And, looking upwards, into the infinite blue of the morning sky, he saw Hel’s countenance, which he had loved, and it was like the countenance of the beautiful angel of Death, smiling at him, its lips inclining towards his brow. Great black wings spread themselves out, strong enough to carry a lost world up to heaven. “Hel ...” said the man. “My Hel ... at last....” And his fingers lost their hold, voluntarily.... Joh Fredersen did not see the fall, neither did he hear the cry of the multitude as it stared back. He saw but one thing: the white-gleaming figure of the man, who, upright and uninjured, was walking along the roof of the cathedral with the even step of one fearing nothing, carrying the girl in his arms. Then Joh Fredersen bent down, so low that his forehead touched the stones of the cathedral square. And those near enough to him heard the weeping which welled up from his heart, as water from a rock. As his hands loosened from his head, all who stood around him saw that Joh Fredersen’s hair had turned snow-white. CHAPTER XXIII “Beloved—!” said Freder, Joh Fredersen’s son. It was the softest, the most cautious call of which a human voice is capable. But Maria answered it just as little as she had answered the shouts of despair with which the man who loved her had wished to re-awaken her to consciousness of herself. She lay couched upon the steps of the high altar, stretched out in her slenderness, her head in Freder’s arm, her hands in Freder’s hand, and the gentle fire of the lofty church-windows burnt upon her quite white face and upon her quite white hands. Her heart beat, slowly, barely, perceptibly. She did not breathe. She lay sunken in the depths of an exhaustion from which no shout, no entreaty, no cry of despair could have dragged her. She was as though dead. A hand was laid upon Freder’s shoulder. He turned his head. He looked into the face of his father. Was that his father? Was that Joh Fredersen, the master over the great Metropolis? Had his father such white hair? And so tormented a brow? And such tortured eyes? Was there, in this world, after this night of madness, nothing but horror and death and destruction and agony—without end—? “What do you want here?” asked Freder, Joh Fredersen’s son. “Do you want to take her away from me? Have you made plans to part her and me? Is there some mighty undertaking in danger, to which she and I are to be sacrificed?” “To whom are you speaking, Freder?” his father asked, very gently. Freder did not answer. His eyes opened inquiringly, for he had heard a voice never heard before. He was silent. “If you are speaking of Joh Fredersen,” continued the very gentle voice, “then be informed that, this night, Joh Fredersen died a sevenfold death....” Freder’s eyes, burnt with suffering, were raised to the eyes which were above him. A piteously sobbing sound came from out his lips. “Oh my God—Father—! Father ... you—!”