Time at the studio increases. Some nights I go home at four and return at six. We work as long as our energy holds. Every midnight, Mayer and I repair to the projection room to run the day’s footage and marvel at what we’ve done. Two projectionists divide the work between them. There we sit, hour after hour, studying the images. How best to use them and improve their effect? Late into the night, we muse aloud: If we took the last of number 3 and the first of number 6 … Hours spent organizing these new miracles of movement. And then I’m driven home, the car floating past darkened houses where everyone is asleep. I close my eyes in my bedroom, still uncertain whether the last temporary decision was the right one.

Throughout all of this I come to understand that the horrible days of exhaustion and powerlessness may be part of my work method.

I lie in bed, unable to sleep: happy, happy, happy. Sandri agitated by my new emotional state.

What I see in advance is the beauty of the entire film coming together.

The rainstorm of the opening sequence. Surfaces streaming with rain and light as the camera plays along them.

The view through the lift-window as it descends, and the camera’s ride through the lobby.

The noise of the horn reaching the doorman’s ears: the sound moving visually from the horn’s mouth to Jannings, three stories above.

His Exposure. The Maliciousness of the Hens—of the Beehive. The Glee of the Secret Revealed. The Truth spread like a contagion. The camera swinging from balcony to balcony, from mouth to ear. Humiliation. Ruin. The superimposition of overlapping mouths.

And the newest footage: Jannings in the lavatory’s darkness, caught by the night watchman’s torch. The camera’s kindness, as it too moves to stroke the crown of his head.

Terror at home. Sandri inexplicably terrified and enraged at the sight of Mayer.

I try not to shout. Sandri seems to fear for his life. He upends furniture to keep me back. He barricades himself into Frau Reger’s room, and resists efforts to push open the door.

Mortified, I apologize to Mayer and arrange to have us driven back to the studio. Mayer is silent all the way back. I’m stomachsick with fear.

At the studio, all is quiet. Mayer heads off to his workspace.

In my office, the telephone’s ringing off the hook. When I answer, it’s the police. Sandri has run amok. He’s bludgeoned Frau Reger and pitched her body into the street. The police have the house cordoned off and surrounded.

The house is stormed. They find him in my bedroom. He fractures one policeman’s skull before he’s shot to death.