A woman—Grot’s woman—tore a strip off her skirt and bound Freder’s hands. He was bound fast to the parapet with cords. He struggled like a wild beast, shouting that the veins of this throat were in danger of bursting. Bound, impotent, he threw back his head and saw the sky over Metropolis, pure, tender, greenish-blue, for morning would soon follow after this night.
“God—!” he shouted, trying to throw himself on his knees, in his bonds. “God—! Where art thou—?”
A wild, red gleam caught his eyes. The pyre flamed up in long flames. The men, the women, seized hands and tore around the bonfire, faster, faster and faster, in rings growing ever wider and wider, laughing, screaming with stamping feet, “Witch—! Witch!”
Freder’s bonds broke. He fell over on his face among the feet of the dancers.
And the last he saw of the girl, while her gown and hair stood blazing around her as a mantle of fire, was the loving smile and the wonder of her eyes—and her mouth of deadly sin, which lured among the flames:
“Dance with me, my dearest! Dance with me—!”
CHAPTER XXI
Rotwang awoke; but he knew quite well he was dead. And this consciousness filled him with the deepest satisfaction. His aching body no longer had anything to do with him. That was perhaps the last remains of life. But something worried him deeply, as he raised himself up and looked around in all directions: Hel was not there.
Hel must be found....
An existence without Hel was over at last. A second one?—No! Better than to stay dead.