Metropolis by Thea von Harbou Page B

her hands. She gently turned the palms upward, and considered them, looked at them with her Madonna-eyes, and folded her hands tenderly around his, which she carefully laid together.
    "Maria," he said, without a sound.
    She let his hands fall and raised her's to his head. She laid her finger-tips on his cheeks. With her fingertips she stroked his eyebrows, his temples, twice, three times.
    Then he snatched her to his heart and they kissed each other…
    He no longer felt the stones under his feet. A wave carried him, him and the girl whom he held clasped to him as though he wished to die of it—and the wave came from the bottom of the ocean, roaring as though the whole sea were an organ; and the wave was of fire and flung right up to the heavens.
    Then sinking… sinking… endlessly gliding down—right down to the womb of the world, the source of the beginning… Thirst and quenching drink… hunger and satiation… pain and deliverance from it… death and rebirth…
    "You… " said the man to the girl's lips. "You are really the great mediatress… You are all that is most sacred on earth… You are all goodness… You are all grace… To doubt you is to doubt God… Maria—Maria—you called me—here I am!"
    (Behind them, in a vault that was shaped like a pointed devil's-ear, one man leant towards another man's ear. "You wanted to have the Futura's face from me… There you have your model… " "Is that a commission?" "Yes.")
    "Now you must go, Freder," said the girl. Her Madonna eyes looked at him.
    "Go—and leave you here?"
    She turned grave and shook her head.
    "Nothing will happen to me," she said. "There is not one, among those who know this place, whom I cannot trust as though he were my blood brother. But what is between us is nobody's affair; it would vex me to have to explain—" (and now she was smiling again)—"what is inexplicable… : Do you see that?"
    "Yes," he said. "Forgive me… " I
    (Behind them, in a vault that was shaped like a pointed devil's-ear, a man took himself away from the wall.)
    "You know what you have to do," he said in a low voice.
    "Yes," came the voice of the other, idly, sleepily, out of the darkness. "But wait a bit, friend… I must ask you something… "
    "Well?"
    "Have you forgotten your own creed?"
    For one second a lamp twinkled through the room, that was shaped like a pointed devil's ear, impaling the face of the man, who had already turned to go, on the pointed needle of its brilliance.
    "That sin and suffering are twin-sisters… you will be sinning against two people, friend… "
    "What has that to do with you?"
    "Nothing… Or—little. Freder is Hel's son… "
    "And mine… "
    "Yes.
    "It is he whom I do not wish to lose."
    "Better to sin once more?"
    "Yes."
    "And?"
    "To suffer. Yes."
    "Very well, friend," and in the voice was an inaudible laugh of mockery: "May it happen to you according to your creed… !"
    The girl walked through the passages that were so familiar to her. The bright little lamp in her hand roved over the roof of stone and over the stone walls, where, in niches, the thousand-year-old dead slept.
    The girl had never known fear of the dead; only reverence and gravity in face of their gravity. To-day she saw neither wall nor dead. She walked on, smiling and not knowing she did it. She felt like singing. With an expression of happiness, which was still incredulous and yet complete, she said the name of her beloved over to herself.
    Quite softly: "Freder… " And once more: "Freder… "
    Then she raised her head, listening attentively, standing quite still…
    It came back as a whisper: An echo?—No.
    Almost inaudibly a word was breathed:
    "Maria… "
    She turned around, blissfully startled. Was it possible that he had come back.
    "Freder—!" she called. She listened.
    No answer.
    "Freder—!"
    Nothing.
    But suddenly there came a cool draught of air which made the hair at her neck quiver, and a hand of snow ran down her back.
    There came an agonized