Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/195

 METROPOLIS wards. Behind them the dead frame-work crashed into space amid shrieks. They reached the other side with an impetus which was no longer to be checked. The wheels rushed into blackness

and nothing. The car overturned. Freder fell and got up again. The other remained lying.

"]osaphat-II" "Runl It's nothingl-I swear to God it's nothing" a distorted smile upon the white face. "Think of Maria-and runl"

And FredeI' raced off. ]osaphat turned nis head. He saw the blackness of the street flashing bright red. He heard the screams of the thousands. He thought dully, with a thrust of his list in the air: "Should~:t I like to be Grot now, to be able to swear prop.erly.... Then his head fell back into the filth of the street, and every consciousness faded but that of pain. ... But Freder ran as he had never run. It was not his feet which carried him. It was his wild heart-it was his thoughts. Streets and stairs and streets and at last the cathedral square. Black in the background, the cathedral, ungodded, unlighted, the place before the broad steps swarming with human beings-and amid them, surrounded by gasps of madly despairing laughter~ the howling of songs of fury, the smouldering of torches and brands, high up on the pyre ... "Maria-/"

..

Freder fell on his knees as though his sinews were sawn through. "MarUl-I"

The girl whom he took to be Maria raised her head. She sought him. Her gJanc.e found him. She smiled-laughed. "Dance with me, my dearest-I" flew her voice, sharp as a Hashing knife, through uprorar. Freder got up. The mob recognised him. The mob lurched towards him, shrieking and yelling. "Jooooo-ohl Joh Fredersen's son-I Joh Fredersen's son-" They made to seize him. He dodged them wildly. He threw himself with his back against tbe parapet of the street.

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