“No, that’s what you said.”
“Oh well, it’s all the same. If it had been up to me, I would have liked to fly you through the whole history of philosophy just as I flew Nils Holgersson through Sweden. We could have circled over Miletus and Athens, Jerusalem and Alexandria, Rome and Florence, London and Paris, Jena and Heidelberg, Berlin and Copenhagen . . .”
“Thanks, that’s enough.”
“But flying across the centuries would have been a hefty job even for a very ironic goose. Crossing the Swedish provinces is far easier.”
So saying, the goose ran a few steps and flapped itself into the air.
Sophie was exhausted, but when she crawled out of the den into the garden a little later she thought Alberto would have been well pleased with her diversionary maneuvers. The major could not have thought much about Alberto during the past hour. If he did, he had to have a severe case of split personality.
Sophie had just walked in the front door when her mother came home from work. That saved her having to describe her rescue from a tall tree by a tame goose.
After dinner they began to get everything ready for the garden party. They brought a four-meter-long table top and trestles from the attic and carried it into the garden.
They had planned to set out the long table under the fruit trees. The last time they had used the trestle table had been on Sophie’s parents’ tenth anniversary. Sophie was only eight years old at the time, but she clearly remembered the big outdoor party with all their friends and relatives.
The weather report was as good as it could be. There had not been as much as a drop of rain since that horrid thunderstorm the day before Sophie’s birthday. Nevertheless they decided to leave the actual table setting and decorating until Saturday morning.
Later that evening they baked two different kinds of bread. They were going to serve chicken and salad. And sodas. Sophie was worried that some of the boys in her class would bring beer. If there was one thing she was afraid of it was trouble.
As Sophie was going to bed, her mother asked her once again if Alberto was coming to the party.
“Of course he’s coming. He has even promised to do a philosophical trick.”
“A philosophical trick? What kind of trick is that?”
“No idea ... if he were a magician, he would have done a magic trick. He would probably have pulled a white rabbit out of a hat. . .”
“What, again?”
“But since he’s a philosopher, he’s going to do a philosophical trick instead. After all, it is a philosophical garden party. Are you planning to do something too?”
“Actually, I am.”
“A speech?”
“I’m not telling. Good night, Sophie!”
Early the next morning Sophie was woken up by her mother, who came in to say goodbye before she went to work. She gave Sophie a list of last-minute things to buy in town for the garden party.
The minute her mother had left the house, the telephone rang. It was Alberto. He had obviously found out exactly when Sophie was home alone.
“How is your secret coming along?”
“Ssh! Not a word. Don’t even give him the chance to think about it.”
“I think I held his attention yesterday “
“Good.”
“Is the philosophy course finished?”
“That’s why I’m calling. We’re already in our own century. From now on you should be able to orient yourself on your own. The foundations were the most important. But we must nevertheless meet for a short talk about our own time “
“But I have to go to town . . “
“That’s excellent. I said it was our own time we had to talk about.”
“Really?”
“So it would be most practical to meet in town, I mean.”
“Shall I come to your place?”
“No, no, not here Everything’s a mess. I’ve been hunting for hidden microphones.”
“Ah!”
“There’s a cafe that’s just opened at the Main Square. Cafe Pierre. Do you know it?”
“Yes. When shall I be there?”
“Can we meet at twelve?”
“Okay. Bye!”
At a couple of minutes past twelve Sophie walked into Cafe Pierre. It was one of those new fashionable places with little round tables and black chairs, upturned vermouth bottles in dispensers, baguettes, and sandwiches.
The room was small, and the first thing Sophie noticed was that Alberto was not there. A lot of other people were sitting at the round tables, but Sophie saw only that Alberto was not among them.
She was not in the habit of going into cafes on her own. Should she just turn around and leave, and come back later to see if he had arrived?
She ordered a cup of lemon tea at the marble bar and sat down at one of the vacant tables. She stared at the door. People came and went all the time, but there was still no Alberto.
If only she had a newspaper!
As time passed, she started to look around. She got a couple of glances in return. For a moment Sophie felt like a young woman. She was only fifteen, but she could certainly have passed for seventeen—or at least, sixteen and a half.
She wondered what all these people thought about being alive. They looked as though they had simply dropped in, as though they had just sat down here by chance. They were all talking away, gesticulating vehemently, but it didn’t look as though they were talking about anything that mattered.
She suddenly came to think of Kierkegaard, who had said that what characterized the crowd most was their idle chatter. Were all these people living at the aesthetic stage? Or was there something that was existentially important to them?
In one of his early letters to her Alberto had talked about the similarity between children and philosophers. She realized again that she was afraid of becoming an adult. Suppose she too ended up crawling deep down into the fur of the white rabbit that was pulled out of the universe’s top hat!
She kept her eyes on the door. Suddenly Alberto walked in. Although it was midsummer, he was wearing a black beret and a gray hip-length coat of herringbone tweed. He hurried over to her. It felt very strange to meet him in public.
“It’s quarter past twelve!”
“It’s what is known as the academic quarter of an hour. Would you like a snack?”
He sat down and looked into her eyes. Sophie shrugged.
“Sure. A sandwich, maybe.”
Alberto went up to the counter. He soon returned with a cup of coffee and two baguette sandwiches with cheese and ham.
“Was it expensive?”
“A bagatelle, Sophie.”
“Do you have any excuse at all for being late?”
“No. I did it on purpose. I’ll explain why presently.”
He took a few large bites of his sandwich. Then he said:
“Let’s talk about our own century.”
“Has anything of philosophical interest happened?”
“Lots ... movements are going off in all directions We’ll start with one very important direction, and that is existentialism. This is a collective term for several philosophical currents that take man’s existential situation as
