The Discovery of Chocolate by James Runcie Page B

sombre gait, walking on the ramparts, silhouetted against the sky. He was overweight and elderly, perhaps five feet and six inches tall, with a high forehead and an aquiline nose. His hair was powdered and coiffed, and he was dressed in a blue overcoat with a red collar and silver buttons. He was closely followed by a man whom I was later informed was his servant, Mérigot; employed, I was told, because the elderly gentleman had now grown so fat that he was unable to change even his shirt without assistance.
    My gaolers told me that I should be advised to avoid all conversation since the gentleman was almost as mad as I was myself. Such a warning did not, however, concern me, since it was clear that if we were not mad when we entered this prison, we were certainly made so inside it, and that if I avoided lunacy altogether there would be no one to speak to at all. At times the gentleman looked up in my direction, as if I might be a distant friend or relative that he was attempting to recognise, but then turned his attention away, seeming to gaze far beyond me, into the distance, as if he had been touched by some great thought.
    This made me all the more determined to speak with him, and I ventured to create an opportunity by which our paths might cross. Only after some three months could this be achieved when we met on a narrow stretch of the ramparts, unable to pass each other without at least some small exchange of words.
    ‘Sir,’ said the corpulent figure, stopping before me. ‘I admire your greyhound.’
    ‘He is my sole companion,’ I replied.
    ‘Although I prefer a setter or a spaniel myself.’
    ‘He was given to me a long time ago.’
    ‘He has a lean head and a spirited eye. What is his name?’
    ‘Pedro.’
    The man began to circle round us, and my greyhound followed his movements with suspicion.
    ‘He has a strong well-coupled back, muscular thighs and a deep brisket. There is good length from hip to hock, and his feet look tight. His tail is like the lash of a hunting crop. He must cover good ground …’
    ‘He does.’
    ‘And I imagine he has plenty of stamina.’
    No one had admired Pedro with such an appraising eye before, and I was pleased that this fine gentleman was taking such an interest in him.
    ‘You are Spanish,’ observed the man.
    ‘I am …’
    ‘Yet you speak excellent French …’
    ‘I have, it seems, a talent for languages.’
    ‘I have always maintained that the best way to learn a foreign language is to have an affair with a woman twice your age.’
    I was startled by the boldness of his observation, but he spoke as if every phrase could not be doubted and as if each statement was an order to be obeyed.
    ‘You must visit me in my chambers.’
    ‘You are allowed visitors?’
    ‘I have guests among the inmates, and I am allowed certain foods. My wife brings me pâtés, hams and fruit preserves. I cannot abide the vomit that they provide here. Messengers come with almond paste, jellied quince and kumquats, cakes, spices and soaps. I want for nothing but company and freedom.’
    ‘I thought this was a prison,’ I observed, failing to understand how this most sombre of institutions could be the pit of hell for so many of its inhabitants and yet a visiting hotel for others.
    ‘It is.’
    ‘And you can eat whatever you choose?’
    ‘Whatever my wife brings me. There is only one thing I lack.’
    ‘And what is that?’
    ‘Chocolate. I have a most particular desire; and yet it is denied me as a punishment.’
    ‘On what grounds?’
    ‘Recalcitrance. Are you permitted such a thing?’
    ‘I do not know what I am allowed. I am told nothing.’
    ‘Then you must tell them. A man should not be made to suffer without understanding why. This is not the Spanish Inquisition.’
    ‘Indeed not.’
    He eyed me beadily, but I kept my counsel, saying: ‘The guards have told me that these are difficult times for food of quality. There have been riots over bread …’
    ‘The people in