“Hel,” said Rotwang, his heart streaming over; he stretched out his hands. “Come to me, my Hel … How long, how long I had to live without you!”
But she did not come. She started back from him. Her face full of horror, she started back from him.
“Hel,” begged the man, “why are you afraid of me? I am no ghost, although I am dead. I had to die, to come to you. I have always, always longed for you. You have no right to leave me alone now! I want your hands! Give them to me!”
But his groping fingers snatched into space. Footsteps were hurrying up the steps of the stone-staircase which led to the belfry.
Something like anger came over Rotwang’s heart. Deep in his dulled and tortured soul reposed the memory of a day upon which Hel had likewise fled from him—to another … No, don’t think, don’t think of it … That was a part of his first existence, and it would be quite senseless to go through the same again—In the other, and, as humanity in general hoped, better world.
Why was Hel fleeing from him? He groped along after her. Climbed up stairs upon stairs. The hastening, frightened footsteps remained constantly before him. And the higher the woman before him fled, the more wildly did his heart beat in this mighty ascent, the redder did Rotwang’s eyes become filled with blood, the more furiously did his anger boil up within him. She should not run away from him—she should not! If only he could catch her by the hand he would never, never let her go again! He would forge a ring about her wrist with his metal hand—and then she should never try to escape him again … to another!
They had both reached the belfry. They raced along under the bells. He blocked the way to the stairs. He laughed, sadly and evilly.
“Hel, my Hel, you can no longer escape me!”
She made a swift, despairing leap, and hung on the rope of the bell which was called Saint Michael. Saint Michael raised his ore voice, but it sounded as though broken, complaining wildly. Rotwang’s laughter mingled with the sound of the bell. His metal arm, the marvellous achievement of a genius, stretched, like the phantom arm of a skeleton, far out on the sleeve of his coat, and snatched at the bell-rope.
“Hel, my Hel, you can no longer escape me!”
The girl staggered back against the breastwork. She looked around. She was trembling like a bird. She could not go down the stairs. Neither could she go any higher. She was trapped. She saw Rotwang’s eyes and saw his hands. And, without hesitation, without reflection, with a ferocity which swept a blaze of scarlet across the pallor of her face, she swung herself out of the belfry window, to hang upon the steel cord of the lightning conductor.
“Freder—!!” she screamed. “Help me—!!”
Below—far below, near the flaming pyre, lay a trampled creature, his forehead in the dust. But the scream from above smote him so unexpectedly that he shot up, as if under the lash, he sought and he saw—
And all those who had been dancing in wild rings around the bonfire of the witch saw, as he—stiffened—petrified: The girl who hung, swallowlike, clinging to the tower of the cathedral, with Rotwang’s hands stretching out towards her.
And they all heard how, in the shouted answer: “I am coming, Maria, I am coming—!” there cried out all the relief and all the despair which can fill the heart of a man to whom Heaven and Hell are equally near.
XXII
Joh Fredersen stood in the dome-room of the New Tower of Babel, waiting for Slim. He was to bring him news of his son.
A ghostly darkness lay upon the New Tower of Babel. The light had gone completely out, gone out as though it had been killed—at the moment when the gigantic wheel of the Heart-machine of Metropolis came free from its structure with a roar as from the throats of a thousand wounded beasts, and, still whirling around, was hurled straight up at the ceiling, to strike it with a shattering crash, to bound back, booming the while like a gong as large as the heavens and to crash down upon the splintered ruins of the erstwhile masterpiece of steel, to remain lying there.
Joh Fredersen stood long on the same spot, not daring to move.
It seemed to him that an eternity had passed since he sent Slim out for news of his son. And Slim wouldn’t and wouldn’t come back.
Joh Fredersen felt that his whole body was frozen to an icy coldness. His hands, hanging helplessly downwards, were clasped around the pocket-torch.
He waited … waited …
Joh Fredersen threw a glance at the clock. But the hands of the giantess stood at an impossible time. The New Tower of Babel had indeed lost itself. Whereas, every day, the throbbing of the streets which tunnelled their course below it, the roar of the traffic of fifty million, the magic madness of speed, had raged its way up to him, there now crouched a calm of penetrating terror.
Stumbling steps were hastening towards the door of the outer room.
Joh Fredersen turned the beam of his pocket-torch, upon this door. It flew wide open. Slim stood upon the threshold. He staggered. He closed his eyes dazzled. In the excessively glaring light of the powerful torch his face, right down to his neck, shone a greenish white.
Joh Fredersen wanted to ask a question. But not the least sound passed his lips. A terrible dryness burnt his throat. The lamp in his hand began to tremble and to dance. Up to the ceiling, down to the floor, along the walls, reeled the beam of light …
Slim ran up to Joh Fredersen. Slim’s
