Ship of Fools Read Online Free PDF

fellow, whom Dr. Schumann remembered as having embarked at some port in Texas, had gone ashore and was now returning; he lounged along in the wake of the Spanish girls, regarding them with what could only be described as a leer.
    The crowd was still struggling upward when Dr. Schumann lost interest and moved away, the officers dispersed, and the dock workers who had been loading the ship without haste began to shout and run back and forth. There remained luggage, children and adults not yet on board, and those on board wandered about in confusion with the air of persons who have abandoned something of great importance on shore, though they cannot think what it is. In straying groups, mute, unrelated, they returned to the docks and stood about idly watching the longshoremen hauling on the ropes of the loading cranes. Shapeless bundles and bales, badly packed bedsprings and mattresses, cheap looking sofas and kitchen stoves, lightly crated pianos and old leather trunks were being swung into the hold, along with a carload of Pueblo tile and a few thousand bars of silver for England; a ton of raw chicle, bundles of hemp, and sugar for Europe. The ship was none of those specialized carriers of rare goods, much less an elegant pleasure craft coming down from New York, all fresh paint and interior decoration, bringing crowds of prosperous dressed-up tourists with money in their pockets. No, the Vera was a mixed freighter and passenger ship, very steady and broad-bottomed in her style, walloping from one remote port to another, year in year out, honest, reliable and homely as a German housewife.
    The passengers examined their ship with the interest and the strange dawning of affection even the ugliest ship can inspire, feeling that whatever business they had was now transferred finally to her hold and cabins. They began to move back towards the gangplank: the screaming girl in green, the fat pair with the bulldog, a small round German woman in black with sleek brown braids and a heavy gold chain necklace, and a short, worried-looking German Jew lugging a heavy sample case.
    At the latest possible moment, a bridal party appeared in a festival flurry at the foot of the gangplank: a profusion of lace hats and tender-colored gauzy frocks for the women, immaculate white linen and carnation buttonholes for the men. It was a Mexican wedding party with several North American girls among the bridesmaids. The bride and groom were young and beautiful, though at that moment they were worn fine and thin and their faces were exhausted with their long ordeal, which even yet was not quite ended. The bridegroom’s mother clung to her son, weeping softly and deeply, kissing his cheek and murmuring like a mourning dove, “O joy of my life, little son of my heart, can it be true I have lost you?”
    While his father supported her on his arm, she embraced her son, the bridegroom kissed her, patted her heavily rouged and powdered cheeks and whispered dutifully, “No, no, dear sweet little Mama, we shall be back in three months.” The bridegroom’s mother shrank at this, moaned as if her child had struck her a mortal blow, and sobbing fell back into the arms of her husband.
    The bride, in her bridelike traveling dress, surrounded by her maids, stood between her parents, each of them holding her by a hand, and their three faces were calm, grave, and much alike. They waited with patience and a touch of severity as if for some tiresome but indispensable ceremony to end; at last the bridesmaids, recalled to a sense of duty, rather shyly produced each a little fancy sort of basket of rice, and began to scatter it about, fixed smiles on their lips only, eyes nervous and watchful, feeling as they did that the moment for merriment in this affair seemed rather to have passed. At last the bride and groom walked swiftly up the gangplank; almost at once it began to rise, and the families and friends below formed a close group, waving. The bride