I went hurriedly down from the vineyard and rushed into the town. I
walked rapidly through all the streets, looked in all directions, even
at Frau Luise’s windows, went back to the Rhine, and ran along the
bank.… From time to time I was met by women’s figures, but Acia was
nowhere to be seen. There was no anger gnawing at my heart now. I was
tortured by a secret terror, and it was not only terror that I felt
… no, I felt remorse, the most intense regret, and love,--yes! the
tenderest love. I wrung my hands. I called ‘Acia’ through the falling
darkness of the night, first in a low voice, then louder and louder; I
repeated a hundred times over that I loved her. I vowed I would never
part from her. I would have given everything in the world to hold her
cold hand again, to hear again her soft voice, to see her again before
me.… She had been so near, she had come to me, her mind perfectly made
up, in perfect innocence of heart and feelings, she had offered me her
unsullied youth … and I had not folded her to my breast, I had robbed
myself of the bliss of watching her sweet face blossom with delight and
the peace of rapture.… This thought drove me out of my mind.
‘Where can she have gone? What can she have done with herself?’ I cried
in an agony of helpless despair.… I caught a glimpse of something white
on the very edge of the river. I knew the place; there stood there,
over the tomb of a man who had been drowned seventy years ago, a stone
cross half-buried in the ground, bearing an old inscription. My heart
sank … I ran up to the cross; the white figure vanished. I shouted
‘Acia!’ I felt frightened myself by my uncanny voice, but no one called
back.