Atlantis by Gerhart Hauptmann

Author:Gerhart Hauptmann [Hauptmann, Gerhart]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Tags: Drama, Classics, Fiction, Historical, General
ISBN: 9781557424907
Google: 8umP09DwGvsC
Amazon: 0554355736
Publisher: BiblioLife
Published: 1993-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

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LIII

While on the Roland, time had crawled at a snail's pace, the hour hand of the clock on the Hamburt travelled twice around its face with surprising rapidity. During that interval, the two ladies remained in bed, though the weather, which was clear and moderate, permitted being on deck. In Mrs. Liebling the consequences of the strain manifested themselves in periodic attacks of great excitement and fear accompanied by violent palpitation; in Ingigerd Hahlström, in healthy sleepiness, which made the administration of morphine in her case unnecessary. Neither of the women developed fever. But the sailor whose feet were frozen and the woman from the steerage had a high temperature. The immigrant in her delirium wanted to jump from bed, and, at the physicians' request, Captain Butor appointed one of the well sailors from the Roland and a sailor from the Hamburt to relieve each other in keeping constant watch over her.

Each time Frederick went to look after the poor creature, he felt himself assailed by the temptation to save her forever from the moment of awakening. From her own lips, while she had still been conscious, he had heard of all the relatives she had probably lost on the Roland, her husband, three sons, and a daughter-ranging from seven to eighteen years of age—a sister and her mother. At first her fevered fancy occupied itself with the shipwreck, her husband, children, and sisters. Later she seemed to become a child again, reliving her life in her parents' home. Swallows' nests, a cow, a goat, a meadow, in which there was a haystack roofed to keep off the rain, figured as important things.

"Would that she passed away in those illusions!" thought Frederick.

Arthur Stoss, transported up-stairs by his faithful Bulke, and Jacob Fleischmann strolled about on deck, or reclined in the steamer chairs, which even the trading vessel possessed. Stoss needed some massaging and patching up, and while the physicians were busy with him, he crowed and cawed in his most jovial manner:

"I always say you can't destroy weeds. Tanned leather is impervious to salt water. I am like an ant which can spend a week under water without dying."

Thanks to Rosa's unwearying care, Ella Liebling escaped with nothing but a bad cold. Looking very pretty and saucy in her own clothes, which had been cleaned and dried, the little maiden pried about in every nook and cranny of the vessel. The skipper granted her a free pass to his bridge, the engineers to the engine-room. She was even admitted into the great tube of the propeller-shaft. She was everybody's pet, and all soon became acquainted with her mother's position in the world and manner of life.

When Ingigerd, after about fifty hours of rest in bed, finally appeared on deck, wrapped in Frederick's overcoat, the passengers and crew fairly celebrated the event. The exquisite creature, who had lost her father, was regarded with the same masculine pity by all the men on board. Pander, the gallant cabin-boy, converted himself into her shadow.

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