Virginie monologue — The miracle of Saint Anthony

Yes, they own woods ... and farms ... and houses galore! Monsieur Gustave has a starch-factory: Gustave’s Starch, you’ve heard of it, I expect! Oh, they’re an amazingly well-off family. There are four of them who live on their incomes and do no business at all. That’s splendid, that is!... And such friends and acquaintances and tenants!... Well, they’ve all come to the funeral, some of them from ever so far. There’s one, I’m told, who travelled two days and two nights to get here in time. I’ll show him to you: he has a lovely beard.... They’re lunching here. They haven’t finished yet. We can’t disturb them. It’s a great lunch: there are twenty-four of them sitting down to it. And I’ve seen the bill of fare: there’s oysters, two soups, three entrées, crayfish in jelly, and trout _à la Schubert_. Do you know what that is?