How strangely the aeroplane was rising and falling! It was making jumps like a horse that wants to shake off its rider.
Now it was racing towards the sun, now it was turning its back upon it. The young girl had never seen so wild and unruly a creature in the air before. Now it had swung westwards and was dashing in long, spurting bounds along the sky. Something freed itself from it; a broad, silver-grey cloth, which swelled itself out.
Drifted hither and thither by the wind, the silver-grey cloth fluttered down to earth — In the webs of which a gigantic, black spider seemed to be hanging.
Screaming, the young girl began to run. The great, black spider spun itself lower and lower on the thin cords. Now it was already like a human being. A white, death — Like face bent earthwards. The earth curved itself gently towards the sinking creature. The man left go of the cord and leaped. And fell. Picked himself up again. And fell once more.
Like a snow-cloud, gentle and shimmering, the silver-grey cloth sank over him, quite covering him.
The young girl came running up.
She was still screaming, wordlessly, breathlessly, as though these primitive shrieks were her actual language. She bundled the silver silken cloth up before her young breast with both arms in order to bring the man who lay beneath it into the light again.
Yes, he lay there now, stretched out at his length on his back, and the silk which was so strong as to have borne him tore under the grip of his fingers. And where his fingers lost hold of the silk, to find another patch which they could tear, there remained moist, red marks upon the stuff, such as are left behind by an animal that had dipped its paws into the blood of its enemy.
The girl was silenced by the sight of these marks.
An expression of horror came into her face, but, at the same time, an expression such as mother-beasts have when they scent an enemy and do not want to betray themselves nor their offspring in any way.
She clenched her teeth together so forcibly that her young mouth became quite pale and thin. She knelt down beside the young man and lifted his head into her lap.
The eyes opened in the white face which she was holding. They stared into the eyes which were bending over them. They glanced sideways and searched across the sky.
A rushing black point in the scarlet of the westerly sky, from which the sun had sunk…
The aeroplane…
Now it had indeed carried out its will and was flying towards the sun, further and further westward. At its wheel sat the man who would not turn back, as dead as could be. The airman's cap hung down in shreds from the gaping skull, on to the bull — Like shoulders. But the fists had not lost hold of the wheel. They still held it fast…
Farewell, pilot…
The face which lay in the young girl's lap began to smile, began to ask.
Where was the nearest town?
There was no town, far and wide.
Where was the nearest railway?
There was no railway, far and wide.
Josaphat pushed himself up. He looked about him.
Stretching out far and wide were fields and meadows, hemmed in by forests, standing there in their evening stillness. The scarlet of the sky had faded away. The crickets chirped. The mist about the distant, solitary willows brewed milky white. From the hallowed purity of the great sky the first star appeared with still glimmer.
"I must go," said the man with the white, deathlike face.
"You must rest, first," said the young girl.
The man's eyes looked up at her in astonishment. Her clear face, with its low, unintelligent brow and its beautiful, foolish mouth stood out, as if under a dome of sapphire, against the sky which curved above her.
"Aren't you afraid of me?" asked the man.
"No," said the young girl.
The head of the man fell into her lap. She bent forward and covered up the shivering body with the billowing, silver silk.
"Rest… " said the man with a sigh.
She made no reply. She sat quite motionless.
"Will you awaken me," asked the man — and his voice quavered with weariness—"as soon as the sun comes?"
"Yes," said the young girl. "Keep quiet… "
He sighed deeply. Then he lay still.
It grew darker and darker.
In the far distance a voice was to be heard, calling a name, long drawn out, again and again…
The stars stood glorious above the world. The distant voice was silent. The young girl looked down upon the man whose head lay in her lap. In her eyes was the never sleeping watchfulness which one sees in the eyes of animals and of mothers.
Chapter 10
WHENEVER JOSAPHAT TRIED, during the days which followed, to break through the barrier which was drawn around Freder, there was always a strange person there, and always a different one, who said, with expressionless mien:
"Mr. Freder cannot receive anybody. Mr. Freder is ill." But Freder was not ill — at least not as illness generally manifests itself among mankind. From morning until evening, from evening until morning, Josaphat watched the house, the crown of the tower of which was Freder's flat. He never saw Freder leave the house. But for hours at a time he saw, during the night, behind the white-veiled windows, which ran the breadth of the wall, a shadow wandering up and down — and saw at the hour of twilight, when the rooves of Metropolis still shone, bathed in the sun, and the darkness of the ravines of its streets was flooded out by streams of cold light, the same shadow, a motionless form, standing on the narrow balcony which ran around this, almost the highest house in Metropolis.
Yet what was expressed by the shadow's wandering up and down, by the motionless standing still of the shadow form, was not illness. It was uttermost helplessness. Lying on the roof of the house which was opposite Freder's flat, Josaphat watched the man who had chosen him as friend and brother, whom he had betrayed and to whom he had returned. He could not discern his face but he read from the pale patch which this face was in the setting sun, in the shower-bath of the searchlight, that the man over there, whose eyes were staring across Metropolis, did not see Metropolis.
Sometimes people would emerge beside him, would speak to him, expecting an answer. But the answer never came. Then the people would go, crushed.
Once Joh Fredersen came — came to his son, who stood on the narrow balcony, seeming not to know that his father was near. Joh Fredersen spoke to him for a long time. He laid his hand on his son's hand, which was resting on the railing. The mouth received no answer. The hand received no answer. Only once did Freder turn his head, then with difficulty, as though the joints of his neck were rusted. He looked at Joh Fredersen.
Joh Fredersen went.
And when his father had gone Freder turned his head back again on idle joints and stared out once more across Metropolis, which was dancing in a whirl of light, staring with blind eyes.
The railing of the narrow balcony on which he stood appeared as an insuperable wall of loneliness, of deep, inward consciousness of having been deserted. No calling, no signalling, not even the loudest of sounds penetrated this wall which was washed about by the strong, lustrous surf of the great Metropolis.
But Josaphat did not want to have ventured the leap from heaven to earth, to have sent a man, who was but performing his duty, into infinity, impotently to make a halt before this wall of loneliness.
There came a night which hung, glowing and vapourous over Metropolis. A thunder storm, which was still distant, burnt its warning fires in deep clouds. All the lights of the great Metropolis seemed more violently, seemed more wildly to lavish themselves on the darkness.
Freder stood by the railing of the narrow balcony his hot hands laid on the railing. A sultry, uneasy puff of wind tugged at him, making the white silk which covered his now much emaciated body to flutter.