Pandora | Page 4

other senses. He
vaguely felt that something should be done about this, and in a general
manner proposed to do it, for he was on his way to explore a society
abounding in comic aspects. This consciousness of a missing measure
gave him a certain mistrust of what might be said of him; and if
circumspection is the essence of diplomacy our young aspirant
promised well. His mind contained several millions of facts, packed too
closely together for the light breeze of the imagination to draw through
the mass. He was impatient to report himself to his superior in
Washington, and the loss of time in an English port could only
incommode him, inasmuch as the study of English institutions was no
part of his mission. On the other hand the day was charming; the blue
sea, in Southampton Water, pricked all over with light, had no
movement but that of its infinite shimmer. Moreover he was by no
means sure that he should be happy in the United States, where
doubtless he should find himself soon enough disembarked. He knew
that this was not an important question and that happiness was an

unscientific term, such as a man of his education should be ashamed to
use even in the silence of his thoughts. Lost none the less in the
inconsiderate crowd and feeling himself neither in his own country nor
in that to which he was in a manner accredited, he was reduced to his
mere personality; so that during the hour, to save his importance, he
cultivated such ground as lay in sight for a judgement of this delay to
which the German steamer was subjected in English waters. Mightn't it
be proved, facts, figures and documents--or at least watch--in hand,
considerably greater than the occasion demanded?
Count Vogelstein was still young enough in diplomacy to think it
necessary to have opinions. He had a good many indeed which had
been formed without difficulty; they had been received ready-made
from a line of ancestors who knew what they liked. This was of
course--and under pressure, being candid, he would have admitted it
--an unscientific way of furnishing one's mind. Our young man was a
stiff conservative, a Junker of Junkers; he thought modern democracy a
temporary phase and expected to find many arguments against it in the
great Republic. In regard to these things it was a pleasure to him to feel
that, with his complete training, he had been taught thoroughly to
appreciate the nature of evidence. The ship was heavily laden with
German emigrants, whose mission in the United States differed
considerably from Count Otto's. They hung over the bulwarks, densely
grouped; they leaned forward on their elbows for hours, their shoulders
kept on a level with their ears; the men in furred caps, smoking
long-bowled pipes, the women with babies hidden in remarkably ugly
shawls. Some were yellow Germans and some were black, and all
looked greasy and matted with the sea-damp. They were destined to
swell still further the huge current of the Western democracy; and
Count Vogelstein doubtless said to himself that they wouldn't improve
its quality. Their numbers, however, were striking, and I know not what
he thought of the nature of this particular evidence.
The passengers who came on board at Southampton were not of the
greasy class; they were for the most part American families who had
been spending the summer, or a longer period, in Europe. They had a
great deal of luggage, innumerable bags and rugs and hampers and

sea-chairs, and were composed largely of ladies of various ages, a little
pale with anticipation, wrapped also in striped shawls, though in
prettier ones than the nursing mothers of the steerage, and crowned
with very high hats and feathers. They darted to and fro across the
gangway, looking for each other and for their scattered parcels; they
separated and reunited, they exclaimed and declared, they eyed with
dismay the occupants of the forward quarter, who seemed numerous
enough to sink the vessel, and their voices sounded faint and far as they
rose to Vogelstein's ear over the latter's great tarred sides. He noticed
that in the new contingent there were many young girls, and he
remembered what a lady in Dresden had once said to him--that
America was the country of the Madchen. He wondered whether he
should like that, and reflected that it would be an aspect to study, like
everything else. He had known in Dresden an American family in
which there were three daughters who used to skate with the officers,
and some of the ladies now coming on board struck him as of that same
habit, except that in the Dresden days feathers weren't worn quite so
high.
At last the ship began to creak and slowly