Part 17

Frederick did not understand himself. Hahlström was no longer living, Achleitner had had to pay the penalty of his undignified, dog-like love, and the girl, shaken and refined to the depths of her being, was wax in his hands. Often he would look at her to find that her eyes had been fixed upon him in a long, grave, meditative gaze. Then he would seem to himself a very sorry sort of person, and was compelled to admit that he who had once wished to overwhelm the girl with the infinite riches of a passionately loving soul, was a bankrupt, groping with empty hands in empty pockets. He ought to speak, ought to open the sluices on the other side of which the flood of his passionate love must have gathered and risen high; but all the waters had trickled away, all the sources had dried up. To mask the aridity of his soul, he adopted his old method of a curt, dictatorial manner.

LVIII

It was the fifth of February, about thirteen days after the _Roland_ had left Bremen, and twelve after Frederick had boarded the _Roland_ at the Needles in the Channel, when the pilot took the guidance of the _Hamburg_. Compared with the length of the _Fürst Bismarck's_ record-making passage, this was an extremely long time. But how inconceivably brief it seemed to him when he recalled all he had experienced in that period, both in his waking and sleeping hours. On the _Hamburg_, he no longer dreamed at night. A mighty blast had swept his soul clean and denuded it of all images.

Shortly before ten o'clock in the morning of the sixth of February, Captain Butor, standing back of Ella Liebling, who was sitting under the telescope merrily kicking her thin legs, spied land. It was a tremendously stirring moment when the news was carried to the passengers. The steward that called it into Frederick's cabin and the next instant disappeared little realised how his brief announcement, "Land!" affected the stranger. Frederick closed the door, shaken by great, hollow, toneless sobs coming from the depths of his being.

"Such is life," went through his heart. "Did not a steward on a gloomy, horrid night call 'Danger!' into my cabin, like the shouting of a death sentence into the cell of a poor sinner by both the judge and the hangman? And now comes the peaceful piping of the shepherd's reed, while the thunder is still rolling." It was not until his sobbing ceased that he felt a thrill of bliss, as if life were again drawing near in triumph. A flash of feeling set him afire, as when a vast army approaches with music playing and banners flying, an army of invincible brethren, among whom he is safe at home again. Never before had life come rolling toward him in waves so strong or colours so shining. One must have been cast very, very deep down in darkness and confusion to learn that there is no more glorious sun in all God's heavens than the sun that shines upon our earth.

The other passengers from the _Roland_ were each in his own way affected by the call of "Land!" Mrs. Liebling was heard to cry for Rosa and Flitte.

"By Jove, you rascal," said Arthur Stoss to his faithful Bulke, "by Jove, we'll feel the land under our soles again after all."

Doctor Wilhelm peeped into Frederick's cabin.

"Congratulate you, Doctor von Kammacher," he said. "The land of Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci has been sighted. We enjoy the advantage of having no trunks to pack."

Suddenly the fat little engineer, Mr. Wendler, was peering over Doctor Wilhelm's shoulder.

"Doctor," he cried, wringing his hands with a comic air of helplessness, "you must come right on deck. Your ward is crying her eyes out." He referred, of course, to Ingigerd.

She was still crying when Frederick reached deck. His attempts at consolation did not touch her. He had never before seen her cry, and the state she was in, so like the one from which he himself had scarcely emerged, aroused his pity and sympathy, which, however, were rather of a paternal sort, untinged by his former passion.

"I am not to blame," she suddenly said, "that my father lost his life. I am not even responsible for Mr. Achleitner. I did my best to dissuade him from making the trip."

Frederick stroked Ingigerd's hand.

"All due respect to Achleitner, but if I mourn single victims of that fearful night, I first think of the heroes of the _Roland_, Captain von Kessel, his mate, Von Halm, and all those picked braves who really died like great men fulfilling their duty. They are a loss to the world. At the first sight of them, I, in my innocence, actually believed the Lord would never permit their destruction."

LIX

The _Hamburg_ had left behind the vast solitude of the ocean, broken only at long intervals by single far-off ships, and was already making its way through waters lively with a large number of steamers and sailing craft, leaving, and making for, the port. Now the lighthouse at Sandy Hook was visible.

Though Ingigerd as well as Frederick could not still the fluttering of their shaken souls, they were fascinated by the changing pictures of the entrance to the harbour. It was an amazing spectacle. Surprise followed surprise. Each second brought a new sensation.

A gigantic White Star liner came gliding toward them slowly, to the accompaniment of its brass band. It was starting out on the passage that the _Hamburg_ was just concluding. Passengers swarmed like ants on the majestic vessel's decks, giving an impression of gaiety and festivity. What knew they of the thing awaiting them, perhaps, out there on the ocean? When they looked down upon the little _Hamburg_, with its few passengers on deck, they had not the least inkling of the greatness, the fearfulness of the event of which those few puny persons were the sole surviving witnesses.

The emotion that filled the _Roland's_ passengers with restlessness and excited them as with fire and tears when the _Hamburg_ entered New York Harbour and steamed up through the Lower Bay toward the Narrows, was both a farewell to home and to the dangers of the sea and a greeting to solid land, to a stable human civilisation. This was the known, the usual, the mother's lap from which they had sprung and in which they had grown until the time came for them to start out upon their spiritual life's journey. It was also that without which the individual even to-day is helpless against the powers of nature.

Thus, they experienced a sort of home-coming, mingled with a peculiar dream-like feeling, that they were arriving on a strange planet, after having been ferried across Stygian currents on a Charon's raft. Out there, on the ocean and over the ocean, hovered a gruesomeness of solitudes, in which the human being, himself seeing everything, remains unseen, unknown, forgotten by God and the world. To be happy in his heated, clustered ant nests, man can and must forget the murderous in those watery transitional realms--man, that insect-like being whose sense organs and intellect are capacitated for the knowledge of his vast isolation in the world, but for nothing beyond that knowledge.

Sailing vessels passed one another, steamers blew their whistles, flocks of gulls swooped down on the water for fish, or darted hither and thither in the fresh breeze. Another great ocean greyhound, of the Hamburg-American line, neared them at Norton Point. The huge structure was propelled forward quietly and surely, as by some mysterious force. The gong summoning the passengers from the promenade deck to the dining-room could be distinctly heard.

"At this moment," said Frederick, drawing his watch from his pocket, "it is quarter of six in Europe, and still dark."

Captain Butor exchanged flag signals with the quarantine station. The _Hamburg_ came to a standstill to receive health officers on board. After prolonged negotiations, in the course of which the physicians were called upon to give detailed information, the sick woman from the steerage and, with Mrs. Liebling's consent, Siegfried's corpse were taken from the _Hamburg_. Frederick saw to it that Mrs. Liebling remained in her cabin and was spared the too painful scene. Within half an hour, the gallant _Hamburg_ was steaming at full speed through the Narrows into the magnificent Upper Bay.

Long before it appears, travellers are always on the lookout with spy-glasses for the Statue of Liberty, the gift of the French nation. Even Frederick, when he beheld the goddess towering up from the water on her star-shaped base, did homage to her in his thoughts. From the distance at which he saw her, she did not look so gigantic. She seemed to be sending him a beautiful message, rather of the future than of the present, a message that found its way to his heart and, even in the strange mood he was in, expanded his breast.

"Liberty!" The word may be misused, yet it has not lost any of its magic or promise.

LX

And now, suddenly, the world seemed to Frederick to have gone mad. The _Hamburg_ was entering the narrow harbour, the basin surrounded by skyscrapers, veritable towers of Babel, and alive with numberless grotesquely shaped ferry-boats. The scene, perhaps, would be a ridiculous monstrosity, were it not so truly gigantic. In that crater of life civilisation bellows, howls, screeches, roars, thunders, rushes, whizzes and whirls. Here is a colony of white ants, whose activity is staggering, bewildering, stupefying. It seemed inconceivable that in that intricate, raging chaos, a single minute could pass without a collision, or a collapse, or a killing. How could one possibly pursue one's own affairs quietly amid that shrieking, that hammering, that clanging, that mad uproar?

During these last moments together, the involuntary passengers of the _Hamburg_ had become as one in heart and soul. Frederick had not lost his cash in the disaster, and he persuaded Ingigerd Hahlström not to reject his services during her first days on land. All agreed not to lose sight of one another in New York. Naturally enough, there had been much lively, genuinely heartfelt leave-taking and well-wishing for more than an hour before the _Hamburg_ was secured to the dock.

The dithyrambic noise of the mighty city, where millions of men were at work, exercised a renewing, transforming influence. It was a whirlpool into which one was drawn unresistingly. It suffered no pondering, no immersion in an unalterable past. Everything in it urged and impelled forward. Here was the present, nothing but the present.

Arthur Stoss seemed already to have one foot planted on Webster and Forster's stage. There was much parleying in regard to Ingigerd's appearance in theatre. She and Stoss had been engaged for the same time, which was already past. With the uncertainty in her heart as to her father's fate, she said she could not possibly dance; while Arthur Stoss declared if he got there in time, he would appear for his number that very evening.

"I've already lost two evenings," he said, "at a round five hundred dollars an evening. Besides, I must work, I must get among people."

He advised Ingigerd for her own advantage to do the same, and cited instances of persons who had not allowed the greatest griefs to keep them from the exercise of their calling. He knew of a scholar, he said, who delivered his lecture while his wife was dying, of a clown who cracked his jokes on the stage, though his wife had eloped with another man and his heart was bleeding.

"That's our profession," Stoss continued, "and not only our profession, but everybody's profession--to do his duty, whether with liking or disliking, whether with happiness or with anguish in his soul. Every man is a tragi-comic clown, although he doesn't pass for one, perhaps, as we do. To me it is a triumph, after what I have gone through, to stand on the stage this evening without trembling, among three thousand sensation-seeking spectators, and shoot the middle out of an ace."

By degrees Stoss fell more and more into a lively strain of boasting, which, though not disagreeable, utterly lacked wit. "If you haven't anything better to do," he said, turning to the physicians, "you might come to Webster and Forster's and see me cut my capers. Work! Work!"--this was meant for Ingigerd--"I very much wish you would make up your mind to dance. Work is medicine, work is everything. To lament the past is of no use. Besides," he said, turning serious, "don't forget, stocks in us are booming. Actors must not reject such an opportunity. Just wait and see how we'll be surrounded by reporters the moment we set foot on land."

"How so?" said Frederick. "Don't you suppose that all the details of the sinking of the _Roland_ have been telegraphed to New York from quarantine? Look at those great skyscrapers, that one with the cupola is the _World_ building. We have already gone to press, and millions of newspapers have spun us out, in the greatest detail. The next four or five days there won't be a man or woman in New York who can vie in celebrity with the survivors of the _Roland_."

Amid similar talk, the _Hamburg_ reached its pier, and leave-taking began in earnest. It was truly remarkable to see what emotion suddenly seized these people, who at bottom were strangers to one another. Mrs. Liebling wept, and Frederick and Doctor Wilhelm had to submit to her overflowing kisses of gratitude. Rosa kissed Bulke; she kissed Doctor Wilhelm's and Frederick's hands again and again, amid veritable howls. It goes without saying that the ladies also exchanged endearments. Praises were bestowed upon Flitte; and Captain Butor and Wendler, in fact the entire crew of the _Hamburg_, were extolled as brave, noble rescuers. The physicians and Stoss called the sailors of the _Roland_, "Our dear comrades! Our heroes!"

It was agreed that all should meet again, and Doctor Wilhelm made an appointment with Captain Butor, Wendler, and even the tattered painter, Fleischmann, for noon of the day after next. The place chosen for the meeting was the Hoffman House bar. From there, they would go together on a jaunt through the city.

Poor Jacob Fleischmann, the painter, was somewhat perplexed by the mad city, and turned rather mealy-mouthed. He could not speak English, he had little cash, and he had lost his only capital, his paintings. He tried delicately, though with evident anxiety, to attach himself to the men with whom fate had thrown him, and they did not withhold the support he sought. They agreed to look out for him. Even Arthur Stoss proffered his services and good advice.

"Should you have trouble with the company's agent," he said, "call on me, and I'll introduce you to my friend, the owner of the _Staats-Zeitung_."

## PART II

I

A few moments later Frederick felt the solid pier beneath his feet. His brain reeled lightly. The crowd on the pier cheered and hurrahed. In that shouting, shrieking, roaring, swaying mass of humanity, he and Ingigerd, who was clinging to his arm, seemed exposed to the danger of another sort of drowning. Suddenly he found himself confronted by a little Japanese, or someone whom at first glance he took to be a Japanese, and heard him saying:

"How d'ye do, Doctor von Kammacher? Don't you know me? How d'ye do, Doctor von Kammacher? Don't you know me?" several times in rapid succession.

Frederick tried to recall the man to his memory. He scarcely knew who he himself was, with those cheers thundering in his ears, with hands on all sides shaking his hands, and newsboys flourishing newspapers behind him and above him and under his very nose.

"Don't you know me, Doctor von Kammacher?" the Japanese repeated, grinning.

"By Jove," cried Frederick, "now I recognise you. You are Willy Snyders. How do you come to be here?"

While studying several semesters in Breslau, Frederick had eked out his income by tutoring a boy, a rather desperate case, whose father, a furniture manufacturer, paid handsomely for his son's private lessons. Frederick's pupil turned out to be a good-hearted chap, an amusing scapegrace, who soon became his devoted slave. It was this scapegrace, now a full-grown man, that Frederick recognised in the jolly Japanese.

"How I come to be here? I'll explain later," said Willy, his nostrils dilating with the joy of seeing his teacher again. "The first thing is, have you already engaged rooms, and shall I slip you past that damned lot of reporters? Or do you want to be interviewed?"

"For heaven's sake, no! Not for the world."

"Then stick close to me," shouted Willy. "A cab is waiting for us, and we'll drive straight to our folks."

Frederick introduced Ingigerd.

"I must first see this young lady safe to a hotel. And even then I can't leave her entirely alone."

Willy instantly took in the situation, but it did not change his plans.

"Miss Hahlström can stop with us, too. She will be far more comfortable than in a hotel. The only question is, can she put up with Italian cooking?"

"I don't anticipate any difficulties from your macaroni and spaghetti _al sugo_," said Frederick, who read Ingigerd's willingness in her eyes. "So I'll follow your lead as you followed mine years ago."

"All right! Forward, march!" Willy's joy in his booty was patent.

When they left the pier, they saw Stoss still surrounded by reporters, working his jaws with incredible rapidity, as he discoursed upon himself and the role he had played in the sinking of the _Roland_. They were about to enter their cab after their flight, through the crowd, when an elderly gentleman, panting breathlessly and perspiring, despite the nipping wind, stepped up to Ingigerd Hahlström with, "I beg your pardon, but I come from Webster and Forster." He took off his hat and wiped the inside band with his handkerchief. "I was told--I was told--I came in a carriage--a carriage is waiting--" He stopped, too exhausted to continue.

"Miss Hahlström cannot possibly appear this evening."

"Oh, Miss Hahlström looks very well!"

"See here," said Frederick ready to flare up.

Webster and Forster's agent put his hat back on his bald pate.

"It would be the greatest mistake if Miss Hahlström were not to dance to-night," he said. "I was commissioned to provide her with money and anything else she needed. There's my carriage. Rooms have already been engaged for her at the Astor."

Frederick grew angry.

"I am a physician," he snapped, "and as a physician, I tell you Miss Hahlström will not dance to-night, nor for several nights."

"Will you make good to Miss Hahlström her financial loss?"

"What I shall do in regard to that is neither your nor Webster and Forster's business."

Frederick thought he had disposed of the matter, but the agent became offensive.

"Who are you, sir? My dealings are with Miss Hahlström exclusively. What right have you to mix in this affair?"

"I don't think I could dance to-night," Ingigerd interposed.

"You will lose that feeling as soon as you step on the stage. The manager's wife gave me a letter for you. Her maid is at the Astor with everything you need. She is entirely at your disposal."

"Our Petronilla is a jewel, too," Willy Snyders interjected. "If you tell her what you need, Miss Hahlström, she'll have it for you in five minutes." With the insistence of a seducer, he helped Ingigerd into the cab.

"Very well, then," said the agent emphatically, "you are breaking a contract, and I warn you of the consequences. I will have to ask you for your address."

Willy Snyders shouted a number on 107th street. The agent jotted it down in his note-book.

The cab with Ingigerd, Frederick, and Willy in it was transported from Hoboken to New York in the usual way, jammed in between other carriages and trucks on the ferry-boat. A newsboy on the ferry handed into the cab a copy of _The Sun_, with whole columns already describing the disaster. The authors of the information were probably the health officers and Captain Butor. When Willy Snyders began to speak of the _Roland_, Frederick checked him with a nod toward Ingigerd; but she had of herself noticed the report in the paper and asked if they had been the first to bring the news to New York.

"The _Roland_ was overdue more than three days," Willy explained. "We were already beginning to be alarmed. Finally the passenger list from Bremen was published, and soon after your name, too, Doctor von Kammacher, appeared in the newspapers, your father in the meantime having cabled that you left Paris to catch the _Roland_ at Southampton. I never lost faith that nothing but the wretched weather was delaying you, and I inquired at the steamship company's office every day. It was there that I learned of the sinking of the _Roland_ and the arrival of the _Hamburg_ with the first rescued passengers on board, with you among them." Noticing Ingigerd's sudden pallor, Willy added vivaciously, with apparent conviction, "A lot of others must surely have been rescued."

The amount of traffic, as indicated by an endless number of ferry-boats, tugs, and steamers of every sort, was immense. The ferry-boats, black with people, resembled floating towers of Babel, above which rose an iron something like a pump-handle, seesawing up and down with the invisible pistons.

When the boat lay fast in the slip, there was a great thundering as the vehicles all began to move at the same time to the accompaniment of a tramping mass of humanity.

"This city," Frederick thought, "is obsessed by a craze for money making." The idea was suggested to him chiefly by the advertisements staring on all sides, those shrill, over-spiced, over-charged asseverations, compared with which the same thing in Europe was delicate as a violet, innocent as a newborn babe. Wherever he turned his eyes, gigantic placards glared at him, gigantic letters, gigantic, garishly coloured pictures, gigantic fingers and hands pointing to something. Twenty negroes carrying bill-boards, a carriage drawn by twelve horses harnessed like circus horses passed by. It was a shrieking, greedy war of competition, waged with every conceivable means, a wild, shameless orgy of acquisitiveness, but for that very reason not lacking in a certain greatness. There was no hypocrisy about it. It was honest in its outspokenness.

The cab stopped at a telegraph office, and Frederick cabled to his father, "I am safe, sound, and well;" Ingigerd to her mother in Paris, "I am safe. Papa's fate uncertain." While Ingigerd was writing, Frederick took the chance to tell Willy Snyders that she had probably lost her father in the wreck.

Several times newsboys thrust a paper under Frederick's nose, calling out the great sensation, "All about the sinking of the _Roland_! All about the sinking of the _Roland_!" In large, catching headlines he read: "The _Roland_ leaves Bremen. Slight accident compels her to return. _Roland_ starts on trip again. Constant storms. Dead man on board. Nine hundred drowned. Heroic conduct of a servant-girl. Doctor Frederick von Kammacher performs miracles of bravery." Frederick started, reflected, but could not recall anything of the sort. "Child dies in life-boat. Captain Butor of the _Hamburg_ sights castaways. Report of survivors. Arthur Stoss, champion armless marksman, helped into life-boat by faithful valet," and so on. It was an invaluable supply of fresh, sensational, gratuitously obtained material, to be served for a week in generous portions to readers in both the old and the new worlds.