Babette, Kierkegaard

為甚麼歐洲傳統新教地區對食物比較不在意？很多人都認為那是因為他們太忙了，忙着工作，忙着賺錢，於是就沒有多少時間剩下來享受醇酒美食了。這種非常流行的講法自然太過籠統，受到不少挑戰。比如有些人就會反駁：「不是呀，就算從前，德奧北歐也都有些非常出色精緻的餐廳。怎能說他們不懂美食」？ 對於這類辯解，我見過最嘴賤的回應出自Jean-Robert Pitte，我之前介紹過的法國歷史學家。 他很贊同新教地區也有好館子好廚師，「但那是因為他們熱愛工作，很想努力打好餐飲這份工」。換句話說，他們始終不忘的還是工作，而非美食。老派新教徒之所以熱愛工作，就像社會學祖師爺韋伯所說的，那是因為他們有一種「新教倫理」，尤其是相信預選說的加爾文派。在他們的教義裏頭，得不得到救贖是早在一個人出生以前就決定好了的；一個被上帝預選了的人，他一輩子都會福德兼備，品格淳良自不在話下，就連工作事業也都會大有所成。於是一個人的後天成就如何，便能反過來在某程度上反映出他在死後的去向。相信這套教義的人，多半都會緊張工作，因為他們實在沒有別的辦法知道自己能不能登上天國的階梯，只好埋頭拼命幹活，期望自己在事業上有傑出表現，間接證明他得救的機率。 就算不是加爾文派的信徒，整體新教文化當中也還是充滿了一種道德上的緊張感，自律、守時、講秩序，不像普遍接受天主教的意大利人那樣放鬆。而且他們對着現實世界還有一種距離感，不願擁抱這個物質世界的美好，反而覺得地球好危險，充斥了各式各樣的誘惑。華衣美服，佳餚陳釀，俱是阻礙救贖的大敵。最好的例子莫過於荷蘭黃金年代的商人，個個挑通眼眉，精明幹練，累積了大量財富；卻又生怕炫富，於是人人一身黑衣，從頭黑到腳，以示樸素。相比之下，同時期的法國權貴卻恨不能把錢全花在衣服上頭，金玉滿身（如果說今天的人開部名車是把一座房子開到街上，當年的法國宮廷就是將房子穿在身上了）。天主教徒能在世上看到神聖的造化善巧，讚頌它的美好，享受它的饋贈。新教徒眼中的世界，則是不得不捱受的原罪，活在其中不能不步步為營，早走早着。當然，這全是大而化之的陳言，而且今天的新教徒也早都不是這樣了。 《芭比的盛宴》之所以獨特，就在於它一方面呈現出這種典型的新教畫像，讓戲中的法國廚娘芭比炮製一頓精美絕倫的晚餐，吃得一群視美食如惡鬼的丹麥新教徒先是心驚肉跳，後卻心啟情開，是最類型化的美食電影敍事。另一方面，它卻不醜化新教徒，不把他們描畫成不近人情的道德老古板。沒錯，他們不像電影裏的法國歌手那樣欣賞音樂的純粹之美，只懂得用歌聲頌讚上帝。他們也不能像芭比那樣，把做菜吃飯當成頭等要事，只將吃喝看成維持肉身生命的必要行為。但他們誠懇、善良，生活簡單。 芭比那一套源自昔日巴黎名店的菜單，並沒有腐化這群信仰堅定的老實人，反而使得他們的心靈柔軟，對彼此開放，成了更好的基督徒。而芭比自己，這個在法國廚壇有過輝煌時刻的名廚，卻捨棄了一切榮華，寧願終身留在這個荒涼漁村做家傭。因為她在這裏看到了良好生活最基本的要素。 《芭比的盛宴》是兩大基督信仰文化的調和，兩種基督信仰世界觀之間的中道，更是兩套看似矛盾的飲食觀念的協奏。極盡考究的盛宴固然震撼人心，能夠為感官開啟出更豐滿的層次。但粗茶淡飯，卻可以讓人長住安穩，恆久喜悅。 ======= 一生都奉獻給主耶穌的牧師與兩名女兒馬汀娜與菲莉甫在丹麥的海邊小村傳教。 牧師以嚴苛的律己生活教化村人，倒也相安無事，但對兩名美麗的女兒卻也無形中將之視為神的恩寵， 雖有村中年輕人向其女兒示愛但均遭牧師拒絕。 洛倫中尉向馬汀娜表達愛意、另一名音樂家艾奇巴賓發現菲利甫極有歌唱天分而欲栽培她。 但因教義的約束，及牧師以兩名女兒為上帝的左右手為由而拒絕，這些曇花一現的情愛很快就煙消雲散了。 　牧師過世後，法國發生動亂，一名巴黎女廚芭比在艾奇巴賓的推介下到丹麥投靠兩姐妹。 芭比只要求有個居處而不拿薪水，兩姐妹答應了。 在芭比的料理下，兩姐妹更專心在傳教方面的事務。 但延續著父親嚴厲的規律卻使得教會盛況不再，甚至村人們常因小事而憎恨起對方來。 十四年後村人及兩姐妹欲為牧師百年冥誕聚餐，本來只預備簡單的食物， 正巧芭比以前在巴黎買的彩券中了一萬法朗，芭比遂自願為村人作最正統的法式盛宴。 　兩姐妹與村人們見芭比陸續買回的食物如海龜、牛頭、鵪鶉、松露這些他們從未見過的物料， 心中不免起了惶恐，於是眾人相約不對餐宴食物表示意見，以表示心中不為美食而動念。 宴會開始時，久別的洛倫正好來到。洛倫已晉昇為將軍，他發覺每道菜很像當年他在巴黎吃過最好吃的餐宴， 而據他所知，能作出這樣美味的廚師是一位女廚。 　美味當前，眾人漸漸被舌頭感受的欲望所征服；慢嚼細嚥，加上頭等葡萄酒的催化，宴會的氣氛慢慢改變。 原本為了小事而自覺今生無法原諒他人的竟然與所恨的人開懷大笑起來， 瞬間教會的周遭變得祥和寬容，每個人覺得看到的都是天使……。 　餐後眾人走出會場，每個人幾乎都寬容地原諒了別人，抬頭看天上，星星有如近在咫尺探手可得呢！ 完成了一場盛宴後，芭比一個人孤單地坐在海邊，風吹著她的秀髮與衣褲，她沒有流淚也沒有埋怨， 也許只是對著海的另一邊遙想在動亂中失去性命的兒子和丈夫吧！ ==================== 「慈愛和誠實彼此相遇；公義和平安彼此相親。」 （Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.） ==================== Kierkegaard at Babette’s Feast:The Return to the Finite [1] Before heading for supper with the dwindling followers of the long deceased minister, the General wagers with his younger self, whose image sprawls before him on the bedroom chair: did I make the right choice years ago to leave this village and my hopeless love for the minister’s daughter to pursue a brilliant career that took me to the highest circles within the royal court? Was it the right choice? Tonight in her presence, I’ll know. The older self has grown weary of the trappings of power and the vanities of ambition. He is resigned to the fearful disclosure that indeed he had taken the wrong turn: how a life replete with victories could be swallowed by defeat. But supper never happens. Instead, the General and his elderly aunt sit down to such an exquisite banquet that he is overwhelmed. Impossible but true. In this desolate outpost of melancholy rustics, how he should taste such delicacies as are virtually unknown outside the most fashionable restaurant of Paris? The sheer dimensions of this incongruity defied all accounting. But who wins the wager? Which was the right path to follow? Standing for a toast in the midst of this unfathomable event, the General gives thanks to that great mercy which stretches further than all our efforts --whether commonplace or heroic. In the presence of God’s amazing mercy we discover that nothing has been lost. I have been with you every day, he tells Martine in parting, and I will sit down to dine with you every night for as long as I live. I have learned that all things are possible. Is this winning or losing? How can he know until he realizes just what his life has been really about? [2] Gabriel Axel’s beautiful film, Babette’s Feast, is based on a story by Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) which was first published in the Ladies Home Journal in May 1950. It is not surprising to find the film replete with themes from Kierkegaard, since the author drew inspiration from her native Denmark, and a story situated on the Jutland heath might well evoke that native philosopher who, when visiting his father’s home, wrote: The heaths of Jutland must of all places be suited to develop the spirit powerfully; here everything lies naked and uncovered before God, and there is no room for the many distractions, the many little crevices where consciousness can hide and where seriousness has such difficulty in running down one’s scattered thoughts. Here consciousness must firmly and scrupulously close itself around itself. And on the heaths one may say with truth: "Whither shall I flee from thy presence?". [3] The parallels between Kierkegaard’s life and Blixen’s story are striking. Like the General, Kierkegaard had spent a wayward youth, gambling and disappointing his father. Like the General, Kierkegaard traveled to the Jutland to stay with his aunt, and like the General returned to become engaged in the conventional manner of settling down. Only, unlike the General, Kierkegaard broke off the engagement and turned to writing in the peculiar religious and philosophical modes for which he is known. Most importantly, both the General and Kierkegaard discover that the great love which had seemed futile in youth was given back in the end. [4] The recovery of what is lost--epitomized for Kierkegaard in the story of Abraham and Isaac--is described as the "return to the finite." In Kierkegaard’s 3 stages of life, faith contrasts with the aesthetic and the ethical in a trust that God will restore what we have sacrificed. Somehow--reason never figures it out--our happiness will be complete. What we have given up--child, art, fame, wealth, career, marriage--will somehow be ours again. As the sisters thank Babette for her spectacular performance in the kitchen, Philippe murmurs the words which provided her own consolation: "How you will someday delight the angels." [5] The connections between Blixen’s story, Axel’s film, and Kierkegaard’s thought are complex. The film evokes Kierkegaardian themes while in the end suggesting a view of religion and art at odds with his. In the film, the faithful were tempted to miss the fullness of life and sink into fractious, petty quarrels unless interrupted by the artistry in their midst. Babette’s creation--one luscious sensation after the next--coaxed the hidebound Puritans into experiencing the reconciliation which burst forth from their hymns but not their hearts. At this Last Supper--where twelve gathered to remember their master, who they were, and what they were to be about--it was the artist who called forth the spirit of joy. What had worried them for so long--am I truly forgiven?-- was realized afresh as the bounty poured from the kitchen. The food was the visible sign of the abundance that they had dared not believe in: how could God ever forgive that sin? Who could ever really know me and still love me? Their faith was ruled by a scarcity akin to the rocky shore, the treeless land, the harsh winds, the muted colors, the stale bread, the unsalted fish-soup that filled their bowls. How could one scrabble for mere existence for so long and yet believe that there was more than enough of anything to go around? As long as Jerusalem was postponed to another world well after death, the conundrum of faith could be disguised. Of course, this abundance exists, but only in heaven where indeed our prayers are answered. What was scarcely to be tolerated was the possibility that this abundance was already in our midst. What the hymns and gentle words of the sisters could not accomplish was made manifest in Babette’s gift. [6] The return to the finite is part of the double movement of faith that Kierkegaard describes in Fear and Trembling. There he ponders the problem of identifying a true person of faith, since the signs are hidden in the heart. This knight of faith, he complains, may well resemble the Philistine who walks the earth with no worthier concern than his next meal. In a passage that might have inspired Blixen’s tale, Kierkegaard describes the man of faith: The moment I set eyes on him I instantly push him from me, I myself leap backwards, I clasp my hands and say half aloud, "Good Lord, is this the man?... Why, he looks like a tax-collector!" I draw closer to him...to see whether there might not be visible...a note of sadness, a smile, which betrayed the infinite.... No! I examine his figure from top to toe to see if there might not be a cranny through which the infinite was peeping. No. He is solid through and through.... He belongs entirely to the world, no Philistine more so. One can discover nothing of that aloof and superior nature... He takes delight in everything, and whenever one sees him taking part in a particular pleasure, he does it with the persistence which is the mark of the earthly man whose soul is absorbed in such things... Toward evening he walks home, his gait is as indefatigable as that of the postman. On his way he reflects that his wife has surely a special little warm dish prepared for him, e.g., a calf’s head roasted, garnished with vegetables. If he were to meet a man likeminded, he could continue as far as East Gate to discourse with him about that dish, with a passion befitting a hotel chef. As it happens, he hasn’t four pence to his name, and yet he fully and firmly believes that his wife has that dainty dish for him. If she had it, it would then be an invidious sight for superior people and an inspiring one for the plain man, to see him eat; for his appetite is greater than Esau’s. His wife hasn’t it--strangely enough, it is quite the same to him. [7] In Babette’s kitchen swarming with the fixings of a splendid French dinner, quail and sea turtle await their fate alongside the head of a calf. Only the devout sisters aren’t delighted by the rich fare; they are horrified by these signs of a witches’ sabbath and call a secret meeting of the faithful where all, trembling, vow to consume the food without tasting it: an ordeal of the spirit to be endured in silence. Perhaps some qualms in the face of exuberant pleasure are prudent. But it is their initial refusal to taste Babette’s gift, not the calf’s head, which reveals a wayward faith. [8] For all the talk about religion, observes Kierkegaard, few pay much attention to faith. The usual attitude finds faith full of rules and demands to live with absolute purity. This view of faith, Kierkegaard points out, has confused two forms of human greatness: faith and ethical life. The ethical hero commands the will with enough authority to win the battle between duty and happiness; when tested, he will rise to the height of great sacrifice to do what is right. The ethical hero can be picked out of a line-up; fortitude leaves lines and crevices missing from the elusive visage of faith. Faith follows a double movement while this action on behalf of the universal--whether the call of conscience, God, or the ethical community--completes only the first movement. This movement, made entirely by our own strength, is the leap to the infinite or the transcendent. [9] Like great moral deeds, artistic creation absorbs our entire energies. Preparing a great feast or singing an aria by Mozart removes us from the range of the ordinary and makes reentry, in the words of Walker Percy, an urgent human problem. Percy renames "reentry" what Kierkegaard calls the second movement, the return to the finite. After the great discharge of the all-consuming deed, how do we resume the ordinary tasks of life without scorn for the smallness at hand? In Lost in the Cosmos, Percy seems to assume that faith’s trek back to the finite is no longer much of an option. His account of the modern alternatives to faith is bleak indeed. [10] But what is not generally recognized is that the successful launch of self into the orbit of transcendence is necessarily attended by problems of reentry. What goes up must come down. The best film of the year ends at nine o’clock. What to do at ten? What did Faulkner do after writing the last sentence of Light in August? Get drunk for a week. What did Dostoevsky do after finishing The Idiot? Spend three days and nights at the roulette table. What does the reader do after finishing either book? How long does his exaltation last? [11] Ordinary life can’t help but disappoint the one who soars amidst the wonders of transcendence. No wonder, remarks Percy, that artists sink into neurosis, alcoholism, drug addiction, promiscuity, depression, and suicide to escape their estrangement from the everyday world. One who spends herself completely in ascending to the transcendent has no energy left to complete the leap back to earth. God isn’t much of an option for the autonomous self of modern culture, yet it was only faith, in Kierkegaard’s telling, that makes the return to the finite possible. In this passage, the "absurd" refers to the faith that exceeds the reckoning of human intelligence. The knight of faith succeeds where Percy’s artist fails in returning to the finite: He lives as carefree as a ne’er-do-well, and yet he buys up the acceptable time at the dearest price, for he does not do the least thing except by virtue of the absurd. And yet, and yet I could become furious over it--for envy, if for no other reason--because the man has made and every instant is making the movements of infinity. With infinite resignation he has drained the cup of life’s profound sadness, he knows the bliss of the infinite, he senses the pain of renouncing everything, the dearest things he possesses in the world, and yet finiteness tastes to him just as good as to one who never knew anything higher.... And yet, and yet the whole earthly form he exhibits is a new creation by virtue of the absurd. He resigned everything infinitely, and then he grasped everything again by virtue of the absurd. [12] In the sweet taste of the finite we find the power of God more so than in the infinite exertion that removes us far from the ordinary. We can muster the heroic apart from a relationship to God, but what is it about life as a creature that proves so difficult? In Percy’s cantankerous view, modern substitutes for faith by and large can handle the heroic but shatter under the weight of the creaturely. "It is difficult for gods to walk the earth without taking the form of beasts.... Two gods in the Cosmos is one too many." [13] By our own strength, we can make the all-consuming sacrifice--artistic, moral, religious--but it exceeds our own strength to live with joy in the aftermath of catastrophe, loss, or simply the emptiness that follows the creative storm. Coming back to our smallness after it seemed for a moment that we have left it behind is as unsettling as a gift without strings. Philosophers often write as if the problem of evil were the big obstacle to a relationship to God. Babette’s Feast suggests that evil can be accommodated without much bother; what confounds our ordinary bookkeeping is goodness or love. The villagers were not surprised by harshness, regrets, and crabbed routine. It was the gift freely given that disturbs them. Babette’s feast was as unsettling to the villagers as the religious doctrine of forgiveness. This ethical life operates within the economy of scarcity and sacrifice. A greater courage is required to trust that love runs deeper than the losses which are so palpable. At the end of his journey to the Jutland, Kierkegaard writes: "It requires moral courage to grieve; it requires religious courage to rejoice." If eventually such a gift is accepted, it might move stiff and pinched limbs to dance. [14] Babette’s Feast achieves what Kierkegaard treated as impossible: to make the hidden movements of faith visible. A film about goodness threatens to bore its audience; a film about holiness that manages to get it right would seem to be as impossible as roses blooming in December or sitting down to a banquet fit for kings in a Jutland cottage. The usual ways of analyzing character and plot don’t size up the elderly sisters who move with such grace through the quiet grays and browns of the village. A modern critic might insist: these daughters were controlled by a powerful father fixation. What a waste to have never experienced romantic love or the flowering of their talents! To try on a psychological analysis is to realize somewhat ruefully that it doesn’t quite fit. Freedom, sorrow, and also joy hang together in this delicate balance. This wisdom does not belong to the stoic who trims desires to match the situation and remains tranquil at all costs. Here desire, like fine sauce, bubbles loudly; we aren’t about to quench desire or diminish its searing effects in our lives. In Babette’s kitchen, we hesitantly sit down to feast holding close to the promise of Psalm 85 quoted throughout the film: "Mercy and truth shall meet. Righteousness and bliss shall kiss."