The author Somerset Maugham frequently wrote frankly autobiographical short stories. "The Luncheon" is one of them. He was conned into treating the woman to a luncheon at Foyot's in Paris because he was still quite young, was just getting started in his chosen career as a writer, and was concerned about good manners. He tells the reader why he couldn't refuse to take this pushy woman to Foyot's at her request.
Foyot’s is a restaurant at which the French senators eat and it was so far beyond my means that I had never even thought of going there. But I was flattered and was too young to have learned to say no to a woman.
Maugham also believed her when she said:
"I never eat anything for luncheon."
One of the things that always seems to be present in Maugham's encounters with other people is his impeccable good manners. Throughout "The Luncheon," as the woman continues to pile up charges by ordering a la carte items, the author shows his inhibitions and self-restraint. He not only could not refrain from taking her to luncheon at Foyot's, but he could not bring himself to confess that he was afraid he wouldn't be able to pay the check. He had only anticipated spending fifteen francs at the famous restaurant.
I had eighty francs (gold francs) to last me the rest of the month and a decent luncheon should not cost more than fifteen. If I stopped drinking coffee for the next two weeks I could manage well enough.
His discomfiture keeps building as she keeps protesting, "I never eat anything for luncheon," and then requests another expensive item, including salmon, white wine, asparagus, and a fresh peach. The reader cannot help identifying with the young Maugham because fancy restaurants are pretty much the same everywhere. Some of the most expensive restaurants often do not even show prices on their menus. Foyot's manu at least showed prices, so the author was able to keep a running total on his mounting horror. It is when the woman orders the asparagus, which he knows to be "horribly expensive," without consulting the menu, that
Panic seized me. It was not a question now how much money I should have left over for the rest of the month, but whether I had enough to pay the bill.
The whole story is built on irony. Maugham delighted in irony and had a keen, understated way of presenting it in his writings. He got tricked into spending all his money on this unattractive woman because of personal vanity, youthful inhibition, and uptight English good manners. His presentation of the woman is less vitriolic than it might have been because he includes his own faults in his memoir. The reader may be left wondering whether the author's guest understood that she was causing him to spend his entire bankroll on an expensive luncheon for her.
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