“Then I realised,” he continued, “that my father had quite forgiven me … And when I realised that, I really fell asleep …”
He stood up and remained standing, seeming to be listening to the rushing of the rain. The lightning was still flashing out over Metropolis, the angry thunder bounding after. But the rushing of the rain drowned it.
“I slept …” Freder went on—so softly that the other could scarcely follow his words—“then I began to dream … I saw this city—this great Metropolis—In the light of a ghostly unreality. A weird moon stood in the sky; as though along a broad street this ghostly, unreal light flowed down upon the city, which was deserted to the last soul. All the houses were distorted and had faces. They squinted evilly and spitefully down at me, for I was walking deep down between them, along the glimmering street.
“Quite narrow was this street, as though crushed between the houses; it was as though made of a greenish glass—like a solidified, glazen river. I glided along it and looked down through it into the cold bubbling of a subterranean fire.
“I did not know my destination, but I knew I had one, and went very fast in order to reach it the sooner. I quietened my step as well as I could, but its sound was excessively loud and awakened a rustling whisper over the crooked house-walls as though the houses were murmuring against me. I quickened my pace and ran, and, at last, raced along, and the more swiftly I raced the more hoarsely did the echo of the steps sound after me, as though there were an army at my heels. I was dripping with sweat …
“The town was alive. The houses were alive. Their open mouths snarled after me. The window-caverns, open eyes, winked blindly, horribly, maliciously.
“Graspingly, I reached the square before the cathedral …
“The cathedral was lighted up. The doors stood open—no, they did not stand open. They reeled to and fro like swing doors through which an invisible stream of guests was passing. The organ rolled, but not with music. Croaking, bawling, screeching and whimpering sounded from the organ and intermingled were wanton dance tunes, wailing whore-songs.
“The swing-doors, the light, the organ’s witches sabbath, everything appeared to be mysteriously excited, hurried, as though there were no time to be lost, and full of a deep evil satisfaction.
“I walked over to the cathedral and up the steps. A door laid hold of me, like an arm, and wafted me gustily in the cathedral.
“But that was as little the cathedral as the town was Metropolis. A pack of lunatics seemed to have taken possession of it, and not even human beings, at that. Dwarf-like creatures, resembling half monkey, half devil. In place of the saints, goat-like figures, petrified in the most ridiculous of leaps, reigned in the pillar niches. And around every pillar danced a ring, raving to the bawling of the music.
“Empty, ungodded, splintered, hung the crucifix above the high altar, from which the holy vessels had vanished.
“A fellow, dressed in black, the caricature of a monk, stood in the pulpit, howling out in a pulpit-voice:
“ ‘Repent! The kingdom of heaven is at hand!’
“A loud neigh answered him.
“The organ-player—I saw him, he was like a demon—stood with his hands and feet on the keys and his head beat time to the ring-dance of the spirits.
“The fellow in the pulpit pulled out a book, an enormous, black book with seven locks. Whenever his fingers touched a lock it sprang up in flame and shot open.
“Murmuring incantations, he opened the cover. He bent over the book. A ring of flames suddenly stood around his head.
“From the heights of the cathedral it struck midnight. But it was as though it was not enough for the clock to proclaim the hour of demons just once. Over and over again did it strike the ghastly twelve, in dreadful, baited haste.
“The light in the cathedral changed colour. Were it possible to speak of a blackish light this would be the expression best applied to the light. Only in one place did it shine, white, gleaming, cutting, a sharply whetted sword: there where death is figured as a minstrel.
“Suddenly the organ stopped, and suddenly the dance. The voice of the preacher-fellow in the pulpit stopped. And through the silence which did not dare to breathe rang the sound of a flute. Death was playing. The minstrel was playing the song which nobody plays after him, on his flute which was a human bone.
“The ghostly minstrel stepped from out his side-niche, carved in wood, in hat and wide cloak, scythe on shoulder, the hourglass dangling from his girdle. Playing his flute, he stepped out of his niche and made his way through the cathedral. And behind him came the seven Deadly Sins as the following of Death.
“Death performed a circle around every pillar. Louder and ever louder rang the sound of his flute. The seven Deadly Sins seized hands. As a widely swung chain they paced behind Death; and gradually their paces became a light dance.
“The seven Deadly Sins danced along behind Death, who was playing the flute.
“Then the cathedral was filled with a light which seemed to be made from rose-leaves. An inexpressibly sweet, overpowering perfume hovered up, like incense, between the pillars. The light grew stronger and it seemed to ring. Pale red lightning flashed from the heights collecting itself in the central nave, to the magnificent radiance of a crown.
“The crown rested on the head of a woman. And the woman was sitting upon a scarlet-coloured beast, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet and decked with gold, precious stones and pearls. She had in her hand a golden cup. On the crowned brow of the woman there stood, mysteriously written: Babylon.
“Like a deity, she grew up and radiated. Death and the seven Deadly Sins bowed low before her.
“And the woman who bore the name Babylon had the features of Maria, whom
