Without moving
their heads they glanced out of the corners of their eyes,
watching the manoeuvres of the three starched maids who served.
They had no conception of food save as portions laid out in rows
on large silver dishes, and when a maid bent over them
deferentially, balancing the dish, they summed up the offering in
an instant, and in an instant decided how much they could decently
take, and to what extent they could practise the theoretic liberty
of choice. And if the food for any reason did not tempt them, or
if it egregiously failed to coincide with their aspirations, they
considered themselves aggrieved. For, according to the game, they
might not command; they had the right to seize all that was
presented under their noses, like genteel tigers; and they had the
right to refuse: that was all. The dinner was thus a series of
emotional crises for the diners, who knew only that full dishes
and clean plates came endlessly from the banging door behind the
screen, and that ravaged dishes and dirty plates vanished
endlessly through the same door. They were all eating similar food
simultaneously; they began together and they finished together.
The flies that haunted the paper-bunches which hung from the
chandeliers to the level of the flower-vases, were more free.
Pages:
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745