The storm had abated ... but its last struggles could still be felt. It was very early, there were no people in the streets, many places were strewn with broken chimney-pots and tiles, pieces of wrecked fencing, and branches of trees.... ‘What was it like last night at sea?’ I could not help wondering at the sight of the traces left by the storm. I intended to go to the harbour, but my legs, as though in obedience to some irresistible attraction, carried me in another direction. Ten minutes had not gone by before I found myself in a part of the town I had never visited till then. I walked not rapidly, but without halting, step by step, with a strange sensation at my heart; I expected something extraordinary, impossible, and at the same time I was convinced that this extraordinary thing would come to pass. 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.’