The light in the Neon-lamps became reddish, flickering rhythmically and throwing ghostly shadows. The street sloped. There was the mustering-ground. But the huge elevators hung dead on their cables. Ropes, twisted from ropes—metal ropes, thick as a man’s thigh, hung in the air, torn asunder. Blackish oil was welling in a leisurely channel from an exploded pipe. And over everything lay a dry vapour as if from heated iron and glowing stones.
Deep in the darkness of distant alleys the gloom took on a brownish hue. A fire was smouldering there....
“Go up—!” whispered Maria’s dry lips. But she was not able to say the words. Winding stairs led upwards. The staircase was narrow—nobody used the staircase which ran by the certain, infallible elevators. Maria crowded the children up the steps. But, up there, there reigned a darkness of impenetrable gloom and density. None of the children ventured to ascend alone.
Maria scrambled up. She counted the steps. Like the rushing of a thousand wings came the sound of the children’s feet behind her, in the narrow spiral. She did not know how long she had been climbing up. Innumerable hands were clutching her damp dress. She dragged her burdens upward, praying, moaning the while—praying only for strength for another hour.
“Don’t cry, little brothers!” she stammered. “My little sisters, please don’t cry.”
Children were screaming, down in the depths—and the hundred windings of the stairway gave echo’s trumpet to each cry:
“Mother—! Mother—!”
And once more:
“The water’s coming—!”
Stop and lie down, halfway up the stairs—? No!