Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/26

 METROPOLIS Then Freder turned and went, like a blind man-first missing the door with groping hand, then finding it. It opened before'him. It closed behind him, and he stood still, in a room that seemed to him to be strange and icy. Forms rose up from the chairs upon which they had sat, waiting, bowing low to the son of Job Fredersen, the Master of Metropolis. Freder only recognized ODe; that was Slim. He thanked those who greeted him, still standing near the door, seeming not to know his way. Behind him slipped Slim, going to Joh Fredersen, who had sent for him. The master of Metropolis was standing by the window, his back to the door. ""Vaitl" said the dark square back. Slim did not stir. He breathed inaudibly. His eye·lids lowered, he seemed to sleep while standing. But his mouth, with the remarkable tension of its muscles, made him the personification of concentration. Joh Fredersen's eyes wan'dered over Metropolis, a restless roaring sea with a surf of light. In the Hashes and waves, the Niagara falls of light, in the colour-play of revolving towers of light and brilliance, Metropolis seemed to have become transparent. The houses, dissected into cones and cubes by the moving scythes of the searcb.lights gleamed, towe~ing up, hoveringly, light Bowing down their Banks like rain. The streets licked up the shining radiance, themselves shining, and the things gliding upon them, an incessant 'stream, threw cones of light before them. Only the cathedral, with the star-crowned Virgin on the top of its tower, lay stretched out, massively, down in the city, like a black giant lying in an enchanted sleep. Joh Fredersen turned around slowly. He saw Slim standing by the door. Slim greeted hi!l1. Joh Fredersen came towards him. He crossed the whole width of the room in silence; he walked slowly on until he came up to the man. Standing there before him, he looked at him, as though peeling everything corporal from h~, even to his innermost self. Slim held his ground during this peeling scrutiny. Joh Fredersen said, speal<ing rather softly:

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