Free Mawrdew Czgowchwz by James McCourt Page A

table at the Solstice Sitting, in almost perfect contentment. (She and Pierrot would make up the twenty-one required for mummers’ winter ritual.) These were, from the hostess’s left: her niece, Lavinia O’Maurigan Stein; Lavinia’s husband, Jonathan Stein; Dixie, Alice, Ralph, Mawrdew Czgowchwz, Dame Sybil, Gaia della Gueza, Contessa Cassia, Carmen, Halcyon Paranoy (at the foot), Tangent Percase, Consuelo Gilligan, Merovig Creplaczx, the three remaining Secret Seven, Arpenik, and Jameson O’Maurigan. The place set just at the Countess’s right awaited the eventual, wending Pèlerin Deslieux.
    Dinner had commenced with potage santé . Next, shad roe and sweetbreads Tara, with an iced Bohemian hock. Next, soufflé Gautier (iced Moët, clotted cream, egg yolks, and powdered garlic flowers suspended in pignoli-scented egg-white froths, laced with Cointreau, and presented baked in separate mandala-shaped ramekins). Next, saddle of mutton with roast brown potatoes, mixed sprouts, turnips, parsnips, leek rings, carrots, and cauliflower tops (“Irish ratatouille”), mint sauce, various gravies, and a brash claret. Next, pumpkin soufflé and Vermont rough cider off the wood. Next, Wicklow sausage, black hog-blood pudding, blue and white Stilton, sage Derby, Cheshire, Caerphilly, and Guinness tapped out of the barrel. Last, gâteau Czgowchwz, Armenian coffee, and a selection of private-reserve O’Meaghre Donegal liqueurs—the Countess Madge’s yearly fealty gift from some gracious and talented cousins-distillers in the Emerald regions overseas. An elegant sufficiency having been had (by common consent), conversation began to develop in earnest.
    Halcyon Paranoy opened the bidding, posing questions. These were general, seeking to canvass group attitudes. They were parried in kind, by cross-fire generalities, at that end of the table. Tensions evolved, as they will. Consuelo, feeling somewhat awash, bobbing between Halcyon and Tangent Percase on the one side and Creplaczx and the remaining Secret Seven on the other, sent a folded message across- and up-table to G-G, soliciting no reply. G-G frowned, dragging on a long Sobranie, and made a few mnemonic notes. Arpenik slanted her own wary, Caspian opinions across the table to Ralph and Alice. Mawrdew Czgowchwz and Dame Sybil concurred. G-G, glancing vis-à-vis, advised Merovig to press less. Cassia fell out (predictably) with Carmen over a minuscule mimic detail while recalling a Neri fiasco. The remaining Secret Seven ratified contentions at random, playing politics. Lavinia leaned toward Jonathan, who seemed elsewhere.
    Pierrot arrived, to a lustily concerted welcome. The parvenu took his place; he feasted. Réchauffé “flashback” courses were delivered to the top of the table, reinforcing communal delight (“Ensemble anamnesis”—Paranoy). Ralph was promptly voracious all over again. He commenced spinning the cheese wheel and cracking walnuts. Pierrot, devouring sweetbreads, watched Ralph manipulate the Walachian-oakwood nutcracker. Joviality burgeoned.
    Despite the Countess Madge’s outright interdict, Pierrot was besieged while savoring his meal. Tangent Percase demanded to know whether Arpenik’s repeated, “feeling” pronouncements did not seem to the “disinterested audient” to contradict what Dixie and the remaining Secret Seven had made known to the company. Pierrot, on the soufflé, asked Tangent what he and Consuelo thought. Percase offered his opinion, the Gilligan woman hers. “How do you suddenly arrive at that —or THAT?” Carmen interrupted, proceeding to outline the real story, while Cassia, attempting to press her sotto voce reservations upon G-G, was airily misunderstood. Mawrdew Czgowchwz and Dame Sybil concurred, happily. Merovig brooded the more. Pierrot’s meal went forward amid a general rehash tutti of opinion and information, habitual