The agitation which had seized upon me at the beginning
of our conversation had gradually subsided; I thought
our intimacy rather strange—that was all.
I did not like the smile with which the baron questioned
me; neither did I like the expression of his eyes when
he fairly stabbed them into me.... There was
about them something rapacious and condescending ...
something which inspired dread. I had not seen
those eyes in my dream. The baron had a strange
face! It was pallid, fatigued, and, at the same
time, youthful in appearance, but with a disagreeable
youthfulness! Neither had my “nocturnal”
father that deep scar, which intersected his whole
forehead in a slanting direction, and which I did
not notice until I moved closer to him.
Before I had had time to impart to the baron the name
of the street and the number of the house where we
lived, a tall negro, wrapped up in a cloak to his
very eyes, approached him from behind and tapped him
softly on the shoulder. The baron turned round,
said: “Aha! At last!” and nodding
lightly to me, entered the coffee-house with the negro.
I remained under the awning. I wished to wait
until the baron should come out again, not so much
for the sake of entering again into conversation with
him (I really did not know what topic I could start
with), as for the purpose of again verifying my first
impression.—But half an hour passed; an
hour passed.... The baron did not make his appearance.
I entered the coffee-house, I made the circuit of
all the rooms—but nowhere did I see either
the baron or the negro.... Both of them must
have taken their departure through the back door.
My head had begun to ache a little, and with the object
of refreshing myself I set out along the seashore
to the extensive park outside the town, which had
been laid out ten years previously. After having
strolled for a couple of hours in the shade of the
huge oaks and plaintain-trees, I returned home.
Our maid-servant flew to meet me, all tremulous with
agitation, as soon as I made my appearance in the
anteroom. I immediately divined, from the expression
of her face, that something unpleasant had occurred
in our house during my absence.—And, in
fact, I learned that half an hour before a frightful
shriek had rung out from my mother’s bedroom.
When the maid rushed in she found her on the floor
in a swoon which lasted for several minutes.
My mother had recovered consciousness at last, but
had been obliged to go to bed, and wore a strange,
frightened aspect; she had not uttered a word, she
had not replied to questions—she had done
nothing but glance around her and tremble. The
servant had sent the gardener for a doctor. The
doctor had come and had prescribed a soothing potion,
but my mother had refused to say anything to him either.
The gardener asserted that a few moments after the
