“If that is so,” said the Master over the great Metropolis, with a certain dryness in his voice, which had become quite hoarse, “then command her to unriddle the plan which you have in your hand, Rotwang …”
Rotwang burst out into laughter which was like the laughter of a drunken man. He threw a glance at the piece of paper which he held spread out in his fingers, and was about to pass it, anticipatingly triumphant, to the being which stood beside him.
But he stopped in the middle of the movement. With open mouth, he stared at the piece of paper, raising it nearer and nearer to his eyes.
Joh Fredersen, who was watching him, bent forward. He wanted to say something, to ask a question. But before he could open his lips Rotwang threw up his head and met Joh Fredersen’s glance with so green a fire in his eyes that the Master of the great Metropolis remained dumb.
Twice, three times did this green glow flash between the piece of paper and Joh Fredersen’s face. And during the whole time not a sound was perceptible in the room but the breath that gushed in heaves from Rotwang’s breast as though from a boiling, poisoned source.
“Where did you get the plan?” the great inventor asked at last. Though it was less a question than an expression of astonished anger.
“That is not the point,” answered Joh Fredersen. “It is about this that I have come to you. There does not seem to be a soul in Metropolis who can make anything of it.”
Rotwang’s laughter interrupted him.
“Your poor scholars!” cried the laughter. “What a task you have set them, Joh Fredersen. How many hundredweights of printed paper have you forced them to heave over. I am sure there is no town on the globe, from the construction of the old Tower of Babel onward, which they have not snuffled through from North to South. Oh—If you could only smile, Parody! If only you already had eyes to wink at me. But laugh, at least, Parody! Laugh, rippingly, at the great scholars to whom the ground under their feet is foreign!”
The being obeyed. It laughed, ripplingly.
“Then you know the plan, or what it represents?” asked Joh Fredersen, through the laughter.
“Yes, by my poor soul, I know it,” answered Rotwang. “But, by my poor soul, I am not going to tell you what it is until you tell me where you got the plan.”
Joh Fredersen reflected. Rotwang did not take his gaze from him. “Do not try to lie to me, Joh Fredersen,” he said softly, and with a whimsical melancholy.
“Somebody found the paper,” began Joh Fredersen.
“Who—somebody?”
“One of my foremen.”
“Grot?”
“Yes, Grot.”
“Where did he find the plan?”
“In the pocket of a workman who was killed in the accident to the Geyser machine.”
“Grot brought you the paper?”
“Yes.”
“And the meaning of the plan seemed to be unknown to him?”
Joh Fredersen hesitated a moment with the answer.
“The meaning—yes; but not the plan. He told me he has often seen this paper in the workmen’s hands, and that they anxiously keep it a secret, and that the men will crowd closely around him who holds it.”
“So the meaning of the plan has been kept secret from your foreman.”
“So it seems, for he could not explain it to me.”
“H’m.”
Rotwang turned to the being which was standing near him, with the appearance of listening intently.
“What do you say about it, my beautiful Parody?”
The being stood motionless.
“Well—?” said Joh Fredersen, with a sharp expression of impatience.
Rotwang looked at him, jerkily turning his great skull towards him. The glorious eyes crept behind their lids as though wishing to have nothing in common with the strong white teeth and the jaws of the beast of prey. But from beneath the almost closed lids they gazed at Joh Fredersen, as though they sought in his face the door to the great brain.
“How can one bind you, Joh Fredersen,” he murmured, “what is a word to you—or an oath … Oh God … you with your own laws. What promise would you keep if the breaking of it seemed expedient to you?”
“Don’t talk rubbish, Rotwang,” said Joh Fredersen. “I shall hold my tongue because I still need you. I know quite well that the people whom we need are our solitary tyrants. So, if you know, speak.”
Rotwang still hesitated; but gradually a smile took possession of his features—a good natured and mysterious smile, which was amusing itself at itself.
“You are standing on the entrance,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“To be taken literally, Joh Fredersen! You are standing on the entrance.”
“What entrance, Rotwang? You are wasting time that does not belong to you …”
The smile on Rotwang’s face deepened to serenity.
“Do you recollect, Joh Fredersen, how obstinately I refused, that time, to let the underground railway be run under my house?”
“Indeed I do! I still know the sum the detour cost me, also!”
“The secret was expensive, I admit, but it was worth it. Just take a look at the plan, Joh Fredersen, what is that?”
“Perhaps a flight of stairs …”
“Quite certainly a flight of stairs. It is a very slovenly execution in the drawing as in reality …”
“So you know them?”
“I have the honour, Joh Fredersen—yes. Now come two paces sideways. What is that?”
He had taken Joh Fredersen by the arm. He felt the fingers of the artificial hand pressing into his muscles like the claws of a bird of prey. With the right one Rotwang indicated the spot upon which Joh Fredersen had stood.
“What is that?” he asked, shaking the hand which he held in his grip.
Joh Fredersen bent down.
