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, Rotwang, 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 Paternoster, 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 god 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 Paternoster machine?
Shivering 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 waterfall 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 hell 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?”
