Metropolis

Now the rumbling of the great organ swelled to a roar, pressing, like a rising giant, against the vaulted ceiling, to burst through it.

Freder bent his head backwards, his wide-open, burning eyes stared unseeingly upward. His hands formed music from the chaos of the notes; struggling with the vibration of the sound and stirring him to his innermost depths.

He was never so near tears in his life and, blissfully helpless, he yielded himself up to the glowing moisture which dazzled him.

Above him, the vault of heaven in lapis lazuli; hovering therein, the twelvefold mystery, the Signs of the Zodiac in gold. Set higher above them, the seven crowned ones: the planets. High above all a silver-shining bevy of stars: the universe.

Before the bedewed eyes of the organ-player, to his music, the stars of heavens began the solemn mighty dance.

The breakers of the notes dissolved the room into nothing. The organ, which Freder played, stood in the middle of the sea.

It was a reef upon which the waves foamed. Carrying crests of froth, they dashed violently onward, and the seventh was always the mightiest.

But high above the sea, which bellowed in the uproar of the waves, the stars of heaven danced the solemn, mighty dance.

Then suddenly⁠—suddenly⁠—Freder turned his head. His hands, which were resting on the hips of the drink-mixer, lost hold of her, dropping down by his sides as if dead. The laughter ceased, not one of the friends moved. Not one of the little, brocaded, bare-limbed women moved hand or foot. They stood and looked.

The door of the Eternal Gardens had opened and through the door came a procession of children. They were all holding hands. They had dwarves’ faces, grey and ancient. They were little ghost-like skeletons, covered with faded rags and smocks. They had colourless hair and colourless eyes. They walked on emaciated bare feet. Noiselessly they followed their leader.

Their leader was a girl. The austere countenance of the Virgin. The sweet countenance of the mother. She held a skinny child by each hand. Now she stood still, regarding the young men and women one after another, with the deadly severity of purity. She was quite maid and mistress, inviolability⁠—and was, too, graciousness itself, her beautiful brow in the diadem of goodness; her voice, pity; every word a song.

She released the children and stretched forward her hand, motioning towards the friends and saying to the children:

“Look, these are your brothers!”

And, motioning towards the children, she said to the friends:

“Look, these are your brothers!”

She waited. She stood still and her gaze rested upon Freder.

In the brainpan of this New Tower of Babel lived the man who was himself the Brain of Metropolis.

As long as the man over there, who was nothing but work, despising sleep, eating and drinking mechanically, pressed his fingers on the blue metal plate, which apart from himself, no man had ever touched, so long would the voice of the machine-city of Metropolis roar for food, for food, for food⁠ ⁠…

She wanted living men for food.

Then the living food came pushing along in masses. Along the street it came, along its own street which never crossed with other people’s streets. It rolled on, a broad, an endless stream. The stream was twelve files deep. They walked in even step. Men, men, men⁠—all in the same uniform, from throat to ankle in dark blue linen, bare feet in the same hard shoes, hair tightly pressed down by the same black caps.

And they all had the same faces. And they all appeared to be of the same age. They held themselves straightened up, but not straight. They did not raise their heads, they pushed them forward. They planted their feet forward, but they did not walk. The open gates of the New Tower of Babel, the machine center of Metropolis, gulped the masses down.

Fingers, snow-white and fleshless, closed over the plan which lay on the table, and, lifting it up, took it away with it.

Joh Fredersen swung around. He stared at the being which stood before him with eyes which grew glassy.

The being was, indubitably, a woman. In the soft garment which it wore stood a body, like the body of a young birch tree, swaying on feet set fast together. But, although it was a woman, it was not human. The body seemed as though made of crystal, through which the bones shone silver. Cold streamed from the glazen skin which did not contain a drop of blood. The being held its beautiful hands pressed against its breast, which was motionless, with a gesture of determination, almost of defiance.

But the being had no face. The beautiful curve of the neck bore a lump of carelessly shaped mass. The skull was bald, nose, lips, temples merely traced. Eyes, as though painted on closed lids, stared unseeingly, with an expression of calm madness, at the man⁠—who did not breathe.

“Be courteous, my parody,” said the far-off voice, which sounded as though the house were talking in its sleep. “Greet Joh Fredersen, the Master over the great Metropolis.”

The being bowed slowly to the man. The mad eyes neared him like two darting flames. The mass began to speak; it said in a voice full of a horrible tenderness:

Metropolis had a brain.

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 guarded by one single man.

The man’s name was Grot, and he loved his machine.

The machine was a universe to itself. Above the deep mysteries of its delicate joints, like the sun’s disc, like the halo of a divine being, stood the silver spinning wheel, the spokes of which appeared, in the whirl of revolution, as a single gleaming disc. This disc filled out the back wall of the building, with its entire breadth and height.

No machine in all Metropolis which did not receive its power from this heart.

One single lever controlled this marvel of steel. All the treasures of the world heaped up before him would not, for Grot, have outweighed this, his machine.

When, at the grey hour of dawn, Grot heard the voice of the great Metropolis roaring, he glanced at the clock on the brow of the wall where was the door, and thought: “That’s against all nature and regularity⁠ ⁠…”

When, at the red hour of sunrise, Grot saw the stream of the multitude rolling along, twelve files deep, led by a girl⁠—dancing to the rhythm of the yelling mob, Grot set the lever of the machine to “Safety,” carefully closed the door of the building and waited.

The mob thundered against his door.