The captain invited Frederick to his cabin and asked him to write a
few words in his album. On the way, he showed him the chart-room and
the wheel-house, where a sailor was turning the great wheel at the
directions of the first mate, whose voice came from the bridge through
a speaking-tube. Frederick read the compass in front of the wheel and saw
that the _Roland_ lay west-southwest. The captain was in hopes of
striking better weather by taking a more southerly route. The helmsman
did not allow his attention to be diverted for the fraction of a second.
He kept his bronzed, weather-beaten face with its corn-coloured beard
turned unwaveringly toward the compass, and his sea-blue eyes fastened
upon the west-southwest line. And the face of the compass, in its round
copper 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 came
of 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 a
cigar. He spoke of his own life. Frederick learned that he was unmarried,
had two unmarried sisters and a brother with a wife and children. The
pictures of his sisters, his brother, his brother's wife, his brother's
children, and his parents were hung symmetrically on the wall over a red
plush 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 for
it?"
"Tell me of a position on land where I could command the same salary, and
I'd exchange without an instant's hesitation. Seafaring begins to lose
its charms when a man gets on in years."
The captain's guttural voice was extremely agreeable. It suggested to
Frederick the sound of colliding billiard balls. His enunciation was
perfect, absolutely free of a dialectic tinge.
"My brother has a wife and children," he said. Though there was, of
course, not the slightest trace of sentimentality in his tone, it was
evident from the gleam in his eyes how he idolised his nieces and
nephews. 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 was
the son of General von Kammacher. He had taken part in the campaign of
1870 and 1871 as lieutenant of the regiment of artillery of which
Frederick's father had been chief. He spoke of him with great admiration
and reverence.
Frederick remained in the captain's cabin over half an hour. His presence
seemed to give the skipper special pleasure. It was astonishing what a
gentle, tender soul was hidden beneath the commanding exterior. Before
disclosing a bit of that soul, he always puffed harder at his cigar and
gave Frederick a long, searching look. By degrees Frederick discovered
what magnet was tugging strongly at the blond giant's heart. He kept
recurring alternately to the Black Forest and the Thüringian Forest, and
Frederick had a mental picture of the magnificent man clipping his privet
hedge in front of his cosey cottage, or walking among his rose bushes
with a pruning knife in his hand. He could detect that the captain would
far rather be living secluded in a sea of green leaves and green pine
needles; and he felt convinced that it would have been delicious to him
to submerge himself forever in the soft rushing of endless forests and
dispense forever with the rushing and roaring of all the oceans in the
world.
"Perhaps the night of all days has not yet come," said the captain, with
a humorous expression. He rose and placed the large album in front of
Frederick. "Now I am going to lock you in here with this pen and this
ink, 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 was
unmistakable that the hope for a vegetable garden, gooseberry bushes, the
chirping of birds, and the buzzing of bees was most intimately connected
with this book. Under the pressure of dreariness and the grave
responsibility for many a sea trip, it must expand the captain's soul to
look over it, Frederick thought. It seemed to point to a time when, in
the peace and security of his simple home, it would serve its turn by
testifying to all the dangers its possessor had gone through, all his
past struggles and hardships. In a sheltered haven it would afford
pleasant retrospect, full of content.
Frederick's own quietistic ideal in the form of a farm and a solitary log
hut occurred to him. But he was not living in it alone. The little devil
Mara was sharing it with him. In embitterment he mentally climbed to
still lonelier regions, and saw himself a hermit, who prayed, drank
nothing but water, and lived on roots, nuts, and sometimes a fish of his
own catching.
When the captain returned and he and Frederick had taken leave of each
other, 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.