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masterpieces of paint
rotting with damp in neglected Venetian churches, and so on and so on,
until one had the melancholy illusion that the whole art world was
going or gone to destruction. But this subject did not really hold us, for
the reason that, beneath a blasé exterior, we were all secretly
preoccupied by the beauty of the women of Yucatan and wondering
whether we should ever get to Yucatan.... And then, looking by
accident away, I saw the dim, provocative faces of girls in white jerseys
and woolen caps peering from without through the dark double
windows of the lounge. And I was glad when somebody suggested that
it was time to take a turn. And outside, in the strong wind, abaft the
four funnels of the Lusitania, a star seemed to be dancing capriciously
around and about the masthead light. And it was difficult to believe that
the masthead and its light, and not the star, were dancing.

From the lofty promenade deck the Atlantic wave is a little enough
thing, so far down beneath you that you can scarcely even sniff its salty
tang. But when the elevator-boy--always waiting for me--had lowered
me through five floors, I stood on tiptoe and gazed through the thick
glass of a porthole there; and the flying Atlantic wave, theatrically
moonlit now, was very near. Suddenly something jumped up and hit
the glass of the port-hole a fearful, crashing blow that made me draw
away my face in alarm; and the solid ground on which I stood vibrated
for an instant. It was the Atlantic wave, caressing. Anybody on the
other side of this thin, nicely painted steel plate (I thought) would be in
a rather hopeless situation. I turned away, half shivering, from the
menace. All was calm and warm and reassuring within the ship.... In
the withdrawn privacy of my berth, with the curtains closed over the
door and Murray Gilchrist's new novel in my hand and a poised electric
lamp over my head, I looked about as I lay, and everything was still
except a towel that moved gently, almost imperceptibly, to and fro. Yet
the towel had copied the immobility of the star. It alone did not
oscillate. Forty-five thousand tons were swaying; but not that towel.
The sense of actual present romance was too strong to let me read. I
extinguished the light, and listened in the dark to the faint straining
noises of the enormous organism. I thought: "This magic thing is taking
me there! In three days I shall be on that shore." Terrific adventure!
The rest of the passengers were merely going to America.
* * * * *
The magic thing was much more magic than I had conceived. The next
morning, being up earlier than usual and wandering about on strange,
inclosed decks unfamiliar to my feet, I beheld astonishing unsuspected
populations of men and women--crowds of them--a healthy, powerful,
prosperous, independent, somewhat stern and disdainful multitude, it
seemed to me. Those muscular, striding girls in caps and shawls would
not yield an inch to me in their promenade; they brushed strongly and
carelessly past me; had I been a ghost they would have walked through
me. They were, and had been, all living--eating and
sleeping--somewhere within the vessel, and I had not imagined it! It is
true that some ass in the saloon had already calculated for my benefit

that there were "three thousand souls on board!" (The solemn use of the
word "souls" in this connection by a passenger should stamp a man
forever.) But such numerical statements do not really arouse the
imagination. I had to see with my eyes. And I did see with my eyes.
That afternoon a high officer of the ship, spiriting me away from the
polite flirtations and pastimes of the upper decks, carried me down to
more exciting scenes. And I saw a whole string of young women
inoculated against smallpox, under the interested gaze of a crowd of
men ranged on a convenient staircase. And a little later I saw a whole
string of men inoculated against smallpox, under the interested gaze of
a crowd of young women ranged on a convenient staircase.
"They're having their sweet revenge," said the high officer, indicating
the young women. He was an epigrammatic and terse speaker. When I
reflected aloud upon the order and discipline of service which was
necessary to maintain more than a thousand roughish persons in
idleness, cleanliness, health, peace, and content, in the inelastic forward
spaces of the ship, he said with a certain grimness: "Everything has to
be screwed up as tight as you can screw it. And you must keep to the
round. What you do to-day you must do to-morrow. But what you don't
do to-day you can't