Can't you do
what the Swedish doctor told you--just try to think that everything is
dark all round you."
Peer turns round, and everything around him is dark. But in the heart of
that darkness waves arise, waves of melody, rolling nearer, nearer.
It is the sound of a hymn--it is Louise standing playing, his sister
Louise. And what peace--O God, what peace and rest!
But soon Louise fades away, she fades away, and vanishes like a flame
blown out. And there comes a roaring noise, nearer and nearer, grinding,
crashing, rattling--and he knows now what it is only too well: it is the
song of the steel.
The roar of steel from ships and from railway-trains, with their pairs
of yellow evil eyes, rushing on, full of human captives, whither?
Faster, faster--driven by competition, by the steel demon that hunts men
on without rest or respite--that hurries on the pulse of the world to
fever, to hallucination, to madness.
Crashing of steel girders falling, the hum of wheels, the clash of
cranes and winches and chains, the clang of steam-hammers at work--all
are in that roar. The fire flares up with hellish eyes in every dark
corner, and men swarm around in the red glow like evil angels. They are
the slaves of steel and fire, lashed onwards, never resting.
Is this the spirit of Prometheus? Look, the will of steel is flinging
men up into the air now. It is conquering the heavens. Why? That it may
rush the faster. It craves for yet more speed, quicker, quicker, dizzier
yet, hurrying--wherefore?--whither? Alas! it knows not itself.
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