Frederick groaned aloud. A great stone seemed to be lying on his breast. He heard the rushing of waters. He saw the flood come leaping through all the valleys, over the tops of all the hills, wave upon wave, from all sides. The moon was shining. He saw Angele climb to a little skiff lying moored somewhere; and the tide carried away the skiff with her in it. The waters overwhelmed his house. Again the wandering began, hand in hand with Achleitner and the smoke widows across the ocean desert. Again began that difficult dragging up-stairs and down-stairs of the naked, dead stoker, with the help of the young admirer of Kropotkin. The dispute between Ingigerd and Deborah, his sermonising of Fuellenberg and the man in the smoking-room repeated themselves, each repetition intensifying his torment. The homunculus in the glass sphere in Doctor Wilhelm's cabin appeared again. It developed with light thrown on it. In his anguish, in his impotence against that martyrising chase of visions, Frederick's persecuted soul, gasping for peace, suddenly rose in revolt, and he said aloud: "Kindle the light of reason, kindle the light of reason, O God in heaven!" He rose in his berth, and saw that Rosa, the servant-girl, was in reality holding a burning candle over him. She bent down slightly, and said: "You are dreaming hard. Aren't you feeling well, Doctor von Kammacher?" The door creaked. The servant-girl Rosa had left. The ship was moving quietly. Or was he mistaken? Was the _Roland_ no longer proceeding so calmly and steadily as before? He listened intently, and heard the screw whirring regularly under the water. Monotonous calls penetrated from the deck. Then came the loud rattling of the cinders pouring overboard. Frederick looked at his watch. It was five o'clock. So three hours had passed since he had first awakened! Again, with a clatter and a thunder, a load of ashes slid into the Atlantic Ocean. Was it not the mates of the dead stoker, Zickelmann, who were throwing it overboard? Frederick heard the crying of children, thereupon the sobbing and whimpering of his hysterical neighbour, and finally Rosa's voice, trying to quiet Siegfried and Ella, who was a talkative little girl. Siegfried was fretfully begging to be taken back to his grandmother in Luckenwalde. Mrs. Liebling was scolding Rosa, telling her she was responsible for the children's behaviour. Frederick heard her say: "You all trample about on my nerves. I wish the three of you were at the bottom of the sea. For heaven's sake, let me sleep!" XXXIII