Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/25

 METROPOLIS from his lips that Joh Fredersen jerked up his head, looking at his SOD from out narrowed eyelids. Slowly his eyebrows.

rose. "Are you not afraid, father (supposing that the statls'tic are correct and the consumption of man is progressing increasingly, rapidly) that Ol1e nne day there will be no more food there for the man-eating god-machines, and that the Moloch of glass, rubber and steel, the Durgha of aluminium with platinum veins, will have to starve miserably?" "The case is conceivable," said the brain of. Metropolis. "And thenP" "Then," said the brain of Metropolis, "by then a substitute for man will have to have been found." "The improved man. you mean-r The machine-man-~" "Perhaps," said tbe brain of Metropolis. Freder brushed the damp hair from his brow. H~ bent forward, his breath touching his father. '''Iben just listen to one thing, father," be breathed, the veins on his temples standing out. blue, "see to it that toe machine-man has no head. or, at any rate. no face. or give him a face which always smiles. Or a Harlequin's face, or a closed visor. That it does not horrify one to look at himl For, as I walked through the machine-rooms to-day, I saw the men wno watch your machines. And they know me, and I greeted them, one after the other. But not one returned my greeting. The machines were all too eagerly tautening their nerve-strings. And. when I looked at them, father, ,quite closely, as closely as I am now looking at you-I was looking myself in. the face.... Every single man, father, who slaves at your machines, has my face-has the face of your son...." ~<Then mine too, Freder, for we are very like each other," said the Master over the great Metropolis. He looked at the clock and stretched out his hand. In an the rooms surround.. ing the brain-pan of the New Tower of Babel the white lamps Bared up. "And doesn' it fin you with horror," asked the son, "to know so malY shadows, so many phantoms, to be working at your work?" "The time of horror lies behind me, Freder."

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