Cake

When he was a young man M. was in the habit of eating a large wedge of sponge-cake (with walnuts in, and vanilla cream filling) every day in an evening café, and on his own. One day he froze in the middle of his consuming, his mouth a bit open and the fork stopped in its ascent in front of his chin. His head, as was his custom, had been bent forward a little, and he raised his eyes to the big wall-mirror opposite. There he looked at himself. His eyes had not left some portion of this cake of his for the past ten minutes; not for one instant: they had guided the fork while it separated off one fragment, watched it travel towards the mouth right up until the point where it disappeared from view beneath the nose-tip, whereupon the eyes had dropped quickly down to the larger mound once more, choosing the next forking-point even while his jaws had been working. 

That marque of cake has not been available for a long time now, but M. is still in the habit of settling himself in a daily pastry-house, only since that day he has made sure to find an obscure corner - for he had noticed all that time ago, that there was an absorption in his eating (though only of sweet-tasting things) which one usually sees only in dogs.