Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/573

Rh for dinner, dressed up, perfumed, around a table decorated with flowers, how joyfully they rub their hands and smile.

If we could look into the hearts of the majority of people, what should we find they most desire? Appetite for breakfast, for dinner. What is the severest punishment from infancy upward? To be put on bread and water. What artisans get the highest wages? Cooks. What is the chief interest of the mistress of the house? To what subject does the conversation of middle-class housewives generally tend? And if the conversation of the members of the higher classes does not tend in the same direction, it is not because they are better educated or are occupied with higher interests, but simply because they have a housekeeper or a butler who relieves them of all anxiety about their dinner.

But once deprive them of this convenience, and you will see what causes them most anxiety. It all comes round to the subject of eating, the price of grouse, the best way of making coffee, of baking sweet cakes, etc. Men come together, whatever the occasion,—a christening, a funeral, a wedding, the consecration of a church, the departure or arrival of a friend, the consecration of regimental colors, the celebration of a memorable day, the death or birth of a great scientist, philosopher, teacher of morality,—men come together as if occupied by the most lofty interests. So they say; but it is only a pretense: they all know that there will be eating—good, savory food—and drinking, and it is chiefly this that brings them together.

For several days before animals have been slaughtered, baskets of provisions brought from gastronomic shops; cooks and their helpers, kitchen boys and maids, specially attired in clean, starched frocks and caps, have been "at work." "Chefs," receiving $250 a month and more, have been occupied in giving instructions. Cooks have been chopping, kneading, roasting, arranging, adorning. With like solemnity and importance a master of the ceremonies has been working, calculating, pondering, adjusting with his eye, like an artist. A gardener