g, beautiful hair swept the floor;
a short violent flash of flame, and it was gone, the next moment she
plunged down into the flames.

Mogens uttered a moaning sound, short, deep and powerful, like the roar
of a wild beast, and at the same time made a violent movement, as if to
get away from the abyss. It was impossible on account of the girder. His
hands groped over the fragments of wall, then they stiffened as it were
in a mighty clasp over the debris, and he began to strike his forehead
against the wreckage with a regular beat, and moaned: "Lord God, Lord
God, Lord God."

Thus he lay. In the course of a little while, he noticed that there was
something standing beside him and touching him. It was a fireman who had
thrown the girder aside, and was about to carry him out of the house.
With a strong feeling of annoyance, Mogens noticed that he was lifted up
and led away. The man carried him to the opening, and then Mogens had a
clear perception that a wrong was being committed against him, and that
the man who was carrying him had designs on his life. He tore himself
out of his arms, seized a lathe that lay on the floor, struck the man
over the head with it so that he staggered backward; he himself issued
from the opening and ran erect down the ladder, holding the lathe above
his head. Through the tumult, the smoke, the crowd of people, through
empty streets, across desolate squares, out into the fields. Deep snow
everywhere, at a little distance a black spot, it was a gravel-heap,
that jutted out above the snow. He struck at it with the lathe, struck
again and again, continued to strike at it; he wished to strike it dead,
so that it might disappear; he wanted to run far away, and ran round
about the heap and struck at it as if possessed. It would not, would not
disappear; he hurled the lathe far away and flung himself upon the black
heap to give it the finishing stroke. He got his hands full of small
stones, it was gravel, it was a black heap of gravel. Why was he out
here in the field burrowing in a black gravel-heap?--He smelled the
smoke, the flames flashed round him, he saw Camilla sink down into them,
he cried out aloud and rushed wildly across the field. He could not
rid himself of the sight of the flames, he held his eyes shut: Flames,
flames! He threw himself on the ground and pressed his face down into
the snow: Flames! He leaped up, ran backward, ran forward, turned aside:
Flames everywhere! He rushed furthe