“Yes,” said Josaphat hoarsely, “but that was a dream....”
“Of course it was a dream.... And they say dreams are bubbles, don’t
they? But just listen to this, Josaphat.... I emerged from this dream
back into reality with a feeling of sadness, which seemed to hack me,
as with a knife, from head to foot. I saw Maria’s brow, that white
temple of goodness and virginity, besmirched with the name of the great
harlot of Babylon. I saw her send Death out over the city. I saw how
abominations upon abominations loosened themselves from about her and
fluttered away, swarming through the city—plague spirits, messengers
of evil before the path of Death. I stood out there and looked over
at the cathedral, which seemed to me to be desecrated and soiled. Its
doors stood open. Dark, human snakes were creeping into the cathedral,
and collecting themselves upon the steps. I thought: Perhaps, among
all those pious people, is my Maria too.... I said to my father: ‘I
wish to go to the cathedral....’ He let me go. I was no captive. As I
reached the cathedral the organ was thundering like the Trump of Doom.
Singing from a thousand throats. _Dies Irae_.... The incense clouded
above the head of the multitude, which was kneeling before the eternal
God. The crucifix hovered above the high altar, and, in the light of
the restless candles, the drops of blood on the thorn-crowned brow
of the son of Mary seemed to come to life, to run. The saints in the
pillar niches looked at me sadly, as though they knew of my evil dream.
“I sought Maria. Oh, I knew quite well that all the thousands could not
hide her from me. If she were here I should find her out, as a bird
finds its way to its nest. But my heart lay as if dead in my breast.
Yet I could not help looking for her. I wandered about the place where
I had already waited for her once before.... Yes—so may a bird wander
about the place where was its nest which it cannot find again, because
the lightning or the storm has destroyed it.
“And, when I came to the side-niche, in which Death stands, as a
minstrel, playing upon a human bone, the niche was empty, Death had
disappeared....
“It was as though the Death of my dream had not returned home to his
following....
“Do not speak, Josaphat! It is really of no importance ... a
coincidence.... The carving was, perhaps, damaged—I do not know!
Believe me: it is of no importance.
“But now a voice yelled out:
“‘Repent! The kingdom of heaven is at hand!’
“It was the voice of Desertus, the monk. His voice was like a knife.
The voice peeled bare my spine. Deathly stillness reigned in the
church. Among all the thousands round about, not one seemed to breathe.
They were kneeling and their faces, pale masks of horror, were turned
towards the preacher.
“His voice flew through the air like a spear.
“‘Repent! The kingdom of heaven is at hand!’
“Before me, by a pillar, stood a young man, once a fellow member of
mine, of the ‘Club of the Sons.’ If I had not personally experienced
how vastly human faces can change, in a short time, I should not have
recognised him.
“He was older than I, and was, it is true, not the happiest of us all,
but the gayest. And the women loved him and feared him equally, for he
was in no way to be captivated, either by laughter or by tears. Now he
had the thousand-year-old face of men, who, yet living, are dead. It
was as if a cruel executioner had removed his eye-lids, that he was
condemned never to sleep, so that he was perishing of weariness.
“But it surprised me more than all to find him here, in the cathedral,
for he had been, all his life long, the greatest of scoffers.
“I laid my hand on his shoulder. He did not start. He only just turned
his eyes—those parched eyes.
“I wanted to ask him: ‘What are you doing here, Jan?’ But the voice of
the monk, that awful, spear-hurling voice, threw its sharpness between
him and me.... The monk Desertus began to preach....”
Freder turned around and came to Josaphat with violent haste, as though
a sudden fear had taken him. He sat down by his friend, speaking very
rapidly, with words which tumbled over each other in streaming out.
At first he had hardly listened to the monk. He had watched his friend,
and the congregation which was still kneeling, head pressed to head.
And, as he looked at them, it seemed to him as though the monk were
harpooning the congregation with his words, as though he were throwing
spears, with deadly, barbed hooks, right down into the most secret
soul of the listeners, as though he were tugging groaning souls out of
bodies, quivering with fear.
“Who is she, who has laid fire to this city? She is herself a
flame—an impure flame. You were given of a brand, might. She is a
fiery blaze over man. She is Lilith, Astarte, Rose of Hell. She is
Gomorrha, Babylon—_Metropolis!_ Your own city—this fruitful, sinful
_City!_—has born this woman from out the womb of its hell. Behold
her! I say unto you: Behold her! She is the woman who is to appear
before the judgment of the world.
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
“Seven angels shall stand before God, and there shall be given unto
them seven trumpets. And the seven angels, which have the seven
trumpets, shall prepare themselves to sound. A star shall fall from
heaven to earth and there shall be given up the key to the pit of the
abyss. And it shall open the pit of the abyss and there shall go up a
smoke out of the pit as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and
the air shall be darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit. And an
angel shall fly in mid heaven, saying with a great voice: ‘Woe, woe,
woe, for them that dwell on the earth!’ And another angel shall follow
after him and shall say: ‘Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great!’
“Seven angels come out from the heavens, and they bear in their
hands the bowls of the wrath of God. And Babylon the great will be
remembered in the sight of God, to give unto her the cup of the wine
of the fierceness of His wrath—she who is sitting there upon a
scarlet-coloured beast full of the names of blasphemy, having seven
heads and ten horns. And the woman is arrayed in purple and scarlet,
decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand
a golden cup, full of abominations and unclean things. And upon her
forehead a name is written: Mystery.... Babylon the Great.... The
Mother of Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth.
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear! For the woman whom ye see is
the great city, which reignest over the kings of the earth. Come forth,
my people, out of her, that he have no fellowship with her sins! For
her sins have reached even unto heaven, and God has remembered her
iniquities!
“Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour
is thy judgment come! In one hour shalt thou be made desolate. Rejoice
over her, thou heaven, and ye saints, and ye apostles; for God will
judge your judgment on her. And a strong angel takes up a stone and
casts it into the sea, saying: ‘Thus with a mighty fall, shall Babylon
the great city be cast down, and shall be found no more at all!’
“He who has ears to hear, let him hear!
“The woman who is called Babylon, the Mother of the Abominations of the
Earth, wanders as a blazing brand through Metropolis. No wall and no
gate bids her halt. No tie is sacred. An oath turns to mockery before
her. Her smile is the last seduction. Blasphemy is her dance. She is
the flame which says: ‘God is very wrath! Woe unto the city in which
she shall appear!’”
Freder bent across to Jan.
“Of whom is he speaking?” he asked, with strangely cold lips. “Is he
speaking of a person? ... of a woman?...”
He saw that the brow of his friend was covered with sweat.
“He is speaking of _her_,” said Jan, as though he were speaking with
paralysed tongue.
“Of whom?”
“Of _her_ ... don’t you know her?”
“I don’t know,” said Freder, “whom you mean....”
And his tongue, too, was heavy, and as though made of clay.
Jan gave no answer. He had hunched up his shoulders as though he
were bitterly cold. Bewildered and undecided, he listened to the
intermediate rolling of the organ.
“Let us go!” he said tonelessly, turning around. Freder followed him.
They left the cathedral. They walked along together in silence for a
long time. Jan seemed to have a destination of which Freder did not
know. He did not ask. He waited. He was thinking of his dream and of
the monk’s words.
At last Jan opened his mouth; but he did not look at Freder, he spoke
into space:
“You do not know who she is.... But nobody knows.... She was suddenly
there.... As a fire breaks out.... No one can say who fanned the
flame.... But there it is, and now everything is ablaze....”
“A woman...?”
“Yes. A woman. Perhaps a maid, too. I don’t know. It is inconceivable
that this being would give herself to a man ... (Can you imagine the
marriage of ice?) ... Or if she were to do so, then she would raise
herself up from the man’s arms, bright and cool, in the awful, eternal
virginity of the soulless....”
He raised his hand and seized his throat. He tugged something away from
him which was not there. He was looking at a house which lay opposite
him, on the other side of the street, with a gaze of superstitious
hostility, which made his hands run cold.
“What is the matter with you?” asked Freder. There was nothing
remarkable about this house, except that it lay next to Rotwang’s house.
“Hush!” answered Jan, clasping his fingers around Freder’s wrist.
“Are you mad?” Freder stared at his friend. “Do you think that the
house can hear us across this infernal street?”
“It hears us!” said Jan, with an obstinate expression. “It hears us!
You think it is a house just like any other? You’re wrong.... It began
in this house....”
“What began?”
“The spirit....”
Freder felt that his throat was very dry. He cleared it vigorously. He
wanted to draw his friend along with him. But he resisted him. He stood
at the parapet of the street, which sheered down, steep as a gorge, and
he was staring at the house opposite.
“One day,” he said, “this house sent out invitations to all its
neighbours. It was the craziest invitation on earth. There was nothing
on the card but: ‘Come this evening at ten o’clock! House 12, 113th
Street!’ One took the whole thing to be a joke. But one went. One did
not wish to miss the fun. Strangely enough no one knew the house.
Nobody could remember ever having entered it, or having known anything
of its occupants. One turned up at ten. One was well dressed. One
entered the house and found a big party. One was received by an old
man, who was exceedingly polite, but who shook hands with nobody.
It was an odd thing that all the people collected here seemed to be
waiting for something, of which they did not know. One was well waited
upon by servants, who seemed to be born mutes, and who never raised
their eyes. Although the room in which we were all gathered was as
large as the nave of a church, an unbearable heat prevailed, as though
the floor were glowing hot, as though the walls were glowing hot, and
all this in spite of the fact that, as one could see, the wide door
leading to the street stood open.
“Suddenly one of the servants came up from the door to our host, with
soundless step, and seemed wordlessly, with his silent presence, to
give him some information. Our host inquired: ‘Are we all met?’ The
servant inclined his head. ‘Then close the door.’ It was done. The
servants swept aside and lined themselves up. Our host stepped into
the middle of the great room. At the same moment so perfect a silence
prevailed that one heard the noise of the street roaring like breakers
against the walls of the house.
“‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said the old man courteously, ‘may I have the
honour of presenting my daughter to you!’
“He bowed to all sides, and then he turned his back. Everyone waited.
No one moved.
“‘Well, my daughter,’ said the old man, with a gentle, but somehow
horrible voice, softly clapping his hands.
“Then she appeared on the stairs and came slowly down the room....”
Jan gulped. His fingers, which still held Freder’s wrist in their
clutch, gripped tighter, as though they wished to crush the bones.
“Why am I telling you this?” he stammered. “Can one describe lightning?
Or music? Or the fragrance of a flower? All the women in the hall
suddenly blushed violently and feverishly and all the men turned pale.
Nobody seemed capable of making the least movement or of saying a
single word.... You know Rainer? You know his young wife? You know how
they loved each other? He was standing behind her. She was sitting, and
he had laid his hands on her shoulders with a gesture of passionate and
protective affection. As the girl walked by them—she walked, led by
the hand of the old man, with gentle ringing step, slowly through the
hall—Rainer’s hands slipped from his wife’s shoulders. She looked up
at him, he down at her; and in the faces of those two were burnt, like
a torch, a sudden, deadly hatred....
“It was as though the air was burning. We breathed fire. At the same
time there radiated from the girl a coldness—an unbearable, cutting
coldness. The smile which hovered between her half-open lips seemed to
be the unspoken closing verse of a shameless song.
“Is there some substance through the power of which emotions are
destroyed, as colours are by acids? The presence of this girl was
enough to annul everything which spells fidelity in the human heart,
even to a point of absurdity. I had accepted the invitation of this
house because Tora had told me she would go too. Now I no longer saw
Tora, and I have not seen her since. And the strange thing was that,
among all these motionless beings who were standing there as though
benumbed, there was not one who could have hidden his feelings. Each
knew how it was with the other. Each felt that he was naked and saw
the nakedness of the others. Hatred, born of shame, smouldered among
us. Tora was crying. I could have struck her.... Then the girl danced.
No, it was no dance.... She stood, freed from the hand of the old
man, on the lowest step, facing us, and she raised her arms about the
width of her garment with a gentle, a seemingly never-ending movement.
The slender hands touched above her hair-parting. Over her shoulders,
her breasts, her hips, her knees, there ran an incessant, a barely
perceptible trembling. It was no frightened trembling. It was like the
trembling of the final spinal fins of a luminous, deep-sea fish. It was
as though the girl were carried higher and higher by this trembling,
though she did not move her feet. No dance, no scream, no cry of an
animal in heat, could have so lashing an effect as the trembling of
this shimmering body, which seemed, in its calm, in its solitude, to
impart the waves of its incitement to every single soul in the room.
“Then she went up the steps, stepping backwards, with tentative feet,
without lowering her hands, and she disappeared into a velvet-deep
darkness. The servants opened the door to the street. They lined up
with backs bent.
“The people still sat motionless.
“‘Good night, ladies and gentlemen!’ said the old man....”
Jan was silent. He took his hat from his head. He wiped his forehead.
“A dancer,” said Freder, with cold lips, “but a spirit...?”
“Not a spirit! I will tell you another story.... A man and a woman, of
fifty and forty, rich and very happy, have a son. You know him, but I
will not mention any names....
“The son sees the girl. He is as though mad. He storms the house. He
storms the girl’s father: ‘Let me have her! I am dying for her!’ The
old man smiles, shrugs his shoulders, is silent, is exceedingly sorry,
the girl is not to be attained.
“The young man wants to lay hands on the old man, but he is whirled out
of the house and thrown into the street, by he does not know whom. He
is taken home. He falls ill and is at Death’s door. The doctors shrug
their shoulders.
“The father, who is a proud but kindly man, and who loves his son above
anything on earth, makes up his mind to visit the old man, himself. He
gains entrance to the house without difficulty. He finds the old man,
and with him, the girl. He says to the girl: ‘Save my son!’
“The girl looks at him and says, with the most graciously inhuman of
smiles: ‘You have no son....’
“He does not understand the meaning of these words. He wants to know
more. He urges the girl. She always gives the same answer. He urges the
old man—he lifts his shoulders. There is a perfidious smile about his
mouth....
“Suddenly the man comprehends.... He goes home. He repeats the girl’s
words to his wife. She breaks down and confesses her sin—a sin which,
after twenty years, has not yet died down. But she is not concerned
with her own fate. She has no thought apart from her son. Shame,
desertion, loneliness—all are nothing; but the son is everything.
“She goes to the girl and falls on her knees before her: ‘I beg you,
in the name of God’s mercy, save my son...!’ The girl looks at her,
smiles and says: ‘You have no son....’ The woman believes that she has
a lunatic before her. But the girl was right. The son, who had been a
secret witness to the conversation between the husband and the mother,
had ended his life....”
“Marinus?”
“Yes.”
“... A terrible coincidence, Jan, but still, not a spirit.”
“Coincidence?—Not a spirit?—And what do you call it, Freder,”
continued Jan, speaking quite close to Freder’s ear, “when this girl
can appear in two places at once?”
“That’s absolute rubbish....”
“Rubbish—? It’s the truth, Freder! The girl was seen standing at the
window in Rotwang’s house—and, at the same time, she was dancing her
sinful dance in Yoshiwara....”
“That is not true—!” said Freder.
“It is true!”
“You have seen the girl ... in Yoshiwara—?”
“You can see her yourself, if you like....”
“What’s the girl’s name?”
“Maria....”
Freder laid his forehead in his hands. He bent double, as in the throes
of an agony, which otherwise God does not permit to visit mankind.
“You know the girl?” asked Jan, bending forward.
“No!”
“But you love her,” said Jan, and behind these words lurked hatred,
crouched to spring.
Freder took his hand and said: “Come!”
* * * * *
“But,” continued Freder, fixing his eyes upon Josaphat, who was sitting
there quite sunken together, while the rain was growing gentler, like
hushed weeping, “Slim was suddenly standing there, beside me, and he
said: ‘Will you not return home, Mr. Freder?’”
Josaphat was silent for a long time: Freder, too, was silent. In the
frame of the open door, which led out to the balcony, stood, hovering,
the picture of the monster clock, on the New Tower of Babel, bathed in
a white light. The large hand jerked to twelve.
Then a sound arose throughout Metropolis.
It was an immeasurably glorious and transporting sound, as deep and
rumbling as, and more powerful than any sound on earth. The voice of
the ocean when it is angry, the voice of falling torrents, the voice of
very close thunder-storms, would be miserably drowned in this Behemoth
din. Without being shrill, it penetrated all walls, and, as long as it
lasted, all things seemed to swing in it. It was omnipresent, coming
from the heights and from the depths, being beautiful and horrible,
being an irresistible command.
It was high above the town. It was the voice of the town.
Metropolis raised her voice. The machines of Metropolis roared: They
wanted to be fed.
The eyes of Josaphat and Freder met.
“Now,” said Josaphat, “many are going down into a city of the dead, and
are waiting for one who is called Maria, and whom they have found as
true as gold....”
“Yes!” said Freder, “you are a friend, and you are quite right.... I
shall go with them....”
And, for the first time this night, there was something like hope in
the ring of his voice.