Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/156

 METROPOLIS They counted the seconds: "Fifty.nine-sixty-sixty·one-sixty-two--now-I-Somewhere in the depths of the tunnel, a crash, as if the

glohe were splitting.... "Once-and once again..•• The mob howled: "The macbine:! must die-to hell with theml Deathl-Deathl-Death to the machinesl" Then-I What happened then?-Thenll-From one of the tunnels there broke forth a tram, like a steed of fire, with sparkling lights, driverless, at a tearing speed-galloping death. From whence did tIlis hell-horse come?-Where were the giants, who were thus giving answer to the giants' game of the mob? The train vanished, amid shrieks-and. some seconds later. came the tearing crash from the depths of the pit. And the second train was crashing onwards, sent off by unknown hands.

The stones shook loose under the feet of the moho Smoke gushed up from the pit. Suddenly the lights went out. Only the clocks, the whitish-shimmering clocks, hung, as patches of light, in a darkoess which was filled with long, dim, drifting clouds. The mob pressed towards the stairs and up them. Behind them, unchained demons. pulling their reeling carriages along

behind them, the engines, now released, hurled themselves on, to fall upon each other and break into flames.... Metropolis had a brain. Metropolis had a heart. The heart of the machine city of Metropolis dwelt in a white, cathedral-like building. The heart of the machine city of Metropolis was guarded by one single man. The man's name was Grot, and he loved his machine. The machine was a universe to itself. Above the deep mvsteries of its delicate joints, like the sun's disc, like the halo of a divine being, stood the silver spinning wheel, the

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