Suddenly the port-holes were illuminated from outside.  Everybody, with an “Oh!” of astonishment, let his knife and fork fall and jumped up from his seat.  “A ship!” “A steamer!” all exclaimed, and crowded on deck.  There, in overawing majesty, in the gleam of its thousand lights, one of the mightiest ocean liners of the time was rolling and pounding at a distance of not more than fifty yards.  “The Prince Bismarck, the Prince Bismarck!” the people cried, having heard the name from the officers and crew, who had recognised the vessel.  “Hurrah!” went up the full-throated cry.  “Hurrah!” Frederick shouted, and so did Wilhelm and so did Professor Toussaint.  Everybody who could shouted “Hurrah!”—­Ingigerd and the woman physician and the woman artist.  They all waved their napkins or handkerchiefs.  The same shout of joy went up from the steerage, and by way of greeting the two vessels let their steam whistles thunder.  They could see the passengers on the various decks of the Prince Bismarck waving to them, and, in spite of the noise of the tempest, could hear their faint hurrah.

The Prince Bismarck, a twin-screw steamer, one of the first models of its kind, had just made its record-breaking trip, in which it had crossed the Atlantic Ocean in six days, eleven hours, and twenty-four minutes.  About two thousand people were now making the trip from New York to Europe.  Two thousand people!  That means twice as many as can fill a Berlin theatre from the orchestra to the top gallery.

The Roland and the Bismarck exchanged lively flag signals.  Yet the whole grandiose vision, from the moment of its appearance to its disappearance, lasted only three minutes.  In that time the seething ocean was flooded with light.  It was not until nothing remained of the Bismarck but a dancing mist of light that its band came on deck and played.  On the Roland they caught two or three trembling, fading measures of the national hymn, Heil dir im Siegerkranz.  Within a few moments the Roland was again alone on the ocean, in the night, the tempest, and the snowstorm.

With twice as much fire, the band now played a quadrille by Karl, Festklaenge, and a galop by Kiesler, Jahrmarktskandal; and with twice as much appetite and twice as much liveliness the passengers seated themselves at dinner again.  “Fairylike!” they cried.  “Glorious!” “Tremendous!” “Colossal!”—­this last a favourite expression of the Germans.

Even Frederick had a sense of pride and tranquillisation.  He felt a vital breath of that atmosphere which is no less necessary to the mind of the modern man than air is to his lungs.