The History of a Mouthful of Bread by Jean Macé (great novels to read txt) 📕

which appear perfectly foreign to it. Look, for example, at this old fable cited by Menenius. For the two thousand years and upwards that it has been in circulation, troops of historians, poets, orators, and writers of all kinds, have passed it forward from one to the other, without having troubled themselves to investigate the laws of nature in connection with the stomach; therefore, not one, that I am aware of, has observed this small error, so trifling in appearance, so important in reality, which nevertheless is obvious to the first young naturalist who thinks the matter over.

But enough of the Romans. Let us return to our master-the head cook, if you choose to call him so.

I was telling you just now that he managed the stoves, and you may have thought that I was merely using similes, as I am apt to do. But not so: it is quite true that he cooks; and so now tell me, if you can, whence he gets his fire to cook with, or rather, to speak more correctly, who gives it to him?

Now you are quite puzzled, so I must help you out.

In the mansion we were talking about some time ago, to whom would anyone who wanted to light a fire, apply for wood?

I think you can answer this yourself, for you cannot have forgotten our famous steward, who gives everything to everybody. But, you will wonder, I dare say, how the blood can carry wood in his pockets. Wood? Ay, and real wood too, as we shall soon see: but it is not wood we are talking about now. The blood has something more to the purpose than wood in his pockets, for he has heat ready made. So when the stomach wishes to set to work, it appeals to the blood, which comes running from all parts of the body, and heats it so effectually that everything within is really and actually cooked. This is why one feels a sort of slight shudder down the back when the stomach has a great deal to do at once, for the blood being called for in a hurry, comes rushing along in great gushes, and carries with it the heat from the other parts of the body.

It is for this reason, too, that it is so dangerous to bathe when the stomach is at work cooking, because the cold of the water drives suddenly back all the blood which has accumulated around the little saucepan, and this causes such a shock in the body that people often die of it.

Do not ask me, to-day, where this heat of the blood comes from; we will speak of that hereafter. But I may tell you at once that our dear steward is not a bit cleverer in this matter than other people, and obtains his heat, like the humblest mortal, by burning his wood. Do not puzzle yourself to find out how. Enough that he burns it as we do, and by a similar process.

Well, in one way or another, the master cook has his fire at command. You know also, already, what it is he has to get cooked; namely, the pulpy stew, which has begun in the mouth by chewing, and which it is his business now to finish perfectly. Now see what a cook does who has got her stew over the fire. She turns and turns it again and again, and shakes the saucepan from time to time, that the ingredients may be more thoroughly mixed up together; and this is precisely what is done by the stomach; for all the time that the cooking is going on, he swells and contracts himself alternately, after the fashion of those rings of the oesophagus we were talking about, tossing and tumbling the food from one side to another, so as to knead it, as it were.

Again, the cook adds water to her stew from time to time to keep it moist; and so the stomach pours constantly upon his stew a liquid, which contains a great deal of water, and which flows in from a quantity of little holes, sunk in his delicate coats.

What more?

The cook puts in a little salt: and this the stomach takes care not to forget either, for he is a cook who understands his business. In the liquid of which I am speaking, there is, if not exactly salt as one sees it at table, at all events the most active part of salt, that which possesses in the highest degree the property of reducing everything we eat to a paste; and this is the real reason why we find all food so insipid which has not been seasoned with salt. As salt contains a principle essential to the work to be done by the stomach, some method had to be devised to induce us to provide him with it, and this method the porter up above has hit upon. He makes a face if we offer him anything without a little salt on it, as much as to say-"How can you expect them to cook you properly down below, my good friend, if you don't bring them proper materials?"

Upon which hint men have always acted from the beginning; and as far as we can trace history back, we find them mixing salt with their food, though without knowing the real reason why. It is the same, too, with the lower animals. They know nothing of the matter either, but this does not prevent their having a natural relish for salt, as any one will tell you who has the charge of cattle; for their stomachs require for their cooking the very same seasoning as our own, and therefore their porter above has received the same orders.

Salt is not the only thing, however, that exists in that liquid in the stomach. Learned men, after making minute researches, have found in it another equally powerful material, which is also found in milk. Therefore cheese, which contains this material as well as salt, is quite in its place at the end of dinner. It furnishes reinforcements for the stomach in cooking, and this is why you so often hear people say that a little cheese helps the digestion.

The digestion ! Yes, that is the word I ought to have begun with. It is the real name of all this cooking; an operation after which I would defy you to recognise the nice little cakes you have eaten, any better than your mamma can trace her pretty rosy-cheeked apples in the jelly which she left on the fire two hours ago. The stomach, as you see, is very busy quite as long a time as that, and if we have to be very careful (as I pointed out before) not to disturb him too suddenly in his work after dinner, it is also important that we should not, while at dinner, give him more work to do than he is capable of doing. Although he is the master, he is but a puny fellow, as I have already pointed out; nevertheless, he works conscientiously, because he knows that the life of the whole body depends upon his exertions. Some people even say that in spite of his leanness he strips himself, at each digestion, of his interior skin, which he sacrifices to his work, and the fragments of which tend to increase and improve the stew which is entrusted to his care. Think of this, my dear, whenever a greedy fit comes over you, and recollect that such a disinterested public functionary deserves some consideration. Besides, there is serious danger, quite apart from any question of injustice, in overwhelming him with work. If your legs are wearied out, you have it in your power to lie in bed. If your arm is in pain, you can keep it at rest. But your stomach is like those poor people who have to support their families by the labor of each day. He, too, labors for others: he has no right to rest, no right to be ill, therefore; and when he begins to fail, woe betide you-you will have enough of it.

Children who have learnt nothing may laugh at all this, but you, my dear, are beginning to know something, and "science constrains,"
i.e. it has its claims and requirements. It requires you, to-day, not to be greedy, to-morrow, something else, and so on, continually, until you have become quite reasonable and wise. I am sorry for you if this vexes you, but it was your own wish to learn, and science constrains . Indeed, I will whisper to you in confidence that this is the best excuse people who are unwilling to learn have to offer for refusing. They do not know what learning may lead to, and what a pity it would be if they could no longer be greedy, or ill-natured, or selfish. What would become of us all in such a case?


LETTER IX.

THE STOMACH- (continued) .

We made a very long story of the stomach last time, my dear child; and, after all, I see that there was one thing I forgot to tell you-viz., what it is like.

Have you ever seen a bagpiper, I wonder? A man who carries under his arm a kind of large dark brown bag, which he fills with air by blowing into it, and out of which he presently forces the same air into a musical pipe by pressing it gently with his elbow. If you never saw such a thing, it is a pity; first, because the bagpipe was the national instrument of our ancestors the Gauls, and is religiously preserved as such by the Scotch Highlanders and the peasants of Brittany-(two remnants of that illustrious race, whose history I recommend to your careful perusal some day); secondly, and it is this fact which has the greatest interest for us just now, because that large bag, which is the principal part of the instrument, gives you a very exact idea of your stomach; for in fact it really and truly is a stomach itself, and moreover, the stomach of an animal whose interior formation resembles yours very, very much.

And who do you suppose is this audacious animal, which presumes to have an inside so like that of a pretty little girl? Really, I am half ashamed to name him, for fear you should be angry with me for doing so. It is-it is the pig! The resemblance is not exactly a flattering one to you, perhaps, but we are all alike, and it would be worse than foolish to grumble at being created as we are. Moreover, there is one difference; the pig, who thinks of nothing but eating, has a very much larger stomach than we have, which is some consolation, at any rate.

Place the palm of your right hand on what is called the pit of the stomach, turning the ends of the fingers towards the heart; your hand will nearly cover the space usually occupied by the stomach, and you may figure it to yourself as a rounded and elongated bag, bigger above than below, making a very decided bend inside as it descends from the heart downward; something like one of those long French pears, called "Bon-chretiens," if it were bent in the middle, and the big end of it were placed next the heart. As for the exact size of the bag, there is no telling it, for it depends upon circumstances. It is a very convenient bag in that respect; just such a one as you would like to have in your frock for a pocket; only there would be a danger