“You know my father. There are many in the great Metropolis who do not believe Joh Fredersen to be human, because he seems not to need to eat and drink and he sleeps when he wishes to; and usually he does not wish to.... They call him The Brain of Metropolis, and if it is true that fear is the source of all religion then the brain of Metropolis is not very far off from becoming a deity.... This man, who is my father came up to my bed.... He walked on tip-toe, Josaphat. He bent over me and held his breath.... My eyes were shut. I lay quite still and it seemed to me as though my father must hear my soul crying within me. Then I loved him more than anything on earth. But if my life had been dependent on it, I should still not have been able to open my eyes. I felt my father’s hand smoothing my pillow. Then he went again as he had come, on tip-toe, closing the door quite soundlessly behind him. Do you know what he had done?” “No....” “No.... I don’t see how you could. I only realised it myself some hours later.... For the first time since the great Metropolis had stood, Joh Fredersen had omitted to press on the little blue metal plate and to let the Behemoth-voice of Metropolis roar out, because he did not wish to disturb his son’s sleep....” Josaphat lowered his head; he said nothing. Freder let his intertwined hands sink. “Then I realised,” he continued, “that my father had quite forgiven me.... And when I realised that, I really fell asleep....” He stood up and remained standing, seeming to be listening to the rushing of the rain. The lightning was still flashing out over Metropolis, the angry thunder bounding after. But the rushing of the rain drowned it. “I slept ...” Freder went on—so softly that the other could scarcely follow his words—“then I began to dream.... I saw this city—this great Metropolis—in the light of a ghostly unreality. A weird moon stood in the sky; as though along a broad street this ghostly, unreal light flowed down upon the city, which was deserted to the last soul. All the houses were distorted and had faces. They squinted evilly and spitefully down at me, for I was walking deep down between them, along the glimmering street. “Quite narrow was this street as though crushed between the houses; it was as though made of a greenish glass—like a solidified, glazen river. I glided along it and looked down through it into the cold bubbling of a subterranean fire. “I did not know my destination, but I knew I had one, and went very fast in order to reach it the sooner. I quietened my step as well as I could, but its sound was excessively loud and awakened a rustling whisper over the crooked house-walls as though the houses were murmuring against me. I quickened my pace and ran, and, at last, raced along, and the more swiftly I raced the more hoarsely did the echo of the steps sound after me, as though there were an army at my heels, I was dripping with sweat....