The yell of fear from the multitude came shrieking up from the depths. Neither Rotwang nor Freder heard it. With a terrible oath Rotwang gathered himself up. He saw above him, sharp against the blue of the sky, the gargoyle of a waterspout. It grinned in his face. The long tongue leered mockingly at him. He drew himself up and struck, with clenched fist, at the grinning gargoyle…
The gargoyle broke…
In the weight of the blow he lost his balance — and fell — and saved himself, hanging with one hand to the Gothic ornamentation of the cathedral.
And, looking upwards, into the infinite blue of the morning sky, he saw Hel's countenance, which he had loved, and it was like the countenance of the beautiful angel of Death, smiling at him, its lips inclining towards his brow.
Great black wings spread themselves out, strong enough to carry a lost world up to heaven.
"Hel… " said the man. "My Hel… at last… "
And his fingers lost their hold, voluntarily…
Joh Fredersen did not see the fall, neither did he hear the cry of the multitude as it stared back. He saw but one thing: the white-gleaming figure of the man, who, upright and uninjured, was walking along the roof of the cathedral with the even step of one fearing nothing, carrying the girl in his arms.
Then Joh Fredersen bent down, so low that his forehead touched the stones of the cathedral square. And those near enough to him heard the weeping which welled up from his heart, as water from a rock.
As his hands loosened from his head, all who stood around him saw that Joh Fredersen's hair had turned snow-white.
Chapter 23
"BELOVED—!" SAID FREDER, Joh Fredersen's son.
It was the softest, the most cautious call of which a human voice is capable. But Maria answered it just as little as she had answered the shouts of despair with which the man who loved her had wished to re-awaken her to consciousness of herself.
She lay couched upon the steps of the high altar, stretched out in her slenderness, her head in Freder's arm, her hands in Freder's hand, and the gentle fire of the lofty church-windows burnt upon her quite white face and upon her quite white hands. Her heart beat, slowly, barely, perceptibly. She did not breathe She lay sunken in the depths of an exhaustion from which no shout, no entreaty, no cry of despair could have dragged her. She was as though dead.
A hand was laid upon Freder's shoulder.
He turned his head. He looked into the face of his father.
Was that his father? Was that Joh Fredersen, the master over the great Metropolis? Had his father such white hair? And so tormented a brow? And such tortured eyes?
Was there, in this world, after this night of madness, nothing but horror and death and destruction and agony — without end—?
"What do you want here?" asked Freder, Joh Fredersen's son. "Do you want to take her away from me? Have you made plans to part her and me? Is there some mighty undertaking in danger, to which she and I are to be sacrificed?"
"To whom are you speaking, Freder?" his father asked, very gently.
Freder did not answer. His eyes opened inquiringly, for he had heard a voice never heard before. He was silent.
"If you are speaking of Joh Fredersen," continued the very gentle voice, "then be informed that, this night, Joh Fredersen died a sevenfold death… "
Freder's eyes, burnt with suffering, were raised to the eyes which were above him. A piteously sobbing sound came from out his lips.
"Oh my God — Father—! Father… you—!"
Joh Fredersen stooped down above him and above the girl who lay in Freder's lap.
"She is dying, father… Can't you see she is dying—?"
Joh Fredersen shook his head.
"No, no!" said his gentle voice. "No, Freder. There was an hour in my life in which I knelt, as you, holding in my arms the woman I loved. But she died, indeed. I have studied the face of the dying to the full. I know it perfectly and shall never again forget it… The girl is but sleeping. Do not awaken her by force."
And, with a gesture of inexpressible tenderness, his hand slipped from Freder's shoulder to the hair of the sleeping girl.
"Dearest child!" he said. "Dearest child… "
And from out of the depth of her dream the sweetness of a smile responded to him, before which Joh Fredersen bowed himself, as before a revelation, not of this world.
Then he left his son and the girl and passed through the cathedral, made glorious and pleasant by the gay-coloured ribbons of sunshine.
Freder watched him go until his gaze grew misty. And all at once, with a sudden, violent, groaning fervour, he raised the girl's mouth to his mouth and kissed her, as though he wished to die of it. For, from out the marvel of light, spun into ribbons, the knowledge had come upon him that it was day, that the invulnerable transformation of darkness into light was becoming consummate, in its greatness, in its kindliness, over the world.
"Come to yourself, Maria, beloved!" he said, entreating her with his caresses, with his love. "Come to me, beloved! Come to me!"
The soft response of her heart-beat, of her breathing, caused a laugh to well up from his throat and the fervour of his whispered words died on her lips.
Joh Fredersen caught the sound of his son's laugh. He was already near the door of the cathedral. He stopped and looked at the stack of pillars, in the delicate, canopied niches of which stood the saintly men and women, smiling gently.
"You have suffered," thought his dream-filled brain. "You have been redeemed by suffering. You have attained to bliss… Is it worth while to suffer? — Yes."
And he walked out of the cathedral on feet which were still as though dead, tentatively, he stepped through the mighty door-way, stood dazzled in the light and swayed as though drunken.
For the wine of suffering which he had drunk, was very heavy, and intoxicating, and white-hot.
His soul spoke within him as he reeled along:
"I will go home and look for my mother."
Chapter 24
"FREDER…?" SAID THE SOFT Madonna-voice. "Yes, you beloved! Speak to me! Speak to me!" "Where are we?" "In the cathedral." "Is it day or night?" "It is day."
"Wasn't your father here, with us, just now?"
"Yes, you beloved."
"His hand was on my hair?"
"You felt it?"
"Oh Freder, while your father was standing here it seemed to me as though I heard a spring rushing within a rock. A spring, weighted with salt, and red with blood. But I knew too: when the spring is strong enough to break out through the rock, then if will be sweeter than the dew and whiter than the light."
"Bless you for your belief, Maria… "
She smiled. She fell silent.
"Why don't you open your eyes, you beloved?" asked Freder's longing mouth.
"I see," she answered. "I see, Freder… I see a city, standing in the light… "
"Shall I build it?"
"No, Freder. Not you. Your father."
"My father?"
"Yes… "
"Maria when you spoke of my father, before, this tone of' love was not in your voice… "
"Since then much has taken place, Freder. Since then, within a rock, a spring has come to life, heavy with salt and red with blood. Since then Joh Fredersen's hair has turned snow-white with deadly fear for his son. Since then have those whom I called my brothers sinned from excessive suffering. Since then has Joh Fredersen suffered from excessive sin. Will you not allow them both, Freder — your father as well as my brothers — to pay for their sin, to atone, to become reconciled?"