I don't feel I belong at Somerset House, W. says. He can see that. It's a class thing. He's working class too, W. says. But I'm more working class than him, there's truth in that. In these times, we should be cultivating an aristocratic detachment, he says. We should retire from the fray like Roman Stoics, holing up on their country estates while the empire crumbled …
Should we order another bottle?, I wonder. – 'Of course!' W. learnt it from Debord, from Bacon: the art of luxurious dining at the end of times. He's read of Debord towards the end of his life, in his luxurious apartment on the rue du Bac, spending whole days planning elaborate meals and choosing fine wines. He was a warrior at rest, he said of himself. He'd lain down his arms, he'd had enough.
This century does not like truth, generosity, grandeur, Debord wrote. And Bacon, who, giving up painting in 1935, gave himself over to champagne, promiscuity and gambling, to a furious frivolity, to the grand style of existence …
Ah, but what have we given up? What arms have we lain down? Let's order some sandwiches, too, I suggest, and W. agrees.
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