orne
out of the refectory on the shoulders of his partisans; see how the
brother gentlemen are throwing up their caps and standing with open
mouths--vivats! But there on the other side lingers the outvoted candidate,
all alone, with his cap pulled down over his gloomy brow; his wife is
waiting in front of her house, and has guessed what is going on. Poor
woman, now she is fainting in the arms of her maid! Poor woman, she was to
have received the title of Right Honourable, but now she is left just
Honourable for three more years!"

Here the Seneschal concluded his description, and gave a sign with his
wand; immediately lackeys began to enter in pairs, bringing the different
dishes: the beet soup called royal, and the old-Polish broth, artistically
prepared, into which the Seneschal in marvellous and mysterious wise had
thrown several pearls and a piece of money; such broth purifies the blood
and fortifies the health; after it came other dishes--but who could
describe them all! Who would even comprehend those dishes of _kontuz,
arkas_, and _blemas_,206 no longer known in our times, with their
ingredients of cod, stuffing, civet, musk, caramel, pine nuts, damson
plums! And those fish! Dry salmon from the Danube, sturgeon, Venetian and
Turkish caviare, pikes and pickerel a cubit long, flounders, and capon
carp, and noble carp! Finally a culinary mystery: an uncut fish, fried at
the head, baked in the middle, and with its tail in a ragout with sauce.

The guests did not ask the names of the dishes, nor were they halted by
that curious mystery; they ate everything rapidly with a soldier's
appetite, filling their glasses with the generous Hungarian wine.

But meanwhile the great centrepiece had changed its colour,207 and,
stripped of its snow, had already turned green; for the light froth of
sugared ice, slowly warmed by the summer heat, had melted and disclosed a
foundation hitherto hidden from the eye: so the landscape now represented
a new time of year, shining with a green, many-coloured spring. Various
grains came forth, as if yeast were making them grow; gilded ears of
saffron wheat were seen in rich profusion, also rye, clad in leaves of
picturesque silver, and buckwheat, made artistically of chocolate, and
orchards blooming with pears and apples.

The guests had scant time to enjoy the gifts of summer; in vain they
begged the Seneschal to prolong them. Already the centrepiece, like a
planet in its appointed revoluti