“My whole personality is being shaken through and through.  I was mistaken when I supposed that I had already got my shaking up these last two years.  I thought fate was shaking me.  Now, both my fate and I are being shaken.  I thought there was tragedy in me.  Now, I and my tragedy are bowling about in this creaking cage, and are being disgraced in our own eyes.

“I have a habit of pondering over everything.  I think about the beak of the ship, which buries itself in each new wave.  I think about the laughter of the steerage passengers, those poor, poor people, who, I am sure, scarcely have a gay time of it.  My sousing was a treat to them.  I think of the rapscallion, Wilke, who married a humpbacked seamstress, ran through her savings, and abused her daily—­and I almost embraced him.  I think of the blond Teuton, Captain von Kessel, that handsome man, somewhat too insipid-looking and too thick-set, who is our absolute lord and whom we trust at first glance.  And, finally, I think about my constant laughing and admit to myself that laughing is a sensible thing only in the rarest circumstances.”

Frederick continued a conversation with himself in a similar strain for a while, and cast bitter, ironical reflections upon the passion that had brought him on this trip.  He had actually been robbed of his will; and in this condition, in that narrow cabin, surrounded by the ocean, it seemed to him as if his life, and his foolish impotence, were being held up to the rudest ridicule.

When Frederick went up again, there were still a number of persons on deck.  The stewards had fastened the steamer chairs to the walls, some of them having slipped and left the occupants, ladies and gentlemen, with the blue marks of their fall.  Refreshments were being served.  It was interesting to see how the stewards, carrying six or eight full cups, balanced themselves over the heaving deck.

Frederick looked about in vain for Hahlstroem and his daughter.

In walking the full length of the deck several times, examining all the passengers with the utmost care and circumspection, he noticed the pretty young Englishwoman, whom he had seen for the first time in the reading-room of the hotel in Southampton.  She was wrapped in rugs and furs and snugly settled in a spot shielded from the wind and warmed by the two huge smoke-stacks.  She was receiving the attention of a very lively young man sitting beside her.  Each time Frederick passed, the young man scrutinised him sharply.  Suddenly he jumped up, held out his hand, and introduced himself as Hans Fuellenberg of Berlin.  Though Frederick could not recall ever having met him before, the good-looking, dashing young fellow succeeded in convincing him that they had both been present at a certain evening affair in Berlin.  He told Frederick he was going to the United States to take a position in a mining region near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  He was a wide-awake young man and, what is more, a Berlinese, and had great notions of his own importance.  Frederick’s reputation in Berlin society inspired him with tremendous respect.  Frederick responded to his advances courteously, and allowed him to recount all the latest Berlin news, as if he himself had not left the German capital only a week before.  He realised he could depend upon Fuellenberg’s garrulousness for every item of interest.