“Your son,” he stammered, almost babbling, “your son, Mr. Fredersen—”
Joh Fredersen remained silent. He made no movement, but that he stooped a little—just a very little, forward.
“I have not found your son …” said Slim. He did not wait for Joh Fredersen to answer him. His tall body, with the impression it gave of asceticism and cruelty, the movements of which had, in Joh Fredersen’s service, gradually gained the disinterested accuracy of a machine, seemed quite out of joint, shaken out of control. His voice inquired shrilly, in the grip of a deep innermost frenzy: “Do you know, Mr. Fredersen, what is going on around you, in Metropolis—?”
“What I will,” answered Joh Fredersen. The words sounded mechanical, and as though they had been read before they were spoken: “What does that mean: You have not found my son—?”
“It means what it means,” answered Slim in his shrill voice. His eyes bore an awful hatred. He stood, leaning far forward, as if ready to pounce upon Joh Fredersen, and his hands became claws. “It means that Freder, your son is not to be found—it means that he, perhaps, wanted to look on with his own eyes at what becomes of Metropolis by his father’s will and the hands of a few lunatics—it means, as the now half-witted servants told me, that your son left the safety of his home, setting out in company with a man who was wearing the uniform of a workman of Metropolis, and that it might well be difficult to seek your son in this city, in which, by your will, madness has broken out—the madness to destroy, Mr. Fredersen, the madness to ruin!—and which has not even light to lighten its madness—!”
Slim wanted to continue, but he did not do so.
Joh Fredersen’s right hand made a senseless, fumbling gesture through the air. The torch fell from his hand, continuing to burn on the floor. The mightiest man of Metropolis swung half around, as though he had been shot, and collapsed empty-eyed, back into the chair by the writing-table.
Slim stooped forward, to look Joh Fredersen in the face. Before these eyes he was struck silent.
Ten—twenty—thirty seconds long he did not dare to draw a breath. His horrified gaze followed the aimless movements of Joh Fredersen’s fingers, which were fumbling about as though seeking for some lever of rescue, which they could not find. Then, suddenly, the hand rose a little from the tabletop. The forefinger straightened as though admonishing to attention. Joh Fredersen murmured something. Then he laughed. It was a tired, sad little laugh, at the sound of which Slim thought he felt the hair of his head begin to bristle.
Joh Fredersen was talking to himself. What was he saying? Slim bent over him. He saw the forefinger of Joh Fredersen’s right hand gliding slowly across the shiny tabletop, as though he were following and spelling out the lines of a book.
Joh Fredersen’s soft voice said:
“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap …”
Then Joh Fredersen’s forehead fell on to the smooth wood, and, unceasingly, in a tone which, except for a dead woman, no one had ever heard from Joh Fredersen, his soft voice cried the name of his son …
But the cries remained unanswered …
Up the steps of the New Tower of Babel there crept a man. It seldom happened in the great Metropolis, Joh Fredersen’s time-saving city, that anyone used the stairs. They were reserved in case of all the lifts and the Paternoster being overcrowded, of the cessation of all means of transit, of the outbreak of fire and similar accidents—Improbable occurrences in this perfect settlement of human beings. But the improbable had happened. Piled up, one above the other, the lifts, which came hurtling down, blocked up their shafts, and the cells of the Paternoster seemed to have been bent and charred by a hellish heat, smouldering up from the depths.
Up the stairs of the New Tower of Babel did Josaphat drag himself. He had learnt to swear in that quarter of an hour, even as Grot used to swear, and he made full use of his newly acquired art. He roared at the pain which racked his limbs. He spat out an excess of hatred and contempt at the agony in his knees. Wild and ingenious were the execrations which he hurled at every landing, every new bend in the staircase. But he conquered them all—one hundred and six flights of stairs, each consisting of thirty steps. He reached the semicircle where the lifts had their opening. In the corners before the door to Joh Fredersen’s rooms there crouched knots of human beings, pressed together by the common pressure of a terrible fear.
They turned their heads to stare at the man who was crawling up the stairs, dragging himself up by aid of the walls.
His wild eyes swept over them.
“What is it?” he asked breathlessly. “What are you all doing here?”
Agitated voices whispered. Nobody knew who was speaking. Words tumbled over each other.
“He drove us out into the town, where death is running as though amok … He sent us out to look for his son, Freder. We couldn’t find him … None of us … We daren’t go in to Joh Fredersen … Nobody dares take him the news that we haven’t been able to find his son …”
A voice swung out, high and sharp from out the knot:
“Who can find one single damned soul in this hell—?”
“Hush … hush … !”
“Listen—!”
“He is talking to Slim.”
And in the tension of listening, which smothered every sound, the heads bent towards the door.
Behind the door a voice spoke, as were the wood rattling:
“Where is my son … ?”
Josaphat made for the door, staggering. The panting cry of many men tried to stop him. Hands were stretched out towards him.
“Don’t—don’t—!!”
But he had already pushed open the door. He looked about him. Through the enormous windows the first glow of the youthful day was flowing, lying on the shining floor like pools of blood. By the wall, near the door, stood
