“It’s a cautriade: a mix of different fish. There’s red mullet, whiting, sole, mackerel, along with shellfish and vegetables, spiced up by a dash of vinaigrette, and I put a bit of curry in it with a pinch of tarragon. Bon appétit!”
Oh yes, that’s good. It’s chic and at the same time working-class. Barthes has often written about food: steak-frites, the simple ham sandwich, milk and wine … But this is something else, obviously. It has an aura of simplicity, but it has been cooked and prepared with effort, care, love. And also, always, a show of strength. He has already theorized about this in his book on Japan: Western food—accumulated, dignified, swollen into the majestic, linked to some prestigious operation—always tends toward excess, abundance, copiousness; Eastern food goes in the opposite direction, it blossoms into the infinitesimal: the future of the cucumber is not its piling up or its thickening, but its division.
“It’s a Breton fishermen’s meal: it was cooked originally using seawater. The vinaigrette was meant to counterbalance the salt’s thirst-inducing effect.”
Memories of Tokyo … To divide the baguette, pull it apart, pick at it, spread it open, instead of cutting and gripping it, as we do with our cutlery; never assault the food …
Barthes does not object when his glass is filled again. Around the table, the guests eat in a somewhat intimidated silence, and he observes that little man with the hard mouth who vacuums up his mouthfuls of whiting with a light sucking sound that is proof of a good bourgeois education.
“I declared that power was property. That is not entirely false, of course.”
Mitterrand puts down his spoon. The silent listeners stop eating to indicate to the little man that they are concentrating on what he says.
If Japanese cuisine is always prepared in front of the person who will eat it (a distinguishing mark of this cuisine), it is perhaps because it is important to consecrate the death of what we honor by this spectacle …
It’s as if they’re afraid to make a sound, like the audience at a theater.
“But it’s not true either. As I think you know better than I do, isn’t that so?”
No Japanese dish possesses a center (an alimentary center, implied for us by the rite that consists in ordering the meal, in surrounding or coating the dish); everything ornaments everything else: primarily because on the table, on the plate, the food is always a collection of fragments …
“The real power is language.”
Mitterrand smiles. His voice has taken on a fawning tone Barthes didn’t suspect it of possessing, and he realizes that the politician is talking directly to him. Farewell, Tokyo. The moment he feared (but which he knew was inevitable) has arrived: when he must give the reply and do what is expected of him; play the semiologist, or at least the intellectual vaguely specialized in language. Hoping his terseness will be taken for profundity, he says: “Especially under a democratic regime.”
Still smiling, Mitterrand says, “Really?” It is hard to tell whether this is a request for elaboration, a polite agreement, or a discreet objection. The whipping boy, who is clearly responsible for this meeting, decides to intervene, out of fear, perhaps, that the conversation may die a premature death: “As Goebbels said, ‘When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver’…” Barthes does not have time to explain the significance of this quotation in its context before Mitterrand dryly corrects his underling: “No, that was Baldur von Schirach.” Embarrassed silence around the table. “You must excuse Monsieur Lang, who, although he was born before the war, is too young to remember it. Isn’t that right, ‘Jacques’?” Mitterrand narrows his eyes like a Japanese man. He pronounces “Jack” the French way. Why, at this instant, does Barthes have the impression that something is afoot between him and this little man with the piercing gaze? As if this lunch had been organized purely for him; as if the other guests were there only to allay suspicion, as if they were decoys or, worse, accomplices. And yet, this is not the first cultural lunch organized for Mitterrand: he has one every month. Surely, thinks Barthes, he didn’t have all the others just to provide an alibi.
Outside, what sounds like a horse-drawn carriage is heard passing along Rue des Blancs-Manteaux.
Barthes analyzes himself quickly: given the circumstances and the document folded in the inside pocket of his jacket, it’s only logical that he should be prone to surges of paranoia. He decides to speak again, partly to dilute the embarrassment of the young man with the curly brown hair, who’s still smiling, if somewhat contritely: “The great eras of rhetoric always correspond with republics: Athens, Rome, France … Socrates, Cicero, Robespierre … Different kinds of eloquence, admittedly, linked to different eras, but all unfolded like a tapestry over the canvas of democracy.” Mitterrand, who looks interested, objects: “Since our friend ‘Jacques’ decided to bring the war into our conversation, I ought to remind you that Hitler was a great orator.” And, he adds, without giving his listeners any sign of irony they might cling to: “De Gaulle, too. In his way.”
Resigned to playing along, Barthes asks: “And Giscard?”
As if he had been waiting for this all along, as if these preliminaries had no other purpose than to bring the conversation to exactly this point, Mitterrand leans back in his chair: “Giscard is a good technician. His strength is his precise knowledge of himself, of his strengths and weaknesses. He knows he is short of breath, but his phrasing is perfectly matched to the rhythm of his breathing. A subject, a verb, a direct complement. A period, no commas: because that would lead him into the unknown.” He pauses to give the obliging smiles time to spread across his guests’ faces, then goes on: “And there need not be any link between two sentences. Each is enough in itself, as smooth and full as an egg. One egg, two eggs, three eggs, a series of eggs, regular as a metronome.” Encouraged by the prudent chuckles offered from around the table, Mitterrand begins to warm up: “The well-oiled machine. I knew a musician once who claimed his metronome had more genius than Beethoven … Naturally, it’s a thrilling spectacle. And highly educational, into the bargain. Everyone understands that an egg is an egg, no?”
Eager to maintain his role as cultural mediator, Jack Lang intervenes: “That is exactly what Monsieur Barthes condemns in his work: the ravages of tautology.”
Barthes confirms: “Yes, well … let’s say the false demonstration par excellence, the useless equation: A equals A, ‘Racine is Racine.’ It’s zero degree thought.”
Though delighted by this convergence of theoretical viewpoints, Mitterrand is not sidetracked from the main flow of his speech: “Exactly! That’s exactly it. ‘Poland is Poland, France is France.’” He puts on a whiny voice: “Go on, then, explain the opposite! What I mean is that to a rare degree Giscard has the art of stating the obvious.”
Barthes, obligingly, concurs: “The obvious is not demonstrated. It demonstrates.”
Mitterrand repeats, triumphantly: “No, the obvious is not demonstrated.” Just then, a voice is heard at the other end of the table: “And yet if we follow your demonstration it seems obvious that victory cannot escape you. The French people are not that stupid. They won’t fall twice for that impostor’s tricks.”
The speaker is a young man with thinning hair and pouty lips, a bit like Giscard, who, unlike the other guests, does not seem impressed by the little man. Mitterrand turns spitefully toward him: “Oh, I know what you think, Laurent! Like most of our contemporaries, you think that he is the most dazzling performer of all.”
Laurent Fabius protests, with an expression of disdain: “I did not say that…”