by Robert Nelson
_II. The Feast of the Centaurs_
The enormous chamber was aflare with a myriad lamps. There were long
tables covered with seemingly endless varieties of meats, wines,
cheeses, birds, and other viands and edibles. Drunken centaurs carried
other intoxicated centaurs across the tables trampling everything
that came their way, causing both wrath and mirth to others. Wine was
spilled heavily all about; and centaurs fell and grappled with one
another on the lubricious earth. Two there were who fought for the
possession of a fried grasshopper; and three belabored each other's
heads with weighty stools. Some threw great platters of food from the
tables and demanded more wine. And the exhalation that arose from the
food and creatures became heavier; and the rejoicing and the swearing
and debating of tongues increased.
There were huge mirrors of multiplied convexity in the vast room and
these seemed to enhance and sharpen the ebbing and flowing luminosity
from the immense wax lights and bright vases. The mirrors caused much
confusion among the inebriated and over-gorged creatures, for they
crashed and careened with one another against the mirrors and cut
themselves, and laughed and cursed at their own grotesque and misshapen
likenesses.
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