Fashion Demands Sacrifices

       It all began when the Dutch ambassador delivered a stack of ladies' almanacs from London and Paris. Princess Amalia of Wurstburg, upon studying the engravings of the latest heights, lows and thins of fashion, turned to her reflection in a mirror and was horrified to discover that her silhouette resembled neither an hourglass nor a nymph, but rather a plump poularde (though, admittedly, poularde usually came golden-crusted, drizzled with chanterelle sauce and perched atop a pillow of dill-and-paprika roasted potatoes with a hint of garlic…). None of the gowns in the illustrations were designed for such a figure. She tossed and turned all night, imagining how absurd she would look beside even the most provincial baroness from a more progressive nation. (Not that she regularly mingled with foreign nobility, but nightmares have their own logic.) By breakfast, her mood was so foul that not even scrambled eggs with bacon, custard-filled éclairs, foie gras pie, or a chocolate figurine of the Prime Minister of Wurstburg could lift her spirits. If anything, they made it worse. How was one to become a sylph on such a diet? “Margreta!” she announced solemnly to her lady-in-waiting. “Kindly inform the kitchen that, from today, I shall partake of nothing rich or sweet.” With a decisive gesture, she pushed away a plate of still-warm cinnamon rolls. “As you wish, Your Highness,” nodded Margreta—a disgustingly slender maiden—and promptly instructed a footman to slide the pastries and éclairs toward her. Her eyes gleamed with delight. Clutching only a glass of berry infusion, Amalia rose and swept out of the dining hall where the scent of baking and bacon were gnawing at her resolve. Yet no sooner had she entered the adjoining parlour than she faced fresh temptation. Upon the pistachio-silk walls hung an enormous still life: a heap of succulent peaches, grapes like translucent gemstones, and a ham so meticulously rendered that each rosy fibre seemed to taunt her. The queen’s study featured a painting of an amber-hued pumpkin half, a mound of oysters, and a wheel of holey cheese. The king’s office boasted stag and boar heads—clearly a promise of future roasts and sausages. Even the antechamber’s ceiling was frescoed with allegories, though why Enlightenment, Virtue, and Parliamentarianism had to be nude goddesses draped in sausages and fruit garlands, Amalia had never understood, and least of all today. “Is this a conspiracy?” she whispered, her mouth watering. Squeezing her eyes shut, she edged along the wall toward the palace chapel. Was there a better place to seek refuge from temptation than at the bosom of the Church? Kneeling upon a velvet cushion, Amalia raised her eyes heavenward—or tried to, until her gaze snagged on the artwork. To the left of the altar, Christ and the Apostles broke bread at the Last Supper, the loaf so lifelike she could nearly smell it. To the right, Adam and Eve bit provocatively into a glossy red apple. “Good Lord,” sighed the princess. “Not even here can one escape food!” Though what had she expected? Every cleric of her acquaintance was even further from the almanac’s spindly fashion plates than she was. Very well. One sanctuary remained: the temple of knowledge—the royal library. The driest, dullest, dustiest, deadest place in the palace. To distract herself from thoughts of bread and bacon, Amalia blindly pulled a book from the shelves. “There was a round plate with the twelve signs of the Zodiac set in order, and on each one the artist had laid some food fit and proper to the symbol; over the Ram ram’s-head pease, a piece of beef on the Bull, kidneys over the Twins, over the Crab a crown, an African fig over the Lion, a barren sow’s paunch over Virgo, over Libra a pair of scales with a muffin on one side and a cake on the other…” She snapped the book shut, marched it back to its shelf, counted five paces, and selected another—this time checking the title first. “Which is why he usually kept a good supply of Mainz and Bayonne hams, plenty of smoked beef tongues, lots of whatever chitterlings were in season and beef pickled in mustard, reinforced by a special caviar from Provence, a good stock of sausages…” With a growl, Amalia abandoned fiction and history and turned to science. The first travel journal she opened detailed Nanonesian traditions—specifically, clay-baked rats. Far from repelling her, the description made her stomach rumble. Defeated, she spied the Grand Lexicon of Geology and Petrography in a shadowy corner. Perfect. Surely it could not deal with anything edible. Yet when she cracked the tome open, instead of pages, she found a wooden box. Inside: a bottle of brandy and a salt-crusted, spice-rubbed sausage so dark it gleamed like garnet. Now she understood why her august father so often “retired to the library” before bed. Such betrayal! But the aroma… The temptation was too great. Five minutes later, the princess sat cross-legged on the floor, hugging the lexicon, blissfully gnawing sausage between sips of brandy. “Perhaps it’s fate,” she mused. “Perhaps I was meant to bear a likeness to muses of Rubens.” For though Parisian fashion plates were far away, one’s stomach was perilously close—and ever ready to throttle its owner.