The man’s eyes looked up at her in astonishment. Her clear face, with its low, unintelligent brow and its beautiful, foolish mouth stood out, as if under a dome of sapphire, against the sky which curved above her. “Aren’t you afraid of me?” asked the man. “No,” said the young girl. The head of the man fell into her lap. She bent forward and covered up the shivering body with the billowing, silver silk. “Rest ...” said the man with a sigh. She made no reply. She sat quite motionless. “Will you awaken me,” asked the man—and his voice quavered with weariness—“as soon as the sun comes?” “Yes,” said the young girl. “Keep quiet....” He sighed deeply. Then he lay still. It grew darker and darker. In the far distance a voice was to be heard, calling a name, long drawn out, again and again. The stars stood glorious above the world. The distant voice was silent. The young girl looked down upon the man whose head lay in her lap. In her eyes was the never sleeping watchfulness which one sees in the eyes of animals and of mothers. CHAPTER X Whenever Josaphat tried, during the days which followed, to break through the barrier which was drawn around Freder, there was always a strange person there, and always a different one, who said, with expressionless mien: “Mr. Freder cannot receive anybody. Mr. Freder is ill.” But Freder was not ill—at least not as illness generally manifests itself among mankind. From morning until evening, from evening until morning, Josaphat watched the house, the crown of the tower of which was Freder’s flat. He never saw Freder leave the house. But for hours at a time he saw, during the night, behind the white-veiled windows, which ran the breadth of the wall, a shadow wandering up and down—and saw at the hour of twilight, when the rooves of Metropolis still shone, bathed in the sun, and the darkness of the ravines of its streets was flooded out by streams of cold light, the same shadow, a motionless form, standing on the narrow balcony which ran around this, almost the highest house in Metropolis. Yet what was expressed by the shadow’s wandering up and down, by the motionless standing still of the shadow form, was not illness. It was uttermost helplessness. Lying on the roof of the house which was opposite Freder’s flat, Josaphat watched the man who had chosen him as friend and brother, whom he had betrayed and to whom he had returned. He could not discern his face but he read from the pale patch which this face was in the setting sun, in the shower-bath of the searchlight, that the man over there, whose eyes were staring across Metropolis, did not see Metropolis. Sometimes people would emerge beside him, would speak to him, expecting an answer. But the answer never came. Then the people would go, crushed.