now that it occurs to me, a slice of that plump chicken—some white meat, thank you, at the breast—ah, there it is!—how sweetly doth the noble fowl submit to the swift and keen persuasion of the knife—and now, perhaps, just for our diet’s healthy balance, a spoonful of those lima beans, as gay as April and as sweet as butter, a tomato slice or two, a speared forkful of those thin-sliced cucumbers—ah! what a delicate and toothsome pickle they do make—what sorcerer invented them—a little corn perhaps, a bottle of this milk, a pound of butter and that crusty loaf of bread—and even this moon-haunted wilderness were paradise enow—with just a snack—a snack—a snack—
He was aroused from this voluptuous and hypnotic reverie by the sound of Rosalind’s warm sweet laugh, her tender and caressing touch upon his arm, and Joel’s soundless and astonished mouth, the eager incandescence of his gleeful smile, his whole face uplifted in its fine and gentle smile, his voice cast in its frequent tone of whispering astonishment:
“Simply incredible!” he was whispering to his sister. “I’ve never seen such an expression on any one’s face in all my life! It’s simply diabolical! When he sees food, he looks as if he’s just getting ready to rape a woman!”
“Do you, darling?” said the girl, with her warm, sweet tolerance of humour. “I’m so glad to know that someone else likes food. I like it, too,” she said with a warm plainness; “when I am married and start having babies I shall eat and eat and eat to my heart’s content—as much as I want to, all the things I ever wanted, till I’m satisfied…. It’s so wonderful to find someone who will eat! You don’t know how hard it is to have a brother who’s a vegetarian—and who tells me that I’m getting disgustingly fat—and what a horrible thing it is to eat dead animals—like eating corpses…. Wouldn’t Joel be wonderful if he ate roast beef,” she added with her warm and gentle humour, as she put her arm around her brother’s waist—“he looks so thin and starved, poor thing—like a religious ascetic—doesn’t he?—But then, he’s such a saint as he is—isn’t he?—if he liked food, as well, he’d just have everything—he’d be too perfect.”
“No, sir,” Joel whispered, shaking his head and laughing with his curiously boyish, almost clumsily naïve, but beautifully engaging good nature—“Not I!… The rest of you can eat all the dead animals you like—but you don’t catch me doing it!… I’ll stick to spinach,” he whispered radiantly. “That’s good enough for me.”
