The next day at about noon Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick helped Mrs.
Liebling on deck. Her appearance there made a gruesome impression upon
those who had not seen her since she had been dragged, a lifeless corpse,
from the boat to the _Hamburg_. The sailors, though most solicitous to
read Ingigerd Hahlström's wishes from her eyes, even before they were
conceived, kept at a distance from Mrs. Liebling and cast shy glances at
her, as if still in doubt whether she was a real human being. If the sea
gives up its dead, why should not little Siegfried emerge from his death
chamber?
Mrs. Liebling, wrapped in blankets and a coat belonging to the captain,
was placed in a comfortable position on the other side of the deck from
Ingigerd, because she wished to be alone. For a long while she looked
across the expanse of the quiet sea. Then she said to Frederick, whose
company she had requested:
"It's strange that I feel merely as if I had had a dreadful dream--just
a dream--that is the strange thing. No matter how hard I try, I cannot
fully convince myself, except when I think of Siegfried, that my dream
reflects an actuality which I experienced."
"We mustn't indulge in vain broodings," said Frederick.
"I know," she continued without looking at him, "I know I didn't always
do what is right, but if _I_ deserved to be punished, Siegfried did not.
Why did I escape?" After an interval of silence, she began to speak of
her past, of conflicts with her husband, who had deceived her. Hers had
been one of those loveless matches which are contracted in the customary
business fashion. She told Frederick that she was an artist by nature,
Rubinstein, for whom she had played when she was eleven years old, having
prophesied a great future for her. "I don't know anything about cooking
or children. I was always terribly nervous. Still, I love my children. If
I didn't, would I have been so obstinate in trying to win them from my
husband? I pledge you my word, Doctor, if I could change places with
Siegfried, you would find me ready at any moment."
Frederick made all sorts of consolatory remarks, some of which were not
wholly superficial; for instance, what he said of death and resurrection
and the great atonement that every form of death, even mere sleep,
involves.
"If you were a man, I should recommend Goethe. I should say to you, 'Read
over and over the beginning of the second part of _Faust_:'
'Then the craft of elves propitious
Hastes to help where help it can.'
or the passage beginning:
'The fierce convulsions of his heart compose;
Remove the burning barbs of his remorses,
And cleanse his being from the suffered woes!'
Doesn't what we went through give you a sense of expiation and
purification?"
"I feel," said the woman who had arisen from the dead, "as if my former
life were far, far away, as if, since the sinking of the _Roland_, an
impassable mountain were lying between me and my past. But leave me now,
Doctor. You are bored. Don't waste the precious time you owe your pretty
friend on me."
As a matter of fact, Frederick preferred to talk to Mrs. Liebling rather
than to Ingigerd. If he was bored, it was with Ingigerd, not with Mrs.
Liebling.
"Oh," he said, "never mind. Ingigerd Hahlström always has company. She
doesn't need me."
"My mother urged me," said Mrs. Liebling, "not to take the children, but
to leave them with her. Had I obeyed, Siegfried would still have been
alive. She has a perfect right to reproach me severely. And how can I
face Siegfried's father? He did what he could to keep the children back.
He wrote to me and sent friends and his attorneys."
"With 'if' and 'hadn't I,' you can't undo what has been done. The event
is too general, too titanic, to be thought of in such a way. It is too
fearful to be considered with reference to a single individual and his
puny fate. What happened had to happen, whether or not we believe in
predestination. We human beings must not have feelings so petty as to
allow mere chance to play a rôle in this event."
Frederick could not make up his mind to speak of his dream, in which Rosa
figured as jumping from the boat with Siegfried in her arms and escaping
to the white marble quay of the wonderful Columbus port, where he had
been received by Peter Schmidt and where the _Santa Maria_ was slowly
crumbling away. Since there were things in his dream that gave support to
a belief in predestination relieving the mind of self-blame, his telling
it might have soothed Mrs. Liebling's troubled conscience; but Rosa had
remained alive, Siegfried alone was dead. Besides, though Frederick was
constantly revolving the dream in his soul and kept recalling Hamlet's
words, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy," he did not want to strengthen Mrs.
Liebling's superstition, which showed itself in a predisposition for
table-tipping and patience-playing.
On walking to the other side of the deck, after a rather prolonged
absence, he was greeted with a shout.
"Hullo, father confessor!" they cried.
"Come be seated, my saviour," said Ingigerd, looking considerably better
and brighter than the day before.
Frederick turned slightly pale, but did as he was bidden and said in a
tone that did not harmonise with the good humour of the group:
"Mrs. Liebling was Rubinstein's pupil. I haven't met another woman on
this trip to whom it is so well worth the while to talk."
"All due respect to you, a matter of taste," said Doctor Wilhelm.
"Let him alone. My saviour is displeased," said Ingigerd.
It was evident that occasionally she stood in awe of Frederick.