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Literary Review
Endpaper
The unlived life
By Pradeep Sebastian
GRAPHICS: NETRA SHYAM
THE book I return to again and again is Isak Dinessen's Babette's Feast. Dinessen wrote this long short story in English when she was 65 years old. Having read it probably nine times over the years, I am as broken up by it as I was the first time. Babette's Feast is a spiritual parable about the hidden rewards of the unlived life. And like all great spiritual parables, the story subtly alters as it alters you. The story concerns Martine and Filippa, two beautiful, gifted, devout sisters who belong to an austere Lutheran sect led by their pious father in a remote Danish village. These simple, saintly sisters are admired for their beauty and their talents: a soldier, passing by falls in love with Martine, only to discover that though she is in love herself, she will not come away with him but stay and serve God. A renowned opera singer from Paris, who happens to be passing by hears Fillipa sing like an angel in the local church and dreams of making her a diva but he too discovers that as much as she loves singing, she will sing only for God.
Years pass and the Dean (the leader of the sect and their father) dies. Soon, the congregation begin to become cantankerous, quarrelsome, bitter, unchristian. Except the sisters who remain faithful to their father's words. Many more years pass; they grow old and one stormy night a woman appears on their doorstep, asking for shelter and work. The letter of introduction she carries with her simply says, "Babette can cook". She begins cooking their frugal meals and the sisters show her how, not realising that Babette was once a great cook in Paris, a culinary genius. The sisters become troubled at how bitter the congregation is becoming and invite them all for a dinner in honour of their Pastor, hoping it will bring them together.
Pleasures of the table
Now it comes to pass that Babette wins 10,000 francs from an old lottery ticket she had. She insists that the dinner will be not only cooked by her but hosted by her as well — a real Parisian gourmet dinner. But the sect thinks that such pleasures are from the devil and vow to not be seduced by it: this they will do, not by not eating it but by pretending it is tasteless. The soldier, now a famous General, is visiting his old aunt and so he is invited too. As the splendid meal progresses with its many fine, vintage wines, it is the General alone who speaks rapturously of the meal, astonished that in this remote, obscure, austere place he can come across such a feast. He tries to get the others to talk about it but they reply something about how the weather is fine this year too. But the meal is having its effect and we see these quarrelsome lot turn kind and forgiving, Abruptly the General, unable to stand it any longer, stands up and says a toast: "We tremble because we imagine divine grace to be finite. 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 realize grace is infinite. We need only to await it in confidence and in gratitude. See! That which we have chosen is given us, and that which we have refused is, also and at the same time, granted us. For mercy and truth have had a lover, and righteousness and bliss have kissed one another!"
God's grace
It is the General's words that show us and the dinner guests that it is this feast that has brought them to this "unimaginable forgiveness" and this same sinful indulgence they are so worried about, "is a sign of God's magnificent love and grace". The dinner guests forgive one another and even embrace as they leave. The sisters smile, go into the kitchen to find out, to their disbelief, that Babette has spent every penny on the dinner. "Now you'll be poor for the rest of your life", says Martine. "An artist is never poor", replies Babette. The life they had renounced (love, art, the world) in their youth, had never really been taken away from them. "But this is not the end!" Filippa, the one with the angelic voice cries out. "I know, 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 delight the angels!" And so Babette's Feast turns out to be not only a parable about the unlived life but a story about how art transforms us — if only we open ourselves to its exaltations.
pradeepsebastian@hotmail.com
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