Metropolis | Page 2

would permit them to come to life.
There was one among them-Slim, with his courteous face, the expression of which never
changed-Freder knew of him: one word to him, and, if the girl still walked on earth with
her silent step, then Slim would find her. But one does not set a blood-hound on the track
of a sacred, white hind, if one does not want to be cursed, and to be, all' his life long, a
miserable, miserable man.
Freder saw, without looking at him, how Slim's eyes were taking stock of him. He knew
that the silent creature, ordained, by his father, to be his all-powerful protector, was, at
the same time, his keeper. During the fever of nights, bereft of sleep, during the fever of
his work, in his work-shop, during the fever when playing his organ, calling upon God,
there would be Slim measuring the pulse of the son of his great master. He gave no
reports; they were not required of him. But, if the hour should come in which they were
demanded of him, he would certainly have a diary of faultless perfection to produce, from
the number of steps with which one in torment treads out his loneliness with heavy foot,
from minute to minute, to the dropping of a brow into propped up hands, tired with
longing.
Could it be possible that this man, who knew everything, knew nothing of her?
Nothing about him betrayed that he was aware of the upheavel in the well-being and
disposition of his young master, since that day in the "Club of the Sons." But it was one
of the slim, silent one's greatest secrets never to give himself away, and, although he had
no entrance to the "Club of the Sons" Freder was by no means sure that the
money-backed agent of his father would be turned back by the rules of the club.
He felt himself exposed, unclothed. A cruel brightness, which left nothing concealed,
bathed him and everything in his workshop which was almost the most highly situated
room in Metropolis.
"I wish to be quite alone," he said softly.
Silently the servants vanished, Slim went... But all these doors, which closed without the
least sound, could also, without the least sound, be opened again to the narrowest chink.
His eyes aching, Freder fingered all the doors of his work-room.
A smile, a rather bitter smile, drew down the corners of his mouth. He was a treasure
which must be guarded as crown jewels are guarded. The son of a great father, and the
only son.
Really the only one-?

Really the only one-?
His thoughts stopped again at the exit of the circuit and the vision was there again and the
scene and the event...
The "Club of the Sons" was, perhaps, one of the most beautiful buildings of Metropolis,
and that was not so very remarkable. For fathers, for whom every revolution of a
machine-wheel spelt gold, had presented this house to their sons. It was more a district
than a house. It embraced theatres, picture-palaces, lecture-rooms and a library-In which,
every book, printed in all the five continents, was to be found-race tracks and stadium
and the famous "Eternal Gardens."
It contained very extensive dwellings for the young sons of indulgent fathers and it
contained the dwellings of faultless male servants and handsome, well-trained female
servants for whose training more time was requisite than for the development of new
species of orchids.
Their chief task consisted in nothing but, at all times, to appear delightful and to be
incapriciously cheerful; and, with their bewildering costume, their painted faces, and their
eye-masks, surmounted by snow-white wigs and fragrant as flowers, they resembled
delicate dolls of porcelain and brocade, devised by a master-hand, not purchaseable but
rather delightful presents.
Freder was but a rare visitant to the "Club of the Sons." He preferred his work-shop and
the starry chapel in which this organ stood. But when once the desire took him to fling
himself into the radiant joyousness of the stadium competitions he was the most radiant
and joyous of all, playing on from victory to victory with the laugh of a young god.
On that day too... on that day too.
Still tingling from the icy coolness of falling water, every muscle still quivering in the
intoxication of victory he had lain, stretched out, slender, panting, smiling, drunken,
beside himself, almost insane with joy. The milk-coloured glass ceiling above the Eternal
Gardens was an opal in the light which bathed it. Loving little women attended him,
waiting roguishly and jealously, from whose white hands, from whose fine finger-tips he
would eat the fruits he desired.
One was standing aside, mixing him a drink. From hip to knee billowed sparkling
brocade. Slender, bare