Karl on the other hand felt more vigorous and alert than he had perhaps ever been at home. If only his parents could see him now: fighting the good fight in a foreign country before highly respected persons, and although not yet triumphant, entirely prepared for the ultimate conquest! Would they revise their opinion of him? Sit him down between them and praise him? Look once, just once, into his devoted eyes? Uncertain questions, and the most inappropriate moment to ask them!
“I have come here because I believe the stoker is accusing me of some sort of dishonesty. A girl from the kitchen told me she’d seen him on his way here. Captain, sir, and the rest of you gentlemen, I am ready to refute any charge with my own documents and, if necessary, with statements by impartial and unbiased witnesses who are waiting outside the door.” So spoke Schubal. This was indeed the clear speech of a man, and from the change in the listeners’ faces one might have thought that these were the first human sounds they had heard in a long time. They failed to notice, of course, that even this eloquent speech had holes in it. Why was the first word that occurred to him “dishonesty”? Should the accusations have started here, rather than with his national prejudices? A girl from the kitchen had seen the stoker on his way to the office and had understood immediately? Was it not a sense of guilt that sharpened his mind? And he had automatically brought witnesses along with him and then called them impartial and unbiased? A fraud, nothing but a fraud! And these gentlemen tolerated it and even acknowledged it as proper conduct? Why had he apparently let so much time elapse between the kitchen girl’s message and his arrival here? Evidently it was for the purpose of allowing the stoker to weary the men to the point where they would gradually lose their capacity for clear judgment, which Schubal had most to fear. Had he not, obviously having stood behind the door for a long time, only knocked after the gentleman asked his casual question and when he had reason to hope that the matter of the stoker was disposed of?
It was all very clear and that was how it was unwittingly presented by Schubal, but it had to be clarified for these gentlemen in a different, more tangible manner. They needed to be jolted awake. So Karl, quick, at least take advantage of what time is left to you before the witnesses arrive and take over everything.
At that moment, however, the captain waved off Schubal, who—since his affair appeared to be momentarily postponed—immediately stepped aside and was joined in quiet conversation by the attendant; the two men kept leering at the stoker and gesturing emphatically, and it seemed to Karl that Schubal was rehearsing his next grand speech.
“Didn’t you wish to ask the young man something, Mr. Jakob?” the captain said to the gentleman with the bamboo cane amid general silence.
“Indeed,” he said, acknowledging this courtesy with a slight bow. And then he asked Karl once more: “So what is your name?”
Karl, who believed the main issue would best be served by dispensing with the stubborn inquisitor quickly, answered tersely and without his usual custom of presenting his passport, which he would have had to hunt for first: “Karl Rossmann.”
“Well,” said the man addressed as Mr. Jakob, taking a step backward at first with an almost incredulous smile. The captain too, the chief purser, the ship’s officer, and even the attendant were all extremely astonished upon hearing Karl’s name. Only the men from the harbor authority and Schubal remained indifferent.
“Well,” repeated Mr. Jakob, approaching Karl somewhat stiffly, “then I am your Uncle Jakob and you are my dear nephew. I suspected it all along!” he said to the captain before he embraced and then kissed Karl, who suffered all this in silence.
“And what is your name?” Karl asked very politely, yet wholly unmoved after he felt himself released; he struggled to foresee the consequences this latest development might have for the stoker. For the moment, there was no indication that Schubal could derive any benefit from it.