The very next day he took up his abode in his lonely refuge on Lake
Hanover, which he alternately dubbed his Diogenes tub, his Uncle Tom's
Cabin, and his retort. It was no Diogenes tub, because the two friends
brought wood and anthracite coal for a little American stove in the
bedroom, which gave quite a good deal of heat and made a cosey appearance
with the glow of the burning coal visible; and because the kitchen and
pantry contained everything that is necessary for life, and a little
more. Frederick refused to have anybody share his quarters with him or
help with the housework. As he said, he wanted to settle his accounts and
take his trial balance, and the presence of another person might be
disturbing to that process.
After Peter Schmidt disappeared in the distance and the sound of the
sleigh-bells had died away and Frederick felt he was quite alone in that
wide American landscape wrapped in the night's darkness, it was a supreme
moment for him. He returned into the house, closed the door and listened.
He heard the crackling of the wood in the small kitchen stove. Taking the
candle that had been left standing on one of the lower steps in the hall,
he went up-stairs, where the warmth and the dusky glow of his little
American stove rejoiced him. He lit a lamp, and after arranging his
toilet articles on an unusually long, bare dresser, he settled himself
beside the lamp in a comfortable bamboo chair. He was filled with a
mysterious sense of rich, deep delight.
He was alone. Outside, lay the clear, silent winter's night, the same
that he had known in the home of his childhood. The things he had
hitherto experienced were no more, or as if they never had been. His
home, his parents, his wife, his children, the girl that had drawn him
across the ocean, everything that had happened to him on his trip were
nothing more in his soul than magic lantern pictures.
"Is life," Frederick asked himself, "meant to be nothing more than
material for dreams? So much is certain, my present condition is the sort
that leaves an everlasting effect. We should not be unsociable, but we
have still less right to leave this state uncultivated, which is the
basic state of man's personality, in which he is most natural and
undisturbed and stands face to face with the mystery of life as though it
were a dream."
During the past months, he had led a life full of incidents of the
extremest contrasts. He had been alarmed, excited, menaced. His own
anguish had been submerged in the anguish of others, and their pangs had
only increased his own. From the ashes of a dead love, the flames of
another passionate illusion had flared up. Frederick had been driven,
pursued, lured on, led about in the world, without a will of his own,
like a puppy on a strap--without a will of his own and with his senses
departed. Now at last his senses had returned. And the senses return when
the life that has been lived in an unconscious state becomes material for
dreams to the mind in a conscious state.
Frederick took a sheet of paper, dipped a new American pen in a new
inkwell of fresh ink, and wrote: "Life: Material for Dreams."
He rose and again went about arranging his Robinson Crusoe household to
suit his fancy. He piled up books that he had got in New York, little
Reclams and other volumes, among them a copy of Schleiermacher's
translation of Plato, which he had borrowed from Peter Schmidt. In front
of an old Dutch sofa covered in leather, which Lamping, the druggist,
had brought over from Leyden, his birthplace, stood a large, round
table. Frederick covered the table with a green cloth and arranged the
long-stemmed roses that the artists had given him in plain glass vases,
placing Miss Burns's roses by themselves. Before Peter Schmidt had left,
he and Frederick had taken a cup of coffee together. Frederick now washed
and cleared away the utensils, loaded a revolver that Schmidt had lent
him, and placed it beside the inkstand on his writing table. Next he took
from his trunk a more peaceable instrument, a Zeiss microscope, examined
all its parts, and set it up. It was the microscope that he had selected
years ago in Jena for his friend, Peter, when he was leaving for America.
Here was a remarkable meeting with the old instrument.
There were more things that Frederick had to do. He had to take apart a
seaman's clock, put it together again and hang it on the wall. It was an
antique that he had come across that very day and secured at a low price
along with some furniture. To his joy the old grandfather began to tick
away at a proper, dignified pace on the wall at the foot of the bed.
There it was to remain in its brown case about three feet long until,
as Frederick inwardly vowed, he would return it to its home in Europe,
Schleswig-Holstein, for which it was pining. When Frederick lay on his
bed, he could see the yellow brass pendulum gleam back and forth behind
a small glass door. The dial was a curiosity. It was painted in garish
colors in a primitive style and represented a chubby-cheeked sun wearing
the Island of Heligoland as a crown. Below the face, little metal
sailing vessels connected with the clockwork swayed back and forth in
the same sober rhythm as the pendulum. This was designed to make the
tempest-tossed seafarer doubly sensible of the comforts of a solid
hearth.
"When was it," Frederick pondered, "that I listened to Mr. Garry's
cutting remarks, Mr. Samuelson's unsuccessful attack, and Lilienfeld's
wild sally against Puritan intolerance--a low, hypocritical battle
ostensibly fought for the salvation of a soul; in reality nothing more
than the clapperclawing of crows over a helpless hare. When was it? It
must have been years ago. But no, it was only last night that Ingigerd
appeared in public for the first time. So it cannot have been longer ago
than day before yesterday."
He had already received her first letter. He had laughed over it
heartily, and yet it had moved him. She was furious and complained
bitterly of his breach of faith. In one and the same breath, she said she
had been dreadfully deceived in him and had seen through him the very
moment she laid eyes on him when he came up to speak to her after her
dance in Berlin. In one sentence she tore his character to shreds, in the
next sentence urged him to return.
"I celebrated a tremendous triumph to-day. The audience lost their heads.
After the performance Lord ---- came up to congratulate me. He is a
handsome young Englishman, who is living over here because he had a
falling out with his father. But when the old man dies, he will inherit
the title of duke and millions."
"This story," Frederick thought, "is either a true story or a concoction.
If a concoction, then I have reason to assume that the little girl wants
to make me jealous and so has not lost interest in me. But the story need
not be an invention, either wholly or in part. For if an invention, it
will undoubtedly become a fact within three or four days, or, at the
utmost, within a week. Some rich rascal will come along and buy her."
Frederick shrugged his shoulders. He no longer felt the slightest impulse
to be the girl's protector, knight and saviour, or the faintest
solicitude for her probable fate.
The next morning he awoke in a shiver, though the stove had retained some
heat and the sun was shining into the room brightly. He took his gold
watch from his pocket--a possession that had escaped drowning with
him--and ascertained that his pulse was beating more than a hundred times
a minute, which is too much for a healthy man. But he paid no attention
to his condition, got up, washed all over in cold water, dressed, and
prepared his breakfast, by no means feeling like an invalid. Nevertheless
he was aware he ought to be cautious, knowing that now, when the tension
and excitement had relaxed, his body might have to confess to its
consumption of capital and file a petition in bankruptcy. Sometimes,
without a warning to one's strength, the body overcomes the severest
hardships as if the thing were mere child's play; and all goes well so
long as the stimulated body is in motion. It works on its surplus energy,
and as soon as the will and the tension relax, it collapses.