And as he looked at this scene, some hidden voice in the
darkness began to sing.
"Stop that!" shouted one of the policemen, but the order was disobeyed,
and first one and then all the white-stained men who were working there
had taken up the beating refrain, singing it defiantly--the Song of the
Revolt. The feet upon the planks thundered now to the rhythm of the song,
tramp, tramp, tramp. The policeman who had shouted glanced at his fellow,
and Graham saw him shrug his shoulders. He made no further effort to stop
the singing.
And so they went through these factories and places of toil, seeing many
painful and grim things. That walk left on Graham's mind a maze of
memories, fluctuating pictures of swathed halls, and crowded vaults seen
through clouds of dust, of intricate machines, the racing threads of
looms, the heavy beat of stamping machinery, the roar and rattle of belt
and armature, of ill-lit subterranean aisles of sleeping places,
illimitable vistas of pin-point lights. Here was the smell of tanning,
and here the reek of a brewery, and here unprecedented reeks. Everywhere
were pillars and cross archings of such a massiveness as Graham had never
before seen, thick Titans of greasy, shining brickwork crushed beneath
the vast weight of that complex city world, even as these anemic millions
were crushed by its complexity. And everywhere were pale features, lean
limbs, disfigurement and degradation.
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