“Because he denied his humanity before the machine.”
Freder raised his head and his deeply troubled eyes.
“I cannot follow you now, father,” he said, as if in pain.
The expression of patience on Joh Fredersen’s face deepened.
“The man,” he said quietly, “was my first secretary! The salary he drew was eight times as large as that of the last. That was synonymous with the obligation to perform eight times as much. To me. Not to himself. To-morrow the fifth secretary will be in his place. In a week he will have rendered four of the others superfluous. I have use for that man.”
“Because he saves four others.”
“No, Freder. Because he takes delight in the work of four others. Because he throws himself entirely into his work—throws himself as desiringly as if it were a woman.”
Freder was silent. Joh Fredersen looked at his son. He looked at him carefully.
“You have had some experience?” he asked.
The eyes of the boy, beautiful and sad, slipped past him, out into space. Wild, white light frothed against the windows, and, in going out, left the sky behind, as a black velvet cloth over Metropolis.