Metropolis ~ Chapter 13
From 'Metropolis - New Translation'
This piece is part of my ongoing translation of the novel of Thea von Harbou’s “Metropolis”, which is now available for everyone to read for free. If you’d like to find out more about the project and see other available chapters, check out this essay:
It was midnight, and no lights were burning. Only through the window did the radiance of the city fall, lying as a pale glow on the face of the girl who sat there, with closed eyes, hands in her lap, leaning back against the wall without moving.
“Will you never answer me?” asked the great inventor.
Stillness. Silence. Motionlessness.
“You are colder than stone—and harder than any stone. The tip of your finger must cut through diamond as though it were water. I do not call upon your love. What does a girl know of love? Her unstormed fortresses, her undeveloped paradises, her sealed books, whom no one knows except the god who wrote them—what do you know of love? Women know nothing of love either. What does light know of light? Flame of burning? What do the stars know of the laws by which they wander? You must ask chaos, the freezing, the darkness; the eternal unredeemed which wrestles for the redemption of itself. You must ask man what love is. The hymn of Heaven is only versified in Hell... I do not call upon your love, Maria, but your pity, you motherly one with the Virgin face.”
Stillness. Silence. Motionlessness.
“I hold you captive… Am I to blame for that? I do not hold you captive for myself, Maria. Above you and me there is a will which forces me to be evil. Have pity on him who must be evil, Maria! All the springs of good within me are clogged up. I used to believe they were dead, but they are only buried alive. My being is a rock of darkness. But deep within the sad stone, I hear the springs rushing. If I defy the will which is above you and me, if I destroy the work I made in your image… it would only do right by Joh Fredersen, and it would be better for me! He has destroyed me, Maria, he has destroyed me! He stole the woman from me who was mine and who I loved. I do not know if her soul was ever with me, but her pity was with me and it made me good. Joh Fredersen took the woman from me. He made me evil. He, who begrudged the stone the imprint of her shoe, made me evil to take her pity from me. Hel is dead, but she loved him. What dreadful law it is by which beings of light turn themselves to those of darkness, yet passes by those in the shade? Be more merciful than Hel was, Maria! I will defy the will which is above me and you. I will open the doors for you. You should be able to go where you like and nobody should stop you. But would you remain with me of your own free will, Maria? I long to be good. Will you help me?”
Stillness. Silence. Motionlessness.
“Neither do I call upon your pity, Maria. There is nothing in the world more remorseless than a woman who only loves one single person. You cold murderers in the name of love! You goddesses of death with your tender smile! The hands of your beloved are cold. You ask: ‘Shall I warm your hands for you, beloved?’ You do not wait for his ‘Yes.’ You set fire to a city. You burn down a kingdom so that you can warm the cold hands of your beloved by its blaze! You rise up and pluck, from the heaven of the world, its most radiant stars, without caring that you destroy the universe, and bring the roundel of the eternal out of balance. ‘Do you want to have the stars, beloved?’ And if he says ‘No’ then you let the stars fall. Oh, you blessed malefactors! You may step, frightfully inviolable, before the throne of God and say: ‘Get up, Creator of the world! I need the throne of the world for my beloved!’ You do not see who dies next to you when only the one lives. A drop of blood on the finger of your beloved frightens you more than the demise of a continent. All this I know, and have never possessed. No, I do not call upon your pity, Maria, but I do call upon your loyalty.”
Stillness. Silence. Motionlessness.
“Do you know the underground City of the Dead? There, at night, I used a girl called Maria to call her brothers together. Her brothers wear the blue linen uniform, the black caps and the hard shoes. Maria spoke to her brothers of a Mediator, who would come to deliver them. ‘The Mediator between Head and Hands must be the Heart.’ Was that not so? The brothers of the girl believed in the girl. They waited. They waited long. But the Mediator did not come, and the girl did not come. No message was sent. She was untraceable. But the brothers believed in the girl, for they had found her faithfulness to be golden. ‘She will come!’ they said. ‘She will come again! She is faithful. She would not leave us alone! She said the Mediator will come! Now he must come. We want to be patient and want to wait...’ But the Mediator did not come, and the girl did not come. The misery of the brothers has grown day by day. Where once a thousand murmured, now ten thousand murmur. They cannot stave it off any more. They crave for struggle, for destruction, for annihilation and demise. And even the believers, even the patient ones, ask: ‘Where is Maria? Could her faithfulness not be golden?’ Will you leave them without an answer, Maria?”
Stillness. Silence. Motionlessness.
“You are silent. You are very stubborn. But now I will tell you something which will surely break your stubbornness. Do you believe I am holding you captive here as a joke? Do you believe Joh Fredersen would have known no other means of getting you out of his son’s sight than to lock you up behind the Solomon’s seal on my doors? Oh no, Maria—oh no, my beautiful Maria! We have not been idle all this time. We have stolen your beautiful soul from you—your sweet soul, that tender smile of God. I have overheard you, just as the air has overheard you. I have seen you furious and deeply desperate. I have seen you burning and as coarse as earth. I have overheard you praying to God—and cursing God, because he did not hear you. I have inebriated myself with your helplessness. Your poor weeping has made me drunk. When you sobbed the name of your beloved, I thought I would die, and reeled… Thus, as one inebriated, drunk, and reeling, I became a thief in order to steal you, Maria! I created you anew; I became your second God! I have stolen you, bones and all! In the name of Joh Fredersen, the master over the great Metropolis, I have stolen your ego from you, Maria. And this stolen ego—your other self—sent a message to your brothers, calling them by night into the City of the Dead! They came—they all came! Maria called for them, and they came. When you spoke to them before, you spoke of peace. But Joh Fredersen does not want peace any more, you understand? He wants decisiveness! The hour has come! Your stolen ego shall not speak of peace any more, for it speaks as a mouthpiece for Joh Fredersen. And amongst your brothers there will be one who loves you and who will not recognise you, and who will go crazy because of you, Maria… Will you give me your hands once more, Maria? I do not demand anything more. Your hands must be wondrous. Grace is the name of the right, and Redemption of the left… If you give me your hands once more, I will go with you into the City of the Dead, so that you can warn your brothers, so that you can expose your stolen ego, so that the one who loves you finds you again and does not have to go crazy…”
He heard the soft, soft weeping of the girl. He fell where he stood, onto his knees. He wanted to drag himself along on his knees to the girl.
Suddenly, he stopped, becoming aware of something. “Did you say something, Maria?”
He listened. He stared. He said in a voice which almost sounded like a shriek in its wide-awake attentiveness: “Maria? Maria, don’t you hear? There’s a strange man in the room!”
“Yes,” said the quiet voice of Joh Fredersen.
And then the hands of Joh Fredersen seized the throat of Rotwang, the great inventor…
< Chapter 12 = = = = = = = = = = = Chapter 14 >
