Metropolis ~ Chapter 5
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 get quick links to the other chapters, check out the essay below:
The man in front of the machine (which was like Ganesha, the god with the elephant’s head), was no longer human—merely a dripping piece of exhaustion, from which the last of its willpower oozed out from its pores in large drops of sweat. Streaming eyes no longer saw the manometer. The hand did not hold the lever; it clawed it firmly, in its lasting hold that kept the mangled man-creature before it from falling into the crushing arms of the machine.
The Paternoster workings of the New Tower of Babel turned their buckets with a leisurely smoothness. The eye of the little machine smiled softly and insidiously at the man who stood before it and who was now just a babble.
“Father!” babbled the son of Joh Fredersen. “Today, for the first time since Metropolis stood, you have forgotten to let your city and your great machines roar punctually for fresh fodder… Has Metropolis become silent, Father? Look at us! Look at your machines! Your god-machines are disgusted at the chewed-up cuds in their mouths—at the pulverised fodder that we are… Why do you strangle their voice to death? Will ten hours never, never come to an end? Our Father, who art in Heaven...”
But in this second, Joh Fredersen laid his finger on the little blue metal plate, and the voice of the great Metropolis raised its behemoth-cry that shook the walls. Under the voice of the great Metropolis, the New Tower of Babel shook down to the building’s foundations.
“Thank you, Father!” said the mangled man before the Ganesha-like machine. He smiled. He tasted saltiness on his lips and did not know if it was from blood, sweat or tears. From a red mist of long-flamed clouds, fresh men pushed on towards him. He let his hand go from the lever and slumped back. Arms pulled him up and led him away. He turned his head aside to hide his face.
The eye of the little machine—the soft, insidious eye—squinted at him from behind. “Until we meet again, friend,” said the little machine.
Freder’s head fell upon his chest. He felt himself dragged on further, hearing the dull evenness of feet trudging onwards, feeling himself trudging as one member of twelve. The floor under his feet began to roll, drawn upwards and pulling him up with it. Doors stood open—double doors. Towards him came a stream of men.
The great Metropolis was still roaring. Suddenly, she fell quiet, and in the silence Freder became aware of the breath of a man at his ear, and of a voice—just a whisper—which asked: “She has called… Are you coming?”
He did not know what the question meant, but he nodded. He wanted to get to know the ways of those who walked, like him, in blue linen, in the black cap, and in the hard shoes. With tightly-closed eyelids, he groped onwards, shoulder-to-shoulder with unknown men.
She has called, he thought, half-asleep. Who is that she?
He walked and walked in smouldering fatigue. The way never came to an end. He did not know where he was walking. He heard the trampling of those walking with him like the sound of perpetually-falling water.
She has called, he thought. Who is that: she, whose voice is so powerful that these men, exhausted to death by fatigue, voluntarily put off sleep (which is the sweetest thing for the weary) in order to follow her when her voice calls?
It can’t be very much further to the centre of the Earth… Still deeper? Still deeper down?
No light around any more, only flashing pocket torches here and there in men’s hands.
Finally, in the far distance, a dull shimmer.
Have we wandered so far to walk towards the Sun, thought Freder, and does the Sun dwell in the bowels of the Earth?
The procession came to a standstill. Freder stopped too. He staggered against the dry, cool stones.
Where are we, he thought—in a cave? If the Sun dwells here, then it isn’t at home currently. I fear we have come this way in vain. We should turn back, brothers… We should sleep…
He slid along the wall, fell to his knees and leant his head against the stone. How smooth it was. A murmur of human voices was around him, like the rustling of trees moved by the wind. He smiled peacefully. It’s wonderful to be tired…
Then a voice began to speak.
Oh, sweet voice, thought Freder dreamily. Tenderly beloved voice. Your voice, Virgin-mother! I have fallen asleep... Yes, I am dreaming! I am dreaming of your voice, beloved!
But a slight pain in his temple made him think: I am leaning my head on stone! I am conscious of the coldness which comes out from the stone. I sense cold stone under my knees. So I am not sleeping; I am only dreaming… Or, what if it is not a dream? What if it is reality?
With an exertion of will which made him groan, he opened his eyes and looked around him. A vault, like the vault of a crypt, human heads so closely crowded together that they seemed like clods on a freshly-ploughed field. All the faces turned towards one point: to the source of a light as soft as God. Candles burnt, their flames shaped like swords. Slender, lustrous swords of light stood in a circle around the head of a girl, whose voice was like the breath of God.
The voice spoke, but Freder did not hear the words. He heard nothing but a sound, the blessed harmony of which was saturated with sweetness, like the air of a garden of blossoms with its fragrance. And suddenly, the roaring booms of his heartbeat crashed over this melody. The air clanged with bells. The walls shook under the surge of an invisible organ. Weariness, exhaustion—wiped out! He felt his body from head to toe to be one single instrument of bliss; all strings stretched to breaking point, and yet tuned together in the purest, warmest, most radiant accord, in which his whole being hung, quivering.
He longed to stroke the stone, on which he knelt, with his hands. He longed to kiss the stone, on which he rested his head, with boundless tenderness. God—God! Beat the heart in his chest, and every heartthrob was idolising gratitude. He looked at the girl, but did not see her. He saw only a shimmer; he lay before it on his knees.
“Sweet one,” formed his mouth. Mine! My beloved! How could the world have existed when you did not? How must God’s smile have been when he created you? You are speaking? What are you saying? My heart shouts within me—I cannot catch your words… Have patience with me, sweet one, my beloved!
Without being aware of it, he pushed himself, on his knees, drawn by an invisible, unbreakable rope, nearer and nearer to the shimmer which the girl’s face was to him. At last, he was so near to her that he could have touched the hem of her dress with his outstretched hand.
“Look at me, Virgin!” implored his eyes. “Mother, look at me!”
But her gentle eyes looked out beyond him. Her lips said: “My brothers…”
With a gesture of painful obedience—unconditional submission—Freder lowered his head and placed his glowing hands in front of his glowing face.
“My brothers,” said the sweet voice above him. And fell silent, as though startled.
Freder raised his head. Nothing had happened—nothing that could be said. Only that the air which passed through the room had suddenly become audible, like a raised breath, and that it was cool, as though coming in through open doors.
The flaming swords of candles bowed with a gentle crackling. Then they stood silent again.
“Speak, my beloved!” said Freder’s heart.
Yes, now she spoke. This is what she spoke of:
“Do you want to know how the building of the Tower of Babel began, and do you want to know how it ended? I see a man who comes from the dawn of the world. He is as beautiful as the world, and has a burning heart. He loves to walk upon the mountains, offer his breast unto the wind and speak with the stars. He is very strong and rules all creatures. He dreams of God and feels closely tied to him. His nights are filled with visions.
One holy hour bursts his heart. The firmament is above him and his friends. ‘Oh friends! Friends!’ he cries, pointing to the stars. ‘Great is the world and its creator! Great is man! Come, let us build a tower, whose top reaches the heavens! And when we stand on its top and hear the stars ringing above us, then let us write our creed in gold lettering on the top of the tower: Great is the world and its creator! And great is man!
And they made to it—a handful of men, who trusted one another—and they fired bricks and dug up the earth. Never have men worked more rapidly, for they all had one thought, one aim and one dream. When they rested from their work in the evening, each knew what the other was thinking. They did not need speech to make themselves understood. But after a short while they already knew: the work was greater than their working hands. Then they enlisted new friends for their work. Then the work grew. It grew overwhelming. Then the builders sent their messengers to all four corners of the world and enlisted Hands—working Hands—for their mighty work.
The Hands came. The Hands worked for wages. The Hands knew not even once what they were making. None of those who built southwards knew of those digging toward the north. The Head, which conceived the construction of the Tower of Babel, was unknown to those who built it. Head and Hands were far apart and strangers to one another. Head and Hands became enemies. The pleasure of one became the other’s burden. The paean of one became the other’s curse.
‘Babel!’ shouted one, and he meant: Divinity! Coronation! Eternal triumph!
‘Babel’ shouted the other, and he meant: Hell! Serfdom! Eternal damnation!
The same word was prayer and blasphemy. Speaking the same words, the men did not understand each other.
That men no longer understood each other—that Head and Hands no longer understood each other—was to blame for the Tower of Babel being given up to destruction, and why there never were the words of those who had conceived it written on its top in gold lettering: Great is the world and its creator! And great is man!
That Head and Hands no longer understand each other will one day destroy the New Tower of Babel. Head and Hands need a mediator. The Mediator between Head and Hands must be the Heart.”
She was silent. A breath like a sigh came from the silent lips of the listeners. Then one stood up slowly, bracing his fists upon the shoulders of the man who crouched in front of him, and asked, raising his thin face with its fanatical eyes, to the girl: “And where is our Mediator?”
The girl looked at him, and over her sweet face passed the gleam of a boundless confidence.
“Wait for him!” she said. “He will surely come!”
A murmur ran through the rows of men. Freder bowed his head to the girl’s feet. His entire soul said: “It shall be me...”
But she did not see him and she did not hear him.
“Have patience, my brothers!” she said. “The route which your mediator must take is long. Many are among you who cry: Fight! Destroy! Do not fight, my brothers, for that makes you sinful. Believe me: One will come who will speak for you, and who will be the Mediator between you, the Hands, and the man whose head and will are over you all. He will give you something which is more priceless than anything that any other man is in a position to give: To become free, without incurring sin.”
She stood up from the stone upon which she had been sitting. A movement ran through the heads turned towards her. A voice was raised. The speaker was not to be seen. It was as though they all spoke: “We shall wait. But not much longer!”
The girl was silent. With her sad eyes she seemed to be searching for the speaker among the crowd.
A man who stood before her spoke up to her: “And if we fight—where will you be then?”
“With you!” said the girl, her hands opening with the gesture of a sacrificer. “Have you ever found me to be unfaithful?”
“Never!” said the men. “You are like gold. We shall do what you expect of us.”
“Thank you,” said the girl, her eyes closing. With bowed head she stood there, listening to the sound of retiring feet—feet which walked in hard shoes.
Only once all about her had become silent and when the echoing of the last footfall had died away, she sighed and opened her eyes.
Then she saw a man, wearing the blue linen and the black cap and the hard shoes, kneeling at her feet. She bent down to him. He raised his head. She looked at him. And then she recognised him.
***
Behind them, in a crypt shaped like a pointed devil’s ear, one man’s hand seized the arm of another man.
“Quiet! Be quiet!” whispered the voice, soundless and yet having the effect of laughter—like the laughter of gloating mockery.
***
The girl’s face was like a crystal ball which was filled with snow. She made a movement as if to flee. But her knees would not obey her. Reeds which stand in rough water do not tremble more than her shoulders trembled.
“If you have come to us in order to betray us, son of Joh Fredersen, then you will have little blessing from it,” she said softly, but with a clear voice.
He stood up and remained standing before her.
“Is that all the faith you have in me?” he asked earnestly.
She remained silent and looked at him. Her eyes filled with tears.
“You...” said the man. “What shall I call you? I do not know your name. I have always called you by just ‘you’. During all the bad days and worse nights, when I did not know if I would find you again, I always called you by just ‘you’. Aren’t you finally going to tell me what your name is?”
“Maria,” answered the girl.
“Maria… That must have been your name. You did not make it easy for me to find my way to you, Maria.”
“Why did you search for the way to me? And why do you wear the blue linen uniform? Those condemned to wear it all their life live in an underground city, which is considered a wonder of the world in all the five continents. It is an architectural wonder, that is true! It is clean and shining bright and a model of tidiness. It lacks nothing but the sun, and the rain, and the moon in the night; nothing except the sky. As such, the children born there have gnome-like faces. Do you want go down into this city under the earth in order to be doubly-pleased with your dwelling, which lies so high above the great Metropolis, in the light of the sky? Do you wear the uniform you wear now for fun?”
“No, Maria. I shall always wear it now.”
“As Joh Fredersen’s son?”
“He has no son any more, unless you give him back his son yourself.”
***
Behind them, in a crypt shaped like a pointed devil’s ear, one man’s hand was laid upon the mouth of another man.
“It stands written,” whispered a laugh: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife.”
***
“Won’t you understand me?” asked Freder. “Why do you look at me with such stern eyes? You wish me to be a mediator between Joh Fredersen and those you call your brothers… There can be no mediator between heaven and hell who never was in heaven and hell. I never knew hell until yesterday. That is why I failed so miserably yesterday, when I spoke for your brothers to my father. Until you stood before me for the first time, Maria, I lived the life of a dearly beloved son. I did not know what I was: an unrealisable wish. I knew no longing, for everything was mine. Young as I am, I have exhausted the pleasures of the Earth, down to the bottom. I had an aim—that was a gamble with death: A flight to the stars… And then you came and showed me my brothers. From that day on I have sought you. I have longed after you so much that I would have died gladly and without hesitation, should somebody have said to me that this was the way to you. But as it was, I had to live and seek another way.”
“To me, or to your brothers?”
“To you, Maria… I will not make myself out to be better than I am to you. I want to come to you, Maria, and I want you. I love mankind not for its own sake, but for your sake—because you love it. I do not want to help mankind for its own sake, but for your sake—because you want it. Yesterday I did good by two men; I helped one whom my father had dismissed, and I did the work for the man whose uniform I wear. That was my way to you. God bless you...”
His voice failed him. The girl stepped up to him. She took his hands in both of her hands. She gently turned the palms upward and considered them, looking upon them with her Madonna-eyes, and folded her hands tenderly around his, which she carefully laid together.
“Maria,” he said, without a sound.
She let his hands fall and raised her own to his head. She laid her fingers on his cheeks. She stroked his eyebrows and his temples, twice, three times, with her fingertips.
Then he snatched her to his heart, and they kissed.
He no longer felt the stones under his feet. A wave carried him—him and the girl whom he held clasped, as though he wished to die of it—and the wave came from the bottom of the ocean and roared, as though the entire sea were an organ; the wave was of fire and flung right up to the heavens.
Then sinking… sinking… endlessly gliding down to the womb of the world, the source of the beginning… Thirst and quenching drink… Hunger and satiation… Pain and deliverance from it… Death and rebirth…
“You,” said the man to the girl’s lips, “you truly are the great mediatrix. You are all that is most holy on Earth… You are all goodness. You are all grace… To go astray from you is to go astray from God… Maria—you called me, and here I am!”
***
Behind them, in a crypt shaped like a pointed devil’s ear, one man leant towards the ear of another man.
“You wanted to have Futura’s face from me. There you have your model.”
“Is that a commission?”
“Yes.”
***
“Now you must go, Freder,” said the girl. Her Madonna-eyes looked at him.
“Go—and leave you here?”
She turned sternly and shook her head.
“Nothing will happen to me,” she said. “There are no men who know this place whom I cannot trust as though he were my biological brother. But what is between you and me is nobody’s business; it would sicken me to have to explain—” (now she smiled again)—”what is inexplicable. Do you grasp that?”
“Yes,” he said. “Forgive me.”
Her Madonna-hands held his.
“You don’t know the way. I want to show you, until you can no longer make a mistake. Come.”
***
Behind them, in a crypt shaped like a pointed devil’s ear, a man took himself away from the wall.
“You know what you have to do,” he said in a low voice.
“Yes,” came the voice of another, sluggishly, as though drowsy from the darkness. “But just wait, friend. I must ask you something...”
“Well?”
“Have you forgotten your own creed?”
“What creed?”
For a second, a lamp twinkled through the room shaped like a pointed devil’s ear, impaling the face of the man, who had already turned to go, on the pointed needle of its light.
“That sin and suffering are twin sisters. You will be sinning against two people, friend.”
“What does that have to do with you?”
“Nothing. Or, little: Freder is Hel’s son.”
“And mine...”
“Yes.
“I do not wish to lose him.”
“Better to become sinful once more?”
“Yes.”
“And—”
“Suffer. Yes.”
“Very well, friend.” And, with a voice which was an inaudible laugh of mockery: “May it happen to you according to your creed!”
***
The girl walked through the passages that were familiar to her. The bright little lamp in her hand streaked over the roof of stone and stone walls where, in alcoves, the thousand-year-old dead slept.
The girl had never known a fear of the dead, only reverence and seriousness towards their own seriousness. Today she did not see stone wall or dead. She walked on, smiling and not knowing she did it. She felt like she could begin singing. With an expression of happiness, which was incredible and yet complete, she said the name of her beloved over to herself.
“Freder...”
And raising her head attentively, she halted her step. It came back as a whisper: An echo? No.
Almost inaudibly a word was breathed: “Maria?”
She turned around, blissfully startled. Was it possible that he had come back?
“Freder!” she called, listening.
No answer.
“Freder!”
Nothing.
But suddenly, a cool draught of air made the hair at her neck quiver, and a hand of snow ran down her back. Then, an agonisingly deep sigh which did not come to an end…
The girl stood completely still. The bright little lamp which she held in her hand let its gleam play with a tremble about her feet.
“Freder?” Now her voice too was only a whisper.
No answer. But behind her, in the depths of the passage she would have to pass through, a gentle, gliding creeping became perceptible: feet in soft shoes on rough stones…
That was… yes, that was unusual. Nobody ever came this way apart from her. Nobody could be here. And, if somebody was here, then it was no friend… Certainly nobody whom she wanted to meet.
Should she let him by? Yes.
To her left, a second passage opened up. She did not know it well. But she would not follow it up. She would only wait in it until the man outside—the man behind her—had gone past. She pressed herself against the wall of the strange passage, keeping still and waiting quite silently. She did not breathe. She had extinguished the lamp. She stood in complete darkness, unmovable.
She listened: the gliding feet were nearing. They walked in darkness like she stood in darkness. Now they were here. Now they must—they must go past… but they did not go. They stood quite still; in front of the opening to the passage in which she stood, the feet stood silently and seemed to wait.
For what? For her?
In the complete silence the girl suddenly heard her own heart. She heard her own heart, like pump-works, ever faster, ever more booming. These heartbeats, like a throbbing, must also be audible to the man who waited at the opening to the passage. And if he did not stay there any longer… if he came inside… she could not hear his coming, her heart throbbed so.
She groped, with fumbling hands, along the stone wall. Without breathing, she set her feet, one before the other. Just to get away from the entrance, away from the place where the other stood.
Was she misguided? Or were the feet really coming towards her? Soft, creeping shoes on rough stones? Now the agonisingly deep breathing, heavier still and nearer, cold breath on her neck. Then—
Nothing more. Silence. And waiting. And watching. On the look-out…
Was it not as though a creature, the likes the world had never seen—bodiless, nothing but arms, legs, head (but what a head! God in Heaven!)—was cowered on the floor in front of her, knees drawn high-up to the chin, and the damp arms right and left supporting itself against the stone walls, near her hips, so that she stood defenceless and caught? Did she not see the passage illuminated by a pale shimmer, and did the shimmer not come from the being’s jellyfish-head?
Freder, she thought. She bit the name tightly between her jaws, yet heard the scream with which her heart screamed to her.
She threw herself forwards, and felt: she was free—she was still free—and ran and stumbled, pulling herself up again and staggering from stone wall to stone wall, knocking herself bloody, abruptly clutching into space, toppling, hitting the ground, and felt: Something lay there… what? No!
The lamp had long since fallen from her hand. She raised herself to her knees and clapped her fists to her ears, in order not to hear how the feet, the creeping feet, coming nearer. She knew herself to be imprisoned in darkness and yet opened her eyes, because she could no longer bear the rings of fire—the wheels of flame—behind her closed lids.
And she saw her own shadow thrown-up, gigantic, on the stone wall before her; behind her was light, and before her lay a man.
A man? That was no man. That was the remains of a man, with his back half-leaning against the wall and half-sliding-down, and on his skeleton feet, which almost touched the girl’s knees, were the slender shoes, pointed and purple-red.
With a shriek which tore her throat, the girl threw herself upwards and backwards—and then forwards, forwards, without looking round… hunted by the light which lashed her own shadow in jumps before her feet, hunted by long, soft, feathery feet, which walked in red shoes, by the icy whisper which blew at her neck.
She ran, screamed and ran: “Freder.!”
She gasped. She fell.
There was a staircase, crumbling stairs… She pressed her bleeding hands right and left against the stone wall, by the ruins, on the stones of the staircase. She hauled herself up. She staggered, step by step… There was the end. The staircase ended in a stone trapdoor.
The girl groaned: “Freder...”
She stretched both hands above her. She braced head and shoulders against the trapdoor. Then the door rose and fell back with a crash.
Deep below, a laughter…
The girl swung herself over the edge of the trapdoor. She ran to and fro with outstretched hands. She ran along walls and found no door. She saw the lustre which welled up from the depths. By the light she saw a door which was latchless. It had neither bolt nor lock.
In the gloomy wood, the seal of Solomon—the pentagram—glowed copper-red.
The girl turned around. She saw a man sitting on the edge of the trapdoor and saw his smile. Then it was as though she were extinguished, and plunged into nothingness…
< Chapter 4 = = = = = = = = = = = Chapter 6 >