“No—!” said Georgi, tearing his fists down. But before his eyes which stared into space, the word flamed up:
“Yoshiwara …”
Music was in the air, hurled into the nocturnal streets by enormous loudspeakers. Wanton was the music, most heated of rhythm, of a shrieking, lashing gaiety …
“No—!” panted the man. Blood trickled in drops from his bitten lips.
But a hundred multicoloured rockets wrote in the velvet-black sky of Metropolis, the word:
Yoshiwara …
Georgi pushed the window open. The glorious town of Metropolis, dancing in the drunkenness of light, threw itself impetuously towards him, as though he were the only-beloved, the only-awaited. He leant out of the window, crying:
“Yoshiwara—”
He fell back upon the cushions. The car turned in a gentle curve, round in another direction.
A rocket shot up and wrote in the sky above Metropolis:
Yoshiwara …
IV
There was a house in the great Metropolis which was older than the town. Many said that it was older, even, than the cathedral, and, before the Archangel Michael raised his voice as advocate in the conflict for God, the house stood there in its evil gloom, defying the cathedral from out its dull eyes.
It had lived through the time of smoke and soot. Every year which passed over the city seemed to creep, when dying, into this house, so that, at last it was a cemetery—a coffin, filled with dead tens of years.
Set into the black wood of the door stood, copper-red, mysterious, the seal of Solomon, the pentagram.
It was said that a magician, who came from the East (and in the track of whom the plague wandered) had built the house in seven nights. But the masons and carpenters of the town did not know who had mortared the bricks, nor who had erected the roof. No foreman’s speech and no ribboned nosegay had hallowed the Builder’s Feast after the pious custom. The chronicles of the town held no record of when the magician died nor of how he died. One day it occurred to the citizens as odd that the red shoes of the magician had so long shunned the abominable plaster of the town. Entrance was forced into the house and not a living soul was found inside. But the rooms, which received, neither by day nor by night, a ray from the great lights of the sky, seemed to be waiting for their master, sunken in sleep. Parchments and folios lay about, open, under a covering of dust, like silver-grey velvet.
Set in all the doors stood, copper-red, mysterious, the seal of Solomon, the pentagram.
Then came a time which pulled down antiquities. Then the words were spoken: The house must die. But the house was stronger than the words, as it was stronger than the centuries. With suddenly falling stones it slew those who laid hands on its walls. It opened the floor under their feet, dragging them down into a shaft, of which no man had previously had any knowledge. It was as though the plague, which had formerly wandered in the wake of the red shoes of the magician, still crouched in the corners of the narrow house, springing out at men from behind, to seize them by the neck. They died, and no doctor knew the illness. The house resisted its destruction with so great a force that word of its malignity went out over the borders of the city, spreading far over the land, that, at last, there was no honest man to be found who would have ventured to make war against it. Yes, even the thieves and the rogues, who were promised remission of their sentence provided that they declared themselves ready to pull down the magician’s house, preferred to go to the pillory, or even to the scaffold, rather than to enter within these spiteful walls, these latchless doors, which were sealed with Solomon’s seal.
The little town around the cathedral became a large town and grew into Metropolis, and into the centre of the world.
One day there came to the town a man from far away, who saw the house and said: “I want to have that.”
He was initiated into the story of the house. He did not smile. He stood by his resolution. He bought the house at a very low price, moved in at once and kept it unaltered.
This man was called Rotwang. Few knew him. Only Joh Fredersen knew him very well. It would have been easier for him to have decided to fight out the quarrel about the cathedral with the sect of Gothics than the quarrel with Rotwang about the magician’s house.
There were in Metropolis, in this city of reasoned, methodical hurry, very many who would rather have gone far out of their way than have passed by Rotwang’s house. It hardly reached knee-high to the house-giants which stood near it. It stood at an angle to the street. To the cleanly town, which knew neither smoke nor soot, it was a blot and an annoyance. But it remained. When Rotwang left the house and crossed the street, which occurred but seldom, there were many who covertly looked at his feet, to see if, perhaps, he walked in red shoes.
Before the door of this house, on which the seal of Solomon glowed, stood Joh Fredersen.
He had sent the car away and had knocked.
He waited, then knocked again.
A voice asked, as if the house were speaking in its sleep:
“Who is there?”
“Joh Fredersen,” said the man.
The door opened.
He entered. The door closed. He stood in darkness. But Joh Fredersen knew the house well. He walked straight on, and as he walked, the shimmering tracks of two stepping feet glistened before him, along the passage, and the edge of the stair began to glow. Like a dog
