The Seventh Function of Language

If Japanese cuisine is always prepared in front of the person who will eat it (a distinguishing mark of this cuisine), it is perhaps because it is important to consecrate the death of what we honor by this spectacle …

It’s as if they’re afraid to make a sound, like the audience at a theater.

“But it’s not true either. As I think you know better than I do, isn’t that so?”

No Japanese dish possesses a center (an alimentary center, implied for us by the rite that consists in ordering the meal, in surrounding or coating the dish); everything ornaments everything else: primarily because on the table, on the plate, the food is always a collection of fragments …

“The real power is language.”

Mitterrand smiles. His voice has taken on a fawning tone Barthes didn’t suspect it of possessing, and he realizes that the politician is talking directly to him. Farewell, Tokyo. The moment he feared (but which he knew was inevitable) has arrived: when he must give the reply and do what is expected of him; play the semiologist, or at least the intellectual vaguely specialized in language. Hoping his terseness will be taken for profundity, he says: “Especially under a democratic regime.”

Still smiling, Mitterrand says, “Really?” It is hard to tell whether this is a request for elaboration, a polite agreement, or a discreet objection. The whipping boy, who is clearly responsible for this meeting, decides to intervene, out of fear, perhaps, that the conversation may die a premature death: “As Goebbels said, ‘When I hear the word culture, I reach for my revolver’…” Barthes does not have time to explain the significance of this quotation in its context before Mitterrand dryly corrects his underling: “No, that was Baldur von Schirach.” Embarrassed silence around the table. “You must excuse Monsieur Lang, who, although he was born before the war, is too young to remember it. Isn’t that right, ‘Jacques’?” Mitterrand narrows his eyes like a Japanese man. He pronounces “Jack” the French way. Why, at this instant, does Barthes have the impression that something is afoot between him and this little man with the piercing gaze? As if this lunch had been organized purely for him; as if the other guests were there only to allay suspicion, as if they were decoys or, worse, accomplices. And yet, this is not the first cultural lunch organized for Mitterrand: he has one every month. Surely, thinks Barthes, he didn’t have all the others just to provide an alibi.

Outside, what sounds like a horse-drawn carriage is heard passing along Rue des Blancs-Manteaux.

Barthes analyzes himself quickly: given the circumstances and the document folded in the inside pocket of his jacket, it’s only logical that he should be prone to surges of paranoia. He decides to speak again, partly to dilute the embarrassment of the young man with the curly brown hair, who’s still smiling, if somewhat contritely: “The great eras of rhetoric always correspond with republics: Athens, Rome, France … Socrates, Cicero, Robespierre … Different kinds of eloquence, admittedly, linked to different eras, but all unfolded like a tapestry over the canvas of democracy.” Mitterrand, who looks interested, objects: “Since our friend ‘Jacques’ decided to bring the war into our conversation, I ought to remind you that Hitler was a great orator.” And, he adds, without giving his listeners any sign of irony they might cling to: “De Gaulle, too. In his way.”

Resigned to playing along, Barthes asks: “And Giscard?”