Metropolis | Page 7

coming as in their going. He calculated the time which had passed since the voice of
Metropolis had roared for food, for food, for food. He knew that behind the throbbing
second flashes on the New Tower of Babel there was a Wide, bare room with narrow
windows, the height of the walls, switch-boards on all sides, right in the centre, the table,
the most ingenious instrument which the Master of Metropolis had created, on which to
play, alone, as solitary master.
On the plain chair before it, the embodiment of the great brain: the Master of Metropolis.
Near his right hand the sensitive blue metal plate, to which he would stretch out his right
hand, with the infallible certainty of a healthy machine, when seconds enough had flicked
off into eternity, to let Metropolis roar once more-for food, for food, for food-"
In this moment Freder was seized with the persistent idea that he would lose his reason if
he had, once more, to hear the voice of Metropolis thus roaring to be fed. And, already
convinced of the pointlessness of his quest, he turned from the spectacle of the light crazy
city and went to seek the Master of Metropolis, whose name was Joh Fredersen and who
was his father.

Chapter II
THE BRAIN-PAN of the New Tower of Babel was peopled with numbers.
From an invisible source the numbers dropped rhythmically down through the cooled air
of the room, being collected, as in a water-basin, at the table at which the great brain of
Metropolis worked, becoming objective under the pencils of his secretaries. These eight
young men resembled each other as brothers, which they were not. Although sitting as
immovable as statues, of which only the writing fingers of the right hand stirred, yet each
single one, with sweat-bedewed brow and parted lips, seemed the personification of
Breathlessness.
No head was raised on Freder's entering, Not even his father's.
The lamp under the third loud-speaker glowed white-red.
New York spoke.
Joh Fredersen was comparing the figures of the evening exchange report with the lists
which lay before him. Once his voice sounded, vibrationless:
"Mistake. Further inquiry."
The first secretary quivered, stooped lower, rose and retired on soundless soles. Joh
Fredersen's left eyebrow rose a trifle as he watched the retreating figure-only as long as
was possible without turning his head.
A thin, concise penal-line crossed out a name.
The white-red light glowed. The voice spoke. The numbers dropped down through the
great room. In the brain-pan of Metropolis.
Freder remained standing, motionless, by the door. He was not sure as to whether or not
his father had noticed him. Whenever he entered this room he was once more a boy of ten
years old, his chief characteristic uncertainty, before the great concentrated, almighty
certainty, which was called Joh Fredersen, and was his father.
The first secretary walked past him, greeting him silently, respectfully. He resembled a
competitor leaving the course, beaten. The chalky face of the young man hovered for one
moment before Freder's eyes like a big, white, lacquer mask. Then it was blotted out.
Numbers dropped down through the room.
One chair was empty. On seven others sat seven men, pursuing the numbers which
sprang unceasingly from the invisible.

A lamp glowed white-red.
New York spoke.
A lamp sparkled up: white-green.
London began to speak.
Freder looked up at the clock opposite the door, commanding the whole wall like a
gigantic wheel. It was the same clock, which, from the heights of the New Tower of
Babel, flooded by searchlights, flicked off its second-sparks over the great Metropolis.
Joh Fredersen's head stood out against it. It was a crushing yet accepted halo above the
brain of Metropolis.
The searchlights raved in a delirium of colour upon the narrow windows which ran from
floor to ceiling. Cascades of light frothed against the panes. Outside, deep down, at the
foot of the New Tower of Babel boiled the Metropolis. But in this room not a sound was
to be heard but the incessantly dripping numbers.
The Rotwang-process had rendered the walls and windows sound-proof.
In this room, which was at the same time crowned and subjugated by the mighty
time-piece, the clock, indicating numbers, nothing had any significance but numbers. The
son of the great Master of Metropolis realised that, as long as numbers came dripping out
of the invisible no word, which was not a number, and coming from a visible mouth,
could lay claim to the least attention.
Therefore he stood, gazing unceasingly at his father's head, watching the monstrous hand
of the clock sweep onward, inevitably, like a sickle, a reaping scythe, pass through the
skull of his father, without harming him, climb upwards, up the number-beset ring, creep
around the heights and sink again,