d strength and redoubled
clearness. It was the middle part of the ceiling of the first floor that
fell. Mogens with both hands seized a large scaling-ladder which leaned
against the part of the factory which was not yet in flames. For a
moment he held it vertically, but then it slipped away from him and fell
over toward the councilor's house where it broke in a window-frame on
the second story. Mogens ran up the ladder, and in through the opening.
At first he had to close his eyes on account of the pungent wood-smoke,
and the heavy suffocating fumes which rose from the charred wood that
the water had reached took his breath away. He was in the dining-room.
The living-room was a huge glowing abyss; the flames from the lower part
of the house, now and then, almost reached up to the ceiling; the few
boards that had remained hanging when the floor fell burned in brilliant
yellowish-white flames; shadows and the gleam of flames flooded over the
walls; the wall-paper here and there curled up, caught fire, and flew
in flaming tatters down into the abyss; eager yellow flames licked their
way up on the loosened moldings and picture-frames. Mogens crept over
the ruins and fragments of the fallen wall towards the edge of the
abyss, from which cold and hot blasts of air alternately struck his
face; on the other side so much of the wall had fallen, that he could
look into Camilla's room, while the part that hid the councilor's office
still stood. It grew hotter and hotter; the skin of his face became
taut, and he noticed, that his hair was crinkling. Something heavy
glided past his shoulder and remained lying on his back and pressed him
down to the floor; it was the girder which slowly had slipped out of
place. He could not move, breathing became more and more difficult, his
temples throbbed violently; to his left a jet of water splashed against
the wall of the dining-room, and the wish rose in him, that the cold,
cold drops, which scattered in all directions might fall on him. Then he
heard a moan on the other side of the abyss, and he saw something white
stir on the floor in Camilla's room. It was she. She lay on her knees,
and while her hips were swaying, held her hands pressed against each
side of her head. She rose slowly, and came towards the edge of the
abyss. She stood straight upright, her arms hung limply down, and the
head went to and fro limply on the neck. Very, very slowly the upper
part of her body fell forward, her lon