etc.; and among the middle classes people largely bought
their poultry already cooked of the _rotisseur_, or else
confided it to him for the purpose of roasting, in the same
way as our poorer classes still send their joints to the
baker's. Roasting was also long looked upon in France as a
very delicate art. Brillat-Savarin, in his famous
_Physiologie du Gout_, lays down the dictum that "A man may
become a cook, but is born a _rotisseur_."--Translator.

The broad copper bands of the fireplace glistened brightly, the poultry
steamed, the fat bubbled melodiously in the dripping-pan, and the spits
seemed to talk amongst themselves and to address kindly words to Quenu,
who, with a long ladle, devoutly basted the golden breasts of the fat
geese and turkeys. He would stay there for hours, quite crimson in the
dancing glow of the flames, and laughing vaguely, with a somewhat stupid
expression, at the birds roasting in front of him. Indeed, he did
not awake from this kind of trance until the geese and turkeys were
unspitted. They were placed on dishes, the spits emerged from their
carcasses smoking hot, and a rich gravy flowed from either end and
filled the shop with a penetrating odour. Then the lad, who, standing
up, had eagerly followed every phase of the dishing, would clap his
hands and begin to talk to the birds, telling them that they were very
nice, and would be eaten up, and that the cats would have nothing but
their bones. And he would give a start of delight whenever Gavard handed
him a slice of bread, which he forthwith put into the dripping-pan that
it might soak and toast there for half an hour.

It was in this shop, no doubt, that Quenu's love of cookery took its
birth. Later on, when he had tried all sorts of crafts, he returned,
as though driven by fate, to the spits and the poultry and the savoury