Metropolis ~ Chapter 16
This piece is part of my ongoing translation of the novel of Thea von Harbou’s “Metropolis”. If you’d like to find out more about the project and see other chapters, check out the essay below:
"Father!” shouted Joh Fredersen’s son. He knew well that his father could not hear him, for he stood at the lowest part of the New Tower of Babel’s pedestal where the jerking throb of the street had thrown him, and, high above the boiling of the city, his father was the untouched brain in the cool brain-box. But still he shouted for him, needing to shout, and his shout was both a cry for help and an accusation.
The round structure of the New Tower of Babel was spitting out people who, laughing like fools, pushed out into the street. The pulp of people in the street sucked them up. The New Tower of Babel had become deserted. Those who had populated its halls and passages, who had been poured by the buckets of the Paternoster’s workings down to the depths and up to the heights, who had backed-up on the stairs, who had received instructions and passed them on, who had choked in numbers, who had listened in to the whispers of the world—all of them, all of them streamed out from the New Tower of Babel like blood streams from a cut vein, until it stood there, horribly empty, bled white.
But its machines still lived on. Indeed, they seemed to be coming to life for the first time.
Freder, who stood alone as a crumb of humanity in the enormity of the round structure, heard the soft, deep, rushing howl, like the breath of the New Tower of Babel, growing ever louder, ever clearer. On turning around, he saw that the empty cabins of the Paternoster were speeding ever more rapidly, ever more hurriedly, upwards and downwards. Now it was as if these cabins, these empty cabins, were dancing upwards and downwards, and the howling which cut through the New Tower of Babel seemed to stem from out their vacant jaws.
“Father!” shouted Freder. And the whole round structure roared, with all its lungs, with him.
Freder ran, but not to the heights of the Tower. He ran to the depths, driven by horror and curiosity down into that hell, guided by luminous pillars to the abode of the Paternoster machine, which was like Ganesha, the god with the elephant’s head.
The pillars of light which he ran by did not shine with their icy white light as usual. 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 room of the machine, the more bellowing the voice of the tower rang out. The walls were baking. The air was colourless fire. Had the door not burst open by itself, no human hand could have opened it, for it was like a glowing curtain of molten steel.
Freder held his arm flung before his forehead, as if wanting to protect his brain from bursting. His eyes sought the machine, in front of which he had once stood. It was crouching in the middle of the howling room. She gleamed in oil. She had glistening limbs. Under the crouching body and head, sunken on the chest, crooked legs rested like a gnome upon the platform. The torso and legs were motionless. But the short arms pushed, and pushed, and pushed, alternating forwards, then backwards, then forwards.
The machine was completely abandoned. Nobody was watching it. Nobody’s hand held the lever. Nobody held their gaze on the clock, the hands of which chased through the grades as though mad.
“Father!” shouted Freder, wanting to hurl himself forward. But in 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 in order to make a murderous leap, as though its arms no longer stretched themselves to push—no, in order to seize, to seize and squash, as though the howling voice of the New Tower of Babel broke from the lungs of the Paternoster machine, alone, howling:
“Murder!”
The flame curtain of the door flew sideways, whistling. The monster-machine rolled itself down from the platform with thrusting arms. The whole structure of the New Tower of Babel trembled. The walls moved. The ceiling creaked.
Freder turned around. He threw his arms about his neck and ran. He saw the luminous pillars pricking at him. He heard a rattling gasp at his back and felt the marrow dry up, and ran. He ran towards doors, pushing them open and slamming them closed behind him, and running onwards.
“Father!” he shouted.
A staircase upwards. Where did these stairs lead to? Doors thundered open, rebounding against walls.
Ah! The temple of the machine-halls! 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 dreadfully genial, some horribly alone. There—the Divine Car of Jagannath! There—the Towers of Silence! There—the sickle sword of Muhammad! There—the crosses of Golgotha!
And no men—not a soul in the white rooms. The machines, these god-machines, left terribly alone. And they were living—yes, they really were living—an enhanced, enflamed life.
For Metropolis had a head. 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 unto itself. Above the deep mysteries of its delicate joints stood, like the solar disc, like the halo of a divine being, the silver spinning wheel, whose spokes appeared, in the whirl of its revolutions, as a single gleaming disc.
There was no machine in the whole of Metropolis which did not receive its power from this heart.
A single lever governed this steel wonder. Set the lever to to ‘Safety’ and all the machines would play with their subdued power like tame animals. The shimmering spokes of the sun-wheel would circle, clearly distinguishable, above the Heart-Machine. Set the lever to ‘3’ and the game would already begin to work. No longer distinguishable, the shimmering spokes circled... Soft wheezing came from the machine’s lungs. Set the lever to ‘6’—and it was set there most of the time—and work would spell serfdom. The machines roared. The tremendous wheel of the Heart-Machine hung, a seemingly motionless mirror of brightest silver, above it, and the mighty thunder of the machines, initiated by the heartbeat of this one machine, would arch itself as a second heaven above Metropolis, Joh Fredersen’s city.
But never before, not since Metropolis was built, had the lever stood at ‘12’. Now it was set to ‘12.’ A girl’s hand, more delicate than glass, had pushed the weighty lever, which was set to ‘Safety,’ around until it reached ‘12.’ The heart of Metropolis, Joh Fredersen’s great city, had begun to run a fever, seized by a deadly illness, chasing the red waves of its fever along to all the machines nurtured by its pulse.
There was no machine in the whole of Metropolis which did not receive its power from this heart. Thus, all the god-machines were taken with the fever…
From the Towers of Silence there broke forth a vapour of decomposition. Blue flames hovered in the space above them. And the towers, the enormous towers, which otherwise used to turn only once during the course of the day, tottered on their pedestals in a drunken, spinning dance, full to bursting point.
The sickle sword of Muhammad was like a circle of lightning in the air. It met no resistance. It sliced and sliced. It grew frantic because it had nothing to slice. The power which, senselessly wasted, was still increasing, now gathered itself together, hissing, and sent out snakes—green, hissing snakes—in all directions.
From the jutting arms of the crosses of Golgotha flew long, white, crackling clusters of flames.
Swaying under impacts which had shaken the Earth itself, the hulking, man-crushing car of the Jaganath careened into a glide and a roll—holding itself, hanging crookedly on the platform—trembling like a ship, perishing on the rocks, lashed by the breakers—then shook itself free, moaning.
Then, from their glittering thrones, Baal and Moloch, Huitzilopochtli and Durgha arose. All the god-machines stood up, stretching their limbs in a fearful freedom. Huitzilopochtli shrieked for a jewel-sacrifice. Crackling, Durgha moved eight murderous arms. From the bowels of Baal and Moloch, hungry fires smouldered up, licking out from their jaws. And, roaring like a herd of a thousand buffalo, all for being cheated of a purpose, Thor swung the infallible hammer.
A lost grain of dust among the soles of gods, Freder reeled his way through the white halls—the roaring temples.
“Father!” he shouted.
And he heard the voice of his father.
“Yes! I am here! What do you want? Come here to me!”
“But I do not see you!”
“You must look higher!”
Freder’s gaze flitted through the room. He saw his father standing on a platform, between the wide-reaching arms of the crosses of Golgotha, from the ends of which long, white, crackling clusters of flames blazed. In the hellish fires, his father’s face was like a mask of unmistakable coldness. His eyes were blue-gleaming steel. Amidst the raging of the great 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!” Freder yelled loudly. “Your city is going down!”
Joh Fredersen did not answer. The sweeping clusters of flame seemed to be breaking out from his temples.
“Father, don’t you understand me? Your city is going down! Your machines have come to life and they are tearing the city apart! They are tearing Metropolis to shreds! Do you hear? Explosion after explosion! I have seen a street in which the houses were dancing upon their torn foundations like little children dancing upon the belly of a laughing giant. From the slashed-up tower of your boilermaker, a lava-stream of flowing copper gushed out through the streets, and a man was running before it, naked, and his hair was charred and he roared: ‘The end of the world is nigh!’ But then he stumbled and the copper stream outran him… Where the agricultural factories 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 insides, cranes dangle from gallows as if hanged. And the people, equally incapable of flight or resistance, are roaming between the houses and streets, both of which seem doomed to perish...”
He draped his hands about the stem of the cross and threw his head back into his neck, in order to look his father in the face.
“I cannot think, Father, that there is anything mightier than you! I have cursed your overwhelming might, which has filled me with shivers, from the bottom of my heart. Now I lie here on my knees and ask you: Why do you allow Death to lay hands on the city which is yours?”
“Because Death is upon the city by my will.”
“By your will?”
“Yes.”
“The city is to die?”
“Don’t you know why, Freder?”
There was no answer.
“The city is to go down so that you may build it up again...”
“Me?”
“You.”
“Then you are laying the murder of the city on me?”
“The murder of the city lies on those alone who trampled over Grot, the guardian of the Heart-Machine.”
“Did that also take place by your will, Father?”
“Yes.”
“Then you forced those men to incur sin?”
“For your sake, Freder; so you could redeem them.”
“And what about those, Father, who must die with your dying city, before I can redeem them?”
“Concern yourself with the living, Freder, not with the dead.”
“And if the living come to kill you?”
“That will not happen, Freder. That will not happen. The way to me, through the raving god-machines, as you called them, could only be found by one. And he found it. That was my son.”
Freder let his head fall into his hands. He rocked as if in pain. He moaned softly. He wanted to speak, but before he could, a sound ripped through the air, sounding as though the Earth were bursting apart. For a moment, everything in the white machine-hall seemed to hover in space, a foot above the ground—even Moloch and Baal and Huitzilopochtli and Durgha, even the hammer of Thor and the Towers of Silence. The crosses of Golgotha, from the beam-ends where long, white, crackling clusters of flames were blazing, all toppled together and then straightened themselves up again. Then everything crashed back into its place with furious vigour. Then all the lights went out. From the depths, and in the distance, the city howled.
“Father!” shouted Freder.
“Yes. I am here. What do you want?”
“That you to put an end to this horror!”
“Now? No.”
“But I don’t want any more people to suffer! You should be helping them, you should be saving them, Father!”
“You should be saving them.”
“Now—immediately?”
“Now? No.”
“Then,” said Freder, pushing his fists far away from him, as if pushing something out of his way, “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 asked: “How did he—so suddenly—come to die?”
“Primarily, Freder, he died because he dared to reach out his hands toward the girl 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.”
“So she was! And now?”
“I do not know.”
Silence.
“Freder?”
No answer came.
“Freder?”
Silence.
But, over the windows of the white machine-Cathedral, there ran a shadow. It ran, hunched, hands thrown behind its neck, as if it feared that Durgha’s arms could grab at it, or that Thor could hurl his hammer, which never failed, at it from behind, in order to prevent its escape, in accordance with Joh Fredersen’s command.
It did not come into the consciousness of the fugitive that all the god-machines were standing still because the heart, the unguarded heart of Metropolis, under the fiery lash of the ‘12,’ had raged itself to death.
< Chapter 15 = = = = = = = = = = = Chapter 17 >