On the plain chair before it, the embodiment of the great brain: the Master of Metropolis. Near his right hand the sensitive blue metal plate, to which he would stretch out his right hand, with the infallible certainty of a healthy machine, when seconds enough had flicked off into eternity, to let Metropolis roar once more—for food, for food, for food—
In this moment Freder was seized with the persistent idea that he would lose his reason if he had, once more, to hear the voice of Metropolis thus roaring to be fed. And, already convinced of the pointlessness of his quest, he turned from the spectacle of the light crazy city and went to seek the Master of Metropolis, whose name was Joh Fredersen and who was his father.
II
The brainpan of the New Tower of Babel was peopled with numbers.
From an invisible source the numbers dropped rhythmically down through the cooled air of the room, being collected, as in a water-basin, at the table at which the great brain of Metropolis worked, becoming objective under the pencils of his secretaries. These eight young men resembled each other as brothers, which they were not. Although sitting as immovable as statues, of which only the writing fingers of the right hand stirred, yet each single one, with sweat-bedewed brow and parted lips, seemed the personification of Breathlessness.
No head was raised on Freder’s entering, Not even his father’s.
The lamp under the third loudspeaker glowed white-red.
New York spoke.
Joh Fredersen was comparing the figures of the evening exchange report with the lists which lay before him. Once his voice sounded, vibrationless:
“Mistake. Further inquiry.”
The first secretary quivered, stooped lower, rose and retired on soundless soles. Joh Fredersen’s left eyebrow rose a trifle as he watched the retreating figure—only as long as was possible without turning his head.
A thin, concise pencil-line crossed out a name.
The white-red light glowed. The voice spoke. The numbers dropped down through the great room. In the brainpan of Metropolis.
Freder remained standing, motionless, by the door. He was not sure as to whether or not his father had noticed him. Whenever he entered this room he was once more a boy of ten years old, his chief characteristic uncertainty, before the great concentrated, almighty certainty, which was called Joh Fredersen, and was his father.
The first secretary walked past him, greeting him silently, respectfully. He resembled a competitor leaving the course, beaten. The chalky face of the young man hovered for one moment before Freder’s eyes like a big, white, lacquer mask. Then it was blotted out.
Numbers dropped down through the room.
One chair was empty. On seven others sat seven men, pursuing the numbers which sprang unceasingly from the invisible.
A lamp glowed white-red.
New York spoke.
A lamp sparkled up: white-green.
London began to speak.
Freder looked up at the clock opposite the door, commanding the whole wall like a gigantic wheel. It was the same clock, which, from the heights of the New Tower of Babel, flooded by searchlights, flicked off its second-sparks over the great Metropolis.
Joh Fredersen’s head stood out against it. It was a crushing yet accepted halo above the brain of Metropolis.
The searchlights raved in a delirium of colour upon the narrow windows which ran from floor to ceiling. Cascades of light frothed against the panes. Outside, deep down, at the foot of the New Tower of Babel boiled the Metropolis. But in this room not a sound was to be heard but the incessantly dripping numbers.
The Rotwang process had rendered the walls and windows soundproof.
In this room, which was at the same time crowned and subjugated by the mighty timepiece, the clock, indicating numbers, nothing had any significance but numbers. The son of the great Master of Metropolis realised that, as long as numbers came dripping out of the invisible no word, which was not a number, and coming from a visible mouth, could lay claim to the least attention.
Therefore he stood, gazing unceasingly at his father’s head, watching the monstrous hand of the clock sweep onward, inevitably, like a sickle, a reaping scythe pass through the skull of his father, without harming him, climb upwards, up the number-beset ring, creep around the heights and sink again, to repeat the vain blow of the scythe.
At last the white-red light went out. A voice ceased.
Then the white-green light went out, too.
Silence.
The hands of those writing stopped and, for the space of a moment, they sat as though paralysed, relaxed, exhausted. Then Joh Fredersen’s voice said with a dry gentleness:
“Thank you, tomorrow.”
And without looking round:
“What do you want, my boy?”
The seven strangers quitted the now silent room. Freder crossed to his father, whose glance was sweeping the lists of captured number-drops. Freder’s eyes clung to the blue metal plate near his father’s right hand.
“How did you know it was I?” he asked, softly.
Joh Fredersen did not look up at him. Although his face had gained an expression of patience and pride at the first question which his son put to him he had lost none of his alertness. He glanced at the clock. His fingers glided over the flexible keyboard. Soundlessly were orders flashed out to waiting men.
“The door opened. Nobody was announced. Nobody comes to me unannounced. Only my son.”
A light below glass—a question. Joh Fredersen extinguished the light. The first secretary entered and crossed over to the great Master of Metropolis.
“You were right. It was a mistake. It has been rectified,” he reported, expressionlessly.
“Thank you.” Not a look. Not a gesture. “The G⸺ bank has been notified to pay you your salary. Good evening.”
The young man stood motionless. Three, four, five, six seconds flicked off the gigantic timepiece. Two empty eyes burnt in
