METROPOLIS Joh Fredersen was talking to himself. What was he saying? Slim bent over him. He saw the forefinger of Joh Fredersen's right hand gliding slowly across the shiny table-top. as though he were following and spelling out the lines of a book. Joh Fredersen's soft voice said: "Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap. , , ," Then Joh Fredersen's foreheadJell on to the smooth wood, and, unceasingly, in a tone which, except for·a dead woman, no ODe had ever heard from Joh Fredersen. his soft voice cried the name of his son.... But the cries remained unanswered. Up the steps of the New Tower of Babel there crept a man. It seldom happened in the great Metropolis, Joh Fredersen's time-saving city, that anyone used the stairs. They were reserved in case of all the lifts and the Pater-noster being overcrowded, of the cessation of all means of transit, of the outbreak of fire and similar accidents-improbable occurrences in this. perfect settlement of human beings. But the improbable had happened. Piled up, one above the other, the lifts, which came hurtling. down, blocked up their shafts, and the .cells of the Pater-noster seemed to have been bent and charred by a hellish heat, smouldering up from the depths, Up the stairs of the New Tower of Babel did Josaphat drag himself. He had learnt to swear in that qu~ter of an hour, even as Grot used to swear, and he made full use of his newly acquired art. He roared at the pain which racked his limbs. He spat out an excess of hatred and contempt at the agony in his knees. Wild and ingenious were the execrations which he hurled at every landing, every new bend in the staircase. But he conquered them all-one hundred and six flights of stairs, each consisting of thirty steps, He reached the semicircle where the lifts had their opening. In the comers before the door to Joh Fredersen's rooms there crouched knots of human beings, pressed together by the common pressure of a terrible fear. They turned their heads to stare at the man who was crawling up the stairs, dragging himself up by aid of the walls. His wild eyes swept over them. 0'0
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