Bacacay by Bill Johnston Witold Gombrowicz

please, I go into the kitchen one day and in the pot I see my pasta, and it ’s crawling—simply crawling! —and it was worms—mmm, mmm—worms from my garden, which the villain was serving up as pasta! Since then—mmm, mmm—I’ve stopped looking into pots!”
    “Just so,” I said. “Exactly!” And I spoke further about cooks, saying that they were butchers, small-time murderers, that it was all the same to them what and how, all that mattered was adding pepper, adding seasoning, making meals—comments that were not entirely appropriate and rather crass, but I had gotten carried away.—“You, countess, who would never touch his head, in the soup—you are ingesting his hair!” I would have continued in the same vein, since I had suddenly been seized by an access of treacherous eloquence, but all of a sudden—I broke off, for no one was listening to me! The extraordinary sight of the countess, that dogaressa, that patroness, eating in silence and so rapaciously that her ears trembled, terrified and astonished me. The baron accompanied her gallantly, bent over his plate, slurping and smacking his lips with all his might—and the old marchioness did her best to keep up, chewing and swallowing huge mouthfuls, evidently
worried that they would take her plate away before she had eaten the best morsels!
    This extraordinary, sudden image of guzzling—I cannot put it otherwise—of such guzzling, in such a house, this awful transition, this diminished seventh chord, shook the foundations of my being to such an extent that I was unable to restrain myself and I sneezed—and since I had left my handkerchief in the pocket of my overcoat, I was obliged to rise from the table and excuse myself. In the hall, falling motionless onto a chair, I attempted to bring my scattered thoughts to equilibrium. Only a person who, like me, had long known the countess, the marchioness, and the baron for their refined gestures, the delicacy, moderation, and subtlety of all their functions, and especially the function of eating, the incomparable nobility of their features—only such a person could appreciate the horrible impression I had received. At the same time I happened to cast a glance at the copy of the Red Herald sticking out of my overcoat pocket, and I noticed a sensational headline:
    MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE OF CAULIFLOWER
    along with the subtitle:
    CAULIFLOWER IN DANGER OF FREEZING
    and an article containing the following text:
    Stable hand Valentine Cauliflower of the village of Rudka (belonging to the estate of the renowned Countess Pavahoke) reported to the police that his son Bolek, aged 8, has run away from home. According to the police the boy, described as having a snub nose and flaxen hair, ran away because his father was drunk and walloping him with a belt,
and his mother was starving him (a common phenomenon, alas, in the current crisis). There is concern that the boy could freeze to death wandering about the fields during the autumn rains.
    “Tsk, tsk,” I tutted, “tsk, tsk . . .” I glanced through the window at the fields, veiled by a thin curtain of rain. And I returned to the dining room, where the huge silver platter contained nothing but the remains of the cauliflower. The countess’ stomach, on the other hand, looked as if she was in her seventh month—the baron’s organ of consumption was virtually dangling in his plate—while the old marchioness was chewing and chewing indefatigably, moving her jaws—truly, I must say it—like a cow! “Divine, marvelous,” they all kept repeating, “delightful, incomparable!” Utterly disconcerted, I carefully and attentively tasted the cauliflower one more time, but I sought in vain for something that would even partially justify the company’s unprecedented demeanor.
    “What is it that you see in this?” I coughed timidly, somewhat abashed.
    “Ha ha ha, he’s asking!” cried the baron loudly, gorging himself and in a capital humor.
    “Can you