Cristian Vogel - Enter The Tub (Strike138)

“At first I remained outside; then, as rescuers ran into the theater and began to bring out ridiculous things, old sofas and the like, I also went over through the dark vestibule and up the grand staircase. Above was the fire. The flames were already beginning to enter the corridor through the loges from the auditorium. Suddenly a loge door flew open crackling, then a second, then a third. The huge auditorium stood open. The entire chamber is a whirlwind of glowing dust, one single, red sea of light in which vibrating atoms of fire waft upward, undifferentiated elements, not flames. These become thicker only on the periphery where the fire breaks hissing through the silk curtains of the loges and licks the roof of the corridor with long tongues. In the gallery of busts the oeil-de-boeuf windows fall clattering one after the other and a fleeting light from a flame falls on Houdon’s Voltaire, who views the wreckage ironically.”

[Journey to the Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kess ler, 1880–1918 ]