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