and I was carried away by
the comic grotesqueness of the scene, and soon regained my freedom and
buoyancy of spirit.

Just about this time social activities began, taking the form of a
series of weekly feasts, many of which resembled that of Belshazzar,
in so far as a spirit hand was at the very time writing the bankruptcy
of the host upon the wall. However, my knowledge of the details of
these feasts was derived only from hearsay. But any special banquets,
whether great or small, that fell to the lot of our own house I saw
with my own eyes and it is about these that I now propose to tell.

When it came our turn to entertain, the whole house was pervaded with
a feeling of solemnity, which had a certain similarity to the feeling
at the time of a wedding. Furthermore, a parallel to the tripartite
division into wedding-eve celebration, wedding day, and the day after,
appeared in the form of preparation day, real feast-day, and eating of
the remnants. Which of these three days deserved the prize may remain
an open question, but I am inclined to believe I liked the first the
best. To be sure, it was unepicurean and called for much
self-restraint, but it was rich in anticipation of glorious things to
come.

On this day of preparation the widow Gaster, a celebrated cook, came
to our house, as she did to all other houses on similar occasions. Her
personal appearance united complacence with dignity, and by virtue of
this latter quality she was received with respect and unlimited
confidence. Because of a dislike, easily understood, for all the
things she had to prepare day in and day out, especially sweets, she
lived-almost exclusively on red wine, deriving the little other
sustenance she needed from the vapors of hot grease, with which she
was continually surrounded. Her arrival at our house was always a
signal for me to plant myself near the kitchen, where everything that
took place could be observed and, incidentally, admired. It was always
her first task to bake a tree-cake on a spit. She kept a record of all
the tree-cakes she baked, and when the number reached a thousand the
housewives of Swinemuende gave her a well-deserved feast in celebration
of the achievement. To be sure, tree-cakes are to be had even today,
but they are degenerations, weak, spongy, and pale-cheeked, whereas in
those days they had a happy firmness, which in the most successful
specimens rose to crispness, accompanied by a scale of colors running
f