The barbershop lay aft, and nearby one could look through glass panes
upon the working of the cylinders and pistons. Frederick toilsomely
clambered up to the promenade deck and crept into the overcrowded
smoking-room. Though it disgusted him to be wedged into a small space
with a lot of noisy men, he had come here in the desire to escape the
wild orgy of his thoughts. Doctor Wilhelm had kept a place for him.
"The doctor tells me you were in the steerage, and a beautiful Deborah
made a dangerous impression upon you," the captain said, smiling
roguishly.
Frederick laughed. He ordered beer, and the conversation was jolly from
the start.
In their corner the skat players were sitting over their cards. They were
business men, all of apoplectic constitution. They had been drinking beer
and playing skat ever since breakfast, in fact, except when they slept,
ever since boarding the steamer. The conversation in the room was of no
interest to them. Even the weather failed to elicit any questions from
them. 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 so
tremendous that Frederick involuntarily clutched at the thing nearest
to him. Up went the port side, down went the starboard. Up went the
starboard, down went the port side. Sometimes Frederick felt as if
port and starboard might plunge one over the other; in which case the
_Roland's_ keel would float above water, while the bridge, masts, and
smoke-stacks would be submerged at a distance below the surface. And in
that 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 tobacco
smoke. His clear, cold, critical eyes roved about looking for a seat. He
paid no attention to the armless man, who jestingly shouted an ironic
remark to him. With cool politeness he seated himself at the greatest
possible distance from Stoss, drew a pouch of tobacco from his pocket,
and filled a short Dutch pipe. Frederick's immediate thought was, "Where
is 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 nature
or from frequent exposure proof against seasickness, now entered into the
usual discussion of the weather.
"Is it true, Captain," somebody asked, "that last night we nearly
collided 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 snow
fall. And for at least an hour I heard the siren blow every two minutes."
But Captain von Kessel remained highly monosyllabic in everything
pertaining to the management of the vessel and the prospects for a good
or bad crossing.
"Is it true that there is gold bullion on board for the treasury in
Washington?"
Von Kessel smiled and sent a thin wreath of cigarette smoke curling
through his moustache.
"That would be carrying coals to Newcastle," remarked Wilhelm.
And now the great theme, the theme of themes, became the general topic
of conversation. Each of the travellers, of course, straightway had a
picture of his own fortune in mind, every cent of it, or else tried to
make an accurate mental calculation. They all turned into calculating
machines, while aloud comparing the capitals of the great American
banking firms, the Bank of England, the Crédit Lyonnais and the wealth of
all the American millionaires. Even the skat players gave their attention
for a few moments at a time.
America was then suffering from a business depression, a crisis, as the
political economists dub it. The causes of the depression came up for
discussion. Most of the Americans present happened to be Democrats, and
they threw the blame on the Republicans. The Tammany Tiger was the
subject of especial execration. It not only controlled New York City, the
mayor of which was a creature of Tammany, but had also put its men into
the most influential positions throughout the land. And every Tammany man
knew how to shear his sheep. As a result, the American people were
thoroughly bled. The corruption in the highest offices was said to be on
a 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 great
achievement, since the money, long before it was applied to its proper
purpose, sifted down into the pockets of peaceful Americans, whose
interest in the navy was of the slightest.
"I shouldn't care to be buried in America," cried Stoss, in his sharp
voice. "It would be too dreary and boresome for me in my grave. I hate
their spitting and their ice-water." The burst of laughter that greeted
his remark encouraged him to further sallies. "Americans are parrots,
incessantly chattering two words, dollar and business, dollar and
business, dollar and business. Those two words have been death to culture
in America. An American doesn't even know what it is to have the
Englishman's spleen. Think of the fearfulness of living in a country
called the land of dollars. We have human beings living in Europe. The
Americans regard everything, even their fellow-men, from the point of
view of the number of dollars they represent. If a thing can't be
reckoned in dollars, they have no eyes for it. And then Carnegie and
Company come and want to astonish us with their disgusting shopkeeper's
philosophy. Do you think they're helping the world on by slicing off some
of the world's dollars and then returning some of the sliced off dollars
with a great flourish of trumpets? Do you think that if they do us the
favour to give us some of their money, we'll throw overboard our Mozart
and Beethoven, our Kant and Schopenhauer, our Schiller and Goethe, our
Rembrandts, Leonardos, Michael Angelos, in short, all our wealth of art
and intellect? What is a miserable cur of an American millionaire, a
dollar maniac, as compared with all those great men? Let him come and ask
us for alms."