Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/188

 METROPOLIS But the girl strllck hiru in the face with her sparkling torch. His clothes caught fire. He ran for some time, a Hving torch, along by the girl. His voice sounded as if from the blaze: ':Maria-I Maria-I"

Then he swung hiruself up on to the parapet of the street and hurled, a streak of fire, into the blackness of the depths. "Maohee-I Maohee-I" called the girl, shaking her torch. The procession was endless. The procession was endless. The street was alrend y covered, as far as the eye could see, with circling torches. The shrieks of the dancets mixed them· selves sharply and shrilly with the angry voices of the archangels of the cathedral. And behind the train, as though tugged along by invisible. unbreakable cords, there reeled a girl, the damp hem of the hose dress lashed about her ankles, whose hair was falling loose under the clawing fingers which she pressed to her head, whose lips babbled. a I)ame in ineffectual entreaty: "Fred.er. ... Freder. .. . :'

The smoke-swathes from the torches novered like the grey wings of phantom birds above the dancing train. Then the door of the cathedral was opened wide. From the depths of the cathedral came the rushing of the organ. There mixed itself in the fourfold tone of the archangel bells, in the rushing of the organ, in the shrieks of the dancers, an iron-tramping, mighty choir. The hour of the monk Desertus had come. The monk Desertus was leading on his own. Two by two walked those who were his disciples. They walked on bare feet, in black cowls. They had thrown their cowls back from their shoulders. They carried the heavy scourges in both hands. They swung the heavy scourges in both hands, right and left, right and' left, upon the bare shoulders. Blood trickled down from the scourged backs. The Gothics sang, They sang to the time of their feet. To the time of their scourge strokes did they sing. The monk Desertus was leading the Cothics on. The Cothics bore a black cross before them. It was so

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