeve, while the abbé, who held the worthy man by the left sleeve, was using every effort to force him to follow him. “Canon,” repeated the doctor, “just one word, I pray you.”
“No, no!” said the abbé, “let us flee, Dom Diégo, let us flee this serpent tempter.”
And the abbé continued to pull the canon by his right sleeve.
“Just a word,” said the physician, “and you will see how much this dear abbé deceives you in my place.”
“The Abbé Ledoux deceives me in your place! That is too much by far!” cried Dom Diégo. “How, sir, do you dare?”
“I am going to prove to you what I say, canon,” said the doctor, earnestly, as he saw Dom Diégo make an effort to approach him. The abbé, suspecting the canon’s weakness, pulled him violently, and said:
“Recollect, unhappy man, that your mother Eve was lost by listening to the first word of Satan. I adjure you, I command you, to follow me this instant! If you give way, unhappy man, take care! One second more, and it is all up with you. Let us go, let us go!”
“Yes, yes, you are my saviour, take me away from here,” stammered the canon, disengaging himself from the grasp of the doctor. “In spite of myself, I am already yielding to the incomprehensible influence of this demon. I recall those Guinea fowl eggs with crab gravy, that trout with frozen Montpellier butter, that celestial roast à la Sardanapalus, and already a dim hope — let us fly, abbé, it is time, let us fly.”
“Canon,” said the doctor, holding on to the arm of Dom Diégo with all his strength, “listen to me, I pray you.”
“Vade retro, Satanas!” cried Dom Diégo, with horror, escaping from the doctor’s hands.
And dragged along by the abbé, he was on the threshold of the door, when the physician cried:
“I will cook for you as much as you desire, and as long as I shall live, Dom Diégo. Grant me five minutes, and I will prove what I declare. Five minutes, what do you risk?”
At the magic words, “I will cook for you as much as you desire,” the canon seemed nailed to the door-sill, and did not advance a step, in spite of the efforts of the abbé, who was too exhausted to struggle against the weight of such a large man.
“You certainly are stupid!” cried the abbé, losing control of himself, “what a fool you are to have any dealings with him!”
“Grant me five minutes, Dom Diégo,” urged the doctor, “and, if I do not convince you of the reality of my promises, then give free course to your vengeance. I repeat, what do you risk? I only ask a poor five minutes.”
“In fact,” said the canon, turning to the abbé, “what would I risk?”
“Go, you risk nothing!” cried the abbé, pushed to the extreme by the weakness of the canon; “from this moment you are lost, a scoff and a jeer. Go, go, throw yourself into the jaws of this monster, thrice dull brute that you are!”
These unfortunate words, uttered by the abbé in anger, wounded the pride of Dom Diégo to the quick, and he replied, with an offended air:
“At least, I will not be brute enough, Abbé Ledoux, to hesitate between the loss of five minutes, and the ruin of my hopes, as weak as they may be.”
“As you please, Dom Diégo,” replied the abbé, gnawing his nails with anger; “you are a good, greasy dupe to experiment upon. Really, I am ashamed of having pitied you.”
“Not such a dupe, Abbé Ledoux, not such a dupe as you may suppose,” said the canon, in a self-sufficient tone. “You are going to discover, and the doctor, too, for no doubt he is going to explain himself.”
“At once,” eagerly replied the doctor, “at once, my lord canon, and very clearly too, very categorically.”
“Let us see,” said Dom Diégo, swelling cheeks with an important air. “You discover, sir, that I have now powerful reasons for not allowing myself to be satisfied with chimeras, because, as the abbé has said, I would be a good, greasy dupe to permit you to deceive me, after so many cautions.”
“Oh, certainly,” said the abbé, in his great indignation, “you are a proud man, canon, and quite capable of fighting this son of Beelzebub.”
“By which title you mean me, dear abbé,” said the doctor, with sardonic courtesy. “What an ingrate you are! I come to remind you that you promised to dine with me to-day. Permit my lord canon, also, — he is not a stranger to our subject, as you will see.”
“Yes, doctor,” said the abbé, “I did make you this promise, but—”
“You will keep it, I do not doubt, and I will remind you, too, that this invitation was extended in consequence of a little discussio
n relative to the seven capital sins. Again, canon, I am in the question, and you are going to recognise it immediately.”
“It is true, doctor,” replied the abbé, with a constrained smile, “I would brand, as they deserve to be, the seven capital sins, causes of eternal damnation to the miserable beings who abandon themselves to these abominable vices, and in your passion for paradoxes, you have dared maintain that—”
“That the seven capital sins have good, in a certain point of view, in a certain measure, and gluttony, particularly, may be made an admirable passion.”
“Gluttony!” cried the canon, amazed. “Gluttony admirable!”
“Admirable, my dear canon,” replied the doctor, “and that, too, in the eyes of the wisest, and most sincerely religious men.”
“Gluttony!” repeated the canon, who had listened to the physician with increasing bewilderment, “gluttony!”
“It is even more, my lord canon,” said the doctor, solemnly, “because, for those who are to put it in practice, it becomes an imperious duty to humanity.”
“A duty to humanity!” repeated Dom Diégo.
“And, above all, a question of high civilisation and great policy, my lord canon,” added the doctor, with an air so serious, so full of conviction, that he imposed on the canon, who cried:
“Hold, doctor, if you could only demonstrate that—”
“Do you not see that the doctor is making you ridiculous?” said the abbé, shrugging his shoulders. “Ah, I told you the truth, unhappy Dom Diégo; you are lost, for ever lost, as soon as you consent to listen to such foolery.”
“Canon,” the doctor hastened to add, “let us resume our subject, not by reasoning, which, I confess, may appear to you specious, but by facts, by acts, by proofs, and by figures. You are both a glutton and superstitious. You have not the strength to resist your craving for good things; then, your gluttony satisfied, you are afraid of having committed a great sin, which sometimes spoils the pleasure of good cheer, and above all, injures the calmness and regularity of your digestion. Is this not true?”
“It is true,” meekly replied the canon, dominated, fascinated by the doctor’s words, “it is too true.”
“Well, my lord canon, I wish to convince you, I repeat, not by reasoning, however logical it may be, but by visible, palpable facts and by figures, first, that in being a glutton, you accomplish a mission highly philanthropic, a benefit to civilisation and politics; second, that I can, and will be able to make you eat and drink, when you wish, with far more intense enjoyment than the other day.”
“And I, I say to you,” cried the abbé, appalled by the doctor’s assurance, “that if you prove by facts and figures, as you pretend, that to be a glutton is to accomplish a mission to humanity or high civilisation, or is a thing of great political significance, I swear to you to become an adept in this philosophy, as absurd and visionary as it appears.”
“And if you prove to me, doctor, that you can open again, and in the future continue to open the doors of the culinary paradise that you opened to me day before yesterday,” cried the canon, palpitating with new hope, “if you prove to me that I accomplish a social duty in yielding myself up to gluttony, you will be able to dominate me, I will be your deputy, your slave, your thing.”
“Agreed, my lord canon, agreed, Abbé Ledoux, you shall be satisfied. Let us depart.”
“Depart?” asked the canon, “where?”
“To my house, Dom Diégo.”
“To your house,” said the canon, with an air of distrust, “to your house?”
“My carriage is below,” replied the doctor; “in a quarter of an hour we will arrive there.”
“But, doctor,” asked the canon, “why go to your house? What are we going to do there?”
“At my house, only, will you be able to find those visible, palpable proofs of what I have declared, for I have come to remind the dear abbé that to-day is the twentieth of November, the day of the investigation to which I have invited him. But the hour advances, gentlemen, let us depart.”
“I do not know if I am dreaming or awake,” said Dom Diégo, “but I throw myself in the gulf with my eyes shut.”
“You must be the very devil himself, doctor, for my instinct and reason revolt against your paradoxes. I do not believe one word of your promises, yet it is impossible for me to resist the curious desire to accompany you.”
The canon and the abbé followed the doctor, entered his carriage with him, and soon the three arrived at the house occupied by the distinguished physician.
CHAPTER XII.
DOCTOR GASTERINI LIVED in a charming house in the Faubourg du Roule, where he soon arrived in company with the canon and Abbé Ledoux.
“While we are waiting for dinner, would you like to take a turn in the garden?” said the doctor, to his guests. “That will give me the opportunity to present to you my poor sister’s eight children, my nephews and nieces, whom I have reared and established in the world respectably, entirely by means of gluttony. You see, canon, we still follow our subject.”
“What, doctor!” replied the canon, “you have reared a numerous family by means of gluttony?”
“You do not see that the doctor continues to ridicule you!” said the abbé, shrugging his shoulders. “It is too much by far!”
“I give you my word of honour as an honest man,” replied Doctor Gasterini, “and besides, I am going to prove to you in a moment, by facts, that if I had not been the greatest gourmand among men, I should never have known how to make for each one of my nephews and nieces the excellent positions which they hold, as worthy, honest, and intelligent labourers, contributing, each in his sphere, to the prosperity of the country.”
“So we are really to see people who contribute to the prosperity of the country, and for that we may thank the doctor’s love of eating!” said the canon, with amazement.
“No,” cried the abbé, “what confounds me is to hear such absurdities maintained till the last moment, and—” but suddenly interrupting himself, he asked with surprise, as he looked around:
“What is that building, doctor? It looks like shops.”
“That is my orangery,” replied the doctor, “and to-day, as every year at this time, my birthday, they set up shops here.”
“How is that; set up shops, and what for?” asked the abbé.
“Zounds! why, to sell, of course, my dear abbé.”
“Sell what? and who is to sell?”
“As to what is sold, you will soon see, and as to the purchasers, why, they are my patrons, who are coming to spend the evening here.”
“Really, doctor, I do not comprehend you.”
“You know, my dear abbé, that for a long time charity shops have been kept by some of the prettiest women in Paris.”
“Ah, yes,” replied the abbé; “the proceeds to be given to the poor.”
“This is the same; the proceeds of this evening’s sale will be distributed among the poor of my district.”
“And who are to keep these shops?” asked the canon.
“My sister’s eight children, Dom Diégo. They will sell there, for the charitable purpose I have mentioned, the produce of their own industry. But come, gentlemen, let us enter, and I shall have the honour of introducing to you my nieces and nephews.”
With these words Doctor Gasterini conducted his friends into a vast orangery, where were arranged eight little shops or stalls for the display of wares. The green boxes of a large number of gigantic orange-trees formed the railings and separations of these stalls, so that each one had a ceiling of beautiful foliage.
“Ah, doctor,” exclaimed the canon, stopping before the first stall in admiration, “this is magnificent! I have never seen anything like it in my life. It is magic!”
“It is indeed a feast for the eye,” said the abbé. “It is unsurpassed.”
Let us see what elicited the just admiration of Doctor Gasterini’s guests. The boxes forming the enclosure of the first stall were ornamented wi
th leaves and flowers; on each of these rustic platforms, covered with moss, a collection of fruits and early vegetables was displayed with rare beauty. Golden pineapples with crowns of green lay above immense baskets of grapes of every shade, from the dark purple cluster of the valley to the transparent red from the mountain vineyards. Pyramids of pears, and apples of the rarest and choicest species, of enormous size and variegated with the brightest colours, reached up to summits of bananas, as golden as if the sun of the tropics had ripened them. Farther on dwarf fig-trees in pots, and covered with violet-coloured figs, stood among a rare collection of autumn melons, Brazil pumpkins, and Spanish and white potatoes. Still farther, little rush baskets of hothouse strawberries contrasted with rosy mushrooms, and enormous truffles as black as ebony, obtained from the hotbed by special culture. Then came the rare and early specimens of the season, — green asparagus and varieties of lettuce.
In the midst of these marvels of the vegetable kingdom, which she herself had grouped in such a charming and picturesque scene, stood a beautiful young woman, elegantly attired in the costume of the peasants living in the neighbourhood of Paris.
“I present to you one of my nieces,” said the doctor to his guests, “Juliette Dumont, cultivator of early fruits and vegetables, in the open field and hothouse at Montreuil-sous-Bois.”
Then, turning to the young woman, the doctor added:
“My child, tell these gentlemen, please, how many gardeners you and your husband employ in your occupation.”
“At least twenty men the whole time, my dear uncle.”
“And their salary, my child.”
“According to your advice, dear uncle, we give them the fixed price of fifty cents, and a part of our profit, in order to interest them as much as we are in the excellence of the work. We find this arrangement the best in the world, for our gardeners, interested as much as ourselves in the prosperity of our undertaking, labour with great zeal. So this year, their part in the income of the establishment has almost amounted to five francs a day.”