“Father—!!”
Joh Fredersen’s son knew quite well that his father could not hear him,
for he, the son, was standing in the lowest part of the pedestal of
the New Tower of Babel, whither the twitching pulse of the street had
thrown him, and his father was high, high, above the boiling of the
city, the untouched brain, in the cool brain-pan. But yet he shouted
for him and had to shout, and his shout, itself, was a cry for help and
an accusation.
The round structure of the New Tower of Babel was throwing up people
who pushed out into the street, laughing as if insane. They were
sucked up by the pulp of those in the street. The New Tower of Babel
was deserted. Those who had occupied its rooms and passages—those
who had been poured by the buckets of the Pater-noster works down
to the depths, up to the heights—who had taken up their positions
on the stairs—who had received instructions and passed them on—who
had suffocated amidst figures—who had listened in to the whispers of
the world—all, all streamed out from the New Tower of Babel as blood
streams out from a cut vein, until it stood there, horribly empty—bled
white.
But the machines went on living.
Yes, they seemed to be coming to life for the first time.
Freder, who stood—a crumb of humanity—alone, in the hugeness of the
round structure, heard the soft, deep, rushing howl, like the breath of
the New Tower of Babel, growing louder and louder, clearer and clearer,
and he saw, on turning round, that the empty cells of the Pater-noster
were speeding more and more rapidly, more and more hurriedly, upwards
and downwards. Yes, now it was as if these cells, these empty cells,
were dancing upwards and downwards and the howling which trans-sected
the New Tower of Babel seemed to proceed from out their empty jaws.
“Father—!!” shouted Freder. And the whole round structure roared with
him, with all its lungs.
Freder ran, but not to the heights of the Tower. He ran to the depths,
driven by horror and curiosity—down into the hell—guided by luminous
pillars—to the abode of the Pater-noster machine, which was like
Ganesha, the god with the elephant’s head.
The luminous pillars by which he ran did not shine as usual with their
white, icy light. They blinked, they flashed lightning, they flickered.
They burnt with an evil, green light. The stones, over which he ran,
swayed like water. The nearer he came to the machine-room, the more
bellowing did the voice of the tower become. The walls were baking. The
air was colourless fire. If the door had not burst open by itself—no
human hand could have opened it, for it was like a glowing curtain of
liquid steel.
Freder held his arm flung before his forehead, as if wishing to
protect his brain from bursting. His eyes sought the machine—the
machine in front of which he had once stood. It was crouching in the
centre of the howling room. It shone with oil. It had gleaming limbs.
Under the crouching body and the head which was sunken on its chest,
crooked legs rested, gnome-like, upon the platform. The trunk and legs
were motionless. But the short arms pushed and pushed and pushed,
alternately forwards, backwards, forwards.
And the machine was quite abandoned. Nobody was watching it. Nobody’s
hand held the lever. Nobody’s gaze was fixed on the clock, the hands of
which chased through the grades as though gone mad.
“Father—!!” shouted Freder, about to hurl himself forward. But at
the same moment it was as if the hunched up body of the wild machine,
which was like Ganesha, raised itself up to a furious height, as though
its legs stretched themselves upon stumpy feet, to make a murderous
leap, as though its arms no longer stretched themselves to push—no,
to seize, to seize to crush—as though the howling voice of the New
Tower of Babel broke from the lungs of the Pater-noster machine alone,
howling:
“Murder—!”
And howling unceasingly:
“Murder—!”
The flame curtain of the door flew sideways, whistling. The
monster-machine rolled itself down from the platform with pushing arms.
The whole structure of the New Tower of Babel quivered. The walls
shook. The ceiling groaned.
Freder turned around. He threw his arms about his neck and ran. He saw
the luminous pillars stabbing at him. He heard a rattling gasp at his
back and felt the marrow dry up, and ran and ran. He ran towards doors,
pushed them open, slammed them to behind him and raced onwards.
“Father—!!” he shouted—and with a feeling as if his brain were
overturning: “Our Father, Which art in heaven—”
Upstairs. Where did these stairs lead to—? Doors thundered open,
rebounding against walls.
Aaah—! The temples of the machine-rooms? Deities, the machines—the
shining Lords—the god-machines of Metropolis! All the great gods
were living in white temples! Baal and Moloch and Huitzilopochtli
and Durgha! Some frightfully companionable, some terribly solitary.
There—Juggernaut’s divine car! There—the Towers of Silence!
There—Mahomet’s curved sword! There—the crosses of Golgotha!
And not a soul, not a soul in the white rooms. The machines, these
god-machines, left terribly alone. And they were all living—yes they
were really living—an enhanced, an enflamed life.
For Metropolis had a brain.
Metropolis had a heart.
The heart of the machine-city of Metropolis dwelt in a white,
cathedral-like building. The heart of the machine-city of Metropolis
was, until this day and this hour, guarded by one single man. The heart
of the machine-city of Metropolis was a machine and a universe to
itself. Above the deep mysteries of its delicate joints, like the sun’s
disc—like the halo of a divine being—stood the silver-spinning wheel,
the spokes of which appeared in the whirl of revolution, as a single,
gleaming, disc.
No machine in all Metropolis which did not receive its power from this
heart.
One, single lever controlled this marvel of steel.
With the lever set to “Safety” all the machines would play with their
curbed power, like tame animals. The shimmering spokes of the sun-wheel
would circle, clearly to be distinguished, above the Heart-machine.
With the lever set to “6”—and it was generally set there—then work
would spell slavery. The machines would roar. The powerful wheel of the
Heart-machine would hang, an apparently motionless mirror of brightest
silver, above it. And the mighty thunder of the machines, produced by
the heart-beat of this one, would arch itself, a second heaven, above
Metropolis, Joh Fredersen’s city.
But never, as yet, since the construction of Metropolis, had the lever
been set to “12.”
Now it was set to “12.” Now the lever was set to “12.” A girl’s hand,
more delicate than glass, had pressed around the weighty lever, which
was set to “Safety,” until it touched “12.” The heart of Metropolis,
Joh Fredersen’s great city had begun to run up a temperature, seized by
a deadly illness, chasing the red waves of its fever along to all the
machines which were fed by its pulse.
No machine in all Metropolis which did not receive its power from this
heart.
Then all the god-machines were taken with the fever....
From the Towers of Silence there broke forth the vapour of
decomposition. Blue flames hovered in the space above them. And the
towers, the huge towers, which used otherwise to turn about but once in
the course of the day, tottered around on their pedestals in a drunken,
spinning dance, full to bursting point.
Mahomet’s curved sword was as circular lightning in the air. It met
with no resistance, it cut and cut. It grew angry because it had
nothing to cut. The power which, squandered too uselessly, was still
increasing, now gathered itself together and, hissing, sent out snakes,
green, hissing snakes, in all directions.
From the projecting arms of the crosses of Golgotha there swept long,
white, crackling springs of sparks.
Swaying under impacts which had shaken the earth itself, the
unslain, the man-crushing car of Juggernaut began to glide, began to
roll—checked itself, hanging crookedly on the platform—trembled like
a ship, perishing on the rocks, lashed by the breakers—and shook
itself free, amidst groans.
Then, from their glittering thrones, Baal and Moloch, Huitzilopochtli
and Durgha arose. All the god-machines got up, stretching their limbs
in a fearful liberty. Huitzilopochtli shrieked for the jewel-sacrifice.
Durgha moved eight murderous arms, crackling the while. Hungry fires
smouldered up from the bellies of Baal and Moloch, licking out of
their jaws. And, roaring like a herd of a thousand buffaloes, at being
cheated of a purpose, Asa Thor swung the infallible hammer.
A lost grain of dust among the soles of the gods, Freder reeled his way
through the white rooms, the roaring temples.
“Father—!!” he shouted.
And he heard the voice of his father:
“Yes!—Here I am!—What do you want?—Come here to me!”
“Where are you?”
“Here—!”
“But I can’t see you—!”
“You must look higher!”
Freder’s gaze flitted through the room. He saw his father standing on
a platform, between the outstretched arms of the crosses of Golgotha
from the ends of which long, white, crackling sprigs of sparks blazed.
In the hellish fires his father’s face was as a mask of unmistakable
coldness. His eyes were blue-gleaming steel. Amidst the great, raving
machine-gods, he was a greater god, and lord of all.
Freder ran over to him, but he could not get up to him. He clung to the
foot of the flaming cross. Wild impacts crashed through the New Tower
of Babel.
“Father—!” shrieked Freder. “Your city is going to ruin—!”
Joh Fredersen did not answer. The sweeping sprigs of flame seemed to be
breaking from his temples.
“Father—! Don’t you understand—? Your city is going to ruin!—Your
machines have come to life!—They are dashing the town to pieces!—They
are tearing Metropolis to tatters!—Do you hear—? Explosion after
explosion—! I have seen a street in which the houses were dancing upon
their shattered foundations—just like little children dancing upon
the stomach of a laughing giant.... A lava-stream of glowing copper
poured itself out from the split-open tower of your boiler-factory,
and a naked man was running before it, a man whose hair was charred
and who was roaring: ‘The end of the world has come—!’ But then he
stumbled and the copper stream overtook him.... Where the Jethro works
stood, there is a hole in the earth which is filling up with water.
Iron bridges are hanging in shreds between towers which have lost their
entrails, cranes are dangling on gallows like men hanged. And the
people, incapable of flight as of resistance, are wandering about among
houses and streets, both of which seemed doomed....”
He clasped his hands about the stem of the cross and threw his head
back into his neck, to see his father quite clearly, quite openly in
the face.
“I cannot believe, father, that there is anything mightier than you!
I have cursed your overwhelming might—your overwhelming might which
has filled me with horror, from the bottom of my heart. Now I run to
you and ask you on my knees: Why do you allow Death to lay hands on the
city which is yours—?”
“Because Death has come upon the city by my will.”
“By your will—?”
“Yes.”
“The city is to perish—?”
“Don’t you know why, Freder?”
There was no answer.
“The city is to go to ruin that you may build it up again....”
“—I—?”
“You.”
“Then you are laying the murder of the city on my shoulders?”
“The murder of the city reposes on the shoulders of those alone who
trampled Grot, the guard of the heart-machine, to death.”
“Did that also take place by your will, father?”
“Yes!”
“Then you forced them to commit the crime—?”
“For your sake, Freder; that you could redeem them....”
“And what about those, father, who must die with your dying city,
before I can redeem them!”
“Concern yourself about the living, Freder—not about the dead.”
“And if the living come to kill you—?”
“That will not happen, Freder. That will not happen. The way to me,
among the raving god-machines, as you called them, could only be found
by one. And he found it. That was my son.”
Freder dropped his head into his hands. He rocked it to and fro as if
in pain. He moaned softly. He was about to speak; but before he could
speak a sound ripped the air, which sounded as though the earth were
bursting to pieces. For a moment, everything in the white room seemed
to hover in space, a foot above the ground—even Moloch and Baal
and Huitzilopochtli and Durgha, even the hammer of Asa Thor and the
Towers of Silence. The crosses of Golgotha, from the ends of the beams
of which long, white crackling sprigs of sparks were blazing, fell
together and then straightened up again. Then everything crashed back
into its place with furious emphasis. Then all the lights went out. And
from the depths and distance the city howled.
“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.