Other ghosts in various stages of alarm were already
making their way down the stairs. Some of them spoke, but no sound
came. One woman, her eyes frightened, reached out furtively to touch
her neighbor, apparently to assure herself of his reality. Urged by an
uncontrollable impulse, a man thrust his hand through the ground glass
of an office door. The glass shivered, and crashed to the tile floor.
The pieces broke--silently. It was as though the man had been the
figure in a cinematograph illusion. He stared at his cut and bleeding
hand. The woman who had touched the man suddenly threw back her head
and screamed. They could see her eyes roll back, her face change
color, could discern the straining of her throat. No sound came.
At this a panic seized them. They rushed down the stairs, clambering over
one another, pushing, scrambling, falling. A mob of a hundred men fought
for precedence. Blows were struck. No faintest murmur of tumult came from
their futile heat. It might have been the riot of a wax-works in a vacuum.
They fell into the lower hallway, and fought their way to the street, and
stood there dazed and staring, a strange, wild-eyed, white-faced, bloody
crew. The hurrying avenue stopped to gaze on them curiously, gathering
compact in a mob that blocked all traffic. Policemen pushed their way in
and began roughly to question--and to question in real audible words.
But for the space of a full minute these people stood there staring
upward, drinking in the blessed sound that poured in on them lavishly from
the life of the street; drinking deep gulps of air, as though air had
lacked.
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