Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/118

 METROPOLIS that fear is the source of all religion then the brain of Metropolis is not very far off from becoming a deity.... 1'his mao, who is my father came up to my bed.... He walked on tiptoe, Josaphat. He bent over me and held his breath.... My eyes were shut. I lay quite still and it seemed to me as though my father must hear my sou] crying within me. Then I loved him more than anything on earth. But if my life had been dependent on it, I should still not have been able to open my eyes. I felt my father's hand smoothing my pillow. Then he went again as he had come, on tip-toe, closing the door quiet soundlessly behind him. Do you know what he had done?" "No...."

"No. . . . I don't see how you could. I only realised it myself some hours later. . . . For the Ill"5t time since the great Metropolis had stood, Joh Fredersen had omitted to press on the little blue metal plate and to let the I3ehemoth· voice of Metropolis roar out, because he did not wish to disturb his son's sleep... :' Josaphat lowered his head; he said nothing. Freder Jet his intertwined hands sink. l "Then I realised," he continued, "that my father had quite forgi~,en me.... And when I realised that, I really fell asleep.... He stood up and remained standing, seeming to be listening to the rushing of the rain. The lightning was still £lashing out over Metropolis, the angry thunder bounding after. But the rushing of the rain drowned it. "I slept. . . :' Freder went on-so softly that the other could scarcely follow his words-"then 1 began to dream.... I saw this city-this great Metropolis-in the light of a ghostly unreality. A weird moon stood in the sky; as thOllgh along a broad street this ghostly, unreal light Bowed down upon the city, which was deserted to the last SOlll. All the houses were distorted and had faces. They squinted evilly and spitefully down at me, for I was walking deep down between them, along the glimmering street. "Quite narrow was this street. as though crushed between the houses; it was as though made of a greenish glass-like a

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