Page:Select Popular Tales from the German of Musaeus.djvu/149

Rh of running at the ring, royal banquets, fished with golden nets, and would, like the squanderer Heliogabalus, have caused the Princess to sail on a lake of rose or lavender water, if she had studied the Roman history, or had herself conceived this ingenious fancy. Meanwhile similar ideas were not wanting. In a hunting-party which her new favourite had prepared, she expressed a wish to see the entire forest metamorphosed into a noble park, with grottoes, fish-ponds, cascades, springs, baths of parian marble, palaces, summer-houses, and colonnades; and the following day many thousand hands were occupied in carrying out the great plan, and, where it was possible, also improving upon the idea of the Princess. If this had lasted long the entire kingdom would have been transformed; where a mountain stood she would have had a plain, where the peasant ploughed she would have fished, and where gondolas floated she would have wished to ride. The copper penny was as little tired of hatching gold pieces, as the ingenious lady of spending them; her sole endeavour was to humble the obstinate spendthrift, to crush him in the dust and to get rid of him.

While Andiol shone in this brilliant manner at the court, the lazy Amarin fattened on the good deeds of his table-napkin; but envy and jealousy very soon impaired the relish of his table. One day he folded up his table-napkin, put it in his pocket, and went to walk in the market-place, just as the King’s head-cook was publicly driven away, because, by a badly-prepared meal, he had given the monarch a severe fit of indigestion. When Amarin learned this news he was struck with it, and thought to himself, in a land where mistakes in cooking are so much thought of, without doubt, merit in cooking is well rewarded. He immediately entered the palace kitchen, announced himself as a travelling cook, who sought employment, and promised in an hour to give the proof which might be required of his skill. The kitchen department was at Astorga justly considered among the most important, since it had the strongest influence on the prosperity or troubles of the state. For the good or bad humour of the ruler and his ministers depends, in a great measure, on the good or bad digestion of the stomach, and it is a well-known truth that this may be assisted or hindered by the chemical operations of cooking. Thus there was a very reasonable cause for going more carefully to work in choosing a head-cook than in choosing a minister. Amarin, whose appearance did not recommend him (for he had quite the air of a vagrant), had to employ all his eloquence, that is the talent of boasting, in order to be admitted into the list of aspirants to the high office. Only the boldness and confidence with which he spoke of his skill, induced the purveyor to give him, as an essay, a particular dish, the dressing of which had often wrecked the arts of the most skilful cooks. When he had to ask for ingredients for this purpose, he