The luminous pillars by which he ran did not shine as usual with their white, icy light. They blinked, they flashed lightning, they flickered. They burnt with an evil, green light. The stones, over which he ran, swayed like water. The nearer he came to the machine-room, the more bellowing did the voice of the tower become. The walls were baking. The air was colourless fire. If the door had not burst open by itself—no human hand could have opened it, for it was like a glowing curtain of liquid steel. Freder held his arm flung before his forehead, as if wishing to protect his brain from bursting. His eyes sought the machine—the machine in front of which he had once stood. It was crouching in the centre of the howling room. It shone with oil. It had gleaming limbs. Under the crouching body and the head which was sunken on its chest, crooked legs rested, gnome-like, upon the platform. The trunk and legs were motionless. But the short arms pushed and pushed and pushed, alternately forwards, backwards, forwards. And the machine was quite abandoned. Nobody was watching it. Nobody’s hand held the lever. Nobody’s gaze was fixed on the clock, the hands of which chased through the grades as though gone mad. “Father—!!” shouted Freder, about to hurl himself forward. But at the same moment it was as if the hunched up body of the wild machine, which was like Ganesha, raised itself up to a furious height, as though its legs stretched themselves upon stumpy feet, to make a murderous leap, as though its arms no longer stretched themselves to push—no, to seize, to seize to crush—as though the howling voice of the New Tower of Babel broke from the lungs of the Pater-noster machine alone, howling: “Murder—!” And howling unceasingly: “Murder—!” The flame curtain of the door flew sideways, whistling. The monster-machine rolled itself down from the platform with pushing arms. The whole structure of the New Tower of Babel quivered. The walls shook. The ceiling groaned. Freder turned around. He threw his arms about his neck and ran. He saw the luminous pillars stabbing at him. He heard a rattling gasp at his back and felt the marrow dry up, and ran and ran. He ran towards doors, pushed them open, slammed them to behind him and raced onwards. “Father—!!” he shouted—and with a feeling as if his brain were overturning: “Our Father, Which art in heaven—” Upstairs. Where did these stairs lead to—? Doors thundered open, rebounding against walls. Aaah—! The temples of the machine-rooms? Deities, the machines—the shining Lords—the god-machines of Metropolis! All the great gods were living in white temples! Baal and Moloch and Huitzilopochtli and Durgha! Some frightfully companionable, some terribly solitary. There—Juggernaut’s divine car! There—the Towers of Silence! There—Mahomet’s curved sword! There—the crosses of Golgotha!