Part 5 (1/2)

”If you'd prefer, Your Excellency-a private dining room will be free in a moment; Prince Golitzin is with a lady. And we have fresh oysters.”

”Ah, oysters...”

Oblonsky began to reconsider.

”Should we change our plans, Levin?” he said, as he took the menu. His face expressed serious indecision. ”Are the oysters any good? Eh?”

”Flensburgs, Your Excellency. We don't have any Ostends.”

”Flensburgs or not, what I asked was, are they fresh?”

”They arrived yesterday, sir.”

”Well, then. What do you think? Should we start with the oysters, and then change our entire program?”

”It doesn't make any difference to me. I'd just as soon have cabbage soup and kasha, but I don't suppose they've got that here.”

”You'd like kasha a la russe kasha a la russe?” said the Tatar, bending over Levin like a nurse over a child.

”No, I'm only joking, whatever you decide is fine with me. I've just been skating, so I'm quite hungry. And don't imagine,” he added, as he noticed an expression of dissatisfaction on Oblonsky's face, ”that I don't appreciate your choices. I'm looking forward to a good meal.”

”I should hope so! No matter what you may think, eating is one of life's pleasures,” said Oblonsky. ”Very well then, my good man. Give us two-no, that's not enough-three dozen oysters, then the vegetable soup...”

”Printaniere,” the waiter added. But it was clear that Oblonsky did not intend to give him the pleasure of ordering in French.

”Vegetable, you know? Then the turbot with cream sauce, then...Roast beef, if it's any good. Then the capon, I suppose, then some fruit compote.”

The Tatar, aware of Oblonsky's habit of not calling the dishes by their French names, did not repeat what he had said, but allowed himself the luxury of repeating the entire order as it appeared on the menu: ”soupe printaniere, turbot sauce Beaumarchais, poularde a l'estragon, macedoine de fruits... printaniere, turbot sauce Beaumarchais, poularde a l'estragon, macedoine de fruits...”

And then immediately, like some kind of automaton, he set down one folded card and s.n.a.t.c.hed up another, the wine list, which he put down in front of Oblonsky.

104 ”What should we have to drink?”

”Whatever you like is fine with me, only not too much. Champagne,” said Levin.

”What? To start with? Well, that's not a bad idea, actually. Do you like White Label?”

”Cachet blanc,” said the waiter.

”Well, bring us that with the oysters, and then we'll see.”

”Of course, sir. And what would you like to follow it with?”

”Bring us a bottle of Nuits...No. A cla.s.sic Chablis would be better.”

”Of course, sir. And would you like your favorite cheese?”

”By all means. Parmesan. Or would you prefer something else?”

”No, that's fine with me,” said Levin, who could barely keep from smiling.

The Tatar waiter rushed off, his coat tails flying; in five minutes he returned with a plate covered with oysters in their pearly sh.e.l.ls, and a bottle.

Oblonsky opened his starched napkin and tucked it into his waistcoat, settled his arms comfortably, and began on the oysters.

”Not too bad,” he said, lifting the quivering oysters from their pearly sh.e.l.ls with a little silver fork, and swallowing them one after another. ”Not too bad,” he repeated, glancing with soft glittering eyes at Levin, then at the Tatar waiter.

Levin did eat his oysters, though he would have preferred bread and cheese.

But he enjoyed watching Oblonsky. Even the Tatar waiter, who had drawn the cork and poured the foaming wine into tall thin wine gla.s.ses, straightened his tie and glanced at Oblonsky with an obvious smile of pleasure.

”You really don't care for oysters?” asked Oblonsky, as he drained his gla.s.s. ”Or are you thinking of something else, hm?”

He wanted Levin to be happy. And it wasn't exactly that Levin wasn't happy, but he felt constrained. His feelings for Kitty made him ill at ease and uncomfortable in the restaurant, with its private rooms where men took ”ladies” to dine, in the midst of this fussiness and scurrying, these bronzes, these mirrors, this gaslight, these Tatar waiters....

There will always be, some evening when we are sitting in a wonderful restaurant, full of ourselves and antic.i.p.ating the delights of the menu, someone sitting with us who doesn't much care what he eats.

His reasons may vary, but all the same there he is-someone who rejects the excitement we expect of the evening and the sensual pleasure, the artistic pleasure even, we have been contemplating. Composing a menu can be a serious and perplexing affair, but not in the presence of people who 105 find nothing serious or perplexing about it.

Not that they have anything against the excitement we may be feeling-Levin here is experiencing pretty much the same emotion as Oblonsky, but his is inspired by Kitty, not by food. The casual waiter, I imagine, would be unable to distinguish between the ”contained radiance” that fills Oblonsky when he enters the restaurant, and the ”smile of triumph and happiness” that s.h.i.+nes in Levin's eyes. Both men glowed with excitement, and what would any waiter think but that they had come to celebrate something in common? And yet Levin is ecstatic because he is in love and contemplating marriage to Kitty, and Oblonsky is ecstatic because for a few hours he is free from his depressing marriage to Kitty's sister Dolly.

The perfection we imagine and hope we will find in a restaurant cannot be gotten at casually. It is, first of all, as much a matter of security as anything else. That first stroll-Oblonsky, hat c.o.c.ked to one side, talking, smiling to friends, stopping for a gla.s.s of vodka and a bite of zakuski zakuski from the hors d'oeuvres buffet-that's the apotheosis of the restaurant diner. That's what he lives for. Who doesn't want to be addressed by name in a restaurant, shown to one's regular table by a respectful waiter, offered a prince's private dining room, and then sit down to the contemplation of oysters and champagne? To feel completely at home there is the first aim of anyone who likes to eat in restaurants. That is the reason for Oblonsky's familiarity with the place and the waiters who attach themselves to him, as he bows to acquaintances who greet him joyfully, as he jokes with the Frenchwoman. And that familiarity spreads: Oblonsky's guest is treated respectfully because of Oblonsky, even if that respect is a bit patronizing. The waiter treats Levin like a child, someone who is not quite up to the elaborate game that the waiter and Oblonsky are about to play. from the hors d'oeuvres buffet-that's the apotheosis of the restaurant diner. That's what he lives for. Who doesn't want to be addressed by name in a restaurant, shown to one's regular table by a respectful waiter, offered a prince's private dining room, and then sit down to the contemplation of oysters and champagne? To feel completely at home there is the first aim of anyone who likes to eat in restaurants. That is the reason for Oblonsky's familiarity with the place and the waiters who attach themselves to him, as he bows to acquaintances who greet him joyfully, as he jokes with the Frenchwoman. And that familiarity spreads: Oblonsky's guest is treated respectfully because of Oblonsky, even if that respect is a bit patronizing. The waiter treats Levin like a child, someone who is not quite up to the elaborate game that the waiter and Oblonsky are about to play.

For it is a game, and everyone in it has his role, even Levin. Tolstoy brings together the cla.s.sic components of eating in restaurants: a French menu and a waiter whose airs and graces derive from it; a visitor from the country to be impressed with the splendor of the event, but who turns out to like just plain food, nothing fancy thanks; and the restaurant diner, the city mouse, who mediates between all these elements and gets out of them what he wants most-a few lavish hours with one of the great sensual pleasures in life. What greater dissatisfaction could there be in a moment like that than someone across the table who would just as soon have a hamburger and french fries, or cabbage soup and kasha?

Nothing wrong with kasha, or with cabbage soup either- shchi shchi, the 106 106 Russians call it-it's just that Tolstoy introduces them into this pa.s.sage quite deliberately to offset the French menu. They do that quite force-fully in the Russian, since they echo the well-known peasant proverb ”Cabbage soup and kasha is the food we we eat”: eat”: Shchi da kasha, pishche Shchi da kasha, pishche nashe nashe. Around the rock of that rhyme, the French phrases of the menu ripple very frivolously indeed. But Oblonsky handles the moment wonderfully, and partly for Levin's sake translates the menu back into plain Russian. This throws the burden of the moment onto the waiter, who is deprived of his private poetry, the carefully learned exoticism of the menu, and who has to wait for his his pleasure until Oblonsky has finished ordering, when he translated the entire order back into French, like the litany of some private ritual. It is a ritual, of course, part of the game, and they all get their turn to play. Levin registers his down-home rejection of big-city frivolity; the waiter gets to show off his only show-offable talent, and Oblonsky, the perfect host, mediates between the two and still gets his oysters in five minutes. pleasure until Oblonsky has finished ordering, when he translated the entire order back into French, like the litany of some private ritual. It is a ritual, of course, part of the game, and they all get their turn to play. Levin registers his down-home rejection of big-city frivolity; the waiter gets to show off his only show-offable talent, and Oblonsky, the perfect host, mediates between the two and still gets his oysters in five minutes.

For the oysters, after all, are the heart of the matter, and the matter is a complicated metaphor. Anna Karenina Anna Karenina is a novel about adultery, and one that condemns it in no uncertain terms. It is a novel about the relations.h.i.+ps between men and women, and the constantly problematic place of marriage and the family in those relations.h.i.+ps. Behind these two men dining in a restaurant stand three women, and their shadows fall across those plates of oysters. is a novel about adultery, and one that condemns it in no uncertain terms. It is a novel about the relations.h.i.+ps between men and women, and the constantly problematic place of marriage and the family in those relations.h.i.+ps. Behind these two men dining in a restaurant stand three women, and their shadows fall across those plates of oysters.

Is opening an oyster a rape? We want so much to unclamp the bivalve, to spread those hard muscles and get at the softness within. Yet Tolstoy found, as every man who loves women has found, that the situation is pretty problematic: Exterior hardness does not always hide softness within. Nor does exterior softness, for that matter. Who can believe, on pa.s.sionate occasions, that softness can be so unyielding-or, alas, hardness sometimes so soft? Tolstoy was obsessed with the problem all his life. He was constantly jumping peasant girls on his own estate and hating himself for it afterward. Then at some point he transferred his hatred to women, and transferred the jumping-sin to them too, as if it were their fault and they were the ones who led him on. It was an endless Moral Drama, and Tolstoy played all the parts at once. First he was the simple, innocent country boy, lured into sin by the women who crossed his path. Then he was the rabid sinful rapist, pale with l.u.s.t, but paler afterward, shaken and empty and full of remorse. And finally he played the great part: he played G.o.d Almighty to his own transgres-sions, the vengeful deity who would punish him for his jumping, and punish 107 women for having attractive hidden softnesses, and punish the whole world for containing them all. Tolstoy was the stern patriarch, hard and rough and bearded, Old Oyster himself, the G.o.d who saw all and knew all, the Omniscient Narrator who would open everything to the light of day, whose all-seeing vision would pry apart the soul with the oyster knife of judgment.

The one role, alas, that Tolstoy could never play was the part of the peasant girl he jumped. Nor, for all his talent, could he ever really understand the women he described, though it was a trick the oyster might have taught him. Did he ever know that the oyster switches its s.e.x?

At the overlapping point of all these images and metaphors of Tolstoy's imagination lies the innocent mollusk, the poor oyster, condemned on all points. Sin is hidden, then revealed? So is the oyster dredged up and pried apart. Flensburgs, Ostends-the oyster is foreign? Therefore offensive, like the perfumed and powdered Frenchwoman at the cas.h.i.+er's desk. The oyster is secretive, dark and hidden? Then it is sinful and must be exposed! The oyster is dumb? It cannot speak honest peasant language any more than the Frenchwoman can! The oyster says nothing? But ah, G.o.d, it smells of the sea, of all the iodine and ooze and slime and wetness of the great primeval Mother! Tolstoy's oysters are smelly, smirking signs of immorality; the glitter in Oblonsky's eyes, the gleam of silver forks and pearly sh.e.l.ls, is the glitter of sin. The opened oyster is the mark of the adulterous affair, and it lies there looking at Tolstoy (who of course pictures himself as the innocent Levin), winking lewdly at him from its bed of ice.

And what are the moral choices? Opposed to Oblonsky's oysters are Levin's cabbage soup and kasha, honest brown mushes both of them, made of vegetables that go from open field to open pot to open bowl-a single wooden bowl set in the middle of a rough table. About that table the Russian peasant family gathered, and each member in turn dipped into the bowl with his homemade wooden spoon, just as they dipped with homemade wooden plows into the brown earth that provided the stuff in the bowls. That bowl is the foundation of the home, the center of the family circle that is so elaborately broken in this novel of adultery.

Seen from the family table and the edge of the kasha pot, this scene in the restaurant is perverse. Two men sit by themselves alone at a table, beneath imported bronzes and velvets, in a nest of starched napery.

Everything is light and brilliance and glittering surfaces. They tear away with silver forks at oysters, images of iniquity, complex metaphors of the 108 whole cycle of transgression and guilt and punishment, of the temptation and fall of men and women. The two men who eat them are an adulterer and a young man about to marry, and each must surely taste them differently, though they eat them face-to-face. Is Levin's lack of interest in oysters simply a sign of his own virginity? Oblonsky's pleasure in the oysters, his glittering eyes, are signs of experience: they speak of voluptuousness, of sensuality-turned here to oysters, perhaps, for lack of anything better at home.

Because there's nothing at home but the kasha pot. Behind these two men seated at their oysters stand the two women at the back of their minds: two sisters, innocent Kitty and wronged Dolly. And behind them further still, in the darkness of Tolstoy's imagination, ready to burst upon the scene, stands the great adulteress herself, Anna the Oyster-Woman.

109 FRANCINE PROSE.

c.o.c.ktail Hour at the Snake Blood Bar: On the Persistence of Taboo Not long ago, at a dinner party, the conversation turned to the subject of why we generally don't eat household pets or our near-neighbors on the food chain. It was a warm summer evening; we were eating vitello vitello tonnato tonnato and a tomato-arugula salad. and a tomato-arugula salad.

Almost everyone had heard the story of the formal, diplomatic dinner at which the raw, pulsing brain of a monkey was served from the still-warm monkey skull. And everyone knew of some Chinese restaurant, somewhere, suspected of serving cat meat.

A friend said that there are Cambodian restaurants in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., at which you can order dog meat.