Act II: The Poet’s Eating-HouseScene I
Ragueneau’s cook and pastry-shop. A large kitchen at the corner of the Rue St. Honore and the Rue de l’Arbre Sec, which are seen in the background through the glass door, in the gray dawn.
On the left, in the foreground, a counter, surmounted by a stand in forged iron, on which are hung geese, ducks, and water peacocks. In great china vases are tall bouquets of simple flowers, principally yellow sunflowers.
On the same side, farther back, an immense open fireplace, in front of which, between monster firedogs, on each of which hangs a little saucepan; the roasts are dripping into the pans.
On the right, foreground with door.
Farther back, staircase leading to a little room under the roof, the entrance of which is visible through the open shutter. In this room a table is laid. A small Flemish luster is alight. It is a place for eating and drinking. A wooden gallery, continuing the staircase, apparently leads to other similar little rooms.
In the middle of the shop an iron hoop is suspended from the ceiling by a string with which it can be drawn up and down, and big game is hung around it.
The ovens in the darkness under the stairs give forth a red glow. The copper pans shine. The spits are turning. Heaps of food formed into pyramids. Hams suspended. It is the busy hour of the morning. Bustle and hurry of scullions, fat cooks, and diminutive apprentices, their caps profusely decorated with cock’s feathers and wings of guinea-fowl.
On metal and wicker plates they are bringing in piles of cakes and tarts.
Tables laden with rolls and dishes of food. Other tables surrounded with chairs are ready for the consumers.
A small table in a corner covered with papers, at which Ragueneau is seated writing on the rising of the curtain.
Ragueneau, pastry-cooks, then Lise. Ragueneau is writing, with an inspired air, at a small table, and counting on his fingers.
First Pastry-cook
Bringing in an elaborate fancy dish
Fruits in nougat!
Second Pastry-cook
Bringing another dish
Custard!
Third Pastry-cook
Bringing a roast, decorated with feathers
Peacock!
Fourth Pastry-cook
Bringing a batch of cakes on a slab
Rissoles!
Fifth Pastry-cook
Bringing a sort of pie-dish
Beef jelly!
Ragueneau
Ceasing to write, and raising his head
Aurora’s silver rays begin to glint e’en now on the copper pans, and thou, O Ragueneau! must perforce stifle in thy breast the God of Song! Anon shall come the hour of the lute!—now ’tis the hour of the oven!
He rises. To a cook
You, make that sauce longer, ’tis too short!
The Cook
How much too short?
Ragueneau
Three feet.
He passes on farther.
The Cook
What means he?
First Pastry-cook
Showing a dish to Ragueneau
The tart!
Second Pastry-cook
The pie!
Ragueneau
Before the fire
My muse, retire, lest thy bright eyes be reddened by the fagot’s blaze!
To a cook, showing him some loaves
You have put the cleft o’ th’ loaves in the wrong place; know you not that the coesura should be between the hemistiches?
To another, showing him an unfinished pasty
To this palace of paste you must add the roof…
To a young apprentice, who, seated on the ground, is spitting the fowls
And you, as you put on your lengthy spit the modest fowl and the superb turkey, my son, alternate them, as the old Malherbe loved well to alternate his long lines of verse with the short ones; thus shall your roasts, in strophes, turn before the flame!
Another Apprentice
Also coming up with a tray covered by a napkin
Master, I bethought me erewhile of your tastes, and made this, which will please you, I hope.
He uncovers the tray, and shows a large lyre made of pastry.
Ragueneau
Enchanted
A lyre!
The Apprentice
’Tis of brioche pastry.
Ragueneau
Touched
With conserved fruits.
The Apprentice
The strings, see, are of sugar.
Ragueneau
Giving him a coin
Go, drink my health!
Seeing Lise enter
Hush! My wife. Bustle, pass on, and hide that money!
To Lise, showing her the lyre, with a conscious look
Is it not beautiful?
Lise
’Tis passing silly!
She puts a pile of papers on the counter.
Ragueneau
Bags? Good. I thank you.
He looks at them
Heavens! my cherished leaves! The poems of my friends! Torn, dismembered, to make bags for holding biscuits and cakes!…Ah, ’tis the old tale again…Orpheus and the Bacchantes!
Lise
Dryly
And am I not free to turn at last to some use the sole thing that your wretched scribblers of halting lines leave behind them by way of payment?
Ragueneau
Groveling ant!…Insult not the divine grasshoppers, the sweet singers!
Lise
Before you were the sworn comrade of all that crew, my friend, you did not call your wife ant and Bacchante!
Ragueneau
To turn fair verse to such a use!
Lise
‘Faith, ’tis all it’s good for.
Ragueneau
Pray then, madam, to what use would you degrade prose?