June 11Tentatively, I wake up every morning with the thought: “How calmly the ship proceeds! Are we still docked at the pier?” Only then do I discover that I am in the Dehmel House. Yesterday, I had a dream that lasted a second: a dachshund leaped up on my hand and kissed it. That, too, put me in the mood to travel; everything was possible. All the senses, all the spiritual powers, all the possible feelings, all the receptive organs were at the ready. Instead of drawing a line under this, I present the words which I have thought about a thousand times when traveling: “Dink, eyes, what the eyelash beholds Of the golden plenty of the world!” The last two lines of Gottfried Keller’s “Abendlied” [Evening Song] One more addendum: I awakened one night and asked myself, why an ocean voyage makes me so completely happy. Even when the lands we visited were so alluring, a feeling of wonderful happiness came over me every time the ship set sail again. In the stillness of that night I found the answer. We live upon the sea as if in another world. And as the ship slices through the waves, and the machinery drones unceasingly, it is as though the sea breathes, breathes with a living breast. On account of this rocking vibrancy, the sea is richer than the earth, which remains mutely passive in itself.