Atlantis | Page 7

infinite ocean. In the situation, one could
not help representing it to oneself as black, gloomy, forbidding, a
fearful, demoniac power, hostile to man and the works of man.

Now, from the breast of the Roland, tore a cry rising higher and louder,
upward from a deep bass, a monstrous call, a roar, a thunder, of a
fearfulness and strength that congealed the blood in one's heart.
"Well, my dear friend Roland," flashed through Frederick's mind,
"you're a fellow that's a match for the ocean." With that he set foot on
the gangway-ladder. He completely forgot his previous identity and the
reason of his being here.
When, to the wild tune of the brass band, he stepped from the upper
rung upon the roomy deck, and stood in the garish sheen of an arc-light,
he found himself between two rows of men, the officers and some of
the ship's crew. It was the group of uniformed men he had noticed from
below. He was astonished and delighted to behold so many
confidence-inspiring masculine figures. It was an assemblage of
magnificent specimens of manhood, all, from the first mate down to the
stewards, tall, picked men, with bold, simple, intelligent, honest
features. Moved by a sense at once of pride and of complete trust and
security, Frederick said to himself that after all there was still a German
nation left; and the singular thought flashed through his mind that God
would never decide to take such a selection of noble, faithful men and
drown them in the sea like blind puppies.
A steward picked up his luggage and led the way to a cabin with two
berths, which he was to have to himself. Soon after, he was sitting at
one end of a horseshoe-shaped table in the dining-room. The service
was excellent, and the few passengers from the tender ate and drank;
but it was not very lively. The main dinner was over, and the little
company from the tender in the great, low-ceiled, empty saloon, were
each too tired and too engrossed in self to talk.
During the meal Frederick was not aware whether the mammoth body
was moving or standing still. The faint, scarcely perceptible quiver
seemed too slight to be a sign of the motion of so huge a mass.
Frederick had made his first sea voyage when a lad of eighteen as the
only passenger on a merchantman going from Hamburg to Naples. The
thirteen years since had considerably weakened the impressions of that
trip. Moreover, the luxury of this ocean liner into which he had strayed

was something so new to him, that all he could do at first was
scrutinize everything in astonishment.
When he had drunk his customary few glasses of wine, a sense of peace
and comfort stole over him. After their long irritation and tension his
nerves succumbed to a pleasant tiredness, which pressed upon him so
healthily and imperatively that he felt almost sure of a refreshing
night's sleep. He even made the firm resolution--in his condition
scarcely necessary--that for this night bygones should be bygones, the
future the future, and the present, without regard for past or future,
should belong unqualifiedly to rest and sleep.
When he went to bed, he actually did sleep for ten hours, heavily,
without stirring. At breakfast in the dining-room, he asked for the
passenger list, and with a wild leap of his heart read the names for
which he had been looking, Eugen Hahlström and Miss Ingigerd
Hahlström.

IV
He folded up the list and glanced about. There were about fifteen to
twenty men and women in the saloon, all engaged in breakfasting or
giving their orders to the stewards. To Frederick it seemed they were
there for no other purpose than to spy upon his emotions.
The steamer had already been travelling for an hour on the ocean. The
dining-room took up the full width of the vessel, and from time to time
its port-holes were darkened by the waves dashing against them.
Opposite Frederick sat a gentleman in uniform, who introduced himself
as Doctor Wilhelm, the ship's physician. Straightway a very lively
medical discussion began, though Frederick's thoughts were far away.
He was debating with himself how he should act at his first meeting
with the Hahlströms.
He tried to find support in self-deception, telling himself he had
boarded the Roland, not for the sake of little Ingigerd Hahlström, but

because he wanted to see New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston,
Yellowstone Park, and Niagara Falls. That is what he would tell the
Hahlströms--that a mere chance had brought them together on the
Roland.
He observed that he was gaining in poise. Sometimes, when the adorer
is at a distance from the object of his devotion, the idolatry of love
assumes fateful proportions. During