ATLANTIS

 A novel by Gerhart Hauptmann

 Translated by Adele and Thomas Seltzer

NEW YORKB. W. HUEBSCH1912

Copyright 1912 byS. FISCHER, VERLAG, BERLIN

Copyright 1912 byB. W. HUEBSCH

_All rights reserved_

PRINTED IN U. S. A. 

ATLANTIS

PART I

I

The German fast mail steamer, _Roland_, one of the older vessels of theNorth German Steamship Company, plying between Bremen and New York, leftBremen on the twenty-third of January, 1892. 

It had been built in English yards with none of those profuse, gorgeousgold decorations in a riotous rococo style which are so unpleasant in thesaloons and cabins of ships more recently built in German yards. 

The crew of the vessel included the captain, four officers, two engineersof the first rank, assistant engineers, firemen, coal-passers, oilers, apurser, the head-steward and the second steward, the chef, the secondcook, and a doctor. In addition to these men with their assistants, towhom the well-being of that tremendous floating household was entrusted, there were, of course, a number of sailors, stewards, stewardesses, workers in the kitchen, and so on, besides two cabin-boys and a nurse. There was also an officer in charge of the mail on board. The vessel wascarrying only a hundred cabin passengers from Bremen; but in the steeragethere were four hundred human beings. 

Frederick von Kammacher, to whom, the day before, the _Roland_ had beennon-existent, telegraphed from Paris to have a cabin on it reserved forhim. Haste was imperative. After receiving notification from the companythat the cabin was being held, he had only an hour and a half in which tocatch the express that would bring him to Havre at about twelve o'clock. From Havre he crossed to Southampton, spending the night in a bunk inone of those wretched saloons in which a number of persons are herdedtogether. But he managed to sleep the whole time, and the crossing wentwithout incident. 

At dawn he was on deck watching England's ghostly coast-line draw nearerand nearer, until finally the steamer entered the port of Southampton, where he was to await the _Roland_. 

At the steamship office, he was told that the _Roland_ would scarcelymake Southampton before evening, and at seven o'clock a tender would beat the pier to convey the passengers to the ship as soon as it wassighted. That meant twelve idle hours in a dreary foreign town, with thethermometer at ten degrees below freezing-point. Frederick decided totake a room in a hotel, and, if possible, pass some of the time in sleep. 

In a shop window he saw a display of cigarettes of the brand of SimonArzt of Port Said. He entered the shop, which a maid was sweeping, andbought several hundred. It was an act dictated by sentiment rather thanby a desire for enjoyment. The cigarettes of Simon Arzt of Port Said wereexcellent, the best he had ever smoked; but the significance they hadacquired for him was not due to any intrinsic virtue of theirs. 

He carried an alligator portfolio in his waistcoat pocket. In thatportfolio, among other things, was a letter he had received the very dayhe left Paris:

 * * * * *

Dear Frederick, It's no use. I left the sanatorium in the Harz and returned to myparents' home a lost man. That cursed winter in the Heuscheuer Mountains!After a stay in tropical countries, I should not have thrown myself intothe fangs of such a winter. Of course, the worst thing was mypredecessor's fur coat. To my predecessor's fur coat I owe my sweet fate. May the devil in hell take special delight in burning it. I need scarcelytell you that I gave myself copious injections of tuberculin and spata considerable number of bacilli. But enough remained behind to provideme with a speedy _exitus letalis_. 

Now for the essential. I must settle my bequests. I find I owe you threethousand marks. You made it possible for me to complete my medicalstudies. To be sure, they have failed me miserably. But that, of course, you cannot help, and, curiously enough, now that all's lost, the thingthat most bothers me is the horrid thought that I cannot repay you. 

My father, you know, is principal of a public school and actually managedto save some money. But he has five children beside myself, all of whomare unprovided for. He looked upon me as his capital which would bringmore than the usual rate of interest. Being a practical man, he nowrealises he has lost both principal and interest. 

In brief, he is afraid of responsibilities which unfortunately I cannotshoulder in the better world to come--faugh, faugh, faugh!--I spit threetimes. What shall I do? Would you be able to forego the payment of mydebt?

Several times, old boy, I have been two thirds of the way over already, and I have left for you some notes on the states I have passed through, which may not be lacking in scientific interest. Should it be possiblefor me, after the great moment, to make myself noticeable from theBeyond, you will hear from me again. 

Where are you? Good-bye. In the vivid, flashing orgies of my nocturnaldreams, you are always tossing in a ship on the high seas. Do you intendto go on an ocean trip?

It is January. Isn't there a certain advantage in not needing to dreadApril weather any longer? I shake hands with you, Frederick vonKammacher. 

Yours, George Rasmussen. 

 * * * * *

Frederick, of course, had immediately sent a telegram from Paris, whichrelieved the son, dying a heroic death, from solicitude for his halefather. 

Though Frederick von Kammacher had profound troubles of his own to occupyhis mind, his thoughts kept recurring to the letter in his pocket and hisdying friend. To an imaginative person of thirty, his life of the pastfew years is in an eminent degree present to his mind. There had been atragic turn in Frederick's own life, and now tragedy had also entered hisfriend's life, a tragedy far more awful. 

The two young men had been separated for a number of years. They had metagain and passed a number of happy weeks together, enriched by a liberalexchange of ideas. Those weeks were the beginning of similar epochs inthe career of each. It was at little winter festivities in Frederick vonKammacher's comfortable home that the cigarettes of Simon Arzt of PortSaid, which Rasmussen had brought from the place of their manufacture, had played their rôle. 

Now, in the reading-room of Hofmann's Hotel, near the harbour, he wrotehim a letter. 

 * * * * *

Dear old George, My fingers are clammy. I am constantly dipping a broken pen in mouldyink; but if I don't write to you now, you won't get any news of me forthree weeks. This evening I board the _Roland_ of the North GermanSteamship Company. 

There seems to be something in your dreams. Nobody could have told youof my trip. Two hours before I started, I myself knew nothing of it. 

Day after to-morrow it will be a year since you came to us direct fromBremen, after your second journey, with a trunk full of stories, photographs, and the cigarettes of Simon Arzt. I had scarcely set foot inEngland when twenty paces from the landing-place, I beheld our belovedbrand in a shop window. Of course, I bought some, by wholesale, in fact, and am smoking one while writing, for the sake of auld lang syne. Unfortunately, this horrible reading-room in which I am writing doesn'tget any the warmer, no matter how many cigarettes I light. 

You were with us two weeks when fate came and knocked at the door. Weboth rushed to the door and caught a cold, it seems. As for me, I havesold my house, given up my practice, and put my three children in aboarding school. And as for my wife, you know what has befallen her. 

The devil! Sometimes it makes one creepy to think of the past. To both ofus it seemed a splendid thing for you to take over our sick colleague'spractice. I can see you dashing about to visit your patients in hissleigh and fur coat. And when he died, I had not the slightest objectionto your settling down as a country physician in the immediate vicinity, although we had always poked a lot of fun at a country physician'sstarvation practice. 

Now things have turned out very differently. 

Do you remember with what an endless number of monotonous jokes thegoldfinches that fairly overran the Heuscheuer Mountains used to furnishus? When we approached a bare bush or tree, it would suddenly sway to andfro and scatter gold leaves. We interpreted that as meaning mountains ofgold. In the evening we dined on goldfinches, because the hunters whowent out on Sundays sold them in great quantities and my tippling cookcooked them deliciously. At that time you swore you would not remain aphysician. You were not to live from the pockets of poor patients; theState was to salary you and put at your disposal a huge store ofprovisions, so that you could supply your impoverished patients withflour, wine, meat and necessities. And now, in token of its gratitude, the evil demon of the medical guild has dealt you this blow. But you mustget well again. 

I am off for America. When we see each other again, you will learn why. I can be of no use to my wife. With Binswanger, she is in excellenthands. Three weeks ago, when I visited her, she did not even recogniseme. 

I have finished forever with my profession and my medical andbacteriological studies. I have had ill luck, you know. My scientificreputation has been torn to shreds. They say it was fuzz instead of theexciting organism of anthrax that I examined in a dye and wrote about. Perhaps, but I don't think so. At any rate, the thing is a matter ofindifference to me. 

Sometimes I am thoroughly disgusted with the clownish tricks the worldplays upon us, and I feel an approach to English spleen. Nearly the wholeworld, or, at least Europe, has turned into a cold dish on a stationlunch-counter, and I have no appetite for it. 

 * * * * *

He wound up with cordial lines to his dying friend, and handed the letterto a German porter to mail. 

In his room, the temperature was icy, the window-panes frozen over. Without undressing he lay down in one of two vast, chilly beds. 

At best, the frame of mind of a traveller with a night's journey behindhim and an ocean crossing ahead of him, is not enviable. Frederick'scondition was aggravated by a whirl of painful, partially warringrecollections, which crowded into his mind, jostling and pushing oneanother aside in a ceaseless chase. For the sake of storing up strengthfor the events to come, he would gladly have gone to sleep, but as he laythere, whether with open or closed eyes, he saw past events with vividclearness. 

The young man's career from his twentieth to his thirtieth year had notdeparted from the conventional lines of his class. Ambition and greataptitude in his specialty had won him the protection of eminentscientists. He had been Professor Koch's assistant, and, without arupture of their friendly relations, had also studied several semestersunder Koch's opponent, Pettenkofer, in Munich. When he went to Rome forthe purpose of investigating malaria, he met Mrs. Thorn and her daughter, who later became his wife and whose mind was now deranged. Angèle Thornbrought him a considerable addition to his own small fortune. Thedelicacy of her constitution caused him, eventually, to move with her andthe three children that had come to them to a healthy mountain district;but the change did not interfere with his scientific work or professionalconnections. 

Thus it was that in Munich, Berlin, and other scientific centres, he hadbeen considered one of the most competent bacteriologists, a man whosecareer had passed the stage of the problematical. The worst againsthim--and that only in the opinion of the cut-and-dried among hisfellow-scientists, who shook their heads doubtfully--had been a certainbelletristic tendency. Now, however, that his abortive work had appearedand he had suffered his great defeat, all serious scientists said it wasthe cultivation of side interests that had weakened his strength and ledthe promising young intellect along the path of self-destruction. 

In his icy room in the English hotel, Frederick meditated on his past. 

"I see three threads which the Parcæ have woven into my life. Thesnapping of the thread that represents my scientific career leaves meutterly indifferent. The bloody tearing of the other thread"--he had inmind his love for his wife--"makes the first event insignificant. Buteven though I should still hold a place among the most hopeful of theyounger generation of scientists, the third thread, which is still whole, which pierces my soul like a live wire, would have nullified my ambitionsand all my endeavours in science. "

The third thread was a passion. 

Frederick von Kammacher had gone to Paris to rid himself of this passion;but the object of it, the sixteen-year-old daughter of a Swedish teacherof stage dancing, held him in bondage against his will. His love hadturned into a disease, which had reached an acute stage, probably becausethe gloomy events of so recent occurrence had induced in him a state inwhich men are peculiarly susceptible to love's poison. 

It was a friend of his, a physician, who had introduced him in Berlin tothe girl and her father, and who later, when sufficiently acquainted withFrederick's secret, raging love, had to take it upon himself to informthe enamoured man of every change in the couple's address. 

Doctor von Kammacher's scanty luggage did not indicate carefulpreparation for a long trip. In a fit of desperation, or, rather, in anoutburst of passion, he had made the hasty decision to catch the _Roland_at Southampton when he learned that the Swede and his daughter hadembarked on it at Bremen on the twenty-third of January. 

II

After lying in bed about an hour, Frederick arose, knocked a holein the ice crust in the pitcher, washed himself, and in a fever ofrestlessness descended again to the lower rooms of the little hotel. In the reading-room sat a pretty young Englishwoman and a German Jewishmerchant, not so pretty and not so young. The dreariness of waitingproduced sociability. Frederick and the German entered into aconversation. The German informed Frederick that he had lived in theUnited States and was returning by the _Roland_. 

The air was grey, the room cold, the young lady impatiently paced upand down in front of the fireplace, where there was no fire, and theconversation of the new acquaintances dwindled into monosyllables. 

The condition of the unhappy lover, as a rule, is concealed from thepersons he meets, or unintelligible to them. In either case it isridiculous. A man in love is alternately transported and tormented bybrilliant and gloomy illusions. In spite of the cold, cutting wind, theyoung fool of love was driven restlessly out to roam the streets andalleys of the port. He thought of what an embarrassing position he hadbeen in when the Jewish merchant had insinuatingly inquired for thepurpose of his journey. In his effort not to reveal the secret motive ofhis ocean crossing, Frederick had stammered and stuttered and given somesort of a vague reply. He decided that from now on, in answer tointrusive questioners, he would say he was going to America to seeNiagara Falls, Yellowstone Park, and visit an old collegemate of his, also a physician. 

During the silent meal in the hotel, the news came that the _Roland_probably would reach the Needles at five o'clock, two hours earlier thanwas expected. Frederick took his coffee and smoked some Simon Arztcigarettes with the German, who at the same time tried to do somebusiness in his trade, which was ready-made clothing. The two men, carrying their luggage, then went to the tender together. 

Here they had an uncomfortable hour's wait, while the low smoke-stackbelched black vapours into the dirty drab mist that lay oppressivelyupon everything about the harbour. From time to time the sound of theshovelling of coal arose from the engine-room. One at a time five or sixpassengers came on board, porters carrying their luggage. The saloon wasnothing more than a glass case on deck, inside of which, below thewindows, a bench upholstered in red plush ran around the sides. Atirregular intervals the bench was heaped with disorderly piles ofluggage. 

Everybody was taciturn. No one felt reposeful enough to settle in any oneplace for a length of time. What conversation there was, was conducted ina subdued, frightened sort of whisper. Three young ladies, one of whomwas the Englishwoman of the reading-room, unwearyingly paced up and downthe full length of the saloon. Their faces were unnaturally pale. 

"This is the eighteenth time I have made the round trip, " suddenlydeclared the clothing manufacturer, unsolicited. 

"Do you suffer from seasickness?" somebody asked in reply. 

"I scarcely set foot on the steamer when I turn into a corpse. Thathappens each time. I don't come back to life until shortly before wereach Hoboken or, at the other end, Bremerhaven or Cuxhaven. "

Finally, after a long, apparently vain wait, something seemed to bepreparing in the bowels of the tender and at the wheel. The three ladiesembraced and kissed, and an abundance of tears were shed. The prettiestone, the lady of the reading-room, remained on the tender; the othersreturned to the pier. 

Still the little boat refused to move. Finally, however, at nightfall, amid pitch-black darkness, the hawsers were loosened from the iron ringsof the dock, a piercing whistle burst from the tender, and the screwbegan to churn the water slowly, as if merely to test itself. 

At the last moment three telegrams were handed to Frederick, one from hisold parents and his brother, who wished him a happy voyage, one from hisbanker, and one from his attorney. 

Though Frederick had left neither friend nor relative nor even anacquaintance on the quay, yet, the instant he perceived the tender inmotion, a storm assailed him, whether a storm of woe, misery, despair, ora storm of hope in endless happiness, he could not tell. All he felt wasthat something burst convulsively from his breast and throat, and seethedup, boiling hot, into his eyes. 

The lives of unusual men from decade to decade, it seems, enter dangerouscrises, in which one of two things takes place; either the morbid matterthat has been accumulating is thrown off, or the organism succumbs toit in actual material death, or in spiritual death. One of the mostimportant and, to the observer, most remarkable of these crises occursin the early thirties or forties, rarely before thirty; in fact, morefrequently not until thirty-five and later. It is the great trial balanceof life, which one would rather defer as long as is expedient than makeprematurely. 

It was in such a crisis that Goethe went on his Italian journey, thatLuther nailed his ninety-five theses to the church door in Wittenberg, that Ignatius Loyola hung his weapons in front of an image of the Virgin, never to take them down again, and that Jesus was nailed to the cross. Asfor the young physician, Frederick von Kammacher, he was neither a Goethenor a Luther nor a Loyola; but he was akin to them not only in culture, but also in many a trait of genius. 

It is impossible to express in words the extent in which his wholeprevious existence passed in review before Frederick's mental vision asthe little tender sped beyond the harbour lights of Southampton, carryinghim away from Europe and his home. He seemed to be parting with a wholecontinent in his soul, upon which he would never set foot again. It was afarewell forever. No wonder if in that moment his whole being was shakenand could not regain its balance. 

Loyola had not been a good soldier. Else, how could he have discarded hisarms? Luther had not been a good Dominican. Else, how could he havediscarded his monk's robes? Goethe had not been a good barrister orbureaucrat. A mighty, irresistible wave had swept over those three menand also, for all the disparity between them, over Frederick vonKammacher, washing the uniform away from their souls. 

Frederick was not one of those who enter this crisis unconsciously. Hehad been feeling its approach for years, and it was characteristic of himthat he reflected upon its nature. Sometimes he was of the opinion thatit marked the termination of youth and the beginning, therefore, of realmaturity. It seemed to him as if hitherto he had worked with otherpeople's hands, according to other people's will, guided rather thanguiding. His thinking appeared to him to have been no thinking, but anoperating with transmitted ideas. He put it to himself that he had beenstanding in a hothouse, and his head, like the top of a young treereaching upward to the light, had broken through the glass roof and madeits way into the open. 

"Now I will walk with my own feet, look with my own eyes, think my ownthoughts, and act from the plenary power of my own will. "

In his valise, Frederick carried Stirner's "The Individual and his Own. "

Man living in society is never wholly independent. There is no intellectthat does not look about for other intellects, if for no other objectthan to seek confirmation, that is, reinforcement or guidance, at allevents, companionship. That Frederick von Kammacher's new intellectualcompanion was Max Stirner, was the result of a profound disillusionment. He had been disillusioned in his deep-seated altruism, which until nowhad completely dominated him. 

III

Dense darkness closed in around the tender. The lights of the harbourdisappeared completely, and the little cockle-shell with the glasspavilion began to roll considerably. The wind whistled and howled. Sometimes it blew so hard that it seemed to be bringing the tender to astandstill. The screw actually did rise out of the water. Suddenly thewhistle screeched several times, and again the steamer made its waythrough the darkness. 

The rattling of the windows, the quivering of the ship's body, thegurgling whirr-whirr of the propeller, the whistling, squalling andhowling of the wind, which laid the vessel on her side, all this combinedto produce extreme discomfort in the travellers. Again and again, as ifuncertain what course to pursue, the boat stopped and emitted its shrillwhistle, which was so stifled in the wild commotion of the waters that itseemed nothing but the helpless breathing of a hoarse throat--stoppedand went backwards--stopped and went forwards, until again it came to anuncertain halt, twisting and turning in the whirling waters, carriedaloft, plunged down, apparently lost and submerged in the darkness. 

To be exposed to impressions of this sort for only an hour and a half isenough gradually to reduce a traveller's nerves to a state of torture. The proximity of that awful element the surface of which marks the limitsof the one element in which man is capable of living, forces upon themind thoughts of death and destruction; all the more so since the water'stricks seem so incalculable to the landman that he sees danger wherethere actually is none. Another thing hard for the man accustomed tounhampered movement to bear is the close confinement. All at once heloses his illusion of freedom of will. Activity, the thing that in theeyes of the European endows life with its sublimest charm, cannot inthe twinkling of an eye turn into absolute passivity. Nevertheless, despite these novel, distressing experiences, despite throbbing pulses, over-stimulated senses, and nerves tautened to the snapping point, thesituation is by no means lacking in fascination. 

Thus, Frederick von Kammacher felt a flush of exaltation. Life wasstraining him to her breast more closely, wildly, passionately than shehad for a long time. 

"Either life has again become the one tremendous adventure, or life isnothing, " a voice within him said. 

Again the tender lay still. Suddenly it groaned, churned the water, sentout huge puffs of hissing steam, whistled as if in great fear, once, twice--Frederick counted seven times--and started off at its utmostspeed, as if to escape Satan's clutches. And now, all at once, it turned, swept into a region of light, and faced a mighty vision. 

The _Roland_ had reached the Needles and was lying tide rode. In theprotection of its vast broadside the little tender seemed to be in abrilliantly lighted harbour. The impression that the surprising presenceof the ocean greyhound made upon Frederick was in a fortissimo scale. He had always belonged to that class of men--a class which is notsmall--whose senses are open to life's varied abundance. Only on therarest occasions he found a thing commonplace or ordinary, and was neverblasé in meeting a novelty. But, after all, there are very few personswho would be dull to the impressions of an embarkation by night, outsidea harbour in the open waters. 

Never before had Frederick been inspired with equal respect for the mightof human ingenuity, for the genuine spirit of his times, as at the sightof that gigantic black wall rising from the black waters, that tremendousfaçade, with its endless rows of round port-holes streaming out lightupon a foaming field of waves protected from the wind. In comparison withthis product, this creation, this triumph of the divine intellect inman, what were undertakings like the Tower of Babel, allowing that theywere not isolated instances and had actually been completed. 

Sailors were busy letting the gangway-ladder down the flank of the_Roland_. Frederick could see that up on deck, at the point where theladder was being suspended, a rather numerous group of uniformed menhad gathered, probably to receive the new passengers. His state ofexaltation continued, even while everybody in the tender's saloon, including himself, suddenly seized with haste, grasped his or her handluggage and stood in readiness. In the presence of that improbability, that Titan of venturesomeness, that floating fairy palace, it wasimpossible to cling to the conviction that modern civilisation is allprose. The most prosaic of mortals here had forced upon him a piece offoolhardy romance compared with which the dreams of the poets lose colourand turn pale. 

While the tender, dancing coquettishly on the swelling foam, was warpingto the gangway-ladder, high overhead, on the deck of the _Roland_, theband struck up a lively, resolute march in a martial yet resigned strain, such as leads soldiers to battle--to victory or to death. An orchestralike this, of wind instruments, drums and cymbals was all that lacked toset the young physician's nerves a-quiver, as in a dance of fire andflame. 

The music ringing from aloft out into the night and descending to thelittle tender manoeuvring in the water, was designed to inspire timidsouls with courage and tide them over certain horrors attendant upon themoment. Beyond lay the infinite ocean. In the situation, one could nothelp representing it to oneself as black, gloomy, forbidding, a fearful, demoniac power, hostile to man and the works of man. 

Now, from the breast of the _Roland_, tore a cry rising higher andlouder, upward from a deep bass, a monstrous call, a roar, a thunder, of a fearfulness and strength that congealed the blood in one's heart. 

"Well, my dear friend _Roland_, " flashed through Frederick's mind, "you're a fellow that's a match for the ocean. " With that he set foot onthe gangway-ladder. He completely forgot his previous identity and thereason of his being here. 

When, to the wild tune of the brass band, he stepped from the upper rungupon the roomy deck, and stood in the garish sheen of an arc-light, hefound himself between two rows of men, the officers and some of theship's crew. It was the group of uniformed men he had noticed from below. He was astonished and delighted to behold so many confidence-inspiringmasculine figures. It was an assemblage of magnificent specimens ofmanhood, all, from the first mate down to the stewards, tall, picked men, with bold, simple, intelligent, honest features. Moved by a sense at onceof pride and of complete trust and security, Frederick said to himselfthat after all there was still a German nation left; and the singularthought flashed through his mind that God would never decide to take sucha selection of noble, faithful men and drown them in the sea like blindpuppies. 

A steward picked up his luggage and led the way to a cabin with twoberths, which he was to have to himself. Soon after, he was sitting atone end of a horseshoe-shaped table in the dining-room. The service wasexcellent, and the few passengers from the tender ate and drank; but itwas not very lively. The main dinner was over, and the little companyfrom the tender in the great, low-ceiled, empty saloon, were each tootired and too engrossed in self to talk. 

During the meal Frederick was not aware whether the mammoth body wasmoving or standing still. The faint, scarcely perceptible quiver seemedtoo slight to be a sign of the motion of so huge a mass. Frederick hadmade his first sea voyage when a lad of eighteen as the only passenger ona merchantman going from Hamburg to Naples. The thirteen years since hadconsiderably weakened the impressions of that trip. Moreover, the luxuryof this ocean liner into which he had strayed was something so new tohim, that all he could do at first was scrutinize everything inastonishment. 

When he had drunk his customary few glasses of wine, a sense of peace andcomfort stole over him. After their long irritation and tension hisnerves succumbed to a pleasant tiredness, which pressed upon him sohealthily and imperatively that he felt almost sure of a refreshingnight's sleep. He even made the firm resolution--in his conditionscarcely necessary--that for this night bygones should be bygones, thefuture the future, and the present, without regard for past or future, should belong unqualifiedly to rest and sleep. 

When he went to bed, he actually did sleep for ten hours, heavily, without stirring. At breakfast in the dining-room, he asked for thepassenger list, and with a wild leap of his heart read the names forwhich he had been looking, Eugen Hahlström and Miss Ingigerd Hahlström. 

IV

He folded up the list and glanced about. There were about fifteen totwenty men and women in the saloon, all engaged in breakfasting or givingtheir orders to the stewards. To Frederick it seemed they were there forno other purpose than to spy upon his emotions. 

The steamer had already been travelling for an hour on the ocean. Thedining-room took up the full width of the vessel, and from time to timeits port-holes were darkened by the waves dashing against them. OppositeFrederick sat a gentleman in uniform, who introduced himself as DoctorWilhelm, the ship's physician. Straightway a very lively medicaldiscussion began, though Frederick's thoughts were far away. He wasdebating with himself how he should act at his first meeting with theHahlströms. 

He tried to find support in self-deception, telling himself he hadboarded the _Roland_, not for the sake of little Ingigerd Hahlström, butbecause he wanted to see New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston, Yellowstone Park, and Niagara Falls. That is what he would tell theHahlströms--that a mere chance had brought them together on the _Roland_. 

He observed that he was gaining in poise. Sometimes, when the adorer isat a distance from the object of his devotion, the idolatry of loveassumes fateful proportions. During his stay in Paris, Frederick hadlived in a state of constant fever, and his yearning for his idol hadrisen to an unendurable degree. About the image of little IngigerdHahlström, a heavenly aureole had laid itself, so compelling in itsattraction that Frederick's mental vision was literally blinded toeverything else. That illusion had suddenly vanished. He felt ashamed ofhimself. "I'm a ridiculous fool, " he thought, and when he arose to go ondeck, he felt as if he had shaken off oppressive fetters. The salt seaair blowing vigorously across the deck heightened his sense ofemancipation and convalescence and refreshed him to his inner being. 

Men and women lay stretched out on steamer chairs with that greenexpression of profound indifference which marks the dreaded seasickness. To Frederick's astonishment, he himself felt not the least trace ofnausea, and only the sight of his fellow-passengers' misery caused him torealise that the _Roland_ was not gliding through smooth waters, but wasdistinctly pitching and rolling. 

He walked around the ladies' parlour, past the entrance of an extracabin, and took his stand under the bridge, breasting the steely, saltsea wind. On the deck below, the steerage passengers had settledthemselves as far as the bow. Though the _Roland_ was running under fullsteam, it was not making its maximum speed, prevented by the long, heavyswells that the wind raised and hurled against the bow. Across theforward lower deck there was a second bridge, probably for emergency. Frederick felt strongly tempted to stand up there on that empty bridge. 

It aroused some attention, of course, when he descended down among thesteerage passengers and then crawled up the iron rungs of the ladder tothe windy height. But that did not trouble him. All at once such a madcapspirit had come over him, he felt so happy and refreshed; as if he hadnever had to suffer dull cares, or put up with the whims of a hystericalwife, or practise medicine in a musty, out-of-the-way corner of thecountry. Never, it seemed to him, had he studied bacteriology, stillless, suffered a fiasco. Never had he been so in love as he appeared tohave been only a short time before. 

He laughed, bending his head before the gale, filled his lungs with thesalty air, and felt better and stronger. 

A burst of laughter from the steerage passengers mounted to his ears. Atthe same instant something lashed him in the face, something that he hadseen rearing, white and tremendous, before the bow. It almost blindedhim, and he felt the wet penetrate to his skin. The first wave had sweptoverboard. 

Who would not find it humiliating to have his sublime meditationsinterrupted in such a tricky, brutal way? A moment before, he felt asif to be a Viking were his real calling, and now, inwardly shaking andshivering, amid general ridicule, he crawled ignominiously down theiron ladder. 

He was wearing a round grey hat. His overcoat was padded and lined withsilk. His gloves were of dressed kid, his buttoned boots of thin leather. All these garments were now drenched with a cold, salty wash. Leaving adamp trail behind, he made his way, not exactly a glorious way, throughthe steerage passengers, who rolled with laughter. In the midst of hisannoyance Frederick heard a voice calling his name. He looked up andscarcely trusted his eyes on seeing a large fellow in whom he thought herecognised a peasant from the Heuscheuer Mountains, a peasant with anevil reputation for drunkenness and all sorts of misdeeds. 

"Wilke, is that you?"

"Yes, Doctor, I'm Wilke. "

The little town in which Frederick had practised was called Plassenbergan der Heuscheuer, that is, Plassenberg by the Heuscheuer Mountains, arange in the county of Glatz where excellent sandstone is quarried. Thepeople of the district loved Frederick both as a man and a physician. Hewas the wonder-worker who had performed a number of splendid cures and hewas the human being, without pride of caste, whose heart beat warmly forthe good of the lowliest of his fellow-men. They loved his natural waywith them, always cordial, always outspoken, and sometimes harsh. 

Wilke was bound for New England to join his brother. 

"The people in the Heuscheuer, " he said, "are mean and ungrateful. "

Shy and distrustful at home, even toward Frederick, who had treated himfor his last knife wound on his neck, his manner here, with the otherpassengers crossing the great waters, was frank and trustful. He was likea well-behaved child chattering freely. 

"You didn't get the thanks you deserved, either, Doctor von Kammacher, "he said in his broad dialect, rich in vowel sounds, and recounted anumber of cases, of which Frederick had not known, in which good had beenrepaid by evil tattle. "The people around Plassenberg are not fit for menlike you and me. Men like you and me belong in America, the land ofliberty. "

Elsewhere, Frederick would have resented being placed in the samecategory as this rowdy, for whom, he recalled, the police were searching. But here he felt no indignation. On the contrary, he was pleasantlysurprised, as if by an unexpected meeting with a good friend. 

"The world's a small place, " said Frederick, passing over the theme ofingratitude and the land of liberty, "the world's a small place. Yet I amsurprised to see you here. But I'm wet to the skin, and have to go changemy clothes. "

On his way to the cabin, on the promenade deck, he encountered the blondcaptain of the _Roland_, Von Kessel, who presented himself to Frederick. 

"The weather is not quite up to mark, " he said by way of excuse for thelittle mishap on the lower bridge. "If you enjoy standing in front there, you'd better put on one of our oilskins. "

Now that the vessel's movement was more accentuated, the cabin, in whichFrederick changed his clothes, was a problematical place of abode. Thelight came from a round port-hole of heavy glass. When the wall with theport-hole in it rose and turned inward like a slanting roof, the sunlightfrom a rift between the clouds in the sky fell upon the mahogany berthopposite. Sitting on the edge of the lower berth, Frederick tried tosteady himself, holding his head bent to keep from striking against hisupper berth, and frantically endeavouring not to follow the recedingmovement of the wall behind. The cabin was rolling in unison with thevessel's movement. Sometimes it seemed to Frederick as if the port-holewall were the ceiling, and the ceiling the right wall; then again as ifthe right wall were the ceiling, and the ceiling the port-hole wall, while the actual port-hole wall, as if inviting him to jump, shoveditself at right angles under his feet--during which the port-hole waswholly under water and the cabin in darkness. 

It is no easy matter to dress and undress in an oscillating room. Thatthe vessel's motion could have changed so markedly within the one hoursince he left the cabin, astonished Frederick. The simple operation ofdrawing off his boots and trousers, finding others in his trunk, andputting them on again became a gymnastic feat. He had to laugh, andcomparisons occurred to him, which made him laugh still more. But hislaughter was not heartfelt. Each time he received a knock, or had tojump to regain his balance, he muttered exclamations and instinctivelycontrasted all this with the comfortable waking up from sleep in his ownhouse. Groaning and labouring, he said to himself:

"My whole personality is being shaken through and through. I was mistakenwhen I supposed that I had already got my shaking up these last twoyears. I thought fate was shaking me. Now, both my fate and I are beingshaken. I thought there was tragedy in me. Now, I and my tragedy arebowling about in this creaking cage, and are being disgraced in our owneyes. 

"I have a habit of pondering over everything. I think about the beakof the ship, which buries itself in each new wave. I think about thelaughter of the steerage passengers, those poor, poor people, who, Iam sure, scarcely have a gay time of it. My sousing was a treat to them. I think of the rapscallion, Wilke, who married a humpbacked seamstress, ran through her savings, and abused her daily--and I almost embracedhim. I think of the blond Teuton, Captain von Kessel, that handsome man, somewhat too insipid-looking and too thick-set, who is our absolute lordand whom we trust at first glance. And, finally, I think about myconstant laughing and admit to myself that laughing is a sensible thingonly in the rarest circumstances. "

Frederick continued a conversation with himself in a similar strain fora while, and cast bitter, ironical reflections upon the passion that hadbrought him on this trip. He had actually been robbed of his will; and inthis condition, in that narrow cabin, surrounded by the ocean, it seemedto him as if his life, and his foolish impotence, were being held up tothe rudest ridicule. 

When Frederick went up again, there were still a number of persons ondeck. The stewards had fastened the steamer chairs to the walls, some ofthem having slipped and left the occupants, ladies and gentlemen, withthe blue marks of their fall. Refreshments were being served. It wasinteresting to see how the stewards, carrying six or eight full cups, balanced themselves over the heaving deck. 

Frederick looked about in vain for Hahlström and his daughter. 

In walking the full length of the deck several times, examining allthe passengers with the utmost care and circumspection, he noticed thepretty young Englishwoman, whom he had seen for the first time in thereading-room of the hotel in Southampton. She was wrapped in rugs andfurs and snugly settled in a spot shielded from the wind and warmed bythe two huge smoke-stacks. She was receiving the attention of a verylively young man sitting beside her. Each time Frederick passed, theyoung man scrutinised him sharply. Suddenly he jumped up, held out hishand, and introduced himself as Hans Füllenberg of Berlin. ThoughFrederick could not recall ever having met him before, the good-looking, dashing young fellow succeeded in convincing him that they had both beenpresent at a certain evening affair in Berlin. He told Frederick he wasgoing to the United States to take a position in a mining region nearPittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was a wide-awake young man and, what ismore, a Berlinese, and had great notions of his own importance. Frederick's reputation in Berlin society inspired him with tremendousrespect. Frederick responded to his advances courteously, and allowed himto recount all the latest Berlin news, as if he himself had not left theGerman capital only a week before. He realised he could depend uponFüllenberg's garrulousness for every item of interest. 

It quickly became evident that Hans Füllenberg was an amiable, giddy-headed young buck, knowing well how to deal with the ladies. WhenFrederick called his attention to the fact that the Englishwoman wascasting impatient glances toward him, visibly eager for his return, hecomplacently winked his eye as if to say:

"She won't run away. And if she does, there are plenty more. "

V

"Do you know, Doctor von Kammacher, " Füllenberg said suddenly, "thatlittle Hahlström is on board?"

"What little Hahlström do you mean?" asked Frederick coolly. 

Hans Füllenberg could not contain his surprise that Frederick should haveforgotten little Hahlström. He was sure of having seen him in theKünstlerhaus in Berlin when Ingigerd danced her dance there for the firsttime, the dance that then aroused admiration only in the artist world, but later became the sensation of all Berlin. He described the affair. 

"The pick of the Berlin artists were standing around the room and on thestairs in informal groups, leaving the centre of the floor clear. EvenMenzel and Begas were there. A special exhibition was to open soon, andthe walls were hung with a collection of Böcklin pictures. The name ofthe dance was 'Mara, or the Spider's Victim. '

"I tell you, Doctor von Kammacher, " the young man went on, "if youdidn't see that dance, you missed something. In the first place, littleIngigerd's costume was very scanty, and then her performance was reallywonderful. There are no two opinions about it. A huge artificial flowerwas set in the middle of the room, and the little thing ran up and smeltof it. She felt all about the flower with closed eyes, vibrating as ifwith the gauzy wings of a bee. Suddenly she opened her eyes and turned toa rigid statue of stone. On the flower was squatting a huge spider! Shedarted like an arrow to the farthest corner of the room. Even in thefirst part of the dance she had seemed to float without weight in theair; but the way sheer horror blew her across that room made her seemlike nothing but a vision. "

Frederick von Kammacher had seen her dance the dreadful dance, not onlyat the matinée in the Künstlerhaus, but eighteen times again. WhileFüllenberg was trying to express his impression with "great, ""tremendous, " "glorious, " and similarly strong epithets, Frederick sawthe whole dance over again with his mind's eye. He saw how the childlikebody, after cowering and trembling a while in the corner of the room, approached the flower again to the accompaniment of music played by atom-tom, a cymbal, and a flute. Something which was not pleasure drew herto it. The first time she had traced her way to the source of the perfumeby sniffing fragrance in the air. Her mouth had been open, the nostrilsof her fine little nose had quivered. Hans Füllenberg was correct in hisobservation that her eyes, as she held her head back, had been closed. The second time, she seemed to be drawn against her will by a gruesomesomething, which alternately aroused fear, horror, and curiosity. Sheheld her eyes wide open, and now and then covered them with both hands, as if in dread of seeing something hideous. 

But when she came quite close to the flower, all fear suddenly seemedto drop away from her. She hopped for joy and laughed--she had beenneedlessly alarmed. How could a fat, immobile spider squatting on aflower be dangerous to a creature with wings? This part of her dance wasso graceful, so full of droll, bubbling, childlike merriment, that theaudience laughed tears of delight. 

Now, however, a new phase of the dance began, introduced in a thoughtfulstrain. Having danced herself to satiety and intoxicated herself with theflower's perfume, Mara, with movements of agreeable fatigue, made as ifto lay herself to rest, but delayed here and there to brush from her bodysomething like the threads of a spider's web, at first serenely andpensively, then with growing disquiet, which communicated itself to theonlookers. The child paused, reflected an instant, and apparently wasabout to laugh at herself because of the fears that had arisen in hersoul; but the next minute she paled with fright, and made a dexterousleap, as if to free herself from a trap. Her blond hair tossed back inMænadic waves turned into a flaming stream. Her whole appearance evokedinvoluntary cries of admiration. 

The flight began. And now the theme of the dance was Mara's entanglementin the threads the spider wove about her, which gradually choked her todeath. No dancer has ever executed such an idea with equal skill andfidelity. 

The little creature freed her foot from the meshes, only to find her neckentwined; she clutched at the threads about her throat, only to find herhands entangled; she tore at the cobweb, she bent her body, she slippedaway; she beat with her fists, she raged, and only enmeshed herself themore tightly in the horrible skein; finally she lay fast bound. Duringthis last phase of the dance, her artist audience stood there rigid, breathless, suffocating with a sense of horror. 

It was not until nearly the end that Frederick von Kammacher felt thathis fate was forever linked with this girl. The feeling grew strongerduring the few moments that remained before the conclusion of theperformance. The poison of infatuation came from the expression of herface. He noted precisely how it forced its way into him and how his wholebeing suddenly grew sick. When little Ingigerd Hahlström once more openedher eyes with a look of abysmal dismay, and fastened them in helplessinquiry upon the spider, calmly drinking her blood away, an inner voiceseemed to command Frederick to become her compassionate knight, saviour, and protector. 

VI

Since, in Füllenberg's opinion, Frederick von Kammacher was notsufficiently interested in the dancer, Ingigerd Hahlström, he mentionedseveral other recent Berlin celebrities also on the _Roland_ on their wayto the United States. There was _Geheimrat_ Lars, a man well-known in artcircles, who often cast the deciding vote in purchases of works of art bythe government. He was going to America to visit museums, private andpublic, and study the art situation in general. There was ProfessorToussaint, an eminent sculptor, some of whose monuments had been erectedin several German cities, chiefly Berlin, works done in a wishy-washyBernini style. 

"Toussaint, " Füllenberg, who seemed to be fairly loaded with Berlingossip, explained, "needs money. He needs the money that his wife spendsand the social season in Berlin swallows up. He and his wife and hiswife's maid are all travelling free on his reputation. When he lands inNew York, he won't have enough in his pocket even to pay his hotel billfor three days. "

Füllenberg pointed out the sculptor, Toussaint. He was lying in asteamer chair, rising and falling in unison with the _Roland_. AsFrederick turned to look at him, he noticed an odd man without armsbeing led across the deck by his attendant, who grasped him by hiscollar and carefully dragged him through a small door close by intothe smoking-room. 

"That man's a vaudeville star, " Füllenberg continued with his descriptivecatalogue. "He will appear in New York with Webster and Forster. "

Some stewards came oscillating across the deck to serve the chillypassengers with bowls of hot bouillon. After Füllenberg had seen to itthat his lady was duly served, he deserted her and went with Frederick tothe smoking-room. Here, of course, loud talking and tobacco smokeprevailed. The two gentlemen lit their cigars. In one corner of the smallroom, some men were playing skat, and at several tables, German andEnglish politics were being thrashed out. The main theme of discussionwas the rivalry between America and Europe. Wilhelm, the ship's doctor, with whom Frederick had become acquainted at breakfast, came in from hismorning inspection of the steerage, and seated himself beside Frederick. 

"There are two hundred Russian Jews emigrating to the United States orCanada, " he told him, "thirty Polish families, and about the same numberof German families from the south, north, and east of Germany. Altogetherthere are nearly four hundred steerage passengers, among them five babiesat the breast and fifty children between the ages of one and fifteen. "

Doctor Wilhelm invited Frederick to accompany him the next day on histour of inspection. He was a man of not more than twenty-six. He had afair complexion and wore glasses. His manner was somewhat stiff. Eversince he had passed his examinations, two years before, he had been aphysician on a vessel. Once he had taken the trip to Japan, once to SouthAmerica, and several times to the United States. Frederick, of course, immediately thought of his dying friend, George Rasmussen, put his handin his pocket, and presented his new colleague with Simon Arztcigarettes. 

The cigarettes furnished a starting-point to tell all about GeorgeRasmussen; and when Doctor Wilhelm had learned everything about him, except his name, and then learned his name, too, the world again turnedout to be a very small place. Doctor Wilhelm was a friend of GeorgeRasmussen's. They had studied together, one semester in Bonn and onesemester in Jena, and had belonged to the same club in Jena. The last fewyears they had even corresponded. Naturally, the discovery instantlybrought the two physicians closer. 

The tone in the smoking-room was that of jolly carousals in German_Bierstuben_. The men let themselves go, talked in loud voices, and gaverein to that coarse humour and noisy gaiety in which time flies for themand which to many of them is a sort of narcotic, giving them rest andease for a while from the mad chase of existence. Neither Frederick norDoctor Wilhelm was averse to this tone, which revived old memories oftheir student days, when they had become accustomed to it. Though to theaverage student the carousals, now taboo, may be an evil, physically andintellectually, they are the time and place, nevertheless, at which thephoenix of German idealism soars up from tobacco smoke and beer frothto wing its flight to the sun. 

Hans Füllenberg soon felt bored in the company of the two physicians who, in fact, had completely forgotten him; and he slipped away, back to hislady. 

"When Germans meet, " he said to her, "they must scream and drink_Brüderschaft_ until they get tipsy. "

Doctor Wilhelm seemed to be proud of the smoking-room. 

"The captain, " he said, "is very strict about not having the gentlemendisturbed. He has given absolute orders that women under nocircumstances, not even if they smoke, are to be permitted here. "

The room had two metal doors, one on the starboard and one on the portside. The person entering or leaving had to contend violently with thewind and the motion of the vessel. The stewards had mastered the artperfectly. Shortly before eleven o'clock, Captain von Kessel appeared. It was his custom to visit the room at about this time every day. Aftergiving friendly or curt answers, as the case might be, to the usualquestions regarding the weather and the prospects for a good or badcrossing, he seated himself at the same table as the physicians. 

"A seaman was lost in you, " he said to Frederick. 

"I think you must be mistaken, " Frederick rejoined. "I have had quiteenough of a salt water sousing. I assure you, I am not longing foranother. "

A few hours before, a pilot-boat from the French coast had brought thelatest news, which the captain proceeded to recount in a calm, quietmanner. 

"A vessel of the Hamburg-American line, a twin-screw steamer, the_Nordmania_, running for only a year, had a mishap about six hundredmiles out from New York. It turned back and reached Hoboken safely. The sea was comparatively calm, but all of a sudden a waterspout aroseclose to the ship, and a great mass of water burst over the ladies'saloon, crushing through its roof and the roof of the deck below andhurling a piano down into the very hold. "

The other piece of news he told was that Schweninger was in Friedrichsruhwith Bismarck and that Bismarck's death was being expected hourly. Thoughboth Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick von Kammacher disapproved of Bismarck'sexceptional anti-Socialist law and its consequences, they were filledwith hero worship of the man, Doctor Wilhelm the more so, since the homeof his childhood stood on the edge of Sachsenwald, scarcely an hour'sride from Friedrichsruh. He was choke-full, of course, of local Bismarckanecdotes and began to reel them off. 

"Are you annoyed?" Bismarck asked his barber, when he came in one daywith his moustache twirled upward in the new fashion of the race tracks. "A moustache trimmed and twisted like that to me looks as if it wereterribly annoyed and for no reason. "

VII

The international gong had not been introduced on the _Roland_. Thetrumpeter of the band sent two blasts across the promenade deck andthrough the corridors of the first cabin as a signal for the midday meal. The first blast entered with the howling of the wind into the close, noisy, crowded smoking saloon. The attendant of the man without arms cameto conduct his master across the deck again. Frederick watched thearmless man with great interest. He seemed to be extraordinarily briskand quick-witted. He spoke English, French and German with equal fluency, and to everybody's delight parried the impertinences of a saucy youngAmerican, whose disrespectfulness did not yield even before the sacredperson of the captain; for which the dignified skipper sometimes rewardedhim by staring over his head like a lion over a yapping terrier. 

The table in the dining-room was in the form of a trident, with theclosed end at the rear and the three prongs pointing to the prow. Opposite the centre prong was a false mantel with a mirror, wherewas posted the elegant figure in blue livery of Mr. Pfundner, thehead-steward. He was a man of between forty and fifty. With his white, artificially curled hair, which gave the impression of being powdered, heresembled a major-domo of Louis XIV's time. As he stood there, headerect, looking over the swaying hall, he seemed to be the special squireof Captain von Kessel, who sat at the end of the middle prong, in thecapacity both of host and most honoured guest. Next to the captain satDoctor Wilhelm and the first mate. Frederick, having found favour in thecaptain's eyes, was assigned a place next to Doctor Wilhelm. The shipwas no longer tossing so violently, and the dining-room, in consequence, was fairly well filled. The last ones to enter were the card players ofthe smoking-room, who came storming in. At the closed end of the trident, Frederick saw Mr. Hahlström, but without his daughter. 

Many stewards very quickly and deftly served a vast quantity of dishes. Wine was also placed on the table. Within a short while the corks werepopping from champagne bottles in the vicinity of the card players. Ina gallery the band played without interruption. There were seven numberson the printed music programme, which bore the name of the vessel, thedate, and a picture of negroes in evening dress and high hats pluckingat banjos. 

VIII

Still the forward part of the vessel and, along with it, the dining-roomwith all its dishes, plates, and bottles, with its gentlemen guests andlady guests and the steward-waiters, with its fish and vegetables andmeats and drinks and brass band, were lifted high on the mountain top ofone wave and plunged deep in the trough of the next. The mighty workingof the engines quivered through the ship. The dining-room walls had tocope with the onslaught of the opposing element. 

The electric lights were turned on full. The grey of the cloudy winterday did not suffice to illuminate the room, especially since whatbrightness there was outside was every instant shut off by the watersplashing against the port-holes. 

Frederick enjoyed the daring of it--to be dining in festivity to theaccompaniment of frivolous music in the illuminated bowels of thismonster, this _Roland_. From time to time the mighty ship seemed on thepoint of encountering invincible resistance. A combination of opposingforces would rise up against the stem, producing the effect of a solidbody, a veritable mountainside. At such moments the noise of the talkingwould die down, and many pale faces would exchange glances and turn tothe captain or to the prow of the vessel. But Captain von Kessel and hisofficers were absorbed in their meal and paid no attention to thephenomenon, which for moments at a time brought the _Roland_ to aquivering standstill. They never looked up, but kept to their eating andtalking, even when, as often happened, tremendous masses of water hurledthemselves against the walls, threatening to crash through what seemedlike pitifully thin partitions for excluding that mighty, wrathfulelement, thundering and roaring with suppressed hate and fury. 

During the meal Frederick's eyes were constantly drawn to Hahlström'stall figure. Though his hair was touched with grey, he was certainlystill to be counted a handsome man. Next to him sat a man of aboutthirty-five, with a bushy beard, dark, bushy eyebrows, and dark, deep-seteyes, which sometimes darted a sharp, piercing glance at Frederick--atleast so it seemed to Frederick. The man troubled him. He noticed thatHahlström graciously permitted the stranger to entertain him and pay himcourt. 

"Do you know that tall, fair-haired man, Doctor von Kammacher?" thephysician asked. In his confusion Frederick failed to answer, lookinghelplessly at Doctor Wilhelm. "He is a Swede. His name is Hahlström, "Doctor Wilhelm continued. "A peculiar fellow. Earlier in his life he madea mess of your and my profession. He is travelling with his daughter, notan uninteresting little miss. She's been dreadfully seasick, and hasn'tleft the horizontal in her berth since we set sail from Bremen. That darkfellow sitting next to Hahlström seems to be something like, well, let ussay, her fiancé. "

"By the way, what do you do for seasickness?" Frederick asked hastily, toconceal his dismay and turn the conversation. 

IX

"You here, Doctor von Kammacher? I can scarcely trust my eyes. " At thebottom of the companionway Frederick felt Hahlström tackle him, just ashe was about to mount to deck. 

"Why, Mr. Hahlström, what a peculiar coincidence! It's as if the wholeof Berlin had agreed to emigrate to America!" Frederick exclaimed, simulating surprise with somewhat forced liveliness. 

"May I present Mr. Achleitner? Mr. Achleitner is an architect fromVienna. "

The man with the piercing eyes smiled with an air of interest, holdingfast to the brass balustrade to keep from being hurled against the wall. 

The door of a rather gloomy saloon opened on the first landing. It borethe misleading sign "smoking-room, " misleading because the smokers neverused it, far preferring the cosey little saloon on deck. A brownupholstered bench ran around the brown, wainscoted walls. Kneeling on thebench one could look out through three or four port-holes upon theseething and boiling of the waves. The entire floor space between thebenches was taken up by a table finished in a dark stain. 

"This room is a horrid hole, " said Hahlström. "It positively makes mecreepy. "

A loud, trumpet-like, laughing voice called out from inside the room:

"I say, Hahlström, if this sort of weather holds out, neither yourdaughter nor I will keep the first day of our engagement with Websterand Forster. We're not even making eight knots. Perhaps I'll be ableto manage. A big dose of salt water doesn't hurt me. To-day is thetwenty-fifth. If we reach Hoboken at eight o'clock the evening of thefirst of February, I can appear for my act in perfect serenity at nineo'clock; but that frail blossom of yours can't. She will certainly needa few days to recover from the hardships of this trip. "

The three men entered the smoking-room. Frederick had already recognisedthe voice as belonging to the man without arms, who, he learned later, from Hahlström, was a world-renowned celebrity. For more than ten yearsthe bill-boards of every great city in the world had been displayingsimply his name, Arthur Stoss, which alone sufficed to draw throngs tothe theatres. His special art consisted in doing with his feet whateverother people do with their hands. 

The first sight of him, of course, was repellent; but in the smoking-roomon deck Frederick had got over his first repulsion and had becomeinterested in his personality. Yet the situation in which he now beheldhim was so novel, so remarkable, almost to the point of improbability, that he had difficulty in concealing his amazement. Arthur Stoss waseating lunch. Since this room was so little used and since a man forcedto handle his knife and fork with his feet could not be permitted to eatin the public dining-room, they served Arthur Stoss with his meals here. To the three onlookers it had the value of an artistic performance to seehow the actor managed to manipulate his instruments with his clean, baretoes--and that despite the pitching of the vessel--meanwhile, in the bestof humour, uttering the wittiest remarks as bite after bite disappeareddown his throat. He began to banter Hahlström and Achleitner, sometimesin rather caustic fashion, while exchanging glances with Frederick, asif he thought vastly more of him than of the other two men, who soonwithdrew from his attacks to go on deck. 

"My name is Stoss. "

"Mine, Von Kammacher. "

"It's very good of you to keep me company. That Hahlström and hishenchman are disgusting. Though I have been an actor for twenty years, I can't stand the sight of such weedy weaklings, who don't do anythingthemselves and exploit their daughters. They have the effect of an emeticon me. For all that, he plays the great man. He has no talent, so he isgoing to boil soup from his daughter's bones. Yet he goes about nose upin the air. If he sees a dollar in the dirt and somebody of distinctionis looking, he will let it lie. He won't pick it up. There is no denyinghe has an attractive appearance. He has the stuff in him for a veryclever, fashionable swindler. But he would rather take it easy and liveoff his daughter and his daughter's admirers. It's astonishing howmany people are willing to make asses of themselves. There's thatAchleitner--look at the condescension with which Hahlström treats himand the lofty way Hahlström plays the rôle of benefactor! He used to bea riding-master. Then he got mixed up in some quack cure, a combinationof Swedish gymnastics and hydrotherapeutics, and his wife left him, afine, hard-working woman, now doing splendidly as head of a departmentat Worth's in Paris. "

Frederick felt drawn up-stairs to Hahlström. The man's past as Stossdescribed it was at that moment a matter of indifference to him. ButStoss's remark about the asses some people are willing to make ofthemselves sent a fleeting red to his face. 

Arthur Stoss grew more and more communicative. He sat like an ape, aresemblance impossible to avoid when a man uses his feet instead of hishands. When he had finished his meal, he stuck a cigar in his mouth, likeany other gentleman. In him the likeness to an ape was accentuated by thebreadth and flatness of his nose and the formation of his heavy jaws. Helooked like a fair-skinned orang-outang. However, his high, broadforehead gave him the mark of the human intellect. He had no beard, thatis, he had never in his life, probably, had to remove a hair from hisparchmenty, freckled, yellow skin. His cheek bones were prominent, andhis head unusually large. Though his general appearance made a mostenergetic, by no means effeminate impression, there still was somethingeunuch-like about it, the high pitch of his voice adding to thisimpression. While casting about for an opportunity to escape themonster's spell, Frederick was nevertheless deeply interested in him froma medical and anthropological standpoint. The man, without doubt, was anextremely instructive specimen of abnormality. His facies was that of anintermediate sexual stage. 

"People like Hahlström, " he continued, "are actually not worthy of thehealthy limbs with which God endowed them. Of course, even if one has afigure like a statue by Myron, it is awkward if there is too little uphere"--he tapped his forehead. "That is what is the trouble withHahlström. There is too little up here. Look at me. I don't sayeverybody, but at least nine out of ten, in my position would havesuccumbed as a child. Instead of that, I have a wife, I own a villa inthe Kahlenberg Mountains, I support three children of my step-brother andan older sister of my wife, who was a singer and lost her voice. I amabsolutely independent. I remain on the stage because I want to bringmy wealth up to a certain point. If the _Roland_ were to sink to-day, I could go down with perfect equanimity. I have done my work. I haveinvested my money at a high rate of interest. My wife, my wife's sister, and my step-brother's children are all provided for. "

The actor's attendant appeared, to help his master to his cabin for hisafternoon nap. 

"My days are mapped out like a time-table, " Stoss explained. "Myattendant here, Bulke, served his four years in the German navy. With allthe ocean crossings I have to make, I couldn't get along with a man whowasn't used to the water. I need a perfect water rat. "

X

A little spell of dizziness came over Frederick when he went to his cabinto fetch his heavy overcoat. On deck it was very quiet as compared withthe morning. Hahlström was nowhere to be seen, and Frederick seatedhimself on a bench near the entrance to the main companionway. With hiscollar turned up and his hat drawn over his forehead, he succumbed to thestate of drowsiness characteristic of sea trips, in which, despite theheaviness of one's eyelids, one feels and perceives with a restlesslucidity of the inner vision. Images chase through one's mind, akaleidoscopic stream, shifting incessantly, going and coming, and finallyreducing the soul to a state of torture. The sybaritic meal with itsclatter of plates, its talking and music, was still whirling throughFrederick's brain. He heard the vaudeville actor declaiming. The half-apewas holding Mara in his arms. Hahlström in all his height was looking on, smiling. The waves were rolling heavily against the tiny dining-room andpressing hard on the creaking hull. Bismarck, a huge figure in armour, and Roland, the valiant warrior in armour, were laughing grimly andconversing. Frederick saw both wading through the sea. Roland was holdingMara, the tiny dancer, on his right palm. Every now and then Frederickshivered. The ship careened, a stiff southeaster heeling her tostarboard. The waves hissed and foamed. The rhythm produced by therise and fall of the pistons finally seemed to turn into the rhythm ofFrederick's own body. The working of the screw was distinctly audible. Atregular intervals the stern would rise out of the water, carrying with itthe screw, which would then buzz in the air, and Frederick would hearWilke from the Heuscheuer saying:

"Doctor, if only the screw doesn't snap. "

Finally, all the machinery of the vessel seemed to be turning in hisbrain. Sometimes one engineer in the engine-room would call out toanother, and the clang of the metal shovels when the stokers fed thefurnace penetrated to the deck. 

All of a sudden Frederick jumped to his feet; he thought he saw a ghost, or a dead-alive corpse, reeling up the companionway and making for him. It was the clothing manufacturer whom he had met at Southampton, lookingmore like a man in his death throes than one already dead. He gaveFrederick a ghastly glance of unconsciousness and let a steward supporthim to the nearest steamer chair. 

"If that man, " Frederick thought, "is not to be reckoned among theheroes, then there never have been any heroes in the world. "

"Each time I cross, " the clothing manufacturer had said, "I suffer fromseasickness, from the moment I set foot on the ship until I leave it. "

And what horrible extremes of suffering he had to go through!

Opposite Frederick, at the entrance to the companionway, stood acabin-boy. From time to time at the signal of a whistle from the bridge, he would disappear to receive orders from the first or second mate, orwhatever officer happened to be on duty. Often an hour and more wouldpass without the summons, and the handsome lad had plenty of time tomeditate upon himself and his lot in life. Frederick felt sorry for himas he stood there on guard, bored and chilly; so he spoke to him. 

He learned that his name was Max Pander and that he came from near theBlack Forest. The next logical question to put to him was whether heliked his work. The boy answered with a resigned smile, which heightenedthe charm of his handsome head, but showed he had none too much passionfor the seaman's calling. 

"There is not much in travelling on steamers, " he observed. "A realsailor belongs on board a sailing vessel. There is a mate of mine hereon the _Roland_, " he added in a tone of great admiration, "who is onlyeighteen years old and has already been on two long, dangerous trips ona schooner. "

To Frederick, it seemed as if lasting passion for the sea--the sea, whichwas already making him miserable--must be a conventional myth. It wasthree o'clock. He had been on board only nineteen or twenty hours, andalready found it a petty hardship. "If the _Roland_ doesn't make bettertime, " he calculated, "I shall have to go through the same difficultiesof existence eight or nine times twenty-four hours. But I will get backto land and remain there, while Pander, the cabin-boy, will have toreturn across the ocean a few days after landing. "

"If someone were to find you a good position on land, " Frederick asked, "would you give up your position here?"

"Yes, indeed, " said Pander, emphasising his reply with a decided nod ofhis head. 

"A nasty southeaster, " said Doctor Wilhelm, passing by beside the tallfigure of the first mate. "How would you like to come to my room? We cansmoke and have some coffee there without being disturbed. "

XI

Walking along the deck below the promenade deck, one passed a coveredgangway on both the starboard and port sides, into which opened variousofficial rooms, including the officers' cabins, among them DoctorWilhelm's, a comparatively spacious room, containing a bed, a table, chairs, and a well-equipped medicine closet. 

The gentlemen had scarcely seated themselves when a Red Cross sister, who worked under Doctor Wilhelm's direction, appeared and gave a report, smiling as she did so, of a woman patient in the second cabin. 

"In my two years of practice on a steamer, this is the fifth time I havehad a case like this, " Doctor Wilhelm said after the sister had left. "Girls who can no longer conceal the consequences of their mistake andare at loss what to do, take passage on a ship, when it is almost certainthat the event they expect will occur. Such girls, of course, neversuspect that they are typical on all sea trips, and are surprised whenour stewards and stewardesses sometimes treat them with correspondingrespect. I myself, of course, always do all I can for the poor creatures, and I usually succeed in inducing the captains not to make anannouncement of the birth, in case there is one. Once a girl about whomwe could not help giving notice was found hanging to the window sash inher lodgings near the harbour. "

Over their coffee and Simon Arzt cigarettes, the whole woman question wasunrolled. 

"So far, " said Frederick, "the woman question is nothing but the old-maidquestion, at least in the way women conceive it. The sterility of oldmaids sterilizes the whole movement. "

Frederick developed his ideas. But tormenting visions of Mara and heradmirer pursued him, and he discoursed mechanically, his reasoning on thewoman question having become a matter of rote to him. 

"The vital germinal spot of each reform in women's rights, " he arguedwith apparent liveliness, blowing clouds of smoke, "must be the maternalinstinct. The cells of the future cell-state, which will be a healthiersocial body, is the woman with the maternal instinct. The great womenreformers are not those who would have women act just like men in allexternals, but those who are conscious that all men, even the greatest, were born of women. They are the conscious mothers of the race of men andgods. A woman's natural right is her right to the child, and it is a mostinglorious page in the history of woman that she has allowed herself tobe deprived of that right. The birth of the child, in so far as it is notsanctioned by a man, is subject to the fire and brimstone of publicscorn. And this scorn is the most pitiful page in man's history. Thedevil knows how it ever came to possess such awful, absolute dominion. Form a league of mothers, I should counsel women. Each member shall givetoken of her motherhood by having children without the sanction of a man, that is, without regard for so-called honour. In this lies woman'sstrength, but only if she takes pride in her child, instead of bearingit with a troubled conscience, in cowardice, concealment, and fear. Reacquire your proud, instinctive consciousness, which you are fullyjustified in having, of being the mothers of humanity; and having thatconsciousness, you will be invincible. "

Doctor Wilhelm, who kept in touch with professional circles, wasacquainted with Frederick's name and the outcome of his scientificcareer. His unfortunate bacteriological work was on his book shelf. Nevertheless, the name of Frederick von Kammacher had an authoritativering, and association with the great man flattered him. He listened toFrederick's exposition intently. 

The Red Cross sister entered again to summon Doctor Wilhelm to afirst-class woman patient. The physician's small, close hermitage, inwhich Frederick was now left alone, gave him opportunity to reflect uponthe meaning of his remarkable journey. The _Roland_ was proceeding moresmoothly, and while he sat there smoking cigarettes, a sense of comfortcame over him, partly attributable, however, to the general effect of asea trip on one's nerves. It seemed wonderful to him to be on this greattransport of human cargo, to be driven onward to a new continent alongwith so many fellow-men, subject to the same weal and woe. And the causeof his presence on the ship was so curious! Never before had he had sostrange a sense of being a will-less puppet in the hands of destiny. Again dark and light illusions mingled in his brain. He thought ofIngigerd, whom he had not yet seen; and when he touched the quiveringwall of the low room, he was penetrated by happiness, that the same wallswere protecting him as the little dancer and that the same bottom washolding them up. 

"It's not true. It's a lie, " he repeated half aloud, referring to thestatement of the armless man, that Hahlström was exposing his daughterto dishonour and was exploiting her. 

Doctor Wilhelm's return aroused Frederick from his dreams with a painfulshock. Doctor Wilhelm laughed and continued to laugh, as he threw his capon the bed and said:

"I've just dragged our little Hahlström and her pet dog on deck. Thelittle imp has been giving a regular performance, in which her faithfulpoodle, Achleitner, plays the part, one moment of the beaten cur, thenext moment of the spoiled darling. "

Doctor Wilhelm's report made Frederick uneasy. The first time he had seenMara, she seemed to him the incarnation of childish purity and innocence. But since then, rumours had reached his ears which shook his faith in herchastity and caused him many agonised hours and sleepless nights. He hadeven had an excellent opinion of her father, and that, too, was shaken. 

Doctor Wilhelm, who also seemed to be extremely interested in Ingigerd, began to speak of Achleitner. 

"He told me in confidence, he's engaged to her. "

Frederick remained silent. That was his only way of concealing hisprofound dismay, now that the ship's doctor confirmed the supposition hehad expressed at the dinner-table. 

"Achleitner is a faithful dog, " Doctor Wilhelm continued. "He is one ofthose men who have a canine sort of patience. He sits up on his hind legsand begs for a lump of sugar. He fetches and carries and lies down andplays dead. She could do whatever she wanted, and he would still, Ithink, be her patient, faithful poodle. If you'd like to, Doctor vonKammacher, we might go on deck and visit her. She's lots of fun. Besideswe can watch the sun set. "

XII

Little Mara lay stretched out in a steamer chair. Achleitner was mostuncomfortably perched on a small camp-stool directly in front of her, sothat he could look straight into her face. He had wrapped her up to hershoulders in rugs. The setting sun, casting its rays across the mightyheavings of the sea, glorified a lovely face. The ship was no longertossing so violently, and the deck was lively with people sitting inchairs or promenading up and down. Some of the passengers had got overtheir seasickness, and there was a general air of revived animation andtalkativeness. 

Mara's appearance was somewhat conspicuous. She wore her very long, lighthair flowing, and was playing with a small doll, a fact of which everypasserby turned about to assure himself. 

When Frederick saw this girl, who for weeks had been hovering in hissoul, in his dreams, in his waking hours, who, as it were, had coveredthe rest of the world from his sight, or, at least, had cast a veil overit, his excitement was so intense and his heart beat so violently againsthis ribs that he had to turn away to keep his countenance. Even after thelapse of several seconds, it was difficult for him to believe that theenthralled, enslaved condition of his being was not noticeable to thepeople about him. But his excitement was by no means due solely to thefear of self-betrayal. It sprang from his passion, which, he suddenlyrealised, dominated him with undiminished strength. 

"Papa told me you were here, " the little miss said to him, adjusting theblue silk cap on her doll's head. "Won't you sit down with us? Mr. Achleitner, please go and get a chair for Doctor von Kammacher. " Sheturned to Doctor Wilhelm. "Your treatment was summary, but I am gratefulto you. I feel very well sitting here, watching the sun set. You're fondof nature, aren't you, Doctor von Kammacher?"

"_Nur für Natur hegte sie Sympathie_, " trolled Doctor Wilhelm, swaying ontip-toe. 

"Oh, you are impudent, " Ingigerd reproved him. "Doctor Wilhelm _is_impudent, you know, " she added to Frederick. "I saw he was the veryinstant he looked at me and the way he took hold of me. "

"But, my dear young lady, so far as I know, I never took hold of you. "

"If you please, you did--going up the stairs. I have blue marks as theresult. "

The chatter ran on for a while in a similar strain. Frederick, withoutbetraying it, was on the alert for every word she uttered, noted everyplay of feature, watched for her glances, for the rise and fall of herlashes. He jealously studied the others, too, and caught everyexpression, every movement, every glance that was meant for her. He evennoticed how Max Pander, the handsome cabin-boy, still standing at hispost, held his eyes fixed upon her, a broad smile on his lips. 

Ingigerd's pleasure in receiving the homage of three men and being thecentre of general interest was evident. She plucked at her little dolland her odd, checked jacket, and gave herself up to coquettish whimsies. Her affected voice filled Frederick with the delight of a long, cooldrink to a thirsty man. At the same time, his whole being was inflamedwith jealousy. The first mate, Von Halm, a magnificent young man oftwenty-eight, a perfect tower of a man, joined the group and was favouredby Ingigerd with looks and pointed remarks, which indicated to heradmirers that this weather-tanned officer was not an object ofindifference to her. 

"How many miles, Lieutenant, since we left the Needles?" askedAchleitner, who was pale and evidently chilly. 

"We're making better time now, " Von Halm replied; "but for the lasttwenty-two or twenty-three hours, we haven't made more than two hundredmiles. "

"At that rate it will take two weeks to reach New York, " cried HansFüllenberg, somewhat too forwardly, from where he was sitting a littledistance away. He was still flirting with the English lady fromSouthampton; but now, irresistibly drawn to Mara's sphere, he jumped upand left her, bringing the tone that was agreeable to Mara and all heradmirers, except Frederick von Kammacher. The jolliness of the littlegroup communicated itself to the rest of the promenade deck. 

Disgusted with the orgy of banality, Frederick moved off to be alone withhis thoughts. The deck, which in the middle of the day had been drippingwith water, was now quite dry. He walked to the stern and looked out overthe broad, foaming wake. He heaved a deep breath of joy at the thoughtthat he was no longer in the narrow spell of the little female demon. Suddenly the long tension of his soul relaxed. Though he might havesuffered a profound disenchantment, yet he felt as if he had taken asobering bath, which left him a free agent, alone with his own soul. Hefelt ashamed of his instability. His passion for that little personseemed ridiculous, and he covertly beat his breast and rapped hisforehead with his knuckles as if to awaken himself from a dream. 

But, finally, the great cosmic moment of the slowly setting sun cast itsspell over the young German adventurer. 

A fresh wind was still blowing from the southeast, slanting the vesselslightly to the side where the sun hung over the horizon, turning theheavens in the west into a great, dusky conflagration. That sun, beneathwhich a slate-coloured sea was rolling in waves gently tossing foam--thatsea, slate-coloured in the east and a cold, darkening blue in the westand south--that sky above, with great masses of clouds--these were toFrederick like the three mighty motives of a world symphony. 

"Any one who is susceptible to them, " he thought, "has no real cause tofeel small, for all their awful majesty. "

He was standing near the log, the long line of which was trailing inthe ocean. The great ship was quivering under his feet. From the twosmoke-stacks the wind was pressing the smoke down over the waves, and amelancholy procession of figures, widows in long crêpe veils, wringingtheir hands in mute grief, drifted away backward, as if into the twilightgloom of eternal damnation. He heard the talking of the passengers, andrepresented to himself all that was united within the walls of thatimmense house, hurrying forward restlessly--how much hunting, fleeing, hoping, fearing. And in his soul, responding to the universal miracle, arose the great unanswered questions that seek to penetrate to the darkmeaning of existence: "Why?" "What for?"

XIII

He began to pace the deck again without noticing that he drew nearIngigerd Hahlström. 

"You are wanted, " a voice behind him suddenly announced. Seeing how hestarted, Doctor Wilhelm excused himself. 

"You were dreaming; you are a dreamer, " Mara called. "Come over here. I don't like these stupid men. "

The six or eight gentlemen in attendance, with the exception ofAchleitner, laughed and withdrew with a humorous show of great obedience. 

"Why do you stay here, Achleitner?" Thus the faithful canine received hisdismissal. 

Frederick saw how the men withdrew together in groups at a littledistance, whispering as they usually do when having sport with a prettywoman who is not exactly a prude; and it was with some shame, at anyrate, with expressed repugnance that he took the stool still warm fromAchleitner's body. Mara began to rhapsodise about nature. 

"Isn't everything prettiest when the sun goes down? I think it's fun--atleast I like it, " she quickly substituted, when Frederick made a wry faceat the remark. She spoke in sentences that all began with "I don't like, "or "I despise, " or "I do detest. " In the face of that vast cosmic dramaunfolding itself before her senses, she sat wholly unmoved andunsympathetic, displaying the overweening arrogance of a spoiled child. Frederick wanted to jump up, but remained where he was, pulling nervouslyat the end of his moustache, while his face assumed a stiff, mockingexpression. Mara noticed it, and was visibly upset by this unusual formof homage. 

Frederick had one of those idealistic heads set on broad shoulderscharacteristic of certain circles in the "nation of poets andphilosophers. " His ancestors had been scholars, statesmen, and soldiers. The general, his father, was in externals wholly the soldier; but beneathhis uniform, his heritage from his own father, a renowned botanist, director of the botanical gardens at Genoa, actively manifested itself ina strong interest in science. Frederick's mother was a well-read woman, passionately fond of the theatre and an enthusiastic lover of Goethe andthe poets of the romantic school. Her father, who had been prime ministerof Wittenberg, as a student and even later in his career, composedpoetry, which her adoring love for him had caused her to publish andseveral times revise and reprint. 

Though Frederick had never been ill, there were times when he showedsymptoms of a peculiar passionateness. His friends knew that when allwent well, he was a dormant volcano; that when things did not go so well, he was a volcano spitting fire and smoke. To all appearances equallyremoved from effeminateness and brutality, he was subject, nevertheless, to accesses of both. Now and then a dithyrambic rapture came over him, especially when there was wine in his blood. He would pace about, and ifit was daytime, might address a pathetic, sonorous invocation to the sun, or at night, to the constellations, particularly to the chasteCassiopeia. 

Since she had known him, Mara felt that his proximity was by no meanslacking in danger; but being what she was, it piqued her to play withfire. 

"I don't like people that think themselves better than others, " she said. 

"Being a Pharisee, I do, " Frederick drily rejoined, and went on cruelly:"I think for your years you are extremely forward and cock-sure. Yourdance pleases me better than your conversation. " He felt much like a manberating his sister. 

Mara silently studied him for a moment, a suggestive smile on her lips. 

"According to your notions, " she finally said, "a girl mustn't speakunless she's spoken to, and she mustn't have any opinions of her own. Youlook as if the only sort of girl you could love would be one that wasalways saying, 'I am a poor, ignorant thing. I don't understand what hesees in me. ' I hate such nincompoops!"

Conversation came to a halt. Frederick half rose to leave, but sherestrained him with a self-willed, pouting, "No. " There was somethingchildlike and honest in that pouting "no" which touched his soul and drewhim down on the stool again. 

"In Berlin, while I danced, I always had to look at you, " she continued, holding her doll against her lips so that her little nose was a bitflattened. "The very first time I saw you, I felt something like a bondbetween us; I knew we should meet again. "

Frederick started, though not for an instant deceived, knowing this mustbe an oft-used formula for establishing a relationship, and in essence alie. 

"Are you married?" he heard before he had fully recovered his balance. Heturned pale. His answer was hard and repellent. 

"It would be well, Miss Hahlström, if you were to examine me more closelybefore you treat me as one among many. So far, I don't believe in thebond that unites us. During your dance you looked not only at me, but ateverybody else. " He spoke with increasing coldness. "At any rate, itdoesn't in the least concern you whether I am, or am not, married--justas little as it concerns me what repulsive personages, whom nothing but adepraved instinct can enjoy, you keep company with. " He meant Achleitner. 

Ingigerd gave a short laugh. "Do you take me for Joan of Arc?"

"Not exactly that, " rejoined Frederick, "but if you would allow me, Ishould like to regard you as still a girl, a distinguished little lady, whose reputation cannot be too carefully guarded against the faintestblemish. "

"Reputation!" sneered the girl. "You are very much mistaken if you thinkI ever cared for anything of the sort. I'd rather be disreputable tentimes over and live as I please, than have a good reputation and die ofboredom. I must enjoy my life, Doctor von Kammacher. "

Frederick's teeth clenched. Outwardly composed, he was suffering thepangs of torture. 

Ingigerd proceeded to reveal her life in a series of confidences of suchshocking content as to be worthy of a Laïs or a Phryne. Doctor vonKammacher, she said, might be sorry for her if he wanted to, but nobodywas to make a mistake about her. Everybody associating with her was toknow exactly who she was. In this she betrayed a certain dread, as onewho would absolutely guard others as well as herself against thecatastrophe of disillusionment. 

When the sun had set, and Ingigerd, still with that suggestive, sensual, evil smile on her lips, had finished her hideous confession, Frederickfound himself confronting the knowledge of a childhood so outrageous asto be worse than anything he had met with in all his experience as aphysician. 

Several times in the course of her narrative, Achleitner and her fatherhad come to take her inside, but she had angrily driven them away. It wasFrederick who finally helped her back to her cabin. 

In his own cabin, without even removing his overcoat, he threw himself onhis berth to think over the inconceivable story. He sighed, he gnashedhis teeth, he wanted to doubt it. Several times he said aloud, "No!" or"Impossible!" and beat his fists against the mattress of the berth above. He could have sworn an oath that this time there had not been a singlelie in Mara's whole shameless narrative. "Mara, or the Spider's Victim. "Now, of a sudden, he understood her dance! She had danced the thing shehad lived in her own life!

XIV

"I have set my all on nothing. "

To the accompaniment of this refrain beating in his soul Frederickmaintained an outer show of hilarity. He and the ship's doctor weredrinking champagne. He had ordered the first bottle with the soup andhad immediately drunk several glasses. 

The more he drank the less he felt the smart of a certain burning wound, and the more wonderful the world appeared, full of miracles and riddles, surrounding and penetrating him with the intoxication of an adventurer'slife. He was a brilliant entertainer, with an easy, happy way inconversation of popularising his rich store of knowledge, and with alight humour, which stood at his command even when, as now, grim humourcrawled in the depths of his being, like evil reptiles. Thus it was thatthe captain's corner that evening fell under his spell, both of hisjocular self and serious self. 

Though he had lost his belief that science and modern progress alonepossess the power to convey happiness, he extolled their virtues. As amatter of fact, in the festive gleam of the countless electric lights, excited by the wine, the music, and the rhythmic pulse beat of the movingvessel, it seemed to him at times as if humanity in a festal processionwith music playing were sailing to the Isles of the Blessed. Perhaps, hesaid, science may some day teach man the secret of immortality. Ways andmeans would be found to keep the cells of the body young. Dead animalshad been brought back to life by pumping a salt solution into them. Hespoke of the wonders of surgery, always the theme of conversation when aman of the present, over his champagne and pâté de foie gras, triumphs inthe superiority of his age over all other ages. In a short while, hedeclared, chemistry would solve the social question, and man would forgetwhat it is to worry about food. Why, chemistry was on the verge ofdiscovering how to make bread of stones, a thing that hitherto onlyplants could do. Frederick continued in a similar strain, speakingby rote, and scarcely looking up, yet fascinating his listeners. 

But in the midst of the whirl of self-intoxication, he thought with ashudder of bedtime, knowing he should not close his eyes the whole night. And what recompense was the brightest height of the clearest day for thehell of a single sleepless night, such as he had often spent within thelast years. 

After dinner, he went with Doctor Wilhelm to the ladies' parlour, fromthere to the smoking-room. Soon after, he went on deck, where it was darkand gloomy and the wind was again whining dismally through the rigging ofthe four masts. It was bitter cold, and snowflakes, it seemed to him, swept his cheeks. Finally, there was nothing for him to do but go to bed. 

For two hours, between eleven and one, he lay writhing in his berth, sometimes for a short while falling into a troubled state between wakingand sleeping. In both states he saw visions, now a wild dance of faces, now a single stark face, which tormented him and would not budge. Yet anirresistible impulse gathered in him to keep his mental eye open for thedevilish play of supernatural powers. 

He had turned out the electric lights, and in the dark, when the eyeis unoccupied, one is doubly sensitive to the messages of hearing andfeeling. He caught every sound, felt every movement, of the mighty ship, steadily pursuing its course through the midnight. He heard the churningof the propeller, like the labouring of a great demon condemned to slavefor mankind. He heard shouts and calls and the walking of men when thecoal-passers threw overboard the cinders from the huge boiler furnaces. On the trip to New York those furnaces consumed over a thousand tons ofcoal, and the casting away of the slag and ashes was left for thenighttime. Thus, to the relief of the man wrestling with sleep, hisattention was drawn to the present and the things taking place in theship's body. 

Yet, when there was no sound or movement to distract him, his imaginationsuccumbed to torturing thoughts of Mara and sometimes of his wife, withwhose sufferings he occasionally used to reproach himself. Now thatIngigerd Hahlström had dishonoured his love for her, his conscience smotehim all the more. His whole mentality seemed to have entered a state ofreaction against the poison of his passion. A high fever raged in hisveins. The thing that in this condition represented his "I" was engagedin a wild chase after the "you" of Mara. He picked her up in the streetsof Prague and dragged her back to her mother. He discovered her in housesof ill repute. He saw her standing before the home of a man who had takenher with him out of pity and then had turned her away in scorn, and shestood for hours weeping outside his window. Frederick had by no meansfully sloughed the skin of the conventional German youth. The oldhackneyed ideal of virginity was in his eyes still surrounded by a sacredaureole; but no matter how often he discovered Mara in evil things, nomatter how often he rejected her in his imagination, or tried with allthe moral strength of his being to destroy her image in his mind, herface in its golden setting, her frail, white girlish body pierced througheach curtain, each wall, each thought with which he strove to conceal theevil spirit that would not be exorcised either by prayers or curses. 

Shortly after one o'clock, Frederick was tossed out of his berth. Thistime it was not one of those dream-like visions that had roused him witha start from a doze. The next instant he was thrown against the frame ofthe berth. It was evident that the weather had grown worse and the_Roland_ was travelling in heavier waters of the Atlantic. 

XV

A few minutes after five o'clock Frederick was already on deck. He seatedhimself on the same bench as yesterday, opposite the companionway leadingdown to the dining-room. His steward, a sympathetic, indefatigable youngman from the province of Magdeburg, brought him tea and toast. It was aboon to Frederick. 

Every few minutes the water dashed over the railing and washed the deck. From the penthouse over the door of the companionway, streams wouldsuddenly come raining down, completely drenching Max Pander's littlemate, who was now standing on guard. The masts and rigging were decoratedwith icicles, and rain and snow were falling alternately. It seemed as ifthe dreary grey dawn, with its uproar, with the whining, whistling, andhowling of the furious wind in the masts and rigging, with the swishingand seething of the waters, wanted to prolong its existence infinitely, while the day refused to enter. 

Warming his hands on his big tea-cup, he looked out over the ship's side, which every now and then seemed to sink perpendicularly. His eyes glowed. He felt as if they had sunk deep into their sockets. After the hardshipsof the last few days, especially the past night, it was natural that heshould feel bruised, bodily and spiritually. He had a sense of vacancyand dull-mindedness, a welcome feeling, to be sure, compared with hissensations of the night, when the procession of images passed through hisbrain. Nevertheless, the strong, moist, tonic wind, the taste of salt onhis lips refreshed him. He shivered a little, and sat with his head sunkin the upturned collar of his overcoat. Presently he began to feelpleasantly drowsy. 

But he did not fail to perceive the full majesty in the turmoil of thewaves and the struggle of the floating palace. There was beauty andstrength in the steamer's fixed course, in the way it clove the rollingcrests of the bottle-green waves, steady, tranquil, fearless. He admiredthe _Roland_, praised it, and was grateful to it as to a living being. 

Next after him to appear on deck were three children, two girls and aboy, of from five to eleven. One of the helpful stewards fastened theirchairs and most solicitously guided them to their seats, one at a time. Children are spoiled on steamers. There they sat, rocked to and fro, fearlessly looking out upon the solemn, awful rolling of the long waves, upon the horror of the tempest. 

Shortly after seven o'clock, a slim man wearing the ship's uniform slowlyapproached Frederick. Frederick had noticed him the day before and beeninterested by his air of cool impassibility. He was smoking a cigaretteand inhaling, as when Frederick had first seen him. Wearing an expressionof profound apathy, he seemed to be completely absorbed in thisoccupation of smoking and inhaling. As if casually, he drew nearFrederick's bench, touched his cap, and said:

"Doctor von Kammacher?"

"Yes. "

"Here is a letter for you, " he said, drawing it from his waistcoatpocket. "It came by the French pilot-boat yesterday. The reason I did notdeliver it is, that I could not find your name on the passenger list. Myname is Rinck. I am in charge of the mail on board. "

Frederick thanked him. He was moved to see his father's handwriting. Rather for the sake of being friendly than from genuine interest at thatmoment, he asked Mr. Rinck what prospect there was of better weather. Thesole answer was an unintelligible English word, a shrug of the shoulders, and a puff of cigarette smoke blown with gusto. 

Frederick put the letter in his breast pocket, and he felt his heartbeneath beat more warmly, less turbulently. He had to close his eyes toprevent a hot gush of tears. Doctor Wilhelm found him in this soft mood, and it occurred to him that perhaps after all Frederick had beentragically affected by the bitter close of his professional career. 

"I slept like a bear, " he said. And it was evident from the healthycolour of his face and his comfortable way of stretching and yawning thathis night's sleep had thoroughly refreshed him. "But the weather isfiendish, " he added, seating himself close beside Frederick. 

"Congratulate you, " said Frederick. "I didn't sleep a wink. "

"Take some veronal. But whatever you do, come down now to breakfast withme. The best thing for you is to keep moving. So I advise you, afterbreakfast to come with me on my visit to the steerage. It will take yourmind off things and may interest you. There are interesting types there, women, too. But before we go, we must make ourselves insect-proof. We'llpuff powder on our clothes in my room. "

XVI

The gentlemen had breakfasted--baked potatoes and cutlets, ham and eggs, broiled flounder and other fish, beside tea and coffee--and were enteringthe steerage. 

Here, to keep from falling, they had to hold fast to the iron postssupporting the ceiling. After their eyes had grown accustomed to thetwilight always reigning in the steerage, they saw a swarm of humanbeings rolling on the floor, groaning, whimpering, wailing, shrieking. The weather did not permit of the opening of the port-holes, and theexhalations of about twenty Russian-Jewish families, with bag and baggageand babies, polluted the air to such an extent, that Frederick couldscarcely breathe. Mothers lying on their backs with open mouths andclosed eyes, more dead than alive, had infants at their breasts; and itwas fearful to see how the retching convulsed them. 

"Come, " said Doctor Wilhelm, observing something like a tendency to faintin Frederick's face. "Come, let us show how superfluous we are. "

But Doctor Wilhelm and the Red Cross nurse, who accompanied him, had achance, here and there, to do some good. He ordered grapes and a tonicfor those who were suffering most. These things were obtained from thestore-rooms of the first and second cabin. 

With great difficulty they made their way from section to section. Everywhere the same misery, the same flight from want and infuriatedpersecution. Even the pale faces of those who were able to keep on theirfeet and had found a place to stand in that swaying shelf of misery, weremarked by a hopeless, brooding expression of anguish and bitterness. 

Among the hundreds of immigrants, there were some pretty girlish faces. To a few the fever produced by the unusual circumstances had imparted abold, passionate charm. The glances of the physicians and these girlsmet. Such circumstances overstimulate the feelings and make them highlysusceptible. Great stress, great danger cause the life of the moment toflare up more alluringly and also create a sense of profound equalityamong human beings. In the very midst of fear and tension, a boldnessdevelops ready at any moment to make a leap. 

Doctor Wilhelm pointed out to Frederick a Russian-Jewish girl of aboutseventeen. The expression of her face was sombre. Her features were mostdelicately chiselled, and she was as transparent as an image of wax. Doctor Wilhelm, observing the defiant air with which she glowered atFrederick, remarked that he must have conquered at first sight. 

On passing farther, Frederick heard a voice bawl his name. It was Wilke, but a very different Wilke from the one he had met on deck the morningbefore. He was cursing and scolding at everybody and everything, whiletrying to raise himself from his mattress; a feat rather difficult forhim to accomplish, because, in the first place, the rolling of the vesselin the steerage was fearful, and in the second place, he had evidentlybeen trying to counteract the wretchedness of his condition by theimbibing of whisky. Doctor Wilhelm gave him a sharp berating. Wilke, very clearly, was a nuisance, perhaps even a danger, to everybody abouthim. In his intoxication he fancied he was being pursued. The rags fromhis open bundle lay spread on his mattress mixed with cheese andbread-crumbs, and in his right hand he held open a large pocket-knife. 

Doctor Wilhelm had not been aware that he was dealing with a particularacquaintance of Frederick's. His admonitions were of no effect. Wilkeshouted that his neighbours had robbed him, and so had the stewards, andthe sailors and the captain. Frederick took his knife away from him, spoke to him in a military tone, and unceremoniously touched a scar onthe rough fellow's hairy neck to recall to him the fact that he hadalready sewed one knife wound, from which he had barely escaped with hislife. That worked, and Wilke seemed to be repentant. Frederick gave himsome money, but not for whisky, as he told him, and added he would tryhis best for him, but only if he heard that he had been behaving likea decent human being. 

XVII

The physicians ascended on deck again. On breathing in the ocean's purebreath after the foul odours of the steerage, Frederick felt as if he hadescaped from a hideous, suffocating hell. 

With difficulty they made their way across the wet, empty deck, ever andagain washed by waves sweeping overboard. To keep their footing they hadto cling to the railing. Not a soul was on deck. The ship, restlesslyrolling and pounding, seemed to have been left to fight its fight alone. But this was an awful scene that relieved and refreshed Frederick. 

He went to the ladies' parlour, there to read the letter from home, which he had nearly forgotten. A few women, who were not seasick, werescattered through the room, lolling in their chairs in a state of limpexhaustion. The saloon smelled of plush and varnish. It was decoratedwith a number of mirrors in gold frames, there was a grand piano, and thesound of footsteps was muffled by the soft carpet covering the floor. Theprevailing colour was blue. 

Frederick made himself comfortable in one of the blue arm-chairs, andopened the envelope. He found a letter from his mother also. But he wasmore anxious to learn his father's feelings and opinion of the step hehad taken, and he read his letter first. 

 * * * * *

Dear Frederick, I do not know whether this letter will find you, or where it will findyou. Perhaps not until you reach New York, where it may arrive later thanyou. I should really like you to have your old father's and mother'sgreetings on your trip, which is something of a surprise to us. But weare used to surprises from you, since we have not had your unreservedconfidence for a long time. I am a fatalist, and far from wishing to boreyou with reproaches; but it is a pity that ever since you have been ofage, so many differences have arisen in our ways of thinking and acting. A great pity, God knows. If only you had sometimes listened to me--but, as I said, there's no use to come limping after with "if only's" and thelike. 

My dear boy, now that fate has afflicted you so sorely--I told you fromthe very first that Angèle comes of a diseased family--at least holdyour head up. If you do, then nothing's lost. And I especially beseechyou--don't take that nonsense of your failure with bacilli too much toheart. You know, I've already told you I think all the noise they makeabout bacilli is a hoax. Why, Pettenkofer himself swallowed the wholeculture of a typhus bacillus without its hurting him. 

For all I care, go to America. It may not be a bad idea and need not bea failure, I know persons whose lives were wrecked here and who went toAmerica and returned millionaires, to be envied and fawned upon. I don'tdoubt that after all you have gone through, you have carefully weighedand considered the step you are taking. Dear Frederick, I beg of you, concentrate. The man who wants too much wants nothing. Above all, get ridof your philanthropic notions. You would never believe me when I told youthat you uselessly sacrificed your money, your time, and your career toyour philanthropic notions. And don't take up with Utopias, such as, forexample, Socialism is, even at best. Bismarck is gone. The exceptionallaw against the Socialists has been repealed. Now we'll be seeing wondersfrom that pack of red internationals without a country. Did you read thatsome Anarchist dogs have again been throwing bombs--in Paris in a cafénot far from the Gare St. Lazare, right among a lot of innocent people, and seven or eight were killed. My dear boy, you were in Paris. For God'ssake, in the discontented mood you are in, don't throw yourself in withsuch desperate elements. 

Forgive me. It was a slip of my pen. But here in Görlitz, far from thefiring line, even a rational man, when he is troubled, begins to imaginethings. With your talents you might have been an officer on a general'sstaff long ago. 

God be with you. Write to us. I am convinced that with your greattalents, you will strike root over there and make your fortune. Be onyour guard against art and against side interests, from which a mancannot make a living. Do you know that the Grand Duke has made Botho hisadjutant? It looks as if the boy might rise pretty high. 

Have a good trip and sometimes think of your devoted father. 

 * * * * *

With a sigh and a short, almost inaudible laugh of great compassion andgreat bitterness, Frederick folded up the letter. 

"'I don't know whether this letter will find you, or where it will findyou, '" he repeated, and added mentally, "or how it will find you. "

Then he sat still for a while, staring into space. 

After a time he became observant of the American jackanapes, who hadannoyed him in the smoking-room the day before. He was flirting with ayoung lady apathetically lounging in an easy-chair, a Canadian, Frederickhad been told. He did not trust his eyes when he saw the American, whohad been toying with a small box of matches, pile them up carelessly, andset fire to them in that inflammable room. A steward came up and modestlyexplained that it was his duty to ask him to refrain from what he wasdoing. At which the jackanapes dismissed him with "Get out of here, youidiot. "

Frederick drew out his mother's letter, but before reading it, he hadto meditate briefly upon the matter that took the place of brains in theyoung American's skull. 

 * * * * *

My Dear Son, Your mother's prayers accompany you. You have gone through a great dealand suffered very much for one of your years. To let you hear somethingpleasant at the very start, I will tell you of the children. They arevery well. This week I convinced myself with my own eyes that they havea good home with Pastor Mohaupt. Albrecht is splendid. Bernhard, youknow, is more like his mother and always has been a quiet child. But heseemed more alert and more talkative. The life in the pastor's house andon the farm seems to please him. Pastor Mohaupt thinks both boys are byno means untalented. He has already begun to give them lessons in Latin. Little Annemarie asked me very timidly about her mother, but especiallyabout you. She spoke of you often. I told the children there was amedical congress in New York or Washington, where they would at last makean end of that dreadful disease, consumption. My dear child, do come backsoon to this dear old Europe. 

I had a long talk with Doctor Binswanger. He told me your wife's troubleis hereditary. It was in her all the time and would certainly havecropped out, sooner or later. He spoke of your work, too, dear child, andthought you ought not allow yourself to be crushed. Four or five years ofhard work, he said, would make up for your set-back. 

Dear Dietrich, listen to your old mother and put your trust in our lovingFather in heaven. I think you are an atheist. Just laugh at your oldmother. But believe me, we are nothing without God's help and mercy. Praysometimes. It won't do any harm. I know how you reproach yourself onAngèle's account. Binswanger says you may have a perfectly easyconscience. And if you pray, believe me, God will remove every thought ofguilt from your harassed soul. You are only thirty. I am seventy. Fromthe experience of the forty years more that I have, I tell you, your lifecan still turn out so that some day you will scarcely have a recollectionof all you are now suffering. You will remember the facts; but you willtry in vain to recall the feelings of anguish with which they are nowconnected in your mind. I am a woman. I was fond of Angèle. And yet Icould observe you two together perfectly objectively. Believe me, therewere times when she would have driven any man desperate. 

 * * * * *

The end of the letter was all motherly tenderness. Frederick saw himselfat his mother's sewing-table by the window, and in his thoughts kissedher hair, her forehead, her hands. 

When he looked up, he heard the steward remonstrating with the Americanand heard the American say in good German:

"The captain's a donkey. "

The word had the effect of an electric shock. The next instant anotherpile of matches sent up a wavering flare in the gloomy, terrifyingtwilight. 

Frederick mentally cut out the young man's cerebrum and cerebellum for ananatomical examination, proceeding strictly according to the rules ofdissection, as he had so frequently done in actuality. He hunted for thecentre of stupidity, which undoubtedly composed the American's wholesoul, though his impudence, which he possessed in a rare degree, may alsohave had its seat in the brain. Frederick had to laugh. In his amusementhe realised that little Ingigerd Hahlström no longer had any power overhim, less, perhaps than, for example, the dark Jewess from Odessa, whomhe had seen for the first time only a quarter of an hour before. 

Captain von Kessel entered. He greeted Frederick with a slight nod ofhis head and seated himself at a table beside a lady, with whom he wasacquainted, apparently. The American coxcomb and the pretty Canadianexchanged glances. She was languishing in her easy-chair, pale butcoquettish. Frederick set her down as a woman of unusual southernbeauty--straight nose, quivering nostrils, heavy, nobly arched eyebrows, black as her hair and the shadowy down over her fine, expressive, twitching lips. Her gestures had the weary grace of a Spaniard. She waslaughing, and her long, slim form stretched on the chair shook. Heradmirer, with a comic expression of seriousness, was again building alittle pile of matches. In her weak condition she was unable to resistthe impulse to laugh, and every now and then hid her face behind a blacklace shawl. 

It was an exciting moment when the American, in defiance of the Captain'spresence, again made ready for his dangerous play. 

Von Kessel, broad and ponderous and somewhat too short-legged, seemed outof proportion in the dainty parlour. He was speaking quietly with hislady. From the expression of his face it was evident that the weather wasgiving him cause to be serious. Suddenly the matches flared up. Now thecaptain's calm St. Bernard head turned slightly, and a voice said in atone not to be misunderstood:

"Put that fire out!"

Frederick had never heard an order from a man's lips so incisive, sotruly commanding, so fearful. The American turned pale and in thetwinkling of an eye smothered the flame. The beautiful Canadian closedher eyes. But the captain, as if nothing had occurred, continued toconverse with his lady. 

XVIII

Soon after, Frederick was in the barbershop getting a shave. 

"Wretched weather, " observed the barber, wielding the razor with a surehand, despite the dreadful tossing of the vessel. He seemed to be anintelligent man. Frederick had to listen to a second account of the_Nordmania_, of how the waterspout had plunged through the ladies'parlour and carried the piano down into the hold. 

An ordinary German servant-girl of the peasant class entered. She lookedhealthy to the core and none too intelligent. The barber called her Rosaand gave her a bottle of eau de Cologne. 

"That's the fifth bottle of eau de Cologne that I've given her for hermistress since we left Cuxhaven, " the barber explained after she hadleft. "Her mistress is a divorced woman with two children. Her name isMrs. Liebling. She is very nervous. Rosa hasn't a very easy time of it. For five dollars a month she has to be at Mrs. Liebling's beck and callmorning, noon and night. She takes entire charge of the children. Soonafter we left Cuxhaven, Mrs. Liebling came to have her hair dressed. Youshould have heard how she went on about that girl. The things she saidagainst her. Not a spark of gratitude. She said the stupid, lazy thingwasn't worth the price of her second-class cabin. "

Several times Frederick had heard the sound of quarrelling mingled withchildren's crying in the cabin opposite his. Once he had even distinctlycaught the slapping sound of what must have been a box over somebody'sear. 

"Does she hit Rosa?" he asked the barber. 

"Yes. "

Clearly, then, it was his neighbour of the opposite cabin in whoseservice the girl was. 

Frederick enjoyed listening to the lively barber retail gossip, whilehe lay stretched out in his patented chair. It diverted his mind fromtroublesome thoughts. The barber, who had been sailing the seas for manyyears, was by no means of the ordinary type of his class. He delivered ashort discourse on modern shipbuilding, the moral of which was, not toconstruct light steamers for speed. 

"Altogether, " he observed, "it's a pity to lay so much stress onrecord-making. How is a great big body with walls like a wafer to resistheavy seas for any length of time? And see what tremendous engines ithas to carry and what an enormous amount of coal it consumes. But the_Roland's_ a good boat. It was built in Glasgow in the yards of JohnElder and Company. It has been running since June, 1881. The engines arecompound steam-engines with three cylinders and 5800 horse power. Theyrequire one hundred and fifteen tons of coal every day. The boat makessixteen knots an hour, and has a tonnage of 4510. There are one hundredand sixty-eight men in the crew. "

The barber had all these details at his fingers' ends. In a tone ofannoyance, as if the thing caused him personally a lot of trouble, hetold that the _Roland_ on each trip to or from New York dragged onethousand and three hundred tons of anthracite coal in its coal-bunkers. A slow trip, he insisted, was safe and comfortable, while a quick tripwas dangerous and expensive. 

The little saloon with its electric lighting would have been a verycomfortable place to be in, had it only stood at rest. But unfortunatelyits walls were quivering to the pulse of the engines and the floor wasrising and sagging to the swell and fall of the waves, which every nowand then leapt against the port-hole with tiger-like fury. The flasks inthe closets rattled. 

"A heavier ship, " said the barber, "built to go more slowly, wouldn't bepitching like this. "

Next he spoke of a little person, who dyed her hair, a dancer. She hadspent more than an hour in his chair, having him show her rouge and facepowders, until finally he had displayed his entire stock of Pinaud andRoger et Gallet. The barber chuckled. 

"On sea trips, " he said, "a man has a chance of getting to know thequeerest women. " And he proceeded to recount a number of incidents, which, on his own word, he himself had witnessed. The heroine in eachcase was an erotomanic woman. 

"Just ask our doctor, " he said. He was of the old-fashioned sort ofbarber-surgeon, and in the capacity of surgeon had gathered the mostscandalous portion of his experiences. "One of the worst cases, " he wenton, "was that of an American girl, who was found lying unconscious in oneof the life-boats swinging from the davits. She was hideously abused byall the crew, one at a time, but they fixed it so that the whole blamecould be laid on her. "

Frederick knew that none other than Ingigerd Hahlström was responsiblefor the direction the barber's thoughts had taken. She had been sittingin the very chair in which he was now reclining. A current streamed fromits upholstery into his body. His heart began to beat irregularly, ceasing for an instant, then leaping wildly. To his horror, he observedthat Mara's power over him was not yet broken. 

He jumped up and shook himself. He felt as if he must plunge into a hotand cold bath and let stinging douches run down his spine to wash himoutwardly and inwardly clean and expel that foul poison from his blood. 

XIX

The barbershop lay aft, and nearby one could look through glass panesupon the working of the cylinders and pistons. Frederick toilsomelyclambered up to the promenade deck and crept into the overcrowdedsmoking-room. Though it disgusted him to be wedged into a small spacewith a lot of noisy men, he had come here in the desire to escape thewild orgy of his thoughts. Doctor Wilhelm had kept a place for him. 

"The doctor tells me you were in the steerage, and a beautiful Deborahmade a dangerous impression upon you, " the captain said, smilingroguishly. 

Frederick laughed. He ordered beer, and the conversation was jolly fromthe start. 

In their corner the skat players were sitting over their cards. They werebusiness men, all of apoplectic constitution. They had been drinking beerand playing skat ever since breakfast, in fact, except when they slept, ever since boarding the steamer. The conversation in the room was of nointerest to them. Even the weather failed to elicit any questions fromthem. They seemed to be insensible to the tossing of the great vessel, or the dismal howling of the wind. The force of the roll was sotremendous that Frederick involuntarily clutched at the thing nearestto him. Up went the port side, down went the starboard. Up went thestarboard, down went the port side. Sometimes Frederick felt as ifport and starboard might plunge one over the other; in which case the_Roland's_ keel would float above water, while the bridge, masts, andsmoke-stacks would be submerged at a distance below the surface. And inthat case all would be lost; but those skat players, it seemed to him, would go on playing undisturbed. 

Hahlström's tall figure came creeping with bent head into the tobaccosmoke. His clear, cold, critical eyes roved about looking for a seat. Hepaid no attention to the armless man, who jestingly shouted an ironicremark to him. With cool politeness he seated himself at the greatestpossible distance from Stoss, drew a pouch of tobacco from his pocket, and filled a short Dutch pipe. Frederick's immediate thought was, "Whereis Achleitner?"

"How is your daughter feeling?" Doctor Wilhelm asked. 

"Oh, she's just a little upset now. The weather will be getting better, I suppose. "

The whole company, which, of course consisted of the men either by natureor from frequent exposure proof against seasickness, now entered into theusual discussion of the weather. 

"Is it true, Captain, " somebody asked, "that last night we nearlycollided with a derelict?"

The captain smiled, raised his brows, and made no reply. 

"Where are we now, Captain? Was there fog last night? I saw some snowfall. And for at least an hour I heard the siren blow every two minutes. "

But Captain von Kessel remained highly monosyllabic in everythingpertaining to the management of the vessel and the prospects for a goodor bad crossing. 

"Is it true that there is gold bullion on board for the treasury inWashington?"

Von Kessel smiled and sent a thin wreath of cigarette smoke curlingthrough his moustache. 

"That would be carrying coals to Newcastle, " remarked Wilhelm. 

And now the great theme, the theme of themes, became the general topicof conversation. Each of the travellers, of course, straightway had apicture of his own fortune in mind, every cent of it, or else tried tomake an accurate mental calculation. They all turned into calculatingmachines, while aloud comparing the capitals of the great Americanbanking firms, the Bank of England, the Crédit Lyonnais and the wealth ofall the American millionaires. Even the skat players gave their attentionfor a few moments at a time. 

America was then suffering from a business depression, a crisis, as thepolitical economists dub it. The causes of the depression came up fordiscussion. Most of the Americans present happened to be Democrats, andthey threw the blame on the Republicans. The Tammany Tiger was thesubject of especial execration. It not only controlled New York City, themayor of which was a creature of Tammany, but had also put its men intothe most influential positions throughout the land. And every Tammany manknew how to shear his sheep. As a result, the American people werethoroughly bled. The corruption in the highest offices was said to be ona tremendous scale. Millions of dollars were appropriated to the navy, but if a man-of-war actually happened to be built, the thing was a greatachievement, since the money, long before it was applied to its properpurpose, sifted down into the pockets of peaceful Americans, whoseinterest in the navy was of the slightest. 

"I shouldn't care to be buried in America, " cried Stoss, in his sharpvoice. "It would be too dreary and boresome for me in my grave. I hatetheir spitting and their ice-water. " The burst of laughter that greetedhis remark encouraged him to further sallies. "Americans are parrots, incessantly chattering two words, dollar and business, dollar andbusiness, dollar and business. Those two words have been death to culturein America. An American doesn't even know what it is to have theEnglishman's spleen. Think of the fearfulness of living in a countrycalled the land of dollars. We have human beings living in Europe. TheAmericans regard everything, even their fellow-men, from the point ofview of the number of dollars they represent. If a thing can't bereckoned in dollars, they have no eyes for it. And then Carnegie andCompany come and want to astonish us with their disgusting shopkeeper'sphilosophy. Do you think they're helping the world on by slicing off someof the world's dollars and then returning some of the sliced off dollarswith a great flourish of trumpets? Do you think that if they do us thefavour to give us some of their money, we'll throw overboard our Mozartand Beethoven, our Kant and Schopenhauer, our Schiller and Goethe, ourRembrandts, Leonardos, Michael Angelos, in short, all our wealth of artand intellect? What is a miserable cur of an American millionaire, adollar maniac, as compared with all those great men? Let him come and askus for alms. "

XX

The captain invited Frederick to his cabin and asked him to write afew words in his album. On the way, he showed him the chart-room andthe wheel-house, where a sailor was turning the great wheel at thedirections of the first mate, whose voice came from the bridge througha speaking-tube. Frederick read the compass in front of the wheel and sawthat the _Roland_ lay west-southwest. The captain was in hopes ofstriking better weather by taking a more southerly route. The helmsmandid not allow his attention to be diverted for the fraction of a second. He kept his bronzed, weather-beaten face with its corn-coloured beardturned unwaveringly toward the compass, and his sea-blue eyes fastenedupon the west-southwest line. And the face of the compass, in its roundcopper case, notwithstanding the vessel's elephantine leaps and bounds, never deviated from the horizontal. 

When they reached his cabin, the handsome blond German, whose eyes cameof the same stock as the mariner's at the wheel, became more expansive. He insisted on Frederick's taking a comfortable seat and offered him acigar. He spoke of his own life. Frederick learned that he was unmarried, had two unmarried sisters and a brother with a wife and children. Thepictures of his sisters, his brother, his brother's wife, his brother'schildren, and his parents were hung symmetrically on the wall over a redplush sofa. They were sacred objects. 

Frederick did not fail to ask his stereotyped question:

"Do you follow your calling because you have a decided preference forit?"

"Tell me of a position on land where I could command the same salary, andI'd exchange without an instant's hesitation. Seafaring begins to loseits charms when a man gets on in years. "

The captain's guttural voice was extremely agreeable. It suggested toFrederick the sound of colliding billiard balls. His enunciation wasperfect, absolutely free of a dialectic tinge. 

"My brother has a wife and children, " he said. Though there was, ofcourse, not the slightest trace of sentimentality in his tone, it wasevident from the gleam in his eyes how he idolised his nieces andnephews. He pointed out each one's picture and at the end said frankly, "My brother is an enviable man. " Then he asked Frederick whether he wasthe son of General von Kammacher. He had taken part in the campaign of1870 and 1871 as lieutenant of the regiment of artillery of whichFrederick's father had been chief. He spoke of him with great admirationand reverence. 

Frederick remained in the captain's cabin over half an hour. His presenceseemed to give the skipper special pleasure. It was astonishing what agentle, tender soul was hidden beneath the commanding exterior. Beforedisclosing a bit of that soul, he always puffed harder at his cigar andgave Frederick a long, searching look. By degrees Frederick discoveredwhat magnet was tugging strongly at the blond giant's heart. He keptrecurring alternately to the Black Forest and the Thüringian Forest, andFrederick had a mental picture of the magnificent man clipping his privethedge in front of his cosey cottage, or walking among his rose busheswith a pruning knife in his hand. He could detect that the captain wouldfar rather be living secluded in a sea of green leaves and green pineneedles; and he felt convinced that it would have been delicious to himto submerge himself forever in the soft rushing of endless forests anddispense forever with the rushing and roaring of all the oceans in theworld. 

"Perhaps the night of all days has not yet come, " said the captain, witha humorous expression. He rose and placed the large album in front ofFrederick. "Now I am going to lock you in here with this pen and thisink, and when I return, I want to find something clever on this page. "

Frederick von Kammacher turned the leaves of the mariner's album. It wasunmistakable that the hope for a vegetable garden, gooseberry bushes, thechirping of birds, and the buzzing of bees was most intimately connectedwith this book. Under the pressure of dreariness and the graveresponsibility for many a sea trip, it must expand the captain's soul tolook over it, Frederick thought. It seemed to point to a time when, inthe peace and security of his simple home, it would serve its turn bytestifying to all the dangers its possessor had gone through, all hispast struggles and hardships. In a sheltered haven it would affordpleasant retrospect, full of content. 

Frederick's own quietistic ideal in the form of a farm and a solitary loghut occurred to him. But he was not living in it alone. The little devilMara was sharing it with him. In embitterment he mentally climbed tostill lonelier regions, and saw himself a hermit, who prayed, dranknothing but water, and lived on roots, nuts, and sometimes a fish of hisown catching. 

When the captain returned and he and Frederick had taken leave of eachother, this is what he found in his book:

 Borne aloft on wave and ocean, Of thy master's course partaking, Some day thou wilt cease thy motion, Of thy master's rest partaking. In the garden of his stillness, To his manly deeds inspiring, Thou wilt faithfully bear witness. Thou art language well becoming Him who daily danger faces, Gratitude of souls proclaiming, Whom he bore through cosmic spaces. 

The signature was

"Frederick von Kammacher, Globetrotter. "

XXI

Frederick, holding on to his hat with one hand and clinging to therailing with the other, descended from the windy heights of the captain'scabin to the promenade deck. When he passed the cabin of the first mate, the door opened, and Von Halm appeared in conversation with Achleitner. Achleitner was pale, and there was an anxious look in his face. 

"I have rented the lieutenant's cabin for Miss Hahlström. I could notbear to see her suffering so in her own cabin, " he called to Frederick. 

The gale had increased. Not a passenger was to be seen on deck. Sailorswere inspecting the life-boats. Huge masses of water seethed against theship's side, cutting into its course obliquely. The waves made a mad leapinto the air, hung there for an instant in the form of white corals, andfell like a thousand lashes on the deck, which was all awash. The breathof the gale tore the smoke backward from the mouths of the smoke-stacksand scattered it in the wild chaos in which heaven and sea were mingled. Frederick glanced down at the fore-deck. In his burning brain arose athought of the Jewess and then of the scoundrel, Wilke. But the fore-deckwas so swept by the seas that nobody could keep his footing there, exceptthe lookout men, who were holding watch at the beak of the vessel, notfar from the cat-head. 

Between the door leading to the main companionway and the companionwayitself was a square level space, about which a railing ran and in whicha few people could stay and enjoy the fresh air without being drenched. When Frederick, on his way below deck, passed through the open door, hefound a quiet assemblage of pale-faced passengers. One chair was stillunoccupied. He seated himself in it, with the fanciful notion that he wasjoining a gathering of condemned men. 

"That poor sinner there must be Professor Toussaint, the famous sculptorin need, " Frederick thought, judging so from the man's slouched hat andgreat cape. Now and then the man exchanged a few words with a personsitting next to him, who might be _Geheimrat_ Lars. Frederick had oncemet the _Geheimrat_ at a dinner at the mayor's house, but he had onlya faded recollection of his appearance. The clothing manufacturer haddragged himself from his cabin, heaven knows how, and was lying in hischair like a corpse. Besides these, there were two men conversing witheach other, one small, rotund and scary-faced, the other tall and thin. 

The tall one was showing the other a section of a submarine cableand letting the hard piece, intricately braided of hemp, metal andgutta-percha, pass from hand to hand. From his choppy, whisperedsentences, the company learned that in 1877 he had worked as electricalengineer on a steamer laying a cable between Europe and the UnitedStates. The work on the high seas had lasted without interruption formany months. He had spent several months supervising the constructionof the steamer itself in the yards, especially the riveting of its metalplates. He spoke of what is called the cable plateau at the bottom of theocean, stretching from Ireland to Newfoundland, a strip of grey sandso named because it supports the main transatlantic cable. 

The copper wires in the centre of the cable, he said, were called itssoul, the rest of the mass, almost as thick as a man's fist andresembling a great hawser, served merely as a sheath to protect the soul. Frederick had a mental vision of the fearful solitudes of the oceandepths, with the monstrous metal serpent, apparently without beginningand without end, creeping over the sandy bottom peopled by the enigmaticcreatures of the deep. It seemed to him as if such profound isolationmust be gruesome even for the dead mass of cable. 

Then he wondered why it was that mankind at each end of the cable hadburst into jubilation upon the transmission of the first messages. Perhaps there was some mystic cause for rejoicing. The real cause couldnot possibly be that one was now able to telegraph "Good morning, Mr. Smith, " or "Good morning, Mr. Brown, " twenty times a minute around theearth's circumference, or that one could adulterate humanity's mind withnewspaper gossip from the four quarters of the globe. 

In the midst of these meditations, his chair slipped, and Frederick, incompany with the electrical engineer, the dozing manufacturer, a ladyphysician, and a lady artist, was hurled against the banister, while theopposite row of passengers, including the _Geheimrat_ and the professor, was hurled on top of them. It was a ridiculous incident, but Frederickobserved that no one seemed to find it so. 

They tried to arrange themselves in order again. One of theever-industrious stewards appeared, and, as if to comfort them for theiroverthrow, passed about Malaga grapes from the ship's inexhaustiblestore. 

"When shall we reach New York?" somebody asked. The eyes of all theothers instantly turned upon the questioner in amazement and alarm. Thesteward, usually so polite merely smiled an embarrassed smile and gave noreply. In his opinion an answer, one way or the other, would have been tochallenge fate. The passengers felt much the same. Indeed, the idea thattheir feet would actually ever tread solid land again seemed in theirpresent condition almost like an extravagant fairy tale. 

The short, stout man, to whom the electrical engineer was chieflydirecting his discourse, was conducting himself peculiarly. At shortintervals he would look out anxiously into the uproar, turning his small, watchful eyes searchingly up to the tops of the masts, which never ceasedto describe great arcs in the air (starboard to port, port tostarboard!), and out into the monotonous rolling of the waves, swellinginto ever higher and larger masses. His face was full of concern. Frederick was on the point of inwardly ridiculing the pitifullandlubber's cowardice, when he heard him say that scarcely three weeksbefore he had brought his schooner safely to New York from a three years'trip around the world, and intended to start out from New York on thesame trip to last the same length of time. The little gentleman was theexperienced captain of a sailing vessel. In the course of his fiftyyears, he had spent more than thirty on all the waters of the globe. 

XXII

Frederick reflected upon the timid skipper, whose characteristics seemedto harmonise so poorly with the demands, active and passive, of hisrigorous calling. He wondered what it is that permanently holds a manlike that to his marriage ties and all the duties of his life. Then hearose to wander about the _Roland_ vaguely. 

The enforced idleness of a sea trip, especially in bad weather, inducespassengers, when they have made the complete round of the vessel, tobegin over again and go through the same circle. Thus, Frederick, afterdescending the companionway, ascending it, and descending again, foundhimself on the leather-seated bench in the smoking-room avoided by mostof the smokers, in which the armless man had taken his meal the daybefore. 

Hans Füllenberg entered, asked whether he was not permitted to smoke acigarette in the room, and began to grumble about the weather. 

"Who knows how this thing is going to end?" he complained dismally. "Perhaps, instead of reaching New York, we'll have to be towed into portsomewhere in Newfoundland. "

Frederick was indifferent to the prospect. He noticed that youngFüllenberg cared for nothing except to produce an impression; and youngFüllenberg noticed that Frederick von Kammacher was not susceptibleto the impression he tried to produce. He cast about for another themeof conversation. 

"Do you know there are two priests on board? You should have been atCuxhaven when they got on. The sailors were beside themselves. I huntedup the fellows, the sailors I mean, in the forecastle. How they didcurse! It was fearful. The stoker told all the men of the engine-room. They said you could not get genuine seamen to think any differently--withpriests on board something is bound to go wrong. "

"How is your lady?" asked Frederick. 

"My lady is retching her soul away, if she has such a thing as a soul. Two hours ago I helped her to bed. That Englishwoman is already afull-blooded American. Shameless, I tell you! Something tremendous. Irubbed her forehead with brandy. She partook of a goodly quantity, andthen I unbuttoned her waist. She seems to take me for a masseur charteredextra by her munificent husband. The thing became boresome. And besides, in that pitching boudoir, my own soul began to rise up through mystomach, and the poetry went to the devil. She showed me the photographof her devoted husband in New York. I think she has another in London. "He was interrupted by the first call for dinner, which the trumpeterannounced at the bottom of the companionway. The trumpet blast was lostwithout resonance in the heavy air and the bluster of the waves. "What'smore, " he concluded, "she sent for Doctor Wilhelm. "

The dining-room presented a very dreary appearance. Neither the captainnor any of the officers of the _Roland_ were present, the demands uponthem in such bad weather being too severe to permit them to leave theirposts. The tables had been provided with a wooden apparatus dividing theminto small compartments, which prevented the plates, glasses and bottlesfrom slipping any distance. Nevertheless, there was much breaking ofcrockery, and it required all the skill of the stewards to serve thedishes, especially the soup. From the kitchen and the china room everynow and then came the sound of a tremendous crash. There were scarcelytwelve people at table, among them Hahlström and Doctor Wilhelm. Aftera time the skat players, as usual, came bursting in, talking noisily andred of face. Their winnings were immediately transmuted into Pommery. Notwithstanding the fearful weather, the band was playing. There seemedto be something frivolous, almost challenging, in the playing of musicwhen, at short intervals, the _Roland_ would come to a quiveringstandstill, as if it had run upon a reef. Once the illusion was so strongthat a panic arose in the steerage. Mr. Pfundner, the head-steward, brought this explanation of the horrified shrieks that had penetrated thedining-room above the noise of the raging waters, the rattling of theplates and the blare of the band. 

At dessert Hahlström left his place at the other end of the room and, balancing himself with difficulty, came over to Frederick and DoctorWilhelm, and asked permission to seat himself beside them. He seemedto have been drinking whisky, as he had dropped his natural shell ofreticence. He spoke of hydrotherapy and gymnastic exercises, and calledhimself a quack. It was the gymnastics, he said, that had given hisdaughter the idea of taking up dancing. As if to challenge the others, heelaborated bold philosophic theories, dealing out one wild statementafter the other, each of which would have been a trump sufficient to endthe game for ten German Philistines. To believe his own word, he was aterroristic Anarchist, a white-slave trafficker, an adventurer always. Atany rate, he espoused the cause of all who were Anarchists, procurers, oradventurers. He argued in all superiority, upon egotistic grounds, calling these the intellectuals, and all others, creatures withoutbrains; in which his philosophy showed some similarity to Frederick vonKammacher's new philosophy, now that Frederick had entered upon a newphase of his life. 

"America, " said Hahlström, "is known to have been settled by rogues. Wereyou to spread a tent over America, you would have the most beautiful, the most comfortable penitentiary in the world. The natural form thatsurvives and triumphs in America is the great rascal, the greatRenaissance idiot. In fact, it is the one form that will triumphthroughout the world. You'll see some day how the great American rascalwill get the whole of Europe, including England, into his clutches. Europe is also dabbling a little in Renaissance ideals and Renaissancebeasts. It is busily working away, so to speak, on its own rascalization. But America is in advance by ten horse lengths. Europe's Cesare Borgiassit in the cafes with _Glockenröcken à la Biedermaier_ and give voice totheir criminal genius in fairly innocent verses. They all look sickly, asif a barber had cupped all the blood out of their veins. If Europe wantsto save herself, she has only one hope--to make a law by which it will bea crime to surrender an adventurer, an embezzler, a fraudulent bankrupt, the keeper of a disorderly house, a thief, or a murderer to America. OnGerman, English and French vessels in American ports, such people havealready been placed under the special protection of Europe. Then you willsee how soon Europe will outdistance Uncle Sam. "

The physicians burst out laughing. 

"When did geniuses ever do anything morally? Even the creator of heavenand earth did not know how to. He produced an immoral world. Every highform of human intellectual activity has thrown ethics overboard. Whatwould a historian be who, instead of making researches, would moralise?What would a physician be who would stop to moralise? Or a greatstatesman, who would toe the chalk-line of your middle-class tencommandments? As for an artist, when he moralises, he is a fool and aknave. And please tell me, what sort of a business would the church doif all of us were moral? There would be no church. "

There was a cold gleam of audaciousness in the Swede's eyes. Hisutterances produced a strange impression. Even if he had pronounced fewerwild paradoxes, Frederick von Kammacher would have succumbed to hisspell. He eagerly sought for resemblances between father and daughter, or, more accurately, he observed them without seeking. They were veryevident to one who, alas, to his own torture, was carrying the daughter'spicture alive in his soul. As long as the Swede spoke, he could not helpwavering between repugnance and admiration, and he kept asking himselfwhether this man was really the sort of person that Arthur Stoss haddescribed him to be, no gentleman, a weakling, an idle ragamuffin. 

XXIII

As they arose from table and were ascending the companionway to the deck, Hahlström suddenly said to Frederick:

"My daughter is expecting you. We have a friend on board, Mr. Achleitner, a soft creature, but the possessor of much money, which he doesn't knowthe best way to get rid of. So he made it worth while for one of theofficers to give up his luxurious cabin opening on deck to my daughter. Unfortunately, that gives him the right to make an unmitigated nuisanceof himself sometimes. "

When the men entered the comparatively roomy cabin on deck, they foundAchleitner sitting on a rather unsteady chair, while Mara, carefullywrapped up, was lying stretched out on a couch. She instantly calledto her father, please to remove Mr. Achleitner, who was boring her, andsignified to Frederick that she had a special favour to ask of him. Hahlström and Achleitner obediently withdrew, and Frederick _nolensvolens_ had to seat himself on the camp-chair. 

"How can I be of service?" he asked. 

She put one of those inconsequential requests with which she liked tobusy everybody about her. She did this, she explained, because if manypeople were not doing something for her, she felt neglected. 

"But if you don't want to do it, " she added--it was to get her a bottleof perfume, or something of the sort, for which a stewardess would havebeen the right person to ask--"but if you don't want to do it, thenplease don't. I should prefer it if you didn't. In fact, if I bore you, I would just as soon sit alone. "

Frederick realised that this beginning was a foolish expression ofembarrassment. 

"I should like to be of service to you in anything I can, and you don'tin the least bore me. "

That was the truth. Alone with Ingigerd in her cabin, where the vessel'smotion was less perceptible, he was sensitive to the full fascination ofher presence. The pangs of the ocean crossing had given her sweet girlishface a waxen transparency. At her request the stewardess had loosened herhair, and it lay spread in a golden flood over her white pillow, a goldenflood, the sight of which was highly disturbing to Frederick. Where wasthere an adornment for the head, a queen's diadem, which could exerciseso powerful, so divine a charm? It seemed to Frederick as if thattremendous vessel, with its hundreds of human ants, were nothing morethan the cocoon of this tiny silkworm, this delicately coloured, delicious little butterfly; as if the sixty naked helots down at theship's bottom shovelling coal into the white heat under the boilers, weretoiling and sweating merely to be of service to this childish Venus; asif the captain and officers were the paladins of the queen, and the restof the crew her following; as if the steerage were rilled with blindlydevoted slaves, and as if the _Roland_ were proudly carrying a fairy talefrom "A Thousand and One Nights" across the salt desert. 

"Did I hurt your feelings yesterday by telling you my story?" she askedsuddenly. 

"Mine? No! You are the injured one in the life you have unfortunatelyled. "

She looked at him with a sardonic smile, plucking a pink wad from the lidof a box of sweetmeats beside her. In her looks and smiles, Frederickfelt her cold, wicked enjoyment. And since he was a man and knew he wasimpotent in the face of such fiendish mockery, a wave of physical furymounted in him, driving the blood into his eyes and causing himinvoluntarily to clench his fists. His full-blooded nature occasionallyhad need of such frenzy. It was a phenomenon with which his friends werefamiliar. 

"What is the matter with you?" whispered Ingigerd, plucking at the pinkwad. "I am not afraid of a monk like you. "

Her remark was not calculated to calm Frederick's passionate surge. However, he mastered his feelings with evident, redoubled exertion of hiswill power. Had he not succeeded in controlling himself, he might havemore resembled a Papuan negro than a European. He might have turned intoa beast in human form, and might have thrown overboard, as he himselfclearly felt, more than was good of what both self-acquired and imposedculture had formed in him. He had no desire to turn into another animalin Circe's stables. 

It was as if Ingigerd were the very incarnation of the evil Psyche, sofew of a man's feelings were concealed from her. She knew what fightFrederick had just fought and she knew he had conquered. 

"Oh, I wanted to become a nun once myself, " she said, and began in amixture of truth and fiction to prattle of a year she had spent in aconvent. "I wanted to turn good, but didn't get very far. I am religious. Really I am. I can say so with a clear conscience. Anybody with whom Idon't feel I could pray to God, is disgusting to me. Perhaps, after all, I shall end by being a nun, but not because I am pious. " She did notrealise how egregiously she was contradicting herself. "Oh, no! Itwouldn't occur to me to be pious. I don't believe in anything but myself. Life is short, and nothing is coming afterward. A person ought to enjoylife. A person who deprives himself of a single enjoyment sins againsthimself, beside practising self-deception. "

She was led to speak of her mother. Frederick was startled by the hatred, the vulgarity with which she referred to her. 

"I could kill her, " she said, "although, or just because she is mymother. " Her face lost its purity of expression and assumed an ugly, repulsive look. "With papa it is different. But it gets to be an awfulnuisance always to be dragging him about with me. "

The stewardess came in. She spoke to Ingigerd in a loud, cheery way. 

"Better here than down below, isn't it, Miss?"

She bolstered up her cushions, rearranged her coverings, and left again. 

"The silly thing has already fallen in love with me, too, " said Ingigerd. 

"Why am I sitting here?" Frederick thought, and was about to attempt inall kindness to remove the cataract from the eyes of the foolish littlecreature. Why did great waves of pity keep sweeping over him? Pity forwhich she did not ask. Why could he not rid himself of the idea ofinnocence, of chastity, of the uncontaminated while in the presence ofthis child fiend? She seemed pure and unsullied, and each capriciousmovement, each remark of hers only heightened the impression of touchinghelplessness. 

"All love is pity. " This sentence of Schopenhauer's, which he held to beboth true and paradoxical, flashed into his mind. He took one of herdolls in his hand, and tried in the kindly way that he had acquired withhis patients to make Ingigerd Hahlström understand that one does not gothrough life unpunished in the belief that life is mere doll's play. 

"Your dolls, " he said, "are actually beasts of prey. Woe to you, if youdon't realise they are beasts before they bury their claws in your fleshand rend you with their fangs. "

She gave a short laugh without answering. She complained of a pain in herbreast. 

"You're a physician. Won't you examine me?"

"That's Doctor Wilhelm's business, " Frederick answered brusquely. 

"Well, " she said, "if I am in pain and you as a physician can stop thepain, but don't want to, your friendship cannot amount to much. "

Frederick did not turn a deaf ear to this correct reasoning. He had longbefore realised that her delicate constitution was with difficultyholding the balance between debit and credit. Each instant it was indanger of losing its balance. 

"If I were your physician, " he said, "I should send you to live for threeyears with a German country pastor, or an American farmer. I should notlet you see anybody but the old pastor or the old farmer and his wife andtheir daughters. I should not let you go to see a play, let alone appearon the stage yourself. It is those cursed variety shows that have sentyou to the dogs, physically and morally. "

"I am a ruffian, " he thought, "and there's medicine for her. "

"Do you want to become a farmer?"

"Why?"

"Because you are already a pastor, " she laughed. 

The conversation was interrupted by the screeching of a cockatoo on astand in the back of the cabin. Until then Frederick had not noticed it. 

"What else will be turning up? Where did you get that beast?"

She laughed again. 

"Please give me the beast. Koko! Koko!" Frederick arose and let thegreat, rosy-white seafarer clamber on his hand. "I like animals betterthan I do most people I meet, " she said. 

The bird kept screaming "Cockatoo!" until Frederick felt it fairlyapplied to him. 

In the meantime the _Roland_, sinking into deep troughs and climbing overwatery mountain crests in an ocean that was like a great machineregularly at work, had plowed its way into fog. The siren was bellowing. 

"Fog?" exclaimed Ingigerd. Every bit of blood vanished from her face, which was already too pale. "But I am never afraid, " she addedimmediately, took a bonbon in her mouth, and let the cockatoo nibble atit. The bird unfeelingly trod on the girl's beautifully heaving breast. She made it sing _Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht_ and some well-knownmusic-hall airs, and told stories of her menagerie. 

Every instant Frederick had to perform some small service, and while shewas giving an enthusiastic description of a little monkey from Java thatshe had once owned, he asked himself whether he was a physician, a nurse, a hairdresser, a chambermaid, or a steward, and whether IngigerdHahlström would not in the end reduce him to a messenger boy. 

He yearned to be on deck in the open air. 

Soon after, Achleitner entered with an anxious, questioning expression inhis eyes, and Ingigerd dismissed Frederick most ungraciously. There was alook of hatred in her glance. But scarcely was Frederick outside in thefog with the knob of the door still in his hand, when it seemed to him asif ropes and chains, the chains of an enslaved man, were dragging himback to the girl's couch. 

XXIV

"What is to become of me?" Frederick questioned himself. He scarcelyheard Hans Füllenberg's jolly shout of greeting as the young man reeledpast. Hans Füllenberg did not fail to observe whose door it was thatFrederick von Kammacher had just closed behind him, nor that, as he stoodthere with the knob still in his hand, he seemed to be in a state ofindecision and absorption. 

The siren was sending up its deafening roar. It was that wild, fearful, ascending cry, as if torn from the breast of a monster bull, which he hadfirst heard on the tender. There was something menacing in it, and at thesame time something of an anxious warning. Frederick never heard itwithout applying menace and warning to himself. Likewise, the drivingmist seemed to be a reflection of his soul; or his soul a reflection ofthe driving mist and also of the vessel, as it struggled onward into theunknown, unseeing and unseen. He stepped over to the railing and lookedstraight down the ship's side. There he could tell with what tremendousrapidity the _Roland_ was cleaving the water. 

"Isn't man's courage utter madness?" he thought. Could any one, fromcaptain to the lowest sailor, prevent the propeller-shaft from snappingat any moment? The screw was constantly rising and buzzing in the air. Who could sight a vessel in time to prevent the collision that wouldinevitably smash in the thin walls of the great hollow body? Who couldhope to avoid one of the many derelicts drifting in the fog almostsubmerged? What would happen if the might of the waves were to hurl thatgreat lumped mass of wood and iron against the _Roland's_ side? Whatwould happen if the engines were to break down? If a boiler were toprove unequal to the uninterrupted strain put upon it? Then, too, icebergs were met with in those waters. And suppose the storm were togrow worse. 

The things that European civilisation has accomplished are tremendous. The trouble is, the object to which the means are applied is not worthyof the means. The how is great. The wherefore receives only a stammeringreply. So much is certain, that the life of the average man to-day isfuller of adventure and heroism than the life of a bold adventurer ahundred and fifty years ago. 

Frederick went to the smoking-room on deck. He found the card players, Doctor Wilhelm, Arthur Stoss, Professor Toussaint and some more gentlemengathered over their afternoon coffee. 

"Hullo!" they shouted when he appeared in the doorway. 

The room smelled strong of coffee and the pungent odour of tobacco. Inthe instant that Frederick held the door open, the wreaths of mist andheavy tobacco smoke met. 

"What's the matter, gentlemen?" Frederick asked. 

"Did you operate on the dancer, " someone cried, "to remove that mole twoinches from her backbone right over her left hip?"

Frederick turned pale, and said nothing. Had he uttered a single word, the result might have been a scandal, perhaps even a duel, out there onthe high seas. 

He seated himself beside Doctor Wilhelm and acted as if the shout ofgreeting and the unknown man's question had not referred to him. DoctorWilhelm proposed a game of chess. Frederick accepted, and while playing, he had time to choke down his humiliation and resentment. He glancedabout furtively to find the speaker. 

"There are some people, Doctor von Kammacher, " Arthur Stoss said ina raised voice, "who leave their decency in Europe when they travelto America, though that does not reduce the price of the passage. "

The man at whom the remark was aimed left it unanswered. 

"But, Mr. Stoss, " said an elderly man from Hamburg, whose conscience inregard to the offence thrust upon Frederick was evidently clear, "we'renot in a ladies' parlour, and we needn't take jokes amiss. "

"I am not in favour of jokes, " said Stoss, "that are made at the expenseof persons who are near at hand, but not present, especially when a ladyis concerned. I am still less in favour of them when they are coarse andindecent. "

"Oh, Mr. Stoss, " rejoined the man from Hamburg, "everything in its place. I have nothing against sermons, but we're having bad weather here on theocean and this room is not a church. "

"Besides, nobody mentioned names, " another man said. 

Here the American jackanapes joined in the cross talk. 

"When Mr. Stoss is in New York, " he said drily, "he will hold servicesevery night at Webster and Forster's. "

"Some American youngsters are celebrated for their cheek, " Stosscountered. 

"Directly after the celebrated Barrison sisters' appearance, after thesong 'Linger Longer Loo, ' Mr. Stoss will raise his hands to heaven andbeg the audience to pray. " The American spoke without moving a muscle ofhis face. He had the last word. The next instant the slim young fellowwas outside the door. 

Arthur Stoss had the pleasure of knowing he was a fool for his pains. But, like Frederick, he paid no attention to the thrust, or to thelaughter it provoked. 

"People are very much mistaken, " he said, turning to Professor Toussaint, who was sitting beside him and to whom he had been introduced a fewminutes before, "if they suppose that morality among vaudevilleperformers is laxer than among any other set of persons. It's anabsolutely false assumption. A performer above the average, who mustalways be at the very height of his powers, has to practise moderation tothe point of abstinence if he wants to remain on top. Does anybodysuppose that a loose life is compatible with those startlingly bold featsthat an acrobat does every day and tries to improve upon every day? Damnit! It's something to make your ordinary mortal marvel at. Why, to do anyone of the many things we do, we have to practise asceticism andchastity, and patiently peg away day after day at hard, dangerous work. Your plain business man, who never omits his glass of beer, has no ideawhat it is like. " He continued to sing the praises of vaudeville actors. 

"May I ask what your specialty is, Mr. Stoss?" asked Hans Füllenberg. 

"A very easy specialty, once you know how. But if it should ever come toa duel between you and me, young man, you'd have to choose what eye orear or tooth you'd be ready to part with. "

"He's as good a shot as Carver, " someone said. "He can take the middleright out of an ace three or four times in succession. "

"Just like any other display of skill. But don't for a moment suppose, gentlemen, that even if a man has arms and doesn't have to hold the gunwith his feet and pull the trigger with his toes, that he learns how todo it without sweating and self-denial and endless patience. "

"Somebody said you play the violin like Sarasate, " said Hans Füllenberg. 

"Not exactly. Nor need I, considering the way I was born. But I am fondof music and my audiences go wild over my playing. "

Captain von Kessel entered. He was received with a general "Ah!" Throughthe door burst a great wave of sunlight. 

"The barometer is rising, gentlemen. "

The fog had lifted, and now the men in the smoking-room realised that the_Roland_ was rocking no more than easily and comfortably and was makingits way with majestic speed. 

This acted like a charm. The captain left the door open and had Panderhook it back. A man, who had been lying asleep in a corner--in that halfsleep which is the mildest symptom of seasickness--rose to a sittingposture and rubbed his eyes. Hans Füllenberg and a number of other menhastened out on deck. Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick, who had lost thegame, followed. 

XXV

The two physicians paced the full length of the promenade deck. The airwas mild. The ship was moving quietly, as if its great body took delightin pushing onward through none but low waves. It was surprising to seehow gay the life on deck was. They were constantly raising their hats andmaking way for somebody. The stewards had carried the news of the goodweather down to the passengers in their stuffy cabins, and all theseasick travellers had come crawling on deck. There was much talking andlaughing. Each moment brought fresh surprise over the galaxy of merrywomen that had kept themselves stowed away in the _Roland's_ interior. Itwas just an ordinary Saturday afternoon in January; yet suddenly anatmosphere of festivity prevailed not to be outdone by a Christmas eve. 

Hans Füllenberg passed by. He was cracking jokes for everybody's benefitand flirting desperately with his Englishwoman, who had recovered fromher seasickness. She had found a friend, a woman in a fur cap and coat, with a magnificent crown of light hair, like a Swedish woman's. Sheseemed to be greatly amused by Füllenberg's poor jokes and poor English. He had abstracted her muff and was alternately conveying it to hisstomach, his heart, and--this very passionately--his mouth. The youngAmerican jackanapes was promenading with his Canadian, who looked veryhaughty and blasé, yet much fresher. The delicate creature seemed to beshivering with cold, though she was wearing an elegant coat of Canadiansable, which reached to her knees. Frederick greeted the clothingmanufacturer, whom his steward had helped up on deck. He had been lyingin his cabin more dead than alive, and his steward had been feeding himon nothing but Malaga grapes. 

Ingigerd was holding court on the port side in front of her cabin, thedoor to which stood open, it flattering her vanity to have the manypromenaders see and envy the privilege she was enjoying. 

"If it is agreeable to you, Doctor Wilhelm, let us remain this side ofthe Rubicon. That little girl slightly bores me. By the way, can you tellme how I came to bring down on myself that shout when I entered thesmoking-room and that man's vulgar remark? To be sure, as a physician andfree-thinker it's a matter of indifference to me. "

"Oh, " said Wilhelm, trying by an air of lightness to appease Frederick, "this is all it was. Füllenberg probably saw you coming out of MissHahlström's cabin, and said something in the smoking-room. You knowhis mischievous way. "

"I'll box his ears, " said Frederick. 

"The trouble is, the little girl is making herself generally conspicuous. The worst rumours are afloat about her. All men seem alike to her, whether stewards, firemen, sailors, or cabin-boys. And that greasyAchleitner! I assure you, all over the ship, in the forecastle, among thestewards when they polish the silver, and in the officers' cabins, theydo nothing but titter and laugh at her and Achleitner and anybody fallingunder suspicion on her account. "

"Don't you think that's slander?"

"Why, you and I are physicians. I don't care a fig one way or the other. "

Frederick laughed. "I have set my all on nothing. "

Suddenly he said:

"You're right. I'm of the same opinion. I must really throw overboardthat old idealistic German Adam sticking in me like a Sunday afternoonpreacher. "

The two men laughed. Their mood turned merrier, chiming in with thegeneral atmosphere of hilarity. 

One reason for this predominating sense of happiness was the fact thatall the passengers, after struggling with nausea and sleeplessness duringthose miserable, crawling, endless hours in the doleful grave of theircabins, had learned to appreciate the value of mere healthy existence. Merely to live, merely to live! That was the cry that rang in every step, every laugh, every word, drowning all care. None of those concerns whicheach of them had dragged on board, whether from Europe or America, nowhad the least might. Merely to live was to win in the great lottery. Theyknew sunshine follows rain, and they said to themselves, "If worse comesto worst, you will willingly put up with bread and salt and a hoe and avegetable garden, and no one in the world will be a happier mortal thanyou. "

Those promenading men and women were each glad of the other's existence. They loved one another and were ready without hesitation to commit allsorts of follies, deeming them mere bagatelles, which on solid land theywould never have condoned in themselves. Their rejoicing was a cruciblemelting together all the barriers by which convention divides man fromman. They experienced a sense of relief and liberation, and drew in deepbreaths of this atmosphere of freedom. 

At the captain's order, the band set up its music stands and instrumentson deck amidships; and when the blithe strains resounded through thewhole of the _Roland_, that was the climax of festivity. For half an hourit seemed as if the few clouds floating in the blue sky, the steamer, thepeople on the steamer, and the ocean had agreed to dance a quadrille. 

For moments at a time the waves would form the droll, chubby-cheekedface of a jolly old man. All at once the dreadful old man of the seahad turned good-humoured. He even seemed to be in a jocular mood anddisplayed a certain clumsy vanity in letting his puppets, swarms offlying fish, dance their dance, too, in a circle about the _Roland_. Perhaps, at his bidding, a whale would soon be spouting. Indeed, withina few minutes, the immigrants on the fore-deck were shouting, "Dolphins!"

The gentlemen could not for any length of time avoid Ingigerd. 

"Theridium triste, the gallows spider, you know, " said Wilhelm, as theyapproached her. 

"How so?" said Frederick, slightly startled. 

"You know what a gallows spider does near an ant nest. It sits on the topof its blade of grass, and when a myrmidon passes below, it throws alittle skein of cobweb at its head. The ant does the rest. It getstangled up until it is absolutely helpless, and then the tiny littlespider comfortably eats it up. "

"If you had seen her dance, " said Frederick, "you would be more inclinedto assign her the rôle of the ant throttled by the spider. "

"I don't know who, " said Wilhelm, "but some poet says, the sex isstrongest when it is weak. "

Ingigerd was able to boast a new sensation, which she owed to Mr. Rinck, the officer in charge of the mail, a pretty little dog, a ball of whitewool, scarcely larger than a man's two fists put together. The polar bearin miniature was barking wildly in its ridiculous thin falsetto at thegreat ship's cat, which Mr. Rinck was holding to its nose. 

"With your permission, Mr. Rinck, we shall sleep well to-night, " saidWilhelm. 

"I always sleep well, " replied the other phlegmatically. Close to thecat's soft, heavy, hanging body, his cigarette, as always, was burningbetween the fingers of his right hand. 

The cat spat, the dog barked. The piping sound drilled Frederick's earslike needle pricks. Ingigerd laughed and kissed the little yelper. 

Wilhelm began a conversation by telling of the tremendous amount of workMr. Rinck had to do between Cuxhaven and New York. 

"Just take a look here, Doctor von Kammacher, " he said, opening a doornearby, through which one could look into a deep, square pit filled halfway up to the top with thousands of packages of all sizes. "Mr. Rinck hasto arrange all of these. "

"Exclusive of the letters, " Mr. Rinck supplemented phlegmatically. 

"Theridium triste, " thought Frederick. He seemed to himself like an anttrying head over heels to escape the spell of the little spider, whosegolden cobweb in long, open strands was luring on its victims. 

"That Rinck, " said Wilhelm, as they resumed their promenading, "is apeculiar sort of chap. It is worth the while to get to know him. Twentyyears ago he suffered hard luck from a woman of the same type as littleMiss Hahlström. Men should never marry women of that type. Ever since, hehas been indifferently facing every sort of death on all the waters ofthe globe, not to mention an attempt at suicide. You ought to hear himtalk. It is very difficult to get him to do it, because he doesn't drink. You can't succeed until you have been on four or five trips with him. People speak a great deal of fatalism, but to most of them the idea ismerely a paper idea. To Rinck it is not a paper idea. "

The life on deck kept assuming a more and more unconcerned, mundaneaspect. Frederick was astonished to see so many persons from Berlin whomhe knew by sight. Professor Toussaint introduced himself, and ledFrederick to his wife, who was lying stretched out in a steamer chair. Their attempt at what is called conversation resulted in a few sicklysprouts. 

"I am making this trip at the invitation of an American friend, "Toussaint explained somewhat condescendingly, and mentioned the name of awell-known millionaire. "Even if I receive orders over there, I will notallow myself to be persuaded into making America my home. Interest in artshould be elevated--" The pale, aristocratic man with the care-wornexpression went on to expatiate upon his hopes and troubles, while hiswife, who was still beautiful, looked on with a blasé expression ofirony. Probably without being conscious of it, Professor Toussaint toofrequently referred to the United States as the dollar land. 

On the after-deck the passengers in unrestrained jollity, had begun todance. It was Hans Füllenberg, the ever vivacious Berlinese, who hadtaken the lead. Inspired by the Strauss waltz that the band was playinghe had engaged the lady in the fur coat. A number of other couplesfollowed their example, and there, under the bright sky, an informal ballwas opened, which did not end until sundown. 

When the musicians with their shining brass instruments were about tomake their way inconspicuously below deck, the passengers detained them, and in the twinkling of an eye, a large collection was taken up. Thereupon the dance music began again, even blither than before. 

XXVI

Doctor Wilhelm was summoned away, and after a while Frederick succeededin taking leave of Toussaint and his wife. He remained alone. The clearheavens, the deep blue sea, smooth as glass, calmed as if by a miracle, the music, the dancing, the sunlight, and the dear, sweet, pacifying, all-forgiving letter of his mother--it was in his pocket--awakened in hima fresh, pleasant sense of vitality. 

"Life, " he said to himself, "is always this way or that, a moment filledwith pain or pleasure, with darkness or brightness, with sunlight orheavy, black clouds; and according to the moment in which we view ourpast and future, these will darken or brighten. Should existence in theshining light possess lesser reality than existence in the dark?" "No, itshould not, " was the answer that came from everything within and abouthim, filling him with youthful, almost childlike joy. 

Frederick had pushed back his slouched hat, had unbuttoned his lightovercoat, and was standing with his arms crooked over the railing. Helooked out upon the sea. He felt the pulse beats of the engines, his earswere filled with the pliant, melodious chords of the Viennese waltz; thewhole world had turned into a brilliant, lively, sparkling ballroom. Hehad suffered and caused others to suffer. Now he embraced all thosethrough whom he had suffered and who had suffered through him, and seemedto wed them in blissful intoxication. 

At this point Ingigerd Hahlström passed by with the giant Von Halm. Frederick heard her say she did not dance, that dancing was an insipidpleasure. With that, he started away from the railing, went up to theCanadian, and in a peculiar, fiery German manner ruthlessly drew her awayfrom the young American, who was completely taken aback. It was evidentthat the delicate, exotic woman, whose breast rose and fell convulsively, took pleasure in that strong conqueror's arm as they circled about in thedance. 

At the conclusion of the dance, he found himself under the necessity ofmurdering French and English with her for a time and was very glad whenhe could gracefully deliver her over again to the jealous young American. 

Stoss was being transported across the deck by his valet, who, as always, held him by his coat collar. 

"My private overland and oversea express, " he called to Frederick. 

Frederick pulled up a steamer chair for him in a sudden impulse to chatwith Stoss. 

"If the weather remains like this, " said Stoss, after his valet hadcarefully and skilfully seated him in the chair, "we can reach Hobokensome time on Tuesday. But only if the weather does remain like this. Thecaptain tells me that when we are running under full steam, as now, wemake sixteen knots an hour. "

Frederick started. So Tuesday this life under the same roof with Ingigerdwas to end. 

Frederick had been profoundly humiliated by the coarse insult offered himin the smoking-room. He knew of no other way to escape the impression ofit except by a sort of ostrich policy. For that reason he had passed overthe incident lightly when speaking to Doctor Wilhelm. Once his feeling ofdelicacy, smarting like a sensitive nerve, had ceased to ache sointensely, he looked upon the scandal much as a somnambulist wouldlook upon the thing that has awakened him and guarded him against ahumiliating fall. For more than half an hour his passion for the littledevil of a dancer had turned into disgust and repugnance, until now hesuddenly had to admit once again that separation from her wasinconceivable. 

"That little dancer is a piquant wench, " said Stoss, as if he had divinedFrederick's thoughts. "It would not seem at all strange to me if aninexperienced man were to fall into her toils. I think she resembles oneof the younger Barrison sisters, who sing 'Linger Longer Lucy, LingerLonger Loo. ' A man must certainly don armour in dealing with her. "

"I am completely at a loss to understand, " lied Frederick, "how I evercame to fall under suspicion with that creature. She is of absolutely nointerest to me. "

"Good Lord, Doctor von Kammacher! Who doesn't fall under suspicion withher?" He laughed unblushingly. "I myself did. "

Frederick suffered. He looked sidewise at the armless trunk, and his soulwrithed in humiliation at the thought of his own ridiculousness. 

Stoss went on to philosophise on erotics in general. He, the Don Juanwithout arms, read Frederick a lecture on the art of handling women. This led to his boasting, which detracted markedly from his quality offineness. His intellect also shrank in direct proportion to the increaseof his vanity. Something seemed to be working in him impelling him toimpress people at all costs with his successes as a man. 

A servant-girl led two children by. Frederick drew a breath of relief, for she diverted Stoss from his unsavoury theme. 

"Well, Rosa, " he called, "how is Mrs. Liebling?" It was his habit toobtrude himself upon everybody. From the gossip of Bulke, his valet, hehad learned of Rosa and her cross. The difficult lady she served was theexcitable person of whom the barber had told Frederick and with whom hewas acquainted from certain impressions of his hearing. Rosa, who wascarrying Ella Liebling, a girl of five years, on her crimson arm, lookedpleased and laughed. 

"She is not coming on deck. She's taken up with fortune-telling andtable-turning. "

Bulke, in whose eyes Rosa seemed to have found unqualified favour, tookSiegfried Liebling, a boy of seven, from her hand and helped her placeboth children safely in steamer chairs. 

"There is nothing to beat a crazy woman, " Stoss declared. "That Mrs. Liebling actually called in Mr. Pfundner, the head-steward, to help herwith Rosa"--the very Rosa, who unwearyingly and self-sacrificinglyworked for her day and night, in good weather and bad. The worst to besaid against her was that at utmost she was a little too ready with hertongue. 

XXVII

The music was still playing, the sun was still shining from a slightlyclouded sky. On the dry deck the travelling city, in the gayest, mostsuperficial mood, was still dancing in the face of the infiniteness ofheaven and sea. A steward came up to Frederick and presented the secondengineer, who brought a message from Doctor Wilhelm asking Frederick tocome to him immediately. The engineer led Frederick to the engine-roomand down a perpendicular iron ladder. The warm, heavy smell of oil almostrobbed Frederick of his breath. The downward climb seemed endless. 

On all sides the engines were working. Frederick glanced at the giganticcylinders, in which the compressed steam was moving pistons up and downlike pump handles. The pistons communicated their motion to the big shaftrunning aft along the keel to the stern, and the revolutions of the shaftin turn produced the revolutions of the screw propelling the vesselacross the Atlantic. 

Oilers holding oil cans and waste clambered in and out of the rotatingmasses of iron with astounding sureness and boldness. To graze one of thefly-wheels, or to step one inch within the unguarded circle of theirrevolution, was to receive a deadly blow. Here was the heart and soul ofthe vessel, the real modern miracle of strength, the like of which no agein the past has been able to produce. An iron soul, a steely heart. Itwas as if one were descending below earth into the glowing workshop ofVulcan of old, the lame god, who did not demonstrate the full skill ofhis divinity until our times. 

Still deeper down went the descent, to where, from numerous shovelshandled by almost naked helots, coal was flying into the white heat underthe boilers, into a row of gaping jaws of fire. Frederick felt as if hehad reached the heart of a crater. It was a black shaft smelling of coal, slag, and burning things. Apparently it was lighted only by the constantopening of the furnace doors, spitting white heat. How was it possiblefor such a conflagration to be contained in the _Roland's_ interiorwithout reducing the whole to ashes? What a conquest to fight such a seaof fire, to keep it in check, and carry it through sea and storm; tomanage that it should carry itself three or six thousand miles in theocean in fair weather or foul, hidden away and absolutely innocuous. 

Frederick panted for breath. The glowing heat of the abyss instantlybrought the perspiration pouring out on his face and neck. He was soabsorbed in the novelty of the impressions that he completely forgot hewas surrounded by water about twenty feet under the surface of the sea. Suddenly, he became aware of Doctor Wilhelm's presence, and in the sameinstant saw a man entirely naked stretched out like a corpse, a whitebody on the black coal dust. The man had ceased to breathe. 

In a second Frederick, now wholly the physician, had Doctor Wilhelm'sstethoscope in his hand and was listening to the man's heart. His mates, blackened with coal from head to foot, were ceaselessly at work in theengine's unremitting service, shovelling coal, opening the furnace doors, and slamming them shut. They scarcely cast a glance at their fallencomrade, and that only when they stopped to gulp a glass of beer orwater. 

"It was hardly three minutes ago, " said Doctor Wilhelm, "that he brokedown. That man over there, the one who has just washed himself, is hissuccessor. "

"He was just about to throw coal into the furnace, " explained theengineer who had called for Frederick, shouting at the top of his voiceto make himself heard above the clanging of the shovels and the bangingof the iron doors, "when his shovel flew out of his hand about twelvefeet away and almost struck a coal-trimmer. He was hired in Hamburg. Themoment he set foot on board, I thought, 'If only you pull through, myboy. ' He joked about himself. He said, 'If my heart is good. ' I was sorryfor him. He wanted to cross the great pond, and that was his only way ofgetting over. He wanted, no matter how, to see his brother again, hisonly living relative, or somebody else. They hadn't seen each other forfourteen years. "

"_Exitus_, " said Frederick, after a prolonged investigation of the man'sheart. Even a few moments after the stethoscope had been removed, onecould see the ring it made on his bluish, waxen skin. His chin dropped. They put it back in place, and Frederick bound his jaws with his whitehandkerchief. "He had a bad fall, " Frederick remarked. It may actuallyhave been the unfortunate fall to which the helot owed his death. Therewas a deep bleeding gash in his temple from the edge of a large nut. "Probably a heart stroke, " Frederick added, "the result of the heat andover-exertion. " He looked at the dead man, then at his mates, naked, blackened, illuminated by the jaws of the glowing furnaces, and thoughtof the fifth commandment, "Thou shalt not kill. " If we were to take thecommandment literally, how far should we get?

The physicians mounted on deck, and several of the men picked up thevictim of civilisation, the modern galley-slave, still covered with thesweat of his fearful occupation. With the handkerchief about his head, helooked as if he were suffering from toothache. They carried him up out ofthe glowing pit to the cabin set aside for dead bodies. 

Doctor Wilhelm had to notify the captain. Nobody on deck, where the bandwas playing the last measures, was to suspect that a stoker had died. With the help of the Red Cross sister, they stretched him on a mattress, and within a short time a circle of the higher officials of the vessel, at their head the captain, and among them the purser and the physicians, were gathered about the corpse. 

Captain von Kessel ordered the stoker's death to be kept secret, particularly requesting the two physicians not to mention it. Formalitieshad to be gone through, documents had to be drawn up and signed. Thiskept them busy until dark, when the first call for dinner was trumpetedacross the deck and through the gangways of the first-class section. 

XXVIII

Frederick went to his cabin and removed the grey suit he had worn inthe purgatory of the stoke-hole. He put on striped trousers, a blackwaistcoat, and black frock coat. By the time he appeared in thedining-room, a lively procession of brilliant toilettes was alreadymaking its way there. Almost all the ladies of the first class camerustling in. Frederick from his seat observed that many of them hadto stop for an instant at the doorway to pluck up their courage. Then, with a charmingly humorous smile, they would conquer their dread ofseasickness, particularly threatening in the dining-room, and step overthe threshold. 

Save for the slight quiver that ran through the walls and ceilings of thewhole vessel, its motion was scarcely perceptible. The music began, andthe swarm of stewards in livery, who came hurrying in, could serve eachguest with a full plate of soup without need of balancing. 

"A full-dress dinner, " said the captain with a contented glance about theroom as he seated himself. 

Fish was already being served when Ingigerd entered on the arm of thevery ungainly and very ordinary looking Achleitner. At the sight of herabsurd get-up, Frederick felt like sinking through the floor. The barberhad piled her beautiful light hair into a fearful mountain of puffs, andabout her narrow shoulders she wore a Spanish shawl, as if to representCarmen--a very pitiful Carmen, who provoked jeers and jibes from one endof the table to the other. 

"What deadly green stockings!" Frederick thought, as he choked down apiece of fish with the bones in it. 

"Why in the name of sense does she wear those bronze slippers?"

"Some chalk, please, for the lady, " said one man. "She is going to dancethe tight rope for us. "

Mischievous looks and remarks flew about the table. Both the ladies andthe gentlemen choked over their fish or wine and had to hold theirnapkins to their lips. Not all of their remarks were pronounced _sottovoce_, and among the card players, who were again drinking champagne, thejokes aimed at Ingigerd and Achleitner were particularly loud and coarse. 

Could Frederick believe his eyes? Terror shot to his heart. That sadlittle monstrosity was walking toward him--stood next to him incompromising intimacy--was saying poutingly:

"When are you going to pay me a visit again?"

Frederick made some inconsequential reply. 

Necks in standing collars, bare throats encircled with gold chains andpearls turned toward the captain's table. Frederick could not recall everhaving had an experience so painfully humiliating. Ingigerd saw nothingand felt nothing. Achleitner, however, seemed to be rather ill at easeunder the perceptible cross-fire of the animated company, and tried tolead her away. Finally, she left the tortured man, saying:

"My, you're dull and stupid! I don't like you. " At which the captain'scorner burst into a prolonged laugh, which was a relief to everybody'sbut Frederick's feelings. 

"I assure you, " said Frederick, with a tolerable attempt at dry irony, "Idon't know what I have done to deserve this distinction, or what I shalldo to deserve it in the future. "

Then they spoke of other things. 

The clear weather and the prospect of a peaceful night filled the festivediners with undimmed gaiety. They ate, they drank, they laughed, theyflirted, all in the delightful consciousness that they were citizens ofthe departing nineteenth century, with the probability of being citizensof the even grander twentieth century. 

XXIX

After dinner the two physicians went to Doctor Wilhelm's cabin, wherethey sat together discussing the resultant of modern civilisation. 

"I very much fear, very much, indeed, " said Frederick, "that ourworld-wide means of communication, which mankind is supposed to own, really own mankind. At least so far, I see no signs that the tremendousworking capacity of machines has lessened human labour. Nobody will denythat our modern machine slavery, on so tremendous a scale, is the mostimposing slavery that has ever existed. And there is no denying that itis slavery. Has this age of machinery subtracted from the sum of humanmisery? No, most emphatically, no! Has it enhanced happiness andincreased the chances for happiness? No, again. "

"That is why every three or four men of culture, " said Doctor Wilhelm, "are disciples of Schopenhauer. Modern Buddhism is making rapid strides. "

"Yes, " said Frederick, "because we are living in a world all the timemaking a tremendous impression upon itself. As a result, it is gettingto be more and more fearfully bored. The man of the intellectual middleclass is gaining in prominence, while he is more mediocre than he hasbeen in any previous age. At the same time he is glutted and more blasé. No form of idealism, no sort of genuinely great belief can hold itsground any longer. "

"I admit, " said Wilhelm, "that the great industrial corporation, civilisation, is parsimonious of everything except human lives and thebest that is in the human being. It places no value upon them. It letsthem rot. But I think there is one comfort. I think civilisationpossesses this one good, that it breaks us away once for all with theworst savageries of the past. No inquisition, for instance, can ever bepossible again. "

"Are you sure of it?" asked Frederick. "Don't you think it is strangethat alongside the greatest achievements of science, alongside Galileo, Kepler, Laplace; alongside the spectrum analysis and the law of theconservation of energy; alongside Kirchoff and Bunsen; alongside steam, gas, electricity, the blindest and most antiquated superstitions stillsurvive, powerful as ever? I am not so certain that backsliding into themost horrible times of the _Malleus maleficarum_ is impossible. "

Doctor Wilhelm had rung for a steward, who now entered. Max Panderappeared at the same time. 

"Doctor von Kammacher, I feel as if we must have some champagne. Adolph, "turning to the steward, "a bottle of Pommery. "

"They're making a big hole in the champagne cellar, " said Adolph. 

"Of course. The people are all celebrating their escape from drowningyesterday and day before yesterday. "

Pander had come at the captain's order for the stoker's deathcertificate. The document was lying ready in the medicine closet. AfterPander had left, Wilhelm told Frederick some remarkable incidents of thedead man. 

"His name was Zickelmann. There was the beginning of a letter in hispocket. It was something like this: 'Dear mother, I have not seen you forsixteen years. I have forgotten how you look, dear mother. I am not doingwell, but I must go to America to see you once again. It is very sad whena man has no relatives in the whole world. Dear mother, I just want tolook at you, and I really won't be a burden to you. '"

The champagne appeared. Before long, the first bottle was replaced by thesecond. 

"Don't be surprised if I am immoderate, " said Frederick. "My nerves arein need of it to-day. I have to stupefy myself. Perhaps, with the help ofthis glorious medicine, I shall be able to sleep a few hours. "

It was half past ten, and the physicians were still sitting together. Thewine naturally produced a greater degree of intimacy between these twomen, who were of the same profession and had already become fairly wellacquainted with each other. It was very pleasant to Frederick to unbosomhimself. 

He said he had entered the world with too favourable a preconceivednotion. In a spirit of idealism he had refused the military careerfor which his father had intended him, and had taken up the studyof medicine, in the belief that he would thus be of most service tohumanity. He had been deceived. 

"The genuine gardener works for the garden full of healthy plants; butour work is devoted to a decaying vegetation sprung from diseased germs. That is why I took up the fight against mankind's awfullest enemy, thebacteria. I admit that the dreary, patient, laborious work, whichbacteriology requires, did not satisfy me, either. I didn't possess thecapacity to petrify, which is absolutely indispensable in an academicman. When I was sixteen years old, I wanted to become a painter. Over thedissecting table, I composed verses. The thing that I should now mostlike to be is a freelance writer. From all of which you can see, " heconcluded, laughing ironically, "that I have made rather a mess of mylife. "

Wilhelm refused to admit it. 

"But I have, " Frederick declared. "I am a genuine child of the times, andI am not ashamed of it. The greatest intellects of the day are all in astate of inner ferment. Every individual of significance is just asdivided against himself as humanity on the whole. I refer, of course, only to the leading European races. I embody the Pope and Luther, WilliamII and Robespierre, Bismarck and Bebel, the spirit of the Americanmillionaire and the enthusiasm for poverty that was the glory of St. Francis of Assisi. I am the maddest progressive of my time and themaddest reactionary. I despise Americanism, and yet I see in the greatAmerican world-invasion, the dominion of the exploiter, something similarto one of the biggest works that Hercules performed in the Augeanstables. "

"Here's to chaos!" cried Wilhelm. 

They touched glasses. 

"Yes, " said Frederick, "but only if it gives birth to a dancing heaven, or, at least, a dancing star. "

"Beware of dancing stars, " said Wilhelm, laughing and looking atFrederick significantly. 

"What can a man do if his blood is on fire with that cursed poison?"

Under the influence of the champagne, the sudden confession seemed asnatural to Wilhelm as to Frederick. 

"'There once was a rat in a cellar hole, '" Wilhelm quoted. 

"Of course, of course, " said Frederick, "but what is to be done againstit?" Then he turned the conversation to general questions again. "Whyshould a man keep himself intact when he has lost his ideals? I have made_tabula rasa_ of my past. I have drowned Germany in the ocean. Is Germanyreally the great, strong, united Empire? Is it not rather the booty overwhich God and the devil--I was about to say the Kaiser and the Pope--arestill wrangling? You will admit that for more than a thousand years, theunifying principle was the imperial principle. People talk of the ThirtyYears' War as having disintegrated Germany. I should say it was thethousand years' war, of which the Thirty Years' War was only the worstexcess, the worst paroxysm of that plague of religious dissension withwhich the Germans are inoculated. And without unity, Germany is a veryqueer structure. Its owners, or its inhabitants, don't possess it, exceptin a slight degree. And the believer with the tiara at Rome tugs and tugsat it, levying extortion under the threat of destroying the entirestructure; until he is actually able to buy it back with the compoundinterest that has been accumulating. In that case nothing will be leftbut a heap of ruins. One could shriek and tear one's hair because theGerman does not see that in his basement there is an awful Bluebeard'schamber. And not for women alone. He has no inkling of what an arsenalof clerical instruments of torture lie there ready for use--clerical, because they lie ready for the infliction of horrible corporal martyrdomin the service of a bloody, fanatical, papistical belief. Woe, when thedoor to the Bluebeard chamber opens. They are continually picking at thelock. Then we shall witness all the sanguinary horrors of the ThirtyYears' War, the degenerate slaughter-house cruelty of an inquisition. "

"That's something we won't drink a toast to. Rather let us toast thehealthy, cynically outspoken ideal of the American, the exploiter ideal, with its tolerance and levelling down. "

"Yes, a thousand times rather, " said Frederick. 

So they drank a toast to America. 

A second-cabin stewardess led in the Russian Jewess. The girl was holdinga handkerchief to her nose and mouth. Her nose had been bleeding for anhour without cease. 

"Oh, " she said, retreating a step from the threshold back to the deck, "I am in the way. " But Doctor Wilhelm insisted on her coming in. 

It turned out that this was not the real mission on which the stewardesshad come to see Doctor Wilhelm. She whispered a few words, unintelligibleto the others, into his ear. He excused himself to Frederick, asked himto look after the Jewess, and left the cabin with the stewardess. 

XXX

"You are a doctor?" asked the Russian Jewess. 

"Yes, " said Frederick. 

Without wasting many words, he made her lie prone on the couch, inserteda tampon in her nose, and used other means to stanch the flow of blood. He had kept the door to the deck open to let the cigarette smoke outand the fresh, healing salt air in. The girl lay quietly on the couch;and Frederick thought it advisable to look through one of Wilhelm'smedical books. 

"So far as I am concerned, you may smoke, " she said after a while, havingnoticed that Frederick absent-mindedly started to light a cigaretteseveral times and then, recollecting himself, desisted. 

"No, " he said curtly, "I won't smoke now. "

"You might at least offer me a cigarette, " she said. "I am bored. "

"That's proper, " he said. "A patient should be bored. "

"Oh, I am not a patient. "

"_Patientia_ is the Latin for 'patience, ' my dear young lady. You are nota patient in so far as you are very impatient. "

"If you let me have a cigarette, then I will say 'Yes, you are right. '"

"I know I am right, and there can be no question of your smoking now. "

"But I want to smoke. You are impolite, " she said, obstinately kicking upher heel. 

Frederick ordered her to be quiet, and she let her foot drop again on theleather upholstery. He looked at her with an intentionally exaggeratedexpression of sternness. 

"I am not your slave, do you understand? Do you think I left Odessa, where there is enough ordering about, to be ordered about by everystranger I meet?" she grumbled. "I am cold. Please shut the door. "

"If you want, I will shut the door, " said Frederick, getting up to do sowith an air of resignation not altogether genuine. 

In the morning in the steerage, Frederick and this Deborah had exchangeda glowing look of understanding. Now, although, or perhaps because, thewine was in his veins, he was eager for Doctor Wilhelm's return. Hisabsence seemed to be unduly prolonged. For a time the girl lay silent. Frederick found it necessary to examine the tampon in her nostril. As hewas doing so, he noticed tears in her eyes. 

"What is the matter?" he asked. "Why are you crying?"

She suddenly began to beat him with her arms and fists, called him asleek, heartless bourgeois, and wanted to jump up; but she had to succumbto Frederick's superior, gentle strength and return to her recliningposture. Frederick seated himself as before on an upholstered chairopposite the couch. 

"My dear child, " he said, very gently, "you are behaving queerly, slinging about those honourable epithets. But we won't discuss that. Youare nervous. You are excited. You have no blood in your veins, and evenif you had a stronger constitution, the condition of your nerves afterthe hardships of this trip, especially in the steerage, could scarcely bedifferent. "

"I'll never travel first class, never!"

"Why not?"

"Because, considering the misery in which the majority of human beingsare languishing, it is a mean low thing to do to travel first class. ReadDostoievsky, read Tolstoy, read Kropotkin! We are being chased likeanimals. We are being persecuted. It doesn't matter where we die. "

"It may interest you to know that I have read them all, Kropotkin, Tolstoy, Dostoievsky. But don't suppose you are the only persecutedperson on earth. I am persecuted, too. We are all persecuted. "

"Oh, you are travelling first class and you are not a Jew. I am a Jew. Have you the faintest idea of what it means to be a Jew in Russia?"

"That is why you and I are now travelling to a new world, " saidFrederick, "to America, the land of liberty. "

"Indeed!" she sneered, "I and liberty! I know my fate. Don't you knowinto what hands I have fallen? I am the victim of vile exploiters!"

The girl cried, and since she was young and of the same delicacy offigure as Ingigerd, only of a very different race, a dark-haired, dark-eyed race, Frederick felt himself perceptibly weakening. Hiscompassion grew; and he was well aware that openly expressed sympathyis the surest approach to love. So he again forced himself into a hard, repellent attitude of opposition. 

"Now I am nothing but a physician representing another physician. Whatdoes it concern me, and how can I help it, if you have fallen into thehands of exploiters? Besides, all of you intellectual Russians arehysterical--a trait utterly repugnant to me. "

She jumped to her feet and wanted to run away. To restrain her he caughtfirst her right, then her left wrist. She looked at him with such anexpression of hate and contempt that he could not but be sensitive of thegirl's passionate beauty. Her face was of the colour that greensicknessimparts. Her features were exquisitely delicate. In contrast, Ingigerd'sface, with which Frederick fleetingly compared hers, seemed unrefined, even coarse. Here was the aristocracy of a too highly bred race, somewhatfaded, to be sure, but at that moment all the more seductive. 

"Ugh! Let me go, let me go, I say!"

"What have I done to you?" Frederick asked. For a moment he was genuinelyalarmed, scarcely knowing whether he had not been actually guilty of awrong against her. He had been drinking champagne and was excited. Ifsomeone were to enter now, what would he think of him? Even centuriesbefore, had not Potiphar's wife, from whom Joseph fled, resorted tocertain successful slanderous means? "What have I done?" he repeated. 

"Nothing, " she said, "except what you are in the habit of doing. You haveinsulted an unprotected girl. "

"Are you crazy?" he asked. 

Suddenly she answered: "I don't know. " And in that instant the hard, hateful expression of her face melted, turning into complete submission, a change that went irresistibly to the heart of a man like Frederick. Heforgot himself. He was no longer master of his feelings. 

XXXI

This strange incident of meeting, seeing, loving, and parting forever hadpassed swiftly as in a dream. Since Wilhelm had not yet returned, Frederick, long after his visitor had fled, went out on deck, where theexalted impression of the starry heavens shining over the infiniteexpanse of the ocean, purified him, as it were. He was neither by naturenor by habit a Don Juan, and it astonished him that the unusual, surprising adventure seemed the most natural thing in the world. 

The deck was empty. Another boy was on guard in Pander's place. Thetemperature had sunk to below freezing-point, and a thick coating ofhoar-frost lay on the rigging. 

As he stood leaning over the railing, he had a painful vision of the sumtotal of life and death within the eons of life on earth. His innermostbeing smarted with the pain of it. Death must have existed before thebeginning. Death and death! That was the limit, he thought, of vast sumsof trouble, hope, desire, enjoyment--enjoyment which forthwith consumeditself to make way for renewed desire, for illusions of possession, forrealities of loss, for anguish, for conflicts, for meetings and partings;all uncontrollable processes bound up with suffering and fresh sufferingand suffering again. It gave him some satisfaction to assume that nowthat the passage was so smooth, his Deborah and all her companions insuffering were probably lying wrapt in unconscious sleep, for a timerelieved of the great madness of life. 

While waiting for Doctor Wilhelm, absorbed in these reflections, Frederick involuntarily turned away from the edge of the deck, and becameaware of a dark mass not far from the smoke-stack, cowering in a corneragainst the wall. The thing looked strange to him. On stepping closer hesaw it was a man on the floor asleep, wrapped in his overcoat with hiscap drawn over his eyes, his bearded head resting on a low camp-chair. Frederick was convinced it was Achleitner. Why was he lying there in thefreezing cold instead of in bed? Frederick found the right answer. Notmore than three paces away was the door of Ingigerd's cabin; and he wasthe faithful dog in three senses, the watchdog, the Cerberus, the dogcrazed with the rabies of jealousy. 

"Poor fellow, " Frederick said aloud. "Poor, stupid Achleitner!" He feltgenuine, almost tender sympathy; and over him came all the woe of thedeceived lover, as we can trace it from Nietzsche and Schopenhauer downto Buddha Gotama, whose pupil, Ananda, asks: "Master, how shall wecomport ourselves toward a woman?" Quoth the master: "Avoid the sight ofher, Ananda, because a woman's being is hidden. It is unfathomable as theway of the fish in the water. To her, lying is as truth, and truth aslying. "

"Sst! What are you doing here?" said Doctor Wilhelm, stepping up softly. He was carrying something in his hands carefully wrapped up. 

"Do you know who is lying here?" said Frederick. "It is Achleitner. "

"He wanted to keep his eye on that cabin, " Wilhelm remarked cynically, "to limit the attendance. "

"We must wake him up. "

"Why?" said Wilhelm. "Later, when we go to bed. "

"I am going to bed now. "

"Come to my cabin first for a moment. "

In his cabin the physician laid a human embryo on the table. 

"She has attained her end, " he said, meaning the girl travelling secondclass, who in his opinion had taken the trip for no other purpose than torid herself of her burden and avoid disgrace. At the sight of the littleobject, Frederick did not know whether to be born or never to awaken tolife was preferable. 

He went out on deck again, aroused Achleitner, and led him to his cabin, resisting and mumbling incomprehensible words, though half asleep. Then, in dread of the agonies of insomnia, he went to his own cabin. 

XXXII

He fell asleep immediately, but when he awoke, it was only two o'clock. The ship was still moving easily, and he could hear the screw workingregularly under the water. Life in times of great physical crises is afever, which travelling and sleeplessness enhance. Frederick well knewhis own nature, and was alarmed when he saw himself robbed of the peaceof sleep after so short a time. 

But had his sleep actually meant peace? Lying on his back with wide, staring eyes, he saw vast nocturnal spaces of his soul opened up, wherein bottomless depths another chaotic life had been born--a multitude oftormenting visions, in which things and persons most familiar had arisenin combination with things and persons entirely strange. He tried torecall his dreams. 

He had dreamed he was wandering hand in hand with Achleitner among thedark smoke widows trailing backward over the ocean from the funnels ofthe _Roland_, far, far away. He and the Russian Jewess together withgreat difficulty dragged the dead stoker, Zickelmann, up into the blueladies' parlour; and by means of a serum, which he himself haddiscovered, he brought him back to life. He smoothed over a quarrelbetween the Russian Jewess and Ingigerd Hahlström, who fought and calledeach other abusive names. He was sitting with Doctor Wilhelm in hiscabin, and, as Wagner once had done, was observing a homunculus stillundergoing embryonic development in a glass sphere on which light wasshining. At the same time Ingigerd's cockatoo was squawking in ArthurStoss's voice and continually asseverating:

"I am already a man of absolutely independent fortune. I am touringsimply to bring my fortune up to a certain amount. "

Under the impression that he was recalling these things to his memory, Frederick was really dreaming again. Suddenly he started up, cuffing HansFüllenberg furiously and saying: "I'll box your ears. " Shortly afterwardhe was in the smoking-room delivering a crushing sermon for the third orfourth time, morally felling to the ground the man who had desecrated hissacred relation to Ingigerd. But the captain came in, and said they hadto bury the stoker. There was a dead man on board. When Frederick steppedfrom the smoking-room, he saw the corpse lying in the coffin. It was notZickelmann, the stoker, but Angèle, his suffering, neglected wife, in oneof her hysterical attacks in which she lay in a trance. And it was not atthe entrance to the smoking-room, but in Plassenberg in the Heuscheuer, in front of his comfortable house. Captain von Kessel was standing in thegarden clipping a privet hedge. It was at night, but a full moon wasshining bright as day over the lonely valley meadows in front of hishouse. Angèle arose and Frederick went to lead her into the house. Sheresisted. Now the consciousness of his spiritual separation from herfilled him with infinite sadness, a sadness more bitter and profoundthan any that had ever inspired him in his waking moments. 

"I am a mother, " said Angèle, "but not by you. "

He embraced her, weeping, and wanted to draw her into his house. Sheresisted gently, but firmly, and declared she was forbidden to enter. Hesaw her wandering across the meadows in the moonshine, slowly andwearily. 

"Angèle!" he cried. He ran after her. 

"It is so hard for me, " she said, "because life and not death has robbedme of you. "

Frederick groaned aloud. A great stone seemed to be lying on his breast. He heard the rushing of waters. He saw the flood come leaping through allthe valleys, over the tops of all the hills, wave upon wave, from allsides. The moon was shining. He saw Angèle climb to a little skiff lyingmoored somewhere; and the tide carried away the skiff with her in it. Thewaters overwhelmed his house. 

Again the wandering began, hand in hand with Achleitner and the smokewidows across the ocean desert. Again began that difficult draggingup-stairs and down-stairs of the naked, dead stoker, with the help of theyoung admirer of Kropotkin. The dispute between Ingigerd and Deborah, hissermonising of Füllenberg and the man in the smoking-room repeatedthemselves, each repetition intensifying his torment. The homunculusin the glass sphere in Doctor Wilhelm's cabin appeared again. Itdeveloped with light thrown on it. In his anguish, in his impotenceagainst that martyrising chase of visions, Frederick's persecuted soul, gasping for peace, suddenly rose in revolt, and he said aloud:

"Kindle the light of reason, kindle the light of reason, O God inheaven!"

He rose in his berth, and saw that Rosa, the servant-girl, was in realityholding a burning candle over him. She bent down slightly, and said:

"You are dreaming hard. Aren't you feeling well, Doctor von Kammacher?"

The door creaked. The servant-girl Rosa had left. The ship was movingquietly. Or was he mistaken? Was the _Roland_ no longer proceeding socalmly and steadily as before? He listened intently, and heard the screwwhirring regularly under the water. Monotonous calls penetrated from thedeck. Then came the loud rattling of the cinders pouring overboard. Frederick looked at his watch. It was five o'clock. So three hours hadpassed since he had first awakened! Again, with a clatter and a thunder, a load of ashes slid into the Atlantic Ocean. Was it not the mates of thedead stoker, Zickelmann, who were throwing it overboard? Frederick heardthe crying of children, thereupon the sobbing and whimpering of hishysterical neighbour, and finally Rosa's voice, trying to quiet Siegfriedand Ella, who was a talkative little girl. Siegfried was fretfullybegging to be taken back to his grandmother in Luckenwalde. Mrs. Lieblingwas scolding Rosa, telling her she was responsible for the children'sbehaviour. Frederick heard her say:

"You all trample about on my nerves. I wish the three of you were at thebottom of the sea. For heaven's sake, let me sleep!"

XXXIII

Notwithstanding all these impressions, Frederick fell asleep again. Hedreamed that he and Rosa, the maid, and little Siegfried Liebling were ina life-boat, rocking on a calm, shimmering green sea. Strangely enough, there was a mass of gold ingots in the bottom of the boat, probably thegold ingots that the _Roland_ was supposed to be carrying to the mint inWashington. Frederick was at the helm, and after cruising about a while, they reached a bright, cheery port. It may have been a port in theAzores, or the Madeira Islands, or the Canary Islands. At a shortdistance from the quay, Rosa jumped overboard and reached land holdingSiegfried clear of the water. People received them, and they disappearedin one of the snowy white buildings at the harbour front. When Fredericklanded, to his joy he was greeted on the marble steps of the quay by hisold friend, Peter Schmidt, the physician he intended to visit in America. In response to curious questions, he always said that this was his mainpurpose in crossing the ocean. His delight at seeing him in a dream, inthe setting of the white tropical town, after a separation of eight ornine years, was a surprise to himself. How was it possible that he hadonly occasionally and superficially remembered so magnificent a man, sodear a youthful companion?

Peter Schmidt was a Friesian. He and Frederick had sat together on thesame school bench; later, they had spent two years together in thegymnasium at St. Magdalene at Breslau and several semesters in theuniversities of Greifswald, Breslau, and Zürich. Owing to a combinationof common sense, many-sided knowledge, and humanitarian enthusiasm, PeterSchmidt had exerted great influence on his friends. There was also anadventurous streak in his nature, inherited from his father, a Friesiancolonist, who lay buried in a churchyard in Meriden, Connecticut. 

"It is good that you have come, " said Peter Schmidt. Frederick felt asif he had been long expecting him. "Your wife, Angèle, just arrived ina skiff. "

His friend silently led him to an inn near the harbour. A sense ofsecurity such as he had never before felt came over him. While he tooka little luncheon in the dining-room, where the host, a German, stoodopposite, twirling his thumbs, Peter Schmidt explained:

"The town is not large, but it will give you an idea of the country. You will find people here that are contented and have made their lastlanding. "

It was taken as a matter of course that there, in that strange, silentcity in the dazzling sunlight, the fewest possible words were to bespoken. Some new, mute inner sense appeared to make meanings clear. Nevertheless, Frederick said:

"I've always taken you for the mentor in unknown depths of ourpredestination. " By which he meant to express his awe at his friend'smysterious being. 

"Yes, " said Peter Schmidt, "but this is only a small beginning, thoughenough to indicate what is hidden under the surface here. "

Peter Schmidt, born in Tondern, now led Frederick out to the harbour. Itwas a very small harbour. There were a number of ancient vessels lyinghalf-sunk in the water. 

"Fourteen-ninety-two, " said Peter Schmidt. That was the year the fourhundredth anniversary of which was being much discussed by the Americanson board the _Roland_. The Friesian pointed to both the half-submergedcaravels and explained that one of them was the _Santa Maria_, Christopher Columbus's flag-ship. "I came over with ChristopherColumbus, " he said. 

All this was unqualifiedly enlightening to Frederick. Nor was thereanything enigmatic in Peter Schmidt's explanation that the wood of thoseslowly decaying caravels was called _legno santo_ and was used for fuel, because it contained the spirit of knowledge. Farther out to sea lay athird vessel, with a great, black breach forward on the port side. 

"It sank, " said the Friesian. "It brought in a great lot of people. "

Frederick looked at the vessel. He was dissatisfied. He would have likedto ask questions about the unfamiliar, yet curiously familiar ship outthere at sea; but the Friesian left the harbour and turned into a narrow, crooked street with a steep flight of stairs. 

Here an old uncle of Frederick, who had been dead more than fifteenyears, came toward him comfortably puffing at a pipe. He had just arisen, it seemed, from a bench by the open entrance to his house. 

"How do you do?" he said. "We are all here, my boy. " Frederick knew whomthe old man meant when he said, "We are all here. " "We fare very well, "the old man, who in his lifetime had not been exactly favoured byfortune, continued, grinning. "I didn't get along so well when I was upwith you in the dismal air. In the first place, my boy, we have the_legno santo_. " With his pipe he pointed to the dark interior of hishouse, where blue tongues of flame were leaping on the hearth. "Andbesides, we have the Toilers of the Light. But I am detaining you. _We_have time, but _you_ must hurry. " Frederick said good-bye. "Fiddlesticks!" exclaimed his uncle. "Do you people down there still keepup that tiresome business of 'how-do-you-do' and 'good-bye'?"

Climbing higher up the street, Peter Schmidt led Frederick through anumber of houses and inside courtyards. In one of the courtyards withmany corners, reminding Frederick of certain ancient sections of Hamburgand Nuremberg, was a ship-chandlery bearing the sign, "The SeagoingShip. "

"Everything here looks quite ordinary, " said Peter Schmidt, "but here wehave all the ancient models. " He pointed to the small model of an ancientvessel standing in the little window of the chandlery, among packagesof chewing tobacco and leather whips. 

Ships, ships, nothing but ships! The sight of this last vessel seemedto produce the beginning of a slight gnawing resistance in Frederick'sbrain. He knew he was looking upon an all-embracing symbol, which he hadnever before seen. With a new sense organ, with centralised clarity ofthought, he realised that here, in this little model, was comprehendedall the wandering and adventuring of the human soul. 

"Oh, " said the chandler, opening the glass door of the little shop, atwhich all sorts of wares hanging on the door swung to and fro with aclatter, "Oh, you here, Frederick? I thought you were still at sea. "

Frederick recognised the chandler as George Rasmussen, whose farewellletter he had received in Southampton. He was dressed in a shabby cap anddressing-gown belonging to a confectioner long dead, whom he had knownwhen a boy. Mysterious as it all was, there was yet something natural inthis meeting with his friend. The little shop was alive with goldfinches. "They are the goldfinches, " Rasmussen explained, "that settled in theHeuscheuer Mountains last winter, you know, and were fatal to me. "

"Yes, I remember, " said Frederick. "We would approach a bare branch ortree, and suddenly it would seem to shake itself and scatter thousands ofgold leaves. We interpreted it as auguring mountains of money. "

"Well, " said the chandler, "it was precisely thirteen minutes past oneon the twenty-fourth of January when I drew my last breath. I had justreceived your telegram from Paris absolving me from my debt. Back therein the shop, among other things, is my predecessor's fur coat, which--Iam by no means complaining--infected me. I wrote you that if I could, Iwould make myself noticeable from the Beyond. Well, here I am. But evenhere everything isn't perfectly clear and plain, though I am feelingbetter, and we all rest in a pleasant sense of basic security. I'm gladyou and Peter Schmidt have met. He counts for a lot here in this country. You will meet each other above again, in New York, at the celebration ofthe four hundredth anniversary of 1492. Good Lord! Of what significanceafter all, is that little discovery of America?" Rasmussen in his strangedisguise removed the miniature vessel from the show window. It, too, wascalled the _Santa Maria_. "Now, please be careful, " he said. Fredericknoticed that the old confectioner took one vessel after another of thesame sort, but diminishing in size, from the first one. "Patience, " hesaid, while still pulling more and more vessels from the entrails of the_Santa Maria_. The procedure caused Frederick no slight astonishment. "Patience. The smaller are always the better ones. If I had time, weshould reach the smallest, the final, the most glorious work ofProvidence. Each one of these ships carries us not only beyond theboundaries of our planet, but even beyond the limited barriers of oursenses. Each of them is adapted to carry us across the border. If you areinterested, " he continued, "I have other wares in my shop. Here are thecaptain's hedge-scissors, here is a plummet with which one can sound thelowest depths of the firmament and the Milky Way. Here are the tropics ofCancer and Capricorn. But you have no time, and I won't detain you. "

The chandler closed the glass door on them; but they saw him with hisnose flattened against the pane, mysteriously, as if he still hadsomething to sell, holding his finger to his mouth, shaped like a carp's. His lips seemed to be framing certain words. Frederick understood _legnosanto_, Toilers of the Light, and even what his uncle had said about "upwith you in the dismal air. " But Peter Schmidt thrust his fist throughthe glass door, pulled Rasmussen's embroidered cap off his head, tookfrom it a little key, and beckoned Frederick to come away with him. Theyleft the houses behind and stepped out into the open rolling country. 

"The thing is, " said Peter, "it will mean a lot of trouble. "

And they ran and climbed for hours. Evening fell. They lit a fire, andslept in a tree rocking in the wind. Morning came. They took to wanderingagain, until the sun lay low on the horizon. Finally, Peter opened asmall gate in a low wall. On the other side of the wall was a garden. A gardener was tying vines. 

"How do you do, Doctor?" he said. "The sun is setting, but we know why wedie. "

On looking at him more closely, Frederick recognised the dead stoker inthe man, whose face was illuminated by the rosy flush of the setting sunand wore a friendly smile, as he stood there in what was a strangegarden, or vineyard, or fairy-land. 

"I'd rather be doing this than shovelling coal, " said the stoker, pointing to the cords hanging in his hands, with which he had been tyingup the vines. 

The three of them together now walked a rather long distance to a wildsection of the garden, where it had turned completely dark. The windbegan to rush, and the shrubs, trees and bushes of the garden swishedlike breakers on the shore. The stoker beckoned to them, and theysquatted on the ground in a circle. It seemed as if the stoker with hisbare hand had taken a bit of burning wood from his pocket. He held itclose to the ground, to illuminate a round opening, something like theburrow of a marmot or a rabbit. 

"_Legno santo_, " said Peter Schmidt, pointing to the glowing piece ofcharcoal. "Now, Frederick, you will get to see those ant-like littleelves that are called _noctiluci_ or night-lights. They pompously callthemselves Toilers of the Light. But whatever their name, it must beadmitted that they are the ones that take the light hidden in theentrails of the earth, store it up, and sow it in fields, the soil ofwhich has been especially prepared; and when it has grown to its fullsize and has borne fruit a hundredfold in the shape of gold sheaves ornuggets, they harvest it and save it for the darkest of dark times. "

And, actually, looking through a crevice, Frederick saw something likeanother world, with a subterranean sun shining on it. A multitude oflittle elves, the Toilers of the Light, were mowing with scythes, cuttingstalks, binding sheaves, loading carts, and storing in barns. Many cutthe light out of the ground, like nuggets of gold. Undoubtedly it was thegold meant for the mint in Washington that was haunting Frederick'sdreams. 

"These Toilers of the Light, " said the Friesian, Peter Schmidt, "are themost stimulating to my ideas. "

At this point Frederick awoke, while the voice of the stoker close besidehim was saying:

"Many will soon be following me. "

XXXIV

The first thing Frederick did on waking was to look at his watch. He hada dull feeling that he must have slept through the whole night and eventhe following day. He peered at the hands incredulously and held thewatch to his ear to convince himself it had not stopped. No, it was stillrunning. Consequently, since his last waking, only six or, at the utmost, eight minutes had passed. 

This fact as well as the peculiarity and the vividness of his dream sethim to marvelling. He could not recall ever having dreamed so coherentlyand logically. Are there dreams that are more than dreams? Was Rasmussendead? Had his friend, keeping his promise, chosen this way to makehimself noticeable from the Beyond? A strange shudder went throughFrederick. In his excitement it seemed to him that he had been honouredwith a revelation. He took his memorandum book from the net bag over hisberth and jotted down the date and hour that the remarkable chandler hadmentioned as the time of his death. "Thirteen minutes past one, " hedistinctly heard Rasmussen's voice saying, "thirteen minutes past one, onthe twenty-fourth of January. "

The _Roland_ was tossing slightly again, and the great siren wasbellowing. Its repeated thunderous cries, which indicated fog, thelurching of the vessel, the sign, perhaps, of fresh storms and hardshipsto be gone through, vexed and fretted Frederick. From the adventurousdoings in his brain, he was transported to the no less adventurous doingsin reality. Awakening from his dreams, he found himself locked into anarrow cabin, plowing through the high seas, on a vessel heavilyfreighted with the fearful dreams of many souls, and yet not sinkingfrom the load of that cargo. 

Frederick was already on deck before half past five. The fog had lifted, and from over the edge of a leaden sea of moderate-sized waves rose thedawn of a gloomy morning. The deck was empty, producing the impression ofdreary loneliness. The passengers were all lying in their berths. None ofthe crew even were visible. It looked as if the mighty ship were pursuingits course wholly without human agency. 

XXXV

Frederick was standing near the log-line, which dragged in the broad, churning wake. Even in the ghostly dawn, hungry gulls were following theship, sometimes flying near, sometimes dropping back, ever and anonswooping down into the foamy wake with a mournful cry, as of condemnedsouls. This was no vision, and yet Frederick scarcely distinguished itfrom a dream. With his nerves unstrung, with his being still penetratedby the marvels of his sleeping life, which remained partially present tohim, the strange heaving waste of the ocean seemed no less miraculousthan his dreams. Thus the ocean had been tossing its mountains of wavesbeneath the blind eyes of millions of years, itself no less blind thanthose eons. Thus and not otherwise had it been since the first day ofcreation: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And theearth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of thedeep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. "

Frederick shivered. Had he ever lived with anything else than a spiritand spirits, that is, with ghosts? And at this moment was he not fartherremoved than ever from what is considered immovable solid ground, fromwhat is called reality? In his state of mind, did he not believe in fairytales, sailors' superstitions, the Flying Dutchman, and hobgoblins? Whatwas that ocean hiding in its infinite waves rolling under the low, greysky? Had not everything arisen from the ocean? Had not everything gonedown into its depths again? Had some power disclosed the submergedAtlantis to Frederick's mental vision? Why not?

He was passing through profound, enigmatic moments of a fearful yetpleasurable dread. There was the ocean, on which an apparently abandonedvessel, a small spot in infinity, was staggering forward with no visiblegoal ahead and no visible starting-point behind. There were the heavenslying heavily upon it, grey and dismal. There was Frederick himself, alone. Every animate creature in that solitude was transformed in hissoul into visions, phantoms and apparitions. Man is always facing theunfathomable alone. That gives him a sense of greatness along with asense of desertion. There was a man standing at the stern of a vessel, while the darkness of night was yielding to the dawn, bound by theinvisible, glowing threads of his fate to two continents of the globe, and awaiting the new, less tormenting form of life that comes from thesun, a strange star millions of miles removed from the planet earth. Allthis was a miracle to Frederick, almost overwhelming him, as if he wereimprisoned in marvels. In a sudden seizure of hopelessness that he wouldever throw off the suffocating oppression of riddles and miracles, thetemptation came upon him to leap over the railing. Close upon thisfeeling followed the timidity of a man with a bad conscience. He glancedabout, as if in fear of discovery. He wiped his eyes and forehead withhis hands, because it seemed to him that the dead stoker with the bloodywound had for a long time been sitting nearby on a coil of rope. Hischest felt heavy, as if a load were dragging it down. He heard voices. Hesaw his wife, Angèle, wringing her hands. Suddenly he thought he was toblame for her illness, that he was a criminal; and all his thoughts ofIngigerd Hahlström made him doubly despicable in his own eyes. His ideasgrew confused. In a wave of absolute credulity, he thought the voice ofhis conscience was condemning him to death. He thought that his life wasbeing demanded as an atonement, that he must sacrifice himself, or elsethe _Roland_, with all it carried, would sink. 

At that moment Frederick heard a strong voice saying:

"Good morning, Doctor von Kammacher. "

It was the first mate, Von Halm, on his way to the bridge. Before thehealthy beauty of the human voice, the haunting visions instantly fled, and Frederick's soul was restored to sanity. 

"Were you making deep-sea researches?" Von Halm asked. 

"Yes, " said Frederick with a laugh, "I was about to make a sounding forthe submerged Atlantis. What do you think of the weather?"

The giant was wearing his sou'wester and oilskin. He pointed to thebarometer. Frederick saw it had dropped considerably. Adolph, thesteward, came in search of Frederick. Having failed to find him in hiscabin, he was bringing him his zwieback and large peasant cup of tea ondeck. Frederick seated himself on the same bench as the day before, opposite the companionway. He sipped the cordial drink and warmedhis hands on the cup. 

Before he had finished, the wind was again beginning to boom in therigging of the four masts, and a stiff, obstinate wind was heeling thevessel to starboard. Frederick set to bargaining inwardly, as if he hadto reckon with the powers on account of the new hardships to be gonethrough. He suddenly longed to be with Peter Schmidt in America. Sincehis dream, it seemed more and more important for him to see, andassociate with, his old comrade again. He thought he was rid of Ingigerd, the more surely as she had played no part at all in the momentousAtlantis dream. The sooner the voyage with her ended the better. 

XXXVI

By the time Frederick was taking his real breakfast with Doctor Wilhelmin the dining-room, at about eight o'clock, the whole mass of the vesselwas again quivering and at short intervals again seemed to be runninghard against walls of rock. The low-ceiled room in dismal gloom, dottedhere and there by electric lights, was leaping in a mad dance, one momentriding high on the crest of a wave, the next moment plunging deep into aneddying trough. The few men that had ventured to table tried to laugh andjoke away the situation, which by no means offered a rosy outlook. 

"In the pit of my stomach I have the feeling I used to get as a childwhen I swung too high. "

"Kammacher, we're in the devil's cauldron. There'll be things doingcompared with which the things we've gone through aren't a circumstance, "said Wilhelm. 

From somewhere came the word, "Cyclone, " a dreadful word, though itseemed to make no impression upon the steamer _Roland_, a model ofdetermination, steadfastly cleaving the waves and tearing breaches inthe mountains of water. New York was its goal, and it was hasteningonward. 

Frederick wanted to go on deck, but it looked bad there, and he remainedon the upper step under the protection of the companionway penthouse. Thelevel of the sea seemed to have risen, so that the warrior _Roland_appeared to be making his obstinate way through a deep defile. One couldnot help succumbing to the impression that each instant the defile wouldclose overhead and settle the faithful vessel's fate forever. Sailors inoilskins were climbing about to make fast every loose thing. Great waveshad already swept overboard. The salt water was trickling and flowingover the deck. As if that were not enough, the heavens were driving downrain and snow. The rigging was howling, groaning, booming, and whistlingin every pitch and key. That severity, that awfulness of the elements, that eternal rushing and roaring and seething of great masses of water, through which the steamer was staggering forward as if in mad, blindintoxication, that mournful, raging tumult kept up hour after hour. Bynoon it had even grown worse. 

Very few responded to the trumpet-call for luncheon. There were about tenmen beside the woman physician and the woman painter. Hahlström seatedhimself at Frederick's and Wilhelm's empty table. The ladies' places werenot far away. 

"No wonder, " said Frederick, "that sailors are superstitious. The waythis awful weather dropped out of a clear sky is enough to make a manbelieve in magic. "

"It may even grow worse, " Wilhelm observed. 

The women heard his remark, looked up, and made horrified eyes. 

"Do you think there is danger?" one of them asked. 

"Danger is always imminent in life, " he replied, and added with a smile:"It is merely a question of not being frightened. "

Incredible to relate, the band began to play as usual, and, what is more, played a piece entitled _Marche triomphale_. The effect on all was atfirst a slight shudder; then nobody could resist a smile at the apparentirony of it. 

"The musicians are heroes, " said Frederick. 

"In general, " remarked Hahlström, "our grim humour nowadays is a greatasset. If those musicians were to receive the order, they would play 'ACountry Girl, ' and 'My Hannah Lady, ' in the jaws or the belly of a whale. If they didn't, they'd fare just as badly. "

"O Lord, anything for a steady table, a steady seat, a steady berth! Theman possessing these things seldom knows how rich he is, " said Frederick, in a voice raised to a shout to make himself heard above the noise of thesea without and the music within. The men laughed, and the ocean, to addto their amusement, raised them up in the fog, the tempest, and the snowto the top of a wave ninety feet high. Everybody was instantly silenced. Even the orchestra played a frightened pause not indicated in the score. 

On ascending the companionway after lunch, Frederick saw Arthur Stoss inthe unfrequented smoking-room eating his meal in perfect equanimity andcheerfulness undisturbed by the weather. Frederick went in for a chatwith the original, witty monstrosity. He was cutting his fish with aknife and fork held between the great toe and the second toe. 

"Our old omnibus is jolting a bit, " he said. "If our boilers are good, there is nothing to fear. But there's this much about it. If it is nota cyclone yet, it may still turn into one. I don't care. It looks morediscouraging than it really is. What a man will do! To show the peoplein Cape Town, Melbourne, Buenos Aires, San Francisco and Mexico what aman with a firm, energetic will can accomplish, even if nature has notfavoured him, he will plow through all the cyclones, hurricanes andtyphoons of all the waters of the globe. Your business man sitting in theWinter Garden in Berlin, or the Alhambra in London, never dreams of allthe things the performer giving his number must go through before he canmerely stand where he is standing. He can't ever take it easy and lethimself get rusty. "

Frederick was feeling miserable. Although his dreams were still hauntinghis brain, and Ingigerd, or his sick wife, or the Russian Jewess wasstill present in his soul, he nevertheless felt that all sensations werebecoming more and more submerged in the one sensation, that on all sidesthere was distinct menace of a brutal danger. 

Hans Füllenberg entered. His face was lifeless. 

"There is a corpse on board, " he said, in a tone implying a causalrelation between the dead stoker and the raging storm. It was veryevident that the spice had been taken out of Hans Füllenberg's life. 

"I heard the same thing, " Stoss said. "My man, Bulke, told me a stokerdied. "

Frederick simulated ignorance of the event. Accustomed to observe himselfhonestly, he realized that though the fact was not new to him, Füllenberg's statement of it had made him shudder. 

"The dead man is dead, " said Stoss, now attacking his roast withappetite. "We won't be wrecked on the dead stoker's corpse. But lastnight a derelict was sighted. Those corpses, the corpses of vessels, aredangerous. When the sea is rough, they can't be sighted. "

Frederick asked for more information about derelicts. 

"About nine hundred and seventy-five drifting derelicts, " Stossexplained, "have been sighted in five years here in the northern part ofthe Atlantic. It is certain that the actual number is twice as great. Oneof the most dangerous of such tramps is the iron four-masted schooner, _Houresfeld_. On its way from Liverpool to San Francisco, fire broke outin its hold, and the crew abandoned it. If we were to collide withanything of that sort, there wouldn't be a soul left to tell the tale. "

"You can't pass through the gangways, " said Füllenberg, "the bulkheadsare closed down. "

The siren began to roar again. Frederick still heard defiance and triumphin the cry, and yet something recalling the broken horn of the heroRoland in Roncesvalles. 

"There is no danger yet, " said Stoss to calm him. 

XXXVII

Long after Stoss had been led away by his valet and tucked in bed for hisafternoon nap, Frederick still remained in the unfrequented smoking-room. The place made an uncanny impression. Yet its very gloominess insuredprivacy; and in the gravity of the situation he had need to be byhimself. He began, perhaps prematurely, to consider the worsteventuality. He thought it might be well to stand in readiness. Aroundthe walls ran a bench upholstered in leather. Kneeling on it, he couldlook through the port-holes out upon the mighty uproar of the waters. Inthat position, watching the waves beat with inconceivable persistencyagainst the desperately struggling vessel, he let his life pass in reviewbefore his mind's eye. 

Grey gloom was closing down on him. After all, he felt that he yearnedfor life and was far from being as ready to die as he had occasionallysupposed. Something akin to regret came over him. "Why am I here? Why didI not stop to consider and summon all my rational will power to keep mefrom this senseless trip? For all I care, let me die; but not here, notin a desert of water far from mother earth, immeasurably far from thegreat community of men. This seems to me a particularly awful curse. Menon solid land, in their own homes, men among men, have not the leastnotion of it. " What was Ingigerd to him now? A matter of indifference. Shaking his head, he admitted that he now had only the narrowest concernfor himself. What a beautiful hope to escape that brutal fate and land onsome shore! Any fragment of land, any island, any city, any snow-cladvillage was a garden of Eden, an improbable dream of happiness. Howextravagantly grateful he would be in the future merely to tread dryland, merely to draw breath, merely to see a lively street! He gnashedhis teeth. Of what avail a cry for help here? How could a man find God'sear here? If the extreme thing were to happen, and the _Roland_ with itsmass of human beings were to founder, one would see things that wouldprevent the man that had seen them, even if he escaped, from ever beinghappy again. 

"I would not witness it, " thought Frederick. "I would jump overboard toavoid the sight of it. And while that would be happening, none of myfriends and relatives would be thinking of me at all. 'The steamship_Roland_ sunk' appears as a head-line in the newspapers. 'Oh!' says thereader in Berlin, the reader in Hamburg, and Amsterdam. He takes a sipof coffee, puffs at his cigar, and comfortably settles back to a taste ofmore details of the catastrophe, whether observed or fabricated. What ahurrah for the newspaper publishers! A sensation! More readers! That isthe Medusa into whose eyes we look, and who tells us what the genuinevalue of a cargo of human lives is in the world. "

Frederick attempted in vain to battle against a still-life picture, which the _Roland_, valiantly struggling onward, with its siren almoststifled in the storm, showed him at the bottom of the sea. He saw themajestic vessel in a coffin of glass. Across its decks swarms of fishswam hither and thither. Its cabins were all filled with water. Thelarge dining-room, with its panels of walnut, its tables, andleather-upholstered revolving chairs, was filled with water. A big polyp, jelly-fish, and red, mushroom-like sea-anemones had penetrated into thevery gangways along which the passengers were now walking. And toFrederick's horror, the liveried corpses of Pfundner, the head-steward, and his assistant stewards were slowly floating about in a circle. Thepicture would have been almost ridiculous, had it not been so gruesomeand had it not so certainly lain in the realm of the possible. Think ofall the things divers report! All the things they have seen in the cabinsand gangways of submerged steamers; inextricably knotted masses of humanbeings, passengers or sailors coming toward them with outstretched arms, upright, as if alive and as if awaiting them. A closer examination of theclothes of those guardians and administrators of a lost estate at thebottom of the sea, those strange ship-owners, business men, captains, pursers, those fortune-seekers, money-seekers, embezzlers, adventurers, or whatever they might be, showed that they were filled with polyps, crustaceans, and all sorts of ocean worms, enjoying their stay thereas long as something remained beneath their shredded garments exceptgnawed-off bones. 

Frederick beheld himself down there, too, one of those decaying phantoms, months old, wandering about in the ghastly abode of the sunken _Roland_, in that horrible Vineta, where each man passed his neighbour mutely witha frightened gesture, each seeming to carry in his breast a congealed cryof anguish, which he expressed with bowed head and outstretched arms, orhead thrown back and open mouth. Or else he was hideously crawling on hishands, or wringing his hands, or folding them, or spreading out hisfingers. The engineers in the boiler-room seemed still slowly, slowlyto be controlling the cylinder and driving-wheel; yet differently thanbefore, since the law of gravity seemed no longer to be in force. One ofthe engineers was doing his work in a peculiarly twisted way, like a manasleep caught between the rim of the wheel and the piston-rod coveredwith verdigris. Frederick descended on his ghastly tour down to thestokers, whom the catastrophe had surprised in the midst of theiroccupation. Some were still holding their shovels in their hands, thoughunable to lift them. They themselves were floating, while the shovels towhich they clung did not stir from the bottom. All was over. They couldnot kindle the fire into a white glow, and so could not keep the mightysteamer in its course. In the steerage the sight was so horrible tobehold, with men, women and children of all nationalities huddled andtossed in thick, dark heaps, that even a cat-shark, which had made itsway through the chimney of the stoke-hole and then through the engine, did not feel sufficiently courageous or hungry to mingle in thegathering. _Noli turbare circulos meos_, these people, too, seemed tobe saying. All were thinking strenuously, absorbed in the profoundestmeditation--they had plenty of time for profound meditation--upon theriddle of life. 

In fact, they seemed to be placed there merely for the purpose ofreflecting. Those men and women wringing their hands or spreading theirfingers, or walking on their hands, or even standing on the tip of asingle finger, while grazing the ceiling with their feet, were allthinking. Professor Toussaint alone, who came floating toward Frederickin the gangway, seemed to be acting differently. With his right handraised, he seemed to be saying: "An artist may not rust. He must airhimself. He must seek new conditions of life. If he doesn't receive thehonour he should in Italy, he should simply go to France, like Leonardoda Vinci, or even emigrate to the land of liberty. "

"I want to live, live, nothing else, " thought Frederick. "In the future, like Cato the Elder, I would rather walk a year on foot along a way thatI could cover in three days on a steamer. "

To avoid the hideous companionship of the blue, swollen thinkers, he leftthe gloomy, funereal smoking-room, and, with aching head and leadenlimbs, dragged himself on deck, where the wild scurrying of the stormand the chaos of snow, rain and salty clouds of foam tore the weight awayfrom his soul. 

XXXVIII

In the space at the head of the companionway Frederick came upon thesame company as the day before, sitting close together in steamerchairs--Toussaint, the timid skipper of the sailing vessel, the womanartist, the woman physician, the tall electrical engineer, and a man whohad not been there the day before, an American colonel. He was a handsomespecimen of the highest type of his widely spread species. He was engagedin a conversation on the number of miles covered by all the railroads inthe United States, and his statements concerning their extent set fire tothe European chauvinism of the electrical engineer. They forgot theweather in their debate. Each party to the dispute named an incrediblenumber of miles and vaunted the advantages of the railroads in his nativecountry. 

"We are running at only half speed, " said Toussaint to Frederick. "Isn'tit strange how suddenly the weather changed?"

"Very, " answered Frederick. 

"Of course, " Toussaint continued with a pale grimace intended for asmile, "I don't understand anything about cyclones, but the seamen saythis storm is cyclonic. "

"It may be called a cyclone, " said the timid little skipper of thesailing vessel. "If it were striking us astern instead of ahead, it wouldnot be so bad. As it is, the _Roland_ at the utmost cannot make more thanthree miles an hour. Were I on my schooner and had the same storm blownup so suddenly, we should not have had time to furl a sail. We shouldhave been lost. Thank the Lord, it is better on modern steamers. Nevertheless, I feel more comfortable on my four-master, and the devilknows, I'd like to be on it now. "

Frederick could not help laughing. 

"As for the _Roland_, " he said, "I would rather be, let us say, in theHofbräuhaus in Munich. Your four-master has no greater charms for me thana cabin on the _Roland_. "

Hans Füllenberg came lounging in and told them a wave had swept away oneof the life-boats on the after quarter. At the very same instant anarched mass of water came flying slantwise over the port bow. 

"Oh!" everybody cried. 

"Magnificent, beautiful, " said Frederick. 

"That's cyclonic, " the woman artist repeated. 

"Believe me, " they heard the colonel say again, "the stretch from NewYork to Chicago alone"--

"That was a Niagara Falls, " said Toussaint. 

The wave, dropping into the ventilators and chimneys, had fairly bathedthe vessel. It was cold, too, and the _Roland_ was continuing itsobstinate, praiseworthy trip under a crust of ice and snow. Icicles werehanging from the rigging. Glassy stalactites formed about the chart-roomand everywhere on the railings and edges of things. The deck wasslippery, and it was a perilous venture to attempt to make one's wayforward. But when Ingigerd's cabin door opened and her long light hairrumpled by the wind appeared in the slit, Frederick instantly made theventure. She drew him into her cabin, where he found two children keepingher company. 

"I invited them to stay with me because it's fairly comfortable in thiscabin. "

The seriousness of the situation had extinguished in the girl allcoquetry and capriciousness. Frederick almost forgot what he had sufferedon her account and in what fatal dependence he had been upon thiscreature only a short time before. 

"Tell me, is there danger, Doctor von Kammacher?" she asked. 

His evasive answer seemed to make no impression upon her. He wasastonished to see how energetic and resolute she was, in contrast withher behaviour of yesterday, when she played the spoiled, suffering, helpless child. She begged him to go try to find her father. 

"In case anything happens, you know, it would be well not to be so faraway from him. "

"What do you suppose will happen?"

Without answering this, she asked him to stop at cabin 49 on the way andtell Rosa to come up. 

"My little guests keep clamouring for her. If she doesn't come up fora while, I can't keep them quiet. Then she can serenely go back againto her silly, sentimental mistress. What do you think of a man likeAchleitner?" she continued. "He is lying on all fours in his cabin, crying and groaning, 'Oh, my poor mother! Oh, my poor sister! Why didn'tI obey you, mamma!' and so on. Just fancy, a man! Poor fellow!" sheadded, her tone changing. "It's enough to move a heart of stone. " Sheheld fast to the bedstead, not to be thrown into a corner like asplinter, and shook with laughter. 

The mountain of stones under which Frederick had buried the littlesinner, Ingigerd, was at that moment removed, and love stood there withunparalleled might. Such genuine bravery and genuine humour, combinedwith so much tenderness, he had never credited her with. Nervous andtired as he was, he felt irresistibly drawn to her, felt his willslipping from him. But a little, and he would have thrown himself tothe floor and kissed the small feet in slippers. 

Frederick's amazement waxed when all of a sudden she wanted to crossthe deck and go below to comfort that donkey Achleitner. Frederickwould not allow her. He was ashamed of his previous attack of fright, called himself a miserable coward, and got himself under perfectcontrol. In this attitude he played the rôle of a severe mentor, Ingigerd's responsible guardian and protector, strict, but fatherlyand good-natured. Though she laughed at him, it by no means displeasedher to let him have his way. 

XXXIX

Frederick's kindliness to Ingigerd's little wards made it unnecessary tosummon Rosa. He asked the children their names, and they were soonchattering confidingly with their new uncle. Ella Liebling, a girl offive, to whom Ingigerd had given her doll, was sitting at one end of thecouch, a cover wrapped about her legs, while Siegfried had establishedhimself comfortably on the bed. With a spiritless expression for a child, he was playing a rather monotonous game of cards with an imaginarypartner. 

"Mamma is divorced, " Ella explained. "Papa was always quarrelling withher. "

"Yes, " said Siegfried, pushing his cards aside, as if waking up froma trance, and bending over to Frederick, who was sitting beside Ella, "mamma once threw a boot at papa. "

"But papa is strong, " said Ella. "He once picked up a chair and knockedit down and smashed it to pieces. "

Though Ingigerd was suffering from nausea, she had to laugh. 

"Those children are great sport, " she said. 

"Papa once threw a bottle against the wall, " Siegfried went on, "becauseUncle Bolle was always coming to see us. "

And so the children continued, like little wiseacres, to discuss indetail the theme of "happy marriages. "

"Rosa says mamma is to blame because papa left us, " observed Siegfried. 

"I think so, too, " said Ella. "I think mamma's to blame. "

"Rosa said mamma doesn't do anything but read novels. "

"Rosa says, " Ella chimed in, "that if mamma were not always lying in bed, she would feel much better. "

And "Rosa says, " "Rosa says, " went on for a long while. The formernon-commissioned officer and lackey of the vaudeville star, Bulke, cametowing Rosa across the deck in the same way as he did his master. Bothlooked red and contented. Frederick asked what the prospects were for the_Roland_. 

"Oh, everything's all right, " Bulke laughed, "if only something elsedoesn't turn up. "

"Bulke, " said Rosa, "take Siegfried on your back. "

Bulke proceeded to do so, while Rosa lifted Ella to her crimson arm. 

Now the children begged to remain where they were, although before theyhad been annoying Ingigerd by constantly crying for Rosa. 

"Let them stay, " said Ingigerd. 

Rosa thanked her. "They are really best off here, " she said. "All theytake for supper is some milk and a roll. I will bring it right away. "

"What is that on your arm?" asked Frederick. It looked as if a beast hadbeen clawing at her. 

"Oh, nothing, " she said. "My mistress doesn't know what she is doing. She's out of her senses from seasickness and fright. "

XL

For five hours the cyclone raged unmercifully. At ever shorter intervals, gust on gust in increasing fury hurled itself against the vessel. 

With great difficulty Frederick made his way down to the barber, who, though the ship's movement was a fearful combination of rolling andpitching, actually performed the miracle of shaving him. 

"One has to keep going, " said the barber. "If you don't work, you'relost. "

He spoke and suddenly stopped, removed the razor from Frederick's throatand turned pale, if his dirty grey colour could turn a shade lighter. Frederick's face, too, still partly covered with lather, showed signs ofsurprise and alarm. In the engine-room the signal bell had rung loud, asa sign that the captain was sending an order down from the bridge throughthe speaking-tube. Thereupon the revolution of the engines had sloweddown and within a few moments had ceased entirely. This event, simpleenough in itself, had in this weather, about fifteen hundred miles fromland, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the effect of a catastrophe, not only on Frederick and the barber, but on every passenger stillcapable of reasoning, and even on the whole crew. One instantly observedthe excitement that seized upon all at the cessation of the engines, which seemed to turn the vessel into a torpid, powerless thing. Voicescried, women shrieked, steps hurried up and down the gangways. A man torethe door open and indignantly cried, as if imputing to the poor barberthe responsibility of a captain:

"Why are we standing still?"

Frederick wiped the lather from his face and, along with a multitude ofquestioning, groping, staggering persons, thrown now against one wall ofthe gangway, now against the other, hastened to make his way on deck. 

"We are drifting, " everybody said. 

"The screw is broken. "

"Cyclone!"

"Oh, " said a young girl, who had dragged herself up in a dressing-gown, to Frederick, "I don't care about myself, not a bit, but my poor mother, my poor mother in Stuttgart. "

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" twenty voices at the same timedemanded of a steward, who was attending to his duties. He ran away, shrugging his shoulders. 

Since the passengers, huddled like sheep, blocked the way to the deck atthe head of the companionway, Frederick tried to get out by another way, leading a long distance through the after part of the vessel and thenthrough a narrow corridor forward again. He walked rapidly and seemedoutwardly composed, though in a state of unusual tensity, even fear. 

In the second cabin Frederick's way was barred by a good-looking youngman standing in front of his cabin barefoot, in his shirt sleeves andtrousers. He was attempting to button his collar; but in his excitementwas not succeeding. 

"What's the matter?" he shouted to Frederick. "Is everybody in thiscursed hole crazy? The first thing you know a stoker dies, and now thereis a leak, or the screw is broken. What's the matter with the captain? Iam an officer. I must be in San Francisco on the twenty-fifth ofFebruary, without fail. If it keeps on this way, I'll be in a fix. "

Frederick wanted to hurry by, but the man got in his way. 

"I am an officer, " he said. "My name is Von Klinkhammer. " Frederick alsogave his name. "That's what comes of having priests on board, " the youngman continued, twirling the end of his moustache upward, Prussianfashion. "If there's no help for it, then the fellows ought simply to bechucked overboard. What is the captain thinking of?" he kept shouting, while an unexpected lurch of the vessel sent him plunging against thewall almost back into his cabin. "I didn't leave the service and give upa career and board this damned--"

But Frederick had run away. Now deep, intense silence prevailedthroughout the vessel, which was like a dead thing; a silence, in whichevery now and then a step or a hasty tread on the heavy carpet in thegangway was audible. Through the thin walls came the dull, confusedmurmur of many voices. Doors banged, and when they opened, brief, brokensounds penetrated from the cabins, evidence of the bewilderment and alarmof their tenants. The thing that was particularly weird to Frederick inthat swaying corridor, creaking like a new boot and lighted byelectricity, was the incessant ringing of electric bells. In a hundredcabins at the same time, frightened persons, who had paid dear for theirpassage and were entitled to excellent service, were pressing thebuttons. None of them was inclined to recognise the _force majeure_ ofthe Atlantic Ocean, the cyclone, the breaking of the screw, or any otherpossible accident. They thought that by ringing the bells they would begiving expression to the irresistible demand for a responsible rescuer tobring them safely to dry land. 

"Who knows, " thought Frederick, "while they are ringing the bells downhere, perhaps the life-belts are being handed out on deck, the boats arebeing swung out on the water and over-loaded with passengers to thesinking point. "

XLI

But, thank the Lord, by the time he had finally fought his way toIngigerd's cabin on deck, it had not yet reached that point. It was toIngigerd Hahlström that an impulse had been driving him. Beside thechildren, for whom in a motherly way she was trying constantly to devisea new occupation, he found her father and Doctor Wilhelm. 

"People's cowardice is something fearful, " said Doctor Wilhelm. 

"Easily said; but what's the matter?" asked Frederick. 

"One of the bearings got too hot. It takes time for it to cool off. "

The passengers crowded on the companionway kept calling for the captain. 

"The captain has other things to do than answer silly questions, " saidWilhelm. 

"I think the people should be quieted and given an explanation, "Frederick declared. "To me a certain amount of fear seems justifiable inthe landlubber, who doesn't know anything of nautical matters and hasn'tthe least notion of what is happening. "

"Why should they be told anything?" rejoined Wilhelm. "Even if mattersare very bad, it is advisable to deceive them. "

"Well, then, " said Hahlström, "deceive them. Send stewards around to tellthem everything is all right and we'll have to drown. "

Shortly afterward, the captain actually did send the little army ofstewards through the vessel to inform the passengers that, as DoctorWilhelm had said, one of the bearings had got too hot, and in a shortwhile the engines would be working again. 

"Is there danger?" the stewards were asked a thousand times. 

"No, " was the decided answer. 

To keep the air in her cabin pure, Ingigerd left the door slightly ajar;and the sight of the colossal _Roland_, as seen from her cabin, helplessly drifting in the ocean, by no means seemed to bear out thestewards' declaration. 

"There is no use concealing the fact that we are scudding under barepoles, " said Hahlström. 

"We are dripping oil on the water, " said Wilhelm, pointing through theopening of the door to where Pander and a sailor were lowering a bag ofsail-cloth filled with oil. With the heavy seas that kept sweeping downlike great mountains in motion and the fearfully boiling wavesaccompanying the swells, the measure seemed almost ridiculous. Eachinstant the dead _Roland_, constantly sending out its long-drawn signal, which sounded more like a call for help than a warning, was raised up ona plunging mountain of water, where there seemed as little prospect ofsafety as when it sank into the valleys. The great steamer seemed notto know where to turn. The raging waters twisted it over now on itsstarboard side, now on its port side. Of its herculean might, nothingremained but its unwieldy, helpless bulk. It turned about slowly, andturned back again, and all of a sudden a fearful sea, like a thousandhissing white panthers leaping from a dark green mountain ridge, dashedover the railing. 

"That was bad, " said Wilhelm, slamming the door shut in the nick of time. Frederick's nerves were in a state of tension, not in a mere metaphoricsense. They produced a purely physical sensation, as of violin stringstoo tightly drawn. 

"Is it making you nervous?" asked Hahlström. 

"Somewhat, " said Frederick. "I don't deny it. A man has strength andintelligence, but can't exercise either, even when danger is imminent. "

"Immediate danger?" asked Wilhelm. "No, we are not there yet. In thefirst place, the engines will be working again pretty soon; and secondly, even if we should really have to drift and had to resort to the sails, we could count on being perfectly easy in our minds a week from now. "

"What do you mean by being easy in our minds?" demanded Hahlström. 

"The storm is blowing from north-northwest. A ship like this nevercapsizes. So, in all probability, we should be carried to the Azores, where a steamer would tow us into port. Or, perhaps, we should be driveneven further south, and in a week we should be anchoring in view of theglorious Peak of Teneriffe. "

"Many thanks for your Peak of Teneriffe. I have to be in New York. Mydaughter has an engagement there. We are under obligations to be there. "

"A week of uncertainty would be ruin to my nervous system, " saidFrederick. "I am not suited for this passive heroism. I might do moreif I could be active. "

"You've read the 'Leather-stocking Tales, '" said Wilhelm, ironically. "Youknow that the American Indians have greater respect for passive heroism. Think of the stakes on which they burn their captives to death. "

"Never mind, " said Frederick. "No martyr stakes for me. Were I to hearthat the screw is broken and we should have to drift, my nerves couldn'tstand it. I would jump into the water. That is why I am againstlife-preservers. I wouldn't accept one if it were offered to me tentimes over. Why prolong the death agony?"

XLII

The hours passed. The grey day went down into still greyer twilight. Theear-splitting tumult of the sea never ceased. Frederick, like everybodyelse, had in vain awaited the moment when the engines would be workingagain, and the helpless ship would resume its course. Everybody, with theanxiety of despair, watched whether the intervals between the greatswells would lengthen or shorten. Sometimes a superstitious illusion thathe was being persecuted would take hold of Frederick. Particularly awfulwere the cries of the emigrants penned in the steerage, which at shortintervals penetrated above on deck. They wept and wailed and shrieked toheaven for help. They were like men driven mad by fear, fury and physicalpain. 

Yet, as if nothing had happened, the call for dinner was trumpeted at theregular time through the gangways of the drifting vessel, through thatmajestic, helpless ark, lighted by electricity, which, shining throughthe port-holes, turned the _Roland_ with its crust of ice into a fairypalace, a mournful plaything of the waves. 

Frederick wondered who would have the phlegm or the courage or the desireto go to dinner. But Wilhelm cried, "Come, gentlemen, " and since Rosaappeared, wet and courageous, to attend to the children, it was out ofplace for him to remain in the cabin, and there was nothing for him to dobut join Doctor Wilhelm and Hahlström. The cockatoo was screeching andElla was crying. The child was refractory. Ingigerd was trying to consoleher, while Rosa reprimanded her rather energetically. 

"Would you like me to stay near here?" Frederick asked before leaving. "It would mean a great deal to me if you would let me be entirely at yourdisposal, Miss Ingigerd. "

"Thank you, Doctor von Kammacher, you will be coming again. "

Frederick marvelled at the naturalness with which he had made the offerand she had accepted. 

Now an unexpected change set in, which allayed everybody's excitement andwent through Frederick's muscles and nerves like a soothing stream. Thewalls and floors of the _Roland_ began to quiver faintly, a sign that herheart and pulse were beating again. It was the rhythm of its strength, the rhythm of its race to its goal. Ingigerd shouted with joy, like achild, and Frederick set his teeth. Renewed life, renewed prospects andhopes, the reassumption of system, the relaxation of his nerves made himso weak that the tears almost started to his eyes. Choking down hisemotion, he stepped out on deck. 

Here the scene had changed. Blithely, in all its might, the _Roland_ wasleaping forward again into the roaring darkness. That monstrous, seethingwitch's cauldron of the boiling waters was now welcome to him. Again the_Roland_ was tearing breaches in dark mountains, was rising to mountainheights, and madly plunging into deep valleys; during which, for manyseconds at a time, the screw would whirl wildly in the turbulent air. 

Mr. Rinck was sitting on the threshold of his cabin, which was brightlylighted, smoking and petting his spotted cat. 

"It's good we're under way again, " Frederick could not refrain fromsaying as he walked past. 

"Why?" said Rinck phlegmatically. 

"I for one, " said Frederick, "would rather be running under full steamthan drifting helplessly. "

"Why?" said Mr. Rinck again. 

In the gangways below, even though the ship was pitching, the atmospherewas fairly pleasant and lively. Everybody seemed to have forgotten hisfear. The passengers, cracking jokes and clinging to the neareststationary thing, reeled and stumbled into the dining-room. The rattleof china near the kitchen was deafening, especially when, as frequentlyhappened, some of the plates broke. 

Frederick's clothes were pretty well soaked, and he mustered up thecourage to go to his cabin to dress. Adolph, his steward, came to helphim, and told Frederick of a panic that had broken out in the steeragewhen the engines stopped. Some of the women with their babies on theirarms had wanted to jump right into the water. It was with difficulty thatthe other emigrants had restrained them. One of the stewards and a sailorhad clutched a Polish woman by her feet just as she was taking thedownward plunge. 

"You can't blame these people for acting like cowards in this situation, "said Frederick. "It would be strange if they didn't. Who will insist thathe can stand upright when the ground beneath his feet is giving away? Ifa man were to say so, either he would be lying, or his lack of feelingwould be so great as to degrade him below an animal. "

"Yes, " said the steward, "but what would _we_ do if _we_ were socowardly?"

Frederick now began to deliver one of those fiery dissertations that hadwon him a number of youthful auditors when he was a _Privatdozent_. 

"With you it is different, " he said. "You are upheld, and at the sametime rewarded, by the feeling that you are doing your duty. While wepassengers are living in terror, the cooks have been boiling soup, cleaning fish, preparing vegetables, roasting and carving, lardingvenison and so on. " The steward laughed! "But I assure you, at times itis easier to roast a roast than to eat it. " And Frederick continued ina solemn, but for that very reason, roguish manner to philosophise oncourage and cowardice. 

XLIII

Dinner began, and, though the weather had by no means improved, acomparatively large number of passengers had gathered in the dining-room. Mr. Pfundner, the head-steward, with his white hair curled and arrangedby the barber, if not in a braid at the back of his head, yet like a wigof the rococo period, stood, as usual, in majestic pose, before the falsemantelpiece between the two entrance doors. It was the place from whichhe could best supervise the waiters and keep his eye on the wholedining-room. 

The band was playing _Le Père la Victoire_ by Ganne. This was followed byGillet's _Loin du Bal_. At Suppé's overture from _Banditenstreiche_, theeternal skat players came tramping into the saloon, having delayed, asusual, to finish their game. At all the tables much wine was being drunk, because it strengthened one's courage and dulled one's nerves. Thepassengers toasted the _Roland_. It amused them. They were all consciousof the pleasant rhythm of the great engine, to which no music in theworld was comparable. Over Vollstedt's waltz, _Lustige Brüder_, thecompany with a sense of relief was still discussing the danger they hadsafely escaped. 

"We hoisted distress signals. "

"Rockets were shot off. "

"They were already getting the life-belts and life-boats ready. "

"Why, they were even dripping oil on the water. "

The remarks flew about with the less restraint as neither the captain norany of his officers were at table. 

"The captain, " they said, "has never left the bridge since morning. "

Suddenly the port-holes were illuminated from outside. Everybody, with an"Oh!" of astonishment, let his knife and fork fall and jumped up from hisseat. "A ship!" "A steamer!" all exclaimed, and crowded on deck. There, in overawing majesty, in the gleam of its thousand lights, one of themightiest ocean liners of the time was rolling and pounding at a distanceof not more than fifty yards. "The _Prince Bismarck_, the _PrinceBismarck_!" the people cried, having heard the name from the officers andcrew, who had recognised the vessel. "Hurrah!" went up the full-throatedcry. "Hurrah!" Frederick shouted, and so did Wilhelm and so did ProfessorToussaint. Everybody who could shouted "Hurrah!"--Ingigerd and the womanphysician and the woman artist. They all waved their napkins orhandkerchiefs. The same shout of joy went up from the steerage, and byway of greeting the two vessels let their steam whistles thunder. Theycould see the passengers on the various decks of the _Prince Bismarck_waving to them, and, in spite of the noise of the tempest, could heartheir faint hurrah. 

The _Prince Bismarck_, a twin-screw steamer, one of the first models ofits kind, had just made its record-breaking trip, in which it had crossedthe Atlantic Ocean in six days, eleven hours, and twenty-four minutes. About two thousand people were now making the trip from New York toEurope. Two thousand people! That means twice as many as can fill aBerlin theatre from the orchestra to the top gallery. 

The _Roland_ and the _Bismarck_ exchanged lively flag signals. Yetthe whole grandiose vision, from the moment of its appearance to itsdisappearance, lasted only three minutes. In that time the seething oceanwas flooded with light. It was not until nothing remained of the_Bismarck_ but a dancing mist of light that its band came on deck andplayed. On the _Roland_ they caught two or three trembling, fadingmeasures of the national hymn, _Heil dir im Siegerkranz_. Within a fewmoments the _Roland_ was again alone on the ocean, in the night, thetempest, and the snowstorm. 

With twice as much fire, the band now played a quadrille by Karl, _Festklänge_, and a galop by Kiesler, _Jahrmarktskandal_; and with twiceas much appetite and twice as much liveliness the passengers seatedthemselves at dinner again. "Fairylike!" they cried. "Glorious!""Tremendous!" "Colossal!"--this last a favourite expression of theGermans. 

Even Frederick had a sense of pride and tranquillisation. He felt a vitalbreath of that atmosphere which is no less necessary to the mind of themodern man than air is to his lungs. 

"No matter how much we resist the thought, " he said to Wilhelm, "and nomatter how much I railed yesterday evening against modern culture, asight like that must impress a man. It must go to the very marrow of hisbones. It is simply absurd that such a marvellous product of secretnatural forces, joined together by man's brains and hands, such acreation over creation, such a miracle has become even possible. " Theytouched glasses. The sound of clinking glasses could be heard all overthe room. "And what courage, what boldness has been built into that greatliving organism, what a degree of fearlessness in opposing those naturalforces which man has been standing in awe of for thousands of years! Whatan audacious world of genius, from its keel to the top of its mast, fromits bowsprit to its screw!"

"And all this, " responded Wilhelm, "has been attained in scarcely ahundred years. So it signifies only the beginning of a development. Object as much as you will, science, or rather technical progress, iseternal revolution and the only genuine reform of human conditions. Nothing can hinder this development that has begun. It is constant, eternal progress, yes, progress itself. "

"It is the human intellect, " said Frederick, "which throughout thecenturies has been lying passive and has suddenly turned active. Undoubtedly man's brains and, at the same time, social industry haveentered a new phase. "

"Yes, " said Wilhelm, "in a certain way the human intellect was alreadyactive in ancient times, but it fought too long with the man in themirror. "

"Then, let us hope, " said Frederick in confirmation, "that the last hourof the men that fight images, the swindlers, the South Sea Islandmedicine-men and magicians, is not far off; that all filibusters andcynical freebooters, who for thousands of years have been living by thecapture of souls, will strike sail before the fast, safe ocean-goingsteamer of civilisation, whose captain is intellect and whose solesteward is humanity. "

After dinner, Frederick and Wilhelm climbed up to the smoking-room ondeck. 

"It is difficult to comprehend, " said Frederick, when they reached thesmoky little saloon, "how a vessel can keep its course in such a stormy, pitch-black night. "

At the skat table, the players were sitting, smoking, drinking whisky andcoffee, and tossing the cards on the table. Everything else seemed to bea matter of indifference to them. Frederick ordered wine and continued togoad his mind into activity. His head ached. He could scarcely hold itupright on his aching neck. His eyelids ached with weariness; but whenthey drooped, his eyes seemed to radiate a painful light shining fromwithin. Every nerve, every muscle, every cell in him was alert. He couldnot hope for sleep. How weeks in his life, months, years had passed as inthe twinkling of an eye! And this evening only three and a half days hadelapsed since he boarded the _Roland_ at Southampton, a period with thecontent of years, in which seconds were eternities. Its beginning lay inthe remote distance, at the conclusion of a life lived long before, on anearth from which he had parted long before. 

"You're tired, Doctor von Kammacher, " said Wilhelm. "So I won't inviteyou to the stoker's funeral on the after-deck. "

"Oh, I'll come, " said Frederick. He was obsessed by a stinging rage notto spare himself anything, but to taste to the dregs even the bitterestimpressions of this detached, jogged and jolted fragment of a humanworld. 

XLIV

The physicians arrived when they were sewing the stoker, Zickelmann, intosail-cloth. The bare cabin was not very brilliantly lighted by a singleelectric bulb. Frederick recalled his dream--how the dead stoker had beenstanding under the vines with the cords in his hand and had then ledPeter Schmidt and himself to the Toilers of the Light. A great change hadtaken place in his appearance. His face was no longer of flesh, butseemed to be chiselled out of yellow wax, to which his hair, his eyebrowsand beard were pasted. A faint, cunning smile seemed to be curving hismouth; and when Frederick with odd interest and curiosity scrutinised himclosely, it seemed to him he was saying, "_Legno santo!_ Toilers of theLight!"

When the dead man's face was covered up and his whole body had been sewedinto the cloth in coarse stitches, the sailors bound the puppet, withdifficulty keeping it in position, on a smoothly planed board, weightedwith iron. 

"Will such a chrysalis ever really turn into a butterfly?" Frederickwondered. 

The procedure, a piece of reeling, staggering acrobatics, was lessgruesome than ridiculous. Yet, though this long package might be only themortal shell of an immortal soul, one had a sense of infinite sadness inentrusting it to the fearful solitudes of the ocean. 

Since in the stormy weather it was no easy matter to throw the corpseoverboard and since it was impossible to conduct ceremonies on a rollingdeck constantly washed by the waves, the purser asked the few personspresent--Captain von Kessel could not leave the bridge--to say a silentprayer for the soul of the dead man. They did so, and four of thestoker's mates, staggering, stopping, lurching and panting, carried thelong package on deck to the railing, where at the word of command theylet it slide into the sea. 

When Doctor Wilhelm bade Frederick good-night, he added:

"You ought to try to go to sleep. "

They parted, and Frederick hunted for a sheltered spot on deck, where hecould spend the night. He wanted to look the wind and weather straight inthe face, there in the glacial air, in the gloom under the pale sheen ofthe arc-lights fastened to the mast. He shuddered at the thought of anight in the oppressive confines of his cabin, with the closed port-holeand the hot, stale air. But that alone was not the reason which kept himchained to the deck. It was the urge, in case of danger, to be nearIngigerd Hahlström. And when he seated himself near the smoke-stack, with his back against the heated wall, his hat drawn low over his face, his chin in his coat collar, he suddenly laughed to himself bitterly. It was in the same position and on the selfsame spot that he had foundAchleitner the night before. 

There was a rushing in Frederick's ears. He observed the huge arcs thatthe lights on the mast described. He observed the regular onslaught ofthe waves, and above the seething and foaming of the water, he heard themiauing of the wind in the rigging, a wicked obstinate miauing, accompanied by the sudden spitting and leaping of a tiger. Then thesounds seemed to Frederick to be more like the pitiful whimpering ofstrayed children, a troop of children whom he could now distinctlydiscern weeping over the bier of the dead stoker. And there were theToilers of the Light again. He immediately snatched for one to carry itto Ingigerd Hahlström in her cabin; but Ingigerd was dressing for herfamous dance. The great spider was already hanging on the flower, weavingthe cobweb in which Mara was later to entangle herself. Frederick askedfor a broom. He wanted to prevent the dance by sweeping the spider away. A broom came, but in the form of a serving man, who was carrying waterand pouring it out. Another man followed and a third and a fourth, untileverything was flooded with rushing waters. Frederick awoke from a dreamin which he was learning sorcery. The momentous word that chains thefloods was still on his lips. The waves rushed. He fell asleep again. Nowit was the rushing of a stream at his feet. The sun was shining. It was aclear morning. From the other shore came his wife, young, beautiful, in adress of flowered goods, rowing her skiff. Her full, gentle figure hadthe charm of the vestal virgin and the wife. From woods nearby, Ingigerdappeared in the delicacy and the adornment of her light hair and nakedbody. The sunny landscape, of which her pure nudity was a part, seemedto belong to the time before Adam and Eve were driven from Paradise. Frederick took his wife's hand--she was smiling on him graciously--tookIngigerd Hahlström's hand--she seemed to be gentle and pure andobedient--and joined them. He said to Ingigerd:

 "And thou shalt walk in brightness; I'll purge thee clean of all thy dross. "

But the heavens darkened, the woods blackened, and the light of a ghostlymoon rose over the trees, rushing fearfully like great waters. Frederickran along the edge of gloomy fields, when suddenly the cry "Moira!Moira!" resounded, and a piece of the darkness severed itself from theedge of the woods and soared heavily, as if borne by mighty blackpinions. It was a gigantic bird, crying, "Moira, Moira!" Frederick fled. He was struck by hideous fear, as if the fearful roc were after him. "Moira, Moira!" He drew his penknife to defend himself. 

He awoke to find himself lying undressed in his berth. Someone haddiscovered him, as he had discovered Achleitner the night before, and hadled him down to his cabin. But the cry "Moira!" which reminded him of theMoeræ, the ancient goddesses of fate, still rang fearfully in his ears. 

XLV

It was still long before daylight, and he fell asleep again. This timeon awaking he found himself in the corridor speaking to some stewards, already at work. It slowly dawned upon him that he was clad in nothingbut his night-shirt and must have been walking in his sleep. What, had heturned into a somnambulist! He was utterly disconcerted and ashamed andhad to let one of the stewards help him back to his cabin. 

He found his cabin covered with about three inches of water, from a leakypipe. Crawling into bed, he squeezed himself, to keep from being tossedout, into a hollow between the boards, a method he himself had devised. 

Shortly after six, he was on deck sitting on his bench, warming his handson his hot tea-cup. The weather was frightful. The morning was of an icydreariness unsurpassed. The fury of the sea had waxed. The fallingtwilight was a new sort of darkness. The roaring of the waters and theraging of the winds were deafening. Frederick's ear-drums ached. But theship struggled on, managing to pursue its course, though slowly. 

And suddenly--Frederick did not know whether to trust his hearing--abovethe noise of the sea rose Ariel strains, beginning solemnly and swellingserenely. It was the chords and melodies of a church choral. He was movedalmost to tears. He recollected that this dreary morning was a Sundaymorning, and the orchestra, even in the midst of the cyclone, wascarrying out its instructions to begin the day with devotional music. It was playing in the unused smoking-room half way up the companionway, whence the strains ascended faintly to the deck. Everything lying heavilyupon Frederick's soul in chaos and struggle melted away before theseriousness, the simplicity, the innocence of this music. It broughtback memories of his boyhood, of many a morning full of innocence, expectation, and anticipations of great happiness; Sundays, holidays, hisfather's and his mother's birthdays, when the chorus of a regimental songwoke him up in the morning. What was to-day compared with that past? Whatlay in between! What a sum of useless work, disenchantment, recognitionbitterly paid for, possession snatched after passionately and then lost, love trickled away, passion trickled away; how many meetings and hardpartings; what an amount of wrestling with everything in general and inparticular; how much purity of purpose dragged in the mud; how muchstriving for freedom and self-determination, resulting only in impotent, blind imprisonment. 

Was he really a person of so much importance before God that He visitedhim with such bitter, refined chastisements?

"I'm wild!" screamed Hans Füllenberg, who appeared at the entrance to thecompanionway. "I won't put up with it, or else I'll go insane. "

Nevertheless, Hans Füllenberg and Frederick and all the other passengers, though in the last degree exhausted, terrorized, desperate, expectingeach moment to be their last, lived through the same awful strain, fromhour to hour, from morning till evening, and from evening till morningagain. 

To most of them it seemed impossible to hold out an hour longer. Yetthere were to be three days more of it, they were told, before the_Roland_ reached New York. 

XLVI

Monday brought some sunshine, but no diminution of the tempest. It wasfearful. Everything on deck not nailed or riveted was removed. The criesat regular intervals piercing the struggling vessel from the steeragemore resembled the bellowing of beasts under the knife of the slaughtererthan human sounds. Monday night was one prolonged agony. Nobody, unlessunconscious from weakness or the tortures of seasickness, closed an eye. 

At dawn Tuesday morning, each first-class passenger was startled by theword, "Danger!" quietly uttered at his cabin door by a steward. 

Frederick had been lying a while on his bed dressed, when his stewardopened the door and according to instructions gravely pronounced the oneword, "Danger. " At the same time the herald of this message, as fraughtwith large significance as it was laconic, turned on the electric light. Frederick jumped to a sitting posture, and was annoyed by the water fromthe leaky pipe, which ran now from one side of the room to the other, asthe vessel lurched. At first he was uncertain whether the word he hadheard had really been pronounced, or whether it was an illusion of hisunstrung nerves. Every night he had been torn with a jerk of his nervesfrom his restless dozing, only to find that the cause had been a delusivefall or a delusive cry. But now, when he distinctly heard the stewardsrapping at the other cabin doors, heard the doors open, and heard theword, "Danger, " repeated several times, a sensation came over him thatproduced a most remarkable change in his condition. 

"Very well, " he said softly; and, as if he had been summoned to a gamethat did not concern him, he carefully put on his heavy overcoat, andstepped out into the gangway. 

Here there was not a soul. 

"Very well, " he had been thinking, "the invisible powers, whoseplaythings we human beings are, will now completely expose their supremebrutality. "

He had not been awakened from sleep; he had been awakened and brought tohis sober reason from beneath a hundred strata of dreams and sleep. Now, in that empty corridor, it again seemed to him to be a fantastic illusionof his disordered brain; and he was about to return to his cabin, when henoticed for the first time that the rhythm of the engines and thechurning of the screw were neither to be heard nor felt. Suddenly hethought the great vessel was drifting in the ocean abandoned bypassengers and crew, and he alone had been left behind from the generalrescue. But a passenger in a silk dressing-gown reeled by, whom Frederickcould question. 

"What's the matter, do you know?" he asked. 

"Oh, nothing, " said the man. "I've only been looking for my steward. I'mthirsty. I want a glass of lemonade. " He staggered past Frederick intohis cabin. 

"Ass!" Frederick mentally exclaimed, disgusted with himself for whathe again believed was his illusion. Yet the silence weighed upon himdreadfully. Seized by a wild instinct, he could not help but suddenlyrush forward, merely to be on deck. 

Somebody came toward him from the opposite direction, and asked him wherehe was going. 

"Get out of my way, " said Frederick. "It's none of your business. "

But the hideous, half-dressed, corpse-like creature, besmirched by thetraces of seasickness, would not make way. 

"Are the stewards here all crazy?" he cried. 

Hard by Frederick's ear an electric bell began to hammer noisily, and thenext moment the tottering phantom that barred his way was multiplied byten, twenty, a host of similar phantoms. 

"What's the matter! What's the matter! We're sinking!"

"Steward! Steward!" a voice commanded; and another, "Captain! Captain!"

"Wretched service!" a man scolded in a voice that broke. "No stewardsabout. What do they mean by it?" The call bells began to rage. 

Frederick turned, and ran down the endless corridor to the after partof the vessel. Nobody intercepted him. He passed the windows of theengine-room. The cylinders and pistons were not stirring. From the depthsof the ship, from the boilers and furnaces, a sound of rushing, splashingwater penetrated above the creaking and grinding of the walls. 

"Did a boiler burst?" Frederick thought, forgetting that there would havebeen the report of an explosion and the hiss of escaping steam. 

But he hastened on without stopping, past the post office, on his waythrough the second cabin to the stern. In his flight it occurred to himhow happy he had been in Paris when at Cook's office they had told himthat by great haste he could still make the _Roland_ at Southampton. Whyhad he been in such a fever of impatience, in such dread of missing theboat and rushing into the open arms of doom? For there was no veiling thefact that something fearful had happened to the _Roland_. 

At the door of the second cabin, he encountered the barber. 

"The fires are out, " said the barber. "A collision. The water is pouringinto the hold below my shop. "

The hammering of the bells never ceased. The barber was dragging twolife-preservers. 

"What do you need two for?" Frederick asked, and took one and sped on. 

XLVII

He reached the door leading to the after deck, but could not open it. From the position of the ship, he realized that something irretrievablehad happened. On the port side, the steamer was lying high, on thestarboard side, it was only ten or twelve feet above the level. As thestern was also much lower than the bow, it would have been a practicallyhopeless venture to clamber forward across the deck, especially with theheavy seas that were constantly sweeping it. 

Willy-nilly, he must return through the mole's gallery he had traversedto the forward part of the boat. 

Scarcely fifteen seconds later, when he had reached the forward entranceto the deck, at the head of the companionway leading up from thedining-room, he could not have told how he succeeded in making hisway through the corridor jammed with panicky passengers without havingbeen beaten to death, strangled, or trodden underfoot. His hands andforehead were bruised, and he was clinging to the door-post with allhis might, parleying violently with Doctor Wilhelm. Doctor Wilhelmclutched him, and the two physicians, in defiance of death, climbed up tothe bridge, where they huddled in the shelter of the deck-house on theport side. They saw something huge rise high up in the morning twilightand fly madly above their heads. The next instant they were drenched upto their waists, and would have been washed overboard, had they notclung to the railing with all their strength. 

On the bridge it looked pretty much as usual. Captain von Kessel, apparently quite composed, was leaning forward, and the giant Von Halmwas searching the ever-thickening fog with spy-glasses. The siren washowling, and rockets were being shot off from the bow. On the captain'sright stood the second mate. The third mate had just received the order:

"Cut the falls. Get the boats away. "

"Cut the falls. Get the boats away, " he repeated and disappeared toexecute the order. 

To Frederick, it all seemed unreal. Moments such as this, to be sure, hadentered his imagination as within the realm of the possible; but now herealised that he had never reckoned with them seriously. He knew the factconfronting him stood there inexorable; nevertheless, he was unable tograsp it in convincing reality. He was telling himself he ought to tryto get into a boat, when the captain's blue eyes glanced at him, butapparently with no recognition in them. The captain's commands wereuttered in his beautiful voice, remotely suggesting the clinking soundof colliding billiard balls. 

"Women and children starboard. "

"Women and children starboard, " came like a near, word-for-word echo. 

Now Max Pander stepped up to the captain. He had the noble idea ofproffering him a life-belt. Von Kessel's hand found its way for aninstant to his cap. 

"No, thank you, my boy, I don't need it. But here--" he took a pencilfrom his pocket, wrote a hasty line on a piece of paper, and handed itto Pander. "Jump in a boat and, if you can, bring this greeting to mysisters. "

A heavy sea swept over the port side, and a tremendous swell raised andturned and twisted the colossal vessel. Frederick in vain tried to rousehimself from the leaden indifference that had come upon him in view ofthe incomprehensible drama. Suddenly, he was seized with horror, but hefought it down. At no cost was he to show cowardice either to himself orto others. Nevertheless, he followed Doctor Wilhelm, who stuck close toMax Pander's heels. 

"We must get into one of the boats, " said Doctor Wilhelm. "There's nodoubt we are sinking. "

The next moment Frederick found himself in Ingigerd's cabin. 

"Hurry!" he cried. "The people are already jumping into the boats. "

He had left the cabin door open, and close by they could see Pander andtwo sailors hacking away with axes at the frozen tackles by which alife-boat was suspended. 

Ingigerd asked for her father. She asked for Achleitner. 

"There's no time now for you to think of anybody but yourself. It'simpossible to go below deck. It would mean sure death, " Frederickexplained. "Get dressed! Get dressed!"

Ingigerd mutely hastened to carry out his orders. It was not until thenthat one of the stewards passing her cabin called in his brief message, "Danger!"

"Danger! What's the matter? Are we sinking?" she cried. 

But Frederick had already picked her up and carried her over to the boat, which the next instant gave way under the axe and fell into the mistyturmoil below. 

"Women and children on the other side!" the third mate shoutedcommandingly. 

His order referred not only to Ingigerd, but also to the maid Rosa, who, fiery-red with her exertions, appeared on deck dragging her mistress andboth the children, with the air of a housewife loaded with purchases, afraid of missing a street car. 

"Women and children on the other side!" the third mate repeated insomewhat too Prussian a manner. Fortunately his presence was now requiredfor the next boat, over which the struggles were already commencing. 

There was no time to be lost, and despite the determined resistance oftwo sailors, Frederick, Pander, and Doctor Wilhelm let Ingigerd safelydown into the boat. In doing so, Frederick also turned somewhat tooloud-voiced and Prussian. Through his iron energy, which hewed downresistance as the sailors had hewed at the life-boat tackles, hesucceeded in having the children, Mrs. Liebling, and finally Rosa loweredinto the boat. It was no easy matter. Frederick heard himself shouted at, roared at, and commanded, and he, in turn, shouted at the sailors, commanded, and roared. He fought, he worked, though without a gleam ofhope and with the positive consciousness that the situation was beyondsalvation. All was over, all was lost. If he had not thought so before, the next occurrence would have convinced him. 

A second boat had been lowered, and three sailors had jumped in. Itrolled from side to side and rose on a wave. About eight or nine otherpersons leapt for it--Frederick thought he recognised familiar figures. It filled and disappeared. As if by sleight-of-hand, the spot where theboat with the dozen people in it had been dancing turned into empty seawith mist and spray driving over it. 

Slowly the dark grey of the early dawn turned into the lighter grey ofthe day, approaching coldly and indifferently. When the fog lifted alittle, Frederick for seconds at a time had a dismaying illusion that hewas in a green valley with glorious, flowery meadows, through which asnowstorm of blossoms was sweeping. But then the mountains came, drivenby the ferocious spirits of the hurricane, and closed down on the valley. The heavy, glassy heights broke, and with the weight of their fluidmasses, snapped away two of the _Roland's_ masts like reeds. 

With its boilers quenched, the poor wreck could no longer send up a cryfor help. Its sad body was still towering upward at the bow in colossalmajesty. Rockets flew, signals of distress fluttered briskly from theforemast; a futile language in that merciless raging of the elements. 

In the steerage it had grown still. But from the port side came apeculiar, persistent, unbroken sound, resembling the shouting andscreaming of a crowd on toboggan-slides and merry-go-rounds at a villagefair. A buzzing as of swarming bees pierced distinctly through theroaring of the tempest, while above it rose the shrieking of infuriated, frenzied women. Frederick thought of his dark-eyed Deborah. She, too, wasdoomed. He thought of Wilke. 

Bulke, the faithful valet, appeared, leading Arthur Stoss by his coatcollar. Within the next few moments, Wilke also appeared. He had beendrinking, and was shouting as if the whole thing were a frolic; but hewas half dragging, half carrying on deck an old, wheezing working woman. Thrusting Stoss and Bulke aside, he landed her safely in the boat. 

Ingigerd was clamouring incessantly for her father and Achleitner. Instead of either of these, Stoss, whom Bulke and Wilke had lowered bya rope, dropped down beside her. 

About thirty feet from Frederick, a man was standing in a cabin door, carefully hooked back. With incredible calm he was smoking a cigaretteand inhaling, and stroking a yellow cat on his arm. 

"It looks pretty bad, doesn't it, Mr. Rinck?" Frederick said, going up tohim. 

"Why?"

"Well, don't you think we're lost?"

Mr. Rinck shrugged his shoulders without answering. 

"What's the matter? What's the matter?" somebody bellowed in his ear. 

"Nothing, " he said, stroking his cat. 

In the meantime Bulke and Wilke had lowered Doctor Wilhelm into the boat. 

"That girl down there is giving herself a sore throat screaming for herfather, " said Bulke. 

Frederick decided, cost what it might, to take a look around below deck. Perhaps fortune might favour him; he might discover Hahlström and perhapsAchleitner, too, and help one or both into the boat. There was danger, tobe sure, that the boat would put off before he returned. 

He had worked his way as far as the unused smoking-room. It was empty. Suddenly Wilke was standing beside him. 

"If you're looking for somebody, I'll help, " the peasant declared. 

The two together descended the rest of the companionway. The space infront of the dining-room was empty and so was the dining-room. It wastilted at an acute angle. A heap of dishes and silverware blocked thedoorway. 

"Hahlström! Achleitner!" Frederick shouted again and again. 

Wilke pushed a short way down the long corridor, on which the cabinsgave. But the spot closed off by the rising waters was only too clearlydistinguishable. 

"Come away, come away!" Frederick cried, and ran. He ran for his life. Heran in wild fear of missing the boat. 

XLVIII

A moment later he was on deck, over the railing, and in the boat. The menwanted to put off. Frederick protested, and disputed loudly with thethird mate, who in the meantime had entered the boat and was grasping thetiller. 

He could not make up his mind to desert Wilke of the Heuscheuer, who hadso courageously followed him below deck and had not yet reappeared. Butnow he saw him, literally sliding from the companionway entrance to therailing. 

"Wilke! Wilke!" he shouted. "Jump into the boat!"

"Right away, right away, " Wilke answered several times. Then he didsomething that Frederick tried to scold him out of doing, because itseemed so senseless and useless to everybody in the boat. He haddiscovered a number of life-belts and was throwing them from variouspoints out on the water, where persons swept overboard might bestruggling desperately for their lives. 

The boat did not wait for him. Under the third mate's command, thesailors began to row. The sea favoured them, and soon they were more thanthirty yards from the _Roland's_ side. 

Now they could see the spot where another vessel, or a drifting derelict, had bored the flank of the _Roland_, making a great gash near theengine-room. Since the whole of the breach was not yet under water, theycould see the foaming sea streaming into the hold. Frederick thought hecould hear its greedy gulping. At the sight, for all the horror abouthim, he felt a desire to burst into mourning for the brave warrior_Roland_, and with difficulty restrained an outcry. The fog closed inand hid the fatally wounded giant from view. 

When, in a few moments, the mist cleared, the wreck had in someincomprehensible way turned. The twenty persons in the boat looked downfrom a dizzy height upon the after part of the deck, almost on a levelwith the water. They shrieked in terror, for they thought that the nextinstant they would be hurled down upon the mass of human beings wedged inthere, swarming like ants. 

Not until that moment did Frederick grasp to its full extent thecatastrophe that was occurring, a catastrophe beyond human conception. All those dark little crowding ants, helplessly running up and down, weretearing at one another, hitting about, beating, wrestling, forcing theirway. Groups of men and women were united in struggling knots. Some of thelife-boats that had not yet been lowered seemed to have turned into dark, swaying bunches of grapes, from which every now and then a single grapedropped off and fell into the sea. 

Once more the fog and spray hid the ship from view. But a sound, whichFrederick did not immediately connect with the ghastly spectacle on thedeck, rose above the seething and roaring of the merciless sea and themetallic clanging of the hurricane. For several seconds Frederick'sthoughts were far away in a certain place near his home, a wide, marshymeadow-land, where great flocks of migrating birds stopped to rest intheir passage. But it was not the chirping of joyous birds that reachedhis ears through the fog. It was the outcry of those human beings, whowere suffering something so horrible, beyond all conception, that nohuman crime, he felt, could be great enough to justify such atonement. Hedistinctly felt how, through the excess of the hideous impression, thebridge carrying the message of his senses to his innermost soul snapped. 

But suddenly the fever of the visible death struggle of eight or ninehundred innocent men after all did penetrate to his innermost soul, andwrung a cry from him, in which the whole boat load joined as by command. In that cry were fear, anguish, fury, protest, supplication, horror, wailing, cursing, and despair. 

And the horror was increased by the consciousness that there was nomerciful ear to listen, but only a deaf heaven. Wherever Frederick turnedhis eyes, he saw death. Indifferently the bottle-green, mountainous wavescame rolling. In their march there was a murderous regularity, with whichnothing interfered and which recognised no obstacles. He closed his eyesready to die. Several times he felt for his parents' letters in hisbreast pocket, as if he needed them for passports to the land ofdarkness, where he was soon going. He dared not open his eyes again, because he could no longer bear to see the convulsions of the women inthe boat or the hideous massacre on the stern of the _Roland_. 

The sea raged. It was icy cold. The water froze on the edge of the boat. Rosa, the maid, was the only one that constantly bestirred herself tohelp others, the children, Mrs. Liebling, Ingigerd, and Arthur Stoss. Bulke and she vied with each other in bailing out the water in whichStoss and Mrs. Liebling were lying and which reached to the knees of theothers. 

What was in the meantime happening on the deck of the _Roland_, so faras Frederick caught momentary glimpses of it, did not fit in with hisconception of human nature. The things he thought he saw in detail hadnothing in common with those civilised, decorous ladies and gentlemenwhom he had seen in the dining-room and on deck, promenading, conversing, smiling, exchanging greetings, and daintily dissecting the fish on theirplates with forks. He could have sworn that he distinguished the whitefigure of a cook cutting his way, with a long knife, through thehonourable person of a first-class passenger for whom he had cooked. Frederick was convinced he saw a stoker, a black fellow, strike a womanwho was clinging to him--perhaps she was the beautiful Canadian--pick herup and throw her overboard. Some stewards, whom he distinctly recognised, were still heroically executing orders. But they got entangled infighting groups. One of them covered with blood, struggling and shouting, helped a woman and her child into a life-boat, but the boat capsized anddisappeared. 

"Father! My father!" Ingigerd suddenly cried. It was only a faint breathblown away by the raging elements. She pointed, and Frederick lookedwhere she pointed with vacant, staring eyes. Again the fog lifted andopened a sort of gap through which the sinking steamer could be seen inall its length. Somebody was standing at the railing waving a whitehandkerchief. It was impossible to tell who it was. But a man whomFrederick recognised as distinctly as if he were looking through aspy-glass was Hans Füllenberg, racing about like a madman, leaping withthe agility of a squirrel from one point of the deck to the other. 

The port-holes, making a slanting line from stem to stern, still shonewith the electric lights inside. Now and then a stifled shot could beheard, as a rocket rose up into the air, making a pale line of light. Butsoon the gem-like gleam of the port-holes was extinguished. As if the seain its unbridled hate of man's work had been waiting for this event, itswept over the deck from the other side. That instant the waters on thenear side swarmed with human beings, swimming, shrieking, and struggling. 

Suddenly, no one knew how, the boat was carried close to the _Roland_again, where maddened, half-drowned, desperate men clutched at it. Ahideous, bestial conflict began. 

Frederick saw it all, yet without seeing it. Although it went on underhis very eyes, it seemed to be happening at an infinite distance. Hestruck at something. It was a hand, an arm, a head, a wet monster of thedeep, shrieking in a voice not human. Suddenly, pulled backwards by themerciless hands of a hidden executioner, it disappeared. Frederick sawhow, with the strength of desperation, Rosa's red fists and Mrs. Liebling's and Ingigerd's little cramped fingers unloosened the hold ofthe hand or arm of a fellow-man from the icy edge of the boat. Thesailors used their oars in a way that produced dark spurts of blood. 

None in the boat noticed that the third mate disappeared, that Bulketook his place at the helm, and that in the bottom of the boat lay along-haired young man, who gave no sign of life. 

The servant, Bulke, took command. For the sake of something to do and todelay the inevitable capsizing, Frederick and Wilhelm each seized an oarand rowed with the sailors. 

Minutes passed. The fog lifted. Many eternally moving mountains andvalleys of water had rolled between the little boat and the wreck. Of the_Roland_, the mighty fast mail steamer of the North German SteamshipCompany, nothing was to be seen. 

XLIX

Late in the afternoon of the same day, the captain of a sturdy littletrading vessel from Hamburg sighted a boat drifting on the long, highswells. The weather was clear, and the captain made certain that thepeople in the boat were signalling with handkerchiefs. Within half anhour, the shipwrecked passengers of the _Roland_ were with greatdifficulty hoisted on board the trader, one at a time. 

There were fifteen persons in all, three sailors and a cabin-boy, withthe well-known name of the _Roland_ on their caps, two ladies, a womanevidently from the steerage, a maid, a long-haired man of about thirty ina velvet jacket, an armless man, the man who had been steering, two othermen, and two children, a boy and a girl. The boy was dead. 

The hardships and terrors to which the delicate child had succumbed hadhad almost equally dire effects upon the others. With the exception ofthe maid Rosa, they looked as if they had been drowned beyond hope ofresuscitation. A very wet man--it was Frederick--attempted to drag anunconscious wet young woman up the gangway-ladder, but his strengthfailed him, and the sailors of the trader had to catch him as hetottered, take the young woman from his arms, and help him struggle upthe ladder on deck, like a man whose every bone and muscle is racked byrheumatism. Attempting to speak, he could produce only an asthmatic, sibilant wheeze. On deck, he groaned, burst into a senseless, cacklinglaugh, and spread out his purple, frozen hands. His lips, too, werepurple, and his sunken eyes glowed feverishly from a face crusted withdirt and brine. He seemed to want nothing so much as to be dried, warmedand cleaned. 

He was followed by Rosa. Upon laying an unconscious little girl in thearms of the first mate, she turned back to descend to the boat again, butfound the way barred by Bulke and one of the sailors of the trader, hauling up the armless actor, Arthur Stoss. He was dripping wet, his eyeswere staring blankly, his nose was running, and his eyelids were red andinflamed, while the tip of his nose was waxen white. After several vainattempts to produce a sound through his chattering teeth, he finallysucceeded in framing "Rum! Hot rum!"

A mutual inclination seemed to make Bulke and Rosa pull together in theirrescue work like two old mates. Fairly raining water, they descendedagain for Mrs. Liebling, who was lying prone in the bottom of the boatin a serious condition. 

"She's dead, and the boy is dead, " said the sailors of the trader, andwanted first to carry up the other woman, the steerage passenger, whoshowed she was still alive by a rattle in her throat, fearful to hear. Rosa burst into a howl and swore Mrs. Liebling was not dead. 

"She's blue, " the sailors declared. "She swallowed too much water. "

But Rosa would not desist, and the sailors were compelled to carry Mrs. Liebling up first. 

As they were lifting on deck the unconscious woman from the steerage, still emitting the fearful rattle, one of the _Roland_ sailors, whosefeet were frozen and who, during the whole long, dreadful drifting abouton the ocean had not uttered a sound, suddenly began to bellow in pain. 

"Shut up!" said his mates. "Don't carry on like an old woman. "

He was the next to be lifted on board, merely whimpering now in ineffableagony. After him came the man in the velvet jacket, who was maundering, Doctor Wilhelm, Max Pander, and the other two sailors. Lastly the littlecorpse of Siegfried Liebling was lifted from the boat. 

When the absurdly dressed man with long hair reached deck, he performedthe drollest antics. For a moment he would stand upright, chest out, likea recruit, the next instant bow profoundly, or take aim, as if hunting;and all the time he kept bawling:

"I'm an artist. I paid for my cabin. I am well known inGermany"--striking a conscious attitude--"I am Jacob Fleischmann. I am a painter, from Fürth. "

Every now and then he would writhe pitifully and vomit salt water. Thewater dripping from his clothes formed a pool where he stood. 

Doctor Wilhelm had completely lost the faculty of speech. All he could dowas to sneeze incessantly. 

In the meantime, the steward of the vessel brought Frederick hot tea, and one of the sailors, who acted as barber and nurse on the vessel, attempted to restore Mrs. Liebling to life. Within less than two minutes, Frederick felt sufficiently revived to meet the demands of the occasionand assist the sailor-nurse with his Good Samaritan work. 

After swallowing several glasses of brandy, Doctor Wilhelm with the helpof the chief engineer, Mr. Wendler, attempted to revive SiegfriedLiebling, though with small hope of success. 

Mrs. Liebling, in no wise differing from a corpse, had been laid on thelong mahogany table in what would have been the dining-room, had thevessel been carrying passengers. Ugly, dark, purplish patches disfiguredthe forehead, cheeks, and throat of the woman, who was still young andwho, before the shipwreck, had been beautiful. On baring her body, theyfound that it, too, was marked, though less closely, with the samegangrenous spots, somewhat duller in colour. Her body was swollen. Deathmight have resulted from choking in a moment when she fell into a faintunobserved by any of her companions. Toward the last, there had beenseveral feet of water in the boat, and Rosa had for some time beenentirely occupied with the dying boy. 

When Frederick and the sailor-nurse laid Mrs. Liebling's body facedownward on the table, water flowed from her nose and mouth. Her heartwas no longer beating, and she gave no sign of life. As Frederickassumed, what had happened was, that she had sunk unconscious to thebottom of the boat and had lain for some time under water. He opened hermouth, forced her gold-filled teeth apart, put her tongue in the rightposition, and removed mucus, which had gathered at the opening of theair-passages. While the ship's cook rubbed her body with hot cloths, Frederick tried to induce artificial respiration by raising and loweringher arms and legs like a pump-handle. 

The mahogany table took up the larger part of the low, creaking saloon, the only one the vessel possessed. It was on the quarter-deck and waslighted from above. The two walls running the length of the room wereformed of the mahogany doors of the twelve staterooms, six on each side. In the twinkling of an eye the deserted saloon was converted into amedical laboratory. 

A common sailor had peeled Ingigerd Hahlström out of her clothes, and without circumstance had laid her delicate body, shining likemother-of-pearl, on a couch against the wall taking up the full width ofthe room. At Frederick's instruction, he rubbed her body vigorously withwoollen cloths. Rosa was doing the same for Ella Liebling, who was thefirst to be put to bed. The steward was working away in a glow of zeal toget each of the dozen beds freshly spread, and as soon as the second onewas ready, Ingigerd was laid between the warmed covers. Thanks to hisfaithful valet, Arthur Stoss, his teeth still chattering, was the next tobe ready for bed. 

Jacob Fleischmann gave his rescuers much trouble. When a sailor spoketo him kindly and attempted to undress him, he struck about wildly, andshouted in a rage, "I'm an artist!"

The steward and Bulke had to hold him fast and use main force in puttinghim to bed. Doctor Wilhelm abandoned his vain efforts to revive SiegfriedLiebling and came with his leather case of drugs, which he had managed tosave, just in time to give the painter an injection of morphine. 

The sailor whose agony of pain had overcome him before he was lifted ondeck had such badly swollen, frostbitten feet that his boots had to becut off bit by bit. He clenched his teeth to keep from screaming, andmerely uttered low groans until they laid him in bed; when he called forchewing tobacco. 

The woman from the steerage clad in rags was also put to bed. All shecould tell was that she was bound for Chicago with her sister, her fourchildren, her husband, and her mother. Nothing of what had in themeantime befallen her seemed to have penetrated, or remained in, herconsciousness. 

The whole while Frederick, his upper body bared, with only the barber tohelp him, kept working uninterruptedly over Mrs. Liebling. It was goodfor him, because it made him perspire. Finally, however, his strengthgave out, and Doctor Wilhelm came to his relief. He tottered into thenearest cabin, the door of which stood open, and fell face downward intothe unmade bed, utterly exhausted. 

L

After a time Mr. Butor, the captain of the _Hamburg_, now speeding onits way, appeared in the saloon to welcome and congratulate the twophysicians, who, notwithstanding their extreme exhaustion, were stillworking without cease over Mrs. Liebling's body. 

The room, of course, was flooded and was reeking with the sweetish-soursmell of human exhalations. The captain sent a sailor to fetch dryclothes for Frederick. 

While continuing their efforts and relieving each other at intervals, Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick gave a short account of the catastrophe onthe _Roland_. Captain Butor was greatly astonished. Though the weatherthroughout his trip had not been especially good, yet it had not been thereverse. Most of the time, as at present, it had been clear, with a stiffwind and a moderately high sea. His vessel was bound for New York with acargo of oranges, wine, oil, and cheese from Fayal in the Azores, towhich it had carried a load of agricultural implements from Hamburg. 

Frederick and Wilhelm could give little information concerning the causeof the accident. Wilhelm said that shortly before six in the morning, hehad been awakened by a sound like the clang of a gong. In his half-wakingstate, he thought it was the signal to dinner, until he remembered thaton the _Roland_ a trumpet blast was used to announce meals. 

Frederick thought the _Roland_ had probably struck a wreck or a rock. Butrocks, the captain said, were out of the question. There were none inthose waters, and the _Roland_ could not have been carried by strongcurrents into a region where there were rocks, since in that event thelife-boat would not have entered the course of his own vessel within soshort a time. The skipper, who knew Captain von Kessel personally and hadmet him in Hamburg only recently, spoke of him in the highest terms, asone of the most experienced, trustworthy captains in the German merchantmarine. The catastrophe, he said, was possibly the worst that hadoccurred in decades, if the steamer had actually sunk and not been towedinto a port. 

Before leaving, Captain Butor invited the two men, as soon as their taskwas ended, to supper at the mess table. 

An hour and a half passed. The physicians were about to give up theirattempts to resuscitate Mrs. Liebling, when her heart began to stir andher breast to heave. Rosa's joy was boundless. With the greatestdifficulty restraining an emotional outburst, she felt the warmth returneven to Mrs. Liebling's soles, which she had been rubbing unwearyinglywith her palms, hard as flat-irons. The rescued woman was carried to bedand packed in hot water bottles, like a premature baby. 

This great success of the physicians' efforts--it was like a raising ofthe dead--produced profound emotion in all that witnessed it, includingFrederick and Doctor Wilhelm, who were suddenly moved to shake hands witheach other. 

"We have been saved, " said Wilhelm. "The most improbable, the mostincredible thing has actually happened. "

"Yes, " rejoined Frederick. "It has actually happened. It _is_ absolutelythe most improbable thing that has ever occurred in my life. The questionis, What were we saved for?"

LI

The mess-room of the _Hamburg_ was a small square cabin with iron walls, its only furniture a square table and a bench running around three sides. Once a person was seated, it was impossible to pass him; and when theofficers gathered for meals, they shoved themselves into place in acertain order, the captain first. 

At seven o'clock Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick appeared for supper. Theyfound a soup tureen sending up clouds of steam and a well-constructed oillamp over the table shedding a cheerful light. The _Hamburg_ was notlighted by electricity. 

The two physicians, like all victims of accidents, the objects of reallytouching solicitude, were assigned seats against the warmest wall, dividing the cabin from the engine-room. Captain Butor served the stronghot soup, and Mr. Wendler, chief engineer, a rotund little mariner, in anattempt to enliven the shipwrecked men, cautiously ventured a joke or twoeven before the roast was served. He came from Lindenau near Leipzig, andthe rest of the crew teased him for his Low German. 

"Don't talk, " said the captain to Wilhelm and Frederick. "Just eat, drink, and sleep. "

At first they were inclined to take his advice, but in the course of themeal, after one of the sailors had served an immense cut of roast beef, and the captain had carved it, and they had washed the meat down with redwine, their spirits rose from moment to moment. 

Bulke appeared at the door showing evidences of the royal banquet towhich he and the sailors of the _Roland_ had been treated by the sailorsof the _Hamburg_. Notwithstanding his condition, pardonable enough inthe circumstances, he would not go to sleep without first receivinginstructions from Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick, before whom he stood inmilitary attitude, hand to his cap, awaiting orders. 

It was decided that the sailor-nurse and another sailor of the _Hamburg_should go on night duty, since all the men from the _Roland_ needed restand sleep. 

Though Frederick's and Doctor Wilhelm's spirits rose visibly, they neverreferred to the sinking of the _Roland_. It was too tremendous a thing, too dreadful, too near for any of the survivors, except the sailors, tospeak of it without intense emotion. It was like a dull weight on theirsouls. Whatever Wilhelm and Frederick said related merely to theirdifficulties in the life-boat, or to the trip on the _Roland_ before itoverstepped that moment in eternity which determined its awful fate. 

"Captain, " said Frederick, "you don't know how astonishing it is to beraised from the dead. Conceive a man who has taken definite leave ofeverything that was dear to him in life, who has felt the rattle in histhroat, and received extreme unction, and death, death itself, hassettled on his flesh and limbs. I still feel death in my joints. And yetI am sitting here in safety, in the pleasant lamplight, almost as in acircle of friends and relatives. I am sitting in the cosiest home, withthe difference that I still cannot get myself to look upon you"--theywere the captain, the engineer, the boatswain, and the first mate--"assomething so insignificant as mere men. "

"When we sighted the _Hamburg_", said Wilhelm, "I had just made my lastwill and testament. You see I don't give myself up for lost as quickly asmy friend, Doctor von Kammacher. When your ship gradually grew from thesize of a pinhead to the size of a full-grown pea, all of us who could, screamed at the top of our voices. We nearly burst our throats screaming. And when your _Hamburg_ attained the size of a walnut, and we realised wehad been sighted, your ship flamed in my eyes like a huge diamond orruby, and to me the east from which you came shone more brilliantly thanthe west, where the sun was still shining above the horizon. All of ushowled like watch-dogs. "

"It will always be a miracle to me, " Frederick resumed, "that such anevening as this could follow such a morning. I have let days slip past, by the hundreds, holding no more in them than minutes. But in this oneday, a whole summer has passed, and a whole winter. I feel as if thefirst violet had followed directly upon the first snow. "

Wilhelm told of how excited the sailors had been in Cuxhaven becauseCatholic priests had boarded the _Roland_. Then he mentioned a dream hisold mother had had the night before he was to sail. A child of hers thathad been born many years before and had lived only a day, appeared to heras a grown-up man and warned her not to let him make the trip. 

"She begged me not to go, " he said, "but, as I am an enlightened man, Isimply laughed at her for her fears. "

Once launched upon the boundless sea of superstition, beloved by sailors, the men went on to recite cases they knew of prophetic dreams, offorebodings fulfilled, and the appearance of dying or dead men. Thissuggested his friend's last letter to Frederick. He drew his portfoliofrom his waistcoat pocket, where it had remained throughout his periloustrip, and passed the letter around. 

They read the passage, "In the vivid, flashing orgies of my nocturnaldreams, you are always tossing in a ship on the high seas. Do you intendto make an ocean trip?" Of course, it excited not a little astonishment, and it was with some thrills that they read: "Should it be possible forme, after the great moment, to make myself noticeable from the Beyond, you will hear from me again. "

Captain Butor asked with an incredulous smile, yet eagerly, whether hisfriend had indeed made himself noticeable from the Beyond. 

"This is what happened to me in a dream. Judge for yourselves. I don'tknow, " said Frederick, in a voice still hoarse and barking. It was unlikehim to go on and relate, as he did, the dream that had been greatlyoccupying his thoughts, which began with the landing in a mystic port andended with the Toilers of the Light. He described his friend, PeterSchmidt, and declared that Peter had sent his astral self half way acrossthe Atlantic to greet him. He spoke of 1492, of Columbus's flag-ship, the_Santa Maria_, but chiefly of his meeting with Rasmussen in the form ofan old chandler, giving a detailed description of the remarkable ship inthe shop window, the shop itself, and the chirping of the goldfinches. Hedrew out his note-book and read aloud what the mysterious chandler hadsaid to him:

"It was precisely thirteen minutes past one on the twenty-fourth ofJanuary when I drew my last breath. "

"Whether that is true, " Frederick concluded, "remains to be proved. Somuch is certain--if there is anything about this dream that isn't theillusory work of my imagination--my soul grazed the boundaries of theworld beyond, and I received a hint of the catastrophe to come. As to the_Roland_, my friend, Peter Schmidt, showed me a ship in the harbour witha tremendous hole in its side and said it had brought in a great manypeople, --which would mean, it had transferred them to the world beyond. In regard to my rescue, my disguised friend, Rasmussen, said I shouldsoon celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of 1492 with Peter Schmidtin New York. But dreams are froth and foam. I fancy it would not bedifficult to explain all this rationalistically, from psycho-physiologiccauses. "

Before the little family circle of the _Hamburg_ broke up for the night, they touched glasses again with great gravity, even solemnity. 

LII

Frederick awoke the next morning from an eleven hours' sleep, for whichhe was indebted chiefly to a dose of veronal. Doctor Wilhelm hadundertaken to do whatever was necessary during the night for the sickpassengers of the _Roland_ and had persuaded Frederick, whose moredelicate constitution was in the utmost need of rest, to take the drug. The sun was shining brightly into his tiny cabin. Through the slat door, he heard the sound of voices speaking calmly and the cheerful clatter ofplates and dishes. At first he recalled nothing of the previous day'sevents, and thought he was on the fast mail steamer, _Roland_. But hecould not reconcile the change in his cabin with the idea he had formedof his room on the _Roland_. In his bewilderment he reached out from bedand knocked on the mahogany slats of the door. The next moment DoctorWilhelm's face, lively and refreshed, was bending over him. 

"With the exception of the woman from the steerage, all our patients hada good night, " the _Roland's_ doctor said, and went on to give a reportof each case. It was not until he had nearly ended his account that henoticed the difficulty Frederick was having to explain his surroundings. Wilhelm laughed and recalled some incidents. Frederick started up andclapped his hands to his temples. 

"A void, " he exclaimed. "A whirl of impossible things is going round inmy brain. "

Shortly after, he was sitting at breakfast with Doctor Wilhelm, eatingand drinking. And yet not a word was said of the sinking of the _Roland_. 

Ingigerd Hahlström had awakened and fallen asleep again. The barber andsailor-nurse, Flitte by name, had locked her door. Arthur Stoss was stilllying abed with his door open and was cracking jokes in the best ofspirits, while his trusty valet, Bulke, fed him or handed him food totake with his feet. From the ring of his falsetto voice one would havejudged that the horrors he had survived were nothing but a series ofcomic situations. 

"This business, " he said, leaving his original subject and dropping a fewhighly flavoured oaths, "is going to cost me one thousand Americandollars. I shall not be able to keep the first days of my engagement inNew York. " In good English he cursed the whole German Hansa, especiallythe _Hamburg_. "The wretched little herring keg! At the utmost it doesn'tmake more than ten knots an hour. "

Fourteen hours of peaceful sleep brought the painter, Jacob Fleischmannof Fürth to his senses. He had his breakfast served in bed, rang thecall-bell, gave orders, and kept the steward dancing attendance on him. The others could hear him loudly reiterate again and again that thoughthe loss of his oil-paintings, sketches, and etchings, which he hadintended to sell in America, was irreparable and beyond compensation, yetthe steamship company was unquestionably liable, and as soon as hereached New York, he would take to haunting the company's office, untilthey paid him full damages. They were to find out who and what he was. 

Rosa, happy and eager, though with eyes red from crying, passed to andfro between her mistress's cabin and the dining-room table, carrying nowone thing, now another, to Mrs. Liebling, who was still whiningreproachfully. It had been agreed to keep Siegfried Liebling's death asecret from her, an easy thing to do since she had declared she was notyet strong enough to see the children. Yet it was remarkable how the deadwoman had revived. When Frederick after breakfast paid her a professionalvisit, he found she had only a dim recollection of having beenunconscious. She had had glorious dreams, she said, and when she realisedshe was to be awakened, had felt so regretful that she tried to resistthe summons back to earthly life, back from the wondrous isle, theveritable paradise, in which she had been. 

Mrs. Liebling was beautiful. She complained of pains, and at Frederick'sbidding bared her body. He found it marked with blue spots, the result ofthe rough tossings in the life-boat, which had left him, too, bruised andwounded in various places and with frozen toes and fingers. 

"My dear Mrs. Liebling, " he said, "put up with your slight discomfort. Wewere all dead, and we have undeservedly been granted a second life. "

Shortly before ten o'clock, Captain Butor entered the dining-room, shookhands with the gentlemen, asked how they had slept, and told them thatall night the men on the bridge had redoubled their vigilance on thechance of discovering more survivors of the _Roland_. Since the wind wasstill from the northwest, it was possible that the _Hamburg_ might chanceon the wreck, in case it had not sunk. 

"As a matter of fact, " he said, "we did sight a derelict at one o'clock, but there were absolutely no persons aboard. It was an older wreck and asailing vessel, not a steamer. "

"Perhaps it was the _Roland's_ murderer, " said Doctor Wilhelm. 

The captain asked the two physicians to come to the chart-room where theyand the sailors of the _Roland_, who were already awaiting him, were togive him the vouchers he needed for his brief report to be submitted tohis company's agent in New York in regard to the picking up of thecastaways. A sort of audience was held, during which nothing newconcerning the tremendous disaster was revealed. 

Pander showed the scrap of paper with the pencilled message thatCaptain von Kessel had asked him to take to his sisters. All were greatlymoved on reading the few hastily scrawled words. The incident revealedwhat a wrench the hearts and nerves of even the seamen had undergone. Atthe mention of this or that person or incident, Pander and the threesailors burst into hysterical tears. When asked whether they thought the_Roland_ would remain above water over the day, all said "No. " One of thesailors, who from the first warning of danger to the boarding of the_Hamburg_, had gone about his heavy duty with the same grit, the samematter-of-course manner, scarcely uttering a word, concluded each of hisstatements with: "Captain, it was like on Judgment Day. "

At the conclusion of the audience, Frederick felt a great need to bealone for a while. "It was like on Judgment Day, " followed him. Yes, itwas like on Judgment Day! The horrors of the cruellest judgment could notexceed those amid which the victims of the shipwreck had perished. Strange, the evening before, Frederick had still been able to laugh;to-day he felt as if the gravity of his being were turned to brass andhad laid itself about him, not like an iron mask, not like a leadencloak, but rather like a heavy metal sarcophagus. 

He knew a man, an architect verging on middle age, who had been on theisland of Ischia during the last great earthquake there. The architectand some very dear friends were sitting together over a bottle of winewhen the calamity was ushered in by the roll of subterranean thunder. Amoment later the ceiling and floors burst, and an abyss swallowed upfive or six persons, men and women, full of hope and joy in life. Hehimself remained on the brink of the abyss unscathed. Though yearsintervened, there was still not a clod of earth, not a rock, no matterhow adamantine, on which he could set foot with his old confidence; therewas no wall or ceiling that he did not seem to see falling on his headand crushing him. Groping along the walls of houses on the street, terrorwould seize him. Open places made him dizzy, and not infrequently apasserby seeing his helplessness would lead him like a blind man acrossthe city square. 

Frederick felt that the sinking of the _Roland_ had left him with agloomy heritage, a black compact cloud-mass brooding menacingly in thespaces of his soul. With all his will, he had to overcome a shudder whensomething like a flash of lightning darted from the cloud and illuminatedthe horror he had witnessed, as if it were still present to his eye. 

Why had the powers revealed Judgment Day to him, not as a vision, but asan actuality? Why had they showed such partiality as to let him and a fewothers escape perdition? Was he, the tiny ant, which was susceptible ofsuch titanic terrors, important enough to assume the guidance of thingsfor himself, to fulfil a loftier purpose for good or evil? Had hetransgressed? Was he deserving of punishment? But that wholesale massacrewas too fearful, too vast a thing! It was ridiculous to attribute to it apedagogic purpose for the discipline of one minute human existence. Indeed, he felt how the large generalness of the event had almostentirely dislodged everything personal. No! Nothing but blind, deafand dumb powers of destruction had been at work. 

Yet, in facing the elemental tragedy of the human race, the inexorablegruesomeness of the powers, in looking into the eyes of death, he hadacquired knowledge that turned something in his being into the hardnessof the hardest rock. What was the sense of such a disaster if the eternalgoodness ordained it? And where was the power of eternal goodness, if itwas incapable of hindering it? Nothing remained but to strip oneself bareof all pride and dignity and grovel in the dust before the great unknown, a humble, will-less slave, completely at its mercy. 

LIII

While on the _Roland_, time had crawled at a snail's pace, the hour handof the clock on the _Hamburg_ travelled twice around its face withsurprising rapidity. During that interval, the two ladies remained inbed, though the weather, which was clear and moderate, permitted beingon deck. In Mrs. Liebling the consequences of the strain manifestedthemselves in periodic attacks of great excitement and fear accompaniedby violent palpitation; in Ingigerd Hahlström, in healthy sleepiness, which made the administration of morphine in her case unnecessary. Neither of the women developed fever. But the sailor whose feet werefrozen and the woman from the steerage had a high temperature. Theimmigrant in her delirium wanted to jump from bed, and, at thephysicians' request, Captain Butor appointed one of the well sailors fromthe _Roland_ and a sailor from the _Hamburg_ to relieve each other inkeeping constant watch over her. 

Each time Frederick went to look after the poor creature, he felt himselfassailed by the temptation to save her forever from the moment ofawakening. From her own lips, while she had still been conscious, he hadheard of all the relatives she had probably lost on the _Roland_, herhusband, three sons, and a daughter-ranging from seven to eighteen yearsof age--a sister and her mother. At first her fevered fancy occupieditself with the shipwreck, her husband, children, and sisters. Later sheseemed to become a child again, reliving her life in her parents' home. Swallows' nests, a cow, a goat, a meadow, in which there was a haystackroofed to keep off the rain, figured as important things. 

"Would that she passed away in those illusions!" thought Frederick. 

Arthur Stoss, transported up-stairs by his faithful Bulke, and JacobFleischmann strolled about on deck, or reclined in the steamer chairs, which even the trading vessel possessed. Stoss needed some massagingand patching up, and while the physicians were busy with him, he crowedand cawed in his most jovial manner:

"I always say you can't destroy weeds. Tanned leather is impervious tosalt water. I am like an ant which can spend a week under water withoutdying. "

Thanks to Rosa's unwearying care, Ella Liebling escaped with nothing buta bad cold. Looking very pretty and saucy in her own clothes, which hadbeen cleaned and dried, the little maiden pried about in every nook andcranny of the vessel. The skipper granted her a free pass to his bridge, the engineers to the engine-room. She was even admitted into the greattube of the propeller-shaft. She was everybody's pet, and all soon becameacquainted with her mother's position in the world and manner of life. 

When Ingigerd, after about fifty hours of rest in bed, finally appearedon deck, wrapped in Frederick's overcoat, the passengers and crew fairlycelebrated the event. The exquisite creature, who had lost her father, was regarded with the same masculine pity by all the men on board. Pander, the gallant cabin-boy, converted himself into her shadow. He madea stool for her feet from an empty box of smoked sprats, and while shesat talking to Frederick, he stood off at a short distance ready toreceive her orders. Even Flitte, sailor and barber and nurse, who wassupposed to give all who needed him equal attention, ran hither andthither for her sake with special zeal. 

The call for Flitte was the one most frequently heard on the _Hamburg_. The undersized little man from Brandenburg, whom a love of adventure hadchanged from a barber-surgeon into a sailor, unexpectedly experienced atriumph of his personality. Now it was Mrs. Liebling who summoned him, now Ingigerd, now the sailor with the frozen feet, now Fleischmann, nowStoss, and even Bulke and Rosa--Rosa, who for several hours during theday made herself useful in the contracted little kitchen, which was ruledby a shrewd old cook. The physicians, too, had, of course, constant usefor him; and it was the most natural thing that he should become a manof importance in the eyes of even his idolised captain, whom, in theordinary course of things it was his duty to shave. He was well aware ofthis, and since, moreover, pity had fanned into a lively flame his oldinclination for nursing, he outdid himself in self-sacrificing deeds forthe sick, both by day and night. Frederick asked him the same question hehad asked each member of the _Roland's_ crew:

"Would you rather be a seaman than anything else?"

And Flitte was the first that without hesitation answered, "Yes. "

LIV

The unexpected arrival of the little troupe of peculiar passengers on the_Hamburg_ in mid-ocean produced a flutter of excitement in both captainand crew. It was a feeling of mingled solemnity and gaiety. For thebenefit now of the captain, now of the boatswain, or the first mate, orthe cook, or the engineer, the physicians had to repeat again and againthe account of how they had been sighted and rescued. It was a story thatnever grew stale, and from the eagerness with which the _Hamburg's_ crewlistened to the oft-told tale, the physicians realised that even to thoseold sea-dogs the event was a miracle. None of them, in all the years theyhad been sailing the high seas, had ever fished up such booty. 

"When Captain Butor had me look through the spy-glasses, " Wendler wouldsay, "his face was the colour of green cheese. And when I thought for amoment that I made out a boat and the next second heard the captain say, 'Look sharp, there are people in it, ' I felt my knees getting weak. "

In telling of his impressions when the boat entered, and immediatelydisappeared from, the field of his spy-glasses, the captain invariablydeclared that he had suddenly been beset by a paralysed feeling in hisfeet, and rubbed the glasses, and began to search again. He was on thepoint of leaving the bridge, since he could not get another view of thatstrange little flyspeck on the ocean and decided it was an allusion, whenit occurred to him that for reasons of general security he had betterscan the entire circle of the horizon. This time he looked backwards. Instantly he had the _Hamburg_ stopped and turned, because he had sightedthe boat a second time and it was now decidedly nearer. The first mate, too, on looking through the glasses saw it was a boat and that itcontained passengers. Wendler was called on deck. When he peered throughthe glass, he distinguished white cloths waving. 

"When my boys found out what was doing, " said Captain Butor, "they beganto carry on like lunatics. I had to use some of my sea-lingo on them. They wanted to dive over the railing into the sea, and swim to the boat. "

 * * * * *

Ingigerd was lying stretched out in her comfortable steamer chair, andFrederick was sitting on a camp-stool in front of her. On the _Roland_, when the sense of danger began to thicken, a feeling of ownership inregard to Ingigerd had taken hold of Frederick and never left him. DoctorWilhelm and, as a result of his influence, everybody on the _Hamburg_looked upon Frederick as the romantic rescuer and lover of the littledancer. All were conscious of witnessing the development of a romanceespecially sanctioned by Divine Providence, and looked on with interestand respect. Ingigerd's attitude to Frederick was that of tacit docility, as if she, the obedient ward, recognised in him her natural guardian. 

The air was fresh, the motion of the sea was easy. Suddenly, after a longspell of silence, which Frederick had imposed upon her, Ingigerd asked:

"Was it really nothing but chance that brought us together on the_Roland_?"

"There is no such thing as chance, or, rather, everything is chance, Ingigerd, " was his evasive answer. 

Ingigerd was not satisfied, and did not desist until she learned thecauses and circumstances that had led Frederick to board the unfortunate_Roland_ at Southampton. 

"So for my sake, " she said, "you came within a hair's breadth of losingyour life. Instead, you saved my life. "

This brief conversation cemented the bond between them more firmly. 

In the survivors, with the exception of Frederick and Ingigerd, theconsciousness of their newly acquired life soon assumed exuberant forms. Scarcely two days lay between them and the sinking of the _Roland_, yetthese very people, who had undergone the brutal terrors of that awfulevent, abandoned themselves to the greatest gaiety. Arthur Stoss probablyhad never before shot off such an incessant fire of jokes and jibes, andprobably never before had set such an audience a-laughing as the captain, the first mate, the boatswain, Wendler, the ship's cook, Fleischmann, Doctor Wilhelm, and even Mrs. Liebling, Rosa, Bulke, and the sailors ofthe _Roland_ and the _Hamburg_. 

Fleischmann involuntarily and unconsciously danced to the tune that Stossin perfect good humour intentionally piped. It was most amusing when theman with black locks, dressed in a black velvet suit saturated with saltwater, swaggeringly passed judgment upon Adolf Menzel, Böcklin, Liebermann, and other celebrated German masters. In expanding histheories of painting, he always used his lost treasures as examples. Stoss never wearied of getting the caddish genius to describe hispaintings, the loss of which in Fleischmann's opinion was the worstdisaster connected with the sinking of the _Roland_. The form that DoctorWilhelm's teasing of Fleischmann took was, when Ingigerd was not present, to make him describe his rescue in detail. In the artist's brain, it wasan event in an eminent degree glorifying to himself. All the sorryincidents had completely passed from his mind, including the fact thatRosa, Bulke and Ingigerd had pulled him out of the waves howling like awet poodle. 

The sum at which he estimated the loss of his pictures and which heintended to demand of the steamship company was a matter of generalknowledge, like the price of stocks and bonds, within two and a halfdays jumping from eight hundred dollars to six thousand. There was notelling to what amount it might soar. 

Fleischmann had contrived to get some writing paper on the _Hamburg_, and industriously set to work to caricature everybody on board. Thus, heoften bestowed his company unbidden upon Frederick and Ingigerd, who hadno need of anybody else in the world. That would ruffle Frederick'stemper. 

"I am surprised, " he once said to him, by no means amiably, "that afterso solemn an event, you are capable of such superficial trifling. "

"A strong character!" said Fleischmann, laconically. 

"Don't you think, " Frederick continued, "that Miss Hahlström may beannoyed by your constantly looking at her?"

"No, " said Fleischmann, "I don't think so. "

Ingigerd took Fleischmann's part, thereby heightening Frederick's illhumour. 

LV

Shortly after, just as Wendler, who was off duty, passed by with achess-board under his arm, Frederick was summoned to Mrs. Liebling. Ofthe two physicians, he was the one that had inspired her specialconfidence, why, he did not know. 

"Doctor von Kammacher, " said Doctor Wilhelm, with a swift side glance atIngigerd, "you've cut me out again. "

At least once every twenty minutes Mrs. Liebling called for Flitte and atleast once every hour Frederick von Kammacher had to sit beside her onthe edge of her bed. Strangely enough, it did not occur to the youngscientist to take amiss the jokes that Doctor Wilhelm and the othersaimed at him on that account. He was really sorry for the poor woman andwas unaffectedly ready to be of service to her. 

They had not yet informed her of Siegfried's death, but, now that onlyElla kept coming to her, a suspicion had arisen in her mind. Flitte andRosa, when she begged them to go fetch Siegfried, always returned withouthim, and when pressed, gave as the reason that the boy was sick. 

"What is the matter with my dear, sweet Siegfried?" she cried, wringingher hands, when Frederick entered her cabin. The next moment she fellback on her pillow and lay rigid, pressing her hands to her eyes. 

"O my God! O my God!" she exclaimed in impotent denial of the truth. Without waiting for what Frederick had to say, she began to cry quietly, in genuine grief. 

On returning to the deck half an hour later, Frederick found the fatlittle engineer and Ingigerd playing chess together. 

"The painter and I have made Miss Hahlström laugh three times already, "cried the engineer. 

"I know where you were, Doctor von Kammacher, " Ingigerd said. "Does sheknow the truth now?"

"Yes, " Frederick replied. "I hope she will be quieter now. "

Ingigerd wanted to go down to Mrs. Liebling. Tears came to her eyes, andrevealed, as with a ray of light shining inward, what she refrained fromsaying, that she who had lost her father was most fitted to share thegrief of a mother who through the same misfortune had lost her son. Frederick was indignant that Ingigerd had been told, and used all hisauthority to prevail upon her not to visit Mrs. Liebling for the present. 

LVI

The next day at about noon Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick helped Mrs. Liebling on deck. Her appearance there made a gruesome impression uponthose who had not seen her since she had been dragged, a lifeless corpse, from the boat to the _Hamburg_. The sailors, though most solicitous toread Ingigerd Hahlström's wishes from her eyes, even before they wereconceived, kept at a distance from Mrs. Liebling and cast shy glances ather, as if still in doubt whether she was a real human being. If the seagives up its dead, why should not little Siegfried emerge from his deathchamber?

Mrs. Liebling, wrapped in blankets and a coat belonging to the captain, was placed in a comfortable position on the other side of the deck fromIngigerd, because she wished to be alone. For a long while she lookedacross the expanse of the quiet sea. Then she said to Frederick, whosecompany she had requested:

"It's strange that I feel merely as if I had had a dreadful dream--justa dream--that is the strange thing. No matter how hard I try, I cannotfully convince myself, except when I think of Siegfried, that my dreamreflects an actuality which I experienced. "

"We mustn't indulge in vain broodings, " said Frederick. 

"I know, " she continued without looking at him, "I know I didn't alwaysdo what is right, but if _I_ deserved to be punished, Siegfried did not. Why did I escape?" After an interval of silence, she began to speak ofher past, of conflicts with her husband, who had deceived her. Hers hadbeen one of those loveless matches which are contracted in the customarybusiness fashion. She told Frederick that she was an artist by nature, Rubinstein, for whom she had played when she was eleven years old, havingprophesied a great future for her. "I don't know anything about cookingor children. I was always terribly nervous. Still, I love my children. IfI didn't, would I have been so obstinate in trying to win them from myhusband? I pledge you my word, Doctor, if I could change places withSiegfried, you would find me ready at any moment. "

Frederick made all sorts of consolatory remarks, some of which were notwholly superficial; for instance, what he said of death and resurrectionand the great atonement that every form of death, even mere sleep, involves. 

"If you were a man, I should recommend Goethe. I should say to you, 'Readover and over the beginning of the second part of _Faust_:'

 'Then the craft of elves propitious Hastes to help where help it can. '

or the passage beginning:

 'The fierce convulsions of his heart compose; Remove the burning barbs of his remorses, And cleanse his being from the suffered woes!'

Doesn't what we went through give you a sense of expiation andpurification?"

"I feel, " said the woman who had arisen from the dead, "as if my formerlife were far, far away, as if, since the sinking of the _Roland_, animpassable mountain were lying between me and my past. But leave me now, Doctor. You are bored. Don't waste the precious time you owe your prettyfriend on me. "

As a matter of fact, Frederick preferred to talk to Mrs. Liebling ratherthan to Ingigerd. If he was bored, it was with Ingigerd, not with Mrs. Liebling. 

"Oh, " he said, "never mind. Ingigerd Hahlström always has company. Shedoesn't need me. "

"My mother urged me, " said Mrs. Liebling, "not to take the children, butto leave them with her. Had I obeyed, Siegfried would still have beenalive. She has a perfect right to reproach me severely. And how can Iface Siegfried's father? He did what he could to keep the children back. He wrote to me and sent friends and his attorneys. "

"With 'if' and 'hadn't I, ' you can't undo what has been done. The eventis too general, too titanic, to be thought of in such a way. It is toofearful to be considered with reference to a single individual and hispuny fate. What happened had to happen, whether or not we believe inpredestination. We human beings must not have feelings so petty as toallow mere chance to play a rôle in this event. "

Frederick could not make up his mind to speak of his dream, in which Rosafigured as jumping from the boat with Siegfried in her arms and escapingto the white marble quay of the wonderful Columbus port, where he hadbeen received by Peter Schmidt and where the _Santa Maria_ was slowlycrumbling away. Since there were things in his dream that gave support toa belief in predestination relieving the mind of self-blame, his tellingit might have soothed Mrs. Liebling's troubled conscience; but Rosa hadremained alive, Siegfried alone was dead. Besides, though Frederick wasconstantly revolving the dream in his soul and kept recalling Hamlet'swords, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than aredreamt of in your philosophy, " he did not want to strengthen Mrs. Liebling's superstition, which showed itself in a predisposition fortable-tipping and patience-playing. 

On walking to the other side of the deck, after a rather prolongedabsence, he was greeted with a shout. 

"Hullo, father confessor!" they cried. 

"Come be seated, my saviour, " said Ingigerd, looking considerably betterand brighter than the day before. 

Frederick turned slightly pale, but did as he was bidden and said in atone that did not harmonise with the good humour of the group:

"Mrs. Liebling was Rubinstein's pupil. I haven't met another woman onthis trip to whom it is so well worth the while to talk. "

"All due respect to you, a matter of taste, " said Doctor Wilhelm. 

"Let him alone. My saviour is displeased, " said Ingigerd. 

It was evident that occasionally she stood in awe of Frederick. 

LVII

Aside from little tiffs between Ingigerd and Frederick, the spirit onboard the _Hamburg_ was generally good-humoured, even jolly. The weatherremained clear, and the place of terror already lay eight hundred milesbehind in the ocean. Each minute carried the passengers of the _Roland_farther along in their newly acquired lives. The ladies were feasted fromthe cargo of tropical fruit in the hold of the vessel, which had acarrying capacity of some two thousand register tons. Often the men forIngigerd's amusement would use the oranges for playing ball. The AtlanticOcean about the _Hamburg_ seemed a very different thing from that awful, treacherous sea which had swallowed the _Roland_. It lay like awave-tossing heaven under the steamer, and gave it a gentle rockingmotion, by no means unpleasant. There was majesty in the course of eventhe plain little trader, painted black above the water-line and redbelow. Compared with that mechanical marvel, the _Roland_, it was likea comfortable old stage-coach, and could be depended upon to make itsten knots an hour with a great show of speed. Captain Butor in allseriousness declared the castaways had brought him good luck. The momentthey appeared, the old man of the sea turned as peaceful and serene as anoctogenarian English rector. 

"Yes, " said Stoss, "but your old English rector first filled his bellywith a few hecatombs of human lives. Stop, look, listen! Don't be tooquick to trust him. When he's done assimilating, he'll have a stillbetter appetite. "

Up to the very end of the trip, though there was a corpse on board andthe woman from the steerage was still very sick, the atmosphere on the_Hamburg_ lost none of its festal character. The bridge was freeterritory. Ingigerd was usually to be seen there in the daytime playingchess with Wendler, or looking on while Frederick won one game after theother from the engineer. Naturally enough, the entire crew, by no meansexclusive of Captain Butor, felt profound satisfaction because of thebooty they had recovered on the high seas, each wearing an air of evidentpride in the catch. Had the exalted feelings that swelled the hearts ofall on board the gallant freight coach, the _Hamburg_, been transferredinto od-rays, the steamer would have sailed up New York Harboursurrounded, even at high noon, by an aureole of its own radiance. 

There was betting as to the number of the pilot-boat that would come tomeet the _Hamburg_, when suddenly it appeared hard by, with the number"25" decipherable on its sail. Arthur Stoss had won. Almost choking withlaughter, he raked in a considerable sum, and Jacob Fleischmann enviedhim with comically obvious greed. 

The close companionship with his fellow-passengers on the small steamer, the compulsion he was under to listen to their jokes and to thesuperficial, reiterated tale of the disaster made Frederick inwardlyimpatient. Unlike the others, he had not yet recovered his old relationto life. His soul was numbed. He had lost his feeling for the past, hisfeeling for the future, even his passion for Ingigerd. The moment of thecatastrophe seemed to have snapped all the threads that bound him to theevents, men, and things of his former life. Whenever he looked uponIngigerd, he felt an oppressive consciousness of responsibility. In thesedays it almost seemed as if the girl in her predominatingly soft, seriousmood were awaiting the declaration of his love. 

"You all want to have fun with me, " she once said, "but nobody wantsanything serious of me. "

Frederick did not understand himself. Hahlström was no longer living, Achleitner had had to pay the penalty of his undignified, dog-like love, and the girl, shaken and refined to the depths of her being, was wax inhis hands. Often he would look at her to find that her eyes had beenfixed upon him in a long, grave, meditative gaze. Then he would seem tohimself a very sorry sort of person, and was compelled to admit that hewho had once wished to overwhelm the girl with the infinite riches of apassionately loving soul, was a bankrupt, groping with empty hands inempty pockets. He ought to speak, ought to open the sluices on the otherside of which the flood of his passionate love must have gathered andrisen high; but all the waters had trickled away, all the sources haddried up. To mask the aridity of his soul, he adopted his old method ofa curt, dictatorial manner. 

LVIII

It was the fifth of February, about thirteen days after the _Roland_had left Bremen, and twelve after Frederick had boarded the _Roland_at the Needles in the Channel, when the pilot took the guidance ofthe _Hamburg_. Compared with the length of the _Fürst Bismarck's_record-making passage, this was an extremely long time. But howinconceivably brief it seemed to him when he recalled all he hadexperienced in that period, both in his waking and sleeping hours. Onthe _Hamburg_, he no longer dreamed at night. A mighty blast had swepthis soul clean and denuded it of all images. 

Shortly before ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth of February, Captain Butor, standing back of Ella Liebling, who was sitting underthe telescope merrily kicking her thin legs, spied land. It was atremendously stirring moment when the news was carried to the passengers. The steward that called it into Frederick's cabin and the next instantdisappeared little realised how his brief announcement, "Land!" affectedthe stranger. Frederick closed the door, shaken by great, hollow, toneless sobs coming from the depths of his being. 

"Such is life, " went through his heart. "Did not a steward on a gloomy, horrid night call 'Danger!' into my cabin, like the shouting of a deathsentence into the cell of a poor sinner by both the judge and thehangman? And now comes the peaceful piping of the shepherd's reed, whilethe thunder is still rolling. " It was not until his sobbing ceased thathe felt a thrill of bliss, as if life were again drawing near in triumph. A flash of feeling set him afire, as when a vast army approaches withmusic playing and banners flying, an army of invincible brethren, amongwhom he is safe at home again. Never before had life come rolling towardhim in waves so strong or colours so shining. One must have been castvery, very deep down in darkness and confusion to learn that there is nomore glorious sun in all God's heavens than the sun that shines upon ourearth. 

The other passengers from the _Roland_ were each in his own way affectedby the call of "Land!" Mrs. Liebling was heard to cry for Rosa andFlitte. 

"By Jove, you rascal, " said Arthur Stoss to his faithful Bulke, "by Jove, we'll feel the land under our soles again after all. "

Doctor Wilhelm peeped into Frederick's cabin. 

"Congratulate you, Doctor von Kammacher, " he said. "The land ofChristopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci has been sighted. We enjoy theadvantage of having no trunks to pack. "

Suddenly the fat little engineer, Mr. Wendler, was peering over DoctorWilhelm's shoulder. 

"Doctor, " he cried, wringing his hands with a comic air of helplessness, "you must come right on deck. Your ward is crying her eyes out. " Hereferred, of course, to Ingigerd. 

She was still crying when Frederick reached deck. His attempts atconsolation did not touch her. He had never before seen her cry, and thestate she was in, so like the one from which he himself had scarcelyemerged, aroused his pity and sympathy, which, however, were rather ofa paternal sort, untinged by his former passion. 

"I am not to blame, " she suddenly said, "that my father lost his life. Iam not even responsible for Mr. Achleitner. I did my best to dissuade himfrom making the trip. "

Frederick stroked Ingigerd's hand. 

"All due respect to Achleitner, but if I mourn single victims of thatfearful night, I first think of the heroes of the _Roland_, Captain vonKessel, his mate, Von Halm, and all those picked braves who really diedlike great men fulfilling their duty. They are a loss to the world. Atthe first sight of them, I, in my innocence, actually believed the Lordwould never permit their destruction. "

LIX

The _Hamburg_ had left behind the vast solitude of the ocean, broken onlyat long intervals by single far-off ships, and was already making its waythrough waters lively with a large number of steamers and sailing craft, leaving, and making for, the port. Now the lighthouse at Sandy Hook wasvisible. 

Though Ingigerd as well as Frederick could not still the fluttering oftheir shaken souls, they were fascinated by the changing pictures of theentrance to the harbour. It was an amazing spectacle. Surprise followedsurprise. Each second brought a new sensation. 

A gigantic White Star liner came gliding toward them slowly, to theaccompaniment of its brass band. It was starting out on the passage thatthe _Hamburg_ was just concluding. Passengers swarmed like ants on themajestic vessel's decks, giving an impression of gaiety and festivity. What knew they of the thing awaiting them, perhaps, out there on theocean? When they looked down upon the little _Hamburg_, with its fewpassengers on deck, they had not the least inkling of the greatness, the fearfulness of the event of which those few puny persons were thesole surviving witnesses. 

The emotion that filled the _Roland's_ passengers with restlessness andexcited them as with fire and tears when the _Hamburg_ entered New YorkHarbour and steamed up through the Lower Bay toward the Narrows, wasboth a farewell to home and to the dangers of the sea and a greeting tosolid land, to a stable human civilisation. This was the known, theusual, the mother's lap from which they had sprung and in which they hadgrown until the time came for them to start out upon their spirituallife's journey. It was also that without which the individual even to-dayis helpless against the powers of nature. 

Thus, they experienced a sort of home-coming, mingled with a peculiardream-like feeling, that they were arriving on a strange planet, afterhaving been ferried across Stygian currents on a Charon's raft. Outthere, on the ocean and over the ocean, hovered a gruesomeness ofsolitudes, in which the human being, himself seeing everything, remainsunseen, unknown, forgotten by God and the world. To be happy in hisheated, clustered ant nests, man can and must forget the murderous inthose watery transitional realms--man, that insect-like being whose senseorgans and intellect are capacitated for the knowledge of his vastisolation in the world, but for nothing beyond that knowledge. 

Sailing vessels passed one another, steamers blew their whistles, flocks of gulls swooped down on the water for fish, or darted hitherand thither in the fresh breeze. Another great ocean greyhound, of theHamburg-American line, neared them at Norton Point. The huge structurewas propelled forward quietly and surely, as by some mysterious force. The gong summoning the passengers from the promenade deck to thedining-room could be distinctly heard. 

"At this moment, " said Frederick, drawing his watch from his pocket, "itis quarter of six in Europe, and still dark. "

Captain Butor exchanged flag signals with the quarantine station. The_Hamburg_ came to a standstill to receive health officers on board. Afterprolonged negotiations, in the course of which the physicians werecalled upon to give detailed information, the sick woman from thesteerage and, with Mrs. Liebling's consent, Siegfried's corpse were takenfrom the _Hamburg_. Frederick saw to it that Mrs. Liebling remained inher cabin and was spared the too painful scene. Within half an hour, thegallant _Hamburg_ was steaming at full speed through the Narrows into themagnificent Upper Bay. 

Long before it appears, travellers are always on the lookout withspy-glasses for the Statue of Liberty, the gift of the French nation. Even Frederick, when he beheld the goddess towering up from the wateron her star-shaped base, did homage to her in his thoughts. From thedistance at which he saw her, she did not look so gigantic. She seemedto be sending him a beautiful message, rather of the future than of thepresent, a message that found its way to his heart and, even in thestrange mood he was in, expanded his breast. 

"Liberty!" The word may be misused, yet it has not lost any of its magicor promise. 

LX

And now, suddenly, the world seemed to Frederick to have gone mad. The_Hamburg_ was entering the narrow harbour, the basin surrounded byskyscrapers, veritable towers of Babel, and alive with numberlessgrotesquely shaped ferry-boats. The scene, perhaps, would be a ridiculousmonstrosity, were it not so truly gigantic. In that crater of lifecivilisation bellows, howls, screeches, roars, thunders, rushes, whizzesand whirls. Here is a colony of white ants, whose activity is staggering, bewildering, stupefying. It seemed inconceivable that in that intricate, raging chaos, a single minute could pass without a collision, or acollapse, or a killing. How could one possibly pursue one's own affairsquietly amid that shrieking, that hammering, that clanging, that maduproar?

During these last moments together, the involuntary passengers of the_Hamburg_ had become as one in heart and soul. Frederick had not lost hiscash in the disaster, and he persuaded Ingigerd Hahlström not to rejecthis services during her first days on land. All agreed not to lose sightof one another in New York. Naturally enough, there had been much lively, genuinely heartfelt leave-taking and well-wishing for more than an hourbefore the _Hamburg_ was secured to the dock. 

The dithyrambic noise of the mighty city, where millions of men were atwork, exercised a renewing, transforming influence. It was a whirlpoolinto which one was drawn unresistingly. It suffered no pondering, noimmersion in an unalterable past. Everything in it urged and impelledforward. Here was the present, nothing but the present. 

Arthur Stoss seemed already to have one foot planted on Webster andForster's stage. There was much parleying in regard to Ingigerd'sappearance in theatre. She and Stoss had been engaged for the same time, which was already past. With the uncertainty in her heart as to herfather's fate, she said she could not possibly dance; while Arthur Stossdeclared if he got there in time, he would appear for his number thatvery evening. 

"I've already lost two evenings, " he said, "at a round five hundreddollars an evening. Besides, I must work, I must get among people. "

He advised Ingigerd for her own advantage to do the same, and citedinstances of persons who had not allowed the greatest griefs to keep themfrom the exercise of their calling. He knew of a scholar, he said, whodelivered his lecture while his wife was dying, of a clown who crackedhis jokes on the stage, though his wife had eloped with another man andhis heart was bleeding. 

"That's our profession, " Stoss continued, "and not only our profession, but everybody's profession--to do his duty, whether with liking ordisliking, whether with happiness or with anguish in his soul. Every manis a tragi-comic clown, although he doesn't pass for one, perhaps, as wedo. To me it is a triumph, after what I have gone through, to stand onthe stage this evening without trembling, among three thousandsensation-seeking spectators, and shoot the middle out of an ace. "

By degrees Stoss fell more and more into a lively strain of boasting, which, though not disagreeable, utterly lacked wit. "If you haven'tanything better to do, " he said, turning to the physicians, "youmight come to Webster and Forster's and see me cut my capers. Work!Work!"--this was meant for Ingigerd--"I very much wish you would make upyour mind to dance. Work is medicine, work is everything. To lament thepast is of no use. Besides, " he said, turning serious, "don't forget, stocks in us are booming. Actors must not reject such an opportunity. Just wait and see how we'll be surrounded by reporters the moment we setfoot on land. "

"How so?" said Frederick. "Don't you suppose that all the details ofthe sinking of the _Roland_ have been telegraphed to New York fromquarantine? Look at those great skyscrapers, that one with the cupola isthe _World_ building. We have already gone to press, and millions ofnewspapers have spun us out, in the greatest detail. The next four orfive days there won't be a man or woman in New York who can vie incelebrity with the survivors of the _Roland_. "

Amid similar talk, the _Hamburg_ reached its pier, and leave-taking beganin earnest. It was truly remarkable to see what emotion suddenly seizedthese people, who at bottom were strangers to one another. Mrs. Lieblingwept, and Frederick and Doctor Wilhelm had to submit to her overflowingkisses of gratitude. Rosa kissed Bulke; she kissed Doctor Wilhelm's andFrederick's hands again and again, amid veritable howls. It goes withoutsaying that the ladies also exchanged endearments. Praises were bestowedupon Flitte; and Captain Butor and Wendler, in fact the entire crew ofthe _Hamburg_, were extolled as brave, noble rescuers. The physicians andStoss called the sailors of the _Roland_, "Our dear comrades! Ourheroes!"

It was agreed that all should meet again, and Doctor Wilhelm made anappointment with Captain Butor, Wendler, and even the tattered painter, Fleischmann, for noon of the day after next. The place chosen for themeeting was the Hoffman House bar. From there, they would go together ona jaunt through the city. 

Poor Jacob Fleischmann, the painter, was somewhat perplexed by the madcity, and turned rather mealy-mouthed. He could not speak English, he hadlittle cash, and he had lost his only capital, his paintings. He trieddelicately, though with evident anxiety, to attach himself to the menwith whom fate had thrown him, and they did not withhold the support hesought. They agreed to look out for him. Even Arthur Stoss proffered hisservices and good advice. 

"Should you have trouble with the company's agent, " he said, "call on me, and I'll introduce you to my friend, the owner of the _Staats-Zeitung_. "

PART II

I

A few moments later Frederick felt the solid pier beneath his feet. Hisbrain reeled lightly. The crowd on the pier cheered and hurrahed. In thatshouting, shrieking, roaring, swaying mass of humanity, he and Ingigerd, who was clinging to his arm, seemed exposed to the danger of another sortof drowning. Suddenly he found himself confronted by a little Japanese, or someone whom at first glance he took to be a Japanese, and heard himsaying:

"How d'ye do, Doctor von Kammacher? Don't you know me? How d'ye do, Doctor von Kammacher? Don't you know me?" several times in rapidsuccession. 

Frederick tried to recall the man to his memory. He scarcely knew who hehimself was, with those cheers thundering in his ears, with hands on allsides shaking his hands, and newsboys flourishing newspapers behind himand above him and under his very nose. 

"Don't you know me, Doctor von Kammacher?" the Japanese repeated, grinning. 

"By Jove, " cried Frederick, "now I recognise you. You are Willy Snyders. How do you come to be here?"

While studying several semesters in Breslau, Frederick had eked out hisincome by tutoring a boy, a rather desperate case, whose father, afurniture manufacturer, paid handsomely for his son's private lessons. Frederick's pupil turned out to be a good-hearted chap, an amusingscapegrace, who soon became his devoted slave. It was this scapegrace, now a full-grown man, that Frederick recognised in the jolly Japanese. 

"How I come to be here? I'll explain later, " said Willy, his nostrilsdilating with the joy of seeing his teacher again. "The first thing is, have you already engaged rooms, and shall I slip you past that damnedlot of reporters? Or do you want to be interviewed?"

"For heaven's sake, no! Not for the world. "

"Then stick close to me, " shouted Willy. "A cab is waiting for us, andwe'll drive straight to our folks. "

Frederick introduced Ingigerd. 

"I must first see this young lady safe to a hotel. And even then I can'tleave her entirely alone. "

Willy instantly took in the situation, but it did not change his plans. 

"Miss Hahlström can stop with us, too. She will be far more comfortablethan in a hotel. The only question is, can she put up with Italiancooking?"

"I don't anticipate any difficulties from your macaroni and spaghetti _alsugo_, " said Frederick, who read Ingigerd's willingness in her eyes. "SoI'll follow your lead as you followed mine years ago. "

"All right! Forward, march!" Willy's joy in his booty was patent. 

When they left the pier, they saw Stoss still surrounded by reporters, working his jaws with incredible rapidity, as he discoursed upon himselfand the role he had played in the sinking of the _Roland_. They wereabout to enter their cab after their flight, through the crowd, whenan elderly gentleman, panting breathlessly and perspiring, despite thenipping wind, stepped up to Ingigerd Hahlström with, "I beg your pardon, but I come from Webster and Forster. " He took off his hat and wiped theinside band with his handkerchief. "I was told--I was told--I came in acarriage--a carriage is waiting--" He stopped, too exhausted to continue. 

"Miss Hahlström cannot possibly appear this evening. "

"Oh, Miss Hahlström looks very well!"

"See here, " said Frederick ready to flare up. 

Webster and Forster's agent put his hat back on his bald pate. 

"It would be the greatest mistake if Miss Hahlström were not to danceto-night, " he said. "I was commissioned to provide her with money andanything else she needed. There's my carriage. Rooms have already beenengaged for her at the Astor. "

Frederick grew angry. 

"I am a physician, " he snapped, "and as a physician, I tell you MissHahlström will not dance to-night, nor for several nights. "

"Will you make good to Miss Hahlström her financial loss?"

"What I shall do in regard to that is neither your nor Webster andForster's business. "

Frederick thought he had disposed of the matter, but the agent becameoffensive. 

"Who are you, sir? My dealings are with Miss Hahlström exclusively. Whatright have you to mix in this affair?"

"I don't think I could dance to-night, " Ingigerd interposed. 

"You will lose that feeling as soon as you step on the stage. Themanager's wife gave me a letter for you. Her maid is at the Astor witheverything you need. She is entirely at your disposal. "

"Our Petronilla is a jewel, too, " Willy Snyders interjected. "If youtell her what you need, Miss Hahlström, she'll have it for you in fiveminutes. " With the insistence of a seducer, he helped Ingigerd into thecab. 

"Very well, then, " said the agent emphatically, "you are breaking acontract, and I warn you of the consequences. I will have to ask you foryour address. "

Willy Snyders shouted a number on 107th street. The agent jotted it downin his note-book. 

The cab with Ingigerd, Frederick, and Willy in it was transported fromHoboken to New York in the usual way, jammed in between other carriagesand trucks on the ferry-boat. A newsboy on the ferry handed into the caba copy of _The Sun_, with whole columns already describing the disaster. The authors of the information were probably the health officers andCaptain Butor. When Willy Snyders began to speak of the _Roland_, Frederick checked him with a nod toward Ingigerd; but she had of herselfnoticed the report in the paper and asked if they had been the firstto bring the news to New York. 

"The _Roland_ was overdue more than three days, " Willy explained. "Wewere already beginning to be alarmed. Finally the passenger list fromBremen was published, and soon after your name, too, Doctor vonKammacher, appeared in the newspapers, your father in the meantime havingcabled that you left Paris to catch the _Roland_ at Southampton. I neverlost faith that nothing but the wretched weather was delaying you, and Iinquired at the steamship company's office every day. It was there that Ilearned of the sinking of the _Roland_ and the arrival of the _Hamburg_with the first rescued passengers on board, with you among them. "Noticing Ingigerd's sudden pallor, Willy added vivaciously, with apparentconviction, "A lot of others must surely have been rescued. "

The amount of traffic, as indicated by an endless number of ferry-boats, tugs, and steamers of every sort, was immense. The ferry-boats, blackwith people, resembled floating towers of Babel, above which rose aniron something like a pump-handle, seesawing up and down with theinvisible pistons. 

When the boat lay fast in the slip, there was a great thundering as thevehicles all began to move at the same time to the accompaniment of atramping mass of humanity. 

"This city, " Frederick thought, "is obsessed by a craze for moneymaking. " The idea was suggested to him chiefly by the advertisementsstaring on all sides, those shrill, over-spiced, over-chargedasseverations, compared with which the same thing in Europe was delicateas a violet, innocent as a newborn babe. Wherever he turned his eyes, gigantic placards glared at him, gigantic letters, gigantic, garishlycoloured pictures, gigantic fingers and hands pointing to something. Twenty negroes carrying bill-boards, a carriage drawn by twelve horsesharnessed like circus horses passed by. It was a shrieking, greedy war ofcompetition, waged with every conceivable means, a wild, shameless orgyof acquisitiveness, but for that very reason not lacking in a certaingreatness. There was no hypocrisy about it. It was honest in itsoutspokenness. 

The cab stopped at a telegraph office, and Frederick cabled to hisfather, "I am safe, sound, and well;" Ingigerd to her mother in Paris, "I am safe. Papa's fate uncertain. " While Ingigerd was writing, Fredericktook the chance to tell Willy Snyders that she had probably lost herfather in the wreck. 

Several times newsboys thrust a paper under Frederick's nose, calling outthe great sensation, "All about the sinking of the _Roland_! All aboutthe sinking of the _Roland_!" In large, catching headlines he read: "The_Roland_ leaves Bremen. Slight accident compels her to return. _Roland_starts on trip again. Constant storms. Dead man on board. Nine hundreddrowned. Heroic conduct of a servant-girl. Doctor Frederick von Kammacherperforms miracles of bravery. " Frederick started, reflected, but couldnot recall anything of the sort. "Child dies in life-boat. Captain Butorof the _Hamburg_ sights castaways. Report of survivors. Arthur Stoss, champion armless marksman, helped into life-boat by faithful valet, " andso on. It was an invaluable supply of fresh, sensational, gratuitouslyobtained material, to be served for a week in generous portions toreaders in both the old and the new worlds. 

The cab rolled up Broadway, that main thoroughfare of New York stretchingalong for miles, with two apparently unbroken chains of street-carsmoving by each other. At that time the cars were propelled by an endlesscable travelling in a conduit under the roadway. The traffic all alongBroadway was enormous, and the contrast was the more surprising whenthe cab, after traversing another lively street, turned into adeserted-looking side street, where almost country-like quiet prevailed. 

The cab came to a halt, and Willy Snyders helped Ingigerd out. Thetravellers found themselves in front of a low one-family house with aflight of outside steps, differing in no wise from the other houses onthe block, which were all built on the same plan, of exactly the sameheight, of exactly the same width, and with absolute similarity ofdetail. Frederick had observed such architectural monotony only inworkingmen's houses in Germany, while here it was the mark of a fairlyaristocratic section. 

Twilight had already fallen when Frederick and Ingigerd at length foundprivacy in their rooms. The rooms, plainly furnished and scrupulouslyclean, were lighted by electricity and heated from a furnace in thecellar; and the floors were not laid with wood, but paved with redbricks. Petronilla, the old Italian housekeeper, took Ingigerd in charge, looking after the smallest of her wants with touching motherliness. Thetwo said what was necessary to say in a mixture of Italian and English. After showing Ingigerd to her room and seeing that she was provided witheverything, Petronilla stepped out into the hall to call a maid, who wasworking in another part of the house. Frederick heard her, and put hishead out of the door to inquire after Ingigerd. 

"The signorina dropped on the couch without undressing and fell rightasleep, " she said. 

Frederick feeling somewhat uneasy went with Petronilla to look afterIngigerd, and found that she had merely succumbed to a leaden sleep. Herconstitution, after weeks of over-exertion and abuse, was asserting itsrights. Petronilla and the maid undressed her and put her to bed, allunconscious, though now and then opening wide her shimmering sea-greeneyes. 

II

Frederick washed and went down-stairs to the basement with Willy Snyders. Here there was a tidy little dining-room with a table set for eight. Asin the other rooms, the floors were of brick, and the walls half-way upwere hung with burlap. Where the burlap ended, a narrow shelf ran aroundthe entire room, set with all sorts of household utensils, chiefly_fiaschi_ of wine in straw cases. Like everything else about the place, the napery was exquisitely clean. 

Willy in the meantime had in his droll, lively way fully informedFrederick of the character and purpose of this extremely comfortablehouse. It was leased by a group of German artists, whose main prop was asculptor of twenty-eight by the name of Ritter. Willy lauded Ritter as agenius. He had entered upon a career in the New World most remarkable fora man of his age. Among his patrons were the Astors, the Goulds, and theVanderbilts; and he had received most of the orders for exteriorsculpture work on the buildings of the Chicago Exposition. Willy calledRitter "a devil of a fellow, " and praised him for his "smartness. "

In a corner of the dining-room, in the halls and on the stairwaylandings, were reproductions of Ritter's works. Willy extolled them tothe skies; Frederick honestly admired them. The large bas-relief in thecorner of the dining-room represented a group of singing boys, for whichRitter, probably at the suggestion of his customer, a Vanderbilt or anAstor, had used the famous relief of Luca della Robbia as a model. Instyle, nobility and freshness, his work surpassed anything then beingdone in Germany. 

Another sculptor partaking of the benefits of the club-house was a friendof Ritter, who helped him with his work. Like Ritter, Lobkowitz was anative Austrian. The fourth member of the group was Franck, a painterfrom Silesia, an impecunious eccentric, upon whose talents his comradesplaced an extremely high estimate. It was Willy Snyders the kind-heartedwho, soon after a chance meeting with his fellow-Silesian, dragged himfrom his wretched quarters, not without much coaxing, and transferred himto the club-house. 

"Wait and see the way that lunatic Franck is going to behave, " said Willyin his peculiar voice, in which there was a blending of the guttural andnasal tones of American English with the Austrian German accent of hisfriends. "He snaps like a mad dog. He's enough to make you split yoursides laughing--that is, if the perverse creature comes at all anddoesn't have dinner served in his room. "

As a matter of fact, Franck was the first to enter the dining-room. Willy's tongue kept wagging, while the eccentric merely shook handslimply with Frederick and said nothing. Though the three were countrymen, Franck's appearance--like Willy, he was wearing evening dress--added atouch of embarrassment where there had been perfect unconstraint; andthough Willy had lent Frederick a suit, and a tailor had already beenordered, Frederick expressed regret at not being appropriately dressed. 

"Yes, Ritter's a great stickler for form, " Willy observed. "Every eveningwe have to present the appearance of at least attachés to an embassy. "

Petronilla entered and explained in wordy Italian that the poor, dear, sweet little signorina had fallen asleep in bed and was breathing quietlyand regularly. 

"You could shoot off a cannon, bum! bum! Outside her window, and shewouldn't wake up, " she said. Then holding out a newspaper, she askedwhether the gentlemen had heard of the sinking of the _Roland_ and thefew survivors. When Willy, with his dilating nostrils and hischaracteristic half-serious, half-comic expression, introduced Frederickas one of those survivors, she burst into a noisy laugh, which vastlyamused two of the three Silesians. When convinced that Willy was notteasing, she stared at Frederick speechlessly, burst into tears, andkissed his hands. Then she ran out. 

Soon after, Lobkowitz entered, a tall, quiet man. He had heard ofFrederick's recent experience, and greeted him with simple cordiality. 

"Ritter has just come in his cart, " he said. 

They looked out of the window. Frederick saw an elegant two-wheeleddog-cart with a handsome coachman in black livery preparing to drive off, while a thoroughbred grey, feeling the tightening of the reins, wasrearing and plunging in the shafts. 

"The coachman, " said Willy, whose lack of reserve and extremeindiscretion his friends accepted good-naturedly, "is a ruined officerof the Austrian army. He ran away from his gambling debts. I don't knowwhether he got out of the army or was put out. At any rate he is ofinvaluable service to Ritter. He tells him to the dot how he must dressfor luncheons and dinners, for tennis and golf and riding and driving;how to manage a four-in-hand, when to wear a black chimney-pot or a greyone, what colour gloves to wear, what sort of necktie, what sort of cufflinks, what sort of stockings. In short, he tells him all the things aman has to pay attention to in order to succeed here in high life. "

At this point Bonifacius Ritter, whom fortune had favoured in Americabeyond his most extravagant expectations, now entered, young, brisk, handsome, amiable as Alcibiades. Frederick was instantly carried awayby his manner, radiating bonhomie, naïveté, joy in life, and simpleheartiness. The atmosphere of the New World had imparted ease and fireto the flabby amiability of the Austrian. 

Dinner was served, and over genuine Italian soup, conversation was soonin full swing. Willy Snyders, as commissary, poured the wine. It wasevident how proud he was of Bonifacius Ritter and what satisfaction itgave him to present his quondam teacher to such friends and such a homein this foreign land. The company thawed; and by the time the maid inwhite cap and apron had finished serving, the four had all touchedglasses with Frederick on his and his protégée's rescue. A short pauseof embarrassment followed, which Frederick interpreted as a demand fora statement regarding himself. His pale scholarly face still showed deeptraces of the hardships he had undergone. 

"I came over, " he said, "to continue some studies with a friend which heand I began years ago. You know him, Willy. He is Peter Schmidt, thephysician, in Springfield, Massachusetts. "

"He's in Meriden now, an hour's ride from Springfield. "

"Yes?" said Frederick, "I assumed he was still in Springfield. Butno matter. While I was in Berlin and Paris, I conferred with somescientists, friends of mine, before boarding the _Roland_ at Southampton. Everybody told me the _Roland_ was one of the best vessels. To myastonishment, I met the young lady who is now enjoying your hospitality. She was going to the United States with her father. We were fortunate. We got into the life-boat perfectly quietly, before the panic broke out, but we had to leave the young lady's father behind. I forgot to say I hadalready become acquainted with Hahlström and his daughter in Berlin. Thus, fate brought us together, and I consider myself responsible forMiss Hahlström, both as a physician and a human being. She is an artisticwonder. She is a dancer. "

Willy Snyders gave a witty account of the attack of Webster and Forster'sagent; and the conversation turned on art in general and on American artin particular. 

"Millions of dollars annually, " said Bonifacius Ritter, "are spent uponall sorts of art objects, an enormous sum on paintings alone. At the sametime, there is a class of persons here of Puritanic descent to whom anykind of art is the abomination of the arch-enemy. For instance, there isan association of pious pillars of society, an association of vandals, invested with certain civic rights, whose object is the abolition offilth and the maintenance of chastity. To that end it recently broke intoone of the famous clubs of the New York _jeunesse dorée_ and destroyed anumber of irreplaceable art treasures, masterpieces, among them even aVenus by Titian. "

"And the relation of the amateurs here, " said Lobkowitz, "to theirartistic possessions is very funny. You should see how they place theirpaintings. The "Crucifixion" by Munkaczy is displayed in a departmentstore in Philadelphia. The Goulds have Rembrandts in their extremelycomfortable bathrooms. Of course, I have nothing to say against goodpictures hanging in hotel halls and stairways. The largest bar-roomin New York has the whole Barbizon school--Millets, Courbets, Bastien-Lepages, and Daubignys--hanging over the bar. "

"My sole reason, " said Franck, "for going there every day for my whiskyand soda. "

Ritter, Snyders and Lobkowitz burst out laughing. 

Franck had the looks of a gypsy; so that two more un-European types, as Frederick said to himself, than he and Willy Snyders were scarcelyconceivable. Though a year older than Frederick, Franck, small-boned andyouthfully slim, seemed to be seven or eight years younger. He wasforever shoving from his eyes a pitch-black lock, which promptly fellover his forehead again to the top of his nose. He drank heavily and keptsmiling. He smiled, while the others laughed as he expounded the relationof art to whisky. 

A sense of security such as he had not experienced in years came overFrederick. He had always felt drawn to artists. Their conversation, theircamaraderie never failed to exercise a charm over him. Now was added thefact that here, where he had counted upon a chilly foreignness andcomplete isolation, he had been ardently expected, had been welcomed withopen arms by such a circle. In the midst of their merry toasting andinformal dining, informal despite their evening dress, Frederick everynow and then asked himself whether the awful experiences he had gonethrough had really occurred. Was he actually in New York, three thousandmiles away from old Europe? Was not this his home? Within the past tenyears in his own country had he ever felt even nearly so comfortableand at home as here? How life came surging toward him! Each minute a newwave rolling to his feet--to him who had undeservedly escaped with hisbare existence from almost universal perdition. 

"I thank you from the depths of my heart, gentlemen and countrymen, " hesaid, "for the hospitality you show me. I don't deserve it. " He raisedhis glass, and they all touched glasses with him. Suddenly, to his ownsurprise Frederick expanded in a wave of frankness, calling himself ashipwrecked man in two senses of the word. "I have gone through much inmy past; and were not the sinking of the _Roland_ so fearfully tragic, Ishould feel inclined to look upon it as a symbol of my former life. TheOld World, the New World. I have taken the step across the great pond, and already feel something like new life within me. 

"I don't know just what I shall do. " He did not realise he wascontradicting himself. "I shall certainly not practise medicine or takeup my profession as a bacteriologist. Possibly I shall write books. What sort of books I don't know. One of the things I think of a greatdeal is the restoration of the Venus of Milo's body. I have alreadycompleted in my mind a work on Peter Vischer and Adam Krafft. But for allI know, I may merely write on the use of artificial manure. For I amthinking of buying some land, felling trees, and living a retired life, farming and raising cattle. Then again, I may write nothing but a sort ofromance, the romance of a whole life, which may turn out to be somethinglike a modern philosophy. In that case, I should begin where Schopenhauerleft off. I mean the sentence that is always going around in my head from_Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_: 'Something lurks behind our existencewhich is inaccessible to us until we shake off the world. '"

The discourse of the young scholar, passing through his belated periodof storm and stress, was listened to respectfully. His reference toartificial manure produced a burst of merriment, and when he ended, hisaudience applauded. 

"Shaking off the world, that's something for Franck, Doctor vonKammacher. Tell him, Franck, how you came to America, " said Willy. 

"Or about your tramping on foot to Chicago, " said Lobkowitz. 

"Or, " said Ritter, "your adventure in Boston, when two policemen, strangely mistaking your condition for a tremendous jag, took you on adrive in the patrol wagon to the lock-up. "

"It's very good they did, " said Franck, smiling and tossing the lock fromhis forehead. "I should certainly have caught a cold if they hadn't. "

To Frederick's puzzlement, every one of Franck's utterances was greetedby a shout of laughter. 

"Franck is a genuine genius, " whispered Willy to Frederick, while fillinga glass with Chianti, "and the greatest eccentric in the world. Franck, "he cried, "didn't you come to America without a cent of money?"

"For what does one need money?" Franck rejoined, at great leisure, with anaïve smile. 

"Didn't you come over as a stoker?"

"Ye-e-es, " said Franck, "I was engaged as a stoker. "

"But you didn't do any stoking?"

"No, I didn't have the muscle for it. "

"But what did you do on the ship?" asked Lobkowitz. 

"I? I sailed on the ocean. "

"Of course. But you were engaged to work. You must have done something toearn money. "

"I played sixty-six with the first mate. "

Finally Franck's story was extracted from him. It was by painting theportrait of the head-steward that he had lived so handsomely on thesteamer and had landed on American soil with fifty dollars in his pocket, though a day later not a cent of the fifty dollars was left. 

"Money's a nuisance, " said Franck. 

III

Up to this point a wholesome-looking waitress, in white cap and apron, had been serving. Now the Italian cook himself, Simone Brambilla, camein to bring on the dessert and cheese and inquire whether the dinner hadbeen to the gentlemen's taste. The familiarity between masters and cook, who spoke Italian together, testified to the best relations between them. This little fragment of the artists' Italy in America enlivened them all, bringing back memories of the days they had spent in Italy, the days thatsignify the heyday of their youth to all German scholars and artists. 

"Now then, strike up a tune, my boy!" Willy suddenly ordered the cook, "Signor Simone Brambilla, you will please perform for us now! And_cantare_. Understand? _Ma forte_ not too _mezza voce_!" He took amandolin from the sideboard and pressed it into the chef's arms. 

"_Signor Guglielmo è sempre buffo_, " said the cook. 

"That's it--_buffo, buffo_, " cried Franck, striking the table with hisfist. His smile had already turned somewhat idiotic, and he seemed tothink "_buffo_" meant "to sing. "

"_Cosa vuole sentire?_" asked Brambilla. 

"'_Addio mia bella Napoli_, '" suggested Willy, "or anything you like, Mr. Brambilla. "

"What does 'like' mean?" asked Franck. "I have heard the word so often. "

"Would you believe, " Willy said to Frederick, "that that ox has been hereover a year and doesn't know a word of English?"

"'_Deutschland, Deutschland über alles!_'" Franck began to sing. 

"Goodness gracious!" said Willy. "His toothache has begun to bother himagain. "

"'_Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten_, '" sang Franck. 

"But I do!" cried Willy. "_Silentium!_ When Franck begins to sing andLobkowitz to yawn and Ritter empties his first glass on the table-cloth, we'll soon be lying stretched out under the table. "

The cook had seated himself decorously and was holding the mandolin inposition. With his cap of white linen and his white linen jacket andapron, he cut a droll figure among those correctly dressed young men. Willy Snyders poured some _vino nero_ for him into a tumbler, and hestruck a few notes by way of prelude, though hesitating to interruptFranck and begin. He kept his face, glowing from the kitchen fire, turnedtoward Franck with an expression of courteous waiting and politelybesought him in Italian to keep on singing. Finally, since Franck, instead of answering, arose, gave him a comically commanding look, andwaved his fork like a baton, he began, striking up an accompanimentwith a catching rhythm, which titillated his auditors' nerves. He was anexcellent singer and a master-hand at playing the mandolin. He gave thosewell-known street-ballads which one hears everywhere in Italy, especiallyin Naples: "_Addio mia bella Napoli_, " "_Funiculi Funicula_, " "_L'altroieri a Piedigrotta_, " "_Margherita di Parete era sarta delle signore_, "and also more serious songs, such as the languishing "_Ogni sera disotto all' mio balcone sento cantar una canzon d' amore_. "

The cook's melodies undoubtedly charmed back his home to him, thoughin colours less glorious and alluring to himself, perhaps, than to theartists, whether they had been in Italy or not. Frederick leaned his headback and closed his eyes. The dining-room was filled with the fumes ofcigars and cigarettes, and the electric bulbs shone as in a mist. Frederick's thoughts carried him far, far away. His arm hung at his sidelimply, while a Simon Arzt cigarette burned to a stump between hisfingers--throughout his adventures, his silver cigarette case hadremained safe in his pocket. 

Before his inner vision rose the coasts and blue gulfs of Italy, thebrown Doric temples of Pæstum and the cliffs of Amalfi, Sorrento, andCapri. He was standing on the Posilipo. He was with Doctor Dorn in theloggia of the zoologic station for deep-sea researches, which Hans vonMarées had decorated. In Rome, Frederick had sat over many a bottle ofwine with Hans von Marées and Otto, who died while working on the LutherMemorial in Berlin. He saw himself in the famous Est Est Café in Rome, or visiting the malaria patients in the hospital on the Capitol, orpromenading in the sunshine on Monte Pincio with a deaf and dumbsculptor, with whom he then went to an afternoon concert. He had laughedbecause the artist explained that he did not hear the music with hisears, but felt it, or rather felt the drum alone, in his belly. 

In that period of his life, Frederick had been undergoing a crisis. Buta little more and his preoccupation with Goethe's "Italian Journey, " hisintercourse with the artists, and the vast number of his impressions ofsublime art would have turned him aside from science. But one day hechanced to meet Mrs. Von Thorn and her daughter Angèle. He becameengaged, and there was no question now of a change of profession. Angèlewas beautiful, and those days, when he read aloud to her chapters fromGoethe, or inspired and inspiring passages from Winckelmann, or recitedHölderlin, or held forth to her on the masterworks in the Vatican, werefull of never-to-be-repeated romantic asininity. They bought engagementrings of a jeweller on the Corso. Where was his ring? He had removed itfrom his finger, and, like all his other possessions, it had gone downforever in the cabin of the _Roland_. 

Frederick again felt that sensation of hot waves rising from his breastto his eyes. This time the emotion was a soft one, a feeling ofreconciliation, of mourning over lost illusions. The second epoch of hislife, if a second epoch were really to develop from this beginning, wasnot like the first, full of innocence and based upon illusions. Frederickwas sorry for himself. He was moved almost to tears. For it is an all-toostrong faith, an all-too certain hope in happiness that finally bringdisillusionment. 

It was in one of the intervals of clapping and applause punctuating theend of each of Brambilla's songs, that Petronilla came in and whisperedsomething to Willy Snyders, which caused Willy in turn to whisper toFrederick, who immediately jumped up and left the room. Willy went withhim. 

Despite Petronilla's protestations, a gentleman and a stately, rathergorgeously dressed lady had forced their way into Ingigerd's room. Frederick and Willy arrived just as the lady was trying to wake Ingigerdand raise her up in bed. 

"For Heaven's sake, child, " she kept saying, "wake up for a second. "

Frederick and Willy recognised Webster and Forster's agent andimmediately expelled him to the hall, talking to him in whispers, butnone the less energetically. They told him a few forceful things, whichhe received with a shrug of his shoulders. When they asked the lady bywhat right she had forced her way in, she said she was the proprietor ofone of the largest New York theatrical agencies and had negotiated thecontract between Webster and Forster and Ingigerd Hahlström's father, whohad received a thousand dollars in advance. 

"Time is money, especially here in New York, " she declared. "Even if MissHahlström cannot dance to-night, she must begin to think of to-morrow. Ishould be willing to accommodate her, but this is only one of a hundredcases that I have to look after. And if Miss Hahlström is to appearto-morrow, she must go with me this very minute to"--she mentioned theGerson of New York--"so that they can work on her costume over night. Theestablishment is on Broadway, and a cab is waiting in front of the door. "

The lady said all this in Ingigerd's room, intentionally refraining fromlowering her voice. Several times Frederick and Willy interrupted to askher to moderate her tones. 

"Miss Hahlström will not dance at all, " said Frederick, finally. 

"Indeed?" said the agent. "Then she'll be involved in a very unpleasantlaw suit. "

"Miss Hahlström is a minor, " said Frederick, "and her father, with whomyou concluded the contract, probably lost his life in the sinking of the_Roland_. "

"And I, " said the agent, "don't want to lose a thousand dollars fornothing. "

"Miss Hahlström is sick. "

"Very well, then I'll send my physician. "

"I myself am a physician. "

"A German physician, I suppose, " she said. "The only physicians thatcount for us are Americans. "

Perhaps this American woman, equipped with a masculine intellect, masculine energy, and a masculine voice would have put through her will, had not Ingigerd's heavy sleep defied all the noise about her, even theshaking to which she had been subjected. At length Frederick displayed adegree of determination so unambiguous that the agent had to recede fromher position and temporarily withdraw from the field. Besides, Willy hitupon an idea, the far-reaching significance of which Frederick did notrealise until later. He declared that if the agent did not desist, hewould notify the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, sinceMiss Hahlström was not yet seventeen years old. 

"Gentlemen, " said the lady, evidently taken aback and coming round a bit, "remember that both Webster and Forster and myself have been spendingenormous sums on advertising for four weeks. I reckoned on a tour asfar as San Francisco. Now that Miss Hahlström happens to be one of thesurvivors of the _Roland_ and has lost her father besides, she has becomethe sensation of the season. If she were to appear now, she could returnto Europe in three months with fifty thousand dollars over and above thesum contracted for. Would you be responsible to Miss Hahlström for suchan enormous loss?"

After the agent and her escort had left, Willy Snyders confirmed what shehad said about the amount of advertising that had been done. For weeksall the bill-boards, all the building scaffoldings, every empty barrelwhere building was going on were covered with posters announcing "Mara, or the Spider's Victim. " Sometimes they displayed a life-size figure ofa dancer, represented as almost a child still, a sort of albino with redrabbit's eyes and streaming saffron-yellow hair. A spider, with a bodythe size of a small balloon, was crouching behind its web. The poster wasby Brown, the most talented poster-painter in New York. 

"You can see those posters everywhere on the streets still, " said WillySnyders. "That's why it seems so funny to think I always stared at themquite unsuspecting; and now Miss Ingigerd and you are in this house. Lifeconcocts crazy plots. I assure you, when I looked at those posters, Ithought of everything else in the world but you, Doctor von Kammacher. And little did I divine that they would ever be of more significance tome than the advertisements of any ordinary vaudeville. "

When Frederick and Willy returned to the dining-room, the chef was gone, and Lobkowitz and Franck were engaged in the time-worn dispute, whetherRaphael or Michael Angelo is the greater. Willy gave a humorous, thoughindignant account of the battle of the Amazons that had just taken placeand how Webster and Forster wanted to insist on Miss Hahlström'sappearing that very night. The artists' chivalry was aroused. Theydeclared unanimously that they would refuse to give up their lovely ward, even if all New York were to come and besiege them. 

Frederick looked at his watch. It was a few minutes past ten. The lastthing Arthur Stoss had said on parting occurred to him, "At half past tento the dot, I shall be on the boards behind the footlights. " Fredericktold the artists about Arthur Stoss; and Willy Snyders, the man ofinitiative, proposed that they go together to Webster and Forster to seethe armless actor's performance. 

IV

Ritter lent Frederick one of his evening suits, which fitted him toperfection, and within less than half an hour the company was sitting ina box at Webster and Forster's. The enormous hall, in which smoking anddrinking were allowed, was full. Willy estimated that there were aboutfour or five thousand people present. A number of immense arc-lightsshone in the tobacco smoke like frosty, white moons. 

When Frederick and his friends entered, a woman and a slim toreador weredancing. The music was of an exciting nature, and the character of theperformance and the performer immediately took the artists captive. Thedance was an eccentric mixture of drollness, innocence, and wildness. When watching the toreador, Frederick felt as if he were in an arena atSeville; when watching the girl, as if he were near the Gulf of Corinth, or on one of the islands of the Cyclades. He promptly decided to leaveSpain and follow the lovely dancer to her home in Greece, where she washis Chloë and he, her Daphnis. Old shepherds sat tippling in a pine grovededicated to Pan. From the highland meadows he looked down upon the faroff Ægean Sea beating noiselessly against the rocky coast-line. 

The music of the orchestra turned into the piping of Pan, while Websterand Forster, the heavy fumes, the air vitiated by the exhalations of fivethousand people no longer existed. The pure breath of spring was rustlingin the pines. The shepherdess was dancing as she had learned to dancefrom the droll caperings of the goats or, by natural inheritance, fromgreat Pan himself. It was a dance of young, wild, bubbling joy in life. 

"The origin of all music, " thought Frederick, "is dance and song in oneand the same person. The feet compel the rhythm that the throat voices;and if the dancer herself does not sing, she hears music different fromthe music to which she is dancing, and if she dances without anaccompaniment, we who behold her hear her music nevertheless. Themelodies I hear in this girl's dancing are comparable in their bucolicinnocence to the things of the same sort that Mozart, Beethoven andSchubert wrote. They have exorcised the vulgar muse from this vulgarplace, banishing her to a remote distance. "

The dancer was a Spaniard. She made little leaps in the air and tossedher head archly, as if for her own joy, unconscious both of the audienceand the toreador, who sometimes picked her up and held her aloft. Herdancing was innocent, entirely free from sensuality. At the conclusion ofher performance, Frederick and his friends clapped madly, while the vastaudience gave very scanty signs of applause. 

"Caviar to the general, " said Frederick. 

When she disappeared in the wings, a lackey in red livery stepped on thestage and set a number of small seats at regular distances from oneanother. It was not until he had left and returned again with a pea-rifleand a violin that Frederick recognised the brave private, Bulke. The nextmoment Stoss appeared. A frantic outburst of delight, threatening neverto end, greeted him. He wore a jacket and knee-breeches of black velvet, a lace jabot, lace cuffs, black silk stockings, and buckled pumps ofpatent leather. His yellowish hair was brushed straight up all around hislarge head. His pale face, with its broad cheek bones and broad flatnose, was turned to the audience with a professional smile. The applauserefused to end, and the armless trunk made a moderately profound bow. 

Frederick saw the same man helpless, drenched with water, crouchingunder the seats of the life-boat; and he recalled with what murderousdetermination the sailors, Bulke, Doctor Wilhelm, and he himself, as wellas the women, Rosa, Mrs. Liebling, and Ingigerd, had prevented the boatfrom capsizing. What an unreal contrast between the past and the present!And why was Stoss receiving such homage?

The psychology of certain mass demonstrations has yet to be written. Whatcould the applause have been intended to signify? "We are grateful to Godthat he rescued you. This you have accomplished, you poor armless man, that hundreds, though they had two arms, perished, while you areprivileged to appear on the stage this evening as if nothing hadoccurred. We must enjoy ourselves; and it is better that you whoentertain and amuse us with your thousands of tricks should have beensaved than any Tom, Dick, or Harry. Besides we want to reimburse you forall the troubles you have been through. What is more, because of yourskill and because of your rescue, you are a lion whose worth hasincreased twofold. "

The turbulence continued. The man the audience so honoured was fairlydrowned in a sea of applause. At last a man in evening dress stepped fromthe wings and made signs that he wanted to speak. Silence fell, and heannounced that Arthur Stoss, the world's champion, would say a few words. The next instant Stoss's sharp, clear boyish voice rang through thetheatre reaching even the hindmost seats. 

Frederick caught expressions here and there, "My dear New Yorkers, ""hospitable Americans, " "the hospitable shores of America, " "Columbus, "and "1492. " He heard Stoss say that on the bill-boards one read "1492, "the year in which modern America was born. He distinguished phrases suchas "_navigare necesse est, vivere non necesse_, " "through darkness tolight, " and so on. Stoss's speech utterly lacked inspiration. 

"Noah's ark, " he said, "has not yet become superfluous. Two-thirds of theearth's surface is still covered with water. But if a vessel here andthere is swallowed up in the flood, the ark of humanity cannot sink, since God has set his rainbow in the heavens. The ocean is the cradle ofheroism, it is the unifying, not the dividing element. "

The name of Captain von Kessel resounded in the hall. Frederick saw thedead hero tossing about in the great black waters under a starlessheaven. Above the performer's shrill voice, he heard the captain's voicesaying:

"My brother has a wife and children. He is an enviable man, Doctor vonKammacher. "

Frederick was roused from his recollections by the frantic applause thatgreeted the conclusion of the brilliant speech. 

Arthur Stoss now seated himself on one of the seats, and Bulke, the heroand life saver in red livery, laid a violin on another and proceeded todraw off his master's shoes. Stoss's feet were clad in black stockingsleaving his toes bare. With the toes of his right foot, he took the bowand with his left foot, deftly rosined it; a spectacle that sent awhisper of astonishment rippling through the audience. The orchestrastruck up Bach's "Prelude, " to which Stoss played Gounod's "Ave Maria. "The tones he produced were beautiful, and the vast crowd was enraptured. Remembering the awful disaster, they were transported into a sentimental, religious mood. Frederick shuddered with disgust. The sinking of the_Roland_ was being exploited. 

It was a relief when Stoss finally took up the pea-rifle. Bulke in thepart he now played aroused as much admiration in Frederick and theartists as Stoss, if not more. While his master shot off the rifle, hestood at a distance of fifteen feet, with total unconcern holding upcards for Stoss to aim at. Stoss put a hole through the middle of thecard every time. 

V

When he awoke rather late the next morning, Frederick was astonished tofind everything about him standing still. The bed was not pitching, theglasses and water basin were not rattling, the floor was not slopingdownward, nor were the walls tumbling on his head. The grey light ofa cloudy winter day coming through the window by no means made anunpleasant or cheerless impression. 

He rang, and Petronilla appeared. The young lady, she said, had awakened, looking well and rosy, and had already breakfasted. She handed him a notefrom Willy Snyders, saying exactly where he could be found at differenttimes during the forenoon and that he would be back for lunch at quarterpast twelve. 

Frederick took the second bath he had had within twelve or fourteenhours. They had laid out fresh underwear and several perfectly new suitsof Bonifacius Ritter's for him to choose from; and he sat down tobreakfast a "newborn" man. Petronilla herself brought in breakfast. Whileserving, she told him everybody, even all the servants, had gone out. Sheleft the room, and returned a few moments later to ask if there wasanything else he wished. 

"Nothing, thank you. "

She then requested permission to go out for about an hour and a half topurchase various trifles for the signorina. Soon after, Frederick saw theexcellent housekeeper, all muffled up, step from the front door into thewet, almost deserted street. 

After he had made this observation, he became uneasy, lit a cigarette, screwed his right eye meditatively, and bit his lips. The house wasempty. For that reason his heart was audibly knocking against his ribs. Again the fantastic incalculableness of life struck him as so remarkable. An occasion, a condition such as this he had scarcely hoped to reach inweeks, or even months, certainly not in the wild welter of New York. Fromthe noise of the steamer and the city, from the rushing and roaring ofthe Atlantic Ocean, he was suddenly plunged into the silence of thegrave. It affected him with a sense of desertion and oblivion. In thatcity of four million inhabitants, each man was strenuously pursuing hisown affairs, or was harnessed into an iron yoke of duties, which deafenedand blinded him to everything beside the path he had to tread. 

Frederick looked at his watch. It was twelve minutes past ten. Hisuneasiness increased. He was unable to sit still. Each nerve, each cellof his body was touched and excited by invisible forces storming uponhim from all sides. A force of this nature, penetrating walls, floors andceilings, has been called by various names. We speak of magnetism, of od, of electricity. As for electricity, Frederick just then had a peculiarexperience of it. He was trying to find composure in front of the openfireplace; and whenever he touched metal with the tongs, crackling littlesparks shot out. Everything in the room seemed to be charged. If hemerely ran his finger tips lightly over the rug before the hearth, therewere little flashes and reports, like the crack of a tiny whip. 

"There they are, " he thought, smiling, "the Toilers of the Light. " Andwhile he racked his brain to recall in what book of fairy tales he hadread of those diminutive elves, the dream he had had on the _Roland_occurred to him. "Toilers of the Light, what are you doing?" he askedseveral times, and snatched after the sparks, as one snatches after fliesin a fit of impatience and boredom. It seemed to him that countlessnumbers of those little children of Lucifer were pricking his blood likeso many dancing stars. Even the air was filled with stars. They cloggedhis breathing. He arose and walked out into the hall. 

As he paced up and down there for a while, undecided what to do, makingas little sound on the bricks as possible, he looked into the kitchen, which, like the dining-room, was in the basement, and convinced himselfthat it was empty. Then he softly ascended the marble steps to thenext floor, where he tried with all his might to check the rise of apassion almost robbing him of his senses. In that endeavour he enteredthe library, a room comfortably furnished and well equipped withappurtenances for reading and writing. The walls were covered with viewsof ancient Rome and engravings by Piranesi. But neither the city of theTiber nor the grave of Cecilia Metella, nor the Colosseum, nor the Templeof Vesta in Tivoli had the power to engage his real attention. 

He was out in the hall again, though hesitating still whether to mount tothe first story. For a while he stood uncertain, clinging with both handsto the wooden post of the balustrade, his head sunk on his hands, and hiswhole body shivering as in a chill. Then he raised his head. His eyeswere fixed. He seemed a different person. 

In that moment Frederick comprehended the passionate speech of his body, and sanctioned its demands. The thing that now came to the fore, despiteall the grief that had been gathering in him, despite all his spiritualconflicts, his bitter mental convictions and self-condemnations, despitehis repugnance, his horror, his compassion and his hesitating anddelaying, the thing that came to the fore was the suppressed, unsatisfieddemand of his body. In the silence of the morning in that strange house, it suddenly assumed an elemental, indomitable force. It would haveoverridden the firmest will opposing it. But Frederick's will did notoppose it. His clear, firm intention approved it, strengthened it, andmade its power invincible. He entered Ingigerd's room. She was sitting atthe open fireplace in a dressing-gown of Petronilla's purchasing, and wasdrying the masses of her long, light hair. 

"Oh, Doctor von Kammacher!" she cried in slight alarm, and fixed hershimmering sea-green eyes upon the man standing there with eyes almostclosed, breathing heavily, incapable of uttering a word. As by hypnoticinfluence, a helpless look of self-abandonment, of complete melting awayspread over her face. 

The sight of her expression robbed Frederick all the more ofself-control. At last the time had come to extinguish the firestormenting him in one wild, greedy draught. With the hoarse cry of abeast and the fury of a man dying of thirst, he plunged deep into theslowly, slowly cooling waves of love. 

VI

It was nearly eleven o'clock when Petronilla returned. She wasaccompanied by an errand boy and a fair-haired young man, who was notdressed with the elegance of the residents of the club-house. His feetwere heavily shod. While waiting in the hall he waved a wet umbrella withhis sinewy left hand and a worn felt hat with his right hand, whistledvery skilfully, and paced noisily to and fro in long strides, as ifentirely at home in the place. 

Petronilla summoned Frederick. With an almost passionate outcry ofwelcome, the one of the two men ran up the stairs, two steps at a time, and the other down the stairs twice as fast. They kissed and shook handsvigorously. 

Frederick's early visitor was Peter Schmidt, of whom he had dreamed onthe _Roland_. He had read Frederick's name in the newspaper among thesurvivors and had come from his home in Meriden, several hours' ridefrom New York, to see his old friend. The paper also gave Frederick'saddress, the reporters having got hold of it through his connection withthe celebrity, Ingigerd Hahlström. 

The first question Frederick asked after the storm of greeting hadsubsided, was, "I say, old boy, do you believe in telepathy?"

"Telepathy? Not a bit, " replied the Friesian, and laughed a mighty laugh. "I am scarcely thirty, and sound in mind and body. I'm not an idiot. Ihope no Mr. Slade has turned your head like old Zöllner's in Leipzig. Have you come over to preside at a theosophical or spiritualisticmeeting? Then good-bye to our friendship, old fellow. "

This was the familiar tone to which the friends were accustomed fromtheir university days. It was infinitely refreshing to both to hear itagain. No conventions of any sort divided them. Their relations werefree of everything that hampers association in later years. 

"You've been through a thing or two, " his friend said, when Frederickconfirmed the newspaper account of his having witnessed the sinking ofthe _Roland_. "I believe you're a married man and have children and areliving in Germany, and as an avocation are doing scientific work, whilepractising medicine as a vocation. You were thinking of everything elsein the world but a trip to America, which never had any charms for you. "

"Isn't it weird, " said Frederick, "how one suddenly finds oneself in aplace one never dreamt of, arriving there in ways most unforeseen andat a time most unforeseen? And doesn't it seem as if the life we livedeight years ago, which was so choke-full of actuality, of real living, had all of a sudden turned to nothing?"

Peter Schmidt proposed, since they were both peripatetic philosophers, totake a walk through the streets of New York. Frederick went to consultIngigerd. He found that for the next few hours she would be completelytaken up with dressmakers. All she said was that she hoped to see himagain at luncheon. Soon after, the two friends were walking along theasphalt paths of Central Park, swept clean of snow, under the bare, snowytrees between snowy lawns, while the mad city around them filled the airwith a hundred-tongued Dionysiac uproar. 

Though there had been an interruption of eight years in theirintercourse, they took up the threads of conversation as if they hadparted only half an hour before. Within a short time, each had told theother the most important facts of their lives during those eight years. Frederick for his account of himself had to go back to the date of hismarriage, the notice of which he had sent to Peter Schmidt. Withoutdeparting from the truth, he related his story with a certainfancifulness, and though stating facts, mingled in psychological effectsand spiritual crises. He did not refrain from telling how he had beenuprooted and torn this way and that. The first and final achievement ofhis former life, he said, was that he had acquired the will toresignation, though the tone of his voice, as a result of his morning'sexperience and his meeting with his best friend, was fresh and vigorous, by no means tinged with the drab of resignation. 

Peter Schmidt's account of himself, in contrast, was very brief. All hehad to report was that his marriage had remained childless and his wife, a physician, overwhelmed with a sort of midwife practice, had to fightagainst the climate and was sick with longing for her father and motherand her Swiss mountains. 

Nostalgia, Frederick suggested, was probably the universal ill from whichall Germans in America suffered. The Friesian refused to admit it, andFrederick observed in unchanged form that characteristic in his friendwhich made of him at once the well-informed practical man of affairs andthe undismayed ideologist. As ideologist, he hoped for the best forhumanity's future in America, for that reason refusing to admit that alarge number of the inhabitants of the United States had not yet struckroot, spiritually speaking, in the land of liberty. 

A newsboy with a heavy pack of papers, seeing the Germans laughing andtalking and gesticulating in the Park, which at that hour was not muchfrequented, came toward them, holding out a paper. Peter Schmidt, whohad always been a great devourer of newspapers, bought several. 

"There you are, " he said, unfolding one of the immense sheets. "The_Roland_, the _Roland_, and still the _Roland_, columns and pages of the_Roland_. "

Frederick clutched at his head. 

"Was I really on the _Roland_?" he exclaimed. 

"Very much so, it seems, " said Schmidt. "Here you are in black type. 'Doctor Frederick von Kammacher performs miracles of bravery. ' And herethey have a picture of you. "

The artist of _The World_ had with a few strokes dashed off a young man, the replica of a million others of his kind, descending into a life-boaton a rope ladder from the top deck of a half-submerged steamer andcarrying on his back a young lady wearing nothing but a shift. 

"Did you really do it?" asked Peter Schmidt. 

"I don't think so, " said Frederick. "I must admit the details of theaccident are not very clear in my mind any more. " Frederick stood still, turned pale, and tried to recollect. "I don't know, " he said, "what ismost fearful about such an event, the things that really occurred, or thefact that one gradually digests it and forgets it. " Still standing in themiddle of the path, he continued: "What strikes a man hardest is theabsurdity of it, the stupid senselessness of it, the superlativebrutality. We know nature's brutality in theory; but to be able to live, we must forget it in its real extent, in its gruesome actuality. The mostenlightened modern man somehow and somewhere in his soul still believesin something like an all-beneficent God. But such an experience givesthat 'somehow' and 'somewhere' an unmerciful drubbing with iron fists. And I have come from the sinking of the _Roland_ with a spot in mysoul deaf and dumb and numb. It has not awakened to life yet. Thebrutalisation is so extreme that while it is still fresh in one's mind, one would as soon express belief in God or man or the future of humanityor in a Utopia, or anything else of the sort, as give utterance tosomething that one knows to be a vile deception. What is the sense ofour sentimentalising over man's dignity, his divine destiny, when suchfearful, inane injustice is wrought upon innocent persons and cannot beundone?"

Frederick turned very pale. He was seized by a violent attack of nausea. His lids opened wide, his eyes popped with a curious expression ofhorror. He trembled slightly, and in some alarm clutched impetuously athis friend's arm. His brain reeled dully as he felt the ground beneathhis feet beginning to heave. 

"I have never had anything like this before, " he said. "I think theaccident has left me with something. "

Peter Schmidt led his friend to a bench, which fortunately happened to beclose by. He saw it was a nervous attack. Frederick's hands turned numb, cold sweat broke out on his body, and he suddenly fell over in a faint. When he awoke, it took some time for him to recognise his surroundings. He said things meant for somebody else. He thought he saw his wife, thenhis children, and then his father in full uniform. When he regainedcomplete consciousness, he implored his friend to keep the incident asecret. Peter Schmidt promised he would. 

"My opinion is, " he said, "that your over-wrought, over-taxed nerves arein revolt. They are taking revenge and at the same time curingthemselves. "

"Though I have inherited the strongest constitution from both my father'sand mother's sides, " said Frederick, "yet, from last summer on, I havebeen assailed by so many things that I have long been expecting acollapse. I know this will not be the last attack. I should have causefor rejoicing were the condition not to become chronic. "

"Oh, " said Schmidt, "you may have two or three more attacks, but if youlive quietly for a few months, they may never recur again. "

In coming out of his swoon Frederick, as he himself said, returned froma trip around the world. He had travelled through the axis of the earthto the antipodes, which actually did hang head downward. 

"I felt as if I had been dead and had come back to life, " he said, tryingto give his friend a conception of the remarkable state through which hehad passed. "It was not like being asleep. During the first part of mydreams, I felt as if I had been something like a block of granite forhundreds of years. On awaking I stood in the shadow of the deepest abyss. I saw subterranean landscapes, gigantic caves, heavens of stone, enormousAdelsberg grottoes. Something lifted me up. The only thing I can compareit to was the way a diver must feel who slowly, slowly rises to brighterand brighter regions from ten thousand feet below the surface of the sea. I felt as if I were forcing myself up out of the grave. I re-lived mywhole conscious life from my babyhood up to this very day. You canimagine what a medley it was of nurses, military expeditions, crammingfor examinations, confirmations, birthdays, marriages, sick-beds anddeath-beds. At the end I went through the whole sinking of the _Roland_again. And when you called me, I heard you in spite of my paralysedcondition, but I saw you coming out of an inn on the quay of the littleharbour where Columbus's flag-ship was slowly decaying. "

"All right, all right, Friedericus Rex, " Peter Schmidt soothed him. Friedericus Rex had been Frederick's nickname at the university. "Nevermind, " Peter continued, in a tone clearly revealing that he tookFrederick's dreams to be a symptom of his over-wrought nerves. "Don'tthink of it, don't think of anything, old man. Let your ganglion cellsrest. "

Frederick assured Peter that he felt like one newly arisen to a newworld and had rested better than he had for years. While they walkedon together, Peter Schmidt tried to speak only of the mechanical, physiological causes of the attack. After a while, the friends regainedtheir old liveliness and began to talk of other things. From now on, Peter Schmidt was careful never to mention the sinking of the _Roland_in Frederick's presence. 

VII

"We are near Ritter's studio, " Schmidt said. "If you like, we might dropin for a while. "

Frederick agreed, again begging his friend not to refer to his nervousattack. 

"It was very astute of me, or of the wire-puller above us, to postpone myfit until the very moment you were with me, " he said. 

Several times within the next few hours, Schmidt had occasion to bestruck by Frederick's evident belief in predestination and thesuperstition that clung to him from his crossing of the Atlantic. 

The street that Bonifacius Ritter's studios were on adjoined CentralPark. In the first room, a man in a round paper cap of his own makingwas at work taking a plaster cast of a man. His cap and his smock andtrousers, or as much of his trousers as showed from under his smockand above his slippers, were covered with hardened daubs of clay. Death-masks, casts of antique statues, and anatomical studies of thehuman body, in whole or part, hung on all the walls. When the workmanleft the room to announce the visitors the model, whose upper body, nudeto the hips, showed the brawny development of an athlete, began to speakto Frederick and Peter. 

"What won't a man do to earn his bit of daily bread!" he said. "I am fromPirna"--he pronounced it "Berna, " speaking in a round Saxon dialect--"andI tell you, it's no joke for fellows like me in this damned New York. Atfirst I earned my living as a professional strong man. Then my bossfailed, and I had to give up my outfit, my iron bars and my weights andeverything I needed for my job. I can carry twelve hundred pounds on mystomach. "

Ritter sent word asking the gentlemen to come to his private studio. Theypassed through a room in which a stately young lady was working withouta model at an almost completed portrait bust in clay. In the next room, three or four marble-cutters were making a great noise hammering andchiselling imperturbably, without glancing up, at marble blocks ofvarious sizes. From this room, a cast-iron circular stairway led up toa narrow skylight studio, where Bonifacius Ritter received Frederick andPeter. 

It was a delight merely to behold the young master in his slimness andelegance. When the men entered, he removed his left hand from the pocketof his light smock, tossed away his burning cigarette, and greeted themwith evident pleasure, blushing like a girl. He ushered them into a smallroom adjoining, lighted by a single window of antique stained glass froma French church. The low ceiling was coffered in weathered oak, and thewalls were panelled in wood to a height of about six feet. A heavy oaktable with benches on three sides took up nearly half the length of theroom. The front of the room was partially blocked up by a genuineNuremberg stove with the precious Delft tiles of antique green glazetestifying to the wonderful old potter's art. Willy Snyders had chancedupon the beautiful Renaissance piece in a shop near the wharf, and hadsucceeded in buying it for Ritter for only one hundred dollars. 

"Here's a comfortable corner of the Fatherland, " said Ritter. "Willyplanned it all, collected all the stuff, and attended to the entirefurnishing. "

The university student in Frederick, the thorough German in him wassurprised and delighted. Though the room looked like the cell of a St. Jerome, or, better still, the study of an Erasmus, it neverthelessresembled in its least details the dim sanctum of a German _Weinstube_, and all the more so when a young man in a blue apron, a stone-cutter'shelper, who might equally well have been a wine-cellar keeper, brought ina bottle of old Rhine wine and several coloured hock glasses. 

The wonderful poetry of their student days long past descended upon thefriends. Frederick was still in a state of excitement and irrationalrecklessness. He pinned his faith to the moment, ready to stake hisyesterday and his morrow upon it. The twilight of the room brought backmemories of youthfully blissful times. He had found his old friend againand a new friend of the same warmth of temperament and of the same Germanways, far from the old home. Settling himself snugly in the corner by thewindow, like a man intending to take his ease in a restaurant, he touchedglasses with the others and uttered an exclamation of rapture. 

"You'll never get me to budge from this corner, Mr. Ritter--though, " headded, "I should first like to see your works. "

"No hurry about that, " said Ritter gaily, at the same time bringing analbum bound in pigskin, in which he asked Frederick and Schmidt to writetheir names. Then he opened a very practical closet reaching to thefloor, one of Willy's contrivances, and took out a carved wooden figure, a German Madonna by Till Riemenschneider. The sweet oval of her lovelyface was not so much that of a Madonna as of a real German Gretchen. 

"Willy Snyders told me, " Ritter explained, "that he bought it from arascal of a New York customs official, a man of German extraction, whosefather had been a cabinet-maker in Ochsenfurt. The figure comes from thetown-hall there and had been taken to the cabinet-maker for repair. Hesubstituted another freshly painted figure, which the good folk ofOchsenfurt greeted with joy as the original greatly beautified andrejuvenated. Thus, Willy Snyders. I am not responsible for the version, "he concluded laughing. "But one thing is certain, it's a genuineRiemenschneider. "

The lovely statue by the Würzburg master radiated a vivid charm, whichwith the spell of the small room, decorated with such tender affectionfor old memories, and the greenish-golden sparkle of the Rhine wine inthe hock glasses, brought back the German home in all its deep-seatedforce and beauty--a beauty, it is true, unintelligible, and thereforenon-existent, to the average German of to-day. 

"Once I followed up Tillman Riemenschneider's works, " said Ritter. "Istarted at Rothenburg ob der Tauber, and went down the valley of theTauber past Kreglingen, and so forth, as far as Würzburg. I am confidentof recognising every piece of his at first glance, especially hisMadonnas. They have almost completely cast off the Gothic, and no othersculptor in wood of his time knew so well how to treat the peach bloom ofa woman's skin or the charm of a woman's face and body. His women are thepick of the lovely girls of Würzburg and its surroundings. Each one isadorably beautiful. Here is Veit Stoss. " He took a portfolio from a shelffilled with portfolios. "Veit Stoss is superior to Riemenschneider inforce of temperamental expression; he has capacities in his passions thatmake him superior, or at least equal, to Rembrandt. " Ritter spread beforethem several reproductions of the master, showing the seriousness andsorrow inspiring all his works. "Nevertheless, " he said, "Riemenschneiderholds his own against him for the very reason that he differs from himso absolutely. "

"The obstinate resistance of the Gothic, " said Frederick, "the nightmarecondition of mediæval Christianity, its fearful revelling in pain, itsardour for suffering had to give way to the clear, healthy vision of aburgher. The atmosphere clears, the garments acquire a natural flow ofline, erring flesh begins to blossom forth--"

"Tillman Riemenschneider's portraits are unsurpassed by any works, ancient or modern, unsurpassed, I say, by the very best, " Ritterreiterated. 

Willy Snyders entered with a great bluster. He had come directly from hiswork in the offices of an interior decorating firm. 

"I say, Ritter, " he said, shaking hands with the men, "if you think I'mnot thirsty, you're very much mistaken. " He examined the bottle. "Thedeuce! Without me to help him, the wretch taps one of the twenty bottlesof Johannisberger with which a Chicago pork packer presented him when hemade a portrait of his humpbacked daughter. Well, now that one is gone, another may as well follow. Gentlemen, isn't this a jolly place forlittle carousals?" Pointing to the Madonna from Ochsenfurt-on-the-Main. "Isn't she a smart little body? She certainly is not by Pappe. I myselfcollect nothing but Japanese works. " The fact seemed quite to accord withhis appearance. "I'm nothing but a poor dog now, but inside of four orfive years I intend to have the wherewithal, and the collecting of thingsJapanese will proceed by electricity. There's no race that can competewith those fellows in art. But now I want to tell you something. " Heturned to Ritter. "With your kind permission, I'll go call Lobkowitz and, what is more, I'll call Miss Eva. Just now, as I passed through her room, she told me she would like to meet the hero of the _Roland_. " Withoutawaiting an answer, he left the room; and within a few moments Lobkowitz, who collaborated with Ritter, and Miss Burns, the pupil, appeared. 

After the conventional greetings were over, the little Madonna was usedas a welcome occasion for starting conversation again, which had begun tolag a bit on the entrance of the newcomers. Willy held the statue, alittle less than three feet high, against different panels of the wall tosee how it looked for permanent placing there. A spot was finally chosen, and the Madonna was fastened to it temporarily. 

The stone-cutter's helper brought another bottle of the heavy, expensivewine, more hock glasses, large Delft plates, and a mountain ofsandwiches. Though Frederick and Peter had declared they must end theirtoo lengthy visit, a fresh wave of conviviality swept over the companyand held them on. A half hour passed, and another half hour, and a wholehour, and still the new friends were sitting over their German wine andstill they were discussing that inexhaustible theme so dear to all ofthem, German art. 

"It is an eternal shame, " said Frederick, "that the spirit which createdthe art of the old Greeks cannot be united with that profound Germanspirit, an entirely new spirit, which characterises the works of AdamKrafft, Veit Stoss, and Peter Vischer. "

"Doctor von Kammacher, " Miss Burns asked, "have you ever done any work insculpture?" Miss Burns spoke a correct German. Her father was a Dutchman, her mother a German, and when her parents settled in London, she was onlya child of three. 

"Doctor von Kammacher exudes talent at every pore, " said Willy, answeringin Frederick's place. "I can testify to it. " Willy Snyders' passion forcollecting had manifested itself while he was still a boy. Among histreasures had been some copies of so-called "beer gazettes, " humoroussheets got up to be read at German students' merrymaking. The copies inhis possession contained sketches by Frederick, both of a humorous andserious character. 

"I exude talent?" Frederick exclaimed, blushing. "Never, Willy. I begof you, Miss Burns, don't believe that enthusiast of a schoolboy. IfI really have talent, those sketches of mine in beer gazettes wouldn'tprove it. As a matter of fact, I once did do some work in art. Why shouldI deny that, like all silly children of between sixteen and twenty, Idabbled in painting, sculpture, and literature? Once my father had tobring me to reason because I was all afire for going on the stage. Later, I wanted to throw everything to the winds to enter politics andrevolutionise society by working for a party which has never evenexisted, a German-Social party. I leave you to judge how flighty I wasand how much talent I had for art. But I love art, with a love stronger, I think, now than ever before, because everything in the world beside arthas become problematical to me. I would rather have carved a wooden Marylike this"--indicating the statue by Riemenschneider--"than have beenRobert Koch and Helmholtz rolled into one. Of course, I am speakingpurely subjectively. I know how great Koch and Helmholtz are, and I havethe profoundest admiration for both. "

"See here! See here! What's the matter with us, Friedericus?" cried PeterSchmidt, jumping to his feet. Though the artists had great fondness andrespect for Peter Schmidt and went to him for advice, yet, whenever hewas with them, a violent discussion invariably arose whether art orscience deserves precedence in the field of human culture, Peter, ofcourse, championing the cause of science. "If you were to throw thatwooden statue into the fire, " he said, "it would burn like wood. Neitherthe wood nor the immortal art infusing it resists fire. And once it burnsto ashes, it can, of course, be of no significance to the world'sprogress. The world is full of marvellous gods and mothers of God, and sofar as I know, they never cast a single ray of light into the night ofthe darkest ignorance. "

"I'm not saying anything against science, " Frederick declared laughing, "I am merely speaking of a very unsettled man's love of art. So be atease, Peter. "

"If sculpture really attracts you, " said Miss Burns, who had given herexclusive attention to Frederick, "why don't you begin right away tomodel here under Mr. Ritter? Begin to-morrow. "

"I can't say I know very much about wood-carving, " said Ritter, gaily. "However, I am entirely at Doctor von Kammacher's disposal. "

"I cannot leave my little Madonna, my wooden Mother of God, " criedFrederick, flushed with the wine, rising and holding up his glass. Theothers followed his example, laughing; and they drank to the littleMadonna, each with a secret thought linking Frederick's outburst with thegirl in the club-house. The glasses rang, and Frederick continued ratherdaringly: "I wish it had been granted me to do with divine intelligenceand human hands, as Goethe said, what the animal man can and must do withthe animal woman. " He made a cup of his hands as if to dip up water. "Ifeel my Madonna in the hollow of my hands like a homunculus. She is alivethere. The palms of my hands are warm. They are a golden shell. Conceivemy Madonna to be a hand's breadth high, of live ivory, and imagine somerosy flecks here and there on her. Imagine her robed in the garments thatGodiva wore, that is, nothing but her hair of flowing sunbeams, and soon, and so on. " Frederick began to improvise poetry. 

 "Said the master: 'Come into my workshop. ' And he took, like unto the Creator, God! in both his hands a little image, And his heart with mighty throb vibrated. 'As thou seest it, once I saw it living. ' And so on, and so on. 

 Over my hands Flowed golden wavelets, Cool, sweet lips and--

I'll say no more. I'll merely add that I should like to carve thatMadonna in German linden-wood and give her all the colours of lifeitself, and then die, for all I care. "

Frederick's enthusiastic outburst was received with great applause. 

Eva Burns was a beautiful young woman of over twenty-five years, imposingand perhaps somewhat masculine in appearance. Her German was rather hard, suggesting to a hypercritical person that her tongue was too thick forher mouth, like a parrot's. Her abundant hair was parted in the middleand drawn over her ears. Her figure was broad, stately, and perfectlyformed. While Frederick spoke, and even after he had done speaking, shelooked at him with searching interest in her large, intelligent, meditative eyes. Finally she said:

"You really ought to try to do it. "

Eva Burns was one of those knowing, companionable women that are alwayswelcome and never disturbing in a company of men. Her eyes andFrederick's eyes met, and the young scholar answered her in a tone ofmixed raillery and gallantry:

"Miss--Miss--"

"Burns, " Willy helped him, "Miss Burns from Birmingham. "

"Miss Burns from Birmingham, you said something of great significance. Onyou be the blame if the world is impoverished by the loss of a poorphysician and enriched by the addition of a poor sculptor. "

It had grown dark, and they lighted three large candles of the finestbee's wax in the chandelier above the table. 

"I have no objections, " Schmidt several times interjected in the debate, "I have no objections to your trying to help toward the evolution ofsublimer types by means of divine intelligence and human hands; for allI care, by means of divine intelligence alone, that is, by means ofreason. The very same, if you will allow it, is the object, the ultimateobject, of the science of medicine. A day is coming when artificialselection among human beings will be obligatory. " The artists burst outlaughing, but Schmidt continued unabashed. "And another day, a still morebeautiful day, is coming when persons like ourselves will be consideredlike, well, let us say at the utmost, the African Bushmen. "

VIII

The candles had almost burned to the bottom when the little companydecided it was time to break up. It was a half holiday, the stone-cuttershad stopped work sooner than usual, and the other rooms were dark anddeserted. The artists used the stumps of the candles to light the companyabout. In passing through the first studio, Lobkowitz partially uncoveredpieces meant for the Chicago Exposition, colossal plaster casts andmodels in clay representing commerce, manufacture, agriculture and thelike. They threw enormous shadows on the walls and ceiling. 

"You can't get results in art from large figures, " said Ritter, thoughthe statues were full of animation, and there was something prepossessingin them. 

"Everything for the anniversary of 1492, everything for the ChicagoExposition, " said Willy. "A Viking ship is coming over from Norway. Thelast descendant of Christopher Columbus, a knock-kneed Spaniard, isto be passed around for show, a tremendous humbug, always an acceptabledish to the Americans. Ritter owes this big order to his monkey-likequickness. The building commission applied to various sculptors, andRitter sent them sketches for all the statues before the other artistshad even wet their clay. "

"I was working in my little studio in Brooklyn, " said Ritter, "and forforty-eight hours in succession I didn't take my hands out of clay. Thesefigures don't bother me in the least. After the Exposition they won'texist except in photographs. "

"That's the way the Americans are. Please, Ritter, do give us aWashington memorial. Perhaps you have a Washington memorial ready-made inyour waistcoat pocket. "

"No, but by eight thirty-five this evening I will have one for you. "

"He can do it, too, " said Willy, patting his idol. "That is why he fitsso well into the United States of America. "

The men now entered Ritter's real workshop. Here there were pieces verydifferent in spirit. While the large figures for the Chicago Expositionshowed traces of commercialism, here everything was thoroughly artistic. A companion piece in clay to the bas-relief in the club-house, a group ofsinging girls not yet completed, was standing on a heavy scaffolding. Itshowed the same noble qualities that Frederick had observed in the reliefof the singing boys. Had these works been displayed in Germany, theywould undoubtedly have been epoch-making. A bust of an old woman had someof the traits of Donatello. Everything in the room testified to thefacility with which the youthful master created. There was a longdecorative frieze in clay, putti with goats, dancing fauns, mænads, Silenus on his donkey, a procession of bacchantic figures celebratingthe vintage and reproducing all the bacchic joyousness, the drunkenness, of men and women vintagers, as they cut and trod the grapes and drank thewine. Another uncompleted work in clay was the figure of a middle-agedNeptune at a fountain, looking with a jolly smile at a huge fish in hishands. There was a completed plaster cast of St. George, frankly inspiredby its glorious model, the St. George of Donatello in the National Museumin Florence. In all these works, Ritter had struck a happy medium betweenthe Greeks and Donatello and created a style fully expressing his ownpersonality, yet showing permissible dependence upon his predecessors. 

The pieces in this room were without exception meant for the countryresidence of an American Croesus, who had taken a tremendous fancy tothe young sculptor and his work and jealously tried to keep his creationsfrom straying into another's possession. He looked upon himself as aMedici of the nineteenth century. His marble palace in extensive groundson Long Island had already swallowed up millions of dollars, though meantas a residence merely for himself, his wife, and his only daughter. Noone but Ritter was to do the statuary and sculptural decorations for hishouse and garden, and he was to have free play. What commissions aregiven in America! Were talents as easy to create in "our country" asdollars, there would be a second Renaissance even greater than the greatItalian Renaissance. 

Frederick was fairly intoxicated by the young man's singular goodfortune. What he particularly admired was the union of success and merit. When he compared the abundance of these works, tossed off apparently asin play, and the young man's cheerful evenness of temper with his owntorn, distracted existence, a feeling came upon him that he had neverbefore had, the feeling that he was an outcast, a feeling ofdiscouragement and helpless defeat. While the light of the candles glidedover the creations of the man who had infused form and soul into theformless clay, a voice within him kept saying:

"You have frittered away your existence, you have wasted your days, youwill never retrieve your loss. "

And the voice of envy, of bitter reproach against a nameless being askedwhy he had not been permitted to find a similar path and follow it intime. 

Ritter's life had received a wrench in Europe. Some brutal mishap whilehe was serving in the army had made him revolt and later desert. Now, after seven years in America, he was compelled to admit that the wrenchhad been indispensable for transplanting the sapling to the soil bestsuited to its growth. In the new surroundings, Ritter's nature developedsimply, harmoniously and symmetrically, like a tree with plenty of spaceand sunlight. Fate atoned for the lack of military subordination in theyoung prince from genius-land by granting him a surplus ofsuperordination. 

Suddenly Ritter said to Frederick:

"I understand Toussaint, the Berlin sculptor, was on board the _Roland_. "

Peter Schmidt had warned the artists in an aside not to touch upon thedisaster, telling them his friend was very nervous and a reference to theaccident might have a bad effect upon him. But his warning had beenforgotten. 

"Poor Toussaint, " Frederick said, "hoped to find mountains of gold here, though, you may say, he was nothing but a fancy-cake genius. "

"And yet I assure you, " said Lobkowitz, "there was something grand abouthim as a man. In spite of his success, he was always poor. He sufferedfrom having a wife who was too fond of society and from having toassociate with the persons who bestowed favours upon him and were so muchricher than himself. That dandyism of his was not natural. Had he reachedAmerica, he would probably have ignored his wife and become an entirelydifferent man. All he wanted to do was to create, to work. What he lovedbest was to be perched on a scaffolding, with shirt sleeves tucked up, among first-rate workmen. Once he said to me, 'If you should happen tosee a mason resembling me in New York, sitting on the pavement eating hislunch and drinking a can of beer, don't hesitate to believe I am thatmason, and don't pity me. Congratulate me. '"

"Another one, " thought Frederick, "who kept the best part of himselfhidden beneath the conventional foppishness of his time; another one who, like me, may always have been trying in vain to reach a definite decisionbetween being and seeming. "

IX

Ritter's dog-cart was waiting in front of the door. He suggested thatFrederick and Schmidt drive down in it to the railroad station, whereSchmidt was to get the train back to Meriden. The two men squeezed inbeside the Austrian horse-trainer, valet, or whatever Ritter's coachmanwas. The trotter went off at a swift gait, and again the wild, noisyphantasmagoria of the streets of the new Babylon went flashing byFrederick's eyes. 

Ritter had introduced his coachman as Mr. Boabo. He wore a small roundhat of brown felt, brown gloves, and a short brown jockey's overcoat. Hischin was heavy, his nose finely chiselled, and his moustache dark anddowny. He was a handsome man, or lad, since boyish naïveté stillpredominated in his expression. He was about the same age as Ritter. While guiding the magnificent grey through the medley of cabs, trucks, and street-cars, he smiled faintly, as if delighted by it all. 

Notwithstanding the city's excesses of architecture and engineering, itsdistinctive characteristic was unimaginativeness. The hurry and bustle, "business, " the chase after the dollar had lashed the technical arts onto audacious attempts; for example, the skyscrapers, or the elevatedrailroad, with its unfenced tracks high overhead, its trains thunderingalong incessantly in two directions, winding sharply about the cornerslike an illuminated snake, and writhing into streets so narrow that aperson in one of the upper stories of the houses can almost touch thecoaches with his hands. 

"Madness, lunacy!" Frederick exclaimed in his amazement. 

"Not altogether, " said Schmidt. "Back of it all is a very sane, unscrupulous practicality, riding down every obstacle in its way. "

"It would be hideous were it not so tremendous, " Frederick shouted abovethe din. 

The newsboys were still calling the wreck of the _Roland_. 

"What is that? What was that?" thought Frederick. "I am wallowing inlife. How does that story concern me?"

A congestion of traffic compelled the grey to come to a halt. He champedon his bit, tossed his head, sending flecks of foam flying from hismouth, and looked about as if to try the heart and reins of the youngAustrian officer with his heroic, fiery eyes. During the compulsorypause, Frederick had a chance to observe how sheafs of newspapers werebeing consumed by the pressing, crushing, jostling throngs. 

"The cow gobbles grass, and New York gobbles newspapers, " Frederickthought. And heaven be praised! In _The World_ that Schmidt bought of aboy, who at risk of his life had threaded his way to the cart, there werefresh sensations taking precedence of the _Roland_--"Explosion in aPennsylvania mine. Three hundred miners cut off. " "Fire in a factory ina thirteen-story skyscraper. Four hundred working-girls perish in theflames. "

"After us the deluge, " said Frederick. "Coal is dear, wheat is dear, oilis dear, but men are cheap as dirt. Mr. Boabo, don't you think ourcivilisation is a fever of a hundred and six degrees? Isn't New York amad-house?"

But the handsome youth, after the fashion of Austrian officers, put hishand to his cap with inimitable grace, while a decided smile, a smile ofhappiness, played about the corners of his mouth, and his answer by nomeans expressed assent. 

"Well, I love life. Here one really lives. When there is no war inEurope, then it is wearisome, " he said, speaking in English, which mostclearly proved how distant his relation to the old continent was. 

At the station, when they were standing on the platform beside the train, Schmidt said to Frederick, wringing his hand impetuously in his Germanway:

"Now, old fellow, you must soon come to see me in Meriden. Meriden is asmall place, and you can recuperate there better than here. "

"I'm not altogether a free agent, " Frederick replied with a faint, fatalistic smile. 

"Why not?"

"I have obligations. I am tied down. "

With the indiscretion of intimacy, Schmidt asked:

"Has it anything to do with the wooden Madonna?"

"Perhaps it is something of the sort, " Frederick replied. "The poorlittle thing lost her father, her natural protector, and as I had a sharein her rescue--"

"Then there was a girl in a shift, and a rope ladder!"

"Yes and no. I'll tell you more about it some other time. Now just takemy word for it, there are times when all of a sudden in a most surprisingway, one finds oneself saddled with complete responsibility for afellow-creature. "

Peter Schmidt laughed. 

"You mean, if a woman steps up to you in a crowded city street and asksyou to hold her baby a moment, and never comes back for her baby?"

"I'll tell you everything some other time. "

The train with its long, elegantly built coaches began to move slowly, though no signal of any sort had been given, no whistle or bell or wordof command. Without the least to-do, it slipped out of the station whollydisregarded. Peter and Frederick were the only persons taking leave ofone another in this crowded train bound inland. Peter mounted the steps, and again shook hands with Frederick. 

"I hope to see you soon again, " each said to the other warmly. 

X

When Frederick returned home, he learned that a number of reporters andother persons had been there inquiring for him. Webster and Forster'sagent had given his address, Frederick deduced upon seeing among thereporters' cards one of Arthur Stoss's. There was also a letter from animpresario, a German of the name of Lehmann, who, failing to findFrederick in, had left a pencilled note asking whether, and under whatconditions, Frederick would be prepared to deliver a medical lecture inNew York, Boston, Chicago, and later other cities, in which lecture hewas each time to touch upon the sinking of the _Roland_ and weave in someof his impressions of the event. 

"What else?" thought Frederick, disgusted, though he had to admit that hehad actually become famous. 

Through Petronilla he sent word to Ingigerd to ask whether it would beagreeable to her to receive him. Petronilla returned with the messagethat Ingigerd would see him in a quarter of an hour. "Signor PittoreFranck is with her, " the housekeeper added; which piece of informationsent the blood rushing to Frederick's head; and though it had been hisintention to wash and change his clothes, he scarcely waited forPetronilla to conclude her message, and dashed up-stairs three steps ata time. He knocked on Ingigerd's door loudly. No one said "Come in. "Nevertheless he opened the door and entered and saw the gypsy paintersitting at Ingigerd's side. On the table under the electric bulbs, laya large sheet of paper, on which Franck was sketching with a soft pencilwhat Frederick on stepping nearer saw to be hasty designs for costumes. 

"I said in a quarter of an hour, " said Ingigerd slowly, making a wryface. 

"I'll come whenever I choose to, " said Frederick. 

Franck, rising without the least air of haste or confusion, greetedFrederick with perfect cordiality and walked to the door. 

"I don't want to disturb you. Good evening, Doctor von Kammacher, " hesaid with a grin betraying some delight in Frederick's annoyance. 

"Rigo!" Ingigerd called after him. "You promised to come again to-morrowmorning. "

"What's that boy doing in your room, Ingigerd?" Frederick demandedsomewhat roughly, in evident anger. "And 'Rigo'? What does 'Rigo' mean?Are both of you out of your wits?"

Though this tone of his must have been new to her, it seemed agreeable toher, for she said very humbly:

"Well, why did you stay away so long?"

"I'll tell you later. But as matters now stand between us, I forbid yourstriking up such friendships. If you want to do something for the fellow, present him with a comb and a nail brush and a tooth-brush. Besides, hisname isn't Rigo but Max, and he's a seedy sort of chap, absolutelydependent upon his friends. "

In his moments of jealousy, it was easy for Ingigerd to put Frederick toshame. 

"It makes no difference to me, " she said, "whether a man is poor or rich, whether he dresses like a dude or a tramp. Rigo intends to paint myportrait, and I'm looking forward with pleasure to being his model. "

"His model? You won't be his model. I'll see to that, " said Frederick. "But please explain how you hit upon 'Rigo'? Why do you call him 'Rigo'?Tell me. "

"His mother was a gypsy, and when he was a child, some respectable peopletook him into their family. "

"Do you believe that? Franck's friends say he lies every time he openshis mouth. "

"I'm not a father confessor. He may lie for all I care. "

Frederick did not reply. 

Ingigerd was still sitting at the table. With gentle ardour he pressedhis lips to her head, loosened the ribbon tying her hair at the nape ofher neck, and plunged his fingers deep into the wave of flowing gold. 

"Where were you?" the girl asked. Frederick told her of Peter Schmidt andthe exhilarating afternoon in Ritter's studio. 

"I don't like that sort of thing, " she said. "How can people drink wine?"

The thought passed through Frederick's mind that the girl's remarks wererather flat and failed to echo the things he had been telling her. 

About an hour later Frederick asked Willy to help him find a boardinghouse where he and Ingigerd could live, or Ingigerd could live alonewithout his protection. 

"You must realise, " Frederick explained, "that no matter how unprejudicedyou and your friends may be, it won't do to let a young lady remainpermanently in a bachelors' club-house. "

Willy did realise the impropriety of the situation; and that very sameevening he found an excellent place for her with friends on Fifth Avenue. 

The next morning, after the men had left the house, Frederick again fellunder the spell of a strange excitement that led him to Ingigerd's room. This time, however, it was not a wave of passion, but a storm of desirefor self-purification. 

"Ingigerd, " he said, "fate has brought us together. I am sure you, too, feel that in spite of all the appalling events we underwent, somethinglike predestination was at work. " Frederick now told her, as he had fullyplanned to do, the story of his past. It was a complete confession. Hespoke of his youth and marriage, spoke with all possible forbearance andlove of his wife. "There was no hope for her ever getting well again. I have nothing to reproach myself with in regard to her, except that Iwas a man merely of good intentions and imperfect achievement. But I maynot have been the right husband for her in so far as I could not giveher the repose of spirit that she needed and I myself lacked. When thecollapse finally occurred and other misfortunes--they seldom comesingly--and in addition I suffered disappointments outside my familylife, I had great difficulty in bearing up. I hate to speak of it, but itis the truth--before I saw you, I picked up a revolver more than once fora very definite purpose. Life weighed upon me like lead. It had turnedstale and tasteless. The sight of you, Ingigerd, and, strange to say, thewreck, which I experienced not only symbolically but in actuality, taughtme to value life again. You and bare existence--the two thingsI saved from the wreck. Once more I stand on terra firma. I love thesoil. I should like to fondle it. But I am not yet secure, Ingigerd. I amstill sore, without and within, you know. You have suffered a loss, Ihave suffered a loss. We have beheld the other side of existence, theunforgettable gloom. We have looked into the pit. Ingigerd, shall wecling to each other? Will you come to a man torn and distracted, lashedby scorpions, to a man who is greedy to-day and surfeited to-morrow, to aman who longs for peace and repose, and be peace and repose to him? Couldyou for my sake give up all that has until now filled your life, if I foryour sake leave behind me everything that has wasted my existence? Shallwe both begin afresh, on a new basis, simply and without any falseglamour, and live and die as plain country persons? I will be tender withyou, Ingigerd. " Frederick hollowed his hands and held them as he had donewhen speaking of the Madonna. "I will--" He broke off and cried: "Saysomething! Just tell me the one thing, Ingigerd! Can you--can you becomemy comrade for life?"

Ingigerd was standing at the window looking out into the fog and tappingthe pane with a pencil. 

"Perhaps, Doctor von Kammacher, " she said finally. 

"Perhaps!" Frederick blazed up. "And Doctor von Kammacher!"

Ingigerd turned and said quickly:

"Why do you always fly into such a temper right away? How do I know if Iam suited to your needs and desires?"

"It is merely a question of love, " replied Frederick. 

"I like you. Yes, I do like you, but whether my feeling for you is love, how can I tell? I always say that so far I haven't loved anything butanimals. "

"Animals!" cried Frederick von Kammacher. He felt mortally ashamed. Never, it seemed to him, in his whole life had he so degraded himself. 

XI

A few moments later there was a knock at the door, and a man in a longovercoat and brown kid gloves, carrying a silk hat in his fat handentered. 

"Excuse me, " he said, "I presume this is Miss Hahlström?"

"Yes. I am Miss Hahlström. "

"My name is Lilienfeld--manager of the Cosmopolitan Theatre. " He handedFrederick his card, which announced that he was also manager of a varietytheatre and impresario in general. "I obtained your address from Mr. Stoss, the armless marksman, you know. I heard you had had someunpleasantness with Webster and Forster, and I said to myself, I must goand call on the daughter of a good old friend of mine. I knew both yourfather and mother. " Mr. Lilienfeld, in tactfully subdued tones, wound uphis rather lengthy address with delicate expressions of sympathy and hispersonal sorrow at Hahlström's death. 

Ingigerd being helpless as a child in business matters, Frederick hadtaken it upon himself to represent her, and he used the pause in theimpresario's speech to put in a word. The man's personality was by nomeans displeasing to him, and his presence for several reasons was highlywelcome. 

"Owing to the state of her health, Miss Hahlström was unable until now toappear in public. I as her physician am responsible for her refusal todance, but Webster and Forster used such rough methods of coercion boththrough intermediaries and through the mail that Miss Hahlström of herown accord decided in no circumstances to dance under their management. "

"Never!" explained Ingigerd. "Absolutely never. "

"Besides, " Frederick continued, "their terms are miserable. We havereceived letters offering three and four times as much. "

"Exactly what was to be expected, " declared Lilienfeld. "Pardon me if Igive you a bit of advice. In the first place, be perfectly easy in yourmind about Webster and Forster's attempts to intimidate you. For variousreasons the contract with Mr. Hahlström is legally invalid. It so happensthat I have pretty accurate information regarding the terms of thedivorce between your father and mother. They themselves told me, and whatis more, my brother was counsel for your father. Your mother was madeyour legal guardian. Your father had no right to make a contract for you. You ran away. You went with your father because you were devoted to himbody and soul and the relation between you and your mother may not havebeen quite so pleasant. I do not hesitate to say you acted wisely, verywisely. Your father's training has made a great artist of you. "

"Thank you, " Ingigerd laughed, at the mere memory of her traininginvoluntarily protesting against her artistic education. "For hours at atime, while he sat in a chair comfortably smoking his meerschaum, I hadto dance for him without a stitch of clothing on and perform all sorts ofcontortions and acrobatic feats on a rug. In the afternoon he would playthe piano and I would have to go through the same thing all over again. "

"Your father was a positive marvel as a trainer. He put two or threeinternational stars on their dancing legs, if you will permit theexpression. He was the dancing master of two worlds and"--the impresariolaughed significantly--"many other interesting things besides. But tostick to the matter in hand--if you want, your contract with Webster andForster is null and void. " He paused for an instant and began again, thistime addressing himself more to Frederick. "I do not deny that I am abusiness man--always within the limits of gentlemanliness--and I shouldlike to ask you a question, Doctor von Kammacher. Is it your intentionto let Miss Hahlström dance at all again, or have you and she decidedthat she is to retire to private life?"

"Oh, no, " said Ingigerd very decidedly. 

Frederick felt something like cold iron enter his soul. He seemed tohimself to be a sword-swallower unable immediately to extract the steelfrom his body. 

"No, we have not, " he, too, said, "though I for my part should like MissHahlström to give up the stage because she has a delicate constitution. But she maintains she needs the sensation of it. And when I see theoffers she receives, I do not know whether I have the right to persuadeher against her will. "

"Don't, Doctor von Kammacher, don't!" cried Mr. Lilienfeld. "MissHahlström, Doctor von Kammacher, let me take up the cudgels for youagainst Webster and Forster--bloodsuckers, I tell you--and they'veinsulted the lady, besides. I assure you, they are the source of a lotof vile rumours about her. "

"Mention names, " said Frederick, turning white. "I shall have nodifficulty, I fancy, in finding a second, and I hope the same code ofhonour holds for gentlemen here as in Europe. "

"Tush--tush!" The impresario lifted his fat hands in pacification, and itseemed to Frederick as if the business man's round head, set low betweenhis shoulders, were trying to make signs to him, as if he were winkinghis eyes furtively and were suppressing a broad smile, unexpectedlyupsetting his business zeal and gravity. "You make entirely too much ofit. " He looked Frederick straight in the face in a peculiar way with asignificant expression in his large round eyes. Then he continued: "Foran engagement of twenty evenings in cities to be decided upon, I offeryou one hundred and fifty dollars more per evening than anybody else hasyet offered you, the engagement to begin inside of four days. If you areagreed, we can go to the lawyer this minute. "

Within less than half an hour Frederick and Ingigerd were standing in ahuge elevator, which was to take them to the fifth floor of a New YorkCity office building. Ingigerd was the only woman in the elevator, and itpleased her that for her sake the nineteen gentlemen in the car heldtheir hats in their hands. 

"If you have never before seen such a thing, " Lilienfeld said toFrederick, "the offices of a big American lawyer will astonish you. Thisis a law firm, two partners, Brown and Samuelson; but Brown's anincompoop and Samuelson is the whole thing. "

The offices of the famous New York lawyer, Samuelson, were partitionedoff with wood and ground glass from an immense hall, a writing factory, in which there was a horde of assistants working typewriters. Samuelsonmade the impression of a man of nearly forty. He was not very tall, had abad, pallid complexion, and wore a short, pointed beard. The clothes ofthis man, whose share of the firm's income was estimated at three hundredthousand dollars a year, though of the correct cut, were by no means new;in fact, they were rather shabby, and his entire appearance suggestedthat he was scarcely a model of American cleanliness. He spoke in a verylow, thick voice, as if suffering from a sore throat. 

Within less than fifteen minutes, the contract between Lilienfeld andIngigerd had been concluded, a contract, which owing to the fact thatIngigerd was a minor, was no more valid than the contract with Websterand Forster. Samuelson showed that he was informed of all the details ofthe case of Hahlström _vs. _ Webster and Forster. When the question oftheir demands arose, he merely smiled with an air of great disdain andsaid:

"We will quietly lie low and let them make the advance. "

When Ingigerd and Frederick were sitting alone together in a closed cabon the way home, he put his arms about her passionately. 

"If you dance on the stage, Ingigerd, I'll go out of my mind. I feel asif you and I and our love would be exposed in the pillory. If it were Iinstead of you, it would not be half so hard to stand. "

The poor young scholar began again to pour out before the little vampireall the anguish he had been suffering, this time with hot kisses andembraces. 

"I am a drowning man. If you do not hold your hand out to me I shall sinkforever. You are stronger than I am. You can save me. The world isnothing to me. What I lost is nothing, was nothing and will always benothing to me, if only I can exchange it for you. Come with me, and youshall be all in all to me, the one thing of significance in my life. "

"You are not weak, " the girl whispered with a dying-away look in hereyes. She breathed heavily, her narrow lips parted, and that fatal, seductive smile spread over her languishing face, like a mask. 

"Take me! Run away with me!"

For a time they were silent as the cab rolled along easily on its rubbertires. 

"They can wait a long while for you, Ingigerd, " Frederick at length said. "To-morrow we shall be with Peter Schmidt in Meriden. "

But she laughed. Yes, she laughed at him, and Frederick clearly saw hehad melted her body, not her soul; or a soul was a thing this girl didnot possess. 

The cab came to a halt in front of the club-house. Frederick seemed tohave lost his speech. Without saying a word, he escorted Ingigerd to thedoor, pressed her hand, and returned to the cab. He chose a place atrandom, and called to the coachman to drive him there. 

XII

Frederick crouched in a corner of the cab. In a passion of shame, hecalled himself the vilest names. He removed his slouched hat, which hehad not yet replaced by the New York chimney-pot, wiped the sweat fromhis brow, and beat his fist against his forehead. 

"My poor father! Within a month, I shall probably be no more nor lessthan the official kept man of a prostitute. Everybody will know me andpay homage to me. Every German barber in New York will tell his patronswho my father is, and who I am, and what I live by, and whom I am runningafter. I shall become that worthless little fiend's lap dog, her monkeyto perform tricks for her, her procurer. The German colonies in everycity, large or small, that we visit will behold in me a typical exampleof the loathsome degree to which a scion of the German nobility can sink, into what a cesspool of vice a man who was once a good man, husband, andfather can descend. "

While being bowled rapidly down Broadway, Frederick, in his state ofintrospection and shame, looked blindly upon the houses as they glidedby. Suddenly he started up from his crouching position. The sign of theHoffman House had struck his eye and recalled the appointment the men onthe _Hamburg_ had made. He consulted his watch, and found it was justabout the time they had set, between twelve and one. He called to thedriver, but before the horse could be brought to a stop, the cab hadrolled some distance beyond the hotel. Frederick got out, paid thecoachman, and in a few moments was inside the well-known New Yorkbar-room. 

He saw a long bar, marble slabs, marble wainscoting, polished brass, polished silver, shining mirrors, on which there was not the smallestspeck of dust, very many shining glasses, empty glasses, glasses withstraws sticking in them, and glasses partially filled with bits of ice. Bar-keepers in spotless white linen prepared the famous American drinks, innumerable in variety, with a dexterity bordering on art and a stolidityout of which nothing could shake them. 

The wall behind the bar was studded within reaching distance with anarray of gleaming polished metal taps; back of the bar were thepassageways to the pantries and kitchen. Oil paintings hung above thetaps and doorways. Over the heads of the business men standing or leaningat the bar, with derbies or silk hats shoved back from their foreheads, Frederick saw a delicious woman's figure by Courbet; sheep by Troyon; abright seascape with clouds by Dupré; several choice pieces by Daubigny, sheep on a dune landscape, a pool reflecting the full moon hanging lowover the horizon and two cud-chewing oxen; a Corot--a tree, a cow, water, a glorious evening sky; a Diaz--a pond, old birches, light reflected inthe water; a Rousseau--a gigantic tree in a storm; a Millet--a pot withturnips, pewter spoons and knives; a dark portrait by Delacroix; anotherCourbet, a landscape; a small Bastien-Lepage, a girl and a man in thegrass with a great deal of light; and many other excellent pictures. Hewas so fascinated that he almost forgot his recent experience and hispurpose in coming. 

In his complete absorption, he was only vaguely annoyed by a rather loudgroup, whose boisterous laughter and restlessness contrasted sharply withthe quiet demeanour of the other guests. Suddenly he felt a hand on hisshoulder, started, looked around and met the eyes of a man whose beardedface seemed coarse and unfamiliar. Cocktails and other good drinks hadshot his peony complexion with a bluish tinge. 

"What's the matter?" the stranger said. "Don't you know me--CaptainButor?"

Captain Butor, the man to whom Frederick owed his life! And now he alsorecognised the other members of the noisy group. There were Arthur Stossand his valet, Bulke, in inconspicuous black livery, sitting a little offfrom the others. There were Doctor Wilhelm, and the painter JacobFleischmann, and Wendler, the _Hamburg's_ engineer, and two sailors fromthe _Roland_, wearing new suits and caps. They had already been engagedon another steamer of the same line and had been presented with a fairsum of money. 

The men all greeted Frederick like an old friend. Arthur Stoss, for thebenefit of a New York gentleman, was retailing his old story, that heintended in a short while to give up touring and retire. He made frequentloud references to his wife, evidently considering it very worth while topublish as widely as possible the fact that he, the man without arms, actually possessed a wife. 

"I have met with the most tremendous success this time, " he said. "Lastnight the audience stormed the stage and lifted me on their shoulders tothe tune of '1492, ' the song they sing every evening in the MetropolitanTheatre. "

"1492"--wherever he turned his eyes, on the streets and open squares, Frederick read advertisements of the ballad, a product of the vaudevillestage, in which the discovery of America, four hundred years after thelanding of Columbus, was interpreted in the patriotic sense of the newnation that had since arisen. 

"Well, Doctor von Kammacher, how are you?" asked Doctor Wilhelm. "Howhave you spent your time?"

"Oh, so, so, " Frederick replied, shrugging his shoulders. He did not knowhow he came to frame this summary dismissal of a time so rich in content. Strange to say, here on land, in the Hoffman bar, little or none of hisformer impulse remained to entrust confidences to his fellow-physician. 

"How's our little girl?" Doctor Wilhelm inquired, smiling significantly. 

"I do not know, " Frederick returned with an expression of coolastonishment, and added: "Whom do you mean?"

As his answers to all their inquiries were equally curt and stiff, it wasimpossible to start a conversation. He himself in the first few minutesdid not understand why he had come. It was extremely disturbing to himthat the other men in the bar-room recognised the group as the survivorsof the _Roland_. Stoss by himself, the man without arms, the well-knownmarksman, would have been conspicuous. 

Stoss could drink holding a glass between his teeth; but he was nottouching liquor to-day. Nevertheless, he was in a treating mood, acircumstance by which Captain Butor, Wendler, Fleischmann and the sailorsprofited to toast one another freely. Nor did Doctor Wilhelm require muchurging. 

In an undertone he informed Frederick that _The Staats-Zeitung_ in itsissue of the morning before had opened a collection for Fleischmann, anda sum had already come in such as the poor fellow in his whole life hadprobably never before seen. At last Frederick laughed, and heartily. Heunderstood why Fleischmann was drinking heavily, with so determined amanner, and why he was puffing himself like a turkey. 

"What do you think of that stuff, Doctor von Kammacher?" he asked, pointing to the paintings and snorting disdainfully. "To call such stuffart! Millions and millions are spent on getting those things over fromFrance. They palm the trash off on the Americans. I'll wager that if oneof us Germans in Munich, Dresden, or Berlin were to do no better thanthat, or that"--he pointed at random to several pictures--"we'd put himin the A B C class. "

"Perfectly true, " said Frederick, laughing. 

"Just you wait, " cried Fleischmann. "I'll show the Americans a thing ortwo. German art--"

But Frederick ceased to listen. His only impression after the lapse ofsome time was, that in the meanwhile Fleischmann had misused the samewords, "German art, " an endless number of times. Turning to DoctorWilhelm he said unblushingly:

"Do you remember the way this howling dog, this creature laughing like alunatic, rose up out of the waves beside our boat?"

Captain Butor and Wendler, who had been laughing mightily over something, now stepped up with brimming eyes, as if they deemed the time had come tobe serious for a few moments in the company of the two physicians. 

"Did you hear, gentlemen, that Newfoundland fishermen have sightedcorpses and floating fragments of the _Roland_?" said Captain Butor. "Life-preservers from the _Roland_ have also been found. The corpses andfragments are said to have been washed on a sand reef, where a lot ofsharks and birds are hovering and swarming. The fishermen say the sharksand birds are what first attracted their attention. "

"What is your opinion, Captain?" asked Doctor Wilhelm. "Do you thinkanybody from the _Roland_ beside ourselves will turn up dead or alive?"

As to living persons, the captain would not commit himself. 

"It may be, " he said, "that one or two of the life-boats were carriedfarther south and entered calm waters. Only, in that case, they were notin the course of the large steamers, and they may not have met a vesselfor three or four days. Derelicts, fragments, and corpses are usuallycarried south by the Labrador Current until they meet the Gulf Stream, which carries them to the northeast. If they turn northward with the GulfStream at the Azores, they may soon reach the coast of Scotland. "

"Then there is a chance, " said Frederick, "that our magnificent Captainvon Kessel may still find a grave in some Scotch potter's field. "

"We poor captains, " said Butor, who looked more like a German horse-carconductor than a captain. "They ask us to command the sea and the storm, like our Lord Jesus Christ, and if we cannot, we have the choice ofdrowning in the ocean or hanging on land. "

Arthur Stoss joined them, and said:

"Do you remember when the _Roland_ began to sink, were the bulkheads shutdown?"

Frederick reflected and said, "No, they weren't. "

"I am of the same impression, " said Stoss. "The sailors declare they knownothing about it. "

"We carried out whatever orders we received, " said the sailors. 

Fleischmann put in his word:

"The bulkheads were not closed down. I never saw the captain, and I don'tknow what sort of man he was. But the bulkheads were not closed. My placewas next to a family of Russian Jewish emigrants. We felt an awful shock, and a crashing and crunching as if the ship had run against a great rock. The panic broke out immediately. All lost their heads and went clean outof their minds. We were hurled against one another and against the walls. Here you can see how I was bruised. " He rolled up his sleeves. "There wasa dark girl belonging to the Russian Jewish family who saw to it thattime should not hang heavy on my hands during the trip. " Doctor Wilhelmlooked at Frederick significantly. "She wouldn't let go of me. She washoarse from screaming. Finally, all she could do was pant. She hung on tome, and, as I said, kept panting, 'Either you'll go down with me oryou'll save me. ' What could I do? I really had to give her one over herhead. "

"Yes, " said Wendler, "what is a man to do in a case like that? Here's toyou, gentlemen!"

All touched glasses. Frederick turned pale, and the others laughedheartily. 

"By the way, Doctor von Kammacher, " said Stoss, "I just thought of thatHahlström girl. Really, you ought to persuade her to come to an agreementwith Webster and Forster. If you keep her from dancing, you will beinterfering with her future. "

"I?" queried Frederick. "What an idea! What business is it of mine?"

Stoss, without heeding him, continued:

"Webster and Forster are, as a rule, very decent. But their influence andconnections are incalculable. Woe to the man or woman that incurs theirdispleasure. "

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Stoss, but you may as well spare your breath. I am by no means the girl's guardian. Nor am I at all fitted to be atrafficker in men or girls. "

"Oh, oh, oh! Why so severe?" said Stoss. The others, including DoctorWilhelm, chimed in; which only heightened Frederick's brusqueness. "Don'tyou know there's lots of money in that little witch just now? As theAmerican business man says, 'There's money in it. ' Don't forget we're inthe dollar land, where you can't rest until the ground has beencompletely exhausted and the last nugget of gold has been extracted. "

Frederick was outraged. He felt like taking his hat and running away. Inhis present mood, he could scarcely conceive why he had come to meetthese people. To turn the conversation and give vent to his spite and illhumour, and also for a nobler reason, he suddenly began to speak of themaid, Rosa, denouncing the American newspapers for having said almostnothing of the heroic girl. 

"It would be of far more importance to me to do something for her thanfor any other woman. I'm not a man to bargain and haggle; but if acollection was made and they did not collect for Rosa, then theyneglected a true heroine of the _Roland_. "

"What do you mean by that? What do you mean?" Fleischmann demandedsomewhat rudely, afraid of losing his booty. 

Here Bulke intervened. 

"Remember, Mr. Fleischmann, Rosa was the first to see you. If Rosa hadn'tdragged you out of the water--she's as strong as a bear--the rest of usin the boat might merely have struck you over the head with our oars andlet you sink. "

"You're talking nonsense, you numskull, " said Fleischmann, withdrawingand turning toward the wall with the pictures. "I keep seeing nothing butthose two moonstruck oxen. " He referred to one of the wonderfulDaubignys. 

Frederick paid and took leave, declining, as politely as he could, theirproposition that they all lunch together. 

XIII

When alone on the street, Frederick felt some disgust with himself forlacking humour. Were those innocent men to blame if he happened to haverasped nerves? Since it was Frederick's way, as soon as he perceived thathe had done a wrong, to set resolutely to work to undo it to the fullextent of his ability, he decided, after coming to the conclusion thatthe fault had been his, to lunch with his shipmates after all. He hadbeen walking about eight minutes. He now turned back, accelerating hispace, and within five minutes the sign of the Hoffman House was again insight. Broadway as usual was crowded, and the two endless chains ofyellow cable cars with short spaces between were perpetually moving byeach other. It was cold and windy. There was a great din and bustle onthe streets, and into the din and bustle Frederick saw his friends of the_Roland_ and the _Hamburg_ step from the bar. As he was about to wave tothem, he slipped and stumbled on a piece of fruit on the pavement. 

"Don't fall, Doctor von Kammacher!" a woman's voice cried. "How do youdo?" On regaining his equilibrium Frederick found himself face to facewith a beautiful, dignified young lady hidden behind a veil and wearinga fur hat and coat. He slowly recognised Miss Eva Burns. "I'm in luck, "she said. "I very rarely come to this part of the city. It just sohappened that I had to buy something near here, and I am on the way nowto my restaurant. I always take my meals in a restaurant, because Iloathe boarding-houses. By chance, too, I am later than usual. A littlelady whom you know, Miss Hahlström, visited the studio with Mr. Franckand kept me three quarters of an hour longer than I am accustomed tostay. "

"Do you take your meals alone, Miss Burns?"

"Yes, " she said, somewhat taken aback at the abrupt question. "Does thatseem strange to you?"

"Oh, no, not at all, " Frederick hastened to assure her. "The astonishedexpression on my face was merely due to my stumbling and to thisunexpected meeting with you. The reason I inquired whether you eat alonewas because I wanted to ask you if you had any objections to my lunchingwith you. "

"I should be very glad if you were to, Doctor von Kammacher. "

The stately couple attracted much attention from passers-by. Frederickwas tall and rather broad and carried himself well, and his hair andbeard may have gone rather too long without the application of theshears. Eva Burns was almost as tall. She was a brunette, suggesting inher face and figure, which bore no resemblance to the wasp-like figuresof the American women, a race and type more in accordance with theTitian ideal of feminine beauty. 

"Would you mind waiting here a minute?" Frederick asked. "You seethose people over there getting into the car? Some of them God inhis inscrutable ways destined to be fellow-passengers of mine on the_Roland_, the others my rescuers. I should not like to meet them again. "When the little company was safely aboard the car on the way to Brooklyn, he said: "I am profoundly grateful--" and stopped. 

"Because you were rescued from those men in the car?" Miss Burns laughed. 

"No. Because I met you, and you rescued me from them. I admit I amungrateful. There's that captain--when I saw his ship come steamingtoward us from across the waters and saw him standing on the bridge, he seemed to me to be an instrument of God, if not an archangel. Awe-inspiring repose, solemn, awe-inspiring grandeur rested upon him. Hewas not _a_ man, he was _the_ man, the saviour man, and beside him therewas none. My soul, all of our souls, clamoured for him, worshipped him. But here he has dwindled into nothing but a good, commonplace littleworkman. On the trip, Stoss's liveliness was a relief. Now, in thetreadmill of his daily occupation, he has turned from the finer thoughtsof his leisure moments. Duty, while deepening Captain Butor andtemporarily converting him into a useful, even an important personage, acts as a leveller on Stoss. Stoss merely seemed to partake in the lifeon the sea, while in actuality concerned with nothing but himself. Andthere's my colleague, the ship's surgeon. I was completely upset to findwhat an empty vessel he is. I really thought he was more interesting. " Asif sluices in his being had been opened wide, Frederick began to speakfreely of the shipwreck, to which he had never before more than merelyalluded. 

"What particularly frightened me to-day was the fact that a man can, asit were, digest an oak-tree twice within less than forty-eight hours. Ikeep discovering myself in the act of doubting the wreck of that giantsteamer, every corner of which was familiar to me. I saw something, butI am so infinitely remote from it that I still cannot grasp it. I am onlyjust beginning to feel the ship coming to life in my soul. Four or fivetimes within the past twenty-four hours, I experienced the whole accidentover again. Last night I started up actually bathed in cold sweat, anddid not know where I was. The confusion on board, the tooting of thedistress signals, the bloody, distorted faces, the floating human limbs, all was so frightfully appalling. If I keep on seeing such visions, I'llgo down with the _Roland_ again. 

"It may be morbid to feel as I do. A man in my condition may say tohimself, 'Go down and stay down, if once you have sunk. ' But those peoplewho got into the car do not even say that, Miss Burns. The whole thinghas gone down for them once for all. They have digested the whole of the_Roland_ and everything that happened to the hundreds of human beings itwas carrying. They have digested the whole affair and almost forgottenit. That ability of theirs, enviable though it may be, insults my generalhumanitarian instincts. It is loathsome to me. And their clumsy phrasesrevealing the indifference, the obtuseness of their souls make meshudder. In their eyes I see that calm selfish sense of their ownsecurity to the damage of another person's security which is at thebottom of a murderous madness that I myself experienced. Those men arecold men, they are murderous men. And a brutal state of self-defence butslightly veiled and suppressed is their permanent state. "

"Your friends, it seems to me, must have behaved very badly, " Miss Burnssaid, laughing. 

To this Frederick could not truthfully assent. He merely repeated:

"The way I feel about it is that they have taken the ship between theirteeth, the ship with all its timber and iron and its immense human cargo, and chewed it to a pulp, and swallowed it down without leaving a tracebehind. " He removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. 

"If you really do wish to lunch with me, Doctor von Kammacher, you mustnot have high-flown notions, like Mr. Ritter, " said Miss Burns halting infront of a tidy little restaurant. 

They entered a low room with a red brick floor and panelled walls andceiling. Owing to the enormous timber resources of their country, theAmericans make a very free, though refined use of wood. The clean littleroom was frequented by German barbers, riding-masters, coachmen, andclerks. An inexpensive lunch and the usual American drinks were dispensedat the bar. The corner where the proprietor sat was decorated with asmall collection of sporting pictures, well-known jockeys with theirhorses, acrobats, and baseball champions. Something in his appearancesuggested that at night he had different customers to deal with than inthe daytime, that his athletic figure--he was neatly dressed, but in hisshirt sleeves--was meant to inspire respect in his clients. Frederickstill suffered from too much breeding, and he was secretly astonishedthat Eva Burns ventured into such a place. 

"You are late, Miss Burns. Aren't you feeling well?" inquired the host, with an immobile mask-like seriousness of expression. 

"Oh, yes, Mr. Brown. I'm always all right, " Miss Burns answered brightly. "Bring me my regular lunch. But the gentleman, I am afraid, will not besatisfied with it. Perhaps you have something special for him?"

Frederick, however, insisted upon ordering the very same as Miss Burns. 

"I give you fair warning, " she said when they were alone, "I really don'tthink you will be satisfied with my diet. I never eat meat, I want you toknow, and you surely do. "

Frederick laughed. "We physicians, " he said, "are also coming more andmore to give up a meat diet. "

"I think it is horrible to eat meat, " said Miss Burns. "I have a handsomefowl in my garden. I see it every day, and then I go and cut its throatand eat it up. When we were children, we had a pony which had to bekilled, and the people in the East End ate it. " She drew her long kidgloves from her hands without removing them from her arms. "People eatdogs, too. I adore dogs. But the worst thing is the frightful, endlessshedding of blood which human meat-eaters deem necessary for theirpreservation. Think of all the butchers in the world, think of thoseimmense slaughter-houses in Chicago and other places where themachine-like, wholesale murder of innocent animals is constantly goingon. People can live without meat. It isn't indispensable to theirwelfare. "

She said all this in a tone of seriousness tinged with humour, speakinga correct, though somewhat laboured German. 

"For various reasons, " Frederick said, "I still hesitate to form adefinite opinion in regard to meat-eating. As for myself, I can do verywell without meat, provided I have my steak regularly every day for lunchand my roast beef for dinner. "

Miss Burns looked astonished, then laughed merrily. 

"You are a physician, " she cried. "You physicians are all animaltorturers. "

"You refer to vivisection?"

"Yes, to vivisection. It's a shame, it's a sin. It's a horrible sin totorture innocent animals to death just for the sake of adding a few daysmore to the life of some commonplace person. "

Frederick did not reply, being too much a man of science to concur in heropinion. Miss Burns detected this, and said:

"You German physicians are horrible men. When I am in Berlin, I am ina constant state of dread that I shall die unexpectedly and before myrelatives can prevent it, I shall be taken to your dreadful laboratoriesfor dissection. "

"Oh, then you have been in Berlin, Miss Burns?"

"Certainly, I have been everywhere. "

The conversation now turned on Berlin. Miss Burns spoke of it glowingly, because it offered the greatest opportunities for hearing good music andseeing good plays. 

"I have a number of friends among the Berlin professors and artists. Oneof them is a Polish pianist. He brings back money by the bushel from hisAmerican tours. He owns an estate near Cracow, and has asked me to visithim there. Unless I accept his invitation sooner than I expect to, Ishall not see Berlin again for a long time. "

The host served the lunch, consisting of baked potatoes, cabbage andfried eggs. Though at any other time this would scarcely have satisfiedFrederick, he ate with a hearty appetite and, like Miss Burns, drankAmerican ice-water. 

Miss Burns's manner in talking was thoroughly unconstrained andsprightly. She had observed that the foundering of the _Roland_ was stilltoo vivid in Frederick's thoughts, and bearing Peter Schmidt's warningin mind, purposely turned the conversation away from it. But Frederick, for some reason dissatisfied with himself for his criticism of hisfellow-passengers, tried several times to revert to the shipwreck. Hiswhole demeanour showed that something was gnawing at him and tormentinghim. 

"We speak of a justice imminent in the plan of the world. But why wassuch a pitiful collection of men saved, while hundreds of others drowned?Why did that splendid Captain von Kessel drown? I shall never forget him. Why did all those splendid picked men of the crew of the _Roland_ drown?Why and for what purpose was I myself saved?"

"Doctor von Kammacher, " said Miss Burns, "yesterday you were an entirelydifferent man. You were full of brightness and life; to-day you are allgloom. I think you are wholly wrong in not being simply grateful for yourgood fortune. In my opinion, you are not responsible either for thequality of those who were rescued, or for your own rescue, or for thenumber of those that sank. The creation was planned and executed withoutregard to you, and you have to accept it as it is. After all, to acceptlife is the one art the practice of which is really of permanent use. "

"You are right, " said Frederick, "only I am a man. Besides I inherit amost unnecessary instinct for ideal rather than practical activity. 'Thetime is out of joint, ' says your Danish Englishman, Hamlet. 'O cursedspite that ever I was born to set it right. ' I cannot get rid of thatabsurd megalomania. To make matters worse, there is the Faust in me thatsticks in every good German who thinks anything of himself. 'I've studiednow Philosophy and Jurisprudence, Medicine, ' and so on. As a result, aman has all the more chances of being disillusioned at every turn, and sowould rather pledge himself to the devil. Strange to say, the first thingthe devil usually prescribes is a blonde Gretchen, or something likeher. "

Miss Burns remained silent, and Frederick felt himself under thenecessity of continuing. 

"I don't know whether it is of interest to you to learn something of theremarkable adventures of a German scholar and ideologic bankrupt. "

Miss Burns laughed and said:

"A bankrupt? No, I don't think you are a bankrupt. Of course, whateverconcerns you and whatever you wish to tell me is of interest to me. "

"Very well, " said Frederick, "we'll see whether you are right. Conceivea man who, until he was thirty years old, was always going the wrong way, or if not that, then, at least, the trips he took, no matter along whatway, always ended precipitately in a broken shaft or a fractured limb. That I escaped the real catastrophe, the shipwreck, is really mostpeculiar. Nevertheless, I think my ship has been wrecked and I with it, or I and my ship are in the midst of foundering. For I see no land. I seenothing solid or firm anywhere near me. 

"I was kept in a military school until I was ten years old. The desirecame upon me to commit suicide, and I was punished for insubordination. There was no fascination for me in being prepared for a great carnage. So my father, though it meant that he had to give up his pet idea, tookme away from the school, and I went through the much-discussed humanistic_Gymnasium_. My father is a passionate soldier. I became a physician, butI had scientific interests outside of my profession, and I devoted myselfto bacteriology. Broken shafts and fractured limbs again. Good-bye tomedicine and bacteriology. It is scarcely likely that I shall ever workin those fields again. I married. Beforehand, I had reared, as it were, an artificial structure of the whole matter of marriage--a house, alittle garden, a wife and children, children whom I intended to educatein a freer, better way than most people do. I practised in a poor countrydistrict, being of the opinion that I could do more real good there thanin Berlin West. 'But, my dear boy, ' everybody said, 'with your ancestralname, your income in Berlin could be thirty or forty times larger. ' Andmy wife absolutely objected to having children. From the very moment sheknew a child was coming until its birth, there was one desperate sceneafter the other. Life became a veritable hell to us. It was no rare thingfor us, instead of sleeping, to argue the whole night through, from teno'clock in the evening until five the next morning. I would try mildpersuasion and comfort, I would urge every conceivable argument softlyand loudly, violently and gently, wildly and tenderly. My wife's mother, too, did not understand me. My wife was disillusioned, her mother wasdisillusioned. She saw nothing but craziness in my avoiding a greatcareer. Then there was this--I don't know whether it occurs in all youngmarriages--each time before the child was born, we quarrelled over allthe minutiæ of its education, from infancy to its twentieth year. Wequarrelled over whether the boy should be educated in the house, as Iwished, or in the public schools, as my wife wished. I said, 'The girlshall receive instruction in gymnastics. ' My wife said, 'She shall notreceive instruction in gymnastics. ' And the girl was not yet born. Wequarrelled so violently, that we threatened each other with divorce andsuicide. My wife would lock herself into a room and I would beat againstthe door, because I was frightened and dreaded the worst. Then therewere reconciliations, the consequences of which were only to increasethe miserable nervous tension in our home. One day I had to put mymother-in-law out of the house as a way of securing peace. Even my wiferealised that it was necessary to do it. We loved each other, and inspite of all that happened, we both had the best intentions. We havethree children, Albrecht, Bernhard and Annemarie. They came inside ofthree years, one very soon after the other, you see. My wife had anervous tendency which these births brought to a crisis. After the veryfirst child was born, she had an attack of profound melancholia. Hermother had to admit that Angèle had been subject to similar attacks fromchildhood up. After the last child was born, I took her on a two months'trip in Italy. It was a lovely time, and her spirits actually seemed tobrighten under the happy sky of Italy. But her sickness progressed belowthe surface. I am thirty-one years old and have been married eight years. My oldest boy is seven years old. It is now"--Frederick reflected a fewmoments--"it is now the beginning of February. It was about the middle ofOctober last fall when I found my wife in her room slashing to tiny bitsa piece of not exactly inexpensive silk which we had bought in Zürich andwhich had been lying in her drawer more than four years. I can still seethe costly red stuff, that is, as much of it as had not been cut, and aloose mountain of patches lying on the floor. I said, 'Angèle, what areyou doing?' And then I took in the situation. Nevertheless, I cherishedhopes for a time. But one night I awoke and saw my wife's face closeabove me with a ghastly far-away look in it. At the same time I feltsomething at my throat. It was the very pair of scissors with which shehad cut the red silk. 'Come, Frederick, ' she said, 'get up and dress. Wemust both go to sleep in a coffin of linden-wood. ' It was high time totell her relatives and mine and convoke a family council. I might haveprotected myself, but it was dangerous for the children. 

"So you see, " Frederick concluded, "it was not very far along the road ofmarriage that I travelled with my talent for life. I want everything andnothing. I can do everything and nothing. My mind has been over-loaded, and yet has remained empty. "

"You certainly did go through a hard time, " said Miss Burns simply. 

"Yes, " said Frederick, "you are right, but only if you use the presenttense instead of the past and if you fully gauge the extent to which thetrouble with my wife has been complicated for me. The question is, am Ito blame for the course that my wife's mental suffering took, or may Iacquit myself of all blame? All I can say is, that the suit in this case, in which I myself am plaintiff, defendant and judge, is still pending, and no definite decision has yet been rendered. 

"Now, Miss Burns, do you see any sense in the Atlantic Ocean's havingrefused to take me of all the persons on board the _Roland_? Do you seeany sense in my having fought like a madman for my mere existence? Do yousee any sense in my having struck some unfortunate creatures over thehead with my oars because they nearly capsized our boat? I struck themso hard that they sank back in the water without a sound and disappeared. Isn't it vile that I still cling to life and that I would rather doanything than give up this botched and bungled existence of mine?"

Though he had spoken in a light conversational tone, Frederick was paleand excited. It was long since the plates had been removed, and MissBurns, perhaps to avoid a painful answer, asked:

"Shall we take coffee here, Doctor von Kammacher?"

"Whatever you will, to-day, to-morrow, and forever, provided I do notannoy you. I am a gloomy companion, I fear. I fancy there is no otherperson in the world troubled with such petty egoism as I am. Think of it, my wife locked up in an asylum is occupied every moment of the day withproving her own selfishness, weakness, unworthiness and wickedness towardme. Because she is so unworthy, as she says, and because I am so great, so noble, so admirable, they have to watch her all the time, I am told, to keep her from inflicting injury upon herself. A very pleasant fact tobe conscious of, isn't it, Miss Burns, and haven't I good reason to feelproud?"

"What you need, " said Miss Burns, "is rest. I never thought--I beg yourpardon for saying so--that a man who outwardly makes the impression ofsuch strength can possess such a wee, trembling soul. What you ought todo now, I should think, is simply cover up your past as much as possible. All of us have to do some covering up in order to be fit for life. "

"But I am altogether unfit, " said Frederick. "This minute I am feelingstrong, because I am with someone in whose presence, for some reason orother, I can wash myself in clean water--excuse me, I am speakingeuphemistically. "

"You ought to concentrate on something, you ought to work, " said MissBurns. "You ought to make yourself physically tired to the point ofexhaustion. "

"Oh, my dear Miss Burns, " cried Frederick, "how you overestimate me!Work! I am no better than a tramp. The thing I thought to cure myselfwith was laziness, idleness. Here I sit in a land discovered andconquered as a result of the tremendous will power of the Europeans, withmy oars gone, my rudder gone and my last bit of free will. It is thisthat distinguishes most men of to-day from the men of that time. "

Coffee was served, and for a while Frederick and Miss Burns stirred thesugar without speaking. Then Miss Burns asked:

"How did you come to lose your free will, as you say?"

"Theridium triste, " said Frederick and suddenly recalled the simile ofthe spider that Doctor Wilhelm had used in reference to Ingigerd. MissBurns, of course, did not understand him; but Frederick broke off, andthough she questioned him, refused to explain. She promptly withdrew herquestion, saying she thought it was quite right and good for him if theconversation lost its German philosophic cast and descended to the levelof a superficial person like herself. 

"I advise you, " she added, "no matter how sharply you may criticiseyourself for having travelled so many roads without reaching the end, tostrike out into a new road, and do so quite cheerfully. Confine yourselfto something that makes an equal demand on your hands, your eyes and yourbrain. In short, return to your old love and try your hand again onsculpture. Perhaps in a few months you will be the creator of aworld-famous Madonna in polychrome wood. "

"You are mistaken in me, " Frederick rejoined. "I do nothing but blow soapbubbles. Leave me to my illusion, that there is a great artist in meawaiting the moment of self-expression and development. What I am reallymuch more fitted for is to be Mr. Ritter's coachman, or valet, or at besthis business manager. "

XIV

Miss Burns took out her little purse, refusing to let Frederick pay forher, and they stepped out again into the busy streets. 

"By Jove, " said Frederick, whose manner when in the hurly-burly changedcompletely, "what a lot of stuff I have been chattering! I deserve to bepunished for trying your patience to such an extent. I must have boredyou horribly. "

"Oh, no, " she said, "I am accustomed to such conversations. I haveassociated with artists for many years. "

"Do you mean to impugn my truthfulness, Miss Burns?" Frederick asked insome alarm. 

"No, but I think, " she said calmly, with almost masculine firmness, "thatif nature makes us suffer through something, she does not intend us tosuffer again and again from the same thing. It seems to me the Creatorhad a definite intention in always and everywhere placing night and sleepbetween day and day. "

"Not always and not everywhere, " Frederick observed, thinking of thedifficulty he had had for many nights in snatching a few hours' sleep. 

At a street crossing Miss Burns stopped to wait for a car to take herback to the studio. 

"Look at that, " said Frederick, pointing to six similar placards ofgigantic dimensions, which represented Mara, the Spider's Victim, inscreaming colours. A green stripe was pasted slantwise on each placard, announcing that the dancer had been suffering from the consequences ofthe shipwreck, but that she would appear at Webster and Forster's thenext day for the first time in America. Above the advertisement on thesame wall were seven or eight full-length pictures of Arthur Stoss largerthan life-size. 

"Your little friend invited Mr. Ritter to a rehearsal in a theatre onBroadway day after to-morrow. It was not Webster and Forster's, " saidMiss Burns. Frederick explained what had happened in connection withMr. Lilienfeld, though he himself had not known of the intendedrehearsal. 

"I feel nothing but pity for that girl, " he said lightly. "As a result ofa strange combination of circumstances, I feel I am responsible for her. She lost her father, who was all in all to her, since she is not on goodterms with her mother. "

"Indeed?" said Miss Burns. "Why, this very morning in a shortconversation in the studio, she told me something very different. "

"She did!" exclaimed Frederick. 

"She told me that in many ways her father had been a fearful burden toher. In the first place, she had to earn money for him, and then hetyrannised over her terribly. "

"Well, " said Frederick, somewhat confused, "it is perhaps the essence ofperversion that a person feels compelled to hoodwink people by doingthings and making statements the very reverse of what is natural andwhat is to be expected. Miss Burns, I wish, I heartily wish, you wouldlook out a little for that poor creature drifting about without anybodyor anything to guide her. "

"Good-bye, " said Miss Burns, hailing a car. "Come and start work inthe studio as soon as possible. As for your little friend, she is tooself-willed. In fact, she has an iron will. There is no holding her, orleading her, that would keep her from doing anything she had once made upher mind to do. "

When the car had carried Miss Burns off into the stream of New Yorktraffic, Frederick, strangely enough, had a fleeting sense offorlornness, to him a novel sensation. Feeling inclined to taste it tothe full, he continued to walk the streets alone, choosing his way atrandom. For the first time after speaking so freely to a comparativestranger, he did not regret his conduct. Again and again he went over inhis mind his first meeting with Miss Burns in the studio, her mannerduring the lively carousal, when they discussed the wooden Madonna, hissecond meeting with her on the street, her upright carriage, her proudeyes, her imposing appearance in the little cosmopolitan restaurant. Without intending to, she undeniably dominated her surroundings, and thatmerely as a result of her naturalness. It had given Frederick secretpleasure to watch her eat and drink daintily, yet heartily, without anyairs or graces, and systematically dissect her orange and peel her apple. Eating and drinking was to her a noble, legitimate and also inevitableact, not to be disposed of lightly beneath a foolish masquerade. WhenFrederick recommended Ingigerd to her guidance, he did so because hehimself had experienced a beneficent influence from her remarks, dictatedby a beautiful intellect, and from the glance of her straight, honest, scrutinising eyes. 

"At the risk of making myself ridiculous, " he said to himself, "I will goto Ritter's studio to-morrow morning, bury my hands in the clay, and tryto reconstruct my life again from the bottom up out of moist clay. "

XV

At about ten o'clock the next morning Ritter himself gave Frederick avery glad, bright welcome to his studio, and assigned to him a small roomopening on Miss Burns's room. Miss Burns proposed that he begin bycopying a plaster-cast of the arm of the Saxon athlete. 

Frederick for the first time handled the moist clay fraught with so muchsignificance, the clay out of which the gods made man and man in turn hasmade gods. As a result of the hours he had spent in Rome with sculptorfriends, watching them work and observing each movement of their fingers, he accomplished his task with great ease, to his own astonishment andMiss Burns's admiration. His anatomical knowledge and medical experiencealso stood him in good stead. Shortly before completing his course as amedical student, he had for a time entertained the idea of publishingan anatomy for sculptors, and with this in view had made a number ofdrawings which won the favour of real connoisseurs. 

After Frederick had worked feverishly with his shirt sleeves rolled upfor three hours, the athlete's muscular arm began to take shape clearly, and he felt a sense of satisfaction wholly novel to him. In working hecompletely forgot who he was, and where he was. When Willy Snyders camein, as he usually did on his way from his work to luncheon for thepurpose of saying "how-do-you-do" to Bonifacius Ritter and art, it seemedto Frederick that he had been awakened from a dream and called back to astrange life. 

"I am sorry to have to leave work and go to lunch. Lunch is really a verydisturbing thing, " he confessed. 

When Ritter entered, they all laughed heartily at his genuine passion forsculpture. 

"When I return to Europe, " he said, "I must immediately make portraits ofmy three children. "

Miss Burns and Willy Snyders had actually made Frederick proud by theirpraise, though in Ritter's presence they turned silent awaiting themaster's verdict. 

"You must certainly have modelled in clay before, " said Ritter. Frederickcould honestly deny that he ever had. "Well, " Ritter rejoined, "then youhave handled your material like a man who has art in his blood. To judgeby this first attempt, it seems to me you have merely been waiting forthe clay and the clay has been waiting for you. "

"We'll see, " said Frederick, and added, "Unfortunately there is a seriousdrawback. The saying is that all beginnings are difficult. My formerexperiences lead me to believe that with me the reverse is generallytrue. As a rule I win the first and second round of chess, or cards, orbilliards, and lose in the end. I succeeded at first in my practice andmy bacteriological researches. If I write a book, only the first andsecond chapters are worth anything. "

The artists refused to believe this, though there was a grain of truthin what he said. Nevertheless, Frederick left the studio with them ina healthier frame of mind than he had been in for years. 

But his spirits departed in a measure after he had spoken with IngigerdHahlström in the club-house. The girl listened unsympathetically, if notironically, to his account of his new occupation. Ritter, Willy andLobkowitz were secretly outraged at her disdainful remarks, especiallysince they observed that Frederick was still entangled in the girl'smeshes, body and soul. 

She told him he must go to Webster and Forster and insist on theirwithdrawing a notification which they had sent to the Society for thePrevention of Cruelty to Children. Since her new contract with Lilienfeldmeant the loss of the money that she was worth to them, they wantedrevenge, at least, and were going to put a spoke in their competitor'swheel. Ingigerd, beside herself with rage, told Frederick that in themorning she had had a brief rehearsal in the theatre, and arepresentative of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Childrenhad announced his intention of attending the rehearsal the next day. Shewas bent upon letting her light shine in New York and receiving twofoldhomage, the homage of pity and the homage of admiration. Besides, she didnot want to lose the money in prospect. If she were prevented fromappearing in New York, there was no chance for her anywhere in the UnitedStates. 

It was useless to oppose the girl's obstinate will. Whether or no, tohis unspoken disgust, Frederick had to perform messenger and handy-manservices for the little star. He rushed from Webster and Forster toLilienfeld, from Lilienfeld to the attorneys, Brown and Samuelson, fromSecond Avenue to Fourth Avenue, from Fourth Avenue to Fifth Avenue, finally to knock at the door of Mr. Garry himself, the head of theSociety for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and represent tohim Ingigerd Hahlström's position, which was, that by preventing herappearance, the society would expose her to material want in a strangecountry. Mr. Garry refused to receive Frederick. 

Fortunately for him, Willy Snyders the good-hearted, in order to makethings as easy as possible for him, sacrificed himself by obtaining anafternoon's leave of absence from work. His saucy, healthy humour, hisjolly remarks on New York conditions helped Frederick through manyunpleasant moments. 

Frederick was happy when the next morning came and he could go at hismodelling again. His brain, whirling with the rattle and clatter of NewYork, could spend itself in his passionate occupation, which employedboth his eyes and his hands. He deemed himself fortunate for beinggenuinely unpractical and not having to take part in that gruesomehorse-racing and sack-racing and target-shooting, that crawling anddancing and jumping for the sacrosanct dollar. The very breath of thatfrenzied life tore the garments of his soul into shreds, as it were, while this simple occupation of modelling the details of the athlete'sarm, was healing to his soul. He was conscious of it. Now and then MissBurns came in to inspect his work and exchange a few words with him. Heliked this. Her companionable presence soothed him and even made himhappy. Her figure, her gestures, her conversation seemed to be the veryessence of firmness and repose, and her self-sufficiency always arousedFrederick's silent admiration. When he told her how perceptibly his newwork acted as a sedative upon him, she replied that she had had the sameexperience, and if he did not fly off at a tangent but remained steadilyat the work, he would feel the good it did him even more. 

XVI

Ingigerd Halström had "invited" the artists to her rehearsal at twelveo'clock. When they gathered in Miss Burns's room--beside Frederick, therewere Ritter, Lobkowitz, Willy Snyders, Miss Burns, and the gypsy-likepainter Franck, who carried a portfolio and sketching material--there wasa certain solemnity in their manner. 

It was a clear day and the streets were dry, and they decided to walk tothe theatre. On the way Ritter told Frederick of a little country househe was building for himself on Long Island. Frederick had already heardof it through Willy Snyders. It was to be a rather pretentious building, with gardens and stables and barns. Ritter was erecting it according tohis own ideas and plans. He discussed the beauties of the Doric column. It was the most natural of column forms and therefore the most suitablefor any surroundings. That was why he had used it in his villa. For hisinteriors, he had partly followed Pompeian models, and there was to bean atrium. He spoke of a little figure, a gargoyle, which he intended toplace over a square fountain. 

"In these things, which offer the jolliest possibilities, artistsnowadays are very unresourceful, " he said. "We have naïve German examplesin the _Gänsemännchen_, the _Männicken Piss_, and the _Tugendbrunnen_ inNuremberg. One of the best classic examples is the drunken Silenus ofHerculaneum. Water when combined as a mobile element with immobile worksof art, can run, trickle, dash, splash, spray, bubble up, or rise up in asplendid jet. It can hiss and sputter and foam. From the drinking bottleof the drunken Silenus in Herculaneum it must have popped. I have had aplaster-cast model made of the little Pompeian figure of Narcissus at thespring in Naples. It is exquisitely beautiful. I am going to place itsomewhere in my villa. My gardens will reach down to the seashore, andI intend to have a landing-place for boats, with marble steps andbalustrades and sculpture work. "

While walking in the cold sunny air next to the slim, elegantly dressedsculptor, listening to his Greek fantasies, Frederick's heart beatmightily against his ribs. Whenever the thought arose in his mind thathere, in this new country, after everything that had happened, he wouldagain see Ingigerd Hahlström dance her dance, he felt that he was nolonger equal to the trial. The forces of his soul that had remainedhealthy were already rising in rebellion against anything that mightincrease the power of the little demon. Nevertheless, he was sointimately connected with her, that the public exhibition of her charmstortured him, and he suffered from the anticipation of her great success. Yet while dreading it, he fervently desired it. 

The theatre was dark and empty when Ritter and his following entered. They could scarcely see and had to grope their way after the young manthat led them to seats in the parquet. Gradually, their eyes grewaccustomed to the darkness, and they could distinguish the vastwindowless cave, with its rows of seats, its galleries and paintedceiling. The air, smelling of dust and decay, lay heavily on Frederick'slungs. There were recesses in the great grotto that made the impressionof gloomy holes for coffins. Some of them were hung with grey canvas, andcanvas lay spread over the whole parquet, with the exception of a fewrows left free for seats for the visitors. The stage curtain was up, andthe only lighting on the stage came from a few incandescent lamps withweak reflectors, which cast only a narrow circle of light, which widenedsomewhat as the visitors' eyes learned to be content with the faintillumination. 

None of the men had ever before seen an empty unlighted theatre, and theyfelt cramped and oppressed. For no special reason, they lowered theirvoices in speaking, and sat there in the expectant mood in which peoplealways await the beginning of a performance. 

No wonder that Frederick's heart throbbed more and more turbulently. EvenWilly Snyders, who was not easily shaken out of his composure and wasalways inclined to make sarcastic remarks, was silent and adjusted hisglasses on his nose. He sat with his mouth open and his nostrilsdilating. When Frederick's eye happened to fall upon him in his unwontedstate of self-forgetfulness, he was amused by the comic appearance of hisblack Japanese head. 

After a number of tense minutes had passed and nothing had yet occurred, the artists were about to unburden their feelings in questions andremarks, when the silence was suddenly broken by a tramping of feet, andthe stage resounded with a loud, though dull and by no means melodiousvoice. It was the impresario Lilienfeld, in a long overcoat, his hatpushed back on his neck. He was scolding violently and flourishing acane. The vision tickled the artists' risibilities. It was all they coulddo to keep their laughter within the limits of courtesy. 

Lilienfeld roared and called for the porter, and thundered unmercifullyat a charwoman happening to stray on the empty stage. 

"Where's the carpet, where are the musicians, where is thatgood-for-nothing of a fellow who attends to the reflector? I expresslyordered him to be here at twelve o'clock. Miss Hahlström is standing backthere and can't get into her dressing-room. "

A voice from the parquet--it came from the young man that had guided theartists to their seats--several times attempted a timid "Mr. Lilienfeld, Mr. Lilienfeld. " Finally Lilienfeld caught the sound and, holding hishand to his ear, stepped to the edge of the stage. Forthwith a shower ofcurses, which had ceased for an instant, descended upon the lad, withreinforced severity. The reflector man came and received his dose offurious rebukes. A man in a silk hat pushed in three musicians, carryinga tom-tom, a cymbal and a flute. 

"Where's the flower? The flower! The flower!" Lilienfeld now shouted intothe parquet, when a hesitating "I don't know" came from somewhere. Lilienfeld disappeared, crying "Where's the flower? Where's the flower?"

"Where's the flower? The flower! The flower!" was taken up in endlessechoes here and there, above and below, from the wings, on the stage, andnow from the last rows of the parquet--a circumstance which onlyincreased the artists' inclination to titter. 

A few more lights were turned on, and a remarkable, great red paperflower was set on the stage. Lilienfeld, now better satisfied, reappearedand entered into a conversation with the three musicians. 

"Have you studied the dance I told you to?" he demanded, humming the tuneand stressing the accented parts to impress it upon them. "Now then, " hesaid, "let's hear what you can do. " He raised his bamboo cane like aconductor's baton and said commandingly, "Well, begin. "

And the musicians began to play that provoking, passionate melody, thatbarbaric music, now dull and suppressed, now loud and screeching, which, ever since it first began to excite his nerves, had pursued Fredericknight and day. He thanked heaven that the darkness helped conceal hisemotion. It was that hard, convulsive motive conjuring up the demonswhich had been the beginning of his obsession in the _Künstlerhaus_ inBerlin. Over and again those sounds had lured him and led him on. 

What was this strange Ariel's intention with him? At whose bidding was heacting when he assailed his victim with inner storms and almost let himperish in a real storm on the seas? Why did he prick Frederick's fleshwith this music? Why did he cast its inseverable hempen cords about histhroat and limbs? How was it that after so tremendous an eternal tragedyhad been enacted out there on the cosmic solitudes of the ocean, afterthe waters had unmercifully swallowed so vast a number of men, lovinglife--how was it that this music had remained untouched and unweakened, that it had here resumed its fantastic devilishness? Frederick felt as ifnew cords were biting into his flesh and tightening about his throat. Something like the anguish and frenzy of a bull with a lasso about itshorns came over him--a bull whom a cruel power will misuse for asenseless, bloody show in the arena. Frederick did not hit about him. Hedid not run away, and yet he came near doing both. His head, it seemed tohim, was wrapped up heavily in thick sail-cloth. He must do somethingfinally to rid himself of that enforced blindness. He must look straightin the face of his grotesque opponent--Prospero or Caliban?

"There is no doubt, " Frederick felt, while the music tortured andharrowed him, "that men seek madness, they seek it again and again. Theyare fond of madness. Was not madness the leader of those men who firstmade the impossible possible and crossed the ocean, though they wereneither fish nor fowl?"

In Skagen in Denmark there is a sight worth seeing. In the dining-room ofa small inn there are painted figureheads of foundered vessels saved fromthe wreckage. The hand of madness has unmistakably touched all thosewooden men and women with their painted faces and clothes. They lookforward into the distance, where they seem to see something beyond all. Their noses quiver in the air on the scent of gold and foreign spices. In some way or other they have come upon a secret and have lifted theirfeet from their native land to tread the air and pursue illusions andphantasmagoria and discover new secrets in the trackless salt waste. Itwas by such that El Dorado was discovered. It was such that have ledmillions and millions of men to their destruction. 

And Ingigerd Hahlström, who shortly before had been his painted Madonnaof wood, now became Frederick's ecstatic figurehead. He saw her highabove the waves on the prow of a phantom sailing ship, bent forwardwith open mouth and wide eyes, her yellow hair falling straight down fromboth sides of her head. 

The music ceased, and Ingigerd Hahlström stepped on the stage. She waswearing a long blue evening cloak over her costume. 

"Mr. Lilienfeld, I think it is rather stupid to change the name of mynumber from 'Mara, the Spider's Victim' to 'Oberon's Revenge, '" she saidvery dryly. 

"Miss Hahlström, " said the impresario, nervously, "please, for heaven'ssake, leave that to me. I know the audiences here. Besides, I havereasons for choosing another title. I want to avoid a damage suit byWebster and Forster. Please begin, Miss Hahlström. We have to hurry. " Mr. Lilienfeld clapped his hands and called to the musicians to strike up. 

Again those provoking strains, immediately upon which Mara danced in, like a naked elf floating in the air. While flying in wide circles aboutthe flower, as yet unseen, she resembled a fabulous, exotic butterflyin her transparent veil shot with gold. Willy Snyders called her a naiad, Ritter a moth. Franck said nothing, merely keeping his eyes fixed uponthe transformed girl. 

The moment came when with her eyes closed, like a somnambulist, shesniffed the perfume and began to seek its source. In that seeking, therewas both innocence and maddening wantonness. A fine quiver went throughher body, like the quiver of a moth in its sultry love-play. At last shesmelt of the flower itself, and her sudden rigidity showed that she hadperceived the great spider on it. 

As Frederick knew, she did not always represent the horror, the numbnessof fright and the flight in the same way. The artists all admired thechange of expression on the dancer's sweet face, where faint distastegave way to violent repulsion, fright and stark horror. As if a greathand had tossed her, she flew to the outer limits of the circle of light. 

But a force compelled her to return to the flower. Mara no longerfollowed sweet scents. The hideous venomous creature in the flower'scalyx drew her against her will, struggling wildly. Her lids were nolonger closed. It was with clairvoyant eyes that the little thing wentto meet her doom. 

"Strange, " thought Frederick, "if her father really conceived the idea ofthis dance himself. In that case he may have divined his daughter's fatewith greater insight and love than he is credited with. As she herselfadmitted, she is sometimes more irresistibly drawn by what is ugly thanby what is pure and beautiful; and the dance follows a logical courseleading on pitilessly to tragedy. "

The new phase of the dance began, in which the dancer looks at the spideragain, takes it to be harmless, and laughs at herself, as it were, forher fears. Ingigerd portrayed this with inimitable grace, innocence andmerriness. 

After passing through a state of pleasant repose, the fight with theimaginary threads enmeshing her limbs began. At this point, the dooropening on the parquet creaked on its hinges, and a tall, stately, noble-looking old man was ushered in. He carried his hat in his hand. Hishair was silvery grey, and his clear-cut face was clean shaven. He was agentleman, "every inch of him. " The young man who had led the strangerin, dashed out again, and the gentleman seated himself near the door bywhich he had entered. Director Lilienfeld appeared and, turning andtwisting like an eel around the awe-inspiring old man, officiously beggedhim to be seated in one of the front rows. 

The gentleman, Mr. Garry, President of the Society for the Prevention ofCruelty to Children and many other organisations, declined with a wave ofhis hand and fixed his attention upon the performance. Ingigerd had beenconfused by the creaking of the door, the arrival of a new spectator, andthe mumbled greeting of her impresario. She stopped dancing. 

"Keep on! Keep on!" cried Lilienfeld. But the girl stepped to the edge ofthe stage. 

"What's the matter?" she inquired. 

"Nothing, nothing at all, " the director assured her, all impatience. 

Ingigerd called for Doctor von Kammacher. Frederick, who was reminded ofhis father by the old gentleman and had been looking at him with respect, was not a little startled when he heard his name echo through thetheatre. It was fearfully painful and humiliating to him to have to stepup to the platform and speak to Ingigerd. She bent down and told him togo "sound that old guy from the Society and try to bring him around. "

"If I am not allowed to dance, I will jump from Brooklyn Bridge, and youcan go fishing for me where my father is, " she cried. 

Amid convulsive jerkings of her body, throttled by the spider's threads, Ingigerd ended what was apparently her life, though in reality nothingbut her dance. Lilienfeld introduced Frederick to Mr. Garry. The stiffold descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers, who had come over in the_Mayflower_ and founded the New England States, measured Frederick with acold, penetrating glance of his steely grey eyes, a glance hostile asa cat's and as capable, it seemed to Frederick, as a cat's to see inutter darkness. Mr. Garry spoke very quietly, but what he said scarcelyaroused hopes that his attitude would be tolerant. 

"Evidently, " he said after Lilienfeld had got done with an eagerharangue, "evidently, the girl's father has already misused her for lowpurposes, and evidently, the child's education has been neglected. Thecreature is to be pitied for not having been taught even the commonestnotions of feminine shame and decency. Unfortunately, " he added in acold, haughty manner, which in advance robbed any statements incontroversion of their force, "unfortunately we have as yet no lawto prevent such revolting performances, which grossly offend publicsentiment and morality. " He scarcely seemed to comprehend Lilienfeld'sarguments, assuming without question that Lilienfeld must know how vilehe and his profession were in the eyes of every gentleman and thatLilienfeld in his, Mr. Garry's, eyes was entitled to but one epithet, "vermin. "

His inadequate English prevented Frederick from taking an important partin the conversation. Nevertheless, he ventured to mention the necessityunder which Ingigerd was of earning her own living. Mr. Garry instantlysilenced him with the old question:

"Are you the girl's brother?"

Mr. Garry left the room, and Lilienfeld cursed and stormed against themiserable hypocrisy of those old-fashioned Yankees and Puritans. 

"I have my strong suspicions, " he said, "that an injunction will beissued preventing Ingigerd Hahlström from appearing in public. I owe thewhole cursed business to Webster and Forster. "

When Frederick went to fetch Ingigerd in the dressing-room, he found herin tears. 

"I have nobody but you to thank for this, " she cried in a fury. "Whycouldn't you let me dance the first day under Webster and Forster, as Mr. Stoss and everybody else advised?"

"Ingigerd, " said Frederick, "I had to look out for your health. "

"Stuff and nonsense! You took the whole matter into your hands. Youacted illegally, against my expressed wish, when you chased Webster andForster's agent away from the cab when we left the steamer. "

Frederick was disgusted. Mr. Garry had made his father's personality morevivid to him than it had been for weeks. Although his father would neverhave expressed and carried out his views in the same form as Mr. Garry, yet his opinions, as Frederick very well knew, were akin to the Yankee's. Indeed, even in Frederick's soul, many of the same notions, implanted bybirth and education, remained unshaken. For the first time since he hadfallen under Ingigerd's spell, he realised that he was inwardlyindependent of her. The one question that still troubled and occupied himwas how to rid himself outwardly as well as inwardly from the degradingliaison. Without fully admitting it to himself, he had suffered adisenchantment in Ingigerd's dance; to judge by which, the demon's spellwas broken. This time that alluring seductive dance had seemedinconceivably empty. Nor was his compassion aroused to nearly the sameextent as formerly. 

Franck, the gypsy painter, burst in. He behaved like a madman. Hisenthusiasm, which somewhat improved Ingigerd's temper, was of the sortthat stammers and stutters and cannot find the words to express itself. Frederick looked at him in disgust, but the next moment started when herecognised in his behaviour the marks of his own former obsession. Ingigerd let the painter take her hand and cover it with wild, passionatekisses, which travelled from her wrist to her elbow, a demonstration thatseemed to her to be perfectly natural and quite in order. 

"I wish you would go visit Mr. Garry again and try to influence him withpleas and threats and money, " she said to Frederick. 

"That would be foolish and useless, " Frederick declared; whereuponIngigerd wept. 

"The only friends I have, " she wailed, "are friends that exploit me. Whyisn't Achleitner here? Why did Achleitner have to lose his life, and notsomebody else? Achleitner was my real friend. He knew how to go aboutthings in the world, and he was rich and unselfish, too. "

XVII

The very next day the injunction was issued, restraining IngigerdHahlström from dancing in public. The girl conducted herself wildly. Lilienfeld said the time had come to place the matter before the Mayor ofNew York. In order to protect Ingigerd from slander and from being sentto an orphan asylum, Lilienfeld, who was married but had no children, offered her a refuge in his own home on 124th Street near Lenox Avenue. Whether she wanted to or not, Ingigerd had to accept. 

The morning after Ingigerd's departure to Mr. Lilienfeld's home, whenFrederick sat in front of his modelling in a new smock of unbleachedlinen of Miss Burns's buying, he experienced a sense of relief onIngigerd's account. A burden had been lifted from him. Her change of homehad removed a part of the responsibility from his shoulders and made abreak in the feeling he had had of their belonging to each other. 

After the rehearsal, Ingigerd was much discussed in the studio. Ritterhad expressed to Miss Burns and his friends a desire to make a model ofthe dancing girl for a bronze statuette. Miss Burns told Frederick of hiswish. But Frederick, who was still regarded somewhat in the light ofIngigerd's guardian, assented unwillingly. 

"You see, Miss Eva, " he said, "I am really the last person in the worldto stand in the way when beautiful things are to be created. But I amonly a man, and if Ritter were to use Miss Hahlström as a model here, where only one or two walls would separate us, that would mean an end tomy peace of soul. " Miss Burns laughed. "You may well laugh, " he said, "but I am a convalescent, and relapses, you know, are worse than thesickness they follow. "

A week passed, in which Frederick carried on a remarkable, but not, asyet, victorious warfare. He worked in the studio daily, and Miss Burnsbecame his confidante. From his own mouth she learned what she hadalready observed, that he was languishing in the chains of an unhappypassion. Without ever interfering in his spiritual struggles unless hepositively demanded it of her, she gave him advice as a good friendand comrade. 

"Every time I see Ingigerd, or go out with her, or spend any time at allwith her, " he said, "I feel outraged and bored. I have firmly made up mymind not to go back to her. "--A resolution frequently broken a few hoursafter it was made. 

Miss Eva was so long-suffering that Frederick never felt compelled todrop the theme of Ingigerd Hahlström. The girl's soul was turned insideout and back again. 

One day Ingigerd said to him:

"Take me, seduce me, do with me whatever you will, Frederick. Be strict, be cruel with me. Lock me up. You are the only man I want to haveanything to do with me any more. " Another time she said beseechingly:"I want to be good, Frederick. Make me good. "

But the very next day she again subjected her friend and protector tounpardonably vile treatment. The fact was, she already had a following ofmen, running errands for her, attending to her affairs, thinking for her, and paying for her. 

The thing that Frederick could not wean himself from was that sweet, fair, frail, pathetic body. Yet he was determined to wean himself. 

One day Ingigerd came to sit for Miss Burns for her portrait. Frederickplaced a revolving stand in front of her and also tried to model theblonde Madonna in clay. Even Ritter had a mass of clay for modelling abust of her prepared on a revolving stand, and the master entered intorivalry with his pupils. Miss Burns's purpose in arranging these sittingswas not easily fathomed. The result was, however, that the very severestudy of his idol's features had a remarkable effect upon Frederick. 

The flatness of her forehead, her eyebrows, the setting of her eyes, theturn of her temples, the shape of her ears and the twist they took wherethey joined her head, her nose as narrow as the dull edge of a knife, her nostrils, the oldish-looking nasolabial line, the depressions at thecorners of her mouth, her beautiful yet brutal chin, her unbeautifulthroat, with the washer-woman's pit in it--all these traits had a verysobering effect upon Frederick, sapping from his imagination every bitof its strength to beautify or palliate. Perhaps Miss Burns knew whatresults from such strenuous, such persistently logical observation of anobject. In some ways it has the same effect as blood-letting. That is whythe artist must bleed to death unless new sources of illusion always openup to him. 

Moreover, in the long sittings, to which Ingigerd submitted from vanity, she betrayed the narrowness, the attenuation, the barrenness of her mind. In contrast with Miss Burns, Frederick perceived in Ingigerd with fearfulclearness that incompleteness which is eternally rudimentary. Once shebrought a letter from her mother in Paris and read it aloud. For abouta quarter of an hour, it actually seemed to torture her. It was serious, severe, full of concern, and not unloving. Her mother referredsorrowfully to Hahlström's death, and asked Ingigerd to come and livewith her in Paris. She told her of a woman in New York, the wife of aGerman barber, with whom it would be eminently suitable for her to remainuntil she returned to Europe. She even mentioned the steamer she shouldtake. 

"I am not wealthy, " she wrote. "You will have to help me with my work, Ingigerd, but I will try to be a mother to you in every respect, "--herecame the apodosis--"if you make up your mind to change your mode oflife. "

There was hard, stupid, even savage hatred in Ingigerd's commentaries onthis and other parts of her mother's letter. 

"I am to go to her and repent, " she mimicked, "because the Lord has somiraculously saved me. Mamma should be the first to repent. I am notgoing to be such a fool as to turn myself into a dressmaker. Always toreceive orders and listen to sermons from mamma! I am not bothered aboutmyself so long as I am not under somebody's thumb. "

And so she went on, without the least hesitancy retailing the ugliestintimacies in the life of her parents. 

XVIII

The Mayor of New York appointed the twenty-fifth of February for ahearing in the City Hall, at which Lilienfeld and his attorneys, Brownand Samuelson, and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Childrenwere to present their arguments for and against the injunctionrestraining Ingigerd Hahlström from dancing in public. Mrs. Lilienfelddressed Ingigerd up in "smart" clothes, put her in a cab, and in thecapacity of chaperone drove down to the City Hall with her. Frederick, upon whose presence Ingigerd had insisted, had gone ahead in another cabwith Lilienfeld. 

"This is the situation, " Lilienfeld explained as they drove through thelength of the cold, grey, dreary city. "At present New York is in thecontrol of Tammany. At the last elections the Republicans were defeated. Ilroy, the Mayor, is a Tammany man. The word Tammany is derived from anIndian sachem, Tamenund, who figures in Cooper's Leather-stocking novels. The party leaders have silly Indian names and titles. But don't bedeceived by all that romantic Indian nonsense. The members of TammanyHall are mighty practical. The Tammany tiger is an animal not to betrifled with in the great New York sheepfold. I think we may feel prettysure, though not absolutely certain, of having the Tammany tiger, andtherefore the Mayor, with us in this matter. Mr. Garry is a Republican, a deadly enemy of Tammany Hall, and it would give Ilroy the greatestsatisfaction to deal a neat little blow at him and that idioticinstitution, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. Buthis term is nearly expired, and as he would like to be elected again, itis politic for him to make a few concessions to the Republicans. Well, we'll see. We have to wait and see. "

The cab rolled down Lenox Avenue through Central Park and along FifthAvenue, past the Metropolitan Museum, the Lenox Library, the millionaireresidences, and St. Patrick's Cathedral. Below Fiftieth Street it turnedinto Broadway, where Lilienfeld pointed out the buildings of interest, Madison Square, and the Hoffman House, the gathering place of theDemocrats. Finally they reached the City Hall Park, in the centre ofwhich stands the City Hall, a marble structure with a cupola and aportico. In the portico the gentlemen awaited the ladies. 

While walking to and fro, Frederick suddenly felt someone tugging at hiscoat. He turned and saw a pretty, stylishly dressed little girl. 

"Why, Ella Liebling, where do you come from?"

Ella courtesied and said:

"I am out with Rosa. There she is. "

Frederick turned and saw Rosa standing on the steps. 

"Good morning, Doctor von Kammacher, " she said. 

Frederick introduced Ella to Mr. Lilienfeld. "Ella was in the shipwreck. Here you have additional proof of the tremendous physical power ofresistance of the so-called weaker sex. "

"Good morning, little girl. Is it really true that you were in that awfulshipwreck?"

"Yes, indeed, " came the unabashed answer, spiced with a dash ofchildishly coquettish pride, "and my brother was drowned. "

"Oh, poor child, " said Lilienfeld. His manner was abstracted. Evidentlyhis mind was on the speech he might be compelled to deliver before theMayor of New York. "Excuse me, " he said suddenly to Frederick, and moveda few steps away to make a hasty, nervous perusal of his notes, which hehad written on a slip of paper and had taken from his pocket. 

"My mother was dead, too, but came back to life again. "

"How's that? How's that?" asked Lilienfeld, raising his gold spectaclesslightly from his nose and peering at her from under them. 

Frederick explained how they had had to work over Mrs. Liebling forseveral hours before they succeeded in resuscitating her. 

"If in this world honours were awarded according to merit, " Frederickadded, "then that simple servant-girl there"--he pointed to Rosa--"oughtto receive greater honour as a hero of two worlds than Lafayette. Sheperformed miracles. She never thought of herself, but only of hermistress, Mrs. Liebling, of the two children, and the rest of us. "

Frederick went to Rosa and shook hands with her. When he inquired forMrs. Liebling, she turned red as a peony. 

"Mrs. Liebling is very well, " she said, and promptly burst into tears, having been reminded of little Siegfried. When she dried her eyes, shetold Frederick that she and a German consul, without Mrs. Liebling, hadattended to all the formalities of the burial and that she had been theonly one to see the little corpse laid away in the Jewish cemetery. 

"Oh, why did you stop trying to revive Siegfried so soon? I begged andbegged you to go on. There was still life in him. He would have come to, "she wailed. 

Here a stranger joined them. It was not until he was quite close thatFrederick recognised in the correctly clad man the valet of Arthur Stoss. 

"Doctor von Kammacher, " said Bulke, "Rosa cannot get it out of her mind. Can't you make her understand that it isn't right always to be going overand over such a thing and that she ought to forget it? It couldn't beworse if she had lost a boy of her own. I want to tell you, Doctor vonKammacher, Rosa and I are engaged to be married. "

"You are certainly to be congratulated, Mr. Bulke. I am delighted to hearit. "

"As soon as I can get away from Mr. Stoss and Rosa can get away from Mrs. Liebling, we are going back to Europe. Before I entered the navy, I was askilled butcher. My brother in Bremen wrote to me that there was a littlemeat and sausage and steamer supply business to be had there. We bothhave some money saved up. So why shouldn't we try it? You can't go onworking for strangers forever. "

"I quite agree with you, " said Frederick. 

The marksman's valet held out his hand to Rosa, whispered "Mrs. Liebling's coming, " and left. The same instant Ella ran off calling, "Mamma. "

Mrs. Liebling was coming through the park, walking beside a gentleman. From her costume, befitting the wife of a Russian prince of the royalhouse, it was evident that she had already found the opportunity toreplace her wardrobe. Frederick shook hands with her and remembered themole under her left breast and several other marks on the lovely body, which he had so ruthlessly worked like a machine to restore the breathto it. 

She introduced him to her companion, a dark, thick-set, elegantly dressedman, who eyed Frederick with a suspicious, repellent expression. 

"Curious, " thought Frederick. "This microcephalous creature thinks I amhis enemy, whereas he ought to know what he owes me. There I toiled andtravailed and sweated to raise the dead. I considered myself a highlymoral instrument of Providence, and after all, I was working for nothingbut the pleasure of a sleek, consequential Don Juan. "

Mrs. Liebling, who had already been in Boston and Washington, wasperfectly delighted with America. 

"What do you think of the New York hotels? I am living at the Waldorf. Aren't they magnificent? I have four rooms in the front. Such quiet, such luxury, such beautiful pictures! You feel as if you were in theArabian Nights. Doctor von Kammacher, you positively must go toDelmonico's. What has Berlin, or even Paris, to compare with it? Youcan't find a restaurant like Delmonico's or hotels like New York hotelsin Europe. "

"Possibly, " said Frederick, quite dazed. 

"Have you been in the Metropolitan Opera House yet?"

Mrs. Liebling continued to put similar lively interrogations, to whichshe demanded small responses from Frederick, supplying most of theanswers herself. 

He thought of Rosa and Siegfried and had time to inspect and reinspectthe signor's brand-new patent leather shoes, the straight creases downhis trousers, his watch chain, his diamond scarf pin, his monocle, hishigh hat, and his expensive fur coat. 

"What have you got to do with our famous tenor of the Metropolitan OperaCompany?" Lilienfeld asked Frederick, when he returned to the porticowith a "Whew!" of relief. Frederick did not understand, and Lilienfeldrepeated the same Italian name that Mrs. Liebling had mentioned inintroducing the signor to Frederick. He was astonished that Frederick didnot know what a world-renowned star this new friend of Mrs. Liebling'swas. 

XIX

The meeting had so clearly put before Frederick the tragi-comedy ofexistence that his sense of humour was stirred and he was capable oftaking the painful situation less seriously. 

The cab with the ladies drove up. Simultaneously half a dozen reportersstepped into the lobby. Frederick, to his surprise, observed that most ofthem were on a rather free and easy footing with Ingigerd, and shookhands with her familiarly. She looked very dainty and pretty. 

Her rather numerous body-guard, which now included Mr. Samuelson and hisassistant, were ushered into the audience chamber, a lofty wainscotedroom with bay windows. When they entered, they saw Mr. Garry's tallfigure already seated at a long table near the empty chair that the Mayorwas to occupy. He was dressed in black, almost like an English clergyman, and the theological spirit of the Puritan shone from his face. Yet therewas too much worldly acumen, too much cold determination in hisimpressive features for a clergyman. He held his eye-glasses in his handand now and then turned over the pages of his notes. Mr. Samuelson andMr. Lilienfeld took seats on the other side of the Mayor's chair, withoutgreeting him. The rest of the space about the table was occupied by a fewclerks, the reporters, and other persons interested, among whom satFrederick, Lilienfeld's wife, prepossessing and stately, and IngigerdHahlström, the _casus belli_. 

The Mayor entered by a high folding door a few feet behind his chair. Hewas an Irishman, somewhere between forty and fifty, wearing a smile ofmixed shrewdness and embarrassment. Though he did not go through theformality of a greeting, there was a touch of courteous affability in theglance he cast about the room. 

One of the reporters at the bottom of the table whispered to Frederick:

"Miss Hahlström's case is going to come out all right. Everybody is ofthe firm opinion that the Mayor is going to give that old hypocrite ajolt. " As a matter of fact, the Mayor's manner toward his honourableneighbour on the right was too cordial to presage good. Silence wasordered, and the session began. The Mayor called upon Mr. Garry tospeak. 

The old gentleman arose in all his height, with a gravity andself-assurance seldom seen except in eminent statesmen. Frederick wasfascinated. He could not remove his eyes from him and almost regrettedthat his speech, according to the reporter, was doomed to failure inadvance. As for Frederick's feelings in regard to the real issue, when helistened to the voice of his passion, he did not desire Ingigerd'sappearance in public. But for some time he had learned to silence thatvoice, and he had no objections if his cure were to be accomplished asthe result of a severe operation. He felt certain that for Ingigerd toreceive permission to dance in public would mean a definite verdict inhis own case. 

Mr. Garry first set forth clearly and succinctly the aims of his society, citing a number of cases to show how children are maltreated, how theirhealth is ruined in industry, commerce and on the stage. 

Here a reporter whispered in Frederick's ears:

"He should sweep before his own door. He's a Wall Street man and employsa whole lot of children in his chemical works in Brooklyn. He is amerciless exploiter. "

Mr. Garry went on to explain that these abuses had necessitated theorganisation of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The society made it its duty to interfere only in cases in which themaltreatment could be actually proved. Such a one was the case in hand. 

"For several years, " he said, "New York has been overrun by a peculiarsort of freebooters. " He laid emphasis on the word freebooters. "There isa connection between this phenomenon and the increasing atheism in ourcountry, the increasing irreligion, and the craving for pleasure anddissipation, which always goes hand in hand with irreligion. This growingimmorality, this festering corruption in our midst is the wind that fillsthe sails of those pirates. The disease is not of American origin. It hascome to us from the dens of vice in the large European cities, London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna. It is an epidemic the spread of which must bearrested, and to that end we must put a curb upon the freebooters whospread the infection and continue to bring it in from abroad. "

Lilienfeld, red as a lobster with rage, fidgeted on his seat. 

"In the opinion of these men, circumventers and despisers of the laws ofthe land, the United States is here merely for their purposes, to allowthem to sow disease and rake in the dollars. They are not good Americancitizens, these peculiar Europeans. They are not citizens at all. " Mr. Garry pronounced every word with hard correctness. "That is why it is amatter of perfect indifference to them if our religion, our customs, ourmorals are destroyed. They are unscrupulous birds of prey, and once theyhave filled their crops, they return with their spoil to their haunts inEurope. The time has come when Americans should take thought and repelthe invasion of such parasites. "

While the old jingo made these cutting remarks, speaking with an unshakenfront, proudly, hitting straight out from the shoulder, Frederickunwearyingly watched every movement of his hard, noble old face. Theanthropologist and the newly awakened sculptor in him were equallystirred. When comparing the "freebooters" to birds of prey, Garry himselfhad resembled a bird of prey. His expression was like an eagle's. Hestood with his back to the windows, but with his head turned slightly toone side, and when he spoke of the birds filling their crops, it seemedto Frederick that his light-blue eyes paled to a whitish sheen. 

Garry now came down to the subject of Ingigerd. 

"By God's will a tremendous shipwreck has occurred, an appalling event, wholly calculated to turn men's thoughts to repentance. " He interruptedhimself to say it was useless to go into more details on this point, since those who did not know how to respect such a visitation from Godwere beyond redemption. "It has not been proved that the girl whosurvived the shipwreck is over sixteen years of age. I propose to placeher in a hospital, have one of the steamship companies transport her backto Europe as soon as possible, and consign her to her mother, who livesin Paris. She should be placed in the care of a physician and underguardianship. She has been trained to do a certain dance, during whichshe falls into a pathologic condition not unlike an epileptic fit. Sheturns stiff and rigid as a block of wood, her eyes start from her head, she plucks at her clothes. Finally, she falls into a faint and losesconsciousness of her surroundings. Such things do not belong on thestage. It would be an outrage, an insult to public opinion to reproducethis hospital scene in a theatre. I protest against it in the name ofgood taste, in the name of public morality, in the name of Americandecency. It is not seemly to drag that poor unfortunate child before anaudience and shamelessly exploit her misery, merely because the shipwreckhas placed her name in everybody's mouth. "

Mr. Garry seated himself. He had pronounced his last words with sharpemphasis. Mr. Samuelson, Lilienfeld's counsel, turned pale and aroseinstantly. The reporters moved up closer and leaned forward, cockingtheir ears to catch every word of the famous lawyer. He began in a veryfaint voice. Frederick as a physician saw he was suffering from chroniclaryngitis, probably having exchanged his sound larynx for his millions. Samuelson's delivery, his way of pleading were well known. At first hewould spare himself, in order later to take his auditors by storm in aviolent outburst of passion. 

When the violent outburst of passion came, it did not fulfill theexpectations either of Lilienfeld, his client, or the reporters, orFrederick. It was very noticeable that his indignation was forced, thatit did not flow from a natural source, but from a bottle standing longuncorked. His iron will compelled him to simulate a feeling that he owedit to his client to display. In fact, the tired, harassed man, with hissmall, pointed beard and his worn, dirty-looking skin, was remarkablemerely as a victim of his profession. Even in that capacity he was not soimposing as pitiable. Unfortunately, he was most pitiable when he gavethe whip and spurs to that jaded little charger, the Rosinante of hiseloquence, to ride down his opponent. 

Mr. Garry and Mr. Ilroy, the Mayor, looked at each other significantly. They seemed to wish to return good for evil and come to the help of thisknight of the sorry figure on his hack all skin and bone, which at theend of the attack fell and broke his legs. 

Lilienfeld could not restrain himself. He turned crimson. The veins ofhis forehead swelled. The time for remaining silent had ended and thetime to speak had come. Since the man with the hundred typewriters andthe millions was unequal to the task, Lilienfeld had to take the reins inhis own hands. From the mouth of the dumpy, bull-necked impresario, thewords came pouring with irresistible momentum, with elemental force, asfrom the crater of a volcano. 

Now it was Mr. Garry's turn to suffer in silence the thrusts and blowsthat rained down on him from his opponent. The old gentleman was notspared. He had to swallow many disagreeable statements about theexploitation of children in certain factories in Brooklyn, about Puritanhypocrisy, about drinking water in public and wine in secret. He was toldhe was a member of that narrow-minded caste hating art, culture, and lifeitself, and seeing devils with cloven hoofs and long tails in authorslike Shakespeare, Byron, and Goethe. 

"Such people, " Lilienfeld said, "are always trying to turn back the handson the clock, a most revolting sight in this so-called land of freedom. There is very little hope of success in trying to turn back the handson the clock. The days of Puritan prudery, the bothersome Puritanconscience, Puritan orthodoxy, and Puritan intolerance have passed, never to return. There is no stemming the tide of time, or the tide ofprogress, or the tide of culture. But the forces of reaction, threatenedin their mediæval management of things, have begun a cowardly guerillawarfare, a series of petty, cowardly, miserable, meddlesome tricks. "

And now Lilienfeld handed back to Mr. Garry what Mr. Garry had given Mr. Lilienfeld. 

"If there really is a pest in America, its seat is in the Society for thePrevention of Cruelty to Children. The society is the very breeding-placeof the epidemic, in so far as there is an epidemic in the land. It isridiculous in Mr. Garry to maintain that Europe is a plague-boil. Europeis the mother of America. Without the genius of a Columbus--we are atthis very moment celebrating Columbus's discovery of America--without thegenius of a Columbus and the constant influx of powerful intellects fromGermany, England and Ireland, " here he winked an eye at the Mayor, "theUnited States would be a dead and dreary land. "

After thus moving heaven and earth and sea for the little dancer's sake, Lilienfeld exposed the base intent of his competitors, Webster andForster, in denouncing him to the Society, and indignantly repudiatedGarry's assertion that he, Lilienfeld, was an exploiter. His competitors, perhaps, were exploiters. 

"See how good the conditions are under which Miss Hahlström is fillingher engagement with me. There is my wife. In some respects she has beena mother to the girl. She is taking care of her in our own home, andthe girl is in good health. She has a dancer's physique. It is a pieceof bare-faced impudence to impugn the girl's honour. She is not adegenerate. She is not a neglected child. On the contrary she is simplya great artist. "

Lilienfeld had left his highest trump for the last. 

"Mr. Garry, " he shouted so loud that the lofty windows rattled, "Mr. Garry called me a foreigner, a freebooter and the like. I object mostdecidedly. I am as much an American citizen as Mr. Garry. Mr. Garry, doyou hear I am an American citizen?" For certain reasons Lilienfeld hadhad himself naturalised only a month before. "Mr. Garry, do you hear I aman American citizen?" he cried several times in succession, directlyaddressing the old jingo and leaning far across the table. "Mr. Garry, doyou hear I am an American citizen? Mr. Garry, I am an American citizen, and I will have my rights like you. "

That was the end. The wheezing in Lilienfeld's chest, as he seatedhimself, breathing heavily, was distinctly audible. There was not thefaintest quiver in Mr. Garry's face. 

After a rather lengthy pause, during which there was profound silence, the Mayor spoke. His words came out quietly, in his customary manner ofmild embarrassment and shrewd affability, which rather became him. Hisdecision was exactly what the political augurers, judging by theconstellation in the ascendant, had prophesied. Ingigerd was granted theright to dance in public. 

"The young lady, according to the decision of physicians called upon totestify, has been declared sound in body. There is no occasion to doubtthat she is over sixteen years of age and no reason for preventing herfrom earning her livelihood by the exercise of an art which she hasalready practised in Europe. "

The reporters grinned at one another significantly. The secret hate ofthe Irish Catholic toward the native Puritan of English descent hadbroken through the surface. Mr. Garry arose and shook his enemy's handwith cold dignity. Then he walked away, drawn up to his full height. Hisother adversary, of a very different nature from the Mayor, did notsucceed in darting in his face his look of hate, also of a very differentnature from the Mayor's; for Mr. Garry's eyes did not rest uponLilienfeld for the fraction of a second. 

Everybody crowded about Ingigerd, overwhelming the girl, the impresarioand his wife with congratulations. In her joyous excitement Ingigerd'ssmall face beamed sweetly. She looked very lovely. It was something toher heart's desire, this struggle to possess her carried on, as it were, before the eyes of two continents. Indeed, the extreme importance towhich her person had attained almost humbled her a bit; but her pride andpleasure every now and then showed in her glances, even in the glancesshe sent Frederick. The men fairly courted her and did homage to her. Hada princess of the royal blood come along at that moment, their attentioncould not have been diverted for an instant from the little dancer, whomthe delight, even gratitude shining in her face made very attractive. 

Lilienfeld immediately invited all the reporters to luncheon. Mr. Samuelson declined the invitation, pleading an urgent appointment in theCourt House. This may have been a pretext, for Frederick noticed, notwithout peculiar sympathy, that he was suffering under the consciousnessof his failure. The poor man, so famous and influential, but now totallydisregarded, was extremely grateful when Frederick, descending the CityHall stairs beside him, said a few words of appreciation of Samuelson'spresentation of the case, though he actually felt no appreciation. 

To excuse himself from taking part in the luncheon, Frederick said he hadseveral business engagements. Nevertheless he had to promise Ingigerdthat he would return in time for the demi-tasse. 

XX

Frederick crossed the park to the main Post Office, a huge building, inwhich twenty-five hundred clerks and officials worked. Here he despatcheda telegram, and then turned back into the noise of the streets, where thepeople, bending their heads before a cutting wind, ran about in hurryingswarms. The unceasing traffic, the cars and cabs and trucks, produced adeafening din. Frederick drew out his watch. It was half-past twelve, theexact time at which Miss Burns was wont to take her modest lunch in thelittle restaurant near the Grand Central Station. Frederick hailed a caband drove to the restaurant. If on this occasion Miss Burns had failed tobe lunching there, he would have been sadly disappointed. But there shewas, happy as usual to see the young German scholar. 

"Miss Burns, " he cried, seating himself beside her, "you see in me a manwho has been dismissed from prison, from a reformatory, from an insaneasylum. Congratulate me! I am at last a free and independent agentagain. " He was blissful, exultant. "I have the appetite of three men, the humour of six men, and good spirits enough to cheer Timon of Athensout of the blues. I am totally indifferent to the future. So much iscertain--no Circe has power over me any more. "

Miss Burns congratulated him and laughed heartily. 

"What happened?" she asked. 

"I will tell you all about the tragi-comedy in the City Hall some othertime. First I have to prepare you for dreadful news. Set your teeth, MissEva, and listen--you are going to lose me. "

"I, you!" she laughed. Yet she was somewhat taken aback, and a dark redcame and went on her face. 

"Yes, you are going to lose me, " Frederick repeated. "I just sent atelegram to Peter Schmidt in Meriden, and to-morrow morning at the latestI shall leave you. I shall leave New York, go to the country, and turnfarmer. "

"Oh, I really am sorry if you are going away, " said Miss Burns, turningserious, though without the least trace of sentimentality in her voice. 

"Why should you be sorry?" Frederick cried gaily. "You will come out tosee me. The man you have until now known me to be has been nothing but adish-rag. Perhaps, when you come to visit me in the country, you willdiscover that I am good for something after all. I really think I seeland in the distance now. I feel I still have sound bones in my body. To take an illustration from chemistry. A salt solution vigorouslystirred by the spoon of God Almighty begins to crystallise. Something inme is struggling to crystallise. Who knows whether, when the clouds thatsurround and penetrate the solution precipitate, the result of all thestorms in the glass will not be a new, solid piece of architecture. Perhaps the evolution of a Teuton does not stop at the age of thirty. In that case the crisis may come just before the attainment of settledmanhood, the crisis which, to all appearances, I have just safely passedthrough, and which, in any circumstances, I should have had to passthrough. "

Frederick now gave a brief account of the audience in the City Hall, thecomic clash of two worlds in Garry's and Lilienfeld's speeches, which hecalled _tant de bruit pour une omelette_. 

"The Mayor's decision, " he said, "in opening up to Ingigerd the careerfor which she was so anxious, has opened up to me the way to a new life, a life all my own. It was almost like a physical sensation to realisethat the Mayor's verdict decided my case, too. "

He described Garry and told how, despite the opposition in their views, the descendant of Cromwell's followers, whom Charles I persecuted andexecuted, had impressed him and made him think. Undoubtedly his harsh, severe dealings had been dictated by purely humanitarian sentiment forIngigerd's welfare, because of the frailty of her body and still more thefrailty of her soul, all in accordance with the narrow-minded principlesof a traditional belief, of which he was a credulous follower. As forLilienfeld, did not victory in the struggle to possess Ingigerd body andsoul mean money to him?

"Garry may really have been a hypocrite, yet wasn't Lilienfeld ahypocrite, too, when he spoke openly of Ingigerd Hahlström's honour andchastity? I looked up in alarm, and I saw a grin glide like a maliciousshadow over the rows of reporters. Doesn't falsehood blossom everywhere?Doesn't hypocrisy flourish equally on each side of every contest? Isn'tit a matter generally taken for granted?"

Frederick, as always, was feeling very comfortable in Miss Burns'scompany. Her presence always gave him, spiritually speaking, a sense ofneatness and order. A man could tell her everything, and her repliesstraightened things out, instead of muddling them, steadied things andgave them a mooring, instead of tossing them about tempestuously. But hewas not so well satisfied by her manner as usually, she not seemingsufficiently pleased with his release. He did not know whether he shouldattribute this to lack of sympathy or to secret doubts. 

"I came to you, Miss Burns, because I do not know anybody to whom I wouldrather speak of this new phase of my life. Tell me frankly, was I rightin doing what I did, and do you understand how a man feels when he is nolonger in the chains of a senseless passion?"

"Perhaps I do, " said Miss Burns, "but"--

"But what?"

Miss Burns did not reply. 

"What you mean is, you cannot be certain of the convalescence of a manlike myself. But I assure you, I will never sit in an audience watchingthat girl publicly expose her body. Still less likely am I to follow herto the four corners of the globe, through all the music-halls in theworld. I am rid of her! I am free! I will prove to you that I am. "

"If you were to prove it to yourself, it might be of some value to you, "said Miss Burns. 

But he much preferred to prove it to her. 

"Perhaps you think it is a whim in me or a piece of foolishness. Yet, theway I am constituted, it is practically impossible for me to do anythingfor my sake alone. Your sympathy would act as a stimulus to keep me to myresolution. " He drew from his pocket a letter from Peter Schmidt, sayingthat near Meriden there was a frame house that would be suitable forFrederick. Evidently his plan to retire to rural solitude was by no meansa recent one. "When I come to myself in the quiet of the country, and Ihave reason to hope I will come to myself, you will hear from me. Fromtime to time the world learns of a man of about thirty who suddenlydisappears, leaving his family, his wife and his children in ignorance ofhis whereabouts. Sometimes he is a statesman, sometimes a young professorin a university, sometimes a mayor in good standing with all the citizensof his town, sometimes a rich business man enjoying the respect of thecommunity. He leaves most unceremoniously, without concerning himself forthe affairs of importance, even of extreme importance, that he may haveto attend to the next day, perhaps the very next hour. He obeys the ironimpulse to throw off the entire world, his next of kin, his dearestfriends, and be alone with himself, so alone that he passes into oblivionand may even count as dead. It is a similar state, though perhaps not sopathologic in its character, a state conditioned rather by strokes offortune, that has uprooted me. Don't forget, all social connectionssignify an immense consumption of nerve force and attach a person to hissurroundings by a thousand threads and fibres. Ingigerd Hahlström is notthe only one that is enmeshed and throttled in a spider's web. Every nowand then all of us have to pant for air and tear away wrappings. Then themoment comes when we no longer do the thing that has been wellconsidered, the thing that convention has established, but the very thingthat has not been considered, that takes heed of nothing, the purelyinstinctive thing. Call it what you will, fermentation, folly, passion, shipwreck, storm. Whatever it may be, the fact is, all at once a managain feels the desire for life expanding his lungs. "

Frederick now drew from his pocket the photographs of his three children, which his father and mother had sent along with their letters. In theirgreat happiness that he had escaped drowning and was safe and sound, hisparents had completely forgotten their solicitude for him. 

Miss Burns took a friendly interest in the pictures and found a wordof praise for each child. There was some discussion, pedagogic andnon-pedagogic, of the characteristics of the little people. Frederickagain spoke of his wife, this time without any critical reflections, dwelling only on her good and lovely and excellent qualities, reallynative to her. 

The meal was over. Frederick had eaten heartily of the vegetarian dishes. He rose, shook hands warmly with Miss Burns, and thanked her for havinglistened so patiently. He left hastily, and jumped into a cab in order tokeep his promise to Ingigerd Hahlström to come before luncheon was overat Lilienfeld's house. 

XXI

The Lilienfelds lived in a one-family house, an exact replica of theother houses on the same block on 124th Street. Frederick found thecompany drinking coffee in a reception-room on the first floor, richlyfurnished with oriental rugs, expensive lamps, Japanese vases, and fine, dark, highly polished walnut furniture. The shades were drawn, and theelectric bulbs of a gorgeous chandelier imparted a certain splendour tothe room. The air was heavy with the smoke of Lilienfeld's strongimported cigars, at which the reporters were puffing away comfortably. 

Ingigerd, smoking a cigarette, was reclining in an easy-chair surroundedby the reporters. Her hair was hanging loose about her shoulders anddown her back. Altogether her appearance was not prepossessing. Sinceshe looked impossible dressed as a grown lady in long skirts, shewore schoolgirl clothes and was tempted to furbish herself up like atight-rope dancer with ribbons, openwork stockings, and white shoes. 

When Frederick von Kammacher entered the room, she blushed slightly, andheld her hand out to him indolently. Unfortunately, this hand had short, ordinary fingers, probably the plebeian heritage from her mother, herfather having had long, beautiful hands. Frederick was at least a headtaller than anybody in the room and was distinguished from the othergentlemen by his air of good breeding. He kissed Mrs. Lilienfeld's hand, German fashion, and begged her pardon for having come so late. 

The subject of discussion, of course, was the hearing in the City Hall. Lilienfeld ran about, offering the reporters cigars and cordials, soimportunate in his hospitality as not to shrink from sticking longHavanas into their coat pockets and cigarettes into their cases. Therewas design in this. Every now and then he would take a reporter aside toforce upon him information regarding Ingigerd's past, her birth, herrescue, her father, her European success, and the way in which her talenthad been discovered. It was a rather garish mixture of truth and fiction. Lilienfeld knew that this story of her life would appear in the New Yorknewspapers that very same evening in connection with the report of theaudience in the City Hall. He had brewed the concoction according to hisown recipe from various details that he had heard, and he felt certain ofits effectiveness. 

Ingigerd looked very tired. But she had received orders to be as lavishas possible with her amiabilities so long as a single reporter remainedin the house. Frederick felt sorry for her. He saw that her severeprofessional duties had begun. 

Mrs. Lilienfeld was a calm, refined woman of nearly forty, with a look ofsuffering on her face, yet extremely attractive. She was dressed withtasteful simplicity. One got the impression that her husband worshippedher blindly and was accustomed to act, or to refrain from acting, according to a scarcely perceptible glance from her soft, grave eyes. Forall his noisiness the bull-necked man, coarse, brutal, sensual, was likea timid child before her. 

She devoted herself for a while to Frederick, who felt he had found gracein the lady's eyes and that for some reason she wished to be helpful tohim in leading him away from the aberrations of his passion. Had he nothad a sense of security in the firmness of his decision, he might perhapshave given more serious attention to her searching questions, whichshowed that she had done some thinking about him. 

Her method was far from flattering to Ingigerd. With an infinitelydisdainful smile, she called the girl, who was chattering nonsense to acircle of flirtatious reporters and was overwhelmed with their tokens ofapproval, "a mechanical doll with a light head of porcelain filled withsawdust. "

"A good plaything, " she said, "a plaything for a man, an article ofmerchandise, but nothing more. She may be worth money, but she is notworth anything else. She is not worth more than any piece of emptiness, any trifle, or knickknack. "

Ingigerd, moved perhaps by a little wave of jealousy, came up and askedFrederick, without suspecting the significance the question had in hiseyes, whether he had packed his things. 

"Not yet. Why should I pack my things?"

"Mr. Lilienfeld, " she said, "has made a contract for me for two eveningsa week in Boston. You must get ready and go to Boston with me day afterto-morrow. "

"To the ends of the world, " said Frederick lightly, "to the ends of theworld, dear lady. "

She was contented, and gave Mrs. Lilienfeld a look of satisfaction. 

XXII

Frederick was greatly relieved when the festivity at Lilienfeld's housewas at last a thing of the past. With Willy Snyders' help, he hadsucceeded in getting together a few effects, and he spent part of theafternoon arranging them. In the evening the artists, who had grown veryfond of their guest and were sorry to lose him, gave him a farewelldinner at the round table. 

For a long time Frederick had not felt so serene and at peace withhimself and the world as that afternoon. After he had got his baggageready, Willy Snyders, who had been waiting ever since Frederick'sarrival to show him his collection of Japanese art objects, invited himto his room. It was a small room on the top floor, cluttered up with amass of antiques. He first placed before Frederick a number of Japanesesword-guards, tsubas, as the Japanese call them, small elliptical piecesof metal, about which a man's hand can easily reach. They are decoratedwith figures in slight relief, partly of the same metal as the ground, partly damascened, or inlaid with copper, gold, or silver. 

"A tiny object, tremendous labour, " Frederick observed, after more thanan hour spent in admiring the wonderful workmanship of pieces in theKamakura and Namban styles, pieces by members of the Goto familyextending over centuries, of the Jakushi family, and the Kinai family;pieces of the Akasaka school and the Nara school; pieces from Fushimi inthe fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, from Gokinai and Kagonami;glorious sword-guards in the maru-bori, maru-bori-zogan, and hikone-boristyles; pieces of the Hamano family, and so on. Who can boast a prouderaristocracy than Goto Mitsunori, who lived at the end of the nineteenthcentury and could trace his descent back through a line of sixteenancestors, all great masters in the art of sword-decorating, a gloriousrace of craftsmen, inheriting not only the life, but also the skill oftheir fore-fathers. 

And all the things portrayed on those small oval tsubas! The cloventurnip of Daikoku, god of fortune. The god Sennin creating a man by hisbreath. A shining full moon and flying geese. Wild geese flying overreeds. The moon rising from between snow-clad mountains, an oval of iron, gold and silver, no larger than a man's palm, yet suggesting the vastreaches of a moonlit night. 

Frederick and Willy both marvelled at the lapidary style of this metalwork, in which the artist with the finest understanding of his artdisplayed a wealth of composition within the smallest space. 

One of the tsubas represented a tea pavilion behind a hedge. In thespacious landscape was a waterfall, sky and air, perfectly depicted byholes in the iron, that is, by nothing. Others represented the heroHidesato vanquishing a monster on the bridge of Seta; the sage Lao Tszeon his ox; Senno Kinko, a pious man, riding on his golden-eyed carp, absorbed in a book; the god Idaten, pursuing an oni, or devil, who hadstolen Buddha's pearl; a bird prying open a Venus's shell with his bill;a golden-eyed octopus or cuttlefish; the sage Kiko leaning from thewindow of his house, reading a scroll by moonlight. 

Willy, endlessly resourceful and allowing nothing to daunt him, hadferreted this collection out of a restaurant in the Five Points district, a restaurant of viler repute than even the neighbourhood it was in. AJapanese had left the tsubas with the proprietor of the den as pledge ofthe payment of his bill, but had disappeared without ever returning toredeem his pledge. Scarcely a day passed that Willy did not visit a junkshop on the Bowery, or in the Jewish quarter. Peering with his fearless, fiery eyes, which always wore an expression of mingled astonishment andindignation, he ventured into the worst sections of the city, even intothe obscurest opium hells of Chinatown. His confident manner and roundspectacles, he told Frederick, caused him to be mistaken for a detective;which stood him in good stead in making his purchases. 

In one shop in Chinatown, belonging to a fat Chinese usurer, Willy forvery little money came into possession of a quantity of Japanese prints. These were the next things he showed Frederick. There were most ofHiroshige's views of Lake Biwa; there were the thirty-six views ofFujiyama by Hokusai. One of the most exquisite showed remnants of snowleft on the mountain and a brownish red sun setting in a cold sky withfleecy clouds. There were Shunsho's and Shigemasa's illustrations of thebook, "Mirror of the Beauties of the Green Houses, " Yedo, 1776, andShunsho's illustrations of "The Book of Sprouting Weeds. " Frederickcalled one of Hokusai's prints "the golden poem of summer. " It was adeep-blue heaven with Fujiyama to the left and golden grain beneath, persons sitting on benches, heat, radiance, joy! One of Hiroshige'sprints he dubbed "the great poem of the moon. " On wide, moist, melancholymeadows, scant-leaved trees, like weeping willows, their branchesdrooping in the mirror of an idly flowing stream, barges loaded with turfpassing by, a floating bridge propelled by Japanese raftsmen, the waterblue in the evening twilight, a great, pale moon, veiled by pale, bloodytints, rising above the distant edge of the melancholy plain. 

In addition to his tsubas and prints, Willy had a collection of so-callednetsuke, some in boxwood, some in ivory, small, dice-like carvings, representing with remarkable animation all sorts of real and fantasticscenes. 

Among the finest of Willy's possessions was a Japanese figure carved inwood not more than a foot high, a woman selling oysters. Each leastdetail was most precisely rendered. It was the attempt of a more recentJapanese master to portray feminine beauty. In this one rare instance hehad succeeded, having produced one of those precious objects adapted tomake thieves of their lovers. 

Willy, who mingled in American sporting circles, had also found occasionto collect a few Indian curiosities. He showed Frederick the featheradornment of an Apache chief, a wampum belt, Indian knives and bows andarrows. He had made the acquaintance of Buffalo Bill, the famous hunter, and some Indian chief and cowboys in his troupe, men in whom naturalinstincts are combined with a Barnum and Bailey business sense, and realexcellence with the actor's vanity. Willy's especial friend, whom he hadbeen very eager for Frederick to meet, was a well-known acrobat who hadjumped from the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River. 

"Willy, " said Frederick, "since you have so profitably employed your timein America, you won't be going back to Europe empty-handed. "

"The devil!" replied Willy. "What else is to be got out of this damnedcountry?"

XXIII

The next morning Frederick went down alone to the train. He had takenfinal leave of his friends the night before, telling them expressly notto let his departure interfere with their day's routine. After placinghis luggage in a wire basket hanging over one of the red plush seats in acoach which was one of a train of six or seven similar coaches, long andelegantly built, he returned to the platform. All of a sudden the wholelittle colony of artists appeared, with the master-sculptor at theirhead--_in corpore_, as college students say. Miss Burns, too, had come, like the rest of them, carrying three of those purplish-red, long-stemmedroses with deep green leaves which were not yet being grown in Europe. 

"I feel like a prima donna, " Frederick said, really touched, as he tookthe roses from each. 

The platform and the train were as quiet as a cemetery, as if there neverwere arrivals or departures between friends. But here and there, the faceof a traveller, aroused by the "temperamental" chatter of the Germans, peered from behind the window-panes of the train to look curiously uponthe little rose procession. Finally, without a signal, or a word from anyofficial, the train started to move, as if by chance. 

Soon the group of artists in the station receded. There stood BonifaciusRitter, dignified and elegant, waving his handkerchief. There wasLobkowitz, friendly and serious, Willy Snyders the good-hearted, Franckthe gypsy painter, and, last but not least, Miss Eva Burns. Frederickfelt that with this moment, an epoch of his life had come to a close. Hewas conscious of what he owed these fellow-countrymen and kindred spiritsfor their warmth and hospitality, and of what he lost in losing them. Nevertheless, after the strange way of man, he was in a state of joyousexcitement because his future, in a real and in a metaphoric sense, hadbeen set in motion. 

At first the train rolled for some time through a dark tunnel under thecity, then through an open cut between high walls of masonry, and finallyit burst into a wide, free landscape. So this was America's real face. Only now, after the noises of the Witches' Sabbath, the turmoil of thegreat invasion, had somewhat subsided, Frederick breathed the true breathof the virgin country's soil. 

Observing that all the passengers in the coach stuck their tickets intheir hat bands, Frederick did the same, and then turned his eyes on thefields and hills clothed in their white winter garments. To the youngman, uprooted from his native soil, there was a happy, stimulatingmystery in this landscape, which in the light of the winter sun soclosely resembled his birthplace. The alien surroundings all spoke to himof his home. He could have jumped from the car and taken the snow in hishands, not only to look upon it, but to feel that it was the very samesnow which as a schoolboy he had rolled into balls for bombarding hisplaymates. He felt as a spoiled child feels which is torn from itsmother's arms and thrown upon a heartless world of strangers and, aftera long period of anguish, unexpectedly meets a sister of his mother ina dreary country far, far from home. He feels the blood-tie, he feels howlike he is to her and she to him, how surprisingly, how delightfully sheresembles his mother, feature by feature. 

At last, it seemed to Frederick, the great Atlantic Ocean was reallybehind him. Though he had landed in New York, he felt that until now hehad not planted his feet firmly on the ground. Great well-establishedmother earth, the breadth and extent of her solidity, which he beheldagain after so long a separation, at last set bounds in his soul to thefearful expanse and might of the ocean. Mother earth was a good and greatgiantess who had cunningly snatched the lives of her children from thegiantess ocean and had put everything on a firm, everlasting basis with ahedge of safety all around. 

"Forget the tumbling waters, forget the ocean, strike root into thesoil, " a voice within Frederick spoke; and while the train rolledsmoothly and faster and further inland, he had a sense of being on ablissful flight. 

Frederick was so lost in meditation that he started when someonewithout saying a word took the ticket from his hatband. It was acultivated-looking man in a simple uniform, the conductor, who punchedthe card, said not a word, moved not a muscle of his face, and travelledfrom seat to seat, performing the same operation and always returning thepunched tickets to the men's hats, which they kept on their heads. Nobodypaid the least attention to him. Frederick smiled when he thought ofGermany, where every train was received with the clanging of a bell andset in motion with three soundings of a gong, amid the general uproarof the officials, who bellowed like a horde of Apaches; and where theconductors demanded the tickets from the passengers with much rough, awkward ceremony. 

The whirring of the wheels made a pleasant accompaniment to his thoughts. He was enjoying his flight, which signified anything but shame anddisgrace. In his complete absorption, he discovered himself pickinglittle threads from his clothes, like a spider's cobweb, and he observedhow with each minute he drew his breath more freely. Sometimes it seemedto him that the wheels of the tremendous express train were not turningswiftly enough on their axles, and that he himself ought to put his handsto the wheels to hasten on the new health-giving impressions and placethem behind him like thin curtains, so that the partitions dividing himfrom that dangerous, fatal magnet which he had left behind should growdenser and denser. 

In New Haven, where the train halted for a short time, a negro withsandwiches and a boy with newspapers passed through the train. Frederickbought one of the papers, and found the whole disaster of the _Roland_warmed up over again in connection with the sensational reports of thehearing in the City Hall. On that bright winter day his mood was too gayand peaceful to suffer the appalling impressions of the sinking of thevessel and its drowning mass of humanity to revive in his soul. To besure, he had had absolutely no right to escape, and he was still somewhatashamed that the regnant powers had preferred him to so many innocentbrothers and sisters. On that account, there had been a time when hewould have given back his life in a passion of embittered pity andglowing indignation; for there was no sin great enough to justify thathorrible, brutal drowning on the seas and no merit great enough tojustify escape from it. But on this winter day, on his flight from NewYork, his rescue filled him with nothing but sincere gratitude. Captainvon Kessel and the many others that had gone down with the _Roland_ weredead and so were removed from all pain and suffering. Everything aboutFrederick this day breathed an atmosphere of convalescence andreconciliation. 

All the way from New Haven to Meriden he regaled himself with the sketchof Ingigerd's life that appeared in the papers. He could scarcely keepfrom laughing. Lilienfeld displayed a positively poetical, exuberantimagination. Though Ingigerd's father was of German parentage and hermother a French Swiss, Ingigerd figured as the scion of a noble Swedishfamily, and the body of a relative of hers was reported to be resting inthe Riddarholms-Kyrka in Stockholm. The impresario well knew thatAmericans are fascinated by a single drop of royal blood. 

"Poor little thing!" thought Frederick, as he folded up the newspaper. Then, at the sudden realisation of what tremendous import the "poorlittle thing" had until that moment been to him and others, he clappedhis hand to his brow and muttered, "That's over and done with, that'sover and done with, " and swore several oaths at himself. 

XXIV

Peter Schmidt was at the train to meet Frederick, who was the onlypassenger getting off at Meriden. The little station was empty, but nearby was the hurry-scurry of the main street of this country town of abouttwenty-five thousand inhabitants. 

"Now, " said Schmidt, "all's well. No more New York dissipation. We'llsound different chords here in Meriden. My wife sends her regards. Shecould not come to meet you because she had to look after some patients. If you like, we might lunch together and afterwards drive out in a sleighto take a look at the little house I found for you in the country. If itsuits you, you can rent it at a very low figure. In the meantime you cantake a room at our hotel here, which the whole city is proud of. "

"Oh, " said Frederick, "I have a wild longing for solitude. I shouldprefer to spend the very first night beneath my own roof far, far fromthe madding crowd of Meriden. "

"Very well, " responded Schmidt, "the man that owns the house is a goodfriend of mine, a druggist. His name is Lamping, a pleasant Dutchman. He'll be satisfied with any arrangements we make; and if you decideto take the house, everything can be settled with him in fifteenminutes. "

The two men went to the hotel, where they were served with a rathertasteless meal in surroundings comfortable and luxurious far beyondEuropean notions. Schmidt left Frederick alone for a while and in a fewmoments sent a bell-boy to announce that the sleigh was waiting outside. To Frederick's astonishment he found his friend sitting alone in apretty, two-seated sleigh reining in a fiery chestnut. 

"I congratulate you on this tidy little conveyance, " he said. 

Peter laughed and quickly dispelled Frederick's illusion, that theimmaculate little vehicle with the horse and harnessings were his own. Hehad merely hired it without a driver, a frequent practice in America. 

"In fact, " he joked, "I shall be quite content if we get there withoutbeing pitched out into the snow. I confess, I have never in my lifedriven a horse. "

"Ah, " said Frederick with chuckling satisfaction, "it is not for nothingthat my father is a general. Let me drive. "

Frederick's luggage was placed in the sleigh, he jumped in, caught up thereins, the chestnut reared, and off they dashed, with a deafening jingleof the sleigh-bells. Their way lay along the main street, a broad, bustling thoroughfare. 

"Is this the sort of horse they usually have here?" asked Frederick. "Thebeast is positively running away. If we come out of this crowded streetwithout broken limbs, it will be God's doing, not mine. "

"Let him have his way. Every day there are one or more runaways here. What's the difference if it's our turn to-day?"

But Frederick reined the horse in so tightly, that he actually succeededin pulling him up just as the Boston-New York express thundered by on aline of railroad tracks crossing the street not safeguarded by gates orfence. Frederick wondered how it was that a multitude of children, workmen, gentlemen in high hats, ladies in silk dresses, horses, dogs, trucks, and carriages were not mangled to a pulp and dashed against thewalls of the houses lining the tracks. The horse plunged and reared andshot forward over the rails behind the last coach, sending clods of iceand snow flying in Frederick's and Peter's faces. 

"The devil!" snorted Frederick. "Now for the first time I observe thatform of madness which is specifically American. If you fall under thewheels, you fall under the wheels. If you want to take a drive, be yourown coachman. If you break your bones, you break your bones. If you breakyour neck, you break your neck. "

Farther along on the same highway Frederick for the first time saw anelectric street car, then still unknown in Europe. The brilliant sparkingat the meeting of the trolley and the overhead wire was to him a new, stimulating phenomenon. The posts holding up the wire were all shapes, thick and slender, bowed and slanting, so that the whole made apromiscuous impression, though the coaches were of a pleasing shape andglided along with great rapidity. 

They had passed the more frequented and dangerous section of the citywithout an accident and had reached the open country. The houses grewlower and farther apart. Before the chestnut with his jingling bells layan endless stretch of unblocked roadway, with excellent tracks for thesleigh worn into the snow. The valiant American could speed to hisheart's content. 

"How strange!" thought Frederick. "Here I am riding in a sleigh anddriving a horse, things I have not done since I was a boy. "

Stories of sports and incidents that he had not thought of for ten yearsor more occurred to him. How his father's accounts of hunting expeditionsand sleighing mishaps had set them all laughing when the family wascosily gathered together in one room on a winter evening. 

During that brisk, refreshing drive Frederick's heart wasrejuvenated. The happiest years of his boyhood were as vivid to him asyesterday--thrilling, romantic rides by night, when the same sound ofsleigh-bells scared the silence of sleeping forests and filled the boy'ssoul with pictures of midnight attacks, romantic murders, and strangedevilish phantoms. In the dazzling brilliance of the snowy fields, breathing in the pure, bracing air, mere existence became unspeakablebliss. Sitting there in that dainty sleigh Frederick was inclined to lookon life as a pleasure drive. 

Suddenly he turned pale and had to hand the reins over to Peter Schmidt. In the jingling of the sleigh-bells his ear caught something like theinsistent hammering ring of electric bells. It was an illusion of hishearing, but it filled him with rising horror, and a shiver went throughhis whole body. By the time Peter Schmidt, who instantly observed thechange in his friend, had brought the horse to a stop, Frederick hadalready mastered his nervous attack. He did not admit it was the sinkingof the _Roland_ that had unexpectedly announced its presence again. Hemerely said that the noise of the bells had irritated his nerves beyondendurance. Fortunately, the spotless expanse of Lake Hanover was alreadyclose by and the little house on the other shore already visible. So thetwo men descended from the sleigh. Peter Schmidt, in silence, removed thebells from the harness and hitched the horse to the branch of a baretree. They crossed the frozen lake on foot, making for the solitary houseunder its heavy covering of snow. 

Peter ascended the front door steps, which resembled great bolsters ofsnow, and opened the door. 

"To judge by the way it looks now, the house is scarcely habitable inwinter. "

"Oh, yes it is, " Frederick declared. 

Having been built for summer use only, it had no cellar. On the groundfloor there was a little kitchen and two other rooms; in the attic abedroom as large as the two down-stairs rooms together. In the attic roomFrederick immediately decided to build his nest for an indeterminatelength of time. He scouted Peter's considerations in regard to householdservice. 

"I feel, " he declared, "as if this house had been waiting for me, and Ifor the house. "

XXV

The very next day he took up his abode in his lonely refuge on LakeHanover, which he alternately dubbed his Diogenes tub, his Uncle Tom'sCabin, and his retort. It was no Diogenes tub, because the two friendsbrought wood and anthracite coal for a little American stove in thebedroom, which gave quite a good deal of heat and made a cosey appearancewith the glow of the burning coal visible; and because the kitchen andpantry contained everything that is necessary for life, and a littlemore. Frederick refused to have anybody share his quarters with him orhelp with the housework. As he said, he wanted to settle his accounts andtake his trial balance, and the presence of another person might bedisturbing to that process. 

After Peter Schmidt disappeared in the distance and the sound of thesleigh-bells had died away and Frederick felt he was quite alone in thatwide American landscape wrapped in the night's darkness, it was a suprememoment for him. He returned into the house, closed the door and listened. He heard the crackling of the wood in the small kitchen stove. Taking thecandle that had been left standing on one of the lower steps in the hall, he went up-stairs, where the warmth and the dusky glow of his littleAmerican stove rejoiced him. He lit a lamp, and after arranging histoilet articles on an unusually long, bare dresser, he settled himselfbeside the lamp in a comfortable bamboo chair. He was filled with amysterious sense of rich, deep delight. 

He was alone. Outside, lay the clear, silent winter's night, the samethat he had known in the home of his childhood. The things he hadhitherto experienced were no more, or as if they never had been. Hishome, his parents, his wife, his children, the girl that had drawn himacross the ocean, everything that had happened to him on his trip werenothing more in his soul than magic lantern pictures. 

"Is life, " Frederick asked himself, "meant to be nothing more thanmaterial for dreams? So much is certain, my present condition is the sortthat leaves an everlasting effect. We should not be unsociable, but wehave still less right to leave this state uncultivated, which is thebasic state of man's personality, in which he is most natural andundisturbed and stands face to face with the mystery of life as though itwere a dream. "

During the past months, he had led a life full of incidents of theextremest contrasts. He had been alarmed, excited, menaced. His ownanguish had been submerged in the anguish of others, and their pangs hadonly increased his own. From the ashes of a dead love, the flames ofanother passionate illusion had flared up. Frederick had been driven, pursued, lured on, led about in the world, without a will of his own, like a puppy on a strap--without a will of his own and with his sensesdeparted. Now at last his senses had returned. And the senses return whenthe life that has been lived in an unconscious state becomes material fordreams to the mind in a conscious state. 

Frederick took a sheet of paper, dipped a new American pen in a newinkwell of fresh ink, and wrote: "Life: Material for Dreams. "

He rose and again went about arranging his Robinson Crusoe household tosuit his fancy. He piled up books that he had got in New York, littleReclams and other volumes, among them a copy of Schleiermacher'stranslation of Plato, which he had borrowed from Peter Schmidt. In frontof an old Dutch sofa covered in leather, which Lamping, the druggist, had brought over from Leyden, his birthplace, stood a large, roundtable. Frederick covered the table with a green cloth and arranged thelong-stemmed roses that the artists had given him in plain glass vases, placing Miss Burns's roses by themselves. Before Peter Schmidt had left, he and Frederick had taken a cup of coffee together. Frederick now washedand cleared away the utensils, loaded a revolver that Schmidt had lenthim, and placed it beside the inkstand on his writing table. Next he tookfrom his trunk a more peaceable instrument, a Zeiss microscope, examinedall its parts, and set it up. It was the microscope that he had selectedyears ago in Jena for his friend, Peter, when he was leaving for America. Here was a remarkable meeting with the old instrument. 

There were more things that Frederick had to do. He had to take apart aseaman's clock, put it together again and hang it on the wall. It was anantique that he had come across that very day and secured at a low pricealong with some furniture. To his joy the old grandfather began to tickaway at a proper, dignified pace on the wall at the foot of the bed. There it was to remain in its brown case about three feet long until, as Frederick inwardly vowed, he would return it to its home in Europe, Schleswig-Holstein, for which it was pining. When Frederick lay on hisbed, he could see the yellow brass pendulum gleam back and forth behinda small glass door. The dial was a curiosity. It was painted in garishcolors in a primitive style and represented a chubby-cheeked sun wearingthe Island of Heligoland as a crown. Below the face, little metalsailing vessels connected with the clockwork swayed back and forth inthe same sober rhythm as the pendulum. This was designed to make thetempest-tossed seafarer doubly sensible of the comforts of a solidhearth. 

"When was it, " Frederick pondered, "that I listened to Mr. Garry'scutting remarks, Mr. Samuelson's unsuccessful attack, and Lilienfeld'swild sally against Puritan intolerance--a low, hypocritical battleostensibly fought for the salvation of a soul; in reality nothing morethan the clapperclawing of crows over a helpless hare. When was it? Itmust have been years ago. But no, it was only last night that Ingigerdappeared in public for the first time. So it cannot have been longer agothan day before yesterday. "

He had already received her first letter. He had laughed over itheartily, and yet it had moved him. She was furious and complainedbitterly of his breach of faith. In one and the same breath, she said shehad been dreadfully deceived in him and had seen through him the verymoment she laid eyes on him when he came up to speak to her after herdance in Berlin. In one sentence she tore his character to shreds, in thenext sentence urged him to return. 

"I celebrated a tremendous triumph to-day. The audience lost their heads. After the performance Lord ---- came up to congratulate me. He is ahandsome young Englishman, who is living over here because he had afalling out with his father. But when the old man dies, he will inheritthe title of duke and millions. "

"This story, " Frederick thought, "is either a true story or a concoction. If a concoction, then I have reason to assume that the little girl wantsto make me jealous and so has not lost interest in me. But the story neednot be an invention, either wholly or in part. For if an invention, itwill undoubtedly become a fact within three or four days, or, at theutmost, within a week. Some rich rascal will come along and buy her. "

Frederick shrugged his shoulders. He no longer felt the slightest impulseto be the girl's protector, knight and saviour, or the faintestsolicitude for her probable fate. 

The next morning he awoke in a shiver, though the stove had retained someheat and the sun was shining into the room brightly. He took his goldwatch from his pocket--a possession that had escaped drowning withhim--and ascertained that his pulse was beating more than a hundred timesa minute, which is too much for a healthy man. But he paid no attentionto his condition, got up, washed all over in cold water, dressed, andprepared his breakfast, by no means feeling like an invalid. Neverthelesshe was aware he ought to be cautious, knowing that now, when the tensionand excitement had relaxed, his body might have to confess to itsconsumption of capital and file a petition in bankruptcy. Sometimes, without a warning to one's strength, the body overcomes the severesthardships as if the thing were mere child's play; and all goes well solong as the stimulated body is in motion. It works on its surplus energy, and as soon as the will and the tension relax, it collapses. 

XXVI

Shortly before ten o'clock Frederick was in his friend's consultationroom. The walk to Meriden on the brisk winter day had done him good. 

"How did you sleep?" asked Schmidt. "You know, you superstitious peoplemaintain that what you dream the first night in a strange place will cometrue. "

"I hope not, " said Frederick. "My first night was rather insignificant, and things passed helter-skelter through my brain. "

He said nothing of a dream he had had, in which he heard the ringing ofthe electric bells on the _Roland_. Though he fought against theimpression, it obstinately transported him back to those horrid momentsof the shipwreck. Little by little this illusion of his hearing hadbecome Frederick's cross. Sometimes he feared it might be a species ofaura, which he, as a physician, knew not infrequently announces an attackof severe illness. 

The consultation rooms of the two physicians were separated by thewaiting-room, which they used in common. Mrs. Schmidt, whom Frederick hadmet the day before, came over and, greeting him parenthetically, askedher husband to help her with the examination of one of her patients, awoman of about twenty-seven, who shortly before had married a workmanholding a good position in one of the Meriden factories. The womancomplained of an upset stomach. Mrs. Schmidt suspected cancer of thestomach. 

Both Schmidt and his wife asked Frederick to join them in theexamination. They found the patient smiling as she lay stretched on thetable. Her smile changed to an expression of astonishment when she sawthe two gentlemen. Mrs. Schmidt introduced Frederick as a famous Germanphysician. 

"I just spoiled my stomach a little, " the woman, who was pretty and welldressed, said in excuse for the trouble she was giving. "My husband willlaugh at me and scold me if he hears I ran to a doctor. "

Frederick and Peter confirmed Mrs. Schmidt's diagnosis, and Mrs. Schmidttold the candidate for the grave, who was so gay and unsuspecting, thatshe might have to undergo a slight operation. She inquired kindly for herhusband and her child, who had come into the world three months beforewith her help, and the woman gave ready answers in the best of spirits. Peter took it upon himself to acquaint her husband the very same day withher condition. 

During the next week, Peter drew his friend more and more into hispractice. Frederick found a certain grim attraction in it. It was astrange treadmill, set in a world of everlasting suffering and dying, in a subterranean stratum of life, having nothing in common with thatdeceptive existence of a comparatively happy superficiality which he hadbeen able to lead in New York. The Schmidts were doing hard servicerequiring the utmost self-renunciation. They received no greatercompensation than enabled them to obtain sufficient food, clothing andshelter to be able to continue in that service. Though Peter Schmidt wasnot a Socialist, his practice was almost exclusively confined to theworking class. Most of the two doctors' clients were poor immigrantswith large families, who toiled laboriously in the Britannia-metalfactories to keep the wolf from the door. Their fees were extremely low, and in half the cases Peter, true to his views of life, did not collectthem. 

The section of the city in which their office was located was dismalbeyond parallel. A factory with its offices took up a whole block. ThoughFrederick was well acquainted with the corrosive sublimate and carbolicacid smell of consultation rooms, he nevertheless had difficulty inconcealing the depressing effect the Schmidts' home had upon him. It wasdark and gloomy, and the street noises came in directly from the windows. In Germany, a city of thirty thousand inhabitants is dead. This Americancity of twenty-five thousand inhabitants raced and rushed, rang bells, rattled and clattered and raved like mad. Nobody had a moment's time. Everybody hurried past everybody else. No question of joy in life here. If a man lived in Meriden, he lived there to work. If a man worked inMeriden, he worked for the sake of the dollars that had the power finallyto free him from that environment and introduce him to a period ofenjoyment. Most of the people, especially the German and Polish workmenand tradesmen, saw in the life they were compelled to lead a temporary, provisional existence, a condition the bitterness of which wasintensified when return to the home country was cut off by sins committedin the past or by expulsion and banishment. From psychologic interest, Frederick had entered into conversation with patients in the waiting-roomand had already learned of sad cases of men having been ejected fromtheir country and left without a home. 

Mrs. Schmidt was a Swiss. She had a broad German head, straight, finelychiselled nose, and a figure like the figures of the women of Basel thatHolbein painted. 

"She is much too good for you, " Frederick teased Peter. "She ought to bethe wife of a Dürer, or still better, the wife of the wealthy RatsherrWillibald Pirkheimer of Nuremberg. She was born to preside over acomfortable patrician household, with closets and chests full of linenand heavy silk and brocade garments. She should go to sleep every nighton a bed three yards high covered with silk spreads. She should havetwice as many hats and fur garments as the town council allows thewealthy. Instead of that, poor soul, she studied medicine, and you lether run around to every Tom, Dick, and Harry with her little bag of illomen. "

As a matter of fact, the ugliness of her surroundings and thestrenuousness of her occupation, which opened up no vista of hope andusually robbed her of four nights' sleep in a week, had made of Mrs. Schmidt an embittered person suffering from homesickness. What aggravatedmatters was that she was dominated by an obstinate sense of duty and thatdogged insistence on saving characteristic of the Swiss. Since herparents' letters strengthened her in her notions, she was not to beshaken in her resolve not to return home until after a certain sum hadbeen laid aside, and of this there was no immediate prospect. WheneverPeter, saddened to see his wife withering away from overwork andnostalgia, proposed that they return to Europe, she would become veryhard, cutting and bitter. But when she had a free hour in which to talkto Frederick and her husband of the Swiss mountains and mountain climbs, she revived visibly. There, in the musty office, or in the physicians'private rooms, arose the glorious vision of Sentis, in the face of whichMrs. Schmidt had been rocked in her cradle. The conversation, of course, turned on Scheffel's "Ekkehard, " the chamois reserve, Lake Constance, andSt. Gall. They recalled memories of a Rigi tour, a tour up from LakeLucerne at Fluelen to Göschenen, from Göschenen to Andermatt, fromAndermatt up over the Rhone glacier and down to the wonderful GrimselHospice, with its clear icy-cold lake, which lies in a rocky funnel, likethe entrance to the kingdom of shades. One looks about to see if Charon'sraft is not waiting. Mrs. Schmidt said she would rather be the dirtiestshepherdess on Sentis than a physician in Meriden. 

"Very well, " cried Peter, "we will cross the ocean again and settle inBerne or Zürich. " As always when Peter Schmidt made this proposition, Mrs. Schmidt's face took on an expression of hard, hostile determination. It did not escape Frederick's notice. 

Everything Mrs. Schmidt said testified to her humanity and her clear, serious, sympathetic insight. What a pity she had forgotten how to laugh!What a pity she was not Ratsherr Willibald Pirkheimer's stately, respected wife, surrounded by his healthy children! Her broad shouldersand hips, her long, thick hair required the soft curves of a bodyblooming in happiness, sunlight and wealth. As it was, her face, thoughshe was only twenty-seven years old, was fearfully worn and anxious, andher shabby clothes hung carelessly on her angular figure. Nevertheless, Frederick perceived the beauty even in her neglected appearance. 

Naturally Peter Schmidt, the blond Friesian, also suffered under theseconditions, but not to such an extent as to be shaken in his peculiar, deep-seated idealism. It was his idealism, never for an instant forsakinghim, that raised him above all momentary hardships. This very fact, itseemed to Frederick, only added to his wife's vexation. From certainremarks of hers, he could tell that it would have been more pleasing toher had Peter cared more for his own advancement and less for theadvancement of humanity at large. No man possessed firmer belief than hein the triumph of good, and no man rejected religious beliefs withgreater horror. He was one of those who disavow the Garden of Eden anddeclare the next world to be a myth, yet are firmly convinced that theearth may be developed and will develop into a paradise and that manmay be developed and will develop into the divinity of that paradise. Frederick, too, had an inclination for Utopias, and his friend'snotions had a revivifying effect upon him. When accompanying him onhis professional visits, or skating on the little Lake of Hanover, orconversing with him in his Diogenes tub, hope came back to him; but whenhis friend left, hope forsook him. 

But Peter Schmidt was no vain Utopist. He had a solid basis for hisideals, and endeavoured to realise them in practice. Frederick knew noone so well versed in the natural sciences, political economy, andmedicine; and since he also had very accurate knowledge of the geographyand history of the important countries, his survey of politicalconditions was enviably broad. When twenty years old, he had upheld thepan-Germanic ideal. Now, at thirty, he wrote anonymous editorials, whichreceived much attention, advocating the coalition of America, Germany andEngland, while strongly objecting to the Russian policy in Germany thatoriginated with Bismarck. The theme that the friends chiefly discussed inthose days may be summed up in the names of Marx and Darwin, or eitherof them. In Peter Schmidt a sort of adjustment, or rather fusing, of thefundamental tendencies of those two great personalities was in process, though the Christ-Marxian principle of the protection of the weaker gaveway to the natural principle of the protection of the stronger; and thismirrors the result of the profoundest revolution that has ever takenplace in the history of mankind. 

"If, with that tough Friesian skull of yours, " Frederick once said tohim, "you succeed for twenty years in propagating the idea of artificialselection as applied to man, and if the idea of race hygiene, of ateleologic improvement of human types is sufficiently spread, it willundoubtedly be fruitful of practical results some day. That is, a fresh, healthy, vigorous stream of blood will flow through our veins and tendmore and more to counteract the increasing marasmus that is enfeeblingthe race. "

XXVII

The first week Frederick regularly took his midday meal with the twophysicians in a boarding-house. Towards dusk he always returned to hisDiogenes tub, usually on foot. 

The next week he did not visit his friends so often, why, he himself didnot know. He slept badly. Again and again the electric bells haunted hisdreams. Even in his waking hours, he easily took fright, a condition towhich in former times he had been a perfect stranger. If a sleigh withbells actually did pass the house, he was sometimes so alarmed that hetrembled. That he should hear his own breathing in the silence of hisroom did not surprise him; but it perturbed him strangely to listen toit. Sometimes he had chills. As a physician he kept a clinicalthermometer, and on several occasions ascertained that he had sometemperature. These circumstances disquieted him. He seemed to be livingin an atmosphere producing mild shocks and alarms, which he tried in vainto dispel. Once, when he was starting off to lunch with Peter Schmidt, a disinclination to leave his room and lack of appetite kept him back. Another time it was complete exhaustion that turned him homeward againwhen he was half way on the road to Meriden. He could scarcely draghimself back to the house. His friends never learned anything of thesesecret experiences of his. It did not seem odd to them if now and then heshould prefer to remain alone under his own roof. 

Over him came creeping a strange life, growing ever stranger. The world, the sky, the landscape, the country, everything that fell within hisvision, even the human beings he met changed. They moved away. Theiraffairs took on a remote, alien character. Indeed, his own affairsunderwent a change. They had been taken from him. Somebody had led themaside for a time. Later, perhaps, he would find them again, provided thegoal of his altered condition remained the same as his former goal. 

At length Peter Schmidt became observant of his friend's retiredexistence. When he expressed his solicitude, Frederick repulsed himsomewhat brusquely. Even his friend had grown remote. He betrayed nothingof that oppressive atmosphere of alarm in which he was enclosed. Curiously, there was a secret fascination in it, which he was loath toshare with any one and so have it disturbed. 

On a starless, pitch-black night, he was sitting, as usual, in his lonelyhouse at his desk beside his lamp, when it seemed to him that someone wasbending over his shoulder. He was holding his pen in his hand over a pileof disordered manuscript pages, absorbed in profound thought. He startedand said:

"Rasmussen, where do you come from?" He turned and actually saw Rasmussensitting reading at the foot of his bed wearing the Lloyd cap in which hehad come from his trip around the world. 

"How tremendously interesting!" he thought, and carefully studied theapparition from head to foot. He could see where the stuff of his jacketand the lining joined. He could distinguish the buttons on his waistcoat, and noted that the last one was off. Rasmussen was holding a clinicalthermometer in his hand with the manner and attitude of a nurse who ispassing unoccupied time at the patient's bed reading. 

Frederick noticed that solitude heightens the visionary character ofexistence. Without a companion, a man is always condemned to intercoursewith spirits. In his hermitage Frederick had merely to think of someoneto see him in person, talking and acting as in life. This inflammabilityof his imagination did not alarm him. He had given George Rasmussen'sapparition cool, careful observation. Nevertheless he was aware that hisspiritual life had entered a new phase. 

Before going to bed he went down-stairs to lock up the house. To hisgreat astonishment, as he opened the door of one of the rooms to closethe shutters, he saw by the light of his candle another phantom asdistinct as the first. He congratulated himself upon no longer having todepend upon mere hearsay in regard to this psycho-pathologic phenomenon. At the table four men were sitting playing cards. One of them was lookingon. The men had rather coarse red faces, were smoking cigarettes anddrinking beer. They seemed to be business men. Suddenly Frederick clappedhis hand to his forehead. From the brand and the bottle, he recognisedthe beer that had been served on the _Roland_, and these men were thoseeternal drinkers and card players who had been in everybody's mouth onthe _Roland_. Shaking his head over the remarkable fact that they shouldbe sitting in his own house, he returned up-stairs to his warm room. 

The daytime, in which he did a great deal of out-of-door work, eventhough by himself, had a wholesome effect upon him and brought him backto reality. On the whole, his opinion of his own condition remainedsound. Nevertheless, as the sickness came creeping over him stealthily, he failed to notice it. It seemed natural to him that he should reckonwith the apparition of Rasmussan sitting at the foot of his bed andthe four men playing skat in one of his down-stairs rooms as withrealities. In the instinct to counteract the physical crisis, which in adull way he felt was approaching, he resorted to exercise. But even whileskating on the lake, which he himself had swept clean of snow, dreams, hefound, gradually threw their veil over him, and he associated with menand things that were not of the lake or of its snowy, solitary banks. 

Many Indian legends are connected with the lake and the little stream, the Luinnipiac, which empties into it. One day Frederick skated miles upthe stream to follow it to its source. On the way he was accompaniedby a hovering shadow, the corporeality of which he never for a momentdoubted. It resembled the stoker Zickelmann who had died on the _Roland_, not the Zickelmann that he had seen lying stretched out a corpse in thestoke-hole, but the Zickelmann he had seen in his dream. 

The shade of the stoker told him that five engine-men, thirty-sixstokers, and thirty-eight coal-passers had sunk with the _Roland_, anumber far greater than Frederick had thought. 

"The harbour where you landed in your dreams, " he told Frederick, "wasthe Atlantis, a submerged continent. The Azores, the Madeira Islands, andthe Canary Islands are the remnants of that continent. "

When Frederick found himself leaning over a hole such as foxes make, seriously hunting for a way to the Toilers of the Light, he came to hissenses and laughed at himself. 

From day to day, aye, from hour to hour, the creations of his disorderedbrain assumed more and more fantastic forms. Rasmussen was always sittingon his bed, the four passengers of the _Roland_ were always playing skatin the lower room, and the sick man went about his house conversing inwhispers with all sorts of invisible men and things, unconscious forhours at a time of where he was. Sometimes he thought he was in the housein which he lived when a practising physician, at other times, in thehome of his parents. As a rule, he was on the deck, or in the saloons ofthe _Roland_, crossing the ocean to America. 

"Why, " he said to himself, shaking his head, "after all, the _Roland_ didnot sink. "

After midnight he would get up from bed and take the wrapping froma mirror hanging on the wall, which he had covered up because he wasnot fond of mirrors. He would hold the candle close to the glass andfrighten himself by making grimaces, which distorted his featuresbeyond recognition. Then he would talk to himself, asking questions andlistening to answers, and hearing questions and giving answers. Some ofthis was utterly irrational, some perfectly rational. It showed that hehad investigated one of the obscurest, most awful psychic problems, thesickness of men who are haunted by their doubles. He jotted down a note:

"The mirror has made man out of the animal. Without the mirror, no I andno you. Without an I and a you, no thought. All fundamental concepts aretwins, beautiful and ugly, good and evil, hard and soft, sorrow and joy, hate and love, cowardice and courage, jest and earnest, and so on. "

The image in the mirror said to Frederick:

"You have divided yourself into you and me before you could distinguishthe separate characteristics of your being, which acts only as a whole. That is, you divided yourself before you could divide yourself. Untilyou saw yourself in a mirror, you saw nothing of the world. "

"It is good to be alone with my image in the mirror, " thought Frederick. "I don't need all those distressing concave and convex mirrors whichother people are. This condition in which I am is the original condition, and in the original condition one escapes the distortion to which otherpeople's words and glances subject one. The best thing is to be silent orto speak with oneself, that is, with oneself in the mirror. "

Frederick kept this up until one evening, when he was returning from awalk in the neighbourhood, he opened the door of his room and saw himselfsitting at his desk. He stood still and rubbed his eyes, but the mancontinued to sit there, though Frederick tried to drive him away with asharp look as a ray of light dispels a cloud of fog. He was filled withhorror, and at the same time a wave of hate swept over him. 

"You or I!" he cried, quickly grasping his revolver and holding it to theface of his double. Hate confronted hate. It was not twin love and hate, each confronting the other. 

The mirror had been an illusion. 

XXVIII

Peter Schmidt had a serious operation to perform for a fibroid tumour. Knowing that Frederick had witnessed Kocher perform the same operation inBerne and had repeatedly been successful with it himself, he called uponhim for help. The patient was a native Yankee farmer, forty-five years ofage. His son, a lad of nineteen, drove out in a sleigh to fetchFrederick. 

At the appointed time Frederick entered the office, very pale, butoutwardly calm. Nobody suspected what a tremendous amount of will powerhe had to summon to keep his self-control. Like a boy saying his A B C's, he kept repeating to himself:

"I am Frederick von Kammacher. This is Peter Schmidt. This is his wife, and this is the patient. "

When he looked about the room, he saw other persons, the shades of thosehe had met within the last few days and on his trip across the ocean. Buthe pulled himself together and swore to himself--even in the moment ofgreatest danger he had not prayed--and saw that the unbidden guests inthe room were also swearing. 

The farmer was sitting in the waiting-room. The physicians consulted withone another, and Peter Schmidt and his wife urged Frederick to do theoperating. His head was a-whirl. He was hot, he trembled, but his friendsdetected nothing. He asked for a large glass of wine and went about hispreparations without speaking. When Mrs. Schmidt brought the wine, hedrank it down in one gulp. 

Mrs. Schmidt led the old farmer in. They had agreed that she was to dothe washing and administer the anæsthetic. She adjusted him on theoperating table, bared his body, and washed it thoroughly. Then PeterSchmidt shaved the hair away from his armpit. The physicians exchangedonly brief words and signs. It was a matter of life and death. Successhung by a thread. 

The torpor and composure of a somnambulist had come upon Frederick, whowith his shirt sleeves rolled up was ceaselessly washing his arms andhands and brushing his finger nails, all at the bidding of a will not hisown. He was acting in a state of will-lessness, of auto-suggestion. Yetit was with perfect lucidity and due deliberation that he selected thenecessary instruments from the doctor's closet. 

The anæsthetic was taking effect. Peter handed the instruments toFrederick, who once again carefully and coolly examined the morbid spot, found that the tumour might already have progressed too far, butnevertheless, with a firm, sure touch, cut into the mass of living flesh. He kept cursing at the insufficient light. The room was on the groundfloor with the windows giving directly upon the main street with itsheavy traffic. Contrary to expectation, the tumour lay deep, extendingbetween the large nerve bundles and blood vessels in the inner portion ofthe brachial plexus. It had to be removed with a scalpel, a very ticklishoperation because of the proximity to the thin-walled great vein, whichat the least incision sucks in air and produces instant death. Buteverything went well. The large hollow wound was stuffed with antisepticgauze, and at the end of three-quarters of an hour the farmer, with thehelp of his son, was carried unconscious into a hospital room on theother side of the hall and laid in bed. 

Immediately after the operation, Frederick said he would have totelegraph to Miss Burns, who intended to visit him the next day, tellingher not to come. But the words were scarcely out of his mouth, when a boybrought a cable message from Europe for him. He opened it, said not aword, and asked the farmer's son to drive him straight back home. Heshook hands with his friends and took leave without referring to thecontents of the message. 

The drive in the sleigh beside the farmer's son through the snowylandscape was very different from the drive he had taken with Peteron his arrival two weeks before. This time he himself was not driving;what was worse was the absence of the earlier feeling that he hadregained mastery over himself and renewed joy in life. He feared his lastmoment had come. The country he was in, the place he was driving to, thefact that he was sitting in a sleigh, these things he realised onlyintermittently. Though the sun was shining in a cloudless sky upon adazzling white earth, he felt for minutes at a time that he was beingdrawn forward into utter darkness to the accompaniment of sleigh-bells. The farmer boy noticed nothing, except that the famous German physicianwas taciturn and extremely pale. 

Frederick had never been in greater need of all his will power. But forhis iron self-control, he would have gone stark mad and jumped with ashout from the sleigh dashing along at full speed. He knew a telegram waslying crumpled in the right-hand pocket of his fur coat; but each time hetried to recall what was in the telegram, it seemed that a hammer keptknocking at his head, dulling his senses. The grateful country boy hadno inkling that close beside him was sitting a man who had to exertsuperhuman strength not to succumb to an attack of raving madness. As amatter of fact, the boy was in danger of a maniac's clutching him by thethroat and drawing him into a life and death struggle. 

At his door Frederick shook hands with the farmer's son and groped hisway into the house through midnight darkness. The boy's few words ofthanks went down in a rushing and roaring of vast black waters. Thesleigh-bells began to jingle again and never ceased, turning into thatinfernal ringing that had become firmly fixed in Frederick's head sincethe shipwreck. 

"I am dying, " he thought when he reached his room. "I am dying, or elseI am going crazy. " The clock on the wall came into his vision and recededagain. He saw his bed and clutched for the post. 

"Don't fall, " said Rasmussen, who was still sitting there with thethermometer in his hand. 

But no, this time it was not Rasmussen. It was Mr. Rinck, with his yellowcat in his lap, the man who had been in charge of the mail on the_Roland_. 

"What are you doing here, Mr. Rinck?" Frederick roared. 

The next moment he was at the window in the light of the dazzling sun, which radiated, not light, but raven-black darkness, like a hole in theheavens pouring out night. The wind suddenly began to moan and howlabout the house. It whistled derisively through the door cracks, like thejeers and taunts of a mob of rowdies. Or was it Mr. Rinck's cat miauing?Or was it children whimpering in the hall? Frederick groped about. Thehouse quivered and was thrown from its foundations. It swayed to and fro. The walls began to snap and crack like wickerwork. The door flew open. The rain and hail whipped in. A sudden gust of wind lifted Frederick fromhis feet. Somebody cried "Danger!" The electric bells raged and mingledwith the voices of the storm. 

"It's not so! It's a lie! The devil is hoaxing you. You will never setfoot on American soil. Your hour is come. You are at the Judgment seat. You are going to perdition. "

Suddenly silence set in. Something unheard-of was about to happen, something far worse to see perhaps than to experience. Frederick wantedto save himself. He tried to gather his things together, but he had nohat. He could not find his trousers, his coat, or his boots. 

Outside, the moon was shining. In the bright light, the storm was raging. Suddenly, like a wall broad as the horizon, the sea came rolling up. Theocean had risen over both its banks. 

"Atlantis! The hour has come, " thought Frederick. "Our earth is to besubmerged like Atlantis of old. "

He ran down-stairs. On the steps he caught up his three children andrealised it was they who all the time had been whining and whimpering inthe hall. He carried the smallest one on his arm and led the other two bythe hand. At the front door, they saw the dreadful tidal wave sweepingnearer and nearer in the ashen light of the moon, carrying along theship, which was a steamer rolling and pounding fearfully in the waters. The whistles were blowing frightfully, sometimes in a prolonged blare, sometimes in abrupt toots, one after the other. 

"It's the _Roland_ with Captain von Kessel, " Frederick explained to thechildren. "I know it. I was on the ship. I myself went down with thatsuperb steamer. " He heard shots being fired from the struggling vessel. Rockets hissed up towards the moon and burst in the sombre grey of dawn, dazzling his eyes. "All's over, " he said to the children. "All thosefine, brave men are doomed to rot in the water. "

And picking up on his arm now one of the children, now another, andlosing them and finding them again, he began to run to save their livesfrom the flood. He ran, he raced, he jumped, he fell down. He protestedagainst having to sink after all, though he had already been rescued. Heswore, he ran, he fell, and scrambled to his feet, and ran and ran, witha hideous fear in his breast, a senseless fear such as he had neverbefore experienced. When the wave overtook him, fear changed intosoothing peace and calm. 

XXIX

The next morning, with the same train by which Frederick had come, MissBurns arrived in Meriden. She went directly to Peter Schmidt's office toinquire for him, having expected to find him awaiting her at the station. Peter told her of the operation Frederick had performed the day before. 

"It was a mighty difficult job, I tell you, " said Peter Schmidt, "and hecovered himself with glory. He intended immediately afterwards to sendyou a telegram telling you not to come. But just as he was about to go, he himself received a cablegram. "

"Well, now that I am here, " said Miss Burns in her sprightly way, "Ishall not allow myself to be turned down in such an offhand manner. Idon't intend to visit Rome without seeing the Pope. "

Three quarters of an hour later the two-seated sleigh drawn by thespirited chestnut, with whose peculiarities they now knew better how todeal, reached Uncle Tom's Cabin on Lake Hanover. Peter, who was anxiousto bring Frederick news of the farmer and tell him he had not developedfever, drove Miss Burns out. They were amazed at the condition in whichthey found things, and, as they mounted the stairs, freely exchangedcriticisms without lowering their voices. The door to Frederick's roomwas slightly ajar. They walked in. He was lying stretched on his bed, still wearing the fur coat in which he had left the office after theoperation. He was unconscious, mumbling in a delirium, evidently veryill. Peter Schmidt picked up the cablegram lying on the floor. He andMiss Burns felt that in the circumstances they were justified in learningits contents. What they read was:

 Dear Frederick, news from Jena. In spite of the greatest care Angèle passed away yesterday afternoon. Take the inevitable with composure. Keep yourself well for your loving old parents. 

For a week Frederick hovered between life and death. The powers ofdarkness, perhaps, had never grappled for him so greedily. For a week hiswhole body was like something about which tongues of fire lick and roar, ready to consume it and send it up into the air, like a puff of smoke. 

Peter Schmidt, of course, brought all his medical skill to his friend'sservice. Mrs. Schmidt, too, did whatever she could for him. Miss Burnsfelt it was predestination, not chance, that had brought her to his sideat so critical a moment, and instantly decided not to leave until he wasentirely out of danger. She engaged a woman attendant and a man to go onerrands by day and night. 

The terrible frenzy in which Frederick had been the night before wasapparent from the way in which things had been thrown about. The glass ofhis seaman's clock on the wall was broken, and dishes were shivered tobits. Peter Schmidt's diagnosis was typhoid fever. The first two days andnights he did not leave Frederick's side, except when his wife took hisplace. The paroxysms repeated themselves. Memories of the shipwreck stilltormented him, and at certain hours he would tell his attendants, whom hedid not recognise, to look in a corner of the room, where, he said, ablack spider, the size of a bowling ball, was lying in wait for him. Peter and his wife with extreme caution applied all the means at aphysician's disposal to reduce his temperature; but the third day passed, and still it did not fall below 105. 8°. Peter grew graver and graver. Finally, however, the fever curve showed declinations, and by the end ofa week its downward course remained pretty constant. 

Frederick looked like a pale, empty, incombustible husk, inside of whicha great auto-da-fé had taken place. What a wild orgy salamander-likecreatures must have been holding behind his sweaty forehead. Countlesstimes, by the most different methods, Angèle murdered Ingigerd andIngigerd Angèle. His father, the general, fought a pistol duel with Mr. Garry, Captain von Kessel acting as second and measuring the distance. Doctor Wilhelm kept rising again and again from beneath the raging chaosin his soul. Ten or twenty times he brought him a human embryo wrapped inpaper, and said:

"To live is good. Not to live is better. "

Hans Füllenberg had to leave his hiding-place and join in the gruesome, grotesque dance to death. Sometimes it seemed as if a puff of burning airswept all these figures into an oven to destroy them forever. 

Something like the dizzy movement of the sea kept tossing up and down. Hewas carried aloft--his consciousness left him. He sank deep down--againhis consciousness left him. He flew--he lost his sense of ponderosity. High on the crest of this cosmic, immaterial swell, he sufferedconstantly from nausea. In his lucid moments he said to himself:

"The ocean does not wish me to be saved. It kept me alive just to displaythe full extent of its powers and draw me down from my security. "

He had dreams of tremendous cosmic proportions, showing he had images ofa might and power far exceeding the sane, normal strength of conception, with no precedent for them in experience. Even when the life-boat withits small load of castaways, shrieking, praying, or unconscious, wasdancing on the great broad swells of the heavy, mineral ocean, Frederickhad had no such feeling of the microscopic minuteness of his personality. 

At the end of the first week he recognised Miss Burns and began tounderstand what she had done for him. He smiled with difficulty and madesigns with his hand lying limply on the bedspread. 

It was not until the end of the second week, the twenty-sixth of March, that the fever left him entirely. He spoke, slept, had vivid dreams. In atired voice and sometimes with a touch of humour, he told of the wildthings that had passed through his brain. He expressed desires, showedgratitude, inquired for the farmer on whom he had operated, and smiledwhen Peter told him the wound had healed promptly and the farmer haddriven out to bring some guinea-fowls for bouillon. 

Miss Burns's management of the household was exemplary. Such considerate, ever-ready ministrations as Frederick received do not fall to the lot ofmany men. Physicians like Peter and his wife are not, of course, prone toprudery. Neither was Miss Burns, with her strong arms and sculptor hands, which were accustomed to modelling from life. Though her manner was calmand composed, there was secret passion and a strong maternal instinct inher nursing. She seemed to have found her true vocation. 

At her bidding Peter sent cablegrams to Frederick's parents, keeping theminformed of his condition, and notifying them when he was pronounced outof danger. With the request that it be held for him until his health wasrestored, she returned a thick letter from the general written beforeFrederick was taken ill, correctly assuming that it contained details ofhis wife's tragic end. She knew that by keeping the letter, she might betempted to betray its existence to the sick man and would then find ittoo hard to prevent him from reading it. At the beginning of the fourthweek, she received a letter from the old general, in which he thanked herand the two doctors from the depths of his heart for all they had donefor his son. 

"I may tell you, " he wrote, "that poor Angèle did not die a naturaldeath. At the institution, they knew she needed the strictest watching, but, unfortunately, even with the greatest care, there are moments when apatient is not observed. It was one of those moments that Angèle seizedto take poison, one of the poisons that are frequently used and are notkept under lock and key. "

The snow had melted away. Slowly, slowly Frederick adjusted himself tolife again. There was a mildness in him like the mildness of natureoutside his window. It was a surprisingly sweet experience. The worldseemed to be granting him indulgence. Lying on his clean bed, with thelittle pewter sailing vessels on the old seaman's clock ticking to andfro, he had a sense of security and, what is more, a sense ofrejuvenation, of having expiated and received pardon. From torrid blackclouds, a storm had come with thunder and lightning to cleanse the air. It was still rumbling on the distance horizon, farther and farther away, never to return again, leaving behind in the weak man a rich, full, peaceful joy in life. 

"A cure of force, a violent eruption and revolution has purged your bodyof all poisons and putrid matter, " said Peter Schmidt. 

XXX

"A pity no birds are singing, " Frederick said one day to Miss Burns, whohad opened his bedroom window wide. 

"Yes, " said Miss Burns, "it is a pity. "

"Because, " Frederick went on, "you say it is already greening on thebanks of Lake Hanover. "

"What does that mean--'greening'?" asked Miss Burns, who did not know theGerman word he had used. He laughed. 

"It means spring is coming, and spring without the singing of birds is adeaf and dumb spring. "

"Come to England. There's where you hear birds. "

"You come to Germany, Miss Burns. There's where you hear birds, "Frederick mimicked his friend's drawl. 

When the time came for him to sit up for a while, he refused. 

"I don't want to get out of bed. I feel too comfortable lying here, " hedeclared. 

Soon after the fever left him, he ceased to feel ill, and for the lastweek they had been bringing him books, entertaining him with stories andanecdotes of the neighbourhood, and reading the papers to him, all inmoderation, of course. They divined his wishes from his eyes. Hismicroscope was put beside his bed, and he set seriously to work toexamine specimens from his own body, an occupation that brought manyjests down on him. The horror of his illness had turned into a diversion, a pleasant subject of study. 

It was not until he had left his bed and was sitting in a comfortablechair wrapped in blankets that he inquired whether a letter had notcome from his parents. Miss Burns told him his father had written andrecounted those things in his letter which she knew would pleaseFrederick and ease his mind. She was astonished to hear the paleconvalescent say:

"I am convinced poor Angèle took her own life. Well, " he continued, "Ihave suffered what I had to suffer; but I will not reject the hand that Ifeel is graciously extended towards me. By that I mean, " he added, thinking from the expression in Miss Burns's eyes that she did notunderstand him, "that for a' that and a' that, I am glad to be restoredto life and confidence in life. "

One day, while Miss Burns was telling of some eminent men in differentcountries with whom she had become acquainted, mild complaints escapedher, showing she had suffered disenchantments. 

"In a year, " she said, "I am going back to England, to some village, anddevote myself to the education of neglected children. The sculptor'sprofession does not satisfy me. "

"How would you like this, Miss Burns, " said the convalescent, with afrank, roguish smile, "wouldn't you like to educate a rather difficultbig child?"

Peter and Eva had agreed not to mention Ingigerd Hahlström's name. Butone day Frederick handed Miss Burns a piece of paper with a verse writtenin lead pencil in a trembling hand. 

"To whom does this refer?" he asked. 

 "Have threads been spun? No, there were none! We were so chill, so small and lone. Have we to higher regions gone? To give the key Peter was not prone. I saw the sacramental stone And laid my hallowed hands thereon. Alas! the bread and wine were gone. With dazzling radiance all things shone, 'Twas base deceit; I was undone. "

Miss Burns was touched to see that his thoughts were still engaged withthe little dancer. On another occasion he said to her:

"I am not fitted to be a physician. I am incapable of making thesacrifice to humanity of pursuing an occupation that depresses me so. I have a riotous imagination. Perhaps I could be a writer. But I amdetermined to become a sculptor. While I was sick, especially at the endof the second week, I remodelled all the works of Phidias and MichaelAngelo. Don't misunderstand me, Eva. In becoming a sculptor, I am nolonger ambitious of distinction. I shall merely be rendering homage tothe greatness of art. While remaining a faithful workman asking nothingfor myself, I may in time succeed in mastering the nude form sufficientlyto produce at least one good piece. "

"You know I have confidence in your talent, " said Miss Burns. 

"Then, what do you think of this plan, Miss Eva? The income from mywife's estate is about five thousand marks, enough for the education ofmy three children. I receive an annuity of three thousand marks. Do youthink we five could end our days in peace in a little house with astudio, say, near Florence?"

Miss Burns's answer to the weighty question was a hearty laugh. 

She was intimately acquainted with the artistic disposition and so, perhaps, was actually well fitted to educate adult children. She had beenthe good friend and comrade of two or three great artists in Franceand England, and had a soothing way of entering into the work, theinterests, and the experiences of such extraordinary men. Neither of herparents had been an artist. Her father had been a plain business man. Yet both had possessed that veneration and love of art and artists whichis almost as rare as the creative gift. In the museum at Birmingham, there were pictures by Burne-Jones and Rossetti and a collection ofdrawings, the gift of her father while still a prosperous man. Sheherself was not convinced that she had an imperative calling to art. Herpassion was to be useful to art in serving artists. This was not thefirst time, and Frederick knew it, that she had acted the part of thegood Samaritan. She was always ready to sacrifice herself in order tohelp artists out of every sort of difficulty. 

"I have no desire to be a Bonifacius Ritter, " said Frederick. "A greatcollection of studios, with works turned out by wholesale, no matter howexcellent they may be, does not suit my disposition. What I want is aworkshop opening on a garden, where I can pick violets in winter andbreak off branches of evergreen oak, yew, and laurel. There, in peace andquiet, hidden from the world, I should like to devote myself to art andculture in general. The myrtle, too, would have to blossom again withinmy garden wall, Miss Burns. " Miss Burns laughed and paid no attention tothe allusion. 

She thoroughly approved of his plans from her own healthy point of view. 

"There are enough people, " she said, "who are born physicians and men ofaction, and there are far too many entering those careers and jostlingone another out of the way. "

She spoke of Ritter with sympathy, yet in a tone of superiority, andsmiled with benignant understanding upon his naïve penetration into theregions of the Upper Four Hundred. 

"Life, " she said, "when it is eager to hurry on with a show of vivacity, demands credulity, love of pleasure, ambition. I, myself, before myfather lost the greater part of his fortune, got to know high life inEngland through and through. I found it insipid and boresome. "

When Frederick was able to stand alone and walk and go up and downstairs, Miss Burns left for New York to complete the work that she hadbegun in Ritter's studio, wishing to finish it before the middle ofMay, when she intended to return to England to straighten out some legalmatters in connection with a small inheritance from her mother, who haddied two years before. She had already engaged passage on the _AugusteVictoria_ of the Hamburg-American line. Frederick von Kammacher let hergo without protest. He did not try to detain her. He profoundly admiredthe girl who was so strong and stately; and he had conceived of hisfuture existence as a state of lasting companionship with her. There wasDutch and German blood combined with the culture and polish of theEnglishwoman. Wherever she settled down, wherever she busied herself, sheproduced the cosey charm of the English home. She was healthy and, asFrederick had to admit, very beautiful. He did not detect the faintestsymptom of the thing he most dreaded, feminine hysteria. 

"I should like to have a comrade like her for life, " he thought. "Ishould like her to be the mother of Angèle's children. "

XXXI

Frederick grew better daily. It seemed to him as if he had been ill formore than a decade. His body was not undergoing a process of evolutionbut of rebuilding from fresh young cells. The same thing seemed to behappening to his soul. The burden that had been weighing upon hisspirits, the restless thoughts that had constantly been circling aboutthe various shipwrecks in his life had departed. He had thrown off hispast as one discards a cloak which the wind and weather, thorns and swordthrusts have torn and worn. Memories, which before his illness had forcedthemselves upon him unbidden in the awful guise of actual presence, nolonger recurred to him. To his astonishment and satisfaction he observedthat they had sunk forever on the other side of a remote horizon. Theitinerary of his life had brought him to a province wholly new and novel. He had passed through a fearful process of fire and water and had comeout cleansed, purified and young. Convalescents always grope their wayinto their newly granted lives, like children without a past. 

The American spring had come early. Suddenly the weather turned hot. Inthat part of America the transition from winter to summer is very abrupt. In the pools and lakes, the bullfrogs croaked in rivalry with the high, clear shrilling of the other American frogs. Now came that unendurablecombination of heat and humidity which Mrs. Schmidt so dreaded. Shesuffered fearfully during the summer, when she continued with her hardwork just as in winter. 

Frederick began again to accompany Peter Schmidt on his professionalrounds, and sometimes the friends took long excursions into the country. They fell back into their old habit of revolving problems and ponderingthe destinies of mankind. To his friend's astonishment, Frederick did notdisplay his old incisiveness in debate, whether in attack or defence. There was a cheerful placidity about him which took the keenness from anyhope or fear of a universal character upon which they touched in theirdiscussions. 

"How do you account for it?" asked Peter Schmidt. 

"I think I have well earned the precious right merely to breathe, andI think I appreciate it. What I want to do for the time being is smell, taste, and enjoy. An Icarus flight does not suit my present condition, and with my newly awakened tender love for the superficial, you willscarcely find me ready to dig laboriously into the depths. I am now abourgeois. I am done with my former state, " he concluded, smiling. 

Peter Schmidt, as a practising physician, expressed his satisfaction withthis mood of Frederick's. 

"To be sure, " he said, "you will change again. "

"Time will show, but I think not, " rejoined Frederick. 

Indian lore had a fascination for Peter Schmidt. He liked to go tocertain spots in the hilly country to which history or legend attachesstories of the conflicts between the first white colonists and theIndians, and remain there a long time, mentally living over again theexperiences of the fur trappers and the tenacious wrestling of thesettlers for possession. Sometimes, in a wave of warlike feeling, hewould draw his revolver and shoot at a mark. Frederick was no match forhim as a marksman. 

"The blood of the old German adventurers and colonists is flowing in yourveins, " he said. "A finished civilisation, over-ripe and over-refinedsuch as ours, really does not suit you. Where you ought to be is in awilderness with a Utopia hovering above. "

"The world is still not much more than a wilderness, " said Peter. "Itwill be quite a while before the structure of our cosmic philosophy willstand on a solid foundation. In short, Frederick, much remains to bedone. "

"Like the Lord God, I shall knead human beings from wet clay and inspirethem with a living breath. "

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Peter Schmidt. "Making dolls like that leadsnowhere. You are too good to be doing it. You belong on the ramparts, inthe front ranks of the battle line, my dear boy. "

"I for my part, " said Frederick, smiling, "have stipulated an armisticefor the next few years. I want for once to try to get on with what theworld is able to offer. I want to disaccustom myself as much as possiblefrom reflection and dreams. "

Frederick felt it was his duty to persuade his friend, both for his ownand for his wife's sake, to return to Europe. 

"Peter, " he said, "the Americans have no use for a man like you. Youcannot recommend patent medicines, nor can you by administering smalldoses keep a man chained to his bed for two months when you can cure himwith quinine in a week. You have none of those characteristics which inthe eyes of the average American make an aristocrat. From the Americanpoint of view you are a simpleton, because you are always ready tosacrifice yourself for every poor dog that strays your way. You ought toreturn to a land where, thank the Lord, the aristocracy of the spirit, the aristocracy of ideas is still a match for that other aristocracy. Youought to return to a land that would consider itself defunct and buriedwere the men of science and art no longer to represent the flower of itsinhabitants. There are enough Germans here without you who are breakingtheir necks to forget the language of Goethe, the language their motherstaught them. Save your wife. Save yourself. Go back to Germany, go toSwitzerland, go to France, go to England, go anywhere you will, but don'tremain in this tremendous industrial corporation, where art, science, and true culture are, at present at least, wholly out of place. "

But Peter Schmidt wavered. He loved America. And if, Indian fashion, helaid his ear to the ground, he already heard the festive music beingrehearsed below ground that is to be played on the great day of auniversal renaissance. 

"All of us, " he said, "should first be Americanized and then becomeneo-Europeans. "

One of Frederick's favourite walks was to the suburb of Meriden where theItalian wine-growers settled. You could hear the men singing with theirvoices warm as the sunlight, the women calling the children with that cryof theirs pitched in octaves. You saw brown men binding the vines, and onSundays you heard them talking and laughing, while the _boccia_ ballsrolled with dull thuds over the well-trodden soil in the open fieldswhere they played. Those voices and sounds were piercingly sweet andfamiliar to Frederick. 

"You may kill me for saying so, but I am, and will remain, a European. "

His homesickness grew stronger and stronger. He went about singing suchpassionate praises of Europe to his friends that he entangled them in theweb of his feelings, and finally melted away even Mrs. Schmidt's rigidresistance. 

A surprising change came over her. She forgot her exhaustion, she movedbriskly, she laughed again, and began to make all sorts of plans for afuture in Europe. 

The farmer upon whom Frederick had operated fairly persecuted him withgratitude. He expatiated upon how he had always relied upon God and how aman always can rely upon God, and how God on this occasion had sent himthe right man at the right time. Frederick now realised the profoundmotive that destiny had had in sending him on his fearful trip. 

In a morbid disinclination to learn of his comrades on the sea trip, Frederick avoided reading newspapers. One day Ingigerd Hahlströmaccompanied by a distinguished looking American by no means in his primegot off the Boston train and went directly to Peter Schmidt's office. Sheintroduced herself and asked whether Frederick von Kammacher was still inMeriden. Before he was taken ill they had exchanged letters. Later shehad had no time to write because she had been making a rapid tour of thewhole United States. She knew nothing of his illness. Peter Schmidt andhis wife, though they had an instinctive habit of always telling thetruth, a habit which interfered with their success in life, nowdeliberately, shamelessly, boldly told a bare-faced lie. 

"Frederick has returned to Europe. He took a White Star steamer, the_Robert Keats_, " they told Ingigerd. 

Without informing anyone, Frederick had engaged passage on the _AugusteVictoria_ for the same crossing as Miss Burns. Peter and his wife wantedto go by a slower, less expensive steamer. They were all in a gloriousstate of impatience. Once more the ocean became nothing but a small pondacross which their yearning lightly swung a bridge. 

At that time a sentimental song was being sung in all the theatres inAmerica, entitled "Hands Across the Sea. " Every bill-board, fence andbarrel bore "Hands Across the Sea. " Frederick went about humming "HandsAcross the Sea. " Whenever he saw "Hands Across the Sea, " his soul wasstirred by a rich, beautiful melody. 

But there was one thing that still prevented Frederick from enjoyingcomplete serenity of spirit. A single thought kept haunting him. Shouldhe express that thought by word of mouth or by letter? He constantlywavered between the two impulses. Not a day passed that he did not maketen decisions, one way or another, until one Sunday chance came to hisrescue in the form of Willy Snyders and Miss Eva Burns, who had come toMeriden on an excursion. When he saw the lovely girl, dressed in lightsummer clothes, coming towards him with a smile, he realised that "ShallI?" or, "Shall I not?" had until then played an important rôle in hisdeliberations. But now that question was decided. 

"Willy, " he cried beaming, "do what you will, go wherever you will, staywherever you will, amuse yourself as best you can, and at supper we'llall meet at the hotel. " He grasped Miss Eva's hand and drew her arm inhis, and she went off with him, laughing. Willy was greatly amazed, buthe, too, burst out laughing and said in his comic fashion:

"Oh, in that case I certainly am _de trop_. "

When Frederick and Eva returned in the evening, to the handsomedining-room of the Meriden Hotel, a delicate charm, a tender warmthhovered about them, making them younger and comelier. Their friendsobserved it. To their own surprise, these two human beings had beenpenetrated by a new element and a new life. Though they had been steeringtowards it, neither of them had had a divination of it even a short timebefore. That evening champagne was drunk. 

A week later the little colony of artists saw Miss Burns and Frederickoff on the _Auguste Victoria_. 

"I am going to follow you soon, " Willy bawled as the steamer began tomove from the pier. 

Every day on board the steamer was a Sunday to Frederick and Eva. Theafternoon of the third day the captain, never suspecting that he wasspeaking to one of the survivors of the _Roland_, said:

"It was hereabouts that the _Roland_ went down about three months ago. "

The sea was smooth, like a sky eternally cloudless. Dolphins weresporting in the waters. The night following that afternoon, a gloriousnight, became Frederick's and Eva's wedding night. In blissful dreamsthey were carried over the place of horror which was the grave of the_Roland_. 

At the quay in Cuxhaven, Frederick's parents were awaiting him withhis children. He saw nothing but his children. He held them, all threeof them, in his arms for a whole minute. They laughed and chatteredand clung to him wildly. Eva approached them, and everything wasself-understood. 

After all could get their breath again, Frederick made several obeisancesand laid both hands on the ground, while looking into Eva's eyes. Then hearose and held up his finger to command silence. From the broad stretchesof the fields with their young crops came the thousand-throated trillingof the larks. 

"This is Germany, this is Europe! What of it, if after an hour like this, one should sink?"

The captain of the _Auguste Victoria_ passed by and greeted Frederick. 

"Do you know, " said Frederick in his overflowing spirits, "do you know, I am actually one of the survivors of the _Roland_?"

"Indeed!" said the captain, adding, as he walked away, "Yes, we alwayscross the same ocean. I hope you have a pleasant trip, Doctor vonKammacher. "

THE END