Dining With Schopenhauer

( Originally Published 1922 )

I WAS dining lately at Mouquin's, alone. You had better not so dine there, unless you have reached that melancholy climacteric, "a certain age"—(I do not plead guilty myself). It is not good for men to dine alone at Mouquin's, and it is even worse for Mouquin's. All here is planned for sociability and the sexes—the menu is a pan of sex as frankly declarative as a poem of Walt Whitman's; the wines, the suave, light-footed French waiters (really French), seeing all and nothing, the softly refulgent electric bulbs, the very genius of the place, all bespeak that potent instinct which harks back to the morning of the world. One sees it in the smallest matters of detail and arrangement. Elsewhere there is room and entertainment for the selfish male, but here—go to! The tables are not adapted for solitary dining; at the very tiniest of them there is room for two : an arrangement that would have moved the irony of Schopenhauer, and that signalizes the grand talent of Monsieur Mouquin. To conclude, a solitary diner is an embarrassment, a reproach, a fly in the ointment of Monsieur Mouquin. I was all three to him lately, but I make him my most profound apologies—it shall not occur again. Why, I am now to tell.

I was dining at Mouquin's alone, and it seemed as if the spirit of Schopenhauer suddenly descended upon me, who had been there so often, joyous and joyously companioned. The waiter took my order with a veiled hint of disapproval in his manner. He forgot, too, that he was of Mouquin's and therefore, anteriorly of Paris—he spoke English far too well for the credit of the house. At Mouquin's, you know, the wines and the waiters are alike imported. I knew what the waiter was thinking about—I felt and understood his subtly insinuated reproach : I was alone. There was no person of the opposite sex with me to double or treble the bill, and to obey whose slightest hinted wish the garçon would fly with winged feet, à la Mercure. Decidedly it is a violence to the Parisian waiter to dine alone at Mouquin's, for it robs him of that pleasing incentive which is essential to the perfect exhibition of his art. I do not qualify the phrase—the French waiter at Mouquin's is an artist, and never more so than when he rebukes me, wordlessly and without offence, for dining alone.

However, I was a good deal worse than being alone or in company, for have I not said that Schopenhauer was with me? Do you know Schopenhauer? Is he anything more than a name to you, that giant sacker of dreams, that deadly dissector of illusions, that pitiless puncturer of the poetry of the sexes, that daring exposer of Nature's most tenderly cherished and vigilantly guarded secrets, whose thought still lies like a blight upon the world? Do you know his beautiful theory of love which is as simple as the process of digestion, and in-deed very similar to it? Once in Berlin an enthusiast spoke in Schopenhauer's presence of the "immortal passion". The Master turned upon him with his frightful sneer and asked if his bowels were Immortal!

When Actaeon surprised the chaste Diana at her bath, he was merely torn to pieces by his own hounds. Schopenhauer's punishment for betraying the deepest arcana of Nature was worse, yet not worse than the crime merited—he was compelled to eat his own heart! . . Not, I grant you, a cheerful table-mate for a dinner at Mouquin's, when the lights glow charmingly, and the bustling waiters, the in-coming guests, the rustling of skirts, the low laughter indicative of expectancy, and the con-fused yet agreeable murmur of voices—the bass or baritone of the men mingled with the lighter tones of the women—announce a joyous evening. Charming fugue, in which a delicate ear may detect every note of appetite and passion, though the players use the surd with the most artistic precaution. (Mouquin's is the most discreet and admirably regulated of cafés.) Polite overture to the orgasm of the Belly-God and perhaps to the satisfaction of certain allied divinities whom I may not specify. Admirable convention, by which men and women come in sacrificial garments, or evening attire, to worship at the shrine of the Flesh.

The climacteric, perhaps? My dear sir, when I tip the waiter to-night, I can get him to say easily that I am not a day over thirty. . . .

Throughout the large room (we are up-stairs, gentle reader) the tables are filling rapidly with well-dressed men and women. Nothing in their appearance, generally, to challenge remark; a conventional crowd of male and female New Yorkers, intent on a good dinner and subsidiary enjoyments. For the first time, perhaps, I notice how pleasant it is to observe everything at leisure, without having to talk to anyone—you really can not see things in a detached, philosophic manner when you have to jabber to a pretty woman.

A clerical-looking gentleman, with a severe forehead, is one of my near neighbors. His companion is a handsome young woman, rather highly colored, who seems more at home than the forehead. A couple take the table next to mine; the young fellow is well-looking enough, the girl has the short, colorless, indeterminate American face, with its pert resolve to be pretty; both are young and have eyes only for each other—that's the point. They sit down to the table as if preparing for the event of their lives; this eager young expectancy is smilingly noted by others than myself.

A large man convoying three heavy, matronly women who yet do not look like mothers —you know that familiar New York type—takes a favorable station against the wall where there is much room for eating and whence the outlook is commanding. The large one perjures himself fearfully in explaining how he had it specially reserved. I know him for a genial liar, and maybe the ladies do, too. These four have evidently come to eat and drink their fill, and to look on: Schopenhauer is no concern of theirs, nor they of his.

Not so this elderly man with the dashing young woman on his arm—the man is too hand-some to be called old, in spite of his white hair. The young woman has that look of complete self-possession and easy tolerance which such young women commonly manifest toward their elderly admirers—this is not romance, but what is generically termed the "sure thing". Schopenhauer is but faintly interested, and my eyes wander toward the little American type. She has had her second glass of wine by this time, and it has hoisted a tiny flag in her cheek. A little more and she will succeed in her determination to be pretty,—the dinner is only half under way. Schopenhauer bids me note now that she eats with undisguised appetite, and that she fixes a steadier gaze upon her young man than he can always meet. Both young heads are together and they eat as fast as they talk—but youth atones for all. These two continue to draw the gaze of most persons in their vicinity.

There have been one or two mild selections by the orchestra, but they passed unnoticed in the first stern business of eating. It is a pity that artists should be subjected to such an in-dignity, but it can not well be avoided by artists who play for hungry people. The leader of Mouquin's orchestra—perhaps I should say the orchestra at Mouquin's—is a young man with a high forehead and long hair. I am not a critic of music, like my friend James Huneker, and I am unhappy in the difficult vocabulary which that gifted writer employs. But it seems to me the conductor and first violinist at Mouquin's is an artist. A veritable artist ! No doubt I shall be laughed at for this—I have said that I am ignorant of the technique of criticism.

When the orgasm of eating had in a degree subsided, Schopenhauer nudged me to observe how the company began to give some attention to the music and even to applaud a little. Ah, it was then the young leader seemed grand and inspired to me. He looked as if he did not eat much himself; and his music—some thing from Tannhâuser--fell on my ears like a high rebuke to those guzzling men and women. I do not know for sure what the "motif" of it was (this word is from James Huneker), but the refrain sounded to me like, "Do not be swine ! Do not be swine !"

The swine were in no way abashed—perhaps they did not understand the personal allusion. I have read somewhere in James Huneker that the Wagnerian "motif" is often very difficult to follow.

WE had reached the coffee, that psychic moment when the world is belted with happiness; when all our desires seem attain-able; when with facile assurance we discount the most precious favors of love or fortune.

"You will now observe," whispered my invisible guest, "that with these animals the present is the acute or critical moment of digestion, from which result many undaimed children and much folly in the world. The edge of appetite has been dulled, but there is still a desire to eat, and the stage of repletion is yet to be reached. These animals now think them-selves in a happy condition for the aesthetic enjoyment of art and even for the raptures of love. They have been fed."

The terrible irony of the tone, more than the words, caused me to turn apprehensively; but no one was listening, and my hat and coat occupied the chair where should have sat my vis-à-vis.

With the coming of the cordials and the lighting of cigarettes, the music changed to gayer measures. The young maestro's head was thrown back and in his eye flamed the fire of what I must call inspiration, in default of the proper phrase or hunekerism; while his bow executed the most vivid lightning of melody. This was the moment of his nightly triumph, when his artist soul was in some degree compensated for the base milieu in which his genius had been set by an evil destiny. He now saw before him an alert, appreciative audience, instead of an assembly of feeding men and women. For the moment he would not have changed places with a conductor of grand opera.

"Note that foolish fellow's delusion," said Schopenhauer. "I have exposed it a hundred times. He thinks he is playing to the souls, the emotions of all these people, and he plumes himself upon his paltry art. They also are a party to his cheat. He is really playing to their stomachs, and their applause, their appreciation, is purely sensual. Yet I will not deny that he is doing them a service in assisting the process of digestion; but it is purely physiological, sheerly animal. The question of art does not enter at all, any more than the question of love does in the mind of yonder old gentleman who has eaten and drunk too well, and is now doting with senile desire upon that young woman."

I noticed indeed that the elderly gentleman had become gay and amorously confidential, while his companion smiled often with affected carelessness, yet seemed to be curiously observant of his every word and gesture. But their affair was no matter for speculation.

I glanced toward the clerical gentleman with the severe forehead. Both he and the fore-head had relaxed perceptibly, and there was evident that singular change which takes place when a man doffs the conventional mask of self. His lady friend seemed disposed to lead him further. No romance here, I thought. . . . "It is the stuff of all romances," snarled Schopenhauer.

The heavy women waddled out once or twice to the retiring room and came back to drink anew. No man looked at them, save in idle curiosity—they were beyond tempting or temptation. "These represent the consummate flower of the sexual or passional instinct," re-marked the sage. "Gross as they now seem, they were once young and what is called desirable. They yielded fully to their animal requirements—they ate, drank and loved, or to speak more correctly, digested—with such results as we now see."

I shuddered . . . but the large women were indubitably enjoying themselves.

There was more music—the guests applauded ever the more generously. The leader now condescended like a veritable artist—a bas le café!

I noticed that my little American beauty left the room (without her wraps) a bit unsteadily, and came back presently, very high in color. A drink was waiting for her, and she began talking with her young man as if he and she were alone in the world. I noticed also that the young man carried his liquor rather better and seemed to shrink a little under the eyes attracted by the girl's condition. In my ear I heard the sardonic whisper of Schopenhauer: "They call this love!" . . .