Metropolis by Thea von Harbou Page B

Fredersen, wondering that her feet left no bloody traces behind on the way. She had died because she was unable to withstand the great love of Joh Fredersen and because she had been forced by him to tear asunder the life of another.
    Never was the expression of deliverance at last more strong upon a human face than upon Hel's face when she knew that she would die.
    But in the same hour the mightiest man in Metropolis had lain on the floor, screaming like a wild beast, the bones of which are being broken in its living body.
    And, on his meeting Rotwang, four weeks later, he found that the dense, disordered hair over the wonderful brow of the inventor was snow-white, and in the eyes under this brow the smouldering of a hatred which was very closely related to madness.
    In this great love, in this great hatred, the poor, dead Hel had remained alive to both men…
    "You must wait a little while," said the voice which sounded as though the house were talking in its sleep.
    "Listen, Rotwang," said Joh Fredersen. "You know that I treat your little juggling tricks with patience, and that I come to you when I want anything of you, and that you are the only man who can say that of himself. But you will never get me to join in with you when you play the fool. You know, too, that I have no time to waste. Don't make us both ridiculous, but come!"
    "I told you that you would have to wait a little while," explained the voice, seeming to grow more distant.
    "I shall not wait. I shall go."
    "Do so, Joh Fredersen!"
    He wanted to do so. But the door through which he had entered had no key, no latch. The seal of Solomon, glowing copper-red, blinked at him.
    A soft, far-off voice laughed.
    Joh Fredersen had stopped still, his back to the room. A quiver ran down his back, running along the hanging arms to the clenched fists.
    "You should have your skull smashed in," said Joh Fredersen, very softly. "You should have your skull smashed in… that is, if it did not contain so valuable a brain… "
    "You can do no more to me than you have done," said the far-off voice.
    Joh Fredersen was silent.
    "Which do you think," continued the voice, "to be more painful: to smash in the skull, or to tear the heart out of the body?"
    Joh Fredersen was silent.
    "Are your wits frozen, that you don't answer, Joh Fredersen?"
    "A brain like yours should be able to forget," said the man standing at the door, staring at Solomon's seal.
    The soft, far-off voice laughed.
    "Forget? I have twice in my life forgotten something… Once that Aetro-oil and quick-silver have an idiosyncracy as regards each other; that cost me my arm. Secondly that Hel was a woman and you a man; that cost me my heart. The third time, I am afraid, it will cost me my head. I shall never again forget anything, Joh Fredersen."
    Joh Fredersen was silent.
    The far-off voice was silent, too.
    Joh Fredersen turned round and walked to the table. He piled books and parchments on top of each other, sat down and took a piece of paper from his pocket. He laid it before him and looked at it.
    It was no larger than a man's hand, bearing neither print nor script, being covered over and over with the tracing of a strange symbol and an apparently half-destroyed plan. Ways seemed to be indicated, seeming to be false ways, but they all led one way; to a place that was filled with crosses.
    Suddenly he felt, from the back, a certain coldness approaching him. Involuntarily he held his breath.
    A hand grasped along, by his head, a graceful, skeleton hand. Transparent skin was stretched over the slender joints, which gleamed beneath it like dull silver. Fingers, snow-white and fleshless, closed over the plan which lay on the table, and, lifting it up, took it away with it.
    Joh Fredersen swung around. He stared at the being which stood before him with eyes which grew glassy.
    The being was, indubitably, a woman. In the soft garment which it wore stood a body, like the body of a young birch tree, swaying on feet set fast