Metropolis by Thea von Harbou Read Free Book Online Page B

the young, white, helpless face.
    A sheaf of hand-bills were hurled through the window, falling upon Georgi's knee and before his feet. He bent down mechanically and picked up that for which his fingers were groping.
    On these slips, which gave out a penetrating, bitter-sweet, seductive perfume, there stood, in large, bewitched-looking letters, the word: Yoshiwara…
    Georgi's throat was as dry as dust. He moistened his cracked lips with his tongue, which lay heavy and as though parched in his mouth.
    A voice had said to him: "You will find more than enough money in my pockets… "
    Enough money… what for? To clutch and drag near this city-this mighty, heavenly, hellish city; to embrace her with both arms, both legs, in the irnpotence of mastering her; to despair, to throw one-self into her—take me!—take me!—To feel the filled bowl at one's lips—gulping, gulping—not drawing breath, the brim of the bowl set fast between the teeth—eternal, eternal insatiability, competing with the eternal, eternal overflow, overpouring of the bowl of intoxication…
    Ah—Metropolis!… Metropolis!…
    "More than enough money… "
    A strange sound came from Georgi's throat, and there was something in it of the throat-rattle of a man who knows he is dreaming and wants to awake, and something of the gutteral sound of the beast of prey when it scents blood. His hand did not let go of the wad of bank-notes for the second time. It screwed it up in burning convulsive fingers.
    He turned his head this way and that, as though seeking a way out, which, nevertheless, he feared to find…
    Another car slipped silently along beside his, a great, black-gleaming shadow, the couch of a woman, set on four wheels, decorated with flowers, lighted by dim lamps. Georgi saw the woman very clearly, and the woman looked at him. She cowered rather than sat, among the cushions of the car, having entirely wrapped herself in her gleaming cloak, from which one shoulder projected with the dull whiteness of a swan's feather.
    She was bewilderingly made-up—as though she did not wish to be human, to be a woman, but rather a peculiar animal, disposed, perhaps to play, perhaps to murder.
    Calmly holding the man's gaze, she gently slipped her right hand, sparkling with stones, and the slender arm, which was quite bare and dull white, even as the shoulder, from the wrappings of her cloak, and began to fan herself in a leisurely manner with one of the sheets of paper on which the word Yoshiwara stood…
    "No!" said the man. He panted, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. Coolness welled out from the fine, strange stuff with which he dried the perspiration from his brow.
    Eyes stared at him. Eyes which were fading away. The all-knowing smile of a painted mouth.
    With a panting sound Georgi made to open the door of the taxi and to jump out into the road. However, the movement of the car threw him back on to the cushions. He clenched his fists, pressing them before both eyes. A vision shot through his head, quite misty and lacking in outline, a strong little machine, no larger than a five-year-old child. It's short arms pushed and pushed and pushed, alternately forwards, backwards, forwards… The head, sunken on the chest, rose, grinning…
    "No!" shrieked the man, clapping his hands and laughing. He had been set free from the machine. He had exchanged lives.
    Exchanged—with whom?
    With a man who had said: "You will find more than enough money in my pockets… "
    The man bent back his head into the nape of his neck and stared at the roof suspended above him.
    On the roof there flamed the word:
    Yoshiwara…
    The word Yoshiwara became rockets of light which showered around him, paralysing his limbs. He sat motionless, covered in a cold sweat. He clawed his fingers into the leather of the cushions. His back was stiff, as though his spine were made of cold iron. His jaws chattered.
    "No—!" said Georgi, tearing his fists down. But before his eyes which stared