Atlantis

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Atlantis

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atlantis, by Gerhart Hauptmann This
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Title: Atlantis
Author: Gerhart Hauptmann
Translator: Adele Seltzer and Thomas Seltzer
Release Date: December 6, 2005 [EBook #17241]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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ATLANTIS

A novel by Gerhart Hauptmann
Translated by Adele and Thomas Seltzer

NEW YORK B.W. HUEBSCH 1912
Copyright 1912 by S. FISCHER, VERLAG, BERLIN
Copyright 1912 by B.W. HUEBSCH
All rights reserved PRINTED IN U.S.A.

ATLANTIS


PART I

I
The German fast mail steamer, Roland, one of the older vessels of the
North German Steamship Company, plying between Bremen and New
York, left Bremen on the twenty-third of January, 1892.
It had been built in English yards with none of those profuse, gorgeous
gold decorations in a riotous rococo style which are so unpleasant in
the saloons and cabins of ships more recently built in German yards.
The crew of the vessel included the captain, four officers, two
engineers of the first rank, assistant engineers, firemen, coal-passers,
oilers, a purser, the head-steward and the second steward, the chef, the
second cook, and a doctor. In addition to these men with their assistants,

to whom the well-being of that tremendous floating household was
entrusted, there were, of course, a number of sailors, stewards,
stewardesses, workers in the kitchen, and so on, besides two cabin-boys
and a nurse. There was also an officer in charge of the mail on board.
The vessel was carrying only a hundred cabin passengers from Bremen;
but in the steerage there were four hundred human beings.
Frederick von Kammacher, to whom, the day before, the Roland had
been non-existent, telegraphed from Paris to have a cabin on it reserved
for him. Haste was imperative. After receiving notification from the
company that the cabin was being held, he had only an hour and a half
in which to catch the express that would bring him to Havre at about
twelve o'clock. From Havre he crossed to Southampton, spending the
night in a bunk in one of those wretched saloons in which a number of
persons are herded together. But he managed to sleep the whole time,
and the crossing went without incident.
At dawn he was on deck watching England's ghostly coast-line draw
nearer and nearer, until finally the steamer entered the port of
Southampton, where he was to await the Roland.
At the steamship office, he was told that the Roland would scarcely
make Southampton before evening, and at seven o'clock a tender would
be at the pier to convey the passengers to the ship as soon as it was
sighted. That meant twelve idle hours in a dreary foreign town, with the
thermometer at ten degrees below freezing-point. Frederick decided to
take a room in a hotel, and, if possible, pass some of the time in sleep.
In a shop window he saw a display of cigarettes of the brand of Simon
Arzt of Port Said. He entered the shop, which a maid was sweeping,
and bought several hundred. It was an act dictated by sentiment rather
than by a desire for enjoyment. The cigarettes of Simon Arzt of Port
Said were excellent, the best he had ever smoked; but the significance
they had acquired for him was not due to any intrinsic virtue of theirs.
He carried an alligator portfolio in his waistcoat pocket. In that
portfolio, among other things, was a letter he had received the very day
he left Paris:

* * * * *
Dear Frederick,
It's no use. I left the sanatorium in the Harz and returned to my parents'
home a lost man. That cursed winter in the Heuscheuer Mountains!
After a stay in tropical countries, I should not have thrown myself into
the fangs of such a winter. Of course, the worst thing was my
predecessor's fur coat. To my predecessor's fur coat I owe my sweet
fate. May the devil in hell take special delight in burning it. I need
scarcely tell you that I gave myself copious injections of tuberculin and
spat a considerable number of bacilli. But enough remained behind to
provide me with a speedy exitus letalis.
Now for the essential. I must settle my bequests. I find I owe you three
thousand marks. You made it possible for me to complete my medical
studies. To