The corpse was the baron, my father! I stood
as though turned to stone. Only then I realised
that I had been led since early morning by some unknown
forces, that I was in their power, and for some instants
there was nothing in my soul but the never-ceasing
crash of the sea, and dumb horror at the fate that
had possession of me....
XV
He lay on his back, turned a little to one side, with
his left arm behind his head ... the right was thrust
under his bent body. The toes of his feet, in
high sailor’s boots, had been sucked into the
slimy sea-mud; the short blue jacket, drenched through
with brine, was still closely buttoned; a red scarf
was fastened in a tight knot about his neck. The
dark face, turned to the sky, looked as if it were
laughing; the small close-set teeth could be seen
under the lifted upper lip; the dim pupils of the half-closed
eyes were scarcely discernible in the darkened eyeballs;
the clotted hair, covered with bubbles of foam, lay
dishevelled on the ground, and bared the smooth brow
with the purple line of the scar; the narrow nose rose,
a sharp white line, between the sunken cheeks.
The storm of the previous night had done its work....
He would never see America again! The man who
had outraged my mother, who had spoiled and soiled
her life; my father—yes! my father—of
that I could feel no doubt—lay helplessly
outstretched in the mud at my feet. I experienced
a sensation of satisfied revenge, and of pity, and
repulsion, and horror, more than all ... a double horror,
at what I saw, and at what had happened. The
wicked criminal feelings of which I have spoken, those
uncomprehended impulses of rage rose up in me ...
choked
me. ‘Aha!’ I thought, ’so that
is why I am like this ... that is how my blood shows
itself!’ I stood beside the corpse, and stared
in suspense. Would not those dead eyes move,
would not those stiff lips quiver? No! all was
still; the very seaweed seemed lifeless where the breakers
had flung it; even the gulls had flown; not a broken
spar anywhere, not a fragment of wood, nor a bit of
rigging. On all sides emptiness ... only he and
I, and in the distance the sounding sea. I looked
back; the same emptiness there: a ridge of lifeless
downs on the horizon ... that was all! My heart
revolted against leaving this luckless wretch in this
solitude, on the briny sand of the seashore, to be
devoured by fishes and birds; an inner voice told
me I ought to find people, call them, if not to help—what
help could there be now!—at least to lift
him up, to carry him into some living habitation ...
but an indescribable panic suddenly seized on me.
It seemed to me that this dead man knew I had come
here, that he had himself planned this last meeting.
I even fancied I heard the indistinct mutter I knew
so well.... I ran away ... looked back once....
Something glittering caught my eye; it brought me
to a halt. It was a hoop of gold on the hand of
the corpse.... I knew it for my mother’s
betrothal ring. I remember how I forced myself
to turn back, to go up, to bend down ... I remember
the clammy touch of the chill fingers; I remember
how I held my breath, and half-closed my eyes, and
set my teeth, tearing off the obstinate ring....
