“No matter how much we resist the thought,” he said to Wilhelm, “and no matter how much I railed yesterday evening against modern culture, a sight like that must impress a man.  It must go to the very marrow of his bones.  It is simply absurd that such a marvellous product of secret natural forces, joined together by man’s brains and hands, such a creation over creation, such a miracle has become even possible.”  They touched glasses.  The sound of clinking glasses could be heard all over the room.  “And what courage, what boldness has been built into that great living organism, what a degree of fearlessness in opposing those natural forces which man has been standing in awe of for thousands of years!  What an audacious world of genius, from its keel to the top of its mast, from its bowsprit to its screw!”

“And all this,” responded Wilhelm, “has been attained in scarcely a hundred years.  So it signifies only the beginning of a development.  Object as much as you will, science, or rather technical progress, is eternal revolution and the only genuine reform of human conditions.  Nothing can hinder this development that has begun.  It is constant, eternal progress, yes, progress itself.”

“It is the human intellect,” said Frederick, “which throughout the centuries has been lying passive and has suddenly turned active.  Undoubtedly man’s brains and, at the same time, social industry have entered a new phase.”

“Yes,” said Wilhelm, “in a certain way the human intellect was already active in ancient times, but it fought too long with the man in the mirror.”

“Then, let us hope,” said Frederick in confirmation, “that the last hour of the men that fight images, the swindlers, the South Sea Island medicine-men and magicians, is not far off; that all filibusters and cynical freebooters, who for thousands of years have been living by the capture of souls, will strike sail before the fast, safe ocean-going steamer of civilisation, whose captain is intellect and whose sole steward is humanity.”

After dinner, Frederick and Wilhelm climbed up to the smoking-room on deck.

“It is difficult to comprehend,” said Frederick, when they reached the smoky little saloon, “how a vessel can keep its course in such a stormy, pitch-black night.”

At the skat table, the players were sitting, smoking, drinking whisky and coffee, and tossing the cards on the table.  Everything else seemed to be a matter of indifference to them.  Frederick ordered wine and continued to goad his mind into activity.  His head ached.  He could scarcely hold it upright on his aching neck.  His eyelids ached with weariness; but when they drooped, his eyes seemed to radiate a painful light shining from within.  Every nerve, every muscle, every cell in him was alert.  He could not hope for sleep.  How weeks in his life, months, years had passed as in the twinkling of an eye!  And this evening only three and a half days had elapsed since he boarded the Roland at Southampton, a period with the content of years, in which seconds were eternities.  Its beginning lay in the remote distance, at the conclusion of a life lived long before, on an earth from which he had parted long before.