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"But what has happened to you?"-"I don't know," he said, hesitating; "perhaps the harpies have flown over my table."3 Occasionally nowadays it happens that a mild, moderate, reserved man suddenly becomes violent, smashes plates, throws over the table, screams, stomps around, slanders the entire world - and finally goes to the side ashamed, furious with himself. - Where? What for? To starve off on his own? To suffocate on his memory? Anyone who has the desires of a lofty discriminating soul and only rarely finds his table set and his nourishment ready will be in great danger at all times: but today the danger is extraordinary. Thrown into a noisy and uncouth age, with which he does not want to eat out of the same dish, he can easily perish from hunger and thirst, or, if he finally nonetheless "catches on," - from sudden disgust.- All of us have probably already sat at tables where we did not belong; and it's precisely the most spiritual ones among us who are the most difficult to feed, who know that dangerous dyspepsia which comes from a sudden insight and disappointment about our food and those sitting next to us at the table - the after-dinner disgust.
