They took the children into the Club of Sons and Freder 's eyes sought Maria, who was kneeling in the street, among the last remaining children, consoling them, and bestowing her loving smile upon weeping and bewildered eyes.
Freder ran across to them and carried Maria into the house.
“Don 't forget,” he said, letting her down upon a couch before the blazing fire in the entrance hall, and holding captive in his longing arms her half-lying, half-sitting, gently resisting form, “that death and madness and something very like destruction of the world have passed very close by us. After all that has happened, I do not even know the color of your eyes, and you have not yet kissed me once by your own free will.”
“Dearest,” said Maria, leaning towards …show more content…
But when the door to the hall, into which no sound from the noisy Metropolis could penetrate, closed behind her, the ore voice of the angel of the cathedral struck at her breast like a steel fist, and she stood still, stunned, raising her hands to her head.
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, lay over 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 unrecognizable depths of the street. Mingled with them, shrieks of women, wild with excitement.
Maria 's eyes sought the New Tower of Babel. She would go there, to Joh Fredersen. But she never went.
For suddenly the air was a blood-red stream, pouring forth, flickering, formed by a thousand torches. The torches danced in the hands of beings who had streamed 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
Freder ran across to them and carried Maria into the house.
“Don 't forget,” he said, letting her down upon a couch before the blazing fire in the entrance hall, and holding captive in his longing arms her half-lying, half-sitting, gently resisting form, “that death and madness and something very like destruction of the world have passed very close by us. After all that has happened, I do not even know the color of your eyes, and you have not yet kissed me once by your own free will.”
“Dearest,” said Maria, leaning towards …show more content…
But when the door to the hall, into which no sound from the noisy Metropolis could penetrate, closed behind her, the ore voice of the angel of the cathedral struck at her breast like a steel fist, and she stood still, stunned, raising her hands to her head.
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, lay over 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 unrecognizable depths of the street. Mingled with them, shrieks of women, wild with excitement.
Maria 's eyes sought the New Tower of Babel. She would go there, to Joh Fredersen. But she never went.
For suddenly the air was a blood-red stream, pouring forth, flickering, formed by a thousand torches. The torches danced in the hands of beings who had streamed 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