Fifty-Two Stories

“We all want to eat now, because we’re tired and it’s already past three o’clock, but this, my dear friend Grigory Savvich, is not a real appetite. A real, voracious appetite, when it seems you could eat your own father, comes only after physical exercise, for instance, hunting with hounds, or when you’ve whipped through some fifty miles non-stop on hired horses. Imagination also means a lot, sir. If, say, you’re coming home from a hunt and you wish to dine with a good appetite, never think about clever things; clever and learned things rob you of your appetite. As you’re pleased to know, philosophers and scholars are the last people when it comes to eating, and, forgive me, even worse eaters than pigs. Going home, you should try to have your head think only of a little decanter and a nibble. Once on my way home I closed my eyes and pictured to myself a suckling pig with horseradish, and felt such a craving that it gave me hysterics. Well, sir, and when you drive into your courtyard, there should be such a smell coming from the kitchen just then, you know…”

“Roast goose has an exquisite smell,” said the honorary justice, breathing heavily.

“Don’t talk, my dear Grigory Savvich: duck or snipe can give a ten-point handicap to a goose. In the goose bouquet there’s no tenderness and delicacy. The headiest of all is the smell of young onion when it starts to brown and hisses, the scoundrel, for the whole house to hear. And so, sir, when you enter the house, the table should be laid, and when you sit down, tuck the napkin behind your tie at once and reach out unhurriedly for the little decanter of vodka. And you should pour the dearie not into a glass, but into some prediluvian grandfather’s silver tumbler or one of those fat-bellied ones with the inscription ‘even monks partake of it,’ and you shouldn’t drink it at once, but first take a deep breath, rub your hands, cast an indifferent glance at the ceiling, then unhurriedly bring it, I mean the vodka, to your lips and—instantly sparks fly from your stomach all over your body…”

The secretary’s sweet face was a picture of bliss.

“Sparks…,” he repeated, screwing up his eyes. “The moment you drink, you have to nibble something.”

“Listen,” said the chairman, raising his eyes to the secretary, “speak more softly! I’ve already ruined this page twice on account of you.”

“Ah, I’m sorry, Pyotr Nikolaich! I’ll talk softly,” said the secretary, and he went on in a half-whisper: “Well, sir, for nibbling, my dear Grigory Savvich, you also have to have a knack. You must know what to nibble. The best nibble, if you wish to know, is pickled herring. Once you’ve eaten a piece, with onion and in mustard sauce, then right away, my benefactor, while there are still sparks in your stomach, eat some caviar by itself or, if you wish, with a bit of lemon, then some plain black radish with salt, then again some pickled herring, but best of all, my benefactor, are pickled mushrooms, chopped finely like caviar, with onion and olive oil…delicious! But burbot liver—that is a tragedy!”

“Hm—yes…” the honorary justice of the peace agreed, screwing up his eyes. “For a nibble, another good thing is…sautéed wild mushrooms.”

“Yes, yes, yes…with onion, you know, with bay leaf and various spices. You open the pot, and there’s steam, mushroom breath…sometimes tears even come to your eyes! Well, sir, and as soon as they fetch the kulebiak¹ from the kitchen, right then, immediately, you should have a second shot.”

“Ivan Guryich!” the chairman said in a tearful voice. “I’ve ruined the page a third time on account of you!”

“Devil take him, he only thinks about food!” the philosopher Milkin growled, making a contemptuous face. “Are there no other interests in life besides mushrooms and kulebiak?”

“Well, sirs, so drink before the kulebiak,” the secretary went on in a low voice; he was so carried away by now that, like a singing nightingale, he heard nothing but his own voice. “The kulebiak should be appetizing, shameless, in all its nakedness, so that there’s real temptation. You wink at it, you cut a slice this big and move your fingers over it like this, from an abundance of feelings. You start eating it, and there’s butter on it like tears, the stuffing’s greasy, juicy, with eggs, giblets, onion…”

The secretary rolled his eyes and stretched his mouth to his ears. The honorary justice of the peace grunted and moved his fingers, probably imagining the kulebiak.

“Devil knows what this is…,” grumbled the local justice, retiring to another window.