Iain Pears - The Dream of Scipio

When catastrophe did strike, the shock was all the greater, and even a man like Bronsen, normally so canny and prepared, was caught by surprise. He delayed, not able to accept that the defeat was as total as all his intelligence told him. Besides, Julia was not there, and he would not leave without her. She was in the south, somewhere in the Camargue in the little house close to the coast she rented every summer she was in France, as reassured as everyone else. As usual, she had gone off without saying where she was; she guarded her solitude and privacy jealously on such occasions. So, rather than leaving himself, taking one of the last cross-channel ferries before they were cut off, he stayed behind, hoping that she would turn up, and having nightmare visions about what would happen if she arrived and found him already gone.

When it was clear that disaster was looming, his reaction was typically defiant and indeed perverse: He went to the restaurant, the Grand Véfour, with half a dozen friends whom he managed to round up, and had a valedictory meal. One of these friends was Julien Barneuve.

A grand and fine meal it was, although the service was patchy; the waiters’ minds were distracted. Fortunately, the chef’s professionalism held out and supplies of food had not yet run low. Bronsen made a short speech at the end; the mood was immensely, almost hysterically, good-humored.

“All around you, my friends, on this table, you see the best of what two thousand years of civilization has to offer. We have the finest damask cloth, its origins in the Middle East, amongst the Semitic nations but actually, I believe, made in Lyon. This rests on a table cut from a mahogany tree, hewn in the Americas, transported on a ship manned by a crew such as those who have been carrying the goods of the world for millennia. The table rests on an Aubusson carpet, worn and dirty perhaps, but in a design which dates back to the reign of Louis the Fourteenth and which has been produced by craftsmen in the same factory ever since.

“And all this to support, to bring close to us, the food, which we eat with our knives and forks in a fashion we learned from the Ottomans, served, course by course, in a style we used to call the Russian manner.

“Here we approach the foothills of civilization; I chose everything carefully for this reason. We began, did we not, with foie gras from the Dordogne, perfectly produced in some farmer’s basse-cour, fatted on cream and corn, taken to the railway station, and transported on a train line paid for by the British. I pay tribute to them. Whatever one may think of our allies, no one can deny that they make fine railways.

“Then a fish, a fine fish, a glorious fish, a Dover sole. Caught in the Atlantic by sailors who can in a day sweep in enough to feed the five thousand. You see that, despite my own origins, I am not averse to using Christian imagery to make a point. It is brought to us, lightly sautéed and served in a delicate sauce that was first tasted by the great Cardinal Mazarin himself.

“Then we had a tour of France, the very heart of France. Lamb raised on the salt flats of the Vendée, with potatoes in the manner of the Dauphiné, and a great platter of beans grown in a kitchen garden near Paris and cooked, Provençal style, in olive oil from the Lubéron. A simple meal, with little enough finery, for we must say goodbye to the extravagances of our past.

“We have then the cheese, brought to us from all the corners of the country, perfected over the decades to remind us what the greatest civilizations can do when they turn their minds, wholeheartedly, to the arts of peace. Think of those shepherds, herding their goats and sheep and cows; the farmers milking them day after day. Think of their wives and sons and daughters, carrying the pails and separating and curdling and setting. Think of the good women of Normandy preparing this fine Camembert; pay tribute to those people whose cheese went moldy in a cave near Roquefort but had the sense to realize that the delicate blue stains which resulted were a miracle, not a disaster. Then consider the ribbon-like trails of the carters, their routes like veins across the entire country, coming to collect the result on behalf of the merchant, who has already used his elaborate network of contacts, his financial tentacles, to find a price and a buyer. All so that we can eat it, here, as the armies march upon us.

“And all along, gentlemen, we have had the wine. The Gewürztraminer, which we drink here as our own for the last time. I hope the vintners who produced it will forgive me if I say it will not taste as good tomorrow, when we must drink it—or not—as a German wine. The champagne, a product unique in civilized history, dependent on mixing the very best techniques of fermentation with the creation of the glass bottle and cork, and mixing these with a dash of divine inspiration. The Burgundy, that hearty, earthy, refined wine which has a trace of our soul in each bottle, so that when we drink it we become, all unknowing, more French than before.

“And now, as we begin our cigars—brought from Havana, docked at Le Havre, and stocked in a shop which prosperity has allowed to become so specialized it sells nothing but cigars—now, gentlemen, we begin on our cognac.

“Here words fail me. Nothing in the annals of literature can capture the essence of cognac, drunk amongst like-minded friends, after a fine meal. You know this, all of you; I am telling you nothing you do not know. Did Racine ever succeed? Did Hugo capture its essence? Did Voltaire or Diderot pin it down? They did not. They were too aware of their limitations even to try, and who am I, businessman that I am, to presume where men of genius have failed?

“I will merely point out to you that all of this—food, wine, and even cognac—are nothing in comparison to what they permit, which is the easy and unrestrained exercise of friendship manifested through conversation. We have been sitting here now for near three hours in perfect amity, as we have known each other for many years—many decades in a few cases. We have managed, I am glad to say, not to talk of the war, as this last supper—my imagery again, I apologize—is to celebrate civilization, not to mourn its passing. We have talked here of literature, I believe. Some of you I heard discussing the performance of Tosca canceled last week, taking consolation in having seen Furtwängler conduct it in Milan three years ago. One person I heard complaining about the way Cézanne is now considered to be a good painter. My friend Julien, who owns a Cézanne, was polite and restrained; it is as well my daughter is not here, as she would have been more forceful in her reply.

“Such refinement, gentlemen! Such delicacy of address, such sophistication of tastes. But not, for me, the essence of civilization. No; instead I heard the goddess brush her soft lips over my ear when I heard my friend over there lean across the table and ask whether it was true that a mutual acquaintance had separated from his wife.

“Gossip? you say. Idle chitchat? Yes, gentlemen. Men in trenches, men starving, men in chains, do not have the leisure to gossip. Gossip is the product of spare time, of surplus and of comfort. Gossip is the creation of civilization, and the product of friendship. For when my friend here made his inquiry he passed on the information necessary to keep the delicate fabric of friendship together. A question about a friend known for decades but hardly seen, an acquaintanceship which would fall into the past unless its shade was sustained by the occasional offering of gossip. And think again: My friend, an Alsatian businessman, was asking a question of a half-Italian writer about the marriage of a Norman lawyer and a Parisian lady of faintly aristocratic origin. All this at a dinner given by myself, born a Jew. What better distillation of civilization is there than that? Gossip binds three people—the gossipers and the subject of their gossip—together. Repeated often enough it binds society together.