METROPOLIS "For whom are you crying, mother," he asked, "for Freder or for me?" "For you both," said the mother, "lor you both, Joh ...•" He stood in silence and the struggle of his heart was in his face. Then, without giving his mother another look, he turned around and went out of the house, over which the walnut tree rustled. ~
CHAPTER XIII IT WAS MIDNIGHT and no light was burning. Only through the window there fell the ;radiance of the city, lying like a pale gleam upon the face of the girl who sat, leaning back against the wall, without moving, with closed eye-lids. her hands ill her lap. "Will you never answer me?" asked the great inventor. Stillness. Silence. Immobility. "You are colder than stone, harder than any stone. The tip of your finger must cut through the diamond as though it were water ... I do not implore your love. What does a girl know of love? Her unstormed fortresses-her unopened Paradises-her sealed-up books, whom no one knows but the god who wrote them-what do you know of love? Women know nothing 01 love either. What does light know 01 ligbt? Flame 01 burning? What do the stars know 01 the laws by which they wander? You must ask chaos-coldness, darkness, the eternal unredeemed which wrestles for the redemption of its,elf. You must ask the man what love is. The hymn of Heaven is only composed in Hen ... I do not implore your love, Ma~,a. But your pity, you motherly one, with the virgin face .... Stillness. Silence. Immobility. "I hold you captive ... Is that my fault? I do not hold you captive for myself, Maria. Above you and me there is a Will which forces me into being evil. Have pity on him who. 143
