isolated life.... I remember that my head
reeled, and I clutched at it with both hands, as though desirous of
holding it firmly in its place. But one thought had become riveted in it
like a nail. I made up my mind, without fail, at any cost, to find that
man again! Why? With what object?--I did not account to myself for
that; but to find him ... to find him--that had become for me a question
of life or death!

On the following morning my mother regained her composure at last ...
the fever passed off ... she fell asleep. Committing her to the care of
our landlord and landlady and the servants, I set out on my quest.

XI

First of all, as a matter of course, I betook myself to the coffee-house
where I had met the baron; but in the coffee-house no one knew him or
had even noticed him; he was a chance visitor. The proprietors had
noticed the negro--his figure had been too striking to escape notice;
but who he was, where he stayed, no one knew either. Leaving my address,
in case of an emergency, at the coffee-house, I began to walk about the
streets and the water-front of the town, the wharves, the boulevards; I
looked into all the public institutions, and nowhere did I find any one
who resembled either the baron or his companion.... As I had not caught
the baron's name, I was deprived of the possibility of appealing to the
police; but I privately gave two or three guardians of public order to
understand (they gazed at me in surprise, it is true, and did not
entirely believe me) that I would lavishly reward their zeal if they
should be successful in coming upon the traces of those two individuals,
whose personal appearance I tried to describe as minutely as possible.

Having strolled about in this manner until dinner-time, I returned home
thoroughly worn out. My mother had got out of bed; but with her habitual
melancholy there was mingled a new element, a sort of pensive
perplexity, which cut me to the heart like a knife. I sat with her all
the evening. We said hardly anything; she laid out her game of patience,
I silently looked at her cards. She did not refer by a single word to
her story, or to what had happened the day before. It was as though we
had both entered into a compact not to touch upon those strange and
terrifying occurrences.... She appeared to be vexed with herself and
ashamed of what had involuntarily burst from her; but perhaps she did
not remember very clearly what she had said in her semi-feve