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 Hahlstroems.

He tried to find support in self-deception, telling himself he had boarded the Roland, not for the sake of little Ingigerd Hahlstroem, but because he wanted to see New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston, Yellowstone Park, and Niagara Falls.  That is what he would tell the Hahlstroems—­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 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 Hahlstroem, 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.