“He has not gone home, and none of our men has seen him....”
Joh Fredersen screwed up his mouth.
“Look for him!” he said hoarsely. “What are you all here for? Look for him!”
He entered the brain-pan of the New Tower of Babel. His first glance fell upon the clock. He stepped to the table and stretched out his hand to the little blue metal plate.
CHAPTER V
The man before the machine which was like Ganesha, the god with the elephant’s head, was no longer a human being. Merely a dripping piece of exhaustion, from the pores of which the last powers of volition were oozing out in large drops of sweat. Running eyes no longer saw the manometer. The hand did not hold the lever—it clawed it fast in the last hold which saved the mangled man-creature before it from falling into the crushing arms of the machine.
The Pater-noster works of the New Tower of Babel turned their buckets with an easy smoothness. The eye of the little machine smiled softly and maliciously at the man who stood before it and who was now no more than a babel.
“Father!” babbled the son of Joh Fredersen, “to-day, for the first time, since Metropolis stood, you have forgotten to let your city and your great machines roar punctually for fresh food.... Has Metropolis gone dumb, father? Look at us! Look at your machines! Your god-machines turn sick at the chewed-up cuds in their mouths—at the mangled food that we are.... Why do you strangle its voice to death? Will ten hours never, never come to an end? Our Father, which art in heaven—!”
But in this moment Joh Fredersen’s fingers were pressing the little blue metal plate and the voice of the great Metropolis.
“Thank you, father!” said the mangled soul before the machine, which was like Ganesha. He smiled. He tasted a salty taste on his lips and did not know if it was from blood, sweat or tears. From out a red mist of long-flamed, drawn-out clouds, fresh men shuffled on towards him. His hand slipped from the lever and he collapsed. Arms pulled him up and led him away. He turned his head aside to hide his face.