Metropolis ~ Chapter 22
From 'Metropolis - New Translation'
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:
Joh Fredersen stood in the domed room of the New Tower of Babel, waiting for The Thin Man. He was supposed to be bringing news on his son.
A ghostly darkness lay over the New Tower of Babel. The light had gone out completely, as though it had been killed at the moment when, as if with a roar from the throats of a hundred-thousand wounded beasts, the gigantic wheel of the Heart-Machine of Metropolis came free from its structure and, still whirling around, was hurled sharply up at the ceiling, striking it with a shattering crash, and bouncing back, booming like a gong as large as the heavens, to then crash down upon the torn-apart wreckage of the former masterpiece of steel and remain lying there.
Joh Fredersen stood for a long time on the same spot, daring not to move.
It seemed to him like an eternity had passed since he sent The Thin Man out for news of his son. And The Thin Man would not return, and still would not return...
Joh Fredersen felt like his whole body was frozen in an icy coldness. His hands, hanging submissively downwards, were clasped around a pocket-torch.
He waited...
Joh Fredersen threw a glance at the clock. But the hands of this giantess stood at a meaningless time. The New Tower of Babel itself had petered out. Where every day, without fail, the clamour of the streets opened out around it, with the roar of the traffic of fifty million, the enchanting frenzy of its velocity burning its way towards it, there now sat a stillness of penetrating dreadfulness.
Then, stumbling steps chased towards the door of the outer room.
Joh Fredersen set the beam of his pocket-torch upon the door. It flew wide open. The Thin Man stood at the threshold. He staggered, closing his eyes, dazzled. In the excessively glaring light of the powerful lamp, his face shone, down to his neck, a greenish white.
Joh Fredersen wanted to ask a question. But not the slightest sound came from his lips. A terrible dryness burnt his throat. The lamp in his hand began to tremble and to dance. To the ceiling, to the floor, along the walls, the beam of light wavered...
The Thin Man ran up to Joh Fredersen. The Thin Man bore an inextinguishable dread in his wide, gaping eyes.
"Your son," he stammered, almost babbling, "your son, Mr. Fredersen..."
Joh Fredersen remained silent. He made no movement, only bending forwards a little.
"I have not found your son." said The Thin Man. He did not wait for Joh Fredersen to respond to him. His tall, ascetic and efficiently cruel body, whose movements in Joh Fredersen's service had gradually gained the detached correctness of a machine, seemed thrown out of joint, shaken into limpness. His voice asked, shrill and in the grip of the deepest frenzy: "Do you know, Mr. Fredersen, what is going on around you in Metropolis?"
"It’s what I have willed," answered Joh Fredersen. The words sounded mechanical and as though they had died before they were spoken. "What does that mean: You have not found my son?"
"It means what it means," answered The Thin Man in his shrill voice. He bore an awful hatred in his eyes. He stood, leaning far forward, as if ready to rush at Joh Fredersen, his hands forming into claws. "It means that Freder, your son, is not to be found. It means that he, perhaps, desired to look on with his own eyes at what is becoming of Metropolis by his father's will and through the acts of a few lunatics. It means, as the now half out-of-their-min servants told me, that your son, in the company of a man wearing the uniform of a worker of Metropolis, left the safety of his home—and that, at this time, he has not returned—and that it may well be very difficult, Mr. Fredersen, to seek out Freder, your son, in this city which, by the power of you will, madness has broken out in—destructive madness, Mr. Fredersen! Devastating madness, Mr. Fredersen! And a city which no longer has light to illuminate its madness!"
The Thin Man wanted to continue speaking, but he did not do so. Joh Fredersen's right hand made a senseless, fumbling gesture through the air. The lamp fell from his hand, continuing to burn on the floor. The mightiest man in Metropolis swung halfway round, as though he’d been shot, and crashed back, with empty eyes, into the chair by the writing-table.
The Thin Man bent forward in order to look Joh Fredersen in the face. He was struck silent in front of his eyes.
Ten—twenty—thirty seconds long, he did not dare to take a breath. His horrified gaze followed the straying movements of Joh Fredersen's fingers, which were fumbling around as though searching for some rescue lever which they could not find. Then, suddenly, the hand rose a little from the tabletop. The forefinger straightened as though urging to pay attention. Joh Fredersen murmured something. Then he laughed. It was a tired, sad little laugh, at the sound of which The Thin Man thought he felt his hairs begin to stand on end.
Joh Fredersen was talking to himself. What was he saying? The Thin Man bent over him. He saw the forefinger of Joh Fredersen's right hand slowly gliding across the shiny tabletop, as though he were following and spelling out the lines of a book.
The soft voice of Joh Fredersen said: "For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap...."
Then Joh Fredersen's forehead fell on to the smooth wood, and his soft voice called out, unceasingly, and in a tone which, except for his dead wife, no one had ever heard from Joh Fredersen, the name of his son.
But these cries remained unanswered.
A man was creeping up the steps of the New Tower of Babel. It seldom happened in the great Metropolis, Joh Fredersen's time-saving city, that anyone used the stairs. They were reserved for when the lifts and the Paternoster were overcrowded, the cessation of all means of transit, the outbreak of fire and for similar catastrophes—improbable things in this perfect human settlement. But the improbable had happened. Piled up on top of each other, the fallen lifts clogged up the shafts, and the cubicles of the Paternoster seemed to have been smothered and charred in a hellish heat, smouldering up from the depths.
Dragging himself up the stairs of the New Tower of Babel was Josaphat. He had learnt to swear in that quarter of an hour, just as Grot continually swore, and he made the most of this new science. He roared at the pain which tortured his limbs. He spat out an excess of hatred and contempt at the agony in his knees. The curses, which he hurled at every stair, every landing, and every new bend in the staircase, were wild and ingenious. But he overcame them all—one hundred and six flights of stairs, each with thirty steps.
He reached the semicircle where the lifts opened out. In the corners before the door to Joh Fredersen's rooms clumped bundles of human beings, darkly pressed together by a common pressure of terrible fear.
They turned their heads to stare at the man who was crawling up the stairs, lugging himself along the walls.
His wild eyes swept over them.
"What is this?" he asked without taking a breath. "What are you all doing here?"
Voices whispered hurriedly. Nobody knew who was speaking. Words tumbled over each other.
"He chased us out into the city, where death is running amok… He sent us out to look for his son, Freder... We did not find him… None of us… We daren't go in to Joh Fredersen… Nobody dares bring him the news that we haven't found his son..."
A voice swung out, high and sharp from out the knot: "Who can find a single damned soul in this hell?"
Behind the door a voice spoke, as though the wood were rattling: "Where is my son?"
Josaphat lurched towards the door. A wheezing cry from many tried to stop him. Hands were stretched out towards him.
"No, no!"
But he had already pushed open the door. He looked about him.
Through the enormous windows, the first glow of the youthful day was flowing, and lay on the shining floorboards like pools of blood. By the wall, near the door, stood The Thin Man, and right in front of The Thin Man stood Joh Fredersen. His fists were braced against the wall, right and left of The Thin Man, holding him firmly, as though they had pierced through and crucified him.
"Where is my son?" said Joh Fredersen. He asked, and his voice cracked chokingly: "Where is my child?"
The Thin Man’s head flung back against the wall. From his ash-coloured lips came toneless words: "Tomorrow there will be many in Metropolis who will also ask: 'Joh Fredersen, where is my child?'"
Joh Fredersen's fists relaxed. His whole body flung around. Then the man, who had been the Master over the great Metropolis, saw that another man was standing in the room. He stared at him. Down this other man’s face, the sweat trickled in cold, slow, heavy drops. It twitched in a terrible helplessness.
"Where is my son?" asked Joh Fredersen, babblingly. He reached out his hand. The hand shot through the air, groping aimlessly. "Do you know, where my son is?"
Josaphat did not answer. The answer shouted in his throat, but he could not form the words. There was a fist at his throat, strangling him… God, was it really Joh Fredersen who stood before him?
Joh Fredersen made an uneasy step towards him. He bent his head low to look at him the more closely. He nodded again.
"I know you," he said tonelessly. "You are Josaphat and you were my First Secretary. I dismissed you. I was very hard on you. I hurt you and destroyed you… I beg your forgiveness… I am sorry that I was ever hard on you or to anyone else… Forgive me! Forgive me, Josaphat... For ten hours I have not known where my son is… For ten hours, Josaphat, I have been sending all the men I could get hold of down into that damned city in order to search for my son... And I know it is senseless, and that there’s no point in doing it... The day is breaking, and I am talking and talking and I know that I am a fool... But perhaps, perhaps you know where my son is?"
"Captured," said Josaphat, and it was as though tearing the word from his gullet, afraid he would bleed to death from it. "Captured."
A foolish smile wobbled over Joh Fredersen's face.
"What does that mean, captured?"
"The masses has captured him, Joh Fredersen!"
"My son?"
"Yes! Freder, your son!"
A senseless, pathetic, animalistic sound came from Joh Fredersen's mouth. His mouth stood open, contorted—his hands rose, as in a childish defence, against a blow that had already fallen. His voice said, quite high and pitifully: "My son?"
"They captured him,"—Josaphat tore the words out—"because they sought a victim for their despair and for the fury of their immeasurable, inconceivable pains. They have taken captive the girl who they blame for all this evil. Freder wanted to save her, for he loves that girl. So they’ve taken him captive and are forcing him to look on and see how his beloved dies. They have built a stake before the cathedral and they’re dancing around it. They are yelling: 'We have captured the son of Joh Fredersen and his beloved.' And I know—I know: He'll never survive it!"
For the space of some seconds there was, in that great room, such a deep and perfect silence that the golden glow of the morning sun, breaking forth strong and radiant, had the effect of a tremendous roar. Then Joh Fredersen turned around, starting to run. He tumbled into the door. So forceful and unstoppable was this movement that it seemed as if the closed door were not able to withstand it.
Past the bundles of human beings, Joh Fredersen ran across to the staircase and down the steps. His running was like an unrelenting series of leaps. He did not feel the steps. He did not conceive what level he was at. With hands stretched forwards he ran, barging on, his hair rearing up like a flame above his brow. His mouth stood wide open and between his torn-open lips there hovered, like a soundless scream, the unscreamed name: "Freder!"
An infinity of stairs… Fissuring… Rifts in walls… Smashed blocks… Twisted iron… Chaos… Destruction… Ruin....
The street...
The day was streaming down, red, upon the street.
Howls in the air. The glow of flame. Smoke.
Voices… shouts, but not rejoicing shouting… shouts of fear, of horror, of terribly strained tension...
At last: the cathedral square!
The stake. The masses… men, woman, immeasurable masses… but they were not gazing at the stake, on the smoking embers of which a creature, of metal and glass, with the head and body of a woman, smouldered.
All eyes were turned upwards, towards the heights of the cathedral, the roof of which sparkled in the morning sun.
Joh Fredersen stopped, as though he’d received a blow to the knees.
"What..." he stammered. He raised his eyes, he raised his hands quite slowly to the level of his head, his hands laid upon his hair.
Soundlessly, as though mown, he broke down on his knees.
At the top of the cathedral roof, entwined in each other, knotted in each other, with the fervour of a deadly struggle, Freder and Rotwang wrestled, gleaming in the sun.
They wrestled, pressed chest-to-chest and knee-to-knee. Nobody needed sharper eyes to see that Rotwang was by far the stronger one. The slender form of the boy in tattered white silk, under the choking grip of the great inventor, bent further and further backwards. Like a fearfully-wonderful bow, the slender, white form was taut, head back, knees bent forward. And the blackness of Rotwang jut out, bearish as a mountain, above the silken whiteness, forcing it downwards. In the narrow gallery of the spire, Freder crumpled up like a sack, laying in the corner, stirring no more. Straightened up above him, yet bent forward, Rotwang, staring at him, then turning...
Along the narrow ridge of the roof, towards him—no, towards the dull bundle of white silk—staggered Maria. In the light of the morning, rising glorious and imperious, her voice fluttered out like the lament of a poor bird:
"Freder—Freder!"
Whispers broke out in the cathedral square. Heads turned and hands pointed.
"Look—Joh Fredersen! Look there—Joh Fredersen!"
A woman's voice yelled out: "Do you now see for yourself, Joh Fredersen, what it's like when an only child is murdered?"
Josaphat leaped before the man who lay on his knees, noticing nothing of what was going on around him.
"What's the matter?" Josaphat shouted. "What's the matter with you all? Your children have been saved! In the 'Club of the Sons!' Maria and Joh Fredersen's son—they saved your children!"
Joh Fredersen heard nothing. He did not hear the scream, which suddenly leaped from the mouth of the masses, crying out like a bellowed prayer to God.
He did not hear the rushing with which the masses near and far around him threw itself on its knees. He did not hear the weeping of the women nor the gasping of the men, no prayer nor thanks, no groans nor praises.
Only his eyes remained alive. His eyes, which seemed to have no lids, hung on the roof of the cathedral.
Maria had reached the white bundle, which lay crumpled in the corner between the spire and the roof. She slid, on her knees, along to it, stretching her hands out towards it, blinded with sorrow:
"Freder… Freder..."
With a furious snarl, like the snarl of a predator, Rotwang clutched at her. She struggled, screaming. He held her lips closed. With an expression of desperate incomprehension, he stared into the girl’s streaming face.
"Hel, my Hel… why do you struggle against me?"
He held her in his iron arms like prey, which nothing and no-one could tear away from him any longer. Close to the spire, a ladder led upwards to the roof ridge. With the deep, beastly snarl of one unjustly pursued, he climbed up the ladder, dragging the girl with him in his arms.
This was the scene which met Freder's eyes when he opened them and tore himself free from his half-daze. He pushed himself up and rushed over to the ladder. He climbed up the ladder, almost running with the blindly-certain speed, fearing for his beloved. He reached Rotwang, who let Maria fall.
She fell.
She fell, but while falling she caught herself, pulling herself up and reaching the golden sickle of the moon on which the star-crowned Virgin rested. She stretched out her hand to clutch at Freder. But in the same moment, Rotwang threw himself down upon the man standing below him and, clasped tightly together, they rolled along the roof of the cathedral, rolling down in a furious clash against the narrow railing of the gallery.
Screeching, the yell of fear from the masses came up from the depths. Neither Rotwang nor Freder heard it. With a gruesome curse, Rotwang gathered himself up. He saw above him, sharp against the blue of the sky, the gargoyle of a waterspout. It grinned in his face. The long tongue stuck out mockingly at him. He pulled himself together and struck, with clenched fist, at the grinning gargoyle...
The gargoyle broke.
In the weight of the blow he lost his balance, and fell—but he caught himself, hanging with one hand, to the Gothic embellishments of the cathedral.
And looking upwards, into the infinite blue of the morning sky, he saw Hel's countenance, which he had loved, and it was like the countenance of the beautiful Angel of Death, smiling at him with her lips inclining towards his brow.
Great black wings spread themselves out, strong enough to carry a lost world up to Heaven.
"Hel..." said the man. "My Hel… at last..."
And his fingers loosened voluntarily...
Joh Fredersen did not see the fall. Neither did he hear the cry of the masses giving way. He saw only one thing: the white-glowing man who, upright and uninjured, was walking along the roof of the cathedral with the calm footsteps of one fearing nothing, carrying the girl in his arms.
Then Joh Fredersen bent down, so low that his forehead touched the stones of the cathedral square. And those who were near enough to him heard the weeping which welled up from his chest like spring water from a rock.
And as his hands loosened from his head, all who stood around him saw that Joh Fredersen's hair had turned snow-white.
< Chapter 21 = = = = = = = = = = = Chapter 23 >