, and among the card players, who were again drinking champagne, the
jokes aimed at Ingigerd and Achleitner were particularly loud and coarse.

Could Frederick believe his eyes? Terror shot to his heart. That sad
little monstrosity was walking toward him--stood next to him in
compromising intimacy--was saying poutingly:

"When are you going to pay me a visit again?"

Frederick made some inconsequential reply.

Necks in standing collars, bare throats encircled with gold chains and
pearls turned toward the captain's table. Frederick could not recall ever
having had an experience so painfully humiliating. Ingigerd saw nothing
and felt nothing. Achleitner, however, seemed to be rather ill at ease
under the perceptible cross-fire of the animated company, and tried to
lead her away. Finally, she left the tortured man, saying:

"My, you're dull and stupid! I don't like you." At which the captain's
corner burst into a prolonged laugh, which was a relief to everybody's
but Frederick's feelings.

"I assure you," said Frederick, with a tolerable attempt at dry irony, "I
don't know what I have done to deserve this distinction, or what I shall
do to deserve it in the future."

Then they spoke of other things.

The clear weather and the prospect of a peaceful night filled the festive
diners with undimmed gaiety. They ate, they drank, they laughed, they
flirted, all in the delightful consciousness that they were citizens of
the departing nineteenth century, with the probability of being citizens
of the even grander twentieth century.

XXIX

After dinner the two physicians went to Doctor Wilhelm's cabin, where
they sat together discussing the resultant of modern civilisation.

"I very much fear, very much, indeed," said Frederick, "that our
world-wide means of communication, which mankind is supposed to own,
really own mankind. At least so far, I see no signs that the tremendous
working capacity of machines has lessened human labour. Nobody will deny
that our modern machine slavery, on so tremendous a scale, is the most
imposing slavery that has ever existed. And there is no denying that it
is slavery. Has this age of machinery subtracted from the sum of human
misery? No, most emphatically, no! Has it enhanced happiness and
increased the chances for happiness? No, again."

"That is why every three or four men of culture," said Doctor Wilhelm,
"are disciples of Schopenhauer. Modern Buddhism is making rapid strides."