Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/200

 METROPOLIS without hesitation~ without reflection, with a ferocity which swept a blaze of scarlet across the pallor of her face, she swung herself out of the belfry window) to hang upon the steel cord of the lightning conductor. "Freder-II" she screamed. "Help me-II" Below-far below, near the flaming pyre, "lay a ~ trampled creature, his forehead in the dust. But the scream from above smote him so unexpectedly that he shot up, as if under the lash, he sought and he saw. And all those who had been dancing in wild rings around the bonfire'of the witch saw, as he-stifFened-petrified: The girl who hung, swallowlike, clinging to the tower of the cathedral, with Rotwang'5 hands stretching out towards her. And they all heard how, in the shouted answer: "I am coming, Maria, I am coming-I" there cried out all the relief and all the despair which can fill the heart of a man to ,whom Heaven and Hell are equally near.

CHAPTER XXII JOB FREDERSEN stood in the dome-room of the New Tower of Babel. waiting for Slim. He was to bring him news of his son. A ghostly darkness lay upon the New :rower of Babel., The light had gone completely out, gone out as though it had been killed-at the moment when the gigantic wheel of the Heart-machine of Metropolis came free from its structure with a roar as from the throats of a thousand wounded beasts, and. still whirling around, was hurled straight up at the ceiling, to strike it with a shattering crash, to bound back, booming the while like a gong as large as the heavens and to crash down upon the splintered ruins of the erstwhile masterpiece of steel, to remain lying there. Joh Fredersen stood long on the same spot. riot daring to move.

205