Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/17

 METROPOLIS 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 piate, 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 Meh'opolis roar once more-for food, for food, for food-" In this moment Freder was seized with the persi$tent idea that he would lose his reason if he had, once more, to hear the voice of Metropolis thus roaring to be fed.' And. ah'eady convinced of the pointlessness of his quest, he turned from the spectacle of the light crazy city and went to seek the Master of Meh'opolis, whose name was Joh Fredersen and who was his father.

CHAPTER II THE DRAIN-PAN of the New Tower of Bahel was peopled with numbers. From an invisible source the numbers dropped rhytlunically 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 statue.s, of which only the writing nngers of the right hand stirred, yet each single one, with sweat-bedeweo. 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.

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