“At least,” continued September, “it is the youngster who came here yesterday by the same car as you to-day. And the devil take him for it! He has turned my revolving shell into the fore-court of hell! He has been roasting souls! I have known Maohee-drugged beings to have fancied themselves Kings, Gods, Fire, and Storm—and to have forced others to feel themselves Kings, Gods, Fire, and Storm. I have known those in the ecstasy of desire to have forced women down to them from the highest part of the shell’s wall, that they, diving, like seagulls, with out-spread hands, have swooped to his feet, without injuring a limb, while others have fallen to their death. That man there was no God, no Storm, no Fire, and his drunkenness most certainly inspired him with no desire. It seems to me that he had come up from hell and is roaring in the intoxication of damnation. He did not know that the ecstasy for men who are damned is also damnation.... The fool! The prayer he is praying will not redeem him. He believes himself to be a machine and is praying to himself. He has forced the others to pray to him. He has ground them down. He has pounded them to a powder. There are many dragging themselves around Metropolis to-day who cannot comprehend why their limbs are as if broken....”
“Be quiet, September!” said Slim hoarsely. His hand flew to his throat which felt like a glowing cork, like smouldering charcoal.
September fell silent, shrugging his shoulders. Words seethed up from the depths like lava.
“I am the Three-in-one—Lucifer—Belial—Satan—! I am the everlasting Death! I am the everlasting Noway! Come unto me—! In my hell there are many mansions! I shall assign them to you! I am the great king of all the damned—! I am a machine! I am the tower above you all! I am a hammer, a fly-wheel, a fiery oven! I am a murderer and of what I murder I make no use. I want victims and victims do not appease me! Pray to me and know: I do not hear you! Shout at me: Pater-noster! Know: I am deaf!”
Slim turned around; he saw September’s face as a chalky mask at his shoulder. Maybe that, among September’s ancestresses there was one who hailed from an isle in the South sea, where gods mean little—spirits everything.
“That’s no more a man,” he whispered with ashen lips. “A man would have died of it long ago.... Do you see his arms, sir? Do you think a man can imitate the pushing of a machine for hours and hours at a time without its killing him? He is as dead as stone. If you were to call to him he’d collapse and break to pieces like a plaster statue.”
It did not seem as though September’s words had penetrated into Slim’s consciousness. His face wore an expression of loathing and suffering and he spoke as one who speaks with pain.
“I hope, September, that to-night you have had your last opportunity of watching the effects of Maohee on your guests....”
September smiled his Japanese smile.
He did not answer.