ing the girl travelling second
class, who in his opinion had taken the trip for no other purpose than to
rid herself of her burden and avoid disgrace. At the sight of the little
object, Frederick did not know whether to be born or never to awaken to
life was preferable.

He went out on deck again, aroused Achleitner, and led him to his cabin,
resisting and mumbling incomprehensible words, though half asleep. Then,
in dread of the agonies of insomnia, he went to his own cabin.

XXXII

He fell asleep immediately, but when he awoke, it was only two o'clock.
The ship was still moving easily, and he could hear the screw working
regularly under the water. Life in times of great physical crises is a
fever, which travelling and sleeplessness enhance. Frederick well knew
his own nature, and was alarmed when he saw himself robbed of the peace
of sleep after so short a time.

But had his sleep actually meant peace? Lying on his back with wide,
staring eyes, he saw vast nocturnal spaces of his soul opened up, where
in bottomless depths another chaotic life had been born--a multitude of
tormenting visions, in which things and persons most familiar had arisen
in combination with things and persons entirely strange. He tried to
recall his dreams.

He had dreamed he was wandering hand in hand with Achleitner among the
dark smoke widows trailing backward over the ocean from the funnels of
the _Roland_, far, far away. He and the Russian Jewess together with
great difficulty dragged the dead stoker, Zickelmann, up into the blue
ladies' parlour; and by means of a serum, which he himself had
discovered, he brought him back to life. He smoothed over a quarrel
between the Russian Jewess and Ingigerd Hahlstroem, who fought and called
each other abusive names. He was sitting with Doctor Wilhelm in his
cabin, and, as Wagner once had done, was observing a homunculus still
undergoing embryonic development in a glass sphere on which light was
shining. At the same time Ingigerd's cockatoo was squawking in Arthur
Stoss's voice and continually asseverating:

"I am already a man of absolutely independent fortune. I am touring
simply to bring my fortune up to a certain amount."

Under the impression that he was recalling these things to his memory,
Frederick was really dreaming again. Suddenly he started up, cuffing Hans
Fuellenberg furiously and saying: "I'll box your ears." Shortly afterward
he was in the smoking-room delivering a crus