United States or Haiti ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
His heart was beating in brief, timid beats. He could have been directly led to his death without uttering a word or a plea. Höflinger 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.
When the siren gave the signal to begin work, Höflinger saw that the newcomer made a good start; and the experience he had had with zealous beginners gave him reason to anticipate that the Swiss youth would become a good workman. So his relation to Pratteler assumed a pleasant form. Like a priest Höflinger served the wheezing and squealing idol which daily swung its high flaming face about itself.
Pratteler manipulated the crane which seized the iron bars and laid them at the feet of the idol. Then a claw would project itself and draw the bar toward the revolving teeth. The bar cried out like a beast. Behind the disk a whirlpool of fire was set free. The idol screamed and screeched. At the end it whistled, and when it was done, it rang a bell.
Pratteler would have liked to know how the couple looked at each other and what they talked about when they were alone; he could not imagine it. But he never noticed any disagreement or coolness. Spiele teased her husband with all sorts of pointed allusions, as behooved a tailor's daughter, to his difficult social responsibilities; but he never took it ill.
Höflinger 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.
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. Höflinger 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. Höflinger beat down his hand and stepped back.
In order to avoid all misunderstandings, Pratteler at once declared that he hated all emperors and kings, because they were parasites who sucked dry the German people and were responsible for its poverty and stupidity. They should be smoked out in order to make way for the state of the future, which would establish conditions more worthy of human society.
They crouched silently behind their machines, carried burdens, spat at intervals, and did not seem to mind that the foremen watched them and the engineers ordered them about. Pratteler hated all foremen, feared the machines with a dangerous destructive fear, and thought the engineers tyrants like Gessler, every man of them deserving to be the aim of a new Tell.
Then the fragments that had dropped behind were automatically removed and the claw reached out for its next work. Around the idol iron stairs led up and ended in a circular gallery. When Pratteler stepped up to the monster he scanned it with a quick and hostile glance. For a moment he stopped short and felt disinclined to grapple with it.
Pratteler was surprised to learn that the spirit of revolt had been haunting the iron-works for some months past. A big strike was being planned in order to rebel against decades of oppression and prepare the foundations for a better future. Pratteler was confused. He could not understand why he had not met this spirit in any of his noon hour ramblings.
Word Of The Day