Metropolis by Thea von Harbou Page B

charcoal.
    September fell silent, shrugging his shoulders. Words seethed up from the depths like lava.
    "I am the Three-in-one—Lucifer—Belial—Satan—! I am the everlasting Death! I am the everlasting Noway! Come unto me—! In my hell there are many mansions! I shall assign them to you! I am the great king of all the damned—! I am a machine! I am the tower above you all! I am a hammer, a fly-wheel, a fiery oven! I am a murderer and of what I murder I make no use. I want victims and victims do not appease me! Pray to me and know: I do not hear you! Shout at me: Pater-noster! Know: I am deaf!"
    Slim turned around; he saw September's face as a chalky mask at his shoulder. Maybe that, among September's ancestresses there was one who hailed from an isle in the South sea, where gods mean little—spirits everything.
    "That's no more a man," he whispered with ashen lips. "A man would have died of it long ago… Do you see his arms, sir? Do you think a man can imitate the pushing of a machine for hours and hours at a time without its killing him? He is as dead as stone. If you were to call to him he'd collapse and break to pieces like a plaster statue."
    It did not seem as though September's words had penetrated into Slim's consciousness. His face wore an expression of loathing and suffering and he spoke as one who speaks with pain.
    "I hope, September, that to-night you have had your last opportunity of watching the effects of Maohee on your guests… "
    September smiled his Japanese smile.
    He did not answer.
    Slim stepped up to the banister at the edge of the curve of the shell in which he stood. He bent down towards the milky disc. He cried a high sharp tone which had the effect of a whistle:
    "Eleven thousand eight hundred and eleven—!"
    The man on the shimmering disc swung around as though he had received a blow in the side. The hellish rhythm of his arms ceased, running itself out in vibration. The man fell to earth like a log and did not move again.
    Slim ran down the passage, reached the end and pushed asunder the circle of women, who, stiffened with shock, seemed to be thrown into deeper horror more by the end of that which they had brought to pass than by the beginning. He knelt down beside the man, looked him in the face and pushed the tattered silk away from his heart. He did not give his hand time to test his pulse. He lifted the man up and carried him out in his arms. The sighing of the women soughed behind him like a dense, mist-coloured curtain.
    September stepped across his path. He swept aside as he caught Slim's glance at him. He ran along by him, like an active dog, breathing rapidly; but he said nothing.
    Slim reached the door of Yoshiwara. September, himself, opened it for him. Slim stepped into the street. The driver pulled open the door of the taxi; he looked in amazement at the man who hung in Slim's arms, in tatters of white silk with which the wind was playing, and who was more awful to look on than a corpse.
    The proprietor of Yoshiwara bowed repeatedly while Slim was climbing into the car. But Shin did not give him another glance. September's face, which was as grey as steel, was reminiscent of the blades of those ancient swords, forged of Indian steel, in Shiras or Ispahan and on which, hidden by ornamentation, stand mocking and deadly words.
    The car glided away: September looked after it. He smiled the peaceable smile of Eastern Asia.
    For he knew perfectly well what Shin did not know, and what, apart from him, nobody in Metropolis knew, that with the first drop of water or wine which moistened the lips of a human being, there disappeared even the very faintest memory of all which appertained to the wonders of the drug, Maohee.
    The car stopped before the next medical depot. Male nurses came and carried away the bundle of humanity, shivering in tatters of white silk, to the doctor on duty. Slim looked about him. He beckoned to a policeman who was stationed near the door.
    "Take down a