During Frederen's visit to the laboratory of Rotwang (whose name in German means "red cheeks"), the reader learns (pretty much as in the film) that the two middle-aged men once contended over a woman named Hel. It's broadly implied that she first belonged to Rotwang, only to be lured away by Joh Fredersen. Hel bore Fredersen's child and apparently died in childbirth, intimating that Freder was raised without a mother-- which might explain why he has such an ardent fixation on a Madonna-like image of a "virgin-mother," to use his own term. This also suggests that Maria, who is said to possess "Madonna-eyes," is also a mother-substitute.
Though Fredersen and Rotwang share an old enmity, they continue to collaborate, Rotwang perhaps serving as a court sorcerer to the tyrannical Metropolis Master. Fredersen has learned that the rebellious workers show allegiance to the strange woman named Maria, and he wants to quash her influence. Rotwang just happens to have devised a prototypical female android, sometimes called "Futura," and he plans to make it look and act like a parody of Maria.
Freder, finishing the shift he took over from Georgi, is informed that the workers plan to assemble to listen to Maria, so of course he attends. Maria is, as it happens, counseling the workers to pursue the path of peace and not revolt. (Both Fredersen and Rotwang also attend this meeting in secret, but Fredersen evidently does not think of using Maria to tamp down the rebel movement, but instead commands Rotwang to continue with the plan with Futura.) Freder pledges love to Maria, and as one might expect it's a very sanitized romantic moment, though Freder does indulge in a bit of stormy sentimentality. They part, planning to meet again at the cathedral, and Rotwang kidnaps Maria.
Freder shows up at the cathedral-- where he somehow knows that Hel, the mother he never met, uses to attend--but Maria isn't there. Freder sees statues representing the Seven Deadly Sins (also in the film), and a priest who hates his father asks him to leave. He wanders the city and just happens across the old house where Rotwang maintains his library. He hears Maria calling to him, albeit with ambiguous phrases, so he breaks in . Rotwang merely moves Maria to one of the house's many rooms and lets Freder exhaust himself running around the house, whereon Freder collapses. The only major difference between book and film is that in the film, Freder hears a priest at the cathedral lecturing about the "Scarlet Woman" from Revelations. This was Lang re-purposing some lines of internal dialogue in Freder's head later, where Freder thinks about the so-called "whore of Babylon" when he thinks he's been betrayed.
In the book Rotwang, who didn't know Freder was coming, claims that he wants to emotionally torment Maria so that he can make Futura's head more closely resemble that of the original. (That, and Rotwang also just wants to torment the son of his unfaithful lover Hel as a way of getting back at Fredersen.) Rotwang taunts Maria, claiming that she's naive to assume that Freder has not had other women before her (though the book affirms that he has not), but Maria does not respond. That scene ends with the statement that Rotwang has not yet finished the head of the false Maria. Later, Freder awakens and happens to see Fake Maria leaving, but though he follows her, he's not able to catch up with her. The book does not include any extended scene in which the mad scientist uses advanced technology to morph Future's countenance into that of Maria. In all likelihood, Von Harbou only intended to suggest that Rotwang worked on the robot's head just like a puppet-maker would. Lang, in setting up the film's action with Von Harbou, was probably the one who knew best what visual effects he could use to make Futura's transformation more startling, and so he was dominantly responsible for that content in the 1927 movie.
Also in the film, Lang does not have Freder spy the departing Futura and try to follow her. Rather, Rotwang appears before Freder and tells him that Maria "is with your father," knowing that the young man will come to the wrong conclusion. .
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