Page:Thea von Harbou Metropolis eng 1927.pdf/83

 METROPOLIS either," answered Freder. He walked through the rooms, aimlessly, senselessly, stopping wherever a chair. a table, offered him a hold. "The fact, is this, Josaphat: I told Georgi to come here and to wait here for me-or for a message from me. . . . It is a thousand to one that Slim, in searching for me, is already on Georgi's track. and it's a thousand to one he gets out of him where I sent him...." "And you do not want Slim to find you?" "He m~st not find me, Josaphat-not for anything on

earth.... The other stood silent, rather helpless. Freder looked at him with a trembling smile. "How shall we obtain money, now. Josaphatr "That should offer no difficulty to Joh Fredersen's son." "More ~an you ~J ]osaphat. for I am no longer Joh Fredersen 5 son.... Josaphat raised his head. "'I do not understand you," he said, after a pause. "There is nothing to misunderstand, Josaphat. I have set •myself free from my father, and am going my own way...." The man who had been the first secretary to the Master over the great Metropolis held his breath back in his lungs, then released it in streams. "Will you let me tell you something, Mr. FrederP" "Well...." "One does not set oneseH free from your father. It is he who decides whether one remains with him or must leave him. «There is nobody who is stronger than Joh Fredersen. He is like the earth. As regards the earth we have no will either. Her laws keep us eternally perpendicular to the centre of the earth, even if we stand on our head.... When Joh Fredersen sets a man free it means just as much as if the earth were to shut off from a man her powers of attraction. It means falling into nothing. . . . Joh Fredersen can set free whom he may; he will never set free his son...." "But what." answered Freder, speaking feverishly, "if a man overcomes the laws of nature?" «Utopia, Mr. Freder." "For the inventive spirit of man there is no Utopia: there

88