He turned around to wend his way to the New Tower of Babel. He set off with the obstinacy of one possessed, with screwed up lips, sharp lines between the eyebrows, clenched fists on his weak, dangling arms. He set off as though he wanted to pound the stone beneath his feet. It seemed as though every drop of blood in his face had collected in his eyes alone. He ran, and, on the interminable way, at every step, he had the feeling: I am not he who is running.... I am running, a spirit, by the side of my own self.... I, the spirit, am forcing my body to run onwards, although it is tired to death....
Those who stared at him when he arrived at the New Tower of Babel seemed to be seeing, not him, but a spirit....
He was about to enter the Pater-noster, which was pumping its way, a scoop-wheel for human beings, through the New Tower of Babel. But a sudden shudder pushed him away from it. Did there not crouch below, deep, deep, down, under the sole of the New Tower of Babel, a little, gleaming machine, which was like Ganesha, the god with the elephant’s head? Under the crouching body, and the head, which was sunken on the chest, crooked legs rested, gnome-like, upon the platform. The trunk and legs were motionless. But the short arms pushed and pushed and pushed, alternately, forwards, backwards, forwards.
Who was standing before the machine now, cursing the Lord’s Prayer—the Lord’s Prayer of the Pater-noster machine?
Shivering with horror, he ran up the stairs.
Stairs and stairs and stairs.... They would never come to an end.... The brow of the New Tower of Babel lifted itself very near to the sky. The tower roared like the sea. It howled as deep as the storm. The hurtling of a water-fall boomed in its veins.
“Where is my father?” Freder asked the servants.
They indicated a door. They wanted to announce him. He shook his head. He wondered: Why were these people looking so strangely at him?
He opened a door. The room was empty. On the other side, a second door, ajar. Voices behind it. The voice of his father and that of another....
Freder suddenly stood still. His feet seemed to be nailed to the floor. The upper part of his body was bent stiffly forwards. His fists dangled on helpless arms, seeming no longer capable of freeing themselves from their own clench. He listened; the eyes in his white face were filled with blood, the lips were open as though forming a cry.