The round structure of the New Tower of Babel was throwing up people who pushed out into the street, laughing as if insane. They were sucked up by the pulp of those in the street. The New Tower of Babel was deserted. Those who had occupied its rooms and passages—those who had been poured by the buckets of the Paternoster works down to the depths, up to the heights—who had taken up their positions on the stairs—who had received instructions and passed them on—who had suffocated amidst figures—who had listened in to the whispers of the world—all, all streamed out from the New Tower of Babel as blood streams out from a cut vein, until it stood there, horribly empty—bled white.
But the machines went on living.
Yes, they seemed to be coming to life for the first time.
Freder, who stood—a crumb of humanity—alone, in the hugeness of the round structure, heard the soft, deep, rushing howl, like the breath of the New Tower of Babel, growing louder and louder, clearer and clearer, and he saw, on turning round, that the empty cells of the Paternoster were speeding more and more rapidly, more and more hurriedly, upwards and downwards. Yes, now it was as if these cells, these empty cells, were dancing upwards and downwards and the howling which transsected the New Tower of Babel seemed to proceed from out their empty jaws.
“Father—!!” shouted Freder. And the whole round structure roared with him, with all its lungs.
Freder ran, but not to the heights of the Tower. He ran to the depths, driven by horror and curiosity—down into the hell—guided by luminous pillars—to the abode of the Paternoster machine, which was like Ganesha, the god with the elephant’s head.
The luminous pillars by which he ran did not shine as usual with their white, icy light. They blinked, they flashed lightning, they flickered. They burnt with an evil, green light. The stones, over which he ran, swayed like water. The nearer he came to the machine-room, the more bellowing did the voice of the tower become. The walls were baking. The air was colourless fire. If the door had not burst open by itself—no human hand could have opened it, for it was like a glowing curtain of liquid steel.
Freder held his arm flung before his forehead, as if wishing to protect his brain from bursting. His eyes sought the machine—the machine in front of which he had once stood. It was crouching in the centre of the howling room. It shone with oil. It had gleaming limbs. Under the crouching body and the head which was sunken on its 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.
And the machine was quite abandoned. Nobody was watching it. Nobody’s hand held the lever. Nobody’s gaze was fixed on the clock, the hands of which chased through the grades as though gone mad.
“Father—!!” shouted Freder, about to hurl himself forward. But at the same moment it was as if the hunched up body of the wild machine, which was like Ganesha, raised itself up to a furious height, as though its legs stretched themselves upon stumpy feet, to make a murderous leap, as though its arms no longer stretched themselves to push—no, to seize, to seize to crush—as though the howling voice of the New Tower of Babel broke from the lungs of the Paternoster machine alone, howling:
“Murder—!”
And howling unceasingly:
“Murder—!”
The flame curtain of the door flew sideways, whistling. The monster-machine rolled itself down from the platform with pushing arms. The whole structure of the New Tower of Babel quivered. The walls shook. The ceiling groaned.
Freder turned around. He threw his arms about his neck and ran. He saw the luminous pillars stabbing at him. He heard a rattling gasp at his back and felt the marrow dry up, and ran and ran. He ran towards doors, pushed them open, slammed them to behind him and raced onwards.
“Father—!!” he shouted—and with a feeling as if his brain were overturning: “Our Father, Which art in heaven—”
Upstairs. Where did these stairs lead to—? Doors thundered open, rebounding against walls.
Aaah—! The temples of the machine-rooms? Deities, the machines—the shining Lords—the god-machines of Metropolis! All the great gods were living in white temples! Baal and Moloch and Huitzilopochtli and Durgha! Some frightfully companionable, some terribly solitary. There—Juggernaut’s divine car! There—the Towers of Silence! There—Muhammad’s curved sword! There—the crosses of Golgotha!
And not a soul, not a soul in the white rooms. The machines, these god-machines, left terribly alone. And they were all living—yes they were really living—an enhanced, an enflamed life.
For Metropolis had a brain.
Metropolis had a heart.
The heart of the machine-city of Metropolis dwelt in a white, cathedral-like building. The heart of the machine-city of Metropolis was, until this day and this hour, guarded by one single man. The heart of the machine-city of Metropolis was a machine and a universe to itself. Above the deep mysteries of its delicate joints, like the sun’s disc—like the halo of a divine being—stood the silver-spinning wheel, the spokes of which appeared in the whirl of revolution, as a single, gleaming, disc.
No machine in all Metropolis which did not receive its power from this heart.
One, single lever controlled this marvel of steel.
With the lever set to “Safety” all the machines would play with their curbed power, like tame animals. The shimmering spokes of the sun-wheel would circle, clearly to be distinguished, above the Heart-machine.
With the lever set to “6”—and it was generally set there—then work would spell slavery. The machines would roar. The powerful wheel of the Heart-machine would hang, an
