Peter Whiffle by Carl Van Vechten — Read

If the reader has been led to expect a chapter devoted to an account of Mary Garden in Aphrodite, he will be disappointed. I did not see Mary Garden that evening, nor for many evenings thereafter, and I do not remember, indeed, that Peter Whiffle ever referred to her again. We dined at a quiet little restaurant, Boilaive by name, near the Folies-Bergère. The interior, as bare of decoration as are most such interiors in Paris, where the food and wines are given more consideration than the mural paintings, was no larger than that of a small shop. My companion led me straight to a tiny winding staircase in one corner, which we ascended, and presently we found ourselves in a private room, with three tables in it, to be sure, but two of these remained unoccupied. We began our dinner with escargots à la bordelaise, which I was eating for the first time, but I have never been squeamish about novel food. A man with a broad taste in food is inclined to be tolerant in regard to everything. Also, when he begins to understand the cooking of a nation, he is on the way to an understanding of the nation itself. There were many other dishes, but I particularly remember a navarin because Peter spoke of it, pointing out that every country has one dish in which it is honourable to put whatever is left over in the larder. In China (or out of it, in Chinese restaurants), this dish is called chop suey; in Ireland, Irish stew; in Spain, olla or puchero; in France, ragoût or navarin; in Italy, minestra; and in America, hash. We lingered over such matters, getting acquainted, so to speak, passing through the polite stages of early conversation, slipping beyond the poses that one unconsciously assumes with a new friend.

I think I did most of the talking, although Whiffle told me that he had come from Ohio, that he was in Paris on a sort of mission, something to do with literature, I gathered. We ate and drank slowly and it must have been nearly ten when he paid the bill and we drove away, this time to Fouquet's, an open-air restaurant in the Champs-Elysées, where we sat on the broad terrasse and drank many bocks, so many, indeed, that by the time we had decided to settle our account, the saucers in front of us were piled almost to our chins. We should probably have remained there all night, had he not suggested that I go to his rooms with him. That night, my second in Paris, I would have gone anywhere with any one. But there was that in Peter Whiffle which had awakened both my interest and my curiosity for I, too, had the ambition to write, and it seemed to me possible that I was in the presence of a writing man, an author.