Freder dropped his head into his hands. He rocked it to and fro as if in pain. He moaned softly. He was about to speak; but before he could speak a sound ripped the air, which sounded as though the earth were bursting to pieces. For a moment, everything in the white room seemed to hover in space, a foot above the ground—even Moloch and Baal and Huitzilopochtli and Durgha, even the hammer of Asa Thor and the Towers of Silence. The crosses of Golgotha, from the ends of the beams of which long, white crackling sprigs of sparks were blazing, fell together and then straightened up again. Then everything crashed back into its place with furious emphasis. Then all the lights went out. And from the depths and distance the city howled.
“Father—!” shouted Freder.
“Yes.—Here I am.—What do you want?”
“... I want you to put an end to this nightmare—!”
“Now?—now—!”
“But I don’t want any more people to suffer—! You must help them—you must save them, father—!”
“You must save them. Now—immediately!”
“Now? no!”
“Then,” said Freder, pushing his fists out far before him, as if pushing something away from him, “then I must seek out the man who can help me—even if he is your enemy and mine.”
“Do you mean Rotwang?”