PUNCH,
OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

Vol. 100.

April 11, 1891.

MR. PUNCH'S PRIZE NOVELS.

No. XVI.—GERMFOOD.

(By MARY MORALLY, Author of "Ginbitters!" "Ardart," &c., &c.)

[The MS. of this remarkable novel was tied round with scarlet ribbons, and arrived in a case which had been once used for the packing of bottles of rum, or some other potent spirit. It is dedicated in highly uncomplimentary terms to "Messieurs les Marronneurs glacés de Paris." With it came a most extraordinary letter, from which we make, without permission, the following startling extracts. "Ha! Ha! likewise Fe Fo Fum. I smell blood, galloping, panting, whirling, hurling, throbbing, maddened blood. My brain is on fire, my pen is a flash of lightning. I see stars, three stars, that is to say, one of the best brands plucked from the burning. I'm going to make your flesh creep. I'll give you fits, paralytic fits, epileptic fits, and fits of hysteria, all at the same time. Have I ever been in Paris? Never. Do I know the taste of absinthe? How dare you ask me such a question? Am I a woman? Ask me another. Ugh! it's coming, the demon is upon me. I must write three murderous volumes. I must, I must! What was that shriek? and that? and that? Unhand me, snakes! Oh!!!!—M.M."]

CHAPTER I.

I was asleep and dreaming—dreaming dreadful, horrible, soul-shattering dreams—dreams that flung me head-first out of bed, and then flung me back into bed off the uncarpeted floor of my chamber. But I did not wake—why should I?—it was unnecessary—I wanted to dream—I had to dream and therefore I dreamt. I was walking home from a cheap restaurant in one of the poorer quarters of Paris. "Poorer quarters" is a nice vague term. There are many poorer quarters in a large city. This was one of them. Let that suffice to the critical pedants who clamour for accuracy and local colour. Accuracy! pah! Shall the soaring soul of a three-volumer be restrained by the debasing fetters of a grovelling exactitude? Never! I will tell you what. If I choose, I who speak to you, moi qui vous parle, the Seine shall run red with the blood of murdered priests, and there shall be a tide in it where no tide ever was before, close to Paris itself, the home of the Marrons Glacés, and into the river I shall plunge a corpse with upturned face and glassy, staring, haunting, dreadful eyes, and the tide shall turn, the tide that never was on earth, or sky, or sea, it shall turn in my second volume for one night only, and carry the corpse of my victim back, back, back under bridges innumerable, back into the heart of Paris. Dreadful, isn't it? Allons, mon ami. Qu'est-ce-qu'il-y-a. Je ne sais quoi. Mon Dieu! There's idiomatic French for you, all sprinkled out of a cayenne pepper-pot to make the local colour hot and strong. Bah! let us return to our muttons!

CHAPTER II.

What was that? Something yellow, and spotted—something sinuous and lithe, with crawling, catlike motion. No, no! Yes, yes!! A leopard of the forest had issued from a side-street, a cul de sac, as the frivolous sons of Paris, the Queen of Vice, call it. It was moving with me, stopping when I stopped, galloping when I galloped, turning somersaults when I turned them. And then it spoke to me—spoke, yes, spoke, this thing of the desert—this wild phantasm of a brain distraught by over-indulgence in marrons glacés, the curse of ma patrie, and its speech was as the scent of scarlet poppies, plucked from the grave of a discarded mistress.

"Thou shalt write," it said, "for it is thine to reform the world." I shuddered. The conversational "thou" is fearful at all times; but, ah, how true to nature, even the nature of a leopard of the forest. The beast continued—"But thou shalt write in English."

"Spare me!" I ventured to interpose.

"In English," it went on, inexorably—"in hysterical, sad, mad, bad English. And the tale shall be of France—France, where the ladies always leave the dinner-table before the men. Note this, and use it at page ninety of thy first volume. And thy French shall be worse than thy English, for thou shalt speak of a frissonement, and thy friends shall say, "Nous blaguons le chose."

"Stop!" I cried, in despair, "stop, fiend!—this is too much!" I sprang at the monster, and seized it by the throat. Our eyes, peering into each other's, seemed to ravage out, as by fire, the secrets hidden in our hearts. My blood hurled itself through my veins. There was something clamorous and wild in it. Then I fell prone on the ground, and remembered that I had eaten one marron for dinner. This explained everything, and I remembered no more till I came to myself, and found the divisional surgeon busily engaged upon me with a pompe d'estomac.

CHAPTER III.

My father, M. le Duc DI SPEPSION, belonged to one of the oldest French families. He had many old French customs, amongst others that of brushing his bearded lips against my cheek. He was a stern man, with a severe habit of addressing me as "Mon fils." Generally he disapproved of my proceedings, which was, perhaps, not unnatural, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration. Why have I mentioned him? I know not, save that even now, degraded as I am, memories of better things sometimes steal over me like the solemn sound of church-bells pealing in a cathedral belfry. But I have done with home, with father, with patriotism, with claret, with walnuts, and with all simple pleasures. Ça va sans dire. They talk to me of Good, and Nature. The words are meaningless to me. Are there realities behind these words—realities that can touch the heart of a confirmed marroneur? Cold and pitiless, Nature sits aloft like a mathematician, with his balance regulating the storm-pulses of this troubled world. Bah! I fling myself in her teeth. I brazen it out. She quails. For, since the accursed food passed my lips, the strength of a million demons is in me. I am pitiless. I laugh to think of the fool I once was in the days when I fed myself on Baba au Rhum, and other innocent dishes. Now I have knowledge. I am my own good. I glance haughtily into—[Ten rhapsodical pages omitted.—ED. Punch.] But there came into my life a false priest, who was like the ghost of a fair lost god—and because he was a fair lost, the cabmen loved him not—and he had to die, and lie in the Morgue—the Morgue where murdered men and women love to dwell—and thus he should discover the Eternal Secret!

CHAPTER IV.

Again—again—again! The moon rose, shimmering like a Marron Glacé over Paris. Oh! Paris, beauteous city of the lost. Surely in Babylon or in Nineveh, where SEMIRAMIS of old queened it over men, never was such madness—madness did I say? Why? What did I mean? Tush! the struggle is over, and I am calm again, though my blood still hums tumultuously. The world is very evil. My father died choked by a marron. I, too, am dead—I who have written this rubbish—I am dead, and sometimes, as I walk, my loved one glides before me in aërial phantom shape, as on page 4, Vol. II. But I am dead—dead and buried—and over my grave an avenue of gigantic chestnuts reminds the passer-by of my fate: and on my tombstone it is written, "Here lies one who danced a cancan and ate marrons glacés all day. Be warned!" THE