Rotwang stooped forward. He came nearer to her. Only his hands, his lonely hands groped through the air, as though they wanted to close around Maria’s countenance. His eyes, his lonely eyes, enveloped Maria’s countenance.
“Won’t you smile just once?” he asked. “Won’t you cry just once? I need them both—your smile and your tears … Your image, Maria, just as you are now, is burnt into my retina, never to be lost … I could take a diploma in your horror and in your rigidity. The bitter expression of contempt about your mouth is every bit as familiar to me as the haughtiness of your eyebrows and your temples. But I need your smile and your tears, Maria. Or you will make me bungle my work …”
He seemed to have spoken to the deaf air. The girl sat dumb, looking over and beyond him.
Rotwang took a chair; he sat down astride it, crossed his arms over the back and looked at the girl. He laughed gloomily.
“You two poor children!” he said, “to have dared to pit yourselves against Joh Fredersen! Nobody can reproach you for it; you do not know him and do not know what you are doing. But the son should know the father. I do not believe that there is one man who can boast ever having got the better of Joh Fredersen: You could more easily bend to your will the inscrutable God, who is said to rule the world, than Joh Fredersen …”
The girl sat like a statue, immovable.
“What will you do, Maria, if Joh Fredersen takes you and your love so seriously that he comes to you and says: ‘Give me back my son!’ ”
The girl sat like a statue, immovable.
“He will ask you: ‘Of what value is my son to you?’ and if you are wise you will answer him: ‘Of no more and of no less value than he is to you! …’ He will pay the price, and it will be a high price, for Joh Fredersen has only one son …”
The girl sat like a statue, immovable.
“What do you know of Freder’s heart?” continued the man. “He is as young as the morning at sunrise. This heart of the young morning is yours. Where will it be at midday? And where at evening? Far away from you, Maria—far, far, away. The world is very large and the earth is very fair … His father will send him around the world. Out over the beautiful earth he will forget you, Maria, before the clock of his heart is at midday.”
The girl sat like a statue, immovable. But around her pale mouth, which was like the bud of a snowrose, a smile began to bloom—a smile of such sweetness, of such depths, that it seemed as though the air about the girl must begin to beam.
The man looked at the girl. His lonely eyes were starved and parched as the desert which does not know the dew. In a hoarse voice he went on:
“Where do you get your sainted confidence from? Do you believe that you are Freder’s first love? Have you forgotten the ‘Club of the Sons,’ Maria? There are a hundred women there—and all are his! These loving little women could all tell you about Freder’s love, for they know more about it than you do, and you have only one advantage over them: You can weep when he leaves you; for they are not allowed to weep … When Joh Fredersen’s son celebrates his marriage it will be as though all Metropolis celebrated its marriage. When?—Joh Fredersen will decide that … With whom?—Joh Fredersen will decide that … But you will not be the bride, Maria! The son of Joh Fredersen will have forgotten you by the day of his wedding.”
“Never!” said the girl. “Never—never!”
And the painless tears of a great, true love fell upon the beauty of her smile.
The man got up. He stood still before the girl. He looked at her. He turned away. As he was crossing the threshold of the next room his shoulder fell against the doorpost.
He slammed the door to. He stared straight ahead. He looked on the being—his creature of glass and metal—which bore the almost completed head of Maria.
His hands moved towards the head, and, the nearer they came to it, the more did it appear as if these hands, these lonely hands, wished not to create but to destroy.
“We are bunglers, Futura!” he said. “Bunglers!—Bunglers! Can I give you the smile which you make angels fall gladly down to hell? Can I give you the tears which would redeem the chiefest Satan, and make him beatify?—Parody is your name! And Bungler is mine!”
Shining cool and lustrous, the being stood there and looked at its creator with its bafflng eyes. And, as he laid his hands on its shoulders, its fine structure tinkled in mysterious laughter …
Freder, on recovering, found himself surrounded by a dull brightness. It came from a window, in the frame of which stood a pale, grey sky. The window was small and gave the impression that it had not been opened for centuries.
Freder’s eyes wandered through the room. Nothing that he saw penetrated into his consciousness. He remembered nothing. He lay, his back resting on stones which were cold and smooth. All his limbs and joints were wracked by a dull pain.
He turned his head to one side. He looked at his hands which lay beside him as though not belonging to him, thrown away, bled white.
Knuckles knocked raw … shreds of skin … brownish crusts … were these his hands?
He stared at the ceiling. It was black, as if charred. He stared at the walls; grey, cold walls …
Where was he—? He was tortured by thirst and a ravenous hunger. But worse than the hunger and thirst was the weariness which longed for sleep and which could not find it.
Maria occurred to him …
Maria? … Maria—?
He jerked himself up and stood on sawn-through ankles. His
