Adrift in Pacific and Other Great Adventures – 17 Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). Jules Verne
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sorrows to enter his life.” Saying which, he emptied his glass at one swallow.
The host made a gesture of assent, and again lapsed into his habitual apathy.
Where did this conversation take place? In a European dining-room, in Paris, London, Vienna, or St. Petersburg?
Were these six companions conversing together in a restaurant in the Old or New World? And who were they, who, without having drunk more than usual, were discussing these questions in the midst of a repast?
Certainly they were not Frenchmen, because they were not talking politics.
They were seated at a table in an elegantly decorated saloon of medium size. The last rays of the sun were streaming through the network of blue and orange window-panes, and past the open windows the evening breeze was swinging garlands of natural and artificial flowers; and a few variegated lanterns mingled their pale light with the dying gleams of day. Above the windows were carved arabesques, enriched with varied sculpture, and representing celestial and terrestrial beauty, and animals and vegetables of a strange fauna and flora.
On the walls of the saloon, which were hung in silken tapestry, were shining broad, double-bevelled mirrors; and on the ceiling a “punka,” moving its painted percale wings, rendered the temperature endurable.
The table was a vast quadrilateral of black lacquer-work, and, being uncovered, reflected the numerous pieces of silver and porcelain as a slab of the purest crystal might have done. There were no napkins, only simple squares of ornamented paper, a sufficient supply of which was furnished each guest. Around the table stood chairs with marble backs, far preferable in this latitude to the covering of modern furniture.
The attendants were very prepossessing young girls, in whose black hair were mingled lilies and chrysanthemums, and round whose arms bracelets of gold and jade were coquettishly wound. Smiling and sprightly, they served or removed dishes with one hand, while with the other they gracefully waved a large fan, which restored the currents of air displaced by the punka on the ceiling.
The repast left nothing to be desired. One could not imagine any thing more delicate than the cooking, which was both neat and artistic; for the Bignon of the place, knowing that he was catering to connoisseurs, surpassed himself in the preparation of the five hundred dishes which composed the menu.
In the first course there were sugared cakes, caviare, fried grasshoppers, dried fruits, and oysters from Ning-po. Then followed, at short intervals, poached eggs of the duck, pigeon, and lapwing; swallows’ nests with buttered eggs; fricasees of “ging-seng;” stewed sturgeons’ gills; whales’ nerves with sugar sauce; fresh-water tadpoles; a ragout of the yolks of crabs’ eggs, sparrows’ gizzards, and sheeps’ eyes pierced with a pointed bit of garlic for flavoring; ravinoli1 prepared with the milk of apricot-stones; a stew of holothuria. Bamboo-shoots in their juice, sugared salads of young roots, pine-apples from Singapore, roasted earth-nuts, salted almonds, savory mangoes, fruits of the “long-yen” with white flesh, and “litchi” with pale pulp, water caltrops, and preserved Canton oranges composed the last course of a repast which had lasted three hours,—a repast largely watered with beer, champagne, Chao Chigne wine; and the inevitable rice, which, placed between the lips of the guests by the aid of chop-sticks, was to crown at dessert the wisely arranged bill of fare.
The moment came at last for the young girls to bring, not those bowls of European fashion which contain a perfumed liquid, but napkins saturated with warm water, which each of the guests passed over his face with extreme satisfaction.
It was, however, only an entr’acte of the repast,—an hour of far niente, whose moments were to be filled with music; for soon a troupe of singers and instrumentalists entered the saloon. The singers were pretty young girls of modest appearance and behavior. What music and method was theirs!—a mewing and clucking without measure or tunefulness, rising in sharp notes to the utmost limit of perception by the auditory nerves. As for the instruments, there were violins whose strings became entangled in those of the bow, guitars covered with serpents’ skins, screeching clarinets, and harmonicas resembling small portable pianos; and all worthy of the songs and the singers, to whom they formed a noisy accompaniment.
The leader of this discordant orchestra presented the programme of his repertoire as he entered; and at a motion from the host, who gave him carte blanche, his musicians played the “Bouquet of Ten Flowers,”—a piece very much in the mode at the time, and the rage in fashionable society.
Then the singing and performing troupe, having been well paid in advance, withdrew, carrying with them many a bravo, with which they would yet reap a rich harvest in the neighboring saloons.
The six companions then left their seats, but only to pass from one table to another, which movement was accompanied with great ceremony and compliments of all kinds.
On this second table each found a small cup with a lid ornamented with a portrait of Bôdhidharama, the celebrated Buddhist monk, standing on his legendary raft. Each received a pinch of tea, which he steeped in the boiling water in his cup, and drank almost immediately without sugar.
And what tea! It was not to be feared either that the house of Gibb-Gibb & Co., who furnished it, had adulterated it with a mixture of foreign leaves; or that it had already undergone a first infusion, and was only good to use in sweeping carpets; or that an unscrupulous preparer had colored it yellow with curcuma, or green with Prussian blue. It was imperial tea in all its purity, and was composed of those precious leaves of the first harvest in March which are similar to the flower itself, and are seldom gathered; for loss of its leaves causes the death of the plant. It was composed of those leaves which young children alone, with carefully gloved hands, are allowed to cull.
A European could not have found words of praise in number sufficient to extol this beverage, which the six companions were slowly sipping, without going into ecstasies, like connoisseurs who were used to it; but, it must be confessed, they were really unable to appreciate the delicacy of the excellent concoction. They were gentlemen of the best society, richly dressed in the “han-chaol,”—a light under-waistcoat; the “macoual,”—a short tunic; and the “haol,”—a long robe, buttoning at the side. They wore yellow sandals and open-work hose; silk pantaloons, fastened at the waist with a tasselled sash; and a plastron of fine embroidered silk on their bosom, and a fan at their waist. These amiable persons were born in the same country where the tea-plant once a year produces its harvest of fragrant leaves. This repast, in which swallows’ nests, fish of the holothurian species, whales’ nerves, and sharks’ fins appeared, was partaken of as the delicacy of the viands deserved; but its menu, which would have astonished a foreigner, did not surprise them in the least. But what did surprise them was the statement which their host made to them, as they were at last about to leave the table, and from which they understood why he had entertained them that day.
The cups were still full, and the indifferent gentleman, with his eyes fixed on vacancy, and his elbow leaning on the table, was about to empty his cup for the last time, when he expressed himself in these words:—
“My friends, listen to me without laughing. The die is cast. I am about to introduce into my life a new element, which perhaps will dispel its monotony. Will it be a blessing, or a misfortune? The future only can tell. This dinner, to which I have invited you, is my farewell dinner to bachelor life. In a fortnight I shall be married, and”—
“And you will be the happiest of men,” cried the optimist. “Behold! all the signs are in your favor.”
In fact, the lamps flickered, and cast a pale light around; the magpies chattered on the arabesques of the windows; and the little tea-leaves floated perpendicularly in the cups. So many lucky omens could not fail.
Therefore all congratulated their host, who received these compliments with the most perfect composure. But, as he did not name the person destined to the rôle of “new element,” and the one whom he had chosen, no one was so indiscreet as to question him on the subject.
But the philosopher’s