Dinner began, and, though the weather had by no means improved, a
comparatively large number of passengers had gathered in the dining-room.
Mr. Pfundner, the head-steward, with his white hair curled and arranged
by the barber, if not in a braid at the back of his head, yet like a wig
of the rococo period, stood, as usual, in majestic pose, before the false
mantelpiece between the two entrance doors. It was the place from which
he could best supervise the waiters and keep his eye on the whole
dining-room.
The band was playing _Le Père la Victoire_ by Ganne. This was followed by
Gillet's _Loin du Bal_. At Suppé's overture from _Banditenstreiche_, the
eternal skat players came tramping into the saloon, having delayed, as
usual, to finish their game. At all the tables much wine was being drunk,
because it strengthened one's courage and dulled one's nerves. The
passengers toasted the _Roland_. It amused them. They were all conscious
of the pleasant rhythm of the great engine, to which no music in the
world was comparable. Over Vollstedt's waltz, _Lustige Brüder_, the
company with a sense of relief was still discussing the danger they had
safely escaped.
"We hoisted distress signals."
"Rockets were shot off."
"They were already getting the life-belts and life-boats ready."
"Why, they were even dripping oil on the water."
The remarks flew about with the less restraint as neither the captain nor
any of his officers were at table.
"The captain," they said, "has never left the bridge since morning."
Suddenly the port-holes were illuminated from outside. Everybody, with an
"Oh!" of astonishment, let his knife and fork fall and jumped up from his
seat. "A ship!" "A steamer!" all exclaimed, and crowded on deck. There,
in overawing majesty, in the gleam of its thousand lights, one of the
mightiest ocean liners of the time was rolling and pounding at a distance
of not more than fifty yards. "The _Prince Bismarck_, the _Prince
Bismarck_!" the people cried, having heard the name from the officers and
crew, who had recognised the vessel. "Hurrah!" went up the full-throated
cry. "Hurrah!" Frederick shouted, and so did Wilhelm and so did Professor
Toussaint. Everybody who could shouted "Hurrah!"--Ingigerd and the woman
physician and the woman artist. They all waved their napkins or
handkerchiefs. The same shout of joy went up from the steerage, and by
way of greeting the two vessels let their steam whistles thunder. They
could see the passengers on the various decks of the _Prince Bismarck_
waving to them, and, in spite of the noise of the tempest, could hear
their faint hurrah.
The _Prince Bismarck_, a twin-screw steamer, one of the first models of
its kind, had just made its record-breaking trip, in which it had crossed
the Atlantic Ocean in six days, eleven hours, and twenty-four minutes.
About two thousand people were now making the trip from New York to
Europe. Two thousand people! That means twice as many as can fill a
Berlin theatre from the orchestra to the top gallery.
The _Roland_ and the _Bismarck_ exchanged lively flag signals. Yet
the whole grandiose vision, from the moment of its appearance to its
disappearance, lasted only three minutes. In that time the seething ocean
was flooded with light. It was not until nothing remained of the
_Bismarck_ but a dancing mist of light that its band came on deck and
played. On the _Roland_ they caught two or three trembling, fading
measures of the national hymn, _Heil dir im Siegerkranz_. Within a few
moments the _Roland_ was again alone on the ocean, in the night, the
tempest, and the snowstorm.
With twice as much fire, the band now played a quadrille by Karl,
_Festklänge_, and a galop by Kiesler, _Jahrmarktskandal_; and with twice
as much appetite and twice as much liveliness the passengers seated
themselves at dinner again. "Fairylike!" they cried. "Glorious!"
"Tremendous!" "Colossal!"--this last a favourite expression of the
Germans.
Even Frederick had a sense of pride and tranquillisation. He felt a vital
breath of that atmosphere which is no less necessary to the mind of the
modern man than air is to his lungs.
"No matter how much we resist the thought," he said to Wilhelm, "and no
matter how much I railed yesterday evening against modern culture, a
sight like that must impress a man. It must go to the very marrow of his
bones. It is simply absurd that such a marvellous product of secret
natural forces, joined together by man's brains and hands, such a
creation over creation, such a miracle has become even possible." They
touched glasses. The sound of clinking glasses could be heard all over
the room. "And what courage, what boldness has been built into that great
living organism, what a degree of fearlessness in opposing those natural
forces which man has been standing in awe of for thousands of years! What
an audacious world of genius, from its keel to the top of its mast, from
its bowsprit to its screw!"
"And all this," responded Wilhelm, "has been attained in scarcely a
hundred years. So it signifies only the beginning of a development.
Object as much as you will, science, or rather technical progress, is
eternal revolution and the only genuine reform of human conditions.
Nothing can hinder this development that has begun. It is constant,
eternal progress, yes, progress itself."
"It is the human intellect," said Frederick, "which throughout the
centuries has been lying passive and has suddenly turned active.
Undoubtedly man's brains and, at the same time, social industry have
entered a new phase."
"Yes," said Wilhelm, "in a certain way the human intellect was already
active in ancient times, but it fought too long with the man in the
mirror."
"Then, let us hope," said Frederick in confirmation, "that the last hour
of the men that fight images, the swindlers, the South Sea Island
medicine-men and magicians, is not far off; that all filibusters and
cynical freebooters, who for thousands of years have been living by the
capture of souls, will strike sail before the fast, safe ocean-going
steamer of civilisation, whose captain is intellect and whose sole
steward is humanity."
After dinner, Frederick and Wilhelm climbed up to the smoking-room on
deck.
"It is difficult to comprehend," said Frederick, when they reached the
smoky little saloon, "how a vessel can keep its course in such a stormy,
pitch-black night."
At the skat table, the players were sitting, smoking, drinking whisky and
coffee, and tossing the cards on the table. Everything else seemed to be
a matter of indifference to them. Frederick ordered wine and continued to
goad his mind into activity. His head ached. He could scarcely hold it
upright on his aching neck. His eyelids ached with weariness; but when
they drooped, his eyes seemed to radiate a painful light shining from
within. Every nerve, every muscle, every cell in him was alert. He could
not hope for sleep. How weeks in his life, months, years had passed as in
the twinkling of an eye! And this evening only three and a half days had
elapsed since he boarded the _Roland_ at Southampton, a period with the
content of years, in which seconds were eternities. Its beginning lay in
the remote distance, at the conclusion of a life lived long before, on an
earth from which he had parted long before.
"You're tired, Doctor von Kammacher," said Wilhelm. "So I won't invite
you to the stoker's funeral on the after-deck."
"Oh, I'll come," said Frederick. He was obsessed by a stinging rage not
to spare himself anything, but to taste to the dregs even the bitterest
impressions of this detached, jogged and jolted fragment of a human
world.