Frederick put the letter in his breast pocket, and he felt his heart beneath beat more warmly, less turbulently.  He had to close his eyes to prevent a hot gush of tears.  Doctor Wilhelm found him in this soft mood, and it occurred to him that perhaps after all Frederick had been tragically affected by the bitter close of his professional career.

“I slept like a bear,” he said.  And it was evident from the healthy colour of his face and his comfortable way of stretching and yawning that his night’s sleep had thoroughly refreshed him.  “But the weather is fiendish,” he added, seating himself close beside Frederick.

“Congratulate you,” said Frederick.  “I didn’t sleep a wink.”

“Take some veronal.  But whatever you do, come down now to breakfast with me.  The best thing for you is to keep moving.  So I advise you, after breakfast to come with me on my visit to the steerage.  It will take your mind off things and may interest you.  There are interesting types there, women, too.  But before we go, we must make ourselves insect-proof.  We’ll puff powder on our clothes in my room.”

XVI

The gentlemen had breakfasted—­baked potatoes and cutlets, ham and eggs, broiled flounder and other fish, beside tea and coffee—­and were entering the steerage.

Here, to keep from falling, they had to hold fast to the iron posts supporting the ceiling.  After their eyes had grown accustomed to the twilight always reigning in the steerage, they saw a swarm of human beings rolling on the floor, groaning, whimpering, wailing, shrieking.  The weather did not permit of the opening of the port-holes, and the exhalations of about twenty Russian-Jewish families, with bag and baggage and babies, polluted the air to such an extent, that Frederick could scarcely breathe.  Mothers lying on their backs with open mouths and closed eyes, more dead than alive, had infants at their breasts; and it was fearful to see how the retching convulsed them.

“Come,” said Doctor Wilhelm, observing something like a tendency to faint in Frederick’s face.  “Come, let us show how superfluous we are.”

But Doctor Wilhelm and the Red Cross nurse, who accompanied him, had a chance, here and there, to do some good.  He ordered grapes and a tonic for those who were suffering most.  These things were obtained from the store-rooms of the first and second cabin.

With great difficulty they made their way from section to section.  Everywhere the same misery, the same flight from want and infuriated persecution.  Even the pale faces of those who were able to keep on their feet and had found a place to stand in that swaying shelf of misery, were marked by a hopeless, brooding expression of anguish and bitterness.

Among the hundreds of immigrants, there were some pretty girlish faces.  To a few the fever produced by the unusual circumstances had imparted a bold, passionate charm.  The glances of the physicians and these girls met.  Such circumstances overstimulate the feelings and make them highly susceptible.  Great stress, great danger cause the life of the moment to flare up more alluringly and also create a sense of profound equality among human beings.  In the very midst of fear and tension, a boldness develops ready at any moment to make a leap.