Babel Alternate Ending

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 paternoster, which was
He threw his hands forward. Ah! There was a throat! He seized the throat. His fingers snapped fast like iron fangs.
“Why don't you defend yourself?” Freder yelled, staring at the man. “I'll kill you! I'll take your life! I'll murder you!”
But the man before him held his ground while Freder throttled him. Thrown this way and that by Freder's fury, the body bent, now to the right, now to the left. And as often as this happened Freder saw, as through a transparent mist, the smiling countenance of Maria, who, leaning against the table, was looking on with her sea water eyes at the fight between father and son.
His father's voice said, “Freder.”
Freder looked the man in the face. He saw his father. He saw hands clawing around his father's throat. They were his, the hands of the son.
His hands fell loose, as though cut off. He stared at his hands, stammering something which sounded half like an oath, half like the weeping of a child that believes itself to be alone in the
He stretched out his arms. His head fell forward into his father's hands. He burst into tears, into despairing sobs.
A door slid to.
He flung his head around. He sprang to his feet. His eyes swept the room.
“Where is she?” he asked.
“Who?”
“She!”
“Nobody was here, Freder.”
The boy's eyes glazed. “What did you say?” he stammered.
“There has not been a soul here, Freder, but you and I.”
Freder twisted his head around stiffly. He tugged the shirt from his throat. He looked into his father's eyes as though looking into deep well shafts.
“You say there was not a soul here. I did not see you when you were holding Maria in your arms? I have been dreaming. I am mad, aren't I?”
“I give you my word,” said Joh Fredersen, “when you came to me there was neither a woman nor any other living soul here.”
Freder remained silent. His bewildered eyes searched along the walls.
“You are ill, Freder,” said his father's voice.
Freder smiled. Then he began to laugh. He threw himself into a chair and laughed. He bent down, resting both elbows upon his knees, burrowing his head between his hands and arms. He rocked himself back and forth, shrieking with laughter.
Joh Fredersen's eyes were upon