The gentlemen had breakfasted--baked potatoes and cutlets, ham and eggs,
broiled flounder and other fish, beside tea and coffee--and were entering
the steerage.
Here, to keep from falling, they had to hold fast to the iron posts
supporting the ceiling. After their eyes had grown accustomed to the
twilight always reigning in the steerage, they saw a swarm of human
beings rolling on the floor, groaning, whimpering, wailing, shrieking.
The weather did not permit of the opening of the port-holes, and the
exhalations of about twenty Russian-Jewish families, with bag and baggage
and babies, polluted the air to such an extent, that Frederick could
scarcely breathe. Mothers lying on their backs with open mouths and
closed eyes, more dead than alive, had infants at their breasts; and it
was fearful to see how the retching convulsed them.
"Come," said Doctor Wilhelm, observing something like a tendency to faint
in Frederick's face. "Come, let us show how superfluous we are."
But Doctor Wilhelm and the Red Cross nurse, who accompanied him, had a
chance, here and there, to do some good. He ordered grapes and a tonic
for those who were suffering most. These things were obtained from the
store-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 infuriated
persecution. Even the pale faces of those who were able to keep on their
feet and had found a place to stand in that swaying shelf of misery, were
marked 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 a
bold, passionate charm. The glances of the physicians and these girls
met. Such circumstances overstimulate the feelings and make them highly
susceptible. Great stress, great danger cause the life of the moment to
flare up more alluringly and also create a sense of profound equality
among human beings. In the very midst of fear and tension, a boldness
develops ready at any moment to make a leap.
Doctor Wilhelm pointed out to Frederick a Russian-Jewish girl of about
seventeen. The expression of her face was sombre. Her features were most
delicately chiselled, and she was as transparent as an image of wax.
Doctor Wilhelm, observing the defiant air with which she glowered at
Frederick, 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 morning
before. He was cursing and scolding at everybody and everything, while
trying to raise himself from his mattress; a feat rather difficult for
him to accomplish, because, in the first place, the rolling of the vessel
in the steerage was fearful, and in the second place, he had evidently
been trying to counteract the wretchedness of his condition by the
imbibing of whisky. Doctor Wilhelm gave him a sharp berating. Wilke,
very clearly, was a nuisance, perhaps even a danger, to everybody about
him. In his intoxication he fancied he was being pursued. The rags from
his open bundle lay spread on his mattress mixed with cheese and
bread-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 particular
acquaintance of Frederick's. His admonitions were of no effect. Wilke
shouted that his neighbours had robbed him, and so had the stewards, and
the sailors and the captain. Frederick took his knife away from him,
spoke to him in a military tone, and unceremoniously touched a scar on
the rough fellow's hairy neck to recall to him the fact that he had
already sewed one knife wound, from which he had barely escaped with his
life. That worked, and Wilke seemed to be repentant. Frederick gave him
some money, but not for whisky, as he told him, and added he would try
his best for him, but only if he heard that he had been behaving like
a decent human being.