THE GAME COURSE.

Golden Bay Argus, Volume VII, Issue 67, 12 September 1901, Page 3

THE GAME COURSE.

HOW A PARTRIDGE PROVED THE UNDOING OF A POET. Mmo. d’ollionle3 is a perfect hostess. With her cook, Josephine, and a narrow income she manages to give better dinners than most people afflicted with a chef and a hundred thousand francs a year. To maintain one’s table varied and delicate, distingue, and succulent, is especially difficult in the country. So Suzanno d’Ollionles 'found it to be in the lonely nook to which 'she had retired to recover from Parisian gaieties. She was here to regain her looks and to entertain her friends—never more than one or two at a time. For she had her rustic pigeon-cote, the flaming glory of sunset, the love-sick melancholy of twilight, the ploughman bending over his furrow, and the sower with his august gesture,- the voices of the forest, the great mystery of the love of nature Yes, of ccPftrse, you can seolf at her, but she felt it all. Or she thought she felt it—which amounts to the same thing. But you c,ui not lunch on a harmony nor 'dineon a symbol, and in the country provisions are not easy to get. Nothing is as difficult to secure as game—lilrc fish at the sea-side. No wonder then that to-day she was rejoicing in the hamper of game that Saint-Hubert wired her lie had sent. It came really in the nick of time, for she was expecting Jehan des Glayeuls by the 5.27 train. And it was with Saint-llubcrt’s game that she intended to regale him. The irony of fate, plainly. Poor Saint-Hubert! Lucky L)es Glayeuls! You surely could not expect her to remain a widow at 32, when the one and only pleasure given her by the departed was the restoration of her lib< rty to her. The present decision called for great circumspection. One is more or less forced into one’s first marriage ; one is not responsible. But to make a bad play of the fair card of young and charming widowhood —it would be an insult to Providence. At the end of the two prescribed years, prognostications announced Saint-Hubert as the man. A handsome and a gallant gentleman ; large estates in Poitou, where he bred choice mules; a stable honourably known at provincial race-meetings ; a §ied-a-terre in Paris and a taste for society ; ownright, square, definite—iu short, in perfect form. Visibly very much in love, and not at all frozen, he had all the odds in his favour. Yet the general summer scattering had come without bringing a denouoment. Something was up evidently. Intimate friends suggested that since Jehan des Glayeuls had become an assiduous visitor at Mme. d’Ollionles’, when the door opened for Jehan it shut on Saint-Hubert. Latterly, the handsome sportsman’s star seemed to be paling before that of the fascinating poet. One of our most sympathetic drawing-room deliquescents, highly relished among the readers of pale-mauve reviews, Ibsen and Burne-Jones, liberty and tetralogy. Scandinavia and the Round Table ! You must know—by sight, at least—his volume of “ Aquamarines and Opals,” bound in foggray, dashed with lunar-blue, and sown with black irises that aro kissed by great nightmoths.

Ho is one of our amateur anarchists as Wo H_a most select and exclusive one—of an exquisite savour when one is born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth. His spoon is, in fact, gilt-bowled, whence his humanitarianism is all the more high-keyed. How can one fail to pray for the downfall of a society hard-hearted enough to permit the existence of people unable to indulge in a cycluß at Bayreuth or a Passion Play at Oberammergau ? And luxuriously stretched on the bod of roses spread for him by the extinct Des Glayeuls, pere, he prepares the way for the coming of the reign of mind, justice, and love, by Chiseling invertebrate versos, all iridescence, evanescence, efflorescence, whore coloured sounds have it out with sonorous colourings—as well as by collecting subtle sensations in his liyperaisthetic heart and rare bibelots in his Heliogabalosque apartment, where, by a perverse caprice, modern stylo is married to Byzantine. For .tile rest the best son in the world.

“ Wlmt! hasn’t the hamper come yet ? It’s incomprehensible; it should have arrived yesterday. Antoine, take the trap and go to the station to see what is wrong.” An hour later the man returned with the basket. The addressed card had fallen olf, and no one had identified it. To any one who appreciates the finer shadings of living, the opening of a game hamper is a keen pleasure. The strings snap. A good selection—a hare, two pheasants, a brace of partridges. The pheasants are hung up in the store-room; the hare is jugged—one of Josephine’s artistic triumphs. The partridges will bo served to-night. “ Young and fat. But doesn’t madame fear that they are a little far gone ?” Far gone! What a disaster! And Mine. d’Ollionles’s little pink noso sniifs and sniffs. “ No, indeed, Josephine, I’m sure not. I can tell better when they are plucked.” Joscphino returns shortly with the featherless birds. A fresh examination and a council of war. Plainly, the partridges would have been better eaten yesterday. Then they were absolutely at their best; one especially. The other—there is no knowing why—had not gone so far. Killed better, no doubt ; the quantity of lead makes a difference, and tho placo of tho wound. But this oxaet,this ideal moment of perfection, how fleeting and intangible it is—like the psychological moment of an omelette soufilo, or of a woman’s love. Finally, Josephine, who knows her business, declares that they will do. Well larded, well trussed, roasted over'clear wood-coals on the spit, served sur canape in a little nest of freshly gathered cress, she will get congratulations for them. This serious question once settled,Suzanne d’Ollionles banishes every material consideration from her mind, and thinks only of adorning her attractive little person for the expected guest. No; there is another thing that she tliinks of. She is drowned in perplexity. This visit will be decisive. On what is she determined ? For Saint-Hubert is far from being exiled from hor heart. It is very flattering to have two lovers—but what a complication! Suzanne d’Ollioules thought too much of herself to have only one ego. And if her poetic ego loaned toward the handsome, dark man, her prosaic ego acknowledged a weakness for the handsome fair man. The carriage returning from the station is heard rolling up the avenue. No doubt at that very instant Mine. d’Ollionlcs came to a decision, for recalling a chapter of BrillatSavarin, with tho deliciously ferocious smile of a woman who knows that some one is about to suffer through her, she murmured: “ Poor Saint-Hubort! It’s hardly fair to eat liis partridges to-night.” A second later, Johan des Ulayeuls was kissing her hands; the new Laura—without one of tho nine children—smiled upon her Petrarch. A Petrarch in a gris de lin suit, a soft lavender shirt, a white collar around which ran a rigid stock of black satin that developed in front into artistic volutes, caught in the centre by a rare moonstone. And as she smiled, between her and the handsome fellow with his hair in short waves, his soft, well-trimmed beard, his skin paled by thought,his eyes of a green-gray, the tint of a twilight Bea, rose the vision'of a tall, muscular frame, wellElanted on its feet, the brilliant blue of a eon, clear eye, a red Merovingian moustache curling like a flame from a naturally fair skin now sunburned. To whom did she smile ? To the bard or to the boxer ? She did not know. She looked charming in her flowing draperies of “ sick turquoise ” India muslin, that glinted with pale-gold palm-leaves—-a dreamy setting to her fragile beauty. Yet she was hungry when she went to table. So was he. What dyspeptic could have resisted the delicacies of the meal ? On tho ivory cloth into which mauve cyclamen were woven, lay a wreath of violet and white clematis. An old, chased pewter bowl, whose soft tones are infinitely more aesthetic than tho harsh brillianoy of silver—quite low, so that they could see each other—was filled with tea-roses, jasmine, and heliotrope; discreet tints, suave scents. The service was. of unmatched old Strasburg, each piece having an artistic value. The plate was oxydizod, softened, dimmed. The candles burned under pervenche silk shades. And what a charming menu, light and appetising! Pufee de volatile printaniero, lake trout with Cyegun sauce, sweetbreads a la chicoree. A

little abneot white wine, liraunebergerMosel, of a perfect distinction, first cousin to tlio Rhine brands. The talk ran pleasantly. I>es Glayeuls was jußt back from an unusual villegiature, Elsinore, and from this Hamßt--que milieu he had biought back a certain air of Shakespearean fatalism flavoured with Byronism. The game courso. A delicious whiff accompanies it. A hardly perceptible quiver of the nostrils, a flash of light in the eyes, small white teeth firmly planted in a bit of the wing, pink lipß voluptuously moistened in a glass of Romanee-Oonti —and Suzanne returns to lifer guest. Well, what is the matter with him ? What a way of picking at the contents of his plate! She will bring him back to the respect of choice things. She (vaguely aggressive): It’s not because it is served on my board, but really, the part* ridge is excellent. ■ He (covstrainedly): Excellent. She: You don’t look convinced. Ho (nervously): To tell the truth, I think it’s a trifle She (annoyed): Aliens done! It’s as ripe as if it had been killed to order. He: That depends on one’s taste. She (peremptorily): Paidon mo. One either likes or dislikes game; that, I admit, is a question of taste. But when one likes it, one must eat it as it should be eaten. A partridge not properly kept is no better than a pigeon; in fact, a pigeon is tenderer. Antoine, serve mo the partridge again. (To Jehan, ironically): I don’t offer you any. (A gesture of defensive*refusal. Out of the bravado, she chooses the one that has the most shot in it, and takes a leg—an aggravating circumstance.) By the way, I remember last year,at my mother’s, some snipe that they insisted on serving after they had been kept only eight days. He: They must have walked on to tho spit. She: You are extremely witty, but that jest has been heard before, you know. On the contrary, I assure yon that these snipe had positively no haut gout. He (disgusted): Luckily. She (scornfully): Pray, try to follow me. Game that is too fresh is tough; besides, it does not yield its fumet. He: A horrid word. She (vexed): All words are horrid if wrongly interpreted. Tho fumet of game is the bouquet of wine. He: And in the meantimo the meat is in the process of decomposition. She (angrily): So you think that my partridges are in a state of putrefaction ? He (politely): I think that eating tainted game is a perverted taste. She: Pray be reasonable. Every dish has its special exigencies. Quail must be eaten within the twenty four hours; venison chops require three weeks. Don’t make such a face. Have you ever struggled with a chicken whoso neck has just been wrung ? You’d give it up ? While a fish would be all the better for being popped alive into its court bouillon. He (suffering): Are you aware that you are saying horrible things ? She (teasingly): What then ? Beeves and sheep have to bo killed in order that you may have your steak and your chop. Why don't you feed on dove’s milk ? He (piqued): It’s very easy to say such things to people. She (getting worked up): Tho Hindoos live on rice and bananas. I horrify you with my partridge. (A gesture of weak protestation.) Yes, thete’s no doubt of it. But all that you have just eaten—not that I reproach you with it—would disgust a Brahmin prodigiously. Ho (dogmatically) : One of the basenesses of our impure essence. But if we are actually slaves, at least wo can enfranchise our minds. Love is a passion that is debased when it becomes a necessity. Food, on the contrary, is a necessity that lowers us when we make a passion of it. She (obstinately): I maintain that if God has given us an appetite, we aro to enjoy it like everything else. (She takes up her fork again.) He : You aro fond of eating ? She : Extremely so. And so aro you, otherwise you would not dine out every evening with the alacrity you display. He : My alacrity, as you call it, is an artistic pleasure. What charms me here? Tho lights, the flowers, and you. She : You are extremely kind. It is selfevident that a feast of Luculius would lose its delights if it were served on ironstone ware, on a doubtful table-cloth, by a redarmed Joan. Ho : Evidently, things must be in harmony. I profess no scorn for recherche food ; on the contrary, this art of selection purifies, or at least subtilizes, its grossness. But one must go about it delicately. (He helps himself plentifully to frappe, whipped cream, and strawberries.) She (who is very fond of it, ostentatiously takes a mere taste) : Eating merely for the sake of eating, when one is hungry, is no enjoyment. Yes, a good slice of underdone beef, with chow chow, and a glass of frank red Burgundy—an enchantment, I assure you. Ho (knowingly): And tho piece of cheese that you have forgotten. She: Quite so. Rich Camcmbort, or good Gorgonzola. He: Green, the colour of decay. She (with tho air of one who declines to lose her temper): Just what it is, that’s why men reserve the privilege of eating it. It goes along with cigars. We aro allowed Swiss cheese, as we are cigarettes. There aro houses where the cheese is not handed to the ladies. In those houses I invariably call for it loudly. He: Because it amuses you to make a little scandal. She: You may as well say at once that I don’t like it, and that what I say is for poso. (Ho takes some moro of the entremets) About as if I should tax you with affectation because you can only endure Creme Chantilly. He (with a new effort toward conciliation): Pray, don’t exaggerate. I eat to support life. ~ She (Who refuses to be reconciled): Do you mean to say that you arp the same man when you leave the table that you were fasting ? Ho: I pity those whose cerebral excitement is duo to violent food—(ii disdainful gesture on Mine. D’Ollionlos’s part)—or the excitement of their passions. Sho: My dear fellow, you aro growing coarse. He: It is in order to please you. Sho: Much obliged, I’in sure; but it doesn’t suit your type at all. He: It is . well known that you prefer tho Centaur type. She: I’m not afraid of it. He: Tho Nimrod type. She: It has its good sides. (A pause. Ferociously)—By the way, Saint-Hubert sent iiiq this game. He: Ho knows your tendencies. She: Why not say my corruption, while you are about it? He (civilly): I should not think of permitting myself such an impertinence. She (pursuing her idea): Corruption ! Corruption! It is possible. Everything is corruption—love to begin with. But I forget that I am talking to an ingenious-hearted Parsifal. (Answering his gesture). Dame: on a diet of white meat and boiled vegetables ! He (with a look that means volumes): It is not in tho realities of love that I place its perversities. She: I don’t understand. Too complicated for me. The entrance of Antoine with tho fingerbowls cuts tho conversation short. Tho evening ends in a state of tension. She has him shown his room early; he must be tired from his journey. The next day Jehan des Glayeuls gets his dispatch calling him back in haste. “ Nothing annoying, I trust? Allons, so much tho better.” After depositing tho guest at the station, the coachman sends the following telegram: “ Partridges excellent. When done shooting pray make me short visit.”