Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/187

 METROPOLIS Why was Saint Michael crying out so angrily and wildly? Why was the roar of Azrael, the angel of Death joining in so alarmingly? She stepped into the street. Darkness, like a thick layer of soot, layover the town, and only the cathedral shimmered,

ghost-like, a wonder of light, but not of grace. The air was filled with a spectral battle of discordant voices. Howling, laughing, whistling, were to be heard. It was as though a gang of murderers and robbers were passing

by-in the unrecognisable depths of the street. Mingled with them. shrieks of women, wild with excitement. ...

Maria's eyes sought the New Tower of Babel. She had only one way in her mind: to Job. Fredersen. $he would go there. But she never went. For suddenly the air wa! a blood-red stream, which poured itself forth, Bickering, formed by a thousand torches. And the' torches were dancing in the hands of beings who were crowding out of Yoshiwara. The faces of the beings shone with insanity, every mouth parted in a gasp. yet the eyes which blazed above them were the bursting eyes of men choking. Each was dancing the dance of Death with

his own torch, whirling madly about, and the whirl of the dancers formed a train, revolving in itself. "Maohee-'" Hew the shrill cries above it. "Dancedance-dance-Maohee-I".

But the flaming procession was led by a girl. The girl was Maria. And the girl was screaming with Maria's voice: "Dance-dance-dance-Maohee'" She crossed the torches like swords above her head. She swung them right and left, brandishing them so that showers of sparks fell about the way. Sometimes it seemed as if she were riding on the torches. She raised her knees to her breast, with laughter which brought a moan from the dancers of the procession. But one of the dancers ran along at the girl's feet, like a dog, crying incessantly:

"I am Janl I am Janl I am the faithful Janl Hear me, at last, Maria'"

192