Frederick reflected upon the timid skipper, whose characteristics seemed
to harmonise so poorly with the demands, active and passive, of his
rigorous calling. He wondered what it is that permanently holds a man
like that to his marriage ties and all the duties of his life. Then he
arose to wander about the _Roland_ vaguely.
The enforced idleness of a sea trip, especially in bad weather, induces
passengers, when they have made the complete round of the vessel, to
begin over again and go through the same circle. Thus, Frederick, after
descending the companionway, ascending it, and descending again, found
himself on the leather-seated bench in the smoking-room avoided by most
of the smokers, in which the armless man had taken his meal the day
before.
Hans Füllenberg entered, asked whether he was not permitted to smoke a
cigarette 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 port
somewhere in Newfoundland."
Frederick was indifferent to the prospect. He noticed that young
Füllenberg cared for nothing except to produce an impression; and young
Füllenberg noticed that Frederick von Kammacher was not susceptible
to the impression he tried to produce. He cast about for another theme
of conversation.
"Do you know there are two priests on board? You should have been at
Cuxhaven when they got on. The sailors were beside themselves. I hunted
up the fellows, the sailors I mean, in the forecastle. How they did
curse! 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--with
priests 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 a
full-blooded American. Shameless, I tell you! Something tremendous. I
rubbed her forehead with brandy. She partook of a goodly quantity, and
then I unbuttoned her waist. She seems to take me for a masseur chartered
extra by her munificent husband. The thing became boresome. And besides,
in that pitching boudoir, my own soul began to rise up through my
stomach, and the poetry went to the devil. She showed me the photograph
of her devoted husband in New York. I think she has another in London."
He was interrupted by the first call for dinner, which the trumpeter
announced at the bottom of the companionway. The trumpet blast was lost
without resonance in the heavy air and the bluster of the waves. "What's
more," he concluded, "she sent for Doctor Wilhelm."
The dining-room presented a very dreary appearance. Neither the captain
nor any of the officers of the _Roland_ were present, the demands upon
them in such bad weather being too severe to permit them to leave their
posts. The tables had been provided with a wooden apparatus dividing them
into small compartments, which prevented the plates, glasses and bottles
from slipping any distance. Nevertheless, there was much breaking of
crockery, and it required all the skill of the stewards to serve the
dishes, especially the soup. From the kitchen and the china room every
now and then came the sound of a tremendous crash. There were scarcely
twelve people at table, among them Hahlström and Doctor Wilhelm. After
a time the skat players, as usual, came bursting in, talking noisily and
red of face. Their winnings were immediately transmuted into Pommery.
Notwithstanding the fearful weather, the band was playing. There seemed
to be something frivolous, almost challenging, in the playing of music
when, at short intervals, the _Roland_ would come to a quivering
standstill, as if it had run upon a reef. Once the illusion was so strong
that a panic arose in the steerage. Mr. Pfundner, the head-steward,
brought this explanation of the horrified shrieks that had penetrated the
dining-room above the noise of the raging waters, the rattling of the
plates 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 Doctor
Wilhelm, and asked permission to seat himself beside them. He seemed
to have been drinking whisky, as he had dropped his natural shell of
reticence. He spoke of hydrotherapy and gymnastic exercises, and called
himself a quack. It was the gymnastics, he said, that had given his
daughter the idea of taking up dancing. As if to challenge the others, he
elaborated bold philosophic theories, dealing out one wild statement
after the other, each of which would have been a trump sufficient to end
the game for ten German Philistines. To believe his own word, he was a
terroristic Anarchist, a white-slave trafficker, an adventurer always. At
any rate, he espoused the cause of all who were Anarchists, procurers, or
adventurers. He argued in all superiority, upon egotistic grounds,
calling these the intellectuals, and all others, creatures without
brains; in which his philosophy showed some similarity to Frederick von
Kammacher's new philosophy, now that Frederick had entered upon a new
phase of his life.
"America," said Hahlström, "is known to have been settled by rogues. Were
you to spread a tent over America, you would have the most beautiful,
the most comfortable penitentiary in the world. The natural form that
survives and triumphs in America is the great rascal, the great
Renaissance idiot. In fact, it is the one form that will triumph
throughout the world. You'll see some day how the great American rascal
will get the whole of Europe, including England, into his clutches.
Europe is also dabbling a little in Renaissance ideals and Renaissance
beasts. It is busily working away, so to speak, on its own rascalization.
But America is in advance by ten horse lengths. Europe's Cesare Borgias
sit in the cafes with _Glockenröcken à la Biedermaier_ and give voice to
their criminal genius in fairly innocent verses. They all look sickly, as
if a barber had cupped all the blood out of their veins. If Europe wants
to save herself, she has only one hope--to make a law by which it will be
a crime to surrender an adventurer, an embezzler, a fraudulent bankrupt,
the keeper of a disorderly house, a thief, or a murderer to America. On
German, English and French vessels in American ports, such people have
already been placed under the special protection of Europe. Then you will
see how soon Europe will outdistance Uncle Sam."
The physicians burst out laughing.
"When did geniuses ever do anything morally? Even the creator of heaven
and earth did not know how to. He produced an immoral world. Every high
form of human intellectual activity has thrown ethics overboard. What
would a historian be who, instead of making researches, would moralise?
What would a physician be who would stop to moralise? Or a great
statesman, who would toe the chalk-line of your middle-class ten
commandments? As for an artist, when he moralises, he is a fool and a
knave. And please tell me, what sort of a business would the church do
if all of us were moral? There would be no church."
There was a cold gleam of audaciousness in the Swede's eyes. His
utterances produced a strange impression. Even if he had pronounced fewer
wild paradoxes, Frederick von Kammacher would have succumbed to his
spell. He eagerly sought for resemblances between father and daughter,
or, more accurately, he observed them without seeking. They were very
evident to one who, alas, to his own torture, was carrying the daughter's
picture alive in his soul. As long as the Swede spoke, he could not help
wavering between repugnance and admiration, and he kept asking himself
whether this man was really the sort of person that Arthur Stoss had
described him to be, no gentleman, a weakling, an idle ragamuffin.