| OCR Text |
Show 66 in Gast's black eyes to make the most beautiful image I had ever seen in my life. I gazed in fascination as the sparkling, capering golden brilliance played in a double reflection on those glowing, bottomless black holes that reached through Gast's skull into the depths of the heavens. When he turned to speak to'someone, I grasped him by both shoulders and cried, "No, no, don't move, turn back! Keep your eyes burning on the fire. If you shut off your looking, the fire will go out!" Gast stared at me. I tried to explain to him about the bonfire, but my words would not come out right. Suddenly my vision seemed to burst apart and fill with glaring light of all colors, and the noise around me grew so loud that I clapped my hands over my ears. The stomping feet of the burghers made the ground rise up almost to my knees, it seemed, then drop off like an open grave. "What's happening!" I cried, staggering to stay on my feet. The next thing I knew I was lying face-dovm on the cobblestones, vomiting. Hilde pulled me by one arm and Gast by the other, trying to lift me out of my own mess. "Geist has had too much wine," someone shouted in a voice which racketed inside my skull, and the loud laughter that followed sounded like shrieks of tortured animals. "It's not the wine, not the wine," I tried to shout, but the noises coming from my throat made no sense even to me. "Give him air," Hilde said, and her voice, usually so soft, had me screaming with pain. Next I felt Dietrich and Damien half lifting |
