I could only nod in assent. Three hours had not
passed since I had come upon the baron’s corpse....
Some one had discovered and removed it. I must
find out who had done it, and what had become of it.
But first I had to look after my mother.
While she had been walking to the fatal spot she had
been in a fever, but she controlled herself.
The disappearance of the dead body came upon her as
a final blow. She was struck dumb. I feared
for her reason. With great difficulty I got her
home. I made her lie down again on her bed, again
I sent for the doctor, but as soon as my mother had
recovered herself a little, she at one desired me
to set off without delay to find out ’that man.’
I obeyed. But, in spite of every possible effort,
I discovered nothing. I went several times to
the police, visited several villages in the neighbourhood,
put several advertisements in the papers, collected
information in all directions, and all in vain!
I received information, indeed, that the corpse of
a drowned man had been picked up in one of the seaside
villages near.... I at once hastened off there,
but from all I could hear the body had no resemblance
to the baron. I found out in what ship he had
set sail for America; at first every one was positive
that ship had gone down in the storm; but a few months
later there were rumours that it had been seen riding
at anchor in New York harbour. Not knowing what
steps to take, I began seeking out the negro I had
seen, offering him in the papers a considerable sum
of money if he would call at our house. Some
tall negro in a cloak did actually call on us in my
absence.... But after questioning the maid, he
abruptly departed, and never came back again.
So all traces were lost of my ... my father; so he
vanished into silence and darkness never to return.
My mother and I never spoke of him; only one day,
I remember, she expressed surprise that I had never
told her before of my strange dream; and added, ‘It
must mean he really....’, but did not utter
all her thought. My mother was ill a long while,
and even after her recovery our former close relations
never returned. She was ill at ease with me to
the day of her death.... Ill at ease was just
what she was. And that is a trouble there is
no cure for. Anything may be smoothed over, memories
of even the most tragic domestic incidents gradually
lose their strength and bitterness; but if once a
sense of being ill at ease installs itself between
two closely united persons, it can never be dislodged!
I never again had the dream that had once so agitated
me; I no longer ’look for’ my father;
but sometimes I fancied—and even now I fancy—that
I hear, as it were, distant wails, as it were, never
silent, mournful plaints; they seem to sound somewhere
behind a high wall, which cannot be crossed; they
wring my heart, and I weep with closed eyes, and am
never able to tell what it is, whether it is a living
man moaning, or whether I am listening to the wild,
long-drawn-out howl of the troubled sea. And then
it passes again into the muttering of some beast,
and I fall asleep with anguish and horror in my heart.
