MET~OPOLIS
CHAPTER XIV A VAULT, like the vault of a sepulchre-human heads so closely crowded as to produce the effect of clods of a freshly ploughed field. All faces turned to one point: to the source of a light, as mild as God. Candles burnt with sword-like Barnes. Slender, lustrous swords of light stood in a circle around the hend of a girl. Freder stood pressed into the background of the archso far from the girl that he perceived of her face nothing but the shimmer of its pallor, the wonder of the eyes and the blood-red mouth. His eyes hung upon this blood-red mouth as though it were the middle point of the earth, to which, by eternal Jaw, his blood must pour down. Tantalising was this mouth . . . All the seven Deadly Sins had such a mouth. . . . The woman on the scarlet·coloured beast, who bore the name Babylon on her forehead, had such a mouth... , He pressed both hands to his eyes in order no longer to see this mouth of deadly sin. Now he heard more clearly. . . . Yes, that was her voice, the voice which sounded as though Cod could refuse it nothing.... Was that really it? The voice came from out the blood-red mouth. It was like a Bame, hot and pointed. It was full of a wicked sweetness . The voice said: "My brothers " But no peace proceeded from out these words. Little red snakes hissed through the air. The air was hot-an agony to breathe ... Groaning heavily, Freder opened his eyes. Dark, angry waves were the heads before him. These waves frothed, raged and roared. Here and there a hand shot up into the air. Words spmng up, foam Recks of the surf. But the voice of the girl was like a tongue of fire, draw~ ing, enticing, burning above the heads.
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