by Isak Dinesen
‘Man, my friends,’ said General Loewenhielm, ‘is frail and foolish. We have all of us been told that grace is to be found in the universe. But in our human foolishness and short-sightedness we imagine divine grace to be finite. For this reason we tremble…’ Never till now had the General stated that he trembled; he was genuinely surprised and even shocked at hearing his own voice proclaim the fact. ‘We tremble before making our choice in life, and after having made it again tremble in fear of having chosen wrong. But the moment comes when our eyes are opened, and we see and realize that grace is infinite. Grace, my friends, demands nothing from us but that we shall await it with confidence and acknowledge it in gratitude. Grace, brothers, makes no conditions and singles out none of us in particular; grace takes us all to its bosom and proclaims general amnesty. See! that which we have chosen is given us, and that which we have refused is, also and at the same time, granted us. Ay, that which we have rejected is poured upon us abundantly. For mercy and truth have met together, and righteousness and bliss have kissed one another!’
The Brothers and Sisters had not altogether understood the General’s speech, but his collected and inspired face and the sound of well-known and cherished words had seized and moved all hearts. In this way, after thirty-one years, General Loewenhielm succeeded in dominating the conversation at the Dean’s dinner table.
Of what happened later in the evening nothing definite can here be stated. None of the guests later on had any clear remembrance of it. They only knew that the rooms had been filled with a heavenly light, as if a number of small halos had blended into one glorious radiance. Taciturn old people received the gift of tongues; ears that for years had been almost deaf were opened to it. Time itself had merged into eternity. Long after midnight the windows of the house shone like gold, and golden song flowed out into the winter air.
The two old women who had once slandered each other now in their hearts went back a long way, past the evil period in which they had been stuck, to those days of their early girlhood when together they had been preparing for confirmation and hand in hand had filled the roads round Berlevaag with singing. A Brother in the congregation gave another a knock in the ribs, like a rough caress between boys, and cried out: ‘You cheated me on that timber, you old scoundrel!’ The Brother thus addressed almost collapsed in a heavenly burst of laughter, but tears ran from his eyes. ‘Yes, I did so, beloved Brother,’ he answered. ‘I did so.’ Skipper Halvorsen and Madam Oppegaarden suddenly found themselves close together in a corner and gave one another that long, long kiss, for which the secret uncertain love affair of their youth had never left them time.
The old Dean’s flock were humble people. When later in life they thought of this evening it never occurred to any of them that they might have been exalted by their own merit. They realized that the infinite grace of which General Loewenhielm had spoken had been allotted to them, and they did not even wonder at the fact, for it had been but the fulfillment of an ever-present hope. The vain illusions of this earth had dissolved before their eyes like smoke, and they had seen the universe as it really is. They had been given one hour of the millennium.
Old Mrs Loewenhielm was the first to leave. Her nephew accompanied her, and their hostesses lighted them out. While Philippa was helping the old lady into her many wraps, the General seized Martine’s hand and held it for a long time without a word. At last he said:
‘I have been with you every day of my life. You know, do you not, that it has been so?’
‘Yes,’ said Martine, ‘I know that it has been so.’
‘And,’ he continued, ‘I shall be with you every day that is left to me. Every evening I shall sit down, if not in the flesh, which means nothing, in spirit, which is all, to dine with you, just like tonight. For tonight I have learned, dear sister, that in this world anything is possible.’
‘Yes, it is so, dear brother,’ said Martine. ‘In this world anything is possible.’
Upon this they parted.
When at last the company broke up it had ceased to snow. The town and the mountains lay in white, unearthly splendor and the sky was bright with thousands of stars. In the street the snow was lying so deep that it had become difficult to walk. The guests from the yellow house wavered on their feet, staggered, sat down abruptly or fell forward on their knees and hands and were covered with snow, as if they had indeed had their sins washed white as wool, and in this regained innocent attire were gamboling like little lambs. It was, to each of them, blissful to have become as a small child; it was also a blessed joke to watch old Brothers and Sisters, who had been taking themselves so seriously, in this kind of celestial second childhood. They stumbled and got up, walked on or stood still, bodily as well as spiritually hand in hand, at moments performing the great chain of a beatified lanciers.
‘Bless you, bless you, bless you,’ like an echo of the harmony of the spheres rang on all sides.
Martine and Philippa stood for a long time on the stone steps outside the house. They did not feel the cold. ‘The stars have come nearer,’ said Philippa.
‘They will come every night,’ said Martine quietly. ‘Quite possibly it will never snow again.’
In this, however, she was mistaken. An hour later it again began to snow, and such a heavy snowfall had never been known in Berlevaag. The next morning people could hardly push open their doors against the tall snowdrifts. The windows of the houses were so thickly covered with snow, it was told for years afterwards, that many good citizens of the town did not realize that daybreak had come, but slept on till late in the afternoon.
XII The Great Artist
When Martine and Philippa locked the door they remembered Babette. A little wave of tenderness and pity swept through them: Babette alone had had no share in the bliss of the evening.
So they went out into the kitchen, and Martine said to Babette: ‘It was quite a nice dinner, Babette.’
Their hearts suddenly filled with gratitude. They realized that none of their guests had said a single word about the food. Indeed, try as they might, they could not themselves remember any of the dishes which had been served. Martine bethought herself of the turtle. It had not appeared at all, and now seemed very vague and far away; it was quite possible that it had been nothing but a nightmare.
Babette sat on the chopping block, surrounded by more black and greasy pots and pans than her mistresses had ever seen in their life. She was as white and as deadly exhausted as on the night when she first appeared and had fainted on their doorstep.
After a long time she looked straight at them and said: ‘I was once cook at the Café Anglais.’
Martine said again: ‘They all thought that it was a nice dinner.’ And when Babette did not answer a word she added: ‘We will all remember this evening when you have gone back to Paris, Babette.’
Babette said: ‘I am not going back to Paris.’
‘You are not going back to Paris?’ Martine exclaimed.
‘No,’ said Babette. ‘What will I do in Paris? They have all gone. I have lost them all, Mesdames.’
The sisters’ thoughts went to Monsieur Hersant and his son, and they said: ‘Oh, my poor Babette.’
‘Yes, they have all gone,’ said Babette. ‘The Duke of Morny, the Duke of Decazes, Prince Narishkine, General Galliffet, Aurélian Scholl, Paul Daru, the Princesse Pauline! All!’
The strange names and titles of people lost to Babette faintly confused the two ladies, but there was such an infinite perspective of tragedy in her announcement that in their responsive state of mind they felt her losses as their own, and their eyes filled with tears.
At the end of another long silence Babette suddenly smiled slightly at them and said: ‘And how would I go back to Paris, Mesdames? I have no money.’
‘No money?’ the sisters cried as with one mouth.
‘No,’ said Babette.
‘But the ten thousand francs?’ the sisters asked in a horrified gasp.
‘The ten thousand francs have
been spent, Mesdames,’ said Babette.
The sisters sat down. For a full minute they could not speak.
‘But ten thousand francs?’ Martine slowly whispered.
‘What will you, Mesdames,’ said Babette with great dignity. ‘A dinner for twelve at the Café Anglais would cost ten thousand francs.’
The ladies still did not find a word to say. The piece of news was incomprehensible to them, but then many things tonight in one way or another had been beyond comprehension.
Martine remembered a tale told by a friend of her father’s who had been a missionary in Africa. He had saved the life of an old chief’s favorite wife, and to show his gratitude the chief had treated him to a rich meal. Only long afterwards the missionary learned from his own black servant that what he had partaken of was a small fat grandchild of the chief’s, cooked in honor of the great Christian medicine man. She shuddered.
But Philippa’s heart was melting in her bosom. It seemed that an unforgettable evening was to be finished off with an unforgettable proof of human loyalty and self-sacrifice.
‘Dear Babette,’ she said softly, ‘you ought not to have given away all you had for our sake.’
Babette gave her mistress a deep glance, a strange glance. Was there not pity, even scorn, at the bottom of it?
‘For your sake?’ she replied. ‘No. For my own.’
She rose from the chopping block and stood up before the two sisters.
‘I am a great artist!’ she said.
She waited a moment and then repeated: ‘I am a great artist, Mesdames.’
Again for a long time there was deep silence in the kitchen.
Then Martine said: ‘So you will be poor now all your life, Babette?’
‘Poor?’ said Babette. She smiled as if to herself. ‘No, I shall never be poor. I told you that I am a great artist. A great artist, Mesdames, is never poor. We have something, Mesdames, of which other people know nothing.’
While the elder sister found nothing more to say, in Philippa’s heart deep, forgotten chords vibrated. For she had heard, before now, long ago, of the Café Anglais. She had heard, before now, long ago, the names on Babette’s tragic list. She rose and took a step toward her servant.
‘But all those people whom you have mentioned,’ she said, ‘those princes and great people of Paris whom you named, Babette? You yourself fought against them. You were a Communard! The General you named had your husband and son shot! How can you grieve over them?’
Babette’s dark eyes met Philippa’s.
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I was a Communard. Thanks be to God, I was a Communard! And those people whom I named, Mesdames, were evil and cruel. They let the people of Paris starve; they oppressed and wronged the poor. Thanks be to God, I stood upon a barricade; I loaded the gun for my menfolk! But all the same, Mesdames, I shall not go back to Paris, now that those people of whom I have spoken are no longer there.’
She stood immovable, lost in thought.
‘You see, Mesdames,’ she said, at last, ‘those people belonged to me, they were mine. They had been brought up and trained, with greater expense than you, my little ladies, could ever imagine or believe, to understand what a great artist I am. I could make them happy. When I did my very best I could make them perfectly happy.’
She paused for a moment.
‘It was like that with Monsieur Papin too,’ she said.
‘With Monsieur Papin?’ Philippa asked.
‘Yes, with your Monsieur Papin, my poor lady,’ said Babette. ‘He told me so himself: “It is terrible and unbearable to an artist,” he said, “to be encouraged to do, to be applauded for doing, his second best.” He said: “Through all the world there goes one long cry from the heart of the artist: Give me leave to do my utmost!” ’
Philippa went up to Babette and put her arms round her. She felt the cook’s body like a marble monument against her own, but she herself shook and trembled from head to foot.
For a while she could not speak. Then she whispered:
‘Yet this is not the end! I feel, Babette, that this is not the end. In Paradise you will be the great artist that God meant you to be! Ah!’ she added, the tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘Ah, how you will enchant the angels!’
Mini Modern Classics
RYŪNOSUKE AKUTAGAWA Hell Screen
KINGSLEY AMIS Dear Illusion
DONALD BARTHELME Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby
SAMUEL BECKETT The Expelled
SAUL BELLOW Him With His Foot in His Mouth
JORGE LUIS BORGES The Widow Ching – Pirate
PAUL BOWLES The Delicate Prey
ITALO CALVINO The Queen’s Necklace
ALBERT CAMUS The Adulterous Woman
TRUMAN CAPOTE Children on Their Birthdays
ANGELA CARTER Bluebeard
RAYMOND CHANDLER Killer in the Rain
EILEEN CHANG Red Rose, White Rose
G. K. CHESTERTON The Strange Crime of John Boulnois
JOSEPH CONRAD Youth
ROBERT COOVER Romance of the Thin Man and the Fat Lady
ISAK DINESEN [KAREN BLIXEN] Babette’s Feast
MARGARET DRABBLE The Gifts of War
HANS FALLADA Short Treatise on the Joys of Morphinism
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD Babylon Revisited
IAN FLEMING The Living Daylights
E. M. FORSTER The Machine Stops
SHIRLEY JACKSON The Tooth
HENRY JAMES The Beast in the Jungle
M. R. JAMES Canon Alberic’s Scrap-Book
JAMES JOYCE Two Gallants
FRANZ KAFKA In the Penal Colony
RUDYARD KIPLING ‘They’
D. H. LAWRENCE Odour of Chrysanthemums
PRIMO LEVI The Magic Paint
H. P. LOVECRAFT The Colour Out of Space
MALCOLM LOWRY Lunar Caustic
KATHERINE MANSFIELD Bliss
CARSON MCCULLERS Wunderkind
ROBERT MUSIL Flypaper
VLADIMIR NABOKOV Terra Incognita
R. K. NARAYAN A Breath of Lucifer
FRANK O’CONNOR The Cornet-Player Who Betrayed Ireland
DOROTHY PARKER The Sexes
LUDMILLA PETRUSHEVSKAYA Through the Wall
JEAN RHYS La Grosse Fifi
SAKI Filboid Studge, the Story of a Mouse That Helped
ISAAC BASHEVIS SINGER The Last Demon
WILLIAM TREVOR The Mark-2 Wife
JOHN UPDIKE Rich in Russia
H. G. WELLS The Door in the Wall
EUDORA WELTY Moon Lake
P. G. WODEHOUSE The Crime Wave at Blandings
VIRGINIA WOOLF The Lady in the Looking-Glass
STEFAN ZWEIG Chess
a little history
Penguin Modern Classics were launched in 1961, and have been shaping the reading habits of generations ever since.
The list began with distinctive grey spines and evocative pictorial covers – a look that, after various incarnations, continues to influence their current design – and with books that are still considered landmark classics today.
Penguin Modern Classics have caused scandal and political change, inspired great films and broken down barriers, whether social, sexual or the boundaries of language itself. They remain the most provocative, groundbreaking, exciting and revolutionary works of the last 100 years (or so).
On the fiftieth anniversary of the Modern Classics, we’re publishing fifty Mini Modern Classics: the very best short fiction by writers ranging from Beckett to Conrad, Nabokov to Saki, Updike to Wodehouse. Though they don’t take long to read, they’ll stay with you long after you turn the final page.
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