Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/160

 METROPOLIS log turned itself clumsily around, staggered to the door, and tore at the holts.

The mob heard it. It yelled triumph. The door Rew open. The mob swept aside the man who was standing on its threshold. The mob hurled itself towards the machine. The / mob made to lay hands upon the machine. A dancing girl was leading the mob on. ' "Look-I" she shouted. "Look-I The beating heart of Metropolisl What shall be done to the heart of Metropolis-? We've passed sentence upon the machines I We have condemned the machines to deathl The machines must die-to hell with them'" But the mob did not catch up the girl's song. The mob stared over, at the machine-at the beating. heart of the great machine city, which was called Metropolis, and which they bad fed. They pressed up slowly, as a single body, before the machine, which gleamed like silver. In the face of the mob stood hatred. In the face of the mob stood superstitious fear. Desire for the last destruction stood in the face of the mob. But before it could take expression Grot, the guard, threw himself before his machine. There was no £lthy word which he did not raise to chuck i,nto the face of the mob. The dirtiest .term of revilem~nt was not dirty enough for him to apply to the mob. The mob turned red eyes upon him. The mob glared at him. The mQb saw: The man there, in front of them, was abusing them in the name of the machine. For them. the man and the machine melted into one. Man and machine deserved the same hatred. They pushed forward against man and machine. They seized the man and meant the .machine. They roared him down. They stamped him underfoot. They dragged him hither and thither and Ollt of the door. They forgot the machine, for they had the man-had the guard of the heart-beat of all the machines -thinking that, in tearing the man away from the Heartmachine, they were tearing the heart from the breast of the great machine city. What should be done to the heart of Metropolis? It should be trodden underfoot by the mob.

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