After Bread

Excerpt from After Bread

ON the waves of the wide ocean rode the German steamer Blucher, on its pas sage from Hamburg to New York. It had been on its way four days. Two days ago it had passed the green coast of Ireland and reached the broad Atlantic. From the deck, as far as the eye could reach, could be seen the gray and green surface, plowed up in furrows and hol lows, rocking heavily, foaming in places, in the distance more dark, where the water joined the sky in a white, cloudy mist. The re?ection from the clouds fell some times upon the water, and upon this pearly background was drawn with sharp outlines the figure of the steamer. The ship, with its bow pointing to the west, climbed to the crest of the billows, and then, as if going to drown itself, sank in the trough of the sea; sometimes it disappeared from View, sometimes it was lifted so high on the top of the waves that part of its keel could be seen  still pressed steadily onward. The waves rolled toward it, and it rushed toward the waves and cut them With its prow. Behind it chased, like a gigantic snake, a wide strip of foaming water; several sea-gulls followed in its wake, circling in the air with their wild cries.