House of All Nations (42 page)

‘Would you sell it?'

Mme. Haller pressed the bell impatiently, after a frown from her husband. The door in the far corner wobbled with some independent sign of life and she called, ‘Anna! Anna, hurry up there!' and some sharp command in Hungarian.

The door was kicked open. Anna rushed lopsidedly into the room with plates, cruets, a great oval dish of chicken livers and eggs chopped up and arranged in the shape and size of half a hen, a biscuit barrel with dry biscuits, a glass of rusks, a plate of round breads, and a glass of celery. Marianne knew what all these things were before they were brought to the table, for the dinner at the Hallers was a ritual. Mme. Haller began to arrange these things on the table and to set round the plates. Haller said sharply in German, ‘Sophy! You have forgotten the liqueurs. We must have them first.' He looked consolingly at his guests, said in French, ‘Mme. Raccamond would like a liqueur. You will have a liqueur, Mme. Raccamond: we have yellow and green chartreuse.'

The time was long past when Marianne or Aristide would have fought off liqueurs
before
meat at the Hallers'. Aristide was already a little pale. The ordeal of the meal had to be gone through, themselves fighting off the rich, relentless, noble food as best they could.

‘Yes, thank you, Mr. Haller.'

Once they had attempted to have the wine set before them, before the liqueurs, but the Hallers had been so wretched at this topsy-turvy order, and so sure that the taste of the expensive food was spoiled that the Raccamonds had never had the heart to fight the fight again. Mme. Haller had tripped off smiling and twinkling with the knowledge of good things to come. Now she returned with three bottles, green, yellow chartreuse, Cointreau.

‘I know,' she whispered, smiling to Mme. Raccamond, ‘Mme. Raccamond will have a little Cointreau. Ladies prefer Cointreau.' Sharply, she reproved Georg, ‘You know that, Georg; I've told you ten times.'

He said in German, placid, eying the food, ‘Softly, softly. This is very good, Sophy! I don't get dinners like this. Perhaps Mme. Raccamond prefers the yellow chartreuse.'

‘No, the Cointreau is older, it is more mature. And it goes better with chicken liver.'

Georg bowed to his wife's superior wisdom and explained, ‘The Cointreau has been eleven years in our cellar. It is sure to have a wonderful taste. We have not opened it before tonight.'

Sophy was pouring the fragrant transparent oily liquor into their little glasses. ‘Taste it, Madame. Eleven years,' she said with awe. ‘Do you know that, Madame; that if you put wine into a cellar it is better for the keeping and the longer you keep it, the better it is? We have been buying them for years. They become very valuable after they have been kept. Do you know that? Take a little Cointreau, Mme. Raccamond. Drink it up, Mr. Raccamond. Oh, you must take more than that.'

They were plying their forks and knives as fast as they could, drinking the liqueur, raining compliments on her, for that was the sweetest thing in the world to her. All day she prepared one of these dinners and dreamed about the compliments she would get in the evening when the ‘friends' came.

‘Is it good, Madame dear? If I only hear you say it is good, then I am rewarded.'

‘It is wonderful,' said Marianne, good soul, for the twentieth time; ‘no one can make it as you do.' This was true, besides. ‘It's inexpressibly delicious.' Actually, Marianne was hungry. They always fasted on the days they were to go to the Hallers'. As soon as they arrived, about seven in the evening, after a little preliminary chatter, this prodigious gorging began and went on for an hour and a half.

‘There, it's delicious, you hear that, Georg! You don't pay me such nice compliments.'

‘I do indeed, Sophy. It is wonderful tonight; never have you made it better.'

‘Oh, Mme. Raccamond! Do you hear that? I have got a nice husband, haven't I? He is still a cavalier.' She repented of this coquetry and immediately coaxed, ‘And does Mr. Raccamond pay you compliments, too? I am sure he does. Mr. Raccamond is
very gallant
. Are you a good cook, Madame? Oh, I am sure you are. I will ask your husband: he will let the cat out of the bag. Don't be afraid, dear Madame, whatever he says, I am sure you are a good cook. You are so intelligent.' Her eyes searched Marianne's face and her expression became that unconsciously cunning one of a pretty woman flattering a plain one. ‘A little more Cointreau! How is it? Do you notice the difference in flavor?' Unaccountably her expression was suddenly dubious. ‘Do you really notice the difference?' She said sternly, ‘You know it is much better than the ordinary Cointreau you get in restaurants.' She shook her head severely. ‘Georg and I never eat in restaurants. You don't know what you're eating. Mme. Raccamond, would you and your husband eat in restaurants?' As Marianne and Aristide ate in restaurants every day of their lives, Marianne was forced to say that they did—in good restaurants, of course. ‘Good restaurants!' Sophy looked too polite to say what she really thought.

To turn the tide, Marianne murmured, ‘This Cointreau is far, far better than anything I have tasted before.'

Sophy shone, ‘You hear, Georg? You hear that?'

Georg emerged from his third helping of chicken liver and egg to beam gratefully on them both. ‘Sophy, perhaps they prefer benedictine. I think it goes better with chicken liver myself. It is a question of taste, of course. If Mr. Raccamond, Mme. Raccamond prefers Cointreau—but that is a ladies' drink—'

‘Ann! Anna! Benedictine! Benedictine, fool,' she added in Hungarian.

‘Perhaps we have enough,' reconsidered Haller, in German.

Sharply Sophy replied, ‘We must give our guests a choice, Georg. What are you thinking of? Anna, do you hear me? Hurry.'

Anna, who was standing in the door, as if stunned, half-bumpkin, half-menace, turned in her rapid flipflop and bundled out. Mme. Haller had to go and presently came back with the benedictine, round, bright, smiling as the bottle itself.

‘You see, the seal is unbroken. Fresh from the cellar … eleven years old. Anna' (she looked at the door and lowered her voice, even though Anna did not understand French) ‘does not understand anything about wines. She would serve the wine with the chicken liver if I let her. She objects to them,
I think
, and she pretends not to know which ones I mean.' Her voice went still lower: ‘Anna's very bizarre. She objects to us having guests. She thinks we use too much light.' Marianne involuntarily looked at the luster. It was a handsome affair and Marianne could see that the history of it would soon be on the boards again. It was a beautiful piece of wrought brass, just the same; they had found it, finally, in Rouen.

‘Oh, Mme. Raccamond! Look at her, Georg! Mr. Raccamond, look at your wife!' Sophy pointed in despair at her empty plate. ‘You don't like it, Mme. Raccamond—oh, I'm going to cry.' Marianne protested that, on the contrary, it was so much better than anything ever got in the restaurants of Paris that she was ashamed of her eagerness for it and was intentionally holding herself in; and, as a reward for this speech, found herself with another helping. Aristide was very pale by this time, but still a natural pallor, and not that horrible green to which he would advance before the feast was through.

Already the smell of the liqueurs and the great helpings of chicken livers had gone to their heads. Happily, little Mr. Haller lay back in his armchair, looking at his little liqueur glass. ‘We don't get this every day. She doesn't make it for me,' teasing Sophy. ‘You must excuse me, Mme. Raccamond: I haven't eaten since five o'clock this afternoon. Sophy wouldn't let me eat.'

‘Georg! Some bread, Mr. Raccamond.'

‘Mr. Raccamond does not take bread, Sophy, don't you remember?'

‘This bread wouldn't harm you, Mr. Raccamond: it is very good for you.' Haller began to explain, taking a large piece of the roll and holding it up for inspection. ‘See, how it is baked! See the fine crust! You don't get that anywhere else in Paris. We looked all over Paris till we found this bakery. The trouble with most bakers is that they are dishonest and they use synthetic yeast. I insisted on examining their kitchens myself till I found one that uses real yeast.'

‘Did you know that, Mme. Raccamond?' Sophy asked accusingly, for she now suspected Marianne of entirely neglecting her husband's health. ‘Most of the bakers use paraffin in their cakes!' Her voice fell to the most shocked tone she had at her disposal. ‘Real yeast takes longer to raise but it is better for the digestion. Did you ever ask your baker what yeast he uses, Mr. Raccamond?'

‘No,' said Aristide. The little round couple were horrified, protestant, although they had eagerly awaited this answer.

‘No! No! Oh, Mr. Raccamond; perhaps that is what gives you indigestion! They are so dishonest. It makes me so angry,' cried the lady.

‘Sophy, you forget that Mr. Raccamond does not suffer from indigestion; it is overweight he suffers from.'

‘Never mind.' She was hot: ‘Yeast is not so fattening as paraffin. Mme. Raccamond,' her voice was now a trumpet call, ‘do you ever buy pastry in a street pastry cook's?'

‘Yes,' faltered Marianne, for she very much relished little cakes in the afternoon, ‘yes, I do quite often. There is a very good pastry cook near me; very good.' They were pleasurably scandalized.

‘Mme. Raccamond!' High, and then low, ‘Mme. Raccamond, it is really dangerous. Do you know we never' (very low) ‘buy any cakes in a pastry cook's. I make Anna cook everything here and the fine cakes I make myself. I get the butter, flour, everything specially. One day I was walking with Mr. Haller and I saw a little cake in a nice-looking pastry cook's just near here, so I bought it, although he told me not to, and brought it home. She looked such a nice, honest woman. And I was sick all night. I ate it and after I had to go to bed. We sent for the doctor! He said there was something chemical in the cake that upset my digestion.' She finished with a slight hysteria, ‘They're all dishonest, Mme. Raccamond.'

Marianne said humbly, ‘This is very good bread! Where did you get it, did you say?'

At this the Hallers exchanged significant glances, smiled a little beside their noses, and Mme. Haller began with embarrassment, as if in the presence of vulgarians who asked questions that no one should ever ask, ‘Well, we looked all over Paris, you see it took us months. And one day—'

‘A little place, down near the Marais,' said the husband.

‘Near the Marais,' Sophy chimed in, gratefully. ‘Just a little place. I go there myself.'

‘Eat more chicken liver, Mr. Raccamond,' recommended Georg at this point, the good host, taking up the great silver spoon. Unresisting, Aristide, the ameba, let him heap the plate. Aristide knew quite well what was to follow and he allowed his appetite to be carried out on a stretcher, with a mortal wound, at a first encounter like this. Marianne's strained glance reconnoitered his chubby chops. Would he hold out?

‘You are not eating, Mme. Raccamond! Georg! Don't you see that Mme. Raccamond has finished all her Cointreau?'

At any rate, the burning, too-old or badly housed Cointreau made her throat and palate insensitive for the time being and she was somewhat prepared to shove down something of another dish. It was an endurance test.

Mme. Haller pressed the bell. Mr. Haller cheerfully wiped his mouth and remarked to Aristide who was sitting back, fat pale palms on fat gray knees, his round large soft mouth slightly open, that he thought the chemical fog lately tested at Lincelles, as a defense against air attacks, infinitely more valuable than the poison-gas drill, and that at the first sign of war they would, of course, pack up their few things and fly to America. Aristide was able to reply that he thought poison-gas drill very salutary and could not understand the action of the radicals in opposing it as it was most particularly to their advantage to know what to do: the rich, who co-operated, for example, would either not be in Paris for poison-gas attacks or would have their own gas cellars.

Anna pressed open the door and looked in with her habitual affronted unease. Mr. Haller slipped off pleasantly into a political discussion with his guests and the lady of the house excused herself to attend to a dish, with a good many nods, becks, and wreathed smiles, with a little self-conscious trotting step and a little coy smirk to Mme. Raccamond, at the door, which, they knew, indicated that the stuffed carp would be the next thing on the menu.

Anna, clearing away, gave the two visitors unfriendly, surmising, lowering looks, as if they were intruders who had been brought forcibly into the house from the entry, under police guard and upon whom she would presently have the pleasure of closing the front door and bolting it. She was about fifty-five years of age, of middle height, loosely built round the middle, with a sallow, impasted face, graying thick hair, a sloppy gait, and a manner which suggested mute rebellious and resentful submission. When they saw her, each of Mme. Haller's friends got frightened and counseled her mistress to send her away quickly. Not until the Raccamonds had come four or five times did Anna's manner relax towards them, for example, and then they had the impression that they were only admitted for inspection and were closely guarded all the time she was in the room. By this time she had once said ‘Good evening' to Aristide and she would even consider Aristide front on, for a minute, without embarrassment. As for Marianne, she got a cataloguing glance when she arrived with a new blouse, pair of gloves or bag, but never a glance of recognition or an answer from this savage creature.

Haller had been an engineer and he exposed his view to Raccamond, at this moment. ‘This is what I think, Mr. Raccamond, that in calculating political chances, we have to do the same as when we are putting up a bridge or a skyscraper: we have to ask ourselves, not only, “Do the individual parts of our scheme fit together”; not only, “Will they stand up on paper”; but, “What invisible forces have they to withstand, what stresses and strains, what winds, traffic on holidays and at eight in the morning, the nature of the erosion, the type of subsoil”: you see? To build a politic, Mr. Raccamond, we don't want a man of any particular party so much as a fine architect. I regard it as a problem in society physics, social geology, social climate. New countries develop new formulae to suit their conditions. Without fantastically evalued sites would the skyscraper ever have developed even in Manhattan? One had to have the conditions of overvalued real estate in Manhattan to produce the skyscraper, after that the traffic problem, the bridges, et cetera, et cetera. Now, no doubt in Russia they have their own unique conditions, no doubt, they are producing their own characteristic solution. We should here. I am not one for imposing a cut-and-dried solution. No. I am willing to consider the Russian experiment on its own data.' He formed an ogival arch with his hands, let his clear, serious, blue gaze begin digging an answer from the mountain of China clay which was Raccamond's face.