Free B007P4V3G4 EBOK by Richard Huijing

very end, and he was still possessed of
all his strength. Slowly, a soft dusk spread overhead, the vaults of
the cavern began to glint here and there. Dusk burgeoned to light,
the inconstant light like that of torches, ever increasing like that of
torches being carried in.
    This turned out to be the case. Up above, at the base of the
vault, corridors seemed to terminate and enemy servants appeared
there with big torches which they placed in iron baskets fixed to
the rock face.
    Now that the entire space was lit up, the prisoners saw one
another for the first time: their corrupting bodies, their eyes, and a
general revulsion arose. This communal suffering gave no feeling
of solidarity, no mutual sympathy; things were too far gone. The
dead lay between them, and those who merely breathed, who
didn't react to the light from above.
    Many, however, still looked round and up above, like he did.
What did this mean? Did they want something more of them?

    It would soon become clear. The enemy servants who had
placed the wore the clothing of the
disappeared down the corridors through which the fumes of the
torches was being sucked away as well, and now they began to go
back and forth to a large balcony, shaped by nature or by man,
protruding from the rock face. The smell of food pervaded the
space.
    He saw there was a long table on the rock balcony and people
were busy carrying a feast of food to that table: huge tureens,
salvers piled high with meat, dishes full of vegetables and bowls
laden with fruit. And many buckets of wine. Everything was
clearly visible; lamps and candles were being put among the fare
all the time.
    Was this a vision? Was he dying?
    Not yet. It went on. Men with stringed instruments now
arrived. They arranged themselves to one side and began to tune
up. Because of the resonance in the cellar vaults, this jangle of
scrawny sounds acquired a certain fullness.
    Were they going to serenade them? The serenade of the dying?
But why then all that food?
    No, the guests stepped forward. A jolly company of men and
women decked out most richly, the women mainly with their own
abundance, gathered at the table. In the centre, on the tallest chair,
a copious matron sat herself down. She had the allure of supreme
power. The wife or mistress of stadtholder or war lord, herself
perhaps even an empress, she seemed to be the soul of this revel.
She gave the signal to be seated, one more for music, she gave the
signal to gorge. And together they gorged themselves at length,
bringing meat and wine to their mouths by turn.
    And as they drank, their mood became more exuberant. It
seemed as though they were not being whipped up by the music
and the wine alone, but also by the deep humiliation they wished
to inflict on the captured enemy. To have him perish of want in
sight of their plenty, to let him die in sight of their joy in life.
    If this truly was their intention, then it utterly misfired. The mental
state of these prisoners could no longer be fathomed by a healthy,
free human being. Deeper humiliation was no longer possible for
them. On the contrary, each sound, every glimmer they could still
allow to sink in, was welcome. Something was going to happen after
all, there was still something to come. And that music, the most
heavenly thing on earth, resounded then: solace and rapture in one!

    Who cared whether it was being played to mock them now; not
by the musicians: they simply had to and, who knows, perhaps
they were making an extra effort in fact: to do them a last kindness.
    By no means everyone experienced it in this manner. Many
would only hear it in the distance, as sounds calling them from the
other side, singing of their release from their suffering. Others, less
far gone, looked up the while, mistaking it for the opening up of
heaven to reveal an image of what awaited them there. Some, with
their last remaining strength, stretched out their arms towards it.
    Only