" I said.

"Our master."

"And who is he?"

"A carpenter. They are all carpenters in this street."

"Can he be seen?"

"Impossible now, he is asleep."

"And cannot I go into the house?"

"No; go your way."

"Well, and can I see your master a little later?"

"Why not? Certainly. He can always be seen.... That's his business as a
dealer. Only, go your way now. See how early it is."

"Well, and how about that negro?" I suddenly asked.

The labourer stared in amazement, first at me, then at the maid-servant.

"What negro?" he said at last.--"Go away, sir. You can come back later.
Talk with the master."

I went out into the street. The gate was instantly banged behind me,
heavily and sharply, without squeaking this time.

I took good note of the street and house and went away, but not home.--I
felt something in the nature of disenchantment. Everything which had
happened to me was so strange, so remarkable--and yet, how stupidly it
had been ended! I had been convinced that I should behold in that house
the room which was familiar to me--and in the middle of it my father,
the baron, in a dressing-gown and with a pipe.... And instead of that,
the master of the house was a carpenter, and one might visit him as much
as one pleased,--and order furniture of him if one wished!

But my father had gone to America! And what was left for me to do
now?... Tell my mother everything, or conceal forever the very memory of
that meeting? I was absolutely unable to reconcile myself to the thought
that such a senseless, such a commonplace ending should be tacked on to
such a supernatural, mysterious beginning!

I did not wish to return home, and walked straight ahead, following my
nose, out of the town.

XIV

I walked along with drooping head, without a thought, almost without
sensation, but wholly engrossed in myself.--A measured, dull and angry
roar drew me out of my torpor. I raised my head: it was the sea roaring
and booming fifty paces from me. Greatly agitated by the nocturnal
storm, the sea was a mass of white-caps to the very horizon, and steep
crests of long breakers were rolling in regularly and breaking on the
flat shore, I approached it, and walked along the very line left by the
ebb and flow on the yellow, ribbed sand, strewn with fragments of
trailing seawrack, bits of shells, serpent-like ribbons of eel-grass.
Sharp-winged gulls with pitiful cry, borne on the wind from the distant
aerial depths, so