God said, “The men who cast them down.”
I said, “How came it that they threw them down, and then set marble over
them?”
God said, “Because the bones cried out, they covered them.”
And among the grass and weeds I saw an unburied body lying; and I asked
God why it was.
God said, “Because it was thrown down only yesterday. In a little while,
when the flesh shall have fallen from its bones, they will bury it also,
and plant flowers over it.”
And still the feast went on.
Men and women sat at the tables quaffing great bowls. Some rose, and
threw their arms about each other, and danced and sang. They pledged
each other in the wine, and kissed each other’s blood-red lips.
Higher and higher grew the revels.
Men, when they had drunk till they could no longer, threw what was left
in their glasses up to the roof, and let it fall back in cascades. Women
dyed their children’s garments in the wine, and fed them on it till
their tiny mouths were red. Sometimes, as the dancers whirled, they
overturned a vessel, and their garments were bespattered. Children sat
upon the floor with great bowls of wine, and swam rose-leaves on it, for
boats. They put their hands in the wine and blew large red bubbles.
And higher and higher grew the revels, and wilder the dancing, and
louder and louder the singing. But here and there among the revellers
were those who did not revel. I saw that at the tables here and there
were men who sat with their elbows on the board and hands shading their
eyes; they looked into the wine-cup beneath them, and did not drink. And
when one touched them lightly on the shoulder, bidding them to rise
and dance and sing, they started, and then looked down, and sat there
watching the wine in the cup, but they did not move.
And here and there I saw a woman sit apart. The others danced and sang
and fed their children, but she sat silent with her head aside as though
she listened. Her little children plucked her gown; she did not see
them; she was listening to some sound, but she did not stir.
The revels grew higher. Men drank till they could drink no longer, and
lay their heads upon the table sleeping heavily. Women who could dance
no more leaned back on the benches with their heads against their
lovers’ shoulders. Little children, sick with wine, lay down upon the
edges of their mothers’ robes. Sometimes, a man rose suddenly, and as he
staggered struck the tables and overthrew the benches; some leaned upon
the balustrades sick unto death. Here and there one rose who staggered
to the wine jars and lay down beside them. He turned the wine tap, but
sleep overcame him as he lay there, and the wine ran out.
Slowly the thin, red stream ran across the white marbled floor; it
reached the stone steps; slowly, slowly, slowly it trickled down, from
step to step, from step to step: then it sank into the earth. A thin
white smoke rose up from it.