XIII
And, behold, it came to pass, this extraordinary, this unexpected thing! Suddenly, twenty paces before me, I saw the very negro who had addressed the baron in the café! Muffled in the same cloak as I had noticed on him there, he seemed to spring out of the earth, and with his back turned to me, walked with rapid strides along the narrow pavement of the winding street. I promptly flew to overtake him, but he, too, redoubled his pace, though he did not look round, and all of a sudden turned sharply round the corner of a projecting house. I ran up to this corner, turned round it as quickly as the negro.... Wonderful to relate! I faced a long, narrow, perfectly empty street; the fog of early morning rilled it with its leaden dulness, but my eye reached to its very end, I could scan all the buildings in it ... and not a living creature stirring anywhere! The tall negro in the cloak had vanished as suddenly as he had appeared! I was bewildered ... but only for one instant. Another feeling at once took possession of me; the street, which stretched its length, dumb, and, as it were, dead, before my eyes, I knew it! It was the street of my dream. I started, shivered, the morning was so fresh, and promptly, without the least hesitation, with a sort of shudder of conviction, went on!
I began looking about.... Yes, here it was; here to the right, standing cornerwise to the street, was the house of my dream, here too the old-fashioned gateway with scrollwork in stone on both sides.... It is true the windows of the house were not round, but rectangular ... but that was not important.... I knocked at the gate, knocked twice or three times, louder and louder.... The gate was opened slowly with a heavy groan as though yawning. I was confronted by a young servant girl with dishevelled hair, and sleepy eyes. She was apparently only just awake. ‘Does the baron live here?’ I asked, and took in with a rapid glance the deep narrow courtyard.... Yes; it was all there ... there were the planks and beams I had seen in my dream.
‘No,’ the servant girl answered, ‘the baron’s not living here.’
‘Not? impossible!’
‘He’s not here now. He left yesterday.’
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘To America.’
‘To America!’ I repealed involuntarily. ‘But he will come back?’
The servant looked at me suspiciously.
‘We don’t know about that. May be he won’t come back at all.’
‘And has he been living here long?’
‘Not long, a week. He’s not here now.’
‘And what was his surname, the baron’s?’ The girl stared at me.
‘You don’t know his name? We simply called him the baron.—Hi! Piotr!’ she shouted, seeing I was pushing in. ‘Come here; here’s a stranger keeps asking questions.’
From the house came the clumsy figure of a sturdy workman.
‘What is it? What do you want?’ he asked in a sleepy voice; and having heard me sullenly, he repeated what the girl had told me.
‘But who does live here?’ I asked.
‘Our master.’
‘Who is he?’
‘A carpenter. They’re all carpenters in this street.’
‘Can I see him?’
‘You can’t now, he’s asleep.’
‘But can’t I go into the house?’
‘No. Go away.’
‘Well, but can I see your master later on?’
‘What for? Of course. You can always see him.... To be sure, he’s always at his business here. Only go away now. Such a time in the morning, upon my soul!’
‘Well, but that negro?’ I asked suddenly.
The workman looked in perplexity first at me, then at the servant girl.
‘What negro?’ he said at last. ‘Go away, sir. You can come later. You can talk to the master.’
I went out into the street. The gate slammed at once behind me, sharply and heavily, with no groan this time.
I carefully noted the street and the house, and went away, but not home—I was conscious of a sort of disillusionment. Everything that had happened to me was so strange, so unexpected, and meanwhile what a stupid conclusion to it! I had been persuaded, I had been convinced, that I should see in that house the room I knew, and in the middle of it my father, the baron, in the dressing-gown, and with a pipe.... And instead of that, the master of the house was a carpenter, and I could go and see him as much as I liked—and order furniture of him, I dare say.
My father had gone to America. And what was left for me to do?... To tell my mother everything, or to bury for ever the very memory of that meeting? I positively could not resign myself to the idea that such a supernatural, mysterious beginning should end in such a senseless, ordinary conclusion!
I did not want to return home, and walked at random away from the town.