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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=459804" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Taking coffee 'with' Jean-Paul Sartre.</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was 1952. We had a limited travel currency.<br>In Paris, I went one morning to<br>the Dome Café. There<br>sat Jean-Paul Sartre, smoking<br>a large meerschaum pipe<br>such as Kierkegaard or Nietzsche might have smoked; <br>he had his morning coffee in front of him.<br>Simone had not yet joined him.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A circle of young admirers sat at a<br>discreet distance; most wore black<br>but the young women could not avoid<br>a certain Parisian chic in their sombreness, <br>their existential frown and turned-down lips<br>around bright eyes.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was the chance of what we call<br>a lifetime. Dare I speak to him? <br>Nothing ventured, nothing gained: <br>a human being must live his words, <br>act out his own chosen life in honesty<br>like Ché Guevara..</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I moved to his table. The circle of admirers<br>were all attention. I saw two of them<br>surreptitiously take out small notebooks.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Is this seat free, Monsieur? ’ He knew me for<br>a stranger in that theatre of the absurd<br>we call life, where all are strangers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">His arm was a signifier. His hand<br>indicated an empty seat (not the closest, <br>which awaited Simone) : his shoulder<br>gave the slightest Gallic shrug. We make<br>our own decisions, live by them.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">An awed waiter, affecting nonchalance, <br>brought my coffee. Should I speak to Sartre<br>of teenage mountaineering in Canada<br>and the discovery of philosophy? </div><div style="margin:10px 0">No. We would then be<br>to each other, The Other.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We sat there silent: two beings without meaning<br>whose meeting was prefigured, whom<br>only a Creator could have put there; <br>a Creator whom we must deny.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I spoke through the dry lips of one<br>who had not yet attained an authentic<br>aloneness: <br>‘This coffee is good, n’est-ce pas, Monsieur? ’<br>Two students took up their pencils.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Ca, c’est.. vy I com heere.’</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We sat, two human beings magnificent in the<br>heroism of their aloneness, enjoying, <br>if that’s the word, a shared appreciation of the coffee<br>carefully watched by the intellect..</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The coffee drunk, I stood up, with a<br>slight bow – ‘Monsieur..’<br>He glanced up, but not at me; <br>Simone had appeared.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I walked away, glorying in<br>the heroism of those who know they have no heroes, <br>writing the words of their life, <br>living by them. The students, awed, <br>watched my body language for clues<br>to existence, which might then reveal<br>essence. Or not. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Michael+Shepherd">Michael Shepherd</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=459804" data-title="Taking coffee 'with' Jean-Paul Sartre. de Michael Shepherd" data-description="It was 1952. We had a limited travel currency.
In Paris, I went one morning to
the Dome Café. There
sat Jean-Paul Sartre, smoking
a large meerschaum pipe
such as Kierkegaard or Nietzsche might have smoked; 
he had his morning coffee in front of h..."></div>
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