"Do you remember my father?" he asked me. Of course; while I looked at him it seemed as if his father were standing before me. The very fibrous, skinny figure, the muscles and flesh seeming peeled off. Even through his coat arm I felt the naked, unveiled nerves. "I always admired and honored my father, but we were never true intimates; I knew that he loved me, but I felt as if it was not for my own sake; as if he loved something in my soul that was strange to me. I never saw him smile; sometimes he was so harsh that I was afraid of him; at another time he was unmanageable." "I did not understand him, but the older I became the better did I feel that there was a sad secret germinating in the bottom of his soul, where it grew like a spreading tree, the branches of which crept up to the castle and covered the walls, little by little overshadowed the sunlight, absorbed the air, and darkened everyone's heart. I gritted my teeth in vain; I could not work; I could not start to accomplish anything. I struggled with hundreds and hundreds of determinations; to-day I prepared for this or that; to-morrow for something else; ambition pressed me within; I could not make up my mind. Behind every resolution I made, I noticed my father's countenance, like a note of interrogation. The old fables that we heard together in our childhood were renewed in my memory. Little by little the thought grew within me, like a fixed delusion, that my father's fatal secret was locked up in the tower room. After that I lived by the calendar and dwelt on the passing of time on the clock. And when the sun that shone on me when I was born arose the twenty-fourth time, I pressed my hand on my heart and entered my father's room--this very room. "'Father,' I said, 'I became of age to-day, everything may be opened before me, and I am at liberty to know everything.' Father looked at me and pondered over this. "'Oh, yes!' he whispered, 'this is the day.' "'I may know everything now,' continued I; 'I am not afraid of any secrets. In the name of our family tradition, I beg of you, please open the tower-room.' "Father raised his hand, as if he wanted to make me become silent. His face was as white as a ghost. "'Very well,' he murmured, 'I will open the tower-room for you.' "And then he pulled off his coat, tore his shirt on his breast, and pointed to his heart. "'Here is the tower-room, my boy!' did he whisper in a husky voice. 'Here is the tower-room, and within our family secret. Do you see it?' "That is all he said, but when I looked at him I immediately perceived the secret; everything was clear before me and I had a presentiment that something was nearing its end, something about to break. "Father walked up and down; and then he stopped and pointed to this picture; to this very picture.