Metropolis. Part 10

There was Maria, standing behind the dull panes. Those were her blessed hands, stretched out towards him... a dumb cry: "Help me-!"

Then the entire vision was drawn away, swallowed up by the blackness of the room behind it, vanishing, not leaving a trace, as though it had never been. Dumb, dead and evil stood the house of the magician there.

Freder stood motionless. He drew a deep, deep breath. Then he made a leap. He stood before the door of the house. Copper-red, in the black wood of the door, glowed the seal of Solomon, the pentagram.

Freder knocked.

Nothing in the house stirred.

He knocked for the second time.

The house remained dull and obstinate.

He stepped back and looked up at the windows.

They looked out in their evil gloom, over and beyond him.

He went to the door again. He beat against it with his fists. He heard the echo of his drumming blows shake the house, as in dull laughter.

But the copper Solomon's seal grinned at him from the unshaken door.

He stood still for a moment. His temples throbbed. He felt absolutely helpless and was as near crying as swearing.

Then he heard a voice-the voice of his beloved.

"Freder-!" and once more: "Freder-!"

He saw blood before his eyes. He made to throw himself with the full weight of his shoulders against the door...

But in that same moment the door opened noiselessly. It swung back in ghostly silence, leaving the way into the house absolutely free.

That was so unexpected and alarming that, in the midst of the swing which was to have thrown him against the door, Freder caught both his hands against the door-posts, and stood fixed there. He buried his teeth in his lips. The heart of the house was as black as midnight...

But the voice of Maria called to him from the heart of the house: "Freder-! Freder-!"

He ran into the house as though he had gone blind. The door fell to behind him. He stood in blackness. He called. He received no answer. He saw nothing. He groped. He felt walls-endless walls... Steps... He climbed up the steps...

A pale redness swam about him like the reflection of a distant gloomy fire.

Suddenly-he stopped still, clawing his hand into the stonework behind him-a sound was coming out of the nothingness: The weeping of a woman sorrowing, sorrowing unto death.

It was not very loud, but yet it was as if the source of all lamentation were streaming out of it. It was as though the house were weeping-as though every stone in the wall were a sobbing mouth, set free from eternal dumbness, once and once only, to mourn an everlasting agony.

Freder shouted-he was fully aware that he was only shouting in order not to hear the weeping any more.

"Maria-Maria-Maria-!"

His voice was clear and wild as an oath: "I am coming!"

He ran up the stairs. He reached the top of the stairs. A pa.s.sage, scarcely lighted. Twelve doors opened out here.

In the wood of each of these doors glowed, copper-red, the seal of Solomon, the pentagram.

He sprang to the first one. Before he had touched it it swung noiselessly open before him. Emptiness lay behind it. The room was quite bare.

The second door. The same.

The third. The fourth. They swung open before him as though his breath had blown them off the latch.

Freder stood still. He screwed his head down between his shoulders. He raised his arm and wiped it across his forehead. He looked around him. The open doors stood agape. The mournful weeping ceased. All was quite silent.

But out of the silence there came a voice, soft and sweet, and more tender than a kiss...

"Come... I Do come... ! I am here, dearest... !"

Freder did not stir. He knew the voice quite well. It was Maria's voice, which he so loved. And yet it was a strange voice. Nothing in the world could be sweeter than the tone of this soft allurement-and nothing in the world has ever been so filled to overflowing with a dark, deadly wickedness.

Freder felt the drops upon his forehead.

"Who are you?" he asked expressionlessly.

"Don't you know me?"

"Who are you?"

"... .Maria... ."

"You are not Maria... "

"Freder-I," mourned the voice-Maria's voice.

"Do you want me to lose my reason?" said Freder, between his teeth. "Why don't you come to me?"

"I can't come, beloved... "

"Where are you?"

"Look for me!" said the sweetly alluring, the deadly wicked voice, laughing softly.

But through the laughter there sounded another voice-being also Maria's voice, sick with fear and horror.

"Freder... help me, Freder... I do not know what is being done to me... But what is being done is worse than murder... My eyes are on... "

Suddenly, as though cut off, her voice choked. But the other voice-which was also Maria's voice, laughed, sweetly, alluringly, on: "Look for me, beloved!"

Freder began to run. Senselessly and unreasoningly, he began to run. Along walls, by open doors, upstairs, downstairs, from twilight into darkness, drawn on by the cones of light, which would suddenly flame up before him, then dazzled and plunged again into a h.e.l.lish darkness.

He ran like a blind animal, groaning aloud. He found that he was running in a circle, always upon his own tracks, but he could not get free of it, could not get out of the cursed circle. He ran in the purple mist of his own blood, which filled his eyes and ears, heard the breaker of his blood dash against his brain, heard high above, like the singing of birds, the sweetly, deadly wicked laugh of Maria...

"Look for me, beloved!... I am here!... I am here!... "

At last he fell. His knees collided against something which was in the way of their blindness; he stumbled and fell. He felt stones under his hands, cool, hard stones, cut in even squares. His whole body, beaten and racked, rested upon the cool hardness of these blocks. He rolled over on his back. He pushed himself up, collapsed again violently, and lay upon the floor. A suffocating blanket sank downwards. His consciousness yielded up, as though drowned...

Rotw.a.n.g had seen him fall. He waited attentively and vigilantly to see if this young wildling, the son of Joh Fredersen and Hel, had had enough at last, or if he would pull himself together once more for the fight against nothing.

But it appeared that he had had enough. He lay remarkably still. He was not even breathing now. He was like a corpse.

The great inventor left his listening post. He pa.s.sed through the dark house on soundless soles. He opened a door and entered a room. He closed the door and remained standing on the threshold. With an expectation that was fully aware of its pointlessness, he looked at the girl who was the occupant of the room.

He found her as he always found her. In the farthest corner of the room, on a high, narrow chair, hands laid, right and left, upon the arms of the chair, sitting stiffly upright, with eyes which appeared to be lidless. Nothing about her was living apart from these eyes. The glorious mouth, still glorious in its pallor, seemed to enclose within it the unp.r.o.nounceable. She did not look at the man-she looked over and beyond him.

Rotw.a.n.g stooped forward. He came nearer to her. Only his hands, his lonely hands groped through the air, as though they wanted to close around Maria's countenance. His eyes, his lonely eyes, enveloped Maria's countenance.

"Won't you smile just once?" he asked. "Won't you cry just once? I need them both-your smile and your tears... Your image, Maria, just as you are now, is burnt into my retina, never to be lost... I could take a diploma in your horror and in your rigidity. The bitter expression of contempt about your mouth is every bit as familiar to me as the haughtiness of your eyebrows and your temples. But I need your smile and your tears, Maria. Or you will make me bungle my work... "

He seemed to have spoken to the deaf air. The girl sat dumb, looking over and beyond him.

Rotw.a.n.g took a chair; he sat down astride it, crossed his arms over the back and looked at the girl. He laughed gloomily.

"You two poor children!" he said, "to have dared to pit yourselves against Joh Fredersen! n.o.body can reproach you for it; you do not know him and do not know what you are doing. But the son should know the father. I do not believe that there is one man who can boast ever having got the better of Joh Fredersen: You could more easily bend to your I will the inscrutable G.o.d, who is said to rule the world, than Joh Fredersen... "

The girl sat like a statue, immovable.

"What will you do, Maria, if Joh Fredersen takes you and, your love so seriously that he comes to you and says: Give me back my son!"

The girl sat like a statue, immovable.

"He will ask you: 'Of what value is my son to you?' and if you are wise you will answer him: 'Of no more and of no less value than he is to you!... ' He will pay the price, and it will be a high price, for Joh Fredersen has only one son... "

The girl sat like a statue, immovable.

"What do you know of Freder's heart?" continued the man. "He is as young as the morning at sunrise. This heart of the young morning is yours. Where will it be at midday? And where at evening? Far away from you, Maria-far, far, away. The world is very large and the earth is very fair... His father will send him around the world. Out over the beautiful earth he will forget you, Maria, before the clock of his heart is at midday."

The girl sat like a statue, immovable. But around her pale mouth, which was like the bud of a snowrose, a smile began to bloom-a smile of such sweetness, of such depths, that it seemed as though the air about the girl must begin to beam.

The man looked at the girl. His lonely eyes were starved and parched as the desert which does not know the dew. In a hoa.r.s.e voice he went on: "Where do you get your sainted confidence from? Do you believe that you are Freder's first love? Have you forgotten the 'Club of the Sons,' Maria? There are a hundred women there-and all are his! These loving little women could all tell you about Freder's love, for they know more about it than you do, and you have only one advantage over them: You can weep when he leaves you; for they are not allowed to weep... When Joh Fredersen's son celebrates his marriage it will be as though all Metropolis celebrated its marriage. When?-Joh Fredersen will decide that... With whom?-Joh Fredersen will decide that... But you will not be the bride, Maria! The son of Joh Fredersen will have forgotten you by the day of his wedding."

"Never!" said the girl. "Never-never!"

And the painless tears of a great, true love fell upon the beauty of her smile.

The man got up. He stood still before the girl. He looked at her. He turned away. As he was crossing the threshold of the next room his shoulder fell against the door-post.

He slammed the door to. He stared straight ahead. He looked on the being-his creature of gla.s.s and metal-which bore the almost completed head of Maria.

His hands moved towards the head, and, the nearer they came to it, the more did it appear as if these hands, these lonely hands, wished not to create but to destroy.

"We are bunglers, Futura!" he said. "Bunglers!-Bunglers! Can I give you the smile which you make angels fall gladly down to h.e.l.l? Can I give you the tears which would redeem the chiefest Satan, and make him beatify?-Parody is your name! And Bungler is mine!"

Shining cool and l.u.s.trous, the being stood there and looked at its creator with its bafflng eyes. And, as he laid his hands on its shoulders, its fine structure tinkled in mysterious laughter...

Freder, on recovering, found himself surrounded by a dull brightness. It came from a window, in the frame of which stood a pale, grey sky. The window was small and gave the impression that it had not been opened for centuries.

Freder's eyes wandered through the room. Nothing that he saw penetrated into his consciousness. He remembered nothing. He lay, his back resting on stones which were cold and smooth. All his limbs and joints were wracked by a dull pain.

He turned his head to one side. He looked at his hands which lay beside him as though not belonging to him, thrown away, bled white.

Knuckles knocked raw... shreds of skin... brownish crusts... were these his hands?

He stared at the ceiling. It was black, as if charred. He stared at the walls; grey, cold walls...

Where was he-? He was tortured by thirst and a ravenous hunger. But worse than the hunger and thirst was the weariness which longed for sleep and which could not find it.

Maria occurred to him...

Maria?... Maria-?

He jerked himself up and stood on sawn-through ankles. His eyes sought for doors: There was one door. He stumbled up to it. The door was closed, was latchless, would not open.

His brain commanded him: Don't be surprised at anything... Don't let anything startle you... Think...

Over there, there was a window. It had no frame. It was a pane of gla.s.s set into stone. The street lay before it-one of the great streets of the great Metropolis, seething with human beings.

The gla.s.s window-pane must be very thick. Not the least sound entered the room in which Freder was captive, though the street was so near.

Freder's hands fumbled across the pane. A penetrating coldness streamed out of the gla.s.s, the smoothness of which was reminiscent of the sucking sharpness of a steel blade. Freder's finger tips glided towards the setting of the pane... and remained, crooked, hanging in the air, as though bewitched. He saw: Down there, below, Maria was crossing the street...

Leaving the house which held him captive, she turned her back on him and walked with light, hurried step towards the Maelstrom, which the street was...

Freder's fists smote against the pane. He cried the girl's name. He yelled: "Maria... !" She must hear him. It was impossible that she did not hear him. Regardless of his raw knuckles he banged with his fists against the pane.

But Maria did not hear him. She did not turn her head around. With her gentle but hurried step she submerged herself in the surf of people as though into her very familiar element.

Freder leaped for the door. He heaved with his whole body, with his shoulders, his knees, against the door. He no longer shouted. His mouth was gaping open. His breath burnt his lips grey. He sprang back to the window. There, outside, hardly ten paces from the window, stood a policeman, his face turned towards Rotw.a.n.g's house. The man's face registered absolute nonchalance. Nothing seemed to be farther from his mind than to watch the magician's house. But the man who was striving, with bleeding fists, to shatter a window pane in his house could not have escaped even his most casual glance.

Freder paused. He stared at the policeman's face with an unreasoning hatred, born of fear of losing time where there was no time to be lost. He turned around and s.n.a.t.c.hed up the rude foot-stool, which stood near the table. He dashed the foot-stool with full force at the window pane. The rebound jerked him backwards. The pane was undamaged.

Sobbing fury welled up in Freder's throat. He swung the foot-stool and hurled it at the door. The foot-stool crashed to earth. Freder dashed to it, s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and struck and struck, again and again, at the booming door, in a ruddy, blind desire to destroy.

Wood splintered, white. The door shrieked like a living thing. Freder did not pause. To the rhythm of his own boiling blood, he beat against the door until it broke, quivering.

Freder dragged himself through the hole. He ran through the house. His wild eyes sought an enemy and fresh obstacles in each corner. But he found neither one nor the other. Unchallenged, he reached the door, found it open and reeled out into the street.

He ran in the direction which Maria had taken. But the surf of the people had washed her away. She had vanished.

For some minutes Freder stood among the hurrying mob, as though paralysed. One senseless hope befogged his brain: Perhaps-perhaps she would come back again... if he were patient and waited long enough...

But he remembered the cathedral-waiting in vain-her voice in the magician's house-words of fear-her sweet, wicked laugh...