And yet how much
specialized effort had been lavished, how much carefully treasured
lore had been ungarnered, before those six words could be written.
In the Department of Deux-S?vres ducklings had lived peculiar and
beautiful lives and died in the odour of satiety to furnish the
main theme of the dish; champignons, which even a purist for Saxon
English would have hesitated to address as mushrooms, had
contributed their languorous atrophied bodies to the garnishing,
and a sauce devised in the twilight reign of the Fifteenth Louis
had been summoned back from the imperishable past to take its part
in the wonderful confection. Thus far had human effort laboured
to achieve the desired result; the rest had been left to human
genius--the genius of Aristide Saucourt.
"And now the moment had arrived for the serving of the great dish,
the dish which world-weary Grand Dukes and market-obsessed money
magnates counted among their happiest memories. And at the same
moment something else happened. The leader of the highly salaried
orchestra placed his violin caressingly against his chin, lowered
his eyelids, and floated into a sea of melody.
"'Hark!' said most of the diners, 'he is playing "The Chaplet.
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