The stones shook loose under the feet of the mob. Smoke gushed up from the pit. Suddenly the lights went out. Only the clocks, the whitish-shimmering clocks, hung, as patches of light, in a darkness which was filled with long, dim, drifting clouds. The mob pressed towards the stairs and up them. Behind them, unchained demons, pulling their reeling carriages along behind them, the engines, now released, hurled themselves on, to fall upon each other and break into flames.... * * * * * Metropolis had a brain. Metropolis had a heart. The heart of the machine-city of Metropolis dwelt in a white, cathedral-like building. The heart of the machine-city of Metropolis was guarded by one single man. The man’s name was Grot, and he loved his machine. The machine was a universe to itself. Above the deep mysteries of its delicate joints, like the sun’s disc, like the halo of a divine being, stood the silver spinning wheel, the spokes of which appeared, in the whirl of revolution, as a single gleaming disc. This disc filled out the back wall of the building, with its entire breadth and height. No machine in all Metropolis which did not receive its power from this heart. One single lever controlled this marvel of steel. All the treasures of the world heaped up before him would not, for Grot, have outweighed this, his machine. When, at the grey hour of dawn, Grot heard the voice of the great Metropolis roaring, he glanced at the clock on the brow of the wall where was the door, and thought: “That’s against all nature and regularity....” When, at the red hour of sunrise, Grot saw the stream of the multitude rolling along, twelve files deep, led by a girl—dancing to the rhythm of the yelling mob, Grot set the lever of the machine to “Safety,” carefully closed the door of the building and waited. The mob thundered against his door. “Oh—knock away!” thought Grot. “That door can stand a good bit....” He looked at the machine. The wheel was spinning slowly. The beautiful spokes were playing, plainly to be seen. Grot nodded to his beautiful machine. “They will not trouble us long,” thought he. He waited for a signal from the New Tower of Babel. For a word from Joh Fredersen. The word did not come. “He knows,” thought Grot, “that he can rely on me....” The door quaked like a giant drum. The mob hurled itself, a living battering ram, against it. “There are rather a lot of them, it seems to me,” thought Grot. He looked at the door, it trembled, but it held. And it looked as though it would still hold for a long time.