and
terror most of all ... of twofold terror; terror of what I had seen, and
of what had come to pass. That evil, that criminal element of which I
have already spoken, those incomprehensible spasms rose up within
me ... stifled me.

"Aha!" I thought to myself: "so that is why I am what I am.... That is
where blood tells!" I stood beside the corpse and gazed and waited, to
see whether those dead pupils would not stir, whether those benumbed
lips would not quiver. No! everything was motionless; the very seaweed,
among which the surf had cast him, seemed to have congealed; even the
gulls had flown away--there was not a fragment anywhere, not a plank or
any broken rigging. There was emptiness everywhere ... only he--and
I--and the foaming sea in the distance. I cast a glance behind me; the
same emptiness was there; a chain of hillocks on the horizon ... that
was all!

I dreaded to leave that unfortunate man in that loneliness, in the ooze
of the shore, to be devoured by fishes and birds; an inward voice told
me that I ought to hunt up some men and call them thither, if not to
aid--that was out of the question--at least for the purpose of laying
him out, of bearing him beneath an inhabited roof.... But indescribable
terror suddenly took possession of me. It seemed to me as though that
dead man knew that I had come thither, that he himself had arranged that
last meeting--it even seemed as though I could hear that dull, familiar
muttering.... I ran off to one side ... looked behind me once more....
Something shining caught my eye; it brought me to a standstill. It was
a golden hoop on the outstretched hand of the corpse.... I recognised my
mother's wedding-ring. I remember how I forced myself to return, to go
close, to bend down.... I remember the sticky touch of the cold fingers,
I remember how I panted and puckered up my eyes and gnashed my teeth, as
I tugged persistently at the ring....

At last I got it off--and I fled--fled away, in headlong flight,--and
something darted after me, and overtook me and caught me.

XVI

Everything which I had gone through and endured was, probably, written
on my face when I returned home. My mother suddenly rose upright as soon
as I entered her room, and gazed at me with such insistent inquiry that,
after having unsuccessfully attempted to explain myself, I ended by
silently handing her the ring. She turned frightfully pale, her eyes
opened unusually wide and turned dim like _h