usual melancholy there was added something new, a sort
of dreamy blankness, which cut me to the heart like
a knife. I spent the evening with her. We
scarcely spoke at all; she played patience, I looked
at her cards in silence. She never made a single
reference to what she had told me, nor to what had
happened the preceding evening. It was as though
we had made a secret compact not to touch on any of
these harrowing and strange incidents.... She
seemed angry with herself, and ashamed of what had
broken from her unawares; though possibly she did
not remember quite what she had said in her half delirious
feverishness, and hoped I should spare her....
And indeed this was it, I spared her, and she felt
it; as on the previous day she avoided my eyes.
I could not get to sleep all night. Outside, a
fearful storm suddenly came on. The wind howled
and darted furiously hither and thither, the window-panes
rattled and rang, despairing shrieks and groans sounded
in the air, as though something had been torn to shreds
up aloft, and were flying with frenzied wailing over
the shaken houses. Before dawn I dropped off
into a doze ... suddenly I fancied some one came into
my room, and called me, uttered my name, in a voice
not loud, but resolute. I raised my head and
saw no one; but, strange to say! I was not only
not afraid—I was glad; I suddenly felt a
conviction that now I should certainly attain my object.
I dressed hurriedly and went out of the house.
XII
The storm had abated ... but its last struggles could
still be felt. It was very early, there were
no people in the streets, many places were strewn
with broken chimney-pots and tiles, pieces of wrecked
fencing, and branches of trees.... ‘What
was it like last night at sea?’ I could not help
wondering at the sight of the traces left by the storm.
I intended to go to the harbour, but my legs, as though
in obedience to some irresistible attraction, carried
me in another direction. Ten minutes had not gone
by before I found myself in a part of the town I had
never visited till then. I walked not rapidly,
but without halting, step by step, with a strange
sensation at my heart; I expected something extraordinary,
impossible, and at the same time I was convinced that
this extraordinary thing would come to pass.
XIII
And, behold, it came to pass, this extraordinary,
this unexpected thing! Suddenly, twenty paces
before me, I saw the very negro who had addressed
the baron in the cafe! Muffled in the same cloak
as I had noticed on him there, he seemed to spring
out of the earth, and with his back turned to me,
walked with rapid strides along the narrow pavement
of the winding street. I promptly flew to overtake
him, but he, too, redoubled his pace, though he did
not look round, and all of a sudden turned sharply
round the corner of a projecting house. I ran
