“Only the best for an English lord, you know. The people expect it of me. I'll show them to you after dinner.”
“Thank you.”
“Not all all…now do me a favor and take in that long girl with the short haircut to dinner. She writes the damnest books, they say, and I haven't read them, so be a good chap.”
I said of course, and was introduced to the tall girl who, though a bit long in the tooth, was very bright and had written a novel in which nothing happened but time. Time passed, trees grew up, seas lifted in tide, and smoke came from chimneys…the critics loved it.
Lord D didn't really serve dinner… he laid everything on buffets and handed you plates and gave you a head start, and you were off hunting what you liked best.
The tall thin girl said:
“Unto the Death gois all Estatis,
Princis, Prelatis, and Potestatis,
Baith rich and poor of all degree,
Timor Mortis conturbat me…”
“Your own?” I said politely, handing her a plate of Galert Golly as it was known to people who liked it.
“Fourteenth century…what is this?”
“Galert Golly…or potted-veal-in-jelly.”
“Looks more like the wrath of enraged deities.”
“Oh no… Take a calf's head and two calf's feet, clean them, add three pounds of veal sliced thin. Add onions, a turnip, some salt, water, white wine, and seasoning of bay leaves, barley and peppercorn, and boil until tender. Strain off stock, remove all bones, and put meat through a grinder. You follow me?”
“It has a barren, metaphysical sound.”
“Eat it …Add the ground mixture to the strained stock and bring to a boil. Add three hard-cooked eggs cut in slices, boiled diced carrots, a little chopped parsley and half a cup of butter. Cook hard for five minutes and then chill for six hours in a mold, and look …we are eating it with horse-radish and mustard. Like it?”
She nodded and shoveled in a spoonful.
“It tastes,” she said, “like a sacrifice consummated in full view of the public.”
I excused myself (as they were pouring Cook's wine out of the proper bottles) and I made a mental note not to read her book. She left fingerprints on people's minds, I was sure…
After dinner I ducked out into the gallery and Lord D was there lighting a long cigar. He smiled at me and said, “Ah yes, the young man who wants to see my paintings.”
“If you don't mind…I can come back some other time.”
“No time like the present, my boy.” He led me to one end of the gallery and switched on the lights…and offered me a cigar.
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