“Father—!” shouted Freder.
“Yes.—Here I am.—What do you want?”
“… I want you to put an end to this nightmare—!”
“Now?—now—!”
“But I don’t want any more people to suffer—! You must help them—you must save them, father—!
“You must save them. Now—Immediately!”
“Now? no!”
“Then,” said Freder, pushing his fists out far before him, as if pushing something away from him, “then I must seek out the man who can help me—even if he is your enemy and mine.”
“Do you mean Rotwang?”
No answer. Joh Fredersen continued:
“Rotwang cannot help you.”
“Why not—”
“He is dead.”
Silence. Then, tentatively, a strangled voice which asked:
“Dead … ?”
“Yes.”
“How did he come … so suddenly … to die?”
“He died, chiefly, Freder, because he dared to stretch out his hands toward the girl whom you love.”
Trembling fingers fumbled up the stem of the cross.
“Maria, father—Maria … ?”
“So he called her.”
“Maria—was with him?—In his house—?”
“Yes, Freder.”
“Ah—I see.—I see—! … And now—!”
“I do not know.”
Silence.
“Freder?”
No answer came.
“Freder—?”
But a shadow ran past the windows of the white machine-cathedral. It ran, ducked down, hands thrown behind its neck, as if it feared that Durgha’s arms could snatch at it, or that Asa Thor could hurl his hammer, which never failed, at it from behind, in order, at Joh Fredersen’s command, to prevent its flight.
It did not penetrate into the consciousness of the fugitive that all the machines were standing still because the heart, the unguarded heart of Metropolis, under the fiery lash of the “12,” had raced itself to Death.
XVII
Maria felt something licking at her feet, like the tongue of a great, gentle dog. She bent down to fumble for the animal’s head, and felt that it was water into which she was groping.
From where did the water come? It came silently. It did not splash. Neither did it throw up waves. It just rose—unhurriedly, yet persistently. It was not colder than the air round about. It lapped about Maria’s ankles.
She snatched her feet back. She sat, crouched down, trembling, listening for the water which could not be heard.
From where did it come?
It was said that a river wound its way deep under the city. Joh Fredersen had walled up its course when he built the subterranean city, the wonder of the world, for the workmen of Metropolis. It was also said that the stream fed a mighty water-basin and that there were pump-works there, which were powerful enough, inside of less than ten hours either completely to empty or to fill the water basin—in which there was room for a medium-sized city. One thing was certain—that, in the subterranean, workmen’s city, the throbbing of these pumps was constantly to be heard, as a soft, incessant pulse-beat, if one laid one’s head against a wall—and that, if this pulse-beat should ever become silent, no other interpretation would be conceivable than that the pumps had stopped, and that then the river was rising.
But they had never—never stopped.
And now—? From where was the silent water coming?—Was it still rising—?
She bent forward. She did not have to stretch her hand down very low to touch the cool brow of the water.
Now she felt, too, that it was flowing. It was making its way with great certainty of aim in one direction. It was making its way towards the subterranean city—
Old books tell of saintly women, whose smile at the moment of preparing themselves to gain the martyr’s crown, was of such sweetness that the torturers fell at their feet and hardened heathens praised the name of God.
But Maria’s smile was, perhaps, of a still sweeter kind. For, when setting about her race with the silent water, she thought, not of the crown of eternal bliss, but only of death and of the man she loved—
Yes, now the water seemed horribly cool, as her slender feet dipped down into it, and it murmured as she ran along through it. It soaked itself into the hem of her dress, clinging tight and making progress more and more difficult. But that was not the worst. The worst was that the water also began to have a voice.
The water quoth: “Do you know, beautiful Maria, that I am fleeter than the fleetest foot? I am stroking your sweet ankles. I shall soon clutch at your knees. No one has ever embraced your tender hips. But I shall do so, and before your steps number a thousand more. And I do not know, beautiful Maria, if you will reach your destination before you can refuse me your breast …
“Beautiful Maria, Doomsday has come! It is bringing the thousand-year-old dead to life. Know, that I have flooded them out of their niches and that the dead are floating along behind you! Do not look round, Maria, do not look round! For two skeletons are quarrelling about the skull which floats between them—swirling around and grinning. And a third, to whom the skull really belongs, is rearing up within me and falling upon them both …
“Beautiful Maria, how Sweet are your hips … Is the man whom you love never to find that out? Beautiful Maria, listen to what I say to you: only a little to one side of this way, a flight of stairs leads steeply upward, leading to freedom … Your knees are trembling … how sweet that is! Do you think to overcome your weakness by clasping your hands? You call upon God, but believe me: God does not hear you! Since I came upon the earth as the great flood, to destroy all in existence but Noah’s ark, God has been deaf to the scream of His creatures. Or did you
