With a scream, in which distress and deliverance were equally mingled, Maria flew to the child and picked it up in her arms.
"Is there nobody here but you, child?" she asked, with a sudden sob. "Where is your father?"
"Gone… "
"Where is your mother?" "Gone… "
Maria could understand nothing. Since her flight from Rotwang's house, she had been hurled from horror to horror, without grasping a single thing. She still took the grating of the earth, the jerking impacts, the roar of the awful, tearing thunder the water which gushed up from the shattered depths, to be the effects of the unchained elements. Yet she could not believe that there existed mothers who would not throw themselves as a barrier before their children when the earth opened her womb to bring forth horror into the world.
Only—the water which crawled up nearer and nearer, the impacts which racked the earth, the light which became paler and paler, gave her no time to think. With the child in her arms, she ran from house to house, calling to the others, which had hidden themselves.
Then they came, stumbling and crying, coming in troops, ghastly spectres, like children of stone, passionlessly begotten and grudgingly born. They were like little corpses in mean little shrouds, aroused to wakefulness on Doomsday by the voice of the angel, rising from out rent-open graves. They clustered themselves around Maria, screaming because the water, the cool water, was licking at their feet.
Maria shouted—hardly able to shout any more. There was in her voice the sharp cry of the mother-bird which sees winged Death above its brood. She waded about among the child-bodies, ten at her hands, at her dress, the others following closely, pushed along, torn along, with the stream. Soon the street was a wave of children's heads above which the pale, raised-up hands flitted like sea-gulls. And Maria's cry was drowned by the wailing of the children and by the laughter of the pursuing water.
The light in the Neon-lamps became reddish, flickering rhythmically and throwing ghostly shadows. The street sloped. There was the mustering-ground. But the huge elevators hung dead on their cables. Ropes, twisted from ropes—metal, ropes, thick as a man's thigh, hung in the air, torn asunder. Blackish oil was welling in a leisurely channel from an exploded pipe. And over everything lay a dry vapour as if from heated iron and glowing stones.
Deep in the darkness of distant alleys the gloom took on a brownish hue. A fire was smouldering there…
"Go up—!" whispered Maria's dry lips. But she was notable to say the words. Winding stairs led upwards. The staircase was narrow—nobody used the stair-case which ran by the certain, infallible elevators. Maria crowded the children up the steps. But, up there, there reigned a darkness of impenetrable gloom and density. None of the children ventured to ascend alone.
Maria scrambled up. She counted the steps. Like the rushing of a thousand wings came the sound of the children's feet behind her, in the narrow spiral. She did not know how long she had been climbing up. Innumerable hands were clutching her damp dress. She dragged her burdens upward, praying, moaning the while—praying only for strength for another hour.
"Don't cry, little brothers!" she stammered. "My little sisters, please don't cry."
Children were screaming, down in the depths—and the hundred windings of the stair-way gave echo's trumpet to each cry:
"Mother—! Mother—!"
And once more:
"The water's coming—!"
Stop and lie down, halfway up the stairs—? No!
"Little sisters! Little brothers—do come along!"
Higher—winding ever and always higher upward; then, at last, a wide landing. Greyish light from above. A walled-in room; not yet the upper world, but its forecourt. A short, straight flight of stairs upon which lay a shaft of light. The opening, a trap-door, which seemed to be pressed inwards. Between the door and the square of the wall, a cleft, as narrow as a cat's body.
Maria saw that. She did not know what it meant. She had the uncertain feeling of something not being as it ought to be. But she did not want to think about it. With an almost violent movement she tore her hands, her gown, free from the children's tugging fingers, and dashed, hurled forward far more by her desperate will than by her benumbed feet, through the empty room and up the steep stairway.
She stretched out her hands and tried to raise the pressed-in door. It did not budge. Once more. No result. Head, arms, shoulders pushing, hips and knees pressing, as if to burst their sinews. No result. The door did not yield by a hair's breadth. If a child had tried to push the cathedral from its place it could not have acted more foolishly nor ineffectually.
For, upon the door, which alone led the way out of the depths, there towered, as high as houses, the corpses of the dead engines, which, when madness first broke out over Metropolis, had been the terrible playthings of the mob.
Train upon train, with carriages thundering along, all lights burning and on full power, had rushed along the rails, lashed by the bawling of the mob, had fallen upon each other, had become mixed and piled up together, had burnt down and were now lying, half-melted, still smouldering, a mass of ruins. And one, single lamp, remaining undamaged, threw the shaft of its sharp, corrosive light over the chaos, from the steel breast of the hindmost engine.
But Maria knew nothing of all this. She did not need to know. Sufficient for her that the door, which was the only means of deliverance for her and the children she wanted to save, remained inexorable, immovable, and finally, with bleeding hands and shoulders, with battered head, and feet crippled with numbness, she was obliged to resign herself to the incomprehensible, to the murderous.
She raised her face to the ray of light which fell upon her. The words of a little, childish prayer, now no longer intelligible, ran through her head. She dropped her head and sat down on the stairs.
The children stood in silence, crowded closely together, under the curse of something which, though they could not understand it, was very close above them.
"Little brothers, little sisters," said Maria's voice, very affectionately, "can you all understand what I am saying?"
"Yes," floated up from the children.
"The door is closed… We must wait a little… Someone is sure to come and open it for us. Will you be patient and not be frightened?"
"Yes," came an answer, as a sigh.
"Sit down as well as you can… "
The children obeyed.
"I am going to tell you a story," said Maria.
Chapter 18
"LITTLE SISTER… "
"Yes?"
"I am so hungry, sister… !"
"Hungry… !" echoed out of the depths.
"Don't you want to hear the end of my story?"
"Yes… But sister, when you've finished, can't we go out and have dinner?"
"Of course… as soon as my story's finished… Just think: Foxy Fox went for a walk—went for a walk through the beautiful flowery meadows; he had his Sunday coat on, and he held his bushy red tail bolt upright, and he was smoking his little pipe and singing all the while… Do you know what Foxy Fox sang?—"
"I am the cheerful Fox—Hurray!"
"I am the cheerful fox—Hurray!"
"And then he hopped for joy! And little Mr. Hedgehog was sitting on his hillock and he was so glad that his radishes were coming on so nicely, and his wife was standing by the hedge, gossipping with Mrs. Mole, who had just got a new fur for the Autumn… "
"Sister… "
"Yes?"
"Can the water from down there be coming up after us?"
"Why, little brother?"
"I can hear it gurgling… "
"Don't listen to the water, little brother… just listen to what Mrs. Hedgehog has to chatter about!"
"Yes, sister, but the water is chattering so loud… I think it chatters much louder than Mrs. Mole… "
"Come away from the stupid water, little brother… Come here to me! You can't hear the water here!"
"I can't come to you sister! I can't move, sister… Can't you come and fetch me?"
"Me too, sister—yes, me too!—me too!"
"I can't do that, little brothers, little sisters! Your youngest brothers and sisters are on my lap. They have gone to sleep and I mustn't wake them!"
"Oh sister, are we sure to get out?"
"Why do you ask as if you were frightened, little brother?"
"The floor is shaking so and stones are tumbling down from the ceiling!"
"Have those silly stones hurt you?"
"No, but my little sister's lying down and she's not moving any more."
"Don't disturb her, little brother. Your sister's asleep!"
"Yes, but she was crying just now… !"
"Don't be sorry little brother that she had gone where she need not cry any more… "
"Where has she gone to, then, sister?"
"To heaven, I think."
"Is heaven so near, then?"
"Oh yes, quite near. I can even see the door from here! And if I'm not wrong, Saint Peter is standing there, in front of it, with a large golden key, waiting until he can let us in… "
"Oh, sister… sister!! Now the water's coming up—! Now it's got hold of my feet! Now it's lifting me up—!"
"Sister!! Help me, sister.—The water has come—!!"
"God can help you—Almighty God!"
"Sister, I'm frightened!"
"Are you frightened of going into the lovely heaven?"
"Is it lovely in heaven?"
"Oh—glorious—glorious!"
"Is Foxy Fox in heaven, too—and little Mr. Hedgehog?"
"I don't know! Shall I ask Saint Peter about it?"
"Yes, sister… Are you crying?"
"No, why should I be crying?—Saint Peter—! Saint Peter—!"
"Did he hear?"
"Dear God, how cold the water is… "
"Saint Peter—! Saint Peter—!!"
"Sister… I think he answered, just now… "
"Really, little brother?"
"Yes… somebody was calling… "
"Yes, I heard it, too!" "… So did I… "
"… So did I… "
"Hush, children, hush… "
"Oh, sister, sister—!" "Hush, please—please—!" "… … … ..Maria!"
"Freder—!!!"
"Maria—are you there—?"
"Freder—Freder—here I am! Here I am, Freder—!!"
"On the stairs?"
"Yes!"
"Why don't you come up?"
"I can't raise the door!"
"Ten trains have run together… I can't come to you! I must go and get help!"
"Oh, Freder, the water's already close behind us!"
"The water—?"
"Yes!—And the walls are falling in!"
"Are you hurt—?"
"No, no… Oh, Freder, if you could only force open the door wide enough for me to push the little children's bodies through… "
The man above her did not give her an answer.
When steeling his muscles and sinews in the "Club of the Sons," playfully wrestling with his friends, he surely never guessed that he would need them one day to force a path through ruined cables, upright pistons and out-spread wheels of fallen machines to the woman he loved. He thrust the pistons aside like human arms, clutched into steel as into soft, yielding flesh. He worked his way nearer the door and threw himself on the ground.
"Maria—?"
"Freder?"
"Where are you? Why does your voice sound so far away?" "I want to be the last whom you save, Freder! I am carrying the tiniest ones on my shoulders and arms… ," "Is the water still rising?"
"Yes."
"Is it rising fast or slowly?"
"Fast."
"My God, my God… I can't get the door loose! The machines are piled up on top of it like mountains! I must explode the ruins, Maria!"
"Very well." Maria's voice sounded as though she were smiling. "Meanwhile I can finish telling my story… "
Freder dashed away. He did not know where his feet should carry him. He thought vaguely of God… "Thy will be done… Deliver us from evil… For Thine is the..power… "
From the sooty black sky a frightful gleam, of the colour of spilt blood, fell upon the city, which appeared as a silhouette of tattered velvet in the painful scarcity of light. There was not a soul to be seen and yet the air throbbed under the unbearable knife-edge of shrieks of women from the vicinity of Yoshiwara, and, while the organ of the cathedral was shrilling and whistling, as though its mighty body were wounded unto death, the windows of the cathedral, lighted from within, began, phantomlike to glow.
Freder staggered along to the tower-house in which the heart of the great machine-city of Metropolis had lived, and which it had torn open from top to bottom, when racing itself to death, in the fever of the "12," so that the house now looked like a ripped open, gaping gate.
A lump of humanity was crawling about the ruins, seeming, from the sounds it emitted, to be nothing but a single curse, on two legs. The horror which lay over Metropolis was Paradise compared with the last, cruel destruction which the lump of humanity was invoking from the lowest and hottest of hells upon the city and its inhabitants.
He found something among the ruins, raised it to his face, recognised it and broke out into howls, similar to the howls of a kicked dog. He rubbed his sobbing mouth upon the little piece of steel.
"May the stinking plague gnaw you, you lice—! May you sit in muck up to your eyes—! May you swill gas instead of water and burst every day—for ten thousand years-over and over again—!"
"Grot!"
"Filth—!"
"Grot!—Thank God… Grot, come here!"
"Who's that—"
"I am Joh Fredersen's son—"
"Aaah—Hell and the devil—I wanted you—! Come here, you toad—! I must have you between my fists. I'd much rather have had your father, but you're a bit of him and better than nothing! Come along here, if you've got the guts. Ah—my lad, wouldn't I like to get hold of you! I'd like to smear you from top toe in mustard and eat you! D'you know what your father's done—?"
"Grot—!"
"Let me finish—! tell you! Do you know what he did—? He made me give up… he made me give up my machine… "
And once more the miserable howling of a kicked dog.
"My machine… my—my machine—! That devil up there! That God-damned devil!… "