These words were said at dessert by a pale fair girl, who had read, no
doubt, the tales of Hoffmann and the novels of Walter Scott. She was
the only daughter of the banker, a charming young creature whose
education was then being finished at the Gymnase, the plays of which
she adored. At this moment the guests were in that happy state of
laziness and silence which follows a delicious dinner, especially if
we have presumed too far on our digestive powers. Leaning back in
their chairs, their wrists lightly resting on the edge of the table,
they were indolently playing with the gilded blades of their
dessert-knives. When a dinner comes to this declining moment some
guests will be seen to play with a pear seed; others roll crumbs of
bread between their fingers and thumbs; lovers trace indistinct
letters with fragments of fruit; misers count the stones on their
plate and arrange them as a manager marshals his supernumeraries at
the back of the stage. These are little gastronomic felicities which
Brillat-Savarin, otherwise so complete an author, overlooked in his
book. The footmen had disappeared. The dessert was like a squadron
after a battle: all the dishes were disabled, pillaged, damaged;
several were wandering around the table, in spite of the efforts of
the mistress of the house to keep them in their places. Some of the
persons present were gazing at pictures of Swiss scenery,
symmetrically hung upon the gray-toned walls of the dining-room. Not
a single guest was bored; in fact, I never yet knew a man who was sad
during his digestion of a good dinner. We like at such moments to
remain in quietude, a species of middle ground between the reverie of
a thinker and the comfort of the ruminating animals; a condition
which we may call the material melancholy of gastronomy.

So the guests now turned spontaneously to the excellent German,