Obscurity, The Thirteenth Chapter
In which the widow has something the philanthropist wants.
e last read The Twelfth Chapter, in which a corpse was discovered behind the Cabaret St. Vincent.

The philanthropist was not so taken with the widow’s stories. He found them the consequence of idle minds and so became determined to unidle them. To this end, he invented an Easter feast, a happy occasion to forgo the fasting that had consumed most of the winter and once again enjoy the luxuries afforded by those most affluent in the city.
On the designated evening, a dinner table was set in the courtyard of his residence where guests could bask beneath the shadow of the Cathedral which towered high above them, its scaffoldings concealing the monument it would soon become. The philanthropist spared no expense in building the landmark and he wanted his guests to admire it. To see for themselves what this arriviste had built for his city, and to esteem the man who built it thanks to his boundless generosity.
The courtyard was embellished with every accoutrement: the table was draped with starched linens and inset with exotic floral displays, brass candlesticks, and freshly polished silverware. Vines crawled up the interior walls of the courtyard and heavy branches hung into it, candelabras suspended from them. It almost appeared to the guests a woodland paradise, a scene pulled from the pages of A Midsummer Night's Dream, where lush gardens flourished and fairies might be found secreted away amidst the leaves, whispering their whims to the unsuspecting guests who might hear them.
Guests dressed in their finery, thirsting for the coterie they had for so long forgone. Here they discovered an antidote for their monotony: pastries of every variety, confections that would satiate the most gluttonous king, and a large platter of meats the likes of which attendants had not consumed in some forty days.
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