Suddenly he said:
"You're right. I'm of the same opinion. I must really throw overboard
that old idealistic German Adam sticking in me like a Sunday afternoon
preacher."
The two men laughed. Their mood turned merrier, chiming in with the
general atmosphere of hilarity.
One reason for this predominating sense of happiness was the fact that
all the passengers, after struggling with nausea and sleeplessness during
those miserable, crawling, endless hours in the doleful grave of their
cabins, had learned to appreciate the value of mere healthy existence.
Merely to live, merely to live! That was the cry that rang in every step,
every laugh, every word, drowning all care. None of those concerns which
each of them had dragged on board, whether from Europe or America, now
had the least might. Merely to live was to win in the great lottery. They
knew sunshine follows rain, and they said to themselves, "If worse comes
to worst, you will willingly put up with bread and salt and a hoe and a
vegetable garden, and no one in the world will be a happier mortal than
you."
Those promenading men and women were each glad of the other's existence.
They loved one another and were ready without hesitation to commit all
sorts of follies, deeming them mere bagatelles, which on solid land they
would never have condoned in themselves. Their rejoicing was a crucible
melting together all the barriers by which convention divides man from
man. They experienced a sense of relief and liberation, and drew in deep
breaths of this atmosphere of freedom.
At the captain's order, the band set up its music stands and instruments
on deck amidships; and when the blithe strains resounded through the
whole of the _Roland_, that was the climax of festivity. For half an hour
it seemed as if the few clouds floating in the blue sky, the steamer, the
people on the steamer, and the ocean had agreed to dance a quadrille.
For moments at a time the waves would form the droll, chubby-cheeked
face of a jolly old man. All at once the dreadful old man of the sea
had turned good-humoured. He even seemed to be in a jocular mood and
displayed a certain clumsy vanity in letting his puppets, swarms of
flying fish, dance their dance, too, in a circle about the _Roland_.
Perhaps, at his bidding, a whale would soon be spouting. Indeed, within
a few minutes, the immigrants on the fore-deck were shouting, "Dolphins!"
The gentlemen could not for any length of time avoid Ingigerd.
"Theridium triste, the gallows spider, you know," said Wilhelm, as they
approached her.
"How so?" said Frederick, slightly startled.
"You know what a gallows spider does near an ant nest. It sits on the top
of its blade of grass, and when a myrmidon passes below, it throws a
little skein of cobweb at its head. The ant does the rest. It gets
tangled up until it is absolutely helpless, and then the tiny little
spider comfortably eats it up."
"If you had seen her dance," said Frederick, "you would be more inclined
to assign her the rôle of the ant throttled by the spider."
"I don't know who," said Wilhelm, "but some poet says, the sex is
strongest when it is weak."
Ingigerd was able to boast a new sensation, which she owed to Mr. Rinck,
the officer in charge of the mail, a pretty little dog, a ball of white
wool, scarcely larger than a man's two fists put together. The polar bear
in miniature was barking wildly in its ridiculous thin falsetto at the
great ship's cat, which Mr. Rinck was holding to its nose.
"With your permission, Mr. Rinck, we shall sleep well to-night," said
Wilhelm.
"I always sleep well," replied the other phlegmatically. Close to the
cat's soft, heavy, hanging body, his cigarette, as always, was burning
between the fingers of his right hand.
The cat spat, the dog barked. The piping sound drilled Frederick's ears
like needle pricks. Ingigerd laughed and kissed the little yelper.
Wilhelm began a conversation by telling of the tremendous amount of work
Mr. Rinck had to do between Cuxhaven and New York.
"Just take a look here, Doctor von Kammacher," he said, opening a door
nearby, through which one could look into a deep, square pit filled half
way up to the top with thousands of packages of all sizes. "Mr. Rinck has
to arrange all of these."
"Exclusive of the letters," Mr. Rinck supplemented phlegmatically.
"Theridium triste," thought Frederick. He seemed to himself like an ant
trying head over heels to escape the spell of the little spider, whose
golden cobweb in long, open strands was luring on its victims.
"That Rinck," said Wilhelm, as they resumed their promenading, "is a
peculiar sort of chap. It is worth the while to get to know him. Twenty
years ago he suffered hard luck from a woman of the same type as little
Miss Hahlström. Men should never marry women of that type. Ever since, he
has been indifferently facing every sort of death on all the waters of
the globe, not to mention an attempt at suicide. You ought to hear him
talk. It is very difficult to get him to do it, because he doesn't drink.
You can't succeed until you have been on four or five trips with him.
People speak a great deal of fatalism, but to most of them the idea is
merely a paper idea. To Rinck it is not a paper idea."
The life on deck kept assuming a more and more unconcerned, mundane
aspect. Frederick was astonished to see so many persons from Berlin whom
he knew by sight. Professor Toussaint introduced himself, and led
Frederick to his wife, who was lying stretched out in a steamer chair.
Their attempt at what is called conversation resulted in a few sickly
sprouts.
"I am making this trip at the invitation of an American friend,"
Toussaint explained somewhat condescendingly, and mentioned the name of a
well-known millionaire. "Even if I receive orders over there, I will not
allow myself to be persuaded into making America my home. Interest in art
should be elevated--" The pale, aristocratic man with the care-worn
expression went on to expatiate upon his hopes and troubles, while his
wife, who was still beautiful, looked on with a blasé expression of
irony. Probably without being conscious of it, Professor Toussaint too
frequently referred to the United States as the dollar land.
On the after-deck the passengers in unrestrained jollity, had begun to
dance. It was Hans Füllenberg, the ever vivacious Berlinese, who had
taken the lead. Inspired by the Strauss waltz that the band was playing
he had engaged the lady in the fur coat. A number of other couples
followed their example, and there, under the bright sky, an informal ball
was opened, which did not end until sundown.
When the musicians with their shining brass instruments were about to
make their way inconspicuously below deck, the passengers detained them,
and in the twinkling of an eye, a large collection was taken up.
Thereupon the dance music began again, even blither than before.