It was an immeasurably glorious and transporting sound, as deep and rumbling as, and more powerful than any sound on earth. The voice of the ocean when it is angry, the voice of falling torrents, the voice of very close thunder-storms, would be miserably drowned in this Behemoth din. Without being shrill, it penetrated all walls, and, as long as it lasted, all things seemed to swing in it. It was omnipresent, coming from the heights and from the depths, being beautiful and horrible, being an irresistible command. It was high above the town. It was the voice of the town. Metropolis raised her voice. The machines of Metropolis roared: They wanted to be fed. The eyes of Josaphat and Freder met. “Now,” said Josaphat, “many are going down into a city of the dead, and are waiting for one who is called Maria, and whom they have found as true as gold....” “Yes!” said Freder, “you are a friend, and you are quite right.... I shall go with them....” And, for the first time this night, there was something like hope in the ring of his voice. CHAPTER XII It was one hour after midnight. Joh Fredersen came to his mother’s house. It was a farmhouse, one-storied, thatch-roofed, over-shadowed by a walnut tree and it stood upon the flat back of one of the stone giants, not far from the cathedral. A garden full of lilies and hollyhocks, full of sweet peas and poppies and nasturtiums, wound itself about the house. Joh Fredersen’s mother had only one son and him she had very dearly loved. But the Master over the great Metropolis, the Master of the machine-city, the Brain of the New Tower of Babel had become a stranger to her and she hostile to him. She had had to look on once and see how one of Joh Fredersen’s machine-Titans crushed men as though they were dried up wood. She had screamed to God. He had not heard her. She fell to the ground and never got up again. Only head and hands retained their vitality in the paralysed body. But the strength of a legion blazed in her eyes. She opposed her son and the work of her son. But he did not let her alone; he forced her to him. When she angrily vowed she wished to live in her house—under the thatched roof, with its vault, the walnut tree—until her dying day, he transplanted house and tree and gaily blossoming garden to the flat roof of the stone house-giant which lay between the cathedral and the New Tower of Babel. The walnut tree ailed one year long; and then it became green again. The garden blossomed, a wonder of beauty, about the house. When Joh Fredersen entered this house he came from sleepless nights and evil days.