But the captain had already intervened, saying: “Let’s listen to what the man has to say. In any case Schubal is becoming much too independent for my liking, by which, however, I don’t mean to imply anything in your favor.” These last words were directed to the stoker; it was only natural that the captain could not immediately take his side, but everything appeared to be moving in the right direction. The stoker began his explanations and was in control of himself enough at the start to give Schubal the title of “Mister.” How Karl rejoiced, standing at the purser’s abandoned desk, where he took great pleasure in pressing down on a postal scale again and again.—Mr. Schubal is unfair! Mr. Schubal prefers foreigners! Mr. Schubal had ordered the stoker out of the engine room and made him clean toilets, which was certainly not the stoker’s job!—At one point, Mr. Schubal’s competence was challenged as being more apparent than actual. At that moment Karl eyed the captain very closely and openly, as if they were colleagues, to ensure that the captain would not be unfavorably influenced by the stoker’s somewhat awkward manner of expression. Still, nothing tangible emerged from the stream of words, and even though the captain’s gaze was still fixed ahead of him as a sign of his resolve to hear the stoker through to the end this time, the other gentlemen were growing impatient and soon the stoker’s voice no longer dominated the room unquestionably, which was disturbing to Karl. First, the gentleman in civilian clothes started playing with his bamboo cane, tapping it, albeit softly, against the parquet floor, and the other gentlemen naturally looked his way from time to time. The harbor officials, who were obviously in a hurry, took up their documents again and began, if somewhat distractedly, to look through them; the ship’s officer edged closer to his table, and the chief purser, believing he had won this round, heaved a deep and ironic sigh. Only the attendant seemed exempt from the gathering lack of interest; sympathetic to the sufferings of a poor man surrounded by the great, he nodded earnestly at Karl as if he wanted to explain something.

Meanwhile, outside the windows, life in the harbor continued: A flat barge with a mountain of barrels, which must have been ingeniously stowed because none of them rolled around, tugged past and almost completely darkened the room; small motor-boats, which Karl could have minutely examined if he had had the time, roared by in straight lines, each obeying the jerking hands of a man standing upright at the wheel; here and there peculiar bobbing objects surfaced on their own from the restless waves and were submerged just as quickly, sinking before Karl’s astonished eyes; boats from the ocean liners surged past, rowed by furiously working sailors and full of still, expectant passengers sitting exactly as they had been squeezed in, although some of them could not resist turning their heads to look at the shifting scenery. An endless movement, a restlessness passed from the element of restlessness to the helpless human beings and their works!

But everything called for haste, for clarity, for accurate description, and what was the stoker doing? He was certainly talking up a storm, his trembling hands were long past being able to hold the papers on the windowsill, complaints about Schubal came flooding into his mind from all directions, and in his opinion, each and every one would have sufficed to bury Schubal forever, but all he could present to the captain was a pitiful tangle of everything jumbled together. For a long time the gentleman with the bamboo cane had been whistling up at the ceiling, the harbor officials had already detained the ship’s officer at their table and showed no signs of releasing him, the chief purser was visibly held back from an outburst only by the calmness of the captain, and the attendant was standing at the ready, awaiting at any moment the captain’s orders concerning the stoker.

Karl could remain idle no longer. Therefore he approached the group slowly, considering all the quicker how to tackle the situation as cleverly as possible. It was now or never, it could not be long before they were both thrown out of the office. The captain might well be a good man and in addition he might, or so it seemed to Karl, have some special reason for demonstrating that he was a fair superior at present, but in the end he was not an instrument that one could play into the ground—and that was just how the stoker was treating him, although it was only out of his profound sense of indignation.

So Karl said to the stoker: “You must tell the story more simply, more clearly; the captain can’t fully appreciate it the way you’re telling it now. Does he know all the engineers and cabin boys by their last names, let alone by their first names, so that you just mention such a name and he instantly knows who it is? Sort out your complaints and tell him the most important first and then the others in descending order; perhaps then you won’t even have to voice most of them. You’ve always explained it to me so clearly!” “If one could steal trunks in America, one could also lie now and again,” he thought to justify himself.

If only it would help! Might it not be too late already? The stoker did fall silent upon hearing the familiar voice, but his eyes were so blinded by tears of wounded pride, awful memories, and the extreme distress of the moment that he could barely recognize Karl anymore. How could he now—and Karl privately realized this upon seeing his silent friend—how could he suddenly change his tack now when he felt that he had already said all there was to say without receiving the slightest acknowledgment, and yet on the other hand he had really not said anything at all and could hardly expect these gentlemen to listen to everything again. And at this particular point Karl, his sole supporter, steps in wanting to give good advice but instead shows him that everything, absolutely everything is lost.

“If only I’d come forward sooner instead of staring out the window,” Karl said to himself, bowing his head before the stoker and slapping his hands on his thighs to signal that all hope had vanished.

But the stoker misinterpreted this, probably sensing that Karl was secretly reproaching him, and with the honest intention of convincing him otherwise, he superseded all his previous deeds by starting to argue with Karl. Now of all times—when the gentlemen at the round table had long since grown aggravated by the pointless barrage that was disrupting their important work, when the chief purser had gradually found the captain’s patience incomprehensible and was on the verge of exploding, when the attendant, by now fully reestablished within the sphere of his superiors, was measuring the stoker with menacing looks, and when the gentleman with the bamboo cane, to whom even the captain was sending friendly glances now and then, was completely inured to and even disgusted by the stoker and pulled out a small notebook and, evidently preoccupied with other matters, let his eyes wander back and forth between the notebook and Karl.

“Yes, I know, I know,” said Karl, who was having difficulty fighting off the stoker’s tirade yet still managed to keep up a friendly smile throughout the quarreling, “you’re right, quite right, I’ve never once doubted it.” He would have liked to restrain the stoker’s flailing hands for fear of being struck, or better yet, he would have liked to press him into a corner and whisper a few calm, soothing words that no one else need hear. But the stoker was beyond the pale. Karl began to take some comfort in the thought that, if necessary, the stoker could overpower all seven men present with the strength of his despair. However, on the desk, as a peek in that direction informed him, there lay a panel crammed with push buttons connected to electrical wires: One hand simply pressing them down could turn the entire ship rebellious, its passages full of hostile men.

Here, the seriously indifferent gentleman with the bamboo cane stepped up to Karl and asked, not too loudly but audibly enough to be heard above all the stoker’s racket: “So what is your name?” At that moment, as if someone behind the door were awaiting this remark, there came a knock. The attendant looked over to the captain, who nodded. At this the attendant went to the door and opened it. Outside, in an old imperial coat, stood a man of medium build who, judging by his appearance, did not seem suited to engine work but was nevertheless—Schubal. If Karl had not inferred this from the look in everyone’s eyes, which exuded a certain satisfaction that even the captain was not immune to, then he would have been horrified to realize it by looking at the stoker, who clenched his fists at the end of his stiffened arms as if this concentration of force were the most important thing to him, something for which he was willing to sacrifice the very life in his body. All his strength, even the power to keep himself upright, was concentrated in his fists.

And so here was the enemy, jaunty and fresh in his festive dress, a ledger under one arm—probably records of the stoker’s work and pay—making it unabashedly clear by scanning each face in turn that it was his intention to ascertain the mood of each individual.