When the two facing hosts had thus dispersed, at an order from Abbot Solomon the tables began to be laid, James and Andrew brought a bale of hay, Adam settled himself in the center, Eve lay down on a leaf, Cain entered dragging a plow, Abel came with a pail to milk Brunellus, Noah made a triumphal entry rowing the ark, Abraham sat under a tree, Isaac lay on the gold altar of the church, Moses crouched on a stone, Daniel appeared on a catafalque in Malachi’s arms, Tobias stretched out on a bed, Joseph threw himself on a bushel, Benjamin reclined on a sack, and there were others still, but here the vision grew confused. David stood on a mound, John on the floor, Pharaoh on the sand (naturally, I said to myself, but why?), Lazarus on the table, Jesus on the edge of the well, Zaccheus on the boughs of a tree, Matthew on a stool, Raab on stubble, Ruth on straw, Thecla on the window sill (from outside, Adelmo’s pale face appeared, as he warned her it was possible to fall down, down the cliff), Susanna in the garden, Judas among the graves, Peter on the throne, James on a net, Elias on a saddle, Rachel on a bundle. And Paul the apostle, putting down his sword, listened to Esau complain, while job moaned on the dungheap and Rebecca rushed to his aid with a garment and Judith with a blanket, Hagar with a shroud, and some novices carried a large steaming pot from which leaped Venantius of Salvemec, all red, as he began to distribute pig’s-blood puddings.
The refectory was now becoming more and more crowded, and all were eating at full tilt; Jonas brought some gourds to the table, Isaiah some vegetables, Ezekiel blackberries, Zaccheus sycamore flowers, Adam lemons, Daniel lupins, Pharaoh peppers, Cain cardoons, Eve figs, Rachel apples, Anamas some plums as big as diamonds, Leah onions, Aaron olives, Joseph an egg, Noah grapes, Simeon peach pits, while Jesus was singing the “Dies irae” and gaily poured over all the dishes some vinegar that he squeezed from a little sponge he had taken from the spear of one of the King of France’s archers.
At this point Jorge, having removed his vitra ad legendum, lighted a burning bush; Sarah had provided kindling for it, Jephtha had brought it, Isaac had unloaded it, Joseph had carved it, and while Jacob opened the well and Daniel sat down beside the lake, the servants brought water, Noah wine, Hagar a wineskin, Abraham a calf that Raab tied to a stake while Jesus held out the rope and Elijah bound its feet. Then Absalom hung. him by his hair, Peter held out his sword, Cain killed him, Herod shed his blood, Shem threw away his giblets and dung, Jacob added the oil, Molessadon the salt; Antiochus put him on the fire, Rebecca cooked him, and Eve first tasted him and was taken sick, but Adam said not to give it a thought and slapped Severinus on the back as he suggested adding aromatic herbs. Then Jesus broke the bread and passed around some fishes, Jacob shouted because Esau had eaten all the pottage, Isaac was devouring a roast kid, and Jonah a boiled whale, and Jesus fasted for forty days and forty nights.
Meanwhile, all came in and out bringing choice game of every shape and color, of which Benjamin always kept the biggest share and Mary the choicest morsel, while Martha complained of always having to wash the dishes. Then they divided up the calf, which had meanwhile grown very big, and John was given the head, Abessalom the brain, Aaron the tongue, Sampson the jaw, Peter the ear, Holofernes the head, Leah the rump, Saul the neck, Jonah the belly, Tobias the gall, Eve the rib, Mary the breast, Elizabeth the vulva, Moses the tail, Lot the legs, and Ezekiel the bones. All the while, Jesus was devouring a donkey, Saint Francis a wolf, Abel a lamb, Eve a moray, the Baptist a locust, Pharaoh an octopus (naturally, I said to myself, but why?), and David was eating Spanish fly, flinging himself on the maiden nigra sed formosa while Sampson bit into a lion’s behind and Thecla fled screaming, pursued by a hairy black spider.
All were obviously drunk by now, and some slipped on the wine, some fell into the jars with only their legs sticking out, crossed like two stakes, and all of Jesus’s fingers were black as he handed out pages of books saying’: Take this and eat, these are the riddles of Synphosius, including the one about the fish that is the son of God and your Saviour.
Sprawled on his back, Adam gulped, and the wine came from ‘his rib, Noah cursed Ham in his sleep, Holofernes snored, all unsuspecting, Jonah slept soundly, Peter kept watch till cockcrow, and Jesus woke with a start, hearing Bernard Gui and Bertrand del Poggetto plotting to burn the maiden; and he shouted: Father, if it be thy will, let this chalice pass from me! And some poured badly and some drank well, some died laughing and some laughed dying, some bore vases and some drank from another’s cup. Susanna shouted that she would never grant her beautiful white body to the cellarer and to Salvatore for a miserable beef heart, Pilate wandered around the refectory like a lost soul asking for water to wash his hands, and Fra Dolcino, with his plumed hat, brought the water, then opened his garment, snickering, and displayed his pudenda red with blood, while Cain taunted him and embraced the beautiful Margaret of Trent: and Dolcino fell to weeping and went to rest his head on’ the shoulder of Bernard Gui, calling him Angelic Pope, Ubertino consoled him with a tree of life, Michael of Cesena with a gold purse, the Marys sprinkled him with unguents, and Adam convinced him to bite into a freshly plucked apple.
And then the vaults of the Aedificium opened and from the heavens descended Roger Bacon on a flying machine, unico homine regente. Then David played his lyre, Salome danced with her seven veils, and at the fall of each veil she blew one of the seven trumpets and showed one of the seven seals, until only the amicta sole remained. Everyone said there had never been such a jolly abbey, and Berengar pulled up everyone’s habit, man and woman, kissing them all on the anus.
Then it was that the abbot flew into a rage, because, he said, he had organized such a lovely feast and nobody was giving him anything; so they all outdid one another in bringing him gifts and treasures, a bull, a lamb, a lion, a camel, a stag, a calf, a mare, a chariot of the sun, the chin of Saint Eubanus, the tail of Saint Ubertina, the uterus of Saint Venantia, the neck of Saint Burgosina engraved like a goblet at the age of twelve, and a copy of the Pentagonum Salomonis. But the abbot started yelling that they were trying to distract his attention with their behavior, and in fact they were looting the treasure crypt, where we all were, and a most precious book had been stolen which spoke of scorpions and the seven trumpets, and he called the King of France’s archers to search all the suspects. And, to everyone’s shame, the archers found a multicolored cloth on Hagar, a gold seal on Rachel, a silver mirror in Thecla’s bosom, a siphon under Benjamin’s arm, a silk coverlet among Judith’s clothes, a spear in Longinus’s hand, and a neighbor’s wife in the arms of Abimelech. But the worst was when they found a black rooster on the girl, black and beautiful she was, like a cat of the same color, and they called her a witch and a Pseudo Apostle, so all flung themselves on her, to punish her. The Baptist decapitated her, Abel cut her open, Adam drove her out, Nebuchadnezzar wrote zodiacal signs on her breast with a fiery hand, Elijah carried her off in a fiery chariot, Noah plunged her in water, Lot changed her into a pillar of salt, Susanna accused her of lust, Joseph betrayed her with another woman, Ananias stuck her into a furnace, Sampson chained her up, Paul flagellated her, Peter crucified her head down, Stephen stoned her, Lawrence burned her on a grate, Bartholomew skinned her, Judas denounced her, the cellarer burned her, and Peter denied everything. Then they all were on that body, flinging excrement on her, farting in her face, urinating on her head, vomiting on her bosom, tearing out her hair, whipping her buttocks with glowing torches. The girl’s body, once so beautiful and sweet, was now lacerated, torn into fragments that were scattered among the glass cases and gold-and-crystal reliquaries of the crypt. Or, rather, it was not the body of the girl that went to fill the crypt, it was the fragments of the crypt that, whirling, gradually composed to form the girl’s body, now something mineral, and then again decomposed and scattered, sacred dust of segments accumulated by insane blasphemy. It was now as if a single immense body had, in the course of millennia, dissolved into its parts, and these parts had been arranged to occupy the whole crypt, more splendid than the ossarium of the dead monks but not unlike it, and as if the substantial form of man’s very body, the masterpiece of creation, had shattered into plural and separate accidental forms, thus becoming the image of its own opposite, form no longer ideal but earthly, of dust and stinking fragments, capable of signifying only death and destruction…