Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/119

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METROPOLIS solidified, glazen river. I glided along it and looked down through it into the cold bubbling of a subterranean fire. "I did not know my destination, but I knew I had one, and went very fast in order· to reach it the sooner. I quietened my step as well as I could, but its sound was excessively loud and awakened a rustling ,whisper over the crooked house-walls as though the houses were murmming aginst me. I quickened my pLee and ran, and, at last, raced along, and

the more swiftly I raced the more hoarsely did the echo of the steps sound after me, as though there were an army at my heels. I was dripping with sweat. ... "The town was alive. The houses were alive. Their open mouths snarled after me. The window-caverns, open eyes, winked blindly, hOlTibly, maliciously. "Graspingly, I reached the square before the cathedral. ... "The cathedral was lighted up. The doors stood open-no, they did not stand open. They reeled to and fro like swing doors through which an invisible stream of guests was passing. The organ rolled, but not with music. Croaking, bawling, screeching and whimpering sounded from the organ and intermingled were wanton dance tunes, wailing whoresongs "The swing-doors, the light, the organ's witches sabbath, everything appeared to be mysteriously excited. hurried. as though there were no time to be lost, and full of a deep evil satisfaction "I walked over to the cathedral and up the steps. A door laid hold of me, like an arm, and wafted me gustily in the cathedral. "But that was as little the cathedral as the town was Metropolis. A pack of lunatics seemed to have taken pos· session of it. and not even human beings,· at that. Dwarflike creatures, resembling half monkey. half devil. In place of the saints. goat-like figures, petrified in the most ridiculous of leaps. reigned in the pillar niches. And around every pillar danced a ring, raving to the bawling of the music. "Empty, ungodded, splintered, hung the crucifix above the high altar, from which the holy vessels had vanished.

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