Part 18

And God said, “It is a wine-pressed hand.”

And men saw it and started to their feet; and women cried, and ran to the great wine jars, and threw their arms around them, and cried, “Ours, our own, our beloved!” and twined their long hair about them.

I said to God, “Why are they frightened of that one small hand?”

God answered, “Because it is so white.”

And men ran in a great company towards the curtain, and struggled there. I heard them strike upon the floor. And when they moved away the curtain hung smooth and still; and there was a small stain upon the floor.

I said to God, “Why do they not wash it out?”

God said, “They cannot.”

And they took small stones and put them down along the edge of the curtain to keep it down. Then the men and women sat down again at the tables.

And I said to God, “Will those stones keep it down?”

God said, “What think you?”

I said, “If the wind blew?”

God said, “If the wind blew?”

And the feast went on.

And suddenly I cried to God, “If one should rise among them, even of themselves, and start up from the table and should cast away his cup, and cry, ‘My brothers and my sisters, stay! what is it that we drink?’--and with his sword should cut in two the curtain, and holding wide the fragments, cry, ‘Brothers, sisters, see! it is not wine, not wine! not wine! My brothers, oh, my sisters!’ and he should overturn the--”

God said, “Be still!--, see there.”

I looked: before the banquet-house, among the grass, I saw a row of mounds, flowers covered them, and gilded marble stood at their heads. I asked God what they were.

He answered, “They are the graves of those who rose up at the feast and cried.”

And I asked God how they came there.

He said, “The men of the banquet-house rose and cast them down backwards.”

I said, “Who buried them?”

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.