Atlantis | Page 8

his stay in Paris, Frederick had
lived in a state of constant fever, and his yearning for his idol had risen
to an unendurable degree. About the image of little Ingigerd Hahlström,
a heavenly aureole had laid itself, so compelling in its attraction that
Frederick's mental vision was literally blinded to everything else. That
illusion had suddenly vanished. He felt ashamed of himself. "I'm a
ridiculous fool," he thought, and when he arose to go on deck, he felt as
if he had shaken off oppressive fetters. The salt sea air blowing
vigorously across the deck heightened his sense of emancipation and
convalescence and refreshed him to his inner being.
Men and women lay stretched out on steamer chairs with that green
expression of profound indifference which marks the dreaded
seasickness. To Frederick's astonishment, he himself felt not the least
trace of nausea, and only the sight of his fellow-passengers' misery
caused him to realise that the Roland was not gliding through smooth
waters, but was distinctly pitching and rolling.
He walked around the ladies' parlour, past the entrance of an extra
cabin, and took his stand under the bridge, breasting the steely, salt sea
wind. On the deck below, the steerage passengers had settled
themselves as far as the bow. Though the Roland was running under
full steam, it was not making its maximum speed, prevented by the
long, heavy swells that the wind raised and hurled against the bow.
Across the forward lower deck there was a second bridge, probably for
emergency. Frederick felt strongly tempted to stand up there on that
empty bridge.
It aroused some attention, of course, when he descended down among
the steerage passengers and then crawled up the iron rungs of the ladder
to the windy height. But that did not trouble him. All at once such a

madcap spirit had come over him, he felt so happy and refreshed; as if
he had never had to suffer dull cares, or put up with the whims of a
hysterical wife, or practise medicine in a musty, out-of-the-way corner
of the country. Never, it seemed to him, had he studied bacteriology,
still less, suffered a fiasco. Never had he been so in love as he appeared
to have been only a short time before.
He laughed, bending his head before the gale, filled his lungs with the
salty air, and felt better and stronger.
A burst of laughter from the steerage passengers mounted to his ears.
At the same instant something lashed him in the face, something that he
had seen rearing, white and tremendous, before the bow. It almost
blinded him, and he felt the wet penetrate to his skin. The first wave
had swept overboard.
Who would not find it humiliating to have his sublime meditations
interrupted in such a tricky, brutal way? A moment before, he felt as if
to be a Viking were his real calling, and now, inwardly shaking and
shivering, amid general ridicule, he crawled ignominiously down the
iron ladder.
He was wearing a round grey hat. His overcoat was padded and lined
with silk. His gloves were of dressed kid, his buttoned boots of thin
leather. All these garments were now drenched with a cold, salty wash.
Leaving a damp trail behind, he made his way, not exactly a glorious
way, through the steerage passengers, who rolled with laughter. In the
midst of his annoyance Frederick heard a voice calling his name. He
looked up and scarcely trusted his eyes on seeing a large fellow in
whom he thought he recognised a peasant from the Heuscheuer
Mountains, a peasant with an evil reputation for drunkenness and all
sorts of misdeeds.
"Wilke, is that you?"
"Yes, Doctor, I'm Wilke."
The little town in which Frederick had practised was called Plassenberg

an der Heuscheuer, that is, Plassenberg by the Heuscheuer Mountains, a
range in the county of Glatz where excellent sandstone is quarried. The
people of the district loved Frederick both as a man and a physician. He
was the wonder-worker who had performed a number of splendid cures
and he was the human being, without pride of caste, whose heart beat
warmly for the good of the lowliest of his fellow-men. They loved his
natural way with them, always cordial, always outspoken, and
sometimes harsh.
Wilke was bound for New England to join his brother.
"The people in the Heuscheuer," he said, "are mean and ungrateful."
Shy and distrustful at home, even toward Frederick, who had treated
him for his last knife wound on his neck, his manner here, with the
other passengers crossing the great waters, was frank and trustful. He
was like a well-behaved child chattering freely.
"You didn't get the thanks you deserved, either, Doctor von
Kammacher," he said in his broad dialect, rich in vowel sounds,