Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/56

 METROPOLIS the New Tower of Babel Slim stood before him, seeming to be slimmer than ever.

"What is it?" asked Joh Fredersen. Slim made to speak but at the sight of his master the words died on his lips. "WeU-P" said Joh Fredersen, between his teeth. Slim breathed deeply. "I must inform you, Mr. Fredersen," he said, "that, since your son left this room, he has disappeared'" "What does that mean? ... disappeared'" . "He ~as not gone home, and none of our men has seen bJm ...

Joh Fredersen screwed up his mouth.

"Look for him'" he said hoarsely. "What are you aU here for? Look for him," He entered the brain-pan of the New Tower of Babel. His first glance feU upon the clock. He stepped to the table and stretched out his baRd to the little blue metal plate.

CHAPTER V THE MAN before the machine which was like ennesha, the god with the elephant's head, was no longer a human being. Merely a dripping piece of exhaustion, from the pores of which the last powers of volition were oozing out in large drops of sweat. Running eyes no longer saw the mano'meter. The hand did not hold the lever-it clawed it fast in the last hold which -saved the mangled man-creature before it

from falling into the crushing arms of the machine.

The Pater-noster works of the New Tower of Babel turned their buckets with an easy smoothness. The eye of the little machine smiled softly and maliciously at the man who stood before it and who was now no more than a babel. ''Father'" babbled the son of Joh Fredersen, "to·day, for the first time, since Metropolis stood, you have forgotten to

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