Ship of Fools Read Online Free PDF Page A

light brown eyes, leveled calmly upon a given point where the people approached and passed, were without speculation or curiosity, but with an abstract goodness and even sweetness in them. He appeared to be amiable, well bred and in perfect possession of himself, standing against a background of light-haired, very young, rather undersized ship’s officers in white, and a crew of big solid blunt-faced sailors moving about their duties, each man with the expressionless face and intent manner of a thoroughly disciplined subordinate.
    The passengers, emerging from the mildewed dimness of the customs sheds, blinking their eyes against the blinding sunlight, all had the look of invalids crawling into hospital on their last legs. Dr. Schumann observed one of the most extreme forms of hunchback he had ever seen, a dwarf who, from above, appeared to have legs attached to his shoulder blades, the steep chest cradled on the rocking pelvis, the head with its long dry patient suffering face lying back against the hump. Just behind him a tall boy with glittering golden hair and a sulky mouth pushed and jostled a light wheel chair along, in which sat a small weary dying man with weak dark whiskers flecked with gray, his spread hands limp on the brown rug over his knees, eyes closed. His head rolled gently with the movement of the chair, otherwise he gave no sign of life.
    A young Mexican woman, softened and dispirited by recent childbirth, dressed in the elegant, perpetual mourning of her caste, came up slowly, leaning on the arm of the Indian nurse who carried the baby, his long embroidered robe streaming over her arm almost to the ground. The Indian woman wore brightly jeweled earrings, and beneath her full, gaily embroidered Pueblo skirt her small bare feet advanced and retreated modestly. A nondescript pair followed, no-colored parents of the big girl walking between them, taller and heavier than either of them, the three looking about with dull, confused faces. Two Mexican priests, much alike in their grim eyes and blue-black jaws, walked briskly around the slow procession and gained the head of it. “Bad luck for this voyage,” said one young officer to another, and they both looked discreetly away. “Not as bad as nuns, though,” said the second, “it takes nuns to sink a ship!”
    The four pretty, slatternly Spanish girls, their dark hair sleeked down over their ears, thin-soled black slippers too short in the toes and badly run over at high heels, took leisurely leave, with kisses all around, of a half dozen local young men, who had brought flowers and baskets of fruit. Their own set of four wasp-waisted young men then joined them, and they strolled up together, the girls casting glances full of speculation at the row of fair-haired young officers. The twins, smeary in the face, eating steadily from untidy paper sacks of sweets, followed them in a detached way. An assortment of North Americans, with almost no distinguishing features that Dr. Schumann could see, except that they obviously could not be other than Americans, came next. They were generally thinner and lighter-boned than the Germans, but not so graceful as the Spaniards and Mexicans. He also found it impossible to place them by class, as he could the others; they all had curiously tense, preoccupied faces, yet almost nothing of their characters was revealed in expressions. A middle-aged, prettyish woman in dark blue seemed very respectable, but a large irregular bruise on her arm below her short sleeve, most likely the result of an amorous pinch, gave her a slightly ribald look, most unbecoming. The girl in blue trousers had fine eyes, but her bold, airy manner spoiled her looks for Dr. Schumann, who believed that modesty was the most beautiful feature a young girl could have. The young man beside her presented a stubborn, Roman-nosed profile, like a willful, cold-blooded horse, his blue eyes withdrawn and secretive. A tall shambling dark young