He did not hear the shuffling with which the multitude near him, far around him, threw itself on its knees. He did not hear the weeping of the women, the panting of the men, nor prayer, nor thanks, nor groans, nor praises.
Only his eyes remained alive. His eyes which seemed to be lidless, clung to the roof of the cathedral.
Maria had reached the white bundle, which lay, crumpled up in the corner, between the spire and the roof. She slid along to it on her knees, stretching her hands out towards it, blinded with misery:
“Freder.... Freder....”
With a savage snarl, like the snarl of a beast of pray, Rotwang clutched at her. She struggled amid screams. He held her lips closed. With an expression of despairing incomprehension he stared into the girl’s tear-wet face.
“Hel ... my Hel ... why do you struggle against me?” He held her in his ironlike arms, as prey which, now, nothing and no one could tear away from him. Close to the spire a ladder led upwards to the cathedral coping. With the bestial snarl of one unjustly pursued he climbed up the ladder, dragging the girl with him, in his arms.
This was the sight which met Freder’s eyes when he opened them and tore himself free from the half-unconscious state he was in. He pushed himself up and flung himself across to the ladder. He climbed up the ladder almost at a run, with the blindly certain speed born of fear for his beloved. He reached Rotwang, who let Maria fall. She fell. She fell, but in falling she saved herself, pulling herself up and reaching the golden sickle of the moon on which rested the star-crowned Virgin. She stretched out her hand to clutch at Freder. But at the same moment Rotwang threw himself down upon the man who was standing below him, and clasped tightly together, they rolled along, down the roof of the cathedral, rebounding violently against the narrow railing of the gallery.
The yell of fear from the multitude came shrieking up from the depths. Neither Rotwang nor Freder heard it. With a terrible oath Rotwang gathered himself up. He saw above him, sharp against the blue of the sky, the gargoyle of a water-spout. It grinned in his face. The long tongue leered mockingly at him. He drew himself up and struck, with clenched fist, at the grinning gargoyle....
The gargoyle broke....
In the weight of the blow he lost his balance—and fell—and saved himself, hanging with one hand to the Gothic ornamentation of the cathedral.