Bring out what you have, and serve it as proudly as if it
were of the choicest and daintiest; I will promise to do honour to it,
for I am desperately hungry."
The old servant bustled about joyously, and quickly had the table ready
for his master; then stood behind his chair, while he ate and drank
with a traveller's appetite, as proudly erect as if he had been a grand
major-domo waiting on a prince. According to the old custom, Miraut
and Beelzebub, stationed on the right and on the left, watched their
master's every motion, and received a share of everything that was on
the table. The great kitchen was lighted, not very brilliantly, by a
torch, stuck in an iron bracket just inside the broad, open chimney, so
that the smoke should escape through it and not fill the room, and the
scene was so exactly a counterpart of the one described at the beginning
of this narrative, that the baron, struck with the perfect resemblance,
fancied that he must have been dreaming, and had never quitted his
ancient chateau at all. Everything was precisely as he had left it,
excepting that the nettles and weeds had grown a little taller, and
the cobweb draperies a little more voluminous; all else was unchanged.
Unconsciously lapsing into the old ways, de Sigognac fell into a deep
reverie after he had finished his simple repast, which Pierre, as of
old, respected, and even Miraut and Beelzebub did not venture to intrude
upon.
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