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Even Flitte, sailor and barber and nurse, who was supposed to give all who needed him equal attention, ran hither and thither for her sake with special zeal. The call for Flitte was the one most frequently heard on the Hamburg. The undersized little man from Brandenburg, whom a love of adventure had changed from a barber-surgeon into a sailor, unexpectedly experienced a triumph of his personality.
Flitte from Alsace danced around in the Burgomaster's office, looked laughingly at all the serious faces and swore he was not the richest among them, but not for all Strasburg and Alsace besides was he capable of weeping over such a joke.
"Doctor von Kammacher," said Doctor Wilhelm, with a swift side glance at Ingigerd, "you've cut me out again." At least once every twenty minutes Mrs. Liebling called for Flitte and at least once every hour Frederick von Kammacher had to sit beside her on the edge of her bed.
"A void," he exclaimed. "A whirl of impossible things is going round in my brain." Shortly after, he was sitting at breakfast with Doctor Wilhelm, eating and drinking. And yet not a word was said of the sinking of the Roland. Ingigerd Hahlström had awakened and fallen asleep again. The barber and sailor-nurse, Flitte by name, had locked her door.
Flitte and Rosa, when she begged them to go fetch Siegfried, always returned without him, and when pressed, gave as the reason that the boy was sick. "What is the matter with my dear, sweet Siegfried?" she cried, wringing her hands, when Frederick entered her cabin. The next moment she fell back on her pillow and lay rigid, pressing her hands to her eyes. "O my God!
In accordance with this custom Consistorial Councillor Glanz, Attorney of the Royal Treasury Knol, Court-Agent Peter Neupeter, Police-Inspector Harprecht, the Preacher-at-Early-Service Flachs, the Court-bookseller Passvogel and Herr Flitte, for the time being receive nothing; not so much because no Trebellianica is due them as the most distant relatives, or because most of them have themselves enough to bequeath, as because I know out of their own mouths that they love my insignificant person better than my great wealth, which person I therefore leave them, little as can be got out of it."
Seven preternaturally long faces at this point started up like the Seven-sleepers. The Consistorial Councillor, a man still young but celebrated throughout all Germany for his oral and printed sermons, considered himself the one most insulted by such taunts. From the Alsatian Flitte there escaped an oath accompanied by a slight smack of the tongue.
One must have been cast very, very deep down in darkness and confusion to learn that there is no more glorious sun in all God's heavens than the sun that shines upon our earth. The other passengers from the Roland were each in his own way affected by the call of "Land!" Mrs. Liebling was heard to cry for Rosa and Flitte.
Praises were bestowed upon Flitte; and Captain Butor and Wendler, in fact the entire crew of the Hamburg, were extolled as brave, noble rescuers. The physicians and Stoss called the sailors of the Roland, "Our dear comrades! Our heroes!"
He was well aware of this, and since, moreover, pity had fanned into a lively flame his old inclination for nursing, he outdid himself in self-sacrificing deeds for the sick, both by day and night. Frederick asked him the same question he had asked each member of the Roland's crew: "Would you rather be a seaman than anything else?" And Flitte was the first that without hesitation answered, "Yes."
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