Several times in the course of her narrative, Achleitner and her father
had come to take her inside, but she had angrily driven them away. It was
Frederick who finally helped her back to her cabin.

In his own cabin, without even removing his overcoat, he threw himself on
his berth to think over the inconceivable story. He sighed, he gnashed
his teeth, he wanted to doubt it. Several times he said aloud, "No!" or
"Impossible!" and beat his fists against the mattress of the berth above.
He could have sworn an oath that this time there had not been a single
lie in Mara's whole shameless narrative. "Mara, or the Spider's Victim."
Now, of a sudden, he understood her dance! She had danced the thing she
had lived in her own life!

XIV

"I have set my all on nothing."

To the accompaniment of this refrain beating in his soul Frederick
maintained an outer show of hilarity. He and the ship's doctor were
drinking champagne. He had ordered the first bottle with the soup and
had immediately drunk several glasses.

The more he drank the less he felt the smart of a certain burning wound,
and the more wonderful the world appeared, full of miracles and riddles,
surrounding and penetrating him with the intoxication of an adventurer's
life. He was a brilliant entertainer, with an easy, happy way in
conversation of popularising his rich store of knowledge, and with a
light humour, which stood at his command even when, as now, grim humour
crawled in the depths of his being, like evil reptiles. Thus it was that
the captain's corner that evening fell under his spell, both of his
jocular self and serious self.

Though he had lost his belief that science and modern progress alone
possess the power to convey happiness, he extolled their virtues. As a
matter of fact, in the festive gleam of the countless electric lights,
excited by the wine, the music, and the rhythmic pulse beat of the moving
vessel, it seemed to him at times as if humanity in a festal procession
with music playing were sailing to the Isles of the Blessed. Perhaps, he
said, science may some day teach man the secret of immortality. Ways and
means would be found to keep the cells of the body young. Dead animals
had been brought back to life by pumping a salt solution into them. He
spoke of the wonders of surgery, always the theme of conversation when a
man of the present, over his champagne and pate de foie gras, triumphs in
the superiority of his age over all other