His hands fell loose, as though cut off ... he stared at his hands, stammering something which sounded half like an oath, half like the weeping of a child that believes itself to be alone in the world. The voice of his father said: “Freder....” He fell on his knees. He stretched out his arms. His head fell forward into his father’s hands. He burst into tears, into despairing sobs.... A door slid to. He flung his head around. He sprang to his feet. His eyes swept the room. “Where is she?” he asked. “Who?” “She....” “Who—?” “She ... who was here....” “Nobody was here, Freder....” The boy’s eyes glazed. “What did you say—?” he stammered. “There has not been a soul here, Freder, but you and I.” Freder twisted his head around stiffly. He tugged the shirt from his throat. He looked into his father’s eyes as though looking into well-shafts. “You say there was not a soul here.... I did not see you ... when you were holding Maria in your arms.... I have been dreaming.... I am mad, aren’t I?...” “I give you my word,” said Joh Fredersen, “when you came to me there was neither a woman nor any other living soul here....” Freder remained silent. His bewildered eyes were still searching along the walls. “You are ill, Freder,” said his father’s voice. Freder smiled. Then he began to laugh. He threw himself into a chair and laughed and laughed. He bent down, resting both elbows upon his knees, burrowing his head between his hands and arms. He rocked himself to and fro, shrieking with laughter. Joh Fredersen’s eyes were upon him. CHAPTER IX The aeroplane which had carried Josaphat away from Metropolis swam in the golden air of the setting sun, rushing towards it at a tearing speed, as though fastened to the westward sinking ball by metal cords. Josaphat sat behind the pilot. From the moment when the aerodrome had sunk below them and the stone mosaic of the great Metropolis had paled away into the inscrutable depths, he had not given the least token that he was a human being with the faculty for breathing and moving. The pilot seemed to be taking a pale grey stone, which had the form of a man, with him as freight and, when he once turned around, he looked full into the wide-open eyes of this petrified being without meeting a glance or the least sign of consciousness. Nevertheless Josaphat had intercepted the movement of the pilot’s head with his brain. Not immediately. Not soon. Yet the vision of this cautious, yet certain and vigilant movement remained in his memory until he at last comprehended it. Then the petrified image seemed to become a human being again, whose breast rose in a long neglected breath, who raised his eyes upwards, looking into the empty greenish-blue sky and down again to the earth which formed a flat, round carpet, deep down in infinity—and at the sun which was rolling westwards like a glowing ball.