Dinner proceeded without _le plat couvert_, as our
grandsires called it. This lay beyond the bounds of Schmucke's powers
of comprehension.
Pons had too much delicacy to grumble; but if the case of
unappreciated genius is hard, it goes harder still with the stomach
whose claims are ignored. Slighted affection, a subject of which too
much has been made, is founded upon an illusory longing; for if the
creature fails, love can turn to the Creator who has treasures to
bestow. But the stomach! . . . Nothing can be compared to its
sufferings; for, in the first place, one must live.
Pons thought wistfully of certain creams--surely the poetry of
cookery!--of certain white sauces, masterpieces of the art; of
truffled chickens, fit to melt your heart; and above these, and more
than all these, of the famous Rhine carp, only known at Paris, served
with what condiments! There were days when Pons, thinking upon Count
Popinot's cook, would sigh aloud, "Ah, Sophie!" Any passer-by hearing
the exclamation might have thought that the old man referred to a lost
mistress; but his fancy dwelt upon something rarer, on a fat Rhine
carp with a sauce, thin in the sauce-boat, creamy upon the palate, a
sauce that deserved the Montyon prize! The conductor of the orchestra,
living on memories of past dinners, grew visibly leaner; he was pining
away, a victim to gastric nostalgia.
By the beginning of the fourth month (towards the end of January,
1845), Pons' condition attracted attention at the theatre.
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