The sumptuous feast of banana and liver was set big and inviting, and the din was suitably merry. The banjos sang and seduced the throng to dance, laugh and be joyful, and the Swede and his friends' toes stretched long as if they had forgotten the recent death of their great comrade , Hague; (except Soze who actually had forgotten about Hague's death, and the Prince who had not yet arrived). Mustapha turned boring people who no-one would miss into string; Brother Arnold performed a summary of Recherché des Temps Perdu on his knuckles; the Swede described hats humorously and Soze oozed smoothly at the hairy-faced waitresses. Strangler was silent, for though he thought of the universe, he spoke at the atomic level. The bear had found a female wolf and was chancing his arm. In came the Prince, his face flushed and his nose dry with anger. He had arrived at the feast with Brother Arnold and Mustapha, but had been held up by some old git in a sailor suit.

The Swede ate heartily and good, and his saliva ran free. Brother Arnold watched his friend with tear-laden eyes. No-one knew of the Swede's torment more than the learned, well-armed monk, and no-one shared more his joy at the certain rescue of his one true love, the fair Nico. Brother Arnold considered love, its value and its consequences. The gifted scholar regarded love as the most powerful force on Earth' and as the driving force of mankind. There was also, he thought, a way to make money out of this. What, he thought, if I designated a day as a day of love, say a day in February when nothing of interest happens. "I will name it after a catholic Saint", he said and Soze and Mustapha, who had been examining the Prince's penis, were much confused. He leafed through the Swede's Directory Of Unemployed Catholic Saints and naturally his eyes fell upon the name Cosmo. From now on the 14th of February would be St. Cosmo's day and he would clean up - he'd sell flowers, crap with hearts on and cards. It would be bigger than Soze's plan of the millennium, where he padded out the invasion of the Romans and the almost immediate invasion of the French and called the intervening void The Dark Ages.

Brother Arnold was well learned and knew the mating habits of bears and wolves; yet distracted by his own wisdom, he allowed his mind to drift and it was as if he was a dull person that he reacted when the cruel series of events began unfolding around his feet. As we know, a love-struck bear will offer shell fish to its mate, and a wolf offered shell fish will lift two claws. The subsequent relationship is often stormy and councillors are over employed. When a Brown Bear and wolf begin fighting the sensible person moves away, the sensible person does not, as Brother Arnold did, clip them around the ear and shout, " For Christ's sake shut up, I'm in a groove here!" Strangler would be the first to admit that he overreacted. He, of course said nothing- for although he thought Lennon-McCartney, he spoke Ringo Starr. It was in silence, then, that he moved in for the kill. Brother Arnold felt the killer's grip around his throat and knew he had clipped his last canine ear.

Strangler is too often portrayed as a brutal, thuggish slayer of men and his art too soon forgotten. Let us make it clear then that Strangler does not simply crush the windpipe of his victims, but moulds them as if they were plastercine. At this time Strangler was in his classical phase, and Brother Arnold's began taking the shape of a Greek God, the Swede and the Prince struggled to separate their two death-locked comrades. As he fled the scene, the ear fell from Soze's pocket, and an insane maul exploded as each guest grappled desperate and evil for the priceless relic. So it was then that the feast broke up in a scene of chaos that was that strange blend of Dante and Mack Sennet that was so popular in these parts. The manic woman smiled in victory as the Swede and the Prince left, heads bowed, the success of their quest now uncertain.