IV

He folded up the list and glanced about. There were about fifteen to

twenty men and women in the saloon, all engaged in breakfasting or giving

their orders to the stewards. To Frederick it seemed they were there for

no other purpose than to spy upon his emotions.

The steamer had already been travelling for an hour on the ocean. The

dining-room took up the full width of the vessel, and from time to time

its port-holes were darkened by the waves dashing against them. Opposite

Frederick sat a gentleman in uniform, who introduced himself as Doctor

Wilhelm, the ship's physician. Straightway a very lively medical

discussion began, though Frederick's thoughts were far away. He was

debating with himself how he should act at his first meeting with the

Hahlströms.

He tried to find support in self-deception, telling himself he had

boarded the _Roland_, not for the sake of little Ingigerd Hahlström, but

because he wanted to see New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston,

Yellowstone Park, and Niagara Falls. That is what he would tell the

Hahlströms--that a mere chance had brought them together on the _Roland_.

He observed that he was gaining in poise. Sometimes, when the adorer is

at a distance from the object of his devotion, the idolatry of love

assumes fateful proportions. During his stay in Paris, Frederick had

lived in a state of constant fever, and his yearning for his idol had

risen to an unendurable degree. About the image of little Ingigerd

Hahlström, a heavenly aureole had laid itself, so compelling in its

attraction that Frederick's mental vision was literally blinded to

everything else. That illusion had suddenly vanished. He felt ashamed of

himself. "I'm a ridiculous fool," he thought, and when he arose to go on

deck, he felt as if he had shaken off oppressive fetters. The salt sea

air blowing vigorously across the deck heightened his sense of

emancipation and convalescence and refreshed him to his inner being.

Men and women lay stretched out on steamer chairs with that green

expression of profound indifference which marks the dreaded seasickness.

To Frederick's astonishment, he himself felt not the least trace of

nausea, and only the sight of his fellow-passengers' misery caused him to

realise that the _Roland_ was not gliding through smooth waters, but was

distinctly pitching and rolling.

He walked around the ladies' parlour, past the entrance of an extra

cabin, and took his stand under the bridge, breasting the steely, salt

sea wind. On the deck below, the steerage passengers had settled

themselves as far as the bow. Though the _Roland_ was running under full

steam, it was not making its maximum speed, prevented by the long, heavy

swells that the wind raised and hurled against the bow. Across the

forward 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 the

steerage passengers and then crawled up the iron rungs of the ladder to

the windy height. But that did not trouble him. All at once such a madcap

spirit had come over him, he felt so happy and refreshed; as if he had

never had to suffer dull cares, or put up with the whims of a hysterical

wife, or practise medicine in a musty, out-of-the-way corner of the

country. Never, it seemed to him, had he studied bacteriology, still

less, suffered a fiasco. Never had he been so in love as he appeared to

have been only a short time before.

He laughed, bending his head before the gale, filled his lungs with the

salty air, and felt better and stronger.

A burst of laughter from the steerage passengers mounted to his ears. At

the same instant something lashed him in the face, something that he had

seen rearing, white and tremendous, before the bow. It almost blinded

him, and he felt the wet penetrate to his skin. The first wave had swept

overboard.

Who would not find it humiliating to have his sublime meditations

interrupted in such a tricky, brutal way? A moment before, he felt as

if to be a Viking were his real calling, and now, inwardly shaking and

shivering, amid general ridicule, he crawled ignominiously down the

iron ladder.

He was wearing a round grey hat. His overcoat was padded and lined with

silk. His gloves were of dressed kid, his buttoned boots of thin leather.

All these garments were now drenched with a cold, salty wash. Leaving a

damp trail behind, he made his way, not exactly a glorious way, through

the steerage passengers, who rolled with laughter. In the midst of his

annoyance Frederick heard a voice calling his name. He looked up and

scarcely trusted his eyes on seeing a large fellow in whom he thought he

recognised a peasant from the Heuscheuer Mountains, a peasant with an

evil 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 Plassenberg

an der Heuscheuer, that is, Plassenberg by the Heuscheuer Mountains, a

range in the county of Glatz where excellent sandstone is quarried. The

people of the district loved Frederick both as a man and a physician. He

was the wonder-worker who had performed a number of splendid cures and he

was the human being, without pride of caste, whose heart beat warmly for

the good of the lowliest of his fellow-men. They loved his natural way

with 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 him

for his last knife wound on his neck, his manner here, with the other

passengers crossing the great waters, was frank and trustful. He was like

a 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 a

number of cases, of which Frederick had not known, in which good had been

repaid by evil tattle. "The people around Plassenberg are not fit for men

like you and me. Men like you and me belong in America, the land of

liberty."

Elsewhere, Frederick would have resented being placed in the same

category as this rowdy, for whom, he recalled, the police were searching.

But here he felt no indignation. On the contrary, he was pleasantly

surprised, as if by an unexpected meeting with a good friend.

"The world's a small place," said Frederick, passing over the theme of

ingratitude and the land of liberty, "the world's a small place. Yet I am

surprised to see you here. But I'm wet to the skin, and have to go change

my clothes."

On his way to the cabin, on the promenade deck, he encountered the blond

captain 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 the

little 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 which

Frederick changed his clothes, was a problematical place of abode. The

light came from a round port-hole of heavy glass. When the wall with the

port-hole in it rose and turned inward like a slanting roof, the sunlight

from a rift between the clouds in the sky fell upon the mahogany berth

opposite. Sitting on the edge of the lower berth, Frederick tried to

steady himself, holding his head bent to keep from striking against his

upper berth, and frantically endeavouring not to follow the receding

movement of the wall behind. The cabin was rolling in unison with the

vessel's movement. Sometimes it seemed to Frederick as if the port-hole

wall were the ceiling, and the ceiling the right wall; then again as if

the right wall were the ceiling, and the ceiling the port-hole wall,

while the actual port-hole wall, as if inviting him to jump, shoved

itself at right angles under his feet--during which the port-hole was

wholly under water and the cabin in darkness.

It is no easy matter to dress and undress in an oscillating room. That

the vessel's motion could have changed so markedly within the one hour

since he left the cabin, astonished Frederick. The simple operation of

drawing off his boots and trousers, finding others in his trunk, and

putting them on again became a gymnastic feat. He had to laugh, and

comparisons occurred to him, which made him laugh still more. But his

laughter was not heartfelt. Each time he received a knock, or had to

jump to regain his balance, he muttered exclamations and instinctively

contrasted all this with the comfortable waking up from sleep in his own

house. Groaning and labouring, he said to himself:

"My whole personality is being shaken through and through. I was mistaken

when I supposed that I had already got my shaking up these last two

years. I thought fate was shaking me. Now, both my fate and I are being

shaken. I thought there was tragedy in me. Now, I and my tragedy are

bowling about in this creaking cage, and are being disgraced in our own

eyes.

"I have a habit of pondering over everything. I think about the beak

of the ship, which buries itself in each new wave. I think about the

laughter of the steerage passengers, those poor, poor people, who, I

am 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 embraced

him. I think of the blond Teuton, Captain von Kessel, that handsome man,

somewhat too insipid-looking and too thick-set, who is our absolute lord

and whom we trust at first glance. And, finally, I think about my

constant laughing and admit to myself that laughing is a sensible thing

only in the rarest circumstances."

Frederick continued a conversation with himself in a similar strain for

a while, and cast bitter, ironical reflections upon the passion that had

brought him on this trip. He had actually been robbed of his will; and in

this condition, in that narrow cabin, surrounded by the ocean, it seemed

to him as if his life, and his foolish impotence, were being held up to

the rudest ridicule.

When Frederick went up again, there were still a number of persons on

deck. The stewards had fastened the steamer chairs to the walls, some of

them having slipped and left the occupants, ladies and gentlemen, with

the blue marks of their fall. Refreshments were being served. It was

interesting 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 all

the passengers with the utmost care and circumspection, he noticed the

pretty young Englishwoman, whom he had seen for the first time in the

reading-room of the hotel in Southampton. She was wrapped in rugs and

furs and snugly settled in a spot shielded from the wind and warmed by

the two huge smoke-stacks. She was receiving the attention of a very

lively young man sitting beside her. Each time Frederick passed, the

young man scrutinised him sharply. Suddenly he jumped up, held out his

hand, and introduced himself as Hans Füllenberg of Berlin. Though

Frederick could not recall ever having met him before, the good-looking,

dashing young fellow succeeded in convincing him that they had both been

present at a certain evening affair in Berlin. He told Frederick he was

going to the United States to take a position in a mining region near

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was a wide-awake young man and, what is

more, a Berlinese, and had great notions of his own importance.

Frederick's reputation in Berlin society inspired him with tremendous

respect. Frederick responded to his advances courteously, and allowed him

to recount all the latest Berlin news, as if he himself had not left the

German capital only a week before. He realised he could depend upon

Füllenberg'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. When

Frederick called his attention to the fact that the Englishwoman was

casting impatient glances toward him, visibly eager for his return, he

complacently 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, "that

little Hahlström is on board?"

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

Hans Füllenberg could not contain his surprise that Frederick should have

forgotten little Hahlström. He was sure of having seen him in the

Künstlerhaus in Berlin when Ingigerd danced her dance there for the first

time, 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 the

stairs in informal groups, leaving the centre of the floor clear. Even

Menzel and Begas were there. A special exhibition was to open soon, and

the walls were hung with a collection of Böcklin pictures. The name of

the dance was 'Mara, or the Spider's Victim.'

"I tell you, Doctor von Kammacher," the young man went on, "if you

didn't see that dance, you missed something. In the first place, little

Ingigerd's costume was very scanty, and then her performance was really

wonderful. There are no two opinions about it. A huge artificial flower

was set in the middle of the room, and the little thing ran up and smelt

of it. She felt all about the flower with closed eyes, vibrating as if

with the gauzy wings of a bee. Suddenly she opened her eyes and turned to

a rigid statue of stone. On the flower was squatting a huge spider! She

darted like an arrow to the farthest corner of the room. Even in the

first part of the dance she had seemed to float without weight in the

air; but the way sheer horror blew her across that room made her seem

like nothing but a vision."

Frederick von Kammacher had seen her dance the dreadful dance, not only

at the matinée in the Künstlerhaus, but eighteen times again. While

Füllenberg was trying to express his impression with "great,"

"tremendous," "glorious," and similarly strong epithets, Frederick saw

the whole dance over again with his mind's eye. He saw how the childlike

body, after cowering and trembling a while in the corner of the room,

approached the flower again to the accompaniment of music played by a

tom-tom, a cymbal, and a flute. Something which was not pleasure drew her

to it. The first time she had traced her way to the source of the perfume

by sniffing fragrance in the air. Her mouth had been open, the nostrils

of her fine little nose had quivered. Hans Füllenberg was correct in his

observation 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 gruesome

something, which alternately aroused fear, horror, and curiosity. She

held 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 seemed

to drop away from her. She hopped for joy and laughed--she had been

needlessly alarmed. How could a fat, immobile spider squatting on a

flower be dangerous to a creature with wings? This part of her dance was

so graceful, so full of droll, bubbling, childlike merriment, that the

audience laughed tears of delight.

Now, however, a new phase of the dance began, introduced in a thoughtful

strain. Having danced herself to satiety and intoxicated herself with the

flower's perfume, Mara, with movements of agreeable fatigue, made as if

to lay herself to rest, but delayed here and there to brush from her body

something like the threads of a spider's web, at first serenely and

pensively, then with growing disquiet, which communicated itself to the

onlookers. The child paused, reflected an instant, and apparently was

about to laugh at herself because of the fears that had arisen in her

soul; but the next minute she paled with fright, and made a dexterous

leap, as if to free herself from a trap. Her blond hair tossed back in

Mænadic waves turned into a flaming stream. Her whole appearance evoked

involuntary cries of admiration.

The flight began. And now the theme of the dance was Mara's entanglement

in the threads the spider wove about her, which gradually choked her to

death. No dancer has ever executed such an idea with equal skill and

fidelity.

The little creature freed her foot from the meshes, only to find her neck

entwined; she clutched at the threads about her throat, only to find her

hands entangled; she tore at the cobweb, she bent her body, she slipped

away; she beat with her fists, she raged, and only enmeshed herself the

more tightly in the horrible skein; finally she lay fast bound. During

this 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 that

his fate was forever linked with this girl. The feeling grew stronger

during the few moments that remained before the conclusion of the

performance. The poison of infatuation came from the expression of her

face. He noted precisely how it forced its way into him and how his whole

being suddenly grew sick. When little Ingigerd Hahlström once more opened

her eyes with a look of abysmal dismay, and fastened them in helpless

inquiry upon the spider, calmly drinking her blood away, an inner voice

seemed to command Frederick to become her compassionate knight, saviour,

and protector.