[56] The passage is almost hopelessly corrupt. The meaning of this sentence seems to be that luxury gets some respite from the fatigues of the table by watching the mullet’s death-struggle. Ruhkopf suggests an emendation which would give the sense: Our somnolent, jaded luxury has taken a long time to discover this new enjoyment. That would certainly be well in keeping with the following sentence. The more skill our jaded luxury has had placed at its disposal, 4 the more refined and elegant the devices that in its frenzy it day by day invents; it spurns everything that is common. We used to hear the remark, “Nothing can surpass a mullet caught on the rocks”; but now it runs, “Nothing equals the beauty of an expiring mullet. Let me hold in my own hands the glass vase, to see him jump and quiver.” After long and fulsome praise has been lavished on him, he is taken 5 out of his transparent pond. Then each guest shows off his experience of such scenes by pointing out the hues to his fellows. “Look how the red bursts forth, deeper than any carmine; look at the veins he has along his sides: see, you would think his belly was covered with blood; what a gleam of dark blue shot forth just under the brow! Now he is stretching himself out, and sinking to a uniform pallid hue!” Not one of these selfish fellows would sit by a dying friend’s bedside, none of them can endure the sight of a father’s death--a sight they have dearly longed for. How few will attend the funeral of a relative! The 6 last hour of brothers and friends is shunned by them; they are all in a hurry to be in at the death of a mullet! For he has a delicate beauty, don’t you know, that nothing can surpass. My impatience makes me sometimes exceed the bounds of decency and use words at random. These drivellers are not satisfied to bring teeth, and palate, and stomach to the revel; they make their very eyes partners in the gluttony. XIX