She talked quietly. She provided me with the most sensible reasons for our expedition. She delighted me, and yet I felt a deep rage against her. Now and then I felt I should break out into a temper, but she took no notice and methodically continued her quiet task.

Finally the last strap was buckled. I went downstairs.

All through the day, the purveyors of instruments, weapons, and electric devices had multiplied. Martha was losing her head.

“Is the master mad?” she asked.

I nodded.

“And he’s taking you with him?”

I nodded again.

“Where to?” she said.

I pointed to the center of the earth with my finger.

“Into the cellar?” exclaimed the old servant.

“No,” I said. “Deeper!”

The evening came. But I was no longer conscious of passing time.

“Tomorrow morning,” my uncle said, “we leave at six o’clock.”

At ten o’clock I fell on my bed like an inert mass.

During the night, terror gripped me again.

I spent it dreaming of abysses! I was a prey to delirium. I felt myself grasped by the professor’s strong hand, dragged along, hurled down, sinking! I dropped down unfathomable precipices with the accelerating speed of bodies falling through space. My life had become nothing but an endless fall.

I awoke at five o’clock, exhausted by fatigue and emotion. I went downstairs to the dining-room. My uncle was at the table. He devoured his breakfast. I looked at him with horror. But Graüben was there. I said nothing. I could eat nothing.

At half-past five there was a rattle of wheels outside. A large carriage was there to take us to the Altona railway station. It was soon loaded up with my uncle’s packages.

“Where’s your suitcase?” he said.

“It’s ready,” I replied, with faltering voice.

“Then hurry up to bring it down, or we’ll miss the train!”

It was now manifestly impossible to struggle against destiny. I went up again to my room, and rushed after him by letting my suitcase slide down the stairs.

At that moment my uncle was solemnly surrendering “the reins” of the house to Graüben. My pretty Virland girl maintained her usual calm. She kissed her guardian, but could not hold back a tear in brushing my cheek with her sweet lips.

“Graüben!” I exclaimed.

“Go, my dear Axel,” she said to me, “you’re leaving your fiancée, but you’ll find your wife when you return.”

I took her into my arms and then seated myself in the carriage. Martha and the girl, standing at the door, waved their last farewell. Then the horses, roused by the driver’s whistling, ran off at a gallop on the road to Altona.

VIII

ALTONA, A REAL SUBURB of Hamburg, is the terminus of the Kiel railway, which was supposed to carry us to the Belts. In twenty minutes we were in Holstein.q

At half-past six the carriage stopped at the station; my uncle’s numerous packages, his voluminous travel items were unloaded, transported, weighed, labeled, loaded into the luggage car, and at seven we sat facing each other in our compartment. The whistle sounded, the engine started to move. We were off.

Was I resigned? Not yet. Yet the cool morning air and the scenes on the road, rapidly changing due to the speed of the train, distracted me from my great worry.

As for the professor’s reflections, they obviously overtook this slow conveyance with his impatience. We were alone in the carriage, but we sat in silence. My uncle examined all his pockets and his traveling bag with the most minute care.