METROPOLIS third, to whom the skull really belongs, is rearing up within me and falling upon them both.... "Beautiful Maria, how sweet are your hips.... Is the man whom you love never to. find that out? Beaut~ul Maria, listen to what I say to you: only a little to one side of this way. a Bight of stairs lead. &teeply upward, leading to freedom. . . . Your knees are trembling . . . how sweet that isl Do you think to overcome your weakness by clasping your hands? You call upon God, but believe me: God does not hear youl Since I came upop. the earth as the gr,eat flood, to destroy all in existence but Noah's ark, God has been deaf to the scream of His creatures. Or did you think I had forgotten how the mothers ticreamed then? Have you more responsibility on your cons(jience than God on His? Turn back, beautiful Mmia, turn backl "Now you ate, making me angry. Maria-now I shall kill youl Why ate you letting those hot, salty drops fall down into me? I am clasping you around your breast, but it no longer stirs me. I want your throat and your gasping mouthl I want your hair and your weeping eyesl "Do you believe you have escaped me? No, beautiful Marial No-now I shall fetch you with a thousand otherswith all the thousand which you wanted to save...." She dragged her dripping body up from the water. She crawled upwards, over stone slabs; she found the door. She pushed it open and slammed it behind her, peering to see if the water were already lapping over the threshold. Not yet ... not yet. But how much longer? She could not see a soul as far as her eye could reach. The streets, the squares, lay as if dead-bathed in the whiteness of the moon-light. But she was mistaken-or was the light growing weaker and yellower from second to second? An impact, which threw her against the nearest wall, ran through the earth. The iron door through which she had come Hew from Its bolts and gaped open. Black and silertt, the water slipped over the threshold. Maria collected herself. She sCl"eamed with her whole lungs: "The water's coming in-I"
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