The Vampires of Mars by Gustave Le Rouge & Brian Stableford

Author:Gustave Le Rouge & Brian Stableford [Rouge, Gustave Le & Stableford, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B0062OKC1A
Publisher: Black Coat Press
Published: 2011-11-02T00:00:00+00:00

III. A Feast Worthy of Lucullus

Dinner at the villa was served at 6 p.m. precisely. The use of time there was determined with that exact, almost monastic, regularity without which labor is impossible.

As the gong was struck, in accordance with Indian custom, to announce the commencement of the meal, the four scientists headed towards the dining-room, a vast room whose walls were dressed in brightly-colored Cordovan leather and whose joists were made exclusively of carved and gilded cedar-wood.

Georges admired the Italian credenzas charged with water-jugs and dishes in the style of Benvenuto Cellini, Claude Ballin and other master goldsmiths, precious porcelains manufactured by Wedgwood, in Rouen or Saxony, Hispano-Moorish urns with gold facets and modern fired pottery. There was a prodigious accumulation of artistic riches, and it was not without a certain sense of intimidation by these splendors that he took his place on a luxurious chair encrusted with ebony, mother-of-pearl and coral in admirable and rare bad taste. The chairs, salvaged from the looting of the palace of the Emperor of Brazil, were in the style known as “Portuguese rococo,” which is very hard to find nowadays.

“You see,” said Bolenski, who had taken the place next to Georges, “that this somewhat archaic luxury is not at all incompatible with the perfections of modern comfort. Do you see that gilded wheel rotating above the Venetian chandelier with the polychromatic florescences?”

“A ventilator, presumably,” the young man murmured.

“Yes, it’s certainly a ventilator, but not one of those inconvenient items of apparatus that only serve to circulate tainted air and favor the breeding of microbes, without any real utility in terms of health and hygiene. Each spoke of that wheel effuses chilled air, whose provenance is a flask of liquid air placed in the center. Here, even in the strongest heat, we enjoy an atmosphere that is pure and fresh.

“Moreover, all the service is carried out electrically; the wines are bought up from the cellars in their ice-buckets to the very table by a special miniature elevator, of which that silver oval that you might mistake for a hotplate is merely the platform. The meat dishes arrive from the kitchen steamers at the precise moment when they retain all their savor.”

While the Pole was giving these explanations, Georges scanned the menu set in front of him negligently. The classic dishes of French grand cuisine were mingled there with dishes of a refined exoticism, such as the eel pâté aux terfas—which is to say, with white Tunisian truffles—curried pheasant, blackbirds in myrtle and other gastronomic rarities.

“This is certainly a feast worthy of Lucullus,” Georges said, mechanically.

At that moment, Pitcher offered the young man slices of botargo,19 which were succeeded by an Italian dish of fried calamari and giant shrimps. “You won’t believe your luck,” he said, laughing. “This very day, we have one of the favorite dishes of the celebrated gourmand: flamingoes’ tongues—for which, you know, the Romans paid their equivalent weight in gold.”

“That delicacy must indeed have cost an exorbitant sum—the pink flamingo is both very rare and very difficult to kill.

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