The girl knelt quite still, her eyes closed, neither did she move when the child’s hands began to dry her face with the rough towel. But Grot’s daughter was not quite successful in this undertaking; for, whenever she dried the girl’s cheeks, again and again did the swift, bright drops run over them. Until Grot’s daughter dropped the towel to look at the girl who was kneeling before her inquiringly, and not without reproach. Upon which the girl caught the child in her arms, pressing her forehead to the heart of the silent creature, uttering to this heart words of love which she had never found before. Maria passed by with soundless step. But when the door to the hall, into which no noise from the noisy Metropolis could penetrate, closed behind her, the ore-voice of the angel of the cathedral struck at her breast like a fist of steel, that she stood still, stunned, raising her hands to her head. Why was Saint Michael crying out so angrily and wildly? Why was the roar of Azrael, the angel of Death joining in so alarmingly? She stepped into the street. Darkness, like a thick layer of soot, lay over the town, and only the cathedral shimmered, ghost-like, a wonder of light, but not of grace. The air was filled with a spectral battle of discordant voices. Howling, laughing, whistling, were to be heard. It was as though a gang of murderers and robbers were passing by—in the unrecognisable depths of the street. Mingled with them, shrieks of women, wild with excitement.... Maria’s eyes sought the New Tower of Babel. She had only one way in her mind: to Joh Fredersen. She would go there. But she never went. For suddenly the air was a blood-red stream, which poured itself forth, flickering, formed by a thousand torches. And the torches were dancing in the hands of beings who were crowding out of Yoshiwara. The faces of the beings shone with insanity, every mouth parted in a gasp, yet the eyes which blazed above them were the bursting eyes of men choking. Each was dancing the dance of Death with his own torch, whirling madly about, and the whirl of the dancers formed a train, revolving in itself. “Maohee—!” flew the shrill cries above it. “Dance—dance—dance—Maohee—!” But the flaming procession was led by a girl. The girl was Maria. And the girl was screaming with Maria’s voice: “Dance—dance—dance—Maohee!” She crossed the torches like swords above her head. She swung them right and left, brandishing them so that showers of sparks fell about the way. Sometimes it seemed as if she were riding on the torches. She raised her knees to her breast, with laughter which brought a moan from the dancers of the procession. But one of the dancers ran along at the girl’s feet, like a dog, crying incessantly: “I am Jan! I am Jan! I am the faithful Jan! Hear me, at last, Maria!” But the girl struck him in the face with her sparkling torch.