“You are silent.... You are very obstinate.... But now I shall tell you something which will surely break your obstinacy.... Do you think I am holding you captive here for fun? Do you think Joh Fredersen knew no other way of getting you out of his son’s sight than shutting you up behind the Solomon’s seal on my doors? On no, Maria—oh no, my beautiful Maria! We have not been idle all these days. We have stolen your beautiful soul from you—your sweet soul, that tender smile of God. I have listened to you as the air has listened to you. I have seen you angry and in the depths of despair. I have seen you burning and dull as the earth. I have listened to you praying to God, and have cursed God because he did not hear you. I have intoxicated myself with your helplessness. Your pitiful weeping has made me drunken. When you sobbed the name of your Beloved, I thought I must die, and reeled.... And thus, as one intoxicated, as one drunken, as one reeling, I became a thief of you, Maria, I created you anew—I became your second God! I have stolen you absolutely! In the name of Joh Fredersen, the Master over the great Metropolis, have I stolen your ego from you, Maria. And this stolen ego—your other self—sent a message to your brothers, calling them by night into the City of the Dead—and they all came. When you spoke to them before, you spoke for Peace ... but Joh Fredersen does not want Peace any more—do you see?—He wants the decision! The hour has come! Your stolen ego may not speak for Peace any more. The mouth of Joh Fredersen speaks from out it.... And among your brothers there will be one who loves you and who will not realize—who will not doubt you, Maria.... Only just give me your hands, Maria—only your hands, no more.... I do not ask for more ... your hands must be wondrous. Pardon is the name of the right, Redemption of the left.... If you give me your hands I will go with you into the City of the Dead, so that you can warn your brothers, so that you can unmask your stolen ego—so that the one who loves you finds you again and does not have to doubt you.... Did you say anything, Maria?” He heard the soft, soft weeping of the girl. He fell, where he stood, upon his knees. He wanted to drag himself along on his knees to the girl. And suddenly stopped still. He listened. He stared. He said in a voice which was almost like a shriek, in its wide-awake attention: “Maria...? Maria—don’t you hear...? There’s a strange man in the room....” “Yes,” said the quiet voice of Joh Fredersen. And then the hands of Joh Fredersen seized the throat of Rotwang, the great inventor.... CHAPTER XIV A vault, like the vault of a sepulchre—human heads so closely crowded as to produce the effect of clods of a freshly ploughed field. All faces turned to one point: to the source of a light, as mild as God. Candles burnt with sword-like flames. Slender, lustrous swords of light stood in a circle around the head of a girl.