Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/70

 METROPOLIS She saw a man sitting on the edge of the trap-door and saw his smile. Then it was as though she were extinguished. and she plwlged into nothing...•

CHAPTER VI THE pnOPRmTon of Yoshiwara used to earn money in a variety of ways. One of them, and quite positively the most harmless, was to make bets that no man-be he never so widely travelled-was capable of guessing to what weird mixture of races he owed his face. So far he had won all such bets, and used to sweep in the money which they brought him with hands, the cruel beauty of which would not have shamed an ancestor of the Spanish Bargias, the nails of which, however, showed an inobliterable shimmer of blue; on the other hand, the politeness of his smile on such profitable occasions originated unmistakably in that graceful insular world, which, from the eastern border of Asia, smiles gently and watchfully across at mighty America. There were prominent properties combined within him which made him appear to be a general representative of Great Britain and Ireland, for he was as red-haired, chaffloving and with as good a hend for drink as if his name had been McFosh, avaricious and superstitious as a Scotsman and-in certain circllmstances, which made it requisite, of that highly bred obliviousness, which is a matter of will and a foundation stone of the British Empire. He spoke practicallly all living languages as though his mother had taught him to pray in them and his father to curse. His greed appeared to hail from the Levant, his contentment from China. And, above an this, two quiet, observant eyes watched with German patience and perseverance. As to the rest, he was called, for reasons. unknown, September.

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