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 shriek had rung out from
my mother's room he had seen a strange man run hastily across the
flower-plots of the garden to the street gate. (We lived in a one-story
house, whose windows looked out upon a fairly large garden.) The
gardener had not been able to get a good look at the man's face; but the
latter was gaunt, and wore a straw hat and a long-skirted coat.... "The
baron's costume!" immediately flashed into my head.--The gardener had
been unable to overtake him; moreover, he had been summoned, without
delay, to the house and despatched for the doctor.
I went to my mother's room; she was lying in bed, whiter than the pillow
on which her head rested.... At sight of me she smiled faintly, and put
out her hand to me. I sat down by her side, and began to question her;
at first she persistently parried my questions; but at last she
confessed that she had seen something which had frightened her greatly.
"Did some one enter here?" I asked.
"No," she answered hastily, "no one entered, but it seemed to me ... I
thought I saw ... a vision...."
She ceased speaking and covered her eyes with her hand. I was on the
point of communicating to her what I had heard from the gardener--and
my meeting with the baron also, by the way ... but, for some reason or
other, the words died on my lips.
Nevertheless I did bring myself to remark to my mother that visions do
not manifest themselves in the daylight....
"Stop," she whispered, "please stop; do not torture me now. Some day
thou shalt know...." Again she relapsed into silence. Her hands were
cold, and her pulse beat fast and unevenly. I gave her a dose of her
medicine and stepped a little to one side, in order not to disturb her.
She did not rise all day. She lay motionless and quiet, only sighing
deeply from time to time, and opening her eyes in a timorous
fashion.--Every one in the house was perplexed.