The next morning at breakfast Hoeflinger scanned him with a searching glance. "Did everything go well with the saw?" he asked with concern. "Why should it not!" replied Victor sulkily and rose; the last mouthful stuck in his throat. When he rode to the works beside him, Hoeflinger noticed the change in his wheel and nodded approvingly: "You are right to obey my wife's suggestion, Pratteler," said he, and added: "You should also give up your extravagant speeding and pedaling for hours at a stretch." Victor was silent. Later other workingmen joined them and greeted Hoeflinger eagerly. But he was no more communicative than at other times.

They entered the machine-shop. Before the gable-wall in the background towered the idol. Its immense disk shone treacherously in the morning light. Victor's heart was beating. The siren howled. The belting-gear cracked and rolled up. The first shot rang out behind the halls. Hoeflinger pressed down the lever and let the idol run. It rang the bell and whistled; but there was a crunching noise. Hoeflinger listened and hastily threw back the lever; the disk made a sweeping movement. Silently he went up to the iron gallery. After a moment which seemed an hour to Victor, he came down again. His face was grave; his eyes sought Victor. "Did you do anything to the machine, Pratteler?" asked he with troubled mien. "Is something wrong?" replied Victor much too loud and angry at the ring of his voice. "It ran well until work was over last night. After that I was not near it." Hoeflinger cleared his throat. "Then it is sabotage," said he dejectedly. "But it is senseless and murderous sabotage. If I had not heard that something was wrong, we two should not be going about much longer." He went to the tool box and again ascended the gallery.

Victor did not dare to follow him until he called. They both repaired the damage done. Victor's hands were cold as ice in all the heat that rose from the half-glowing iron blocks. At this moment he felt a violent hatred of Hoeflinger and came near throwing him from the gallery. Hoeflinger said only that the perpetrator would be expelled from the organization as soon as discovered. That word sounded like a judgment to Victor's ears. It gripped and shocked him in a depth of consciousness he had not yet realized. He began to tremble. He stood unknowingly under the jurisdiction of the power called social morality, and his highflown democratic notions were already so strongly modified, that he came near confessing his guilt to Hoeflinger. Yet the impulse only intensified his hatred of the man who by his laconic and deeply ordered life deprived him of one freedom after another, until it became an unendurable torture. He had lost his heart to Spiele's charm over which the enemy had unlimited mastery. Now his self-will, too, was being shattered and pushed under the feet of the marching multitude. Something had to happen to give the world breathing-space. A master shot should explode that whole damnable scheme in which his life was about to be sunk and buried.

A week after that incident in the short nine o'clock pause Hoeflinger remarked casually, that Spiele would no longer bring them their lunch, and they would have to ride home. He gave no reason for this decision, and, when Victor glanced at him, did not look as if he were inclined to be questioned. Victor said it was all right, and stared dismally before him. Suddenly he took his cup and angrily spilled the coffee on the floor. He was convinced that Hoeflinger had learned of the incidents of the first noon and the second night of his absence, and that the change was due to them. So he was again to be punished. Hoeflinger had raised his brows in surprise: "Why do you spill that coffee?" "Because I don't like it—d—it!" Victor got up breathing fast and stepped aside. Beside him glistened the cold disk of the saw; he looked wrathfully at the claw which had stopped about to grab a bar. What a tyrant the long one was! He found out everything; he got out everything from that helpless woman. He surely found it annoying to ride home every noon, but he wanted Victor to feel his power. He wanted to punish and torture him for his devotion to Spiele. And such a fellow was in the executive committee and was esteemed by the mass!

Suddenly Victor started, trembled and his eyes shudderingly turned away from the monster's claw. Whoever came within its grasp was lost, even if his name was Hoeflinger and he was in the committee. Then he would cease to tyrannize over his handsome wife and to lead about by the nose, the ill-advised proletariat. A big humbug would end, and the air would be so much purer than before. Pratteler sighed, gritted his teeth and rapidly measured the idol with a look of distrust and hatred. After that, this beast should be disposed of—what a relief that would be! Two scoundrels silenced. A giddiness came over him. For an instant he had to hold on to the lever, but the next moment found him once more standing firm and tense in all his muscles on his well-trained cyclist's legs. The siren called. The bells rang sharply through the shops. Five minutes later another shot was heard behind the machine halls. Engineers went watching back and forth. The individual workingman disappeared behind the steel monsters; nothing was seen but the movement of shining metal limbs. There was a roar, and there a crash. Now an iron cry echoed through space. An uncanny shrill ringing of bells followed. The walls seemed to throw back a cruel hard laughter. The gearing cracked and rolled. The belts were swaying. Cold bluish lightning flashed all over the machines. The idol wheezed and squealed.

Sabotage had recently become more frequent. Several men had been caught, expelled from the organization and forced to leave the iron-works. If they refused, they were given up to the authorities. Hoeflinger was the most bitter foe of those malefactors. One day he again discovered that screws had been loosened and that some parts of the idol were even missing. In this way the black sheep among the workingmen were trying to take revenge. In the lower strata of the force there was a tendency toward disorganization. A group of secret anarchists and born marauders hoped to bring about general disorder during the strike and to have an occasion either to derive some personal profit or to destroy the whole plant. Though Victor did not belong to them and by his inborn middle-class honesty was separated from those wild rebels, still there was a bridge leading from the shores of youthful discontent and ignorance to the camp of those law-breakers, and there was always intercourse through the medium of deserters and newsmongers. Victor realized the danger of sabotage, but he could not grow indignant about it, because he really wished injury to the capitalists.

Hoeflinger was of course not ignorant of his ideas. Victor had a bad conscience, though this time he was innocent. He suspected that Hoeflinger distrusted him and anticipated that he would make use of this opportunity to frame a case against him. He spent a half day full of hatred and torture in helping him to repair the damage, while the engineers walked about excitedly. That clay there was not a moment when Victor did not wish the death of Hoeflinger and in his mind was menace to his life. Pain gnawed at his very vitals. He felt as if his lungs were compressed in iron hoops. From time to time his teeth chattered. Sometimes he had forcibly to collect his senses and was surprised that he was still there and alive. The whole shop moved about him like a wild and treacherous dream-world. Nothing was real in it but his boundless love and his unendurable hate. His bad conscience suggested ever new combinations and was eagerly active to realize the most improbable notions and fancies. If he had still believed in hell, he would have imagined in those moments of self-absorption that he was in the midst of it. So the time had come when the seed of despair which he had so sadly and seriously tended in his soul, was quickened.

On a Saturday evening, when he paid his board, Hoeflinger told him that they had decided not to keep boarders any longer. The announcement was made in a kindly and friendly manner: but Victor listened with secret malice. He grew pale and gave Hoeflinger a hostile stare. Hoeflinger added that he regretted, that he had liked him, but that everybody had to arrange his life according to his own needs. These were more good words than Victor had ever heard from him, and his suspicion that the recent sabotage and a secret decision of the committee which the long one had carried through, were back of it, rapidly became a conviction. In his mind he sneered: "We'll see who leaves the house first." He nodded convulsively and left the room with stiff knees. He thought by himself: "He wants me to feel his power" and "He denounced me so as to get me away from his wife. He is a wretched scoundrel one must get rid of!" These three conclusions henceforth determined his thoughts and the direction of his speculations. Before his eyes the claw of the idol continually appeared, rising from the ground and grabbing its prey. Between the wife and the idol stood nothing but the doomed victim. Everything else had vanished like smaller beasts at the tiger's coming. The world had become strangely simplified.

Victor sat seriously brooding on the first step of the stairs to the gallery and stared before him with eyes, sunken and circled with dark rings. A workingman passed and remarked laughing: "Get your hair cut, Garibaldi." He looked after him wondering what he meant. Hoeflinger stepped near. The siren shrieked. The electrical bells yelled through the shops. Softly the gearing began to move. The steel beasts came to life again. The first thrill went through the halls. Hundreds of shining metal limbs were lifted high, slender, irresistible, triumphant. Elbows and fists appeared and disappeared. A low, mocking crackle, tinkle and knocking followed the first movements. A dull roar slowly swallowed it all. The belts were whizzing and swaying. Once more the machines were masters.

Hoeflinger looked surprised at Victor who was still sitting on the iron step, his fists on his knees. "Well, Pratteler, are you going to look on today?" he asked with a halfhearted smile. Victor started. With a bewildered look he braced up, threw back his shoulders and went to work. The strike committee had sent guards and watchmen to prevent sabotage and everything seemed to be quiet. Hoeflinger had just received their report and was pleased. "We have quietly put a stop to the tricks of those good-for-nothings," said he to Victor. "The machines run as smoothly as ever." The blood mounted to Victor's face. He had only heard the word "good-for-nothing" and mechanically interpreted its meaning; he was sadly experienced in that sort of thing. He felt sneered at and betrayed all around, and his temper rising, conjured the spirit of revenge. Again before his inner vision he saw the claw rise from the ground; he waited with bent head until it really appeared. Then with three hurried steps he approached Hoeflinger. Looking aside as if by accident, he pushed against the claw and the revolving disk, and waited, blind with excitement, to see what would happen. Six—eight—twelve heartbeats: finally, hearing no outcry, he looked around. One hand on the railing of the stairs, Hoeflinger stood, his eyes turned toward him and scanning him with a troubled look, as the other day on the street. "Something seems to be wrong behind there after all," cried Victor his voice pitched too high and shaking with fear. "They are standing about a machine and consulting." That was true. Hoeflinger looked in that direction. He resumed his reticent mien and bit his lip. Then he went up the iron stairs to the gallery and staid a long time.

With senseless regularity, without soul or breath, the iron sphinxes turned their hardened limbs. They stretched up their shining fists and chased the connecting-shafts until they whined and moaned. Cold and haughty glowed the metal. The belts were flying without purpose or restraint. Periodically an explosion was heard. The idol stood in the steady fire of the torrent of sparks that shot from between its teeth. The iron screamed. Pale and unreal the day looked in through the high windows. Where a sunbeam struck, it was felt as a burning torture. Through the middle aisle three older workingmen came down with measured steps. Behind every machine heads bobbed up to look after them. Then the engineers approached and the heads vanished. Victor tended the idol and waited for Hoeflinger.

When he came down the stairs, Pratteler counted his steps and listened to their sound. He thought he noticed that Hoeflinger was afraid. That filled him with radiant joy and with faith in his good conscience. The victim knew that it was doomed. Everything seemed to clear of itself. In the distance floated and beckoned the future of Spiele: that was the prize. His imagination painted glowing pictures of her life and of her heaven. His love became distorted like a cloud image and the adored form of his sweetheart went under in the wild conflagration. He hoped to see an angel rise from the flames; but at best it was a charred corpse that awaited him.

Like a monster horse the idol neighed. Its swinging disk rang and roared. Sparks flew about. That meant that the block was sawed through and the claw would soon appear—empty. Hoeflinger was just stepping to the floor. Pratteler hurried to him and grabbed his arm. "Come—look—quick—" cried he, hoarse with excitement, and tried to drag him along. Hoeflinger beat down his hand and stepped back. He looked at him more attentively. Victor threw himself upon him; carried away by his passion he began to pummel and shake and drag him about without any sense. Hoeflinger's fist came down on his head, but still without full intent. In Pratteler's soul all the long-suppressed rage and wretchedness flared up. Like a cat he leaped at the long one's neck, knocked him with his knees and twisted his feet about his legs to bring him down to the floor. He struck at his eyes and under his chin and tried to grab his throat. Hoeflinger was at a disadvantage, because he did not act in temper and his defense was limited to a few straight but honest blows. The claw withdrew empty and appeared once more. The disk rang the bell and roared. The carts approached with their load and returned with it. Victor no longer thought of his prize; he had only in mind Hoeflinger's destruction. All means for that purpose seemed justified to him. He did not even care, that he, too, would be ruined—if only Hoeflinger were lying dead and in pieces behind the idol and the world were delivered from him and would be free to work out its own fate. When he saw that he was most likely to drag Hoeflinger with him to the claw, he directed all his efforts to accomplishing that purpose. Now Hoeflinger grasped the bitter seriousness of the situation, and his blows became heavier and more direct. But whenever he threw Victor with a single blow against the railing, the young man jumped upon him or against his legs, so desperately quick and brutal and clever in his movements, that Hoeflinger saw the moment come when he would have to fell him with a last well-aimed blow against the temples. He believed that the Swiss had become insane.

Nevertheless he had seemed to notice before that the song of the idol was growing weaker, and now he became fully conscious of it. Even Victor in his God-forsaken mood became aware of it. He struggled a while against this knowledge and continued to fight, but he was startled by it and his attacks seemed to be aimed distractedly. The disk whistled and started to ring the bells. As if struck in his heart, Victor's hands dropped from Hoeflinger, and he turned around at the idol. He looked about and about and was sobered. Behind the halls another explosion was heard. The gearings dragged and cracked. Then the machinery stopped. Victor collected his thoughts. It was far from closing-hour, only the middle of the afternoon. His eyes sought Hoeflinger as if to question him, but strayed aside bewildered and turned to the sunbeams and their glaring torture. The siren cried. It howled. It blew a triumphant blast. It played tricks like the sirens of a merry-go-round or shoot-the-chutes. Finally it stopped on one note which it repeated with full force, half a minute at the time, again and again and always at the same pitch. The disk shone and shook treacherously. Behind all the machines the forms of workingmen rose. Victor was amazed at the number of men that these halls had held. Again he looked at the long one, who contemplated him half pitifully, half angrily. He braved that look for a second; then he east his eyes down before the long feet of Hoeflinger and awaited his judgment. His heart was beating in brief, timid beats. He could have been directly led to his death without uttering a word or a plea.

Hoeflinger cleared his throat. "What is the matter with you, Pratteler? Is that the way a union member treats a comrade?" His voice trembled with suppressed emotion. Victor listened. His false repose was not equal to this note. At mention of the organization a multitude of possibilities overwhelmed him. He thought that Hoeflinger knew everything, and when he saw him retain his composure he dropped his last claim and looked up to this specimen of human greatness that had grown out of greater depths and had been formed by higher laws than he suspected.

Victor sighed deeply and raised his dim eyes to Hoeflinger. "Forgive me, I was crazy," said he shaking his head. "I understand nothing of all this. If you can prevent it, don't have me expelled from the organization. Do you hear? If you want, I will immediately take my leave."

Hoeflinger looked at him astonished. "Do you care at all for the union?" he asked. "I don't understand you. Why should you be expelled? Besides, even if I wanted it, I should not have the power to do it."

Victor's head dropped; suddenly he gave himself up. "It was I who damaged the machine the first time. But not after that. Now you will have to tell on me, Hoeflinger. Did you not know it? Why am I to leave your house?"

Hoeflinger opened his eyes wide, as if he could not take in enough knowledge of this peculiar fellow. "Because my wife is about to become a mother and wants to be alone with—it, and with me," he replied with tension. "Why did you ask?"

"Oh, I thought it was from revenge—or something." Victor passed his trembling hands over his brow and his hair. "It is all humbug," he added with bitterness.

Slowly Hoeflinger began to comprehend. "The individual is a humbug, Pratteler," he added with precision and knowingly nodded at him.

"And yet you want to be a father," remarked Victor. "Your child will be nothing better."

Hoeflinger grabbed his coat; he saw that all were getting ready and collecting in groups. "A man like me becomes not a father, but a brother, when his wife gives birth to children," he remarked as if to change the subject. "But why did you want to attack me? Did I offend you without knowing?"

Victor reddened violently and shook his head. "I can't tell you," he replied and grabbed his coat.

A workingman came running up the aisle. "Strike!" he called from far and swung his hat. "Strike, Hoeflinger!" The long one nodded; it did not seem to surprise him. For him particularly it meant that he would open the food centre and realize his ideal. Victor forgot his coat when he heard the word "strike." Cold and hot shivers ran over him. Now he stood there as a little modest workingman in the great event which the others had prepared. When his eyes took in the situation, he recognized the excellence of the organization and the value of the waiting period which had preceded this date. His coat in hand, he quietly walked behind the two workingmen and his head was humming with thoughts that were neither foolish nor jealous.

On both sides and all about the iron beasts were lying, lurking immovable, their merciless limbs lazily stretched. In their beautiful brutal bodies a sustained glow seemed to flicker. As at all times the vicious graceful forms lay there and shone with a lustful light. But no living brain conceived a creative thought, no eye was animated by a soul. Cold, heartless, brainless beasts filled the halls where they reigned. The little long-necked man with the bushy head and the yellow wheelman's sandals brought to contrast with them much solid worth, and surpassed them in real beauty. For those sovereigns could all be hacked to pieces, and nothing was lost; they could be replaced. But if Victor Pratteler by some sad accident lost his life, the world would have been poorer in just so much love, good will, sincere remorse, faith, humility and honesty. Before he left the hall, he threw another glance at the idol, and wondered at himself. For the idol was no longer a symbol to him; he could contemplate it quietly and objectively. A feeling of shyness came over him at the memory of the last half hour; but the distress which he had experienced was so great and his deliverance so simple and comprehensible to his soul, that the power of the idol had melted before it. The siren continued to howl. The strikers had fastened the valve with a rope, locked the furnace room and thrown the keys in through the window, so they could not be reproached with having them. After an hour the fire department silenced its voice. In the meantime a stream of workingmen was surging toward the meeting-hall.

With the same quiet and impersonally gentle manner in which he had taken leave of the idol, Victor approached Spiele, when he returned with Hoeflinger. He noticed now with his unveiled eyes that the tailor's daughter was by no means as pretty as he had always believed. There were wrinkles about her nose from her habit of drawing it up so often. She also had some crowsfeet about the eyes. It could not be denied that these eyes were of a beautiful brown in the twilight, but when you looked at them in full light, there was plenty of green in them. Her hands were rather hardened by work and quite callous on the inside from wielding broom and garden tools. So Victor was consoled for her loss, and withdrew his head from the noose. In the evening the long one made a joke. "Think of it, Spiele, Pratteler did not want to leave us. I believe he had some scruples about leaving you alone with me."

Spiele turned over a baby garment which she was sewing. "Well, it is not always a pleasure to be alone with you!" she replied with a laugh. "But I am going to try it once more."

A week later Victor obeyed the order of the organization which bade all unmarried workingmen leave, in order to unburden the strikers' fund and to let the heads of families fight out their cause. Afterward they might return. He left the house of Hoeflinger, in which he had after all fulfilled a vital mission, grateful and with the best wishes for the happiness of those he left. With a conscious will and readiness for action, and with well-trimmed hair, he went out into a world which his eyes saw everywhere in the throes of reorganization.

THE END