It quickly became evident that Hans Fuellenberg was an amiable, giddy-headed young buck, knowing well how to deal with the ladies.  When Frederick called his attention to the fact that the Englishwoman was casting impatient glances toward him, visibly eager for his return, he complacently winked his eye as if to say: 

“She won’t run away.  And if she does, there are plenty more.”

V

“Do you know, Doctor von Kammacher,” Fuellenberg said suddenly, “that little Hahlstroem is on board?”

“What little Hahlstroem do you mean?” asked Frederick coolly.

Hans Fuellenberg could not contain his surprise that Frederick should have forgotten little Hahlstroem.  He was sure of having seen him in the Kuenstlerhaus in Berlin when Ingigerd danced her dance there for the first time, the dance that then aroused admiration only in the artist world, but later became the sensation of all Berlin.  He described the affair.

“The pick of the Berlin artists were standing around the room and on the stairs in informal groups, leaving the centre of the floor clear.  Even Menzel and Begas were there.  A special exhibition was to open soon, and the walls were hung with a collection of Boecklin pictures.  The name of the dance was ‘Mara, or the Spider’s Victim.’

“I tell you, Doctor von Kammacher,” the young man went on, “if you didn’t see that dance, you missed something.  In the first place, little Ingigerd’s costume was very scanty, and then her performance was really wonderful.  There are no two opinions about it.  A huge artificial flower was set in the middle of the room, and the little thing ran up and smelt of it.  She felt all about the flower with closed eyes, vibrating as if with the gauzy wings of a bee.  Suddenly she opened her eyes and turned to a rigid statue of stone.  On the flower was squatting a huge spider!  She darted like an arrow to the farthest corner of the room.  Even in the first part of the dance she had seemed to float without weight in the air; but the way sheer horror blew her across that room made her seem like nothing but a vision.”

Frederick von Kammacher had seen her dance the dreadful dance, not only at the matinee in the Kuenstlerhaus, but eighteen times again.  While Fuellenberg was trying to express his impression with “great,” “tremendous,” “glorious,” and similarly strong epithets, Frederick saw the whole dance over again with his mind’s eye.  He saw how the childlike body, after cowering and trembling a while in the corner of the room, approached the flower again to the accompaniment of music played by a tom-tom, a cymbal, and a flute.  Something which was not pleasure drew her to it.  The first time she had traced her way to the source of the perfume by sniffing fragrance in the air.  Her mouth had been open, the nostrils of her fine little nose had quivered.  Hans Fuellenberg was correct in his observation that her eyes, as she held her head back, had been closed.  The second time, she seemed to be drawn against her will by a gruesome something, which alternately aroused fear, horror, and curiosity.  She held her eyes wide open, and now and then covered them with both hands, as if in dread of seeing something hideous.