Ah—it was that, ah yes—that, in the existence which, thank the Lord, lay far behind him, he had tried to create, to replace his lost Hel—just to make the handiwork of the Creator of the world look rather silly.... Not bad for a beginning ... hm ... but, good God, compared with Hel; what an object; what a bungle.... The shrieking individuals down there were quite right to burn the thing. Though it appeared to him to be rather a show of idiocy to destroy his test-work. But perhaps that was the custom of the people in this existence, and he certainly did not want to argue with them. He wanted to find Hel—his Hel—and nothing else.... He knew exactly where to look for her. She loved the cathedral so dearly, did his pious Hel. And, if the flickering light of the bonfire did not deceive him,—for the greenish sky gave no glimmer—Hel was standing, like a frightened child in the blackness of the cathedral door, her slender hands clasped firmly upon her breast, looking more saint-like than ever. Past those who were raving around the bonfire—always politely avoiding getting in their way—Rotwang quietly groped his way to the cathedral. Yes, it was his Hel.... She receded into the cathedral. He groped his way up the steps. How high the door looked.... Coolness and hovering incense received him.... All the saints in the pillar niches had pious and lovely faces, smiling gently, as though they rejoiced with him that he was now, at last, to find Hel, his Hel, again. She was standing at the foot of the belfry steps. She seemed to him to be very pale and indescribably pathetic. Through a narrow window the first pale light of the morning fell upon her hair and brow. “Hel,” said Rotwang, his heart streaming over; he stretched out his hands. “Come to me, my Hel.... How long, how long I had to live without you!” But she did not come. She started back from him. Her face full of horror, she started back from him. “Hel,” begged the man, “why are you afraid of me? I am no ghost, although I am dead. I had to die, to come to you. I have always, always longed for you. You have no right to leave me alone now! I want your hands! Give them to me!” But his groping fingers snatched into space. Footsteps were hurrying up the steps of the stone-staircase which led to the belfry. Something like anger came over Rotwang’s heart. Deep in his dulled and tortured soul reposed the memory of a day upon which Hel had likewise fled from him—to another.... No, don’t think, don’t think of it.... That was a part of his first existence, and it would be quite senseless to go through the same again—in the other, and, as humanity in general hoped, better world.