While she was on her way to the fatal spot she was in a fever, but she
controlled herself. The disappearance of the corpse had startled her as
the crowning misfortune. She was stupefied. I feared for her reason.
With great difficulty I got her home. I put her to bed again; again I
called the doctor for her; but as soon as my mother partly recovered her
senses she at once demanded that I should instantly set out in search of
"that man." I obeyed. But, despite all possible measures, I discovered
nothing. I went several times to the police-office, I visited all the
villages in the neighbourhood, I inserted several advertisements in the
newspapers, I made inquiries in every direction--all in vain! It is true
that I did hear that a drowned man had been found at one of the hamlets
on the seashore.... I immediately hastened thither, but he was already
buried, and from all the tokens he did not resemble the baron. I found
out on what ship he had sailed for America. At first every one was
positive that that ship had perished during the tempest; but several
months afterward rumours began to circulate to the effect that it had
been seen at anchor in the harbour of New York. Not knowing what to do,
I set about hunting up the negro whom I had seen.--I offered him,
through the newspapers, a very considerable sum of money if he would
present himself at our house. A tall negro in a cloak actually did come
to the house in my absence.... But after questioning the servant-maid,
he suddenly went away and returned no more.
And thus the trace of my ... my father grew cold; thus did it vanish
irrevocably in the mute gloom. My mother and I never spoke of him. Only,
one day, I remember that she expressed surprise at my never having
alluded before to my strange dream; and then she added: "Of course, it
really ..." and did not finish her sentence.
My mother was ill for a long time, and after her convalescence our
former relations were not reëstablished. She felt awkward in my presence
until the day of her death.... Precisely that, awkward. And there was no
way of helping her in her grief. Everything becomes smoothed down, the
memories of the most tragic family events gradually lose their force and
venom; but if a feeling of awkwardness has been set up between two
closely-connected persons, it is impossible to extirpate it!
I have never again had that dream which had been wont so to disturb me;
I no longer "search for" my father; but it has sometimes seemed to
me--and it seems so to me to this day--that in my sleep I hear distant
shrieks, unintermittent, melancholy plaints; they resound somewhere
behind a lofty wall, across which it is impossible to clamber; they
rend my heart--and I am utterly unable to comprehend what it is: whether
it is a living man groaning, or whether I hear the wild, prolonged roar
of the troubled sea. And now it passes once more into that beast-like
growl--and I awake with sadness and terror in my soul.