“My little guests keep clamouring for her.  If she doesn’t come up for a while, I can’t keep them quiet.  Then she can serenely go back again to her silly, sentimental mistress.  What do you think of a man like Achleitner?” she continued.  “He is lying on all fours in his cabin, crying and groaning, ’Oh, my poor mother!  Oh, my poor sister!  Why didn’t I obey you, mamma!’ and so on.  Just fancy, a man!  Poor fellow!” she added, her tone changing.  “It’s enough to move a heart of stone.”  She held fast to the bedstead, not to be thrown into a corner like a splinter, and shook with laughter.

The mountain of stones under which Frederick had buried the little sinner, Ingigerd, was at that moment removed, and love stood there with unparalleled might.  Such genuine bravery and genuine humour, combined with so much tenderness, he had never credited her with.  Nervous and tired as he was, he felt irresistibly drawn to her, felt his will slipping from him.  But a little, and he would have thrown himself to the floor and kissed the small feet in slippers.

Frederick’s amazement waxed when all of a sudden she wanted to cross the deck and go below to comfort that donkey Achleitner.  Frederick would not allow her.  He was ashamed of his previous attack of fright, called himself a miserable coward, and got himself under perfect control.  In this attitude he played the role of a severe mentor, Ingigerd’s responsible guardian and protector, strict, but fatherly and good-natured.  Though she laughed at him, it by no means displeased her to let him have his way.

XXXIX

Frederick’s kindliness to Ingigerd’s little wards made it unnecessary to summon Rosa.  He asked the children their names, and they were soon chattering confidingly with their new uncle.  Ella Liebling, a girl of five, to whom Ingigerd had given her doll, was sitting at one end of the couch, a cover wrapped about her legs, while Siegfried had established himself comfortably on the bed.  With a spiritless expression for a child, he was playing a rather monotonous game of cards with an imaginary partner.

“Mamma is divorced,” Ella explained.  “Papa was always quarrelling with her.”

“Yes,” said Siegfried, pushing his cards aside, as if waking up from a trance, and bending over to Frederick, who was sitting beside Ella, “mamma once threw a boot at papa.”

“But papa is strong,” said Ella.  “He once picked up a chair and knocked it down and smashed it to pieces.”

Though Ingigerd was suffering from nausea, she had to laugh.

“Those children are great sport,” she said.

“Papa once threw a bottle against the wall,” Siegfried went on, “because Uncle Bolle was always coming to see us.”

And so the children continued, like little wiseacres, to discuss in detail the theme of “happy marriages.”

“Rosa says mamma is to blame because papa left us,” observed Siegfried.