METROPOLIS In the complete silence the girl suddenly heard her own heart. . . . She heard her own heart. like pump-works, beating more and more quickly, throbbing more and more loudly. These loud throbbing heartbeats must also be heard by the man who kept the opening to the passage. And suppose he did not stay there any longer.... suppose he came· ~ inside.... she could not hear his coming, her heart throbbed so. She groped, with fumbling hand, along the stone wall. Without breathing, she set her feet, one before the other..•. Only to get away from the entrance Away from the place where the other was standing . Was she wrong? Or were the feet reany coming after her? Soft, slinking shoes on rough stones? Now the agonised. heavy breathing, heavier still, and nearer . . . . cold breath on her neck. ... ThenNothing more. Silence. And waiting. And watchingkeeping on the look-out.... Was it not as if a creature, such as the world had never seen: trunkless, nothing but arms, legs and head. . . . but what a head! God-God in heaven I ... was crouching on the Boor before her, knees drawn up to chin, the damp arms supported right and left, against the walls. near her hips. so that she stood defenceless, caught? Did she ·not see the passage lighted by a pale shimmer-and did not the shimmer come from the being's jelly.fish head? "Frederl" she thought. She bit the name tightly between her jaws, yet heard the scream with which her heart screamed it. She threw herself forwards and felt-she was free-she was still free-and ran and stumbled, and pulled herself up again and staggered from wall to wall, knocking herself bloody, suddenly clutched into space, stumbled, fell to the ground, felt. , .. Something lay there. . . . what? No-NoNo-I The lamp had long since fallen from her hand. She raised herself to her knees and clapped her fists to her ears, in order not to hear the feet, the slinking feet coming nearer. She knew hers'elf to be imprisoned in 'darkness and yet opened 73
