Metropolis. Part 11

No-no waiting-! He wanted to know.

With clenched teeth he ran...

There was a house in the city where Maria lived. An interminably long way. What should he ask about? With bare head, with raw hands, with eyes which seemed insane with weariness, he ran towards his destination: Maria's abode.

He did not know by how many precious hours Slim had come before him...

He stood before the people with whom Maria was supposed to live: a man-a woman-the faces of whipped curs. The woman undertook the reply. Her eyes twitched. She held her hands clutched under her ap.r.o.n.

No-no girl called Maria lived here-never had lived here... .

Freder stared at the woman. He did not believe her. She must know the girl. She must live here.

Half stunned with fear that this last hope of finding Maria could prove fallacious too, he described the girl, as memory came to the aid of this poor madman.

She had such fair hair... She had such gentle eyes... She had the voice of a loving mother... She wore a severe but lovely gown...

The man left his position, near the woman, and stooped down sideways, hunching his head down between his shoulders as though he could not bear to hear how that strange young man there, at the door, spoke of the girl, for whom he was seeking. Shaking her head in angry impatience for him to be finished, the woman repeated the same unvarnished words: The girl did not live here, once and for all... Hadn't he nearly finished with his catechism?

Freder went. He went without a word. He heard how the door was slammed to, with a bang. Voices were retiring, bickering. Interminable steps brought him to the street again.

Yes... what next?

He stood helpless. He did not know which way to turn.

Exhausted to death, drunken with weariness, he heard, with a sudden wince, that the air around him was becoming filled with an overpowering sound.

It was an immeasurably glorious and transporting sound, as deep and rumbling as and more powerful than any sound on earth. The voice of the sea when it is angry, the voice of falling torrents, the voice of very close thunder-storms would be miserably drowned in this Behemoth-din. Without being shrill it penetrated all walls and, as long as it lasted, all things seemed to swing in it. It was omnipresent, coming from the heights and from the depths, being beautiful and horrible, being an irresistible command.

It was high above the town. It was the voice of the town.

Metropolis raised her voice. The machines of Metropolis roared; they wanted to be fed.

"My father," thought Freder, half unconsciously, "has pressed his fingers upon the blue metal plate. The brain of Metropolis controls the town. Nothing happens in Metropolis which does not come to my father's ears. I shall go to my father and ask him if the inventor, Rotw.a.n.g, has played with Maria and with me in the name of Joh Fredersen."

He turned around to wend his way to the New Tower of Babel. He set off with the obstinacy of one possessed, with screwed up lips, sharp lines between the eyebrows, clenched fists on his weak, dangling arms. He set off as though he wanted to pound the stone beneath his feet. It seemed as though every drop of blood in his face had collected in his eyes alone. He ran, and, on the interminable way, at every step, he had the feeling: I am not he who is running... I am running, a spirit, by the side of my own self... I, the spirit, am forcing my body to run onwards, although it is tired to death...

Those who stared at him when he arrived at the New Tower of Babel seemed to be seeing, not him, but a spirit...

He was about to enter the Pater-noster, which was pumping its way, a scoop-wheel for human beings, through the New Tower of Babel. But a sudden shudder pushed him away from it. Did there not crouch below, deep, deep, down, under the sole of the New Tower of Babel, a little, gleaming machine, which was like Ganesha, the G.o.d with the elephant's head? Under the crouching body, and the head, which was sunken on the chest, crooked legs rested, gnome-Like, upon the platform. The trunk and legs were motionless. But the short arms-pushed and pushed and pushed, alternately, forwards, backwards, forwards.

Who was standing before the machine now, cursing the Lord's Prayer-the Lord's Prayer of the Pater-noster machine?

s.h.i.+vering with horror, he ran up the stairs.

Stairs and stairs and stairs... They would never come to an end... The brow of the New Tower of Babel lifted itself very near to the sky. The tower roared like the sea. It howled as deep as the storm. The hurtling of a water-fall boomed in its veins.

"Where is my father?" Freder asked the servants.

They indicated a door. They wanted to announce him. He shook his head. He wondered: Why were these people looking so strangely at him?

He opened a door. The room was empty. On the other side, a second door, ajar. Voices behind it. The voice of his father and that of another...

Freder suddenly stood still. His feet seemed to be nailed to the floor. The upper part of his body was bent stiffly forwards. His fists dangled on helpless arms, seeming no longer capable of freeing themselves from their own clench. He listened; the eyes in his white face were filled with blood, the lips were open as though forming a cry.

Then he tore his deadened feet from the floor, stumbled to the door and pushed it open...

In the middle of the room, which was filled with a cutting brightness, stood Joh Fredersen, holding a woman in his arms. And the woman was Maria. She was not struggling. Leaning far back in the man's arms, she was offering him her mouth, he alluring mouth, that deadly laugh...

"You... !" shouted Freder.

He dashed to the girl. He did not see his father. He saw only the girl-no, neither did he see the girl, only her mouth and her sweet, wicked laugh.

Joh Fredersen turned around, broad and menacing. He let the girl go. He covered her with the might of his shoulders, with the great cranium, flamed with blood, and in which the strong teeth and the invincible eyes were very visible.

But Freder did not see his father. He only saw an obstacle between him and the girl.

He rushed at the obstacle. It pushed him back. Scarlet hatred for the obstacle choked him. His eyes flew around. They sought an implement-an implement which could be used as a battering ram. He found none. Then he threw himself toward as a battering ram. His fingers clutched into stuff. He bit into the stuff. He heard his own breath like a whistle, very high and shrill. Yet within him there was only one sound, only one cry: "Maria-!" Groaningly, beseechingly: "Maria-!!"

A man dreaming of h.e.l.l shrieks out no more, in his torment, than did he.

And still, between him and the girl, the man, the lump of rock, the living wall...

He threw his hands forward. Ah... look!..there was a throat! He seized the throat. His fingers snapped fast like iron fangs.

"Why don't you defend yourself?" he yelled, staring at the man.

"I'll kill you-! I'll take your life-! I'll murder you-!"

But the man before him held his ground while he throttled him. Thrown this way and that by Freder's fury, the body bent, now to the right, now to the left. And as often as this happened Freder saw, as through a transparent mist, the smiling countenance of Maria, who, leaning against the table, was looking on with her sea water eyes at the fight between father and son.

His father's voice said: "Freder... "

He looked the man in the face. He saw his father. He saw the hands which were clawing around his father's throat They were his, were the hands of his son.

His hands fell loose, as though cut off... he stared at his hands, stammering something which sounded half like an oath, half like the weeping of a child that believes itself to be alone in the world.

The voice of his father said: "Freder... "

He fell on his knees. He stretched out his arms. His head fell forward into his father's hands. He burst into tears, into despairing sobs...

A door slid to.

He flung his head around. He sprang to his feet. His eyes swept the room.

"Where is she?" he asked.

"Who?"

"She-... "

"Who-?"

"She... who was here... "

"n.o.body was here, Freder... "

The boy's eyes glazed.

"What did you say-?" he stammered.

"There has not been a soul here, Freder, but you and I."

Freder twisted his head around stiffly. He tugged the s.h.i.+rt from his throat. He looked into his father's eyes as though looking into well-shafts.

"You say there was not a soul here... I did not see you... when you were holding Maria in your arms... I have been dreaming... I am mad, aren't I?... "

"I give you my word," said Joh Fredersen, "when you came to me there was neither a woman nor any other living soul here... "

Freder remained silent. His bewildered eyes were still searching along the walls.

"You are ill, Freder," said his father's voice.

Freder smiled. Then he began to laugh. He threw himself into a chair and laughed and laughed. He bent down, resting both elbows upon his knees, burrowing his head between his hands and arms. He rocked himself to and fro, shrieking with laughter.

Joh Fredersen's eyes were upon him.

Chapter 9.

THE AEROPLANE WHICH had carried Josaphat away from Metropolis swam in the golden air of the setting sun, rus.h.i.+ng towards it at a tearing speed, as though fastened to the westward sinking ball by metal cords.

Josaphat sat behind the pilot. From the moment when the aerodrome had sunk below them and the stone mosaic of the great Metropolis had paled away into the inscrutable depths, he had not given the least token that he was a human being with the faculty for breathing and moving. The pilot seemed to be taking a pale grey stone, which had the form of a man, with him as freight and, when he once turned around, he looked full into the wide open eyes of this petrified being without meeting a glance or the least sign of consciousness.

Nevertheless Josaphat had intercepted the movement of the pilot's head with his brain. Not immediately. Not soon. Yet the vision of this cautious, yet certain and vigilant movement remained in his memory until he at last comprehended it.

Then the petrified image seemed to become a human being again, whose breast rose in a long neglected breath, who raised his eyes upwards, looking into the empty greenish blue sky and down again to the earth which formed a flat, round carpet, deep down in infinity-and at the sun which was rolling westwards like a glowing ball.

Last of all, however, at the head of the pilot who sat before him, at the airman's cap which turned, neckless, into shoulders filled with a bull-Like strength and a forceful calm.

The powerful engine of the aeroplane worked in perfect silence. But the air through which the aeroplane tore was filled with a mysterious thunder, as though the dome of heaven were catching up the roaring in the globe and throwing it angrily back again.

The aeroplane hovered homelessly above a strange earth, like a bird not able to find its nest.

Suddenly, amid the thunder of the air, the pilot heard a voice at his left ear saying, almost softly: "Turn back... "

The head in the airman's cap was about to bend backwards. But at the first attempt to do so it came in contact with an object of resistance, which rested exactly on the top of his skull. This object of resistance was small, apparently angular and extraordinarily hard.

"Don't move!" said the voice at his left ear, which was so soft, yet making itself understood through the thunder of the air. "Don't look round, either! I have no revolver with me. Had I had one handy I should probably not be here. What I have in my hand is an implement the name and purpose of which are unknown to me. But it is made of solid steel and quite sufficient to smash in your skull with should you not obey me immediately... Turn back!"

The bull-Like shoulders under the airman's cap raised themselves in a short, impatient shrug. The glowing ball of the sun touched the horizon with an inexpressibly light hovering movement. For a few seconds it seemed to dance along it in soft, blazing rhythm. The nose of the aeroplane was turned towards it and did not alter its course by a hand's breadth.

"You do not seem to have understood me," said the voice behind the pilot. "Turn back! I wish to return to Metropolis, do you hear? I must be there before nightfall... well?" "Shut your mouth," said the pilot. "For the last time, will you obey or will you not-?" "Sit down and keep quiet, back there... d.a.m.n it all, what do you mean by it-?" "You won't obey-?" "What the h.e.l.l... "

A young girl, turning the hay in a wide, undulating field, by the last light of the setting sun, had sighted the rus.h.i.+ng bird above her, in the evening sky and was watching it with eyes heated by work and tired by the summer.

How strangely the aeroplane was rising and falling! It was making jumps like a horse that wants to shake off its rider.

Now it was racing towards the sun, now it was turning its back upon it. The young girl had never seen so wild and unruly a creature in the air before. Now it had swung westwards and was das.h.i.+ng in long, spurting bounds along the sky. Something freed itself from it; a broad, silver-grey cloth, which swelled itself out.

Drifted hither and thither by the wind, the silver-grey cloth fluttered down to earth-In the webs of which a gigantic, black spider seemed to be hanging.

Screaming, the young girl began to run. The great, black spider spun itself lower and lower on the thin cords. Now it was already like a human being. A white, death-Like face bent earthwards. The earth curved itself gently towards the sinking creature. The man left go of the cord and leaped. And fell. Picked himself up again. And fell once more.

Like a snow-cloud, gentle and s.h.i.+mmering, the silver-grey cloth sank over him, quite covering him.

The young girl came running up.

She was still screaming, wordlessly, breathlessly, as though these primitive shrieks were her actual language. She bundled the silver silken cloth up before her young breast with both arms in order to bring the man who lay beneath it into the light again.

Yes, he lay there now, stretched out at his length on his back, and the silk which was so strong as to have borne him tore under the grip of his fingers. And where his fingers lost hold of the silk, to find another patch which they could tear, there remained moist, red marks upon the stuff, such as are left behind by an animal that had dipped its paws into the blood of its enemy.

The girl was silenced by the sight of these marks.

An expression of horror came into her face, but, at the same time, an expression such as mother-beasts have when they scent an enemy and do not want to betray themselves nor their offspring in any way.

She clenched her teeth together so forcibly that her young mouth became quite pale and thin. She knelt down beside the young man and lifted his head into her lap.

The eyes opened in the white face which she was holding. They stared into the eyes which were bending over them. They glanced sideways and searched across the sky.

A rus.h.i.+ng black point in the scarlet of the westerly sky, from which the sun had sunk...

The aeroplane...

Now it had indeed carried out its will and was flying towards the sun, further and further westward. At its wheel sat the man who would not turn back, as dead as could be. The airman's cap hung down in shreds from the gaping skull, on to the bull-Like shoulders. But the fists had not lost hold of the wheel. They still held it fast...

Farewell, pilot...

The face which lay in the young girl's lap began to smile, began to ask.

Where was the nearest town?

There was no town, far and wide.