not believe in fairy
tales, sailors' superstitions, the Flying Dutchman, and hobgoblins? What
was that ocean hiding in its infinite waves rolling under the low, grey
sky? Had not everything arisen from the ocean? Had not everything gone
down into its depths again? Had some power disclosed the submerged
Atlantis to Frederick's mental vision? Why not?

He was passing through profound, enigmatic moments of a fearful yet
pleasurable dread. There was the ocean, on which an apparently abandoned
vessel, a small spot in infinity, was staggering forward with no visible
goal ahead and no visible starting-point behind. There were the heavens
lying heavily upon it, grey and dismal. There was Frederick himself,
alone. Every animate creature in that solitude was transformed in his
soul into visions, phantoms and apparitions. Man is always facing the
unfathomable alone. That gives him a sense of greatness along with a
sense of desertion. There was a man standing at the stern of a vessel,
while the darkness of night was yielding to the dawn, bound by the
invisible, glowing threads of his fate to two continents of the globe,
and awaiting the new, less tormenting form of life that comes from the
sun, a strange star millions of miles removed from the planet earth. All
this was a miracle to Frederick, almost overwhelming him, as if he were
imprisoned in marvels. In a sudden seizure of hopelessness that he would
ever throw off the suffocating oppression of riddles and miracles, the
temptation came upon him to leap over the railing. Close upon this
feeling followed the timidity of a man with a bad conscience. He glanced
about, as if in fear of discovery. He wiped his eyes and forehead with
his hands, because it seemed to him that the dead stoker with the bloody
wound had for a long time been sitting nearby on a coil of rope. His
chest felt heavy, as if a load were dragging it down. He heard voices. He
saw his wife, Angele, wringing her hands. Suddenly he thought he was to
blame for her illness, that he was a criminal; and all his thoughts of
Ingigerd Hahlstroem made him doubly despicable in his own eyes. His ideas
grew confused. In a wave of absolute credulity, he thought the voice of
his conscience was condemning him to death. He thought that his life was
being demanded as an atonement, that he must sacrifice himself, or else
the _Roland_, with all it carried, would sink.

At that moment Frederick heard a strong voice saying:

"Good morni