Chapter 19

I went hurriedly down from the vineyard and rushed into the town. I walked rapidly through all the streets, looked in all directions, even at Frau Luise�s windows, went back to the Rhine, and ran along the bank.� From time to time I was met by women�s figures, but Acia was nowhere to be seen. There was no anger gnawing at my heart now. I was tortured by a secret terror, and it was not only terror that I felt � no, I felt remorse, the most intense regret, and love,—yes! the tenderest love. I wrung my hands. I called �Acia� through the falling darkness of the night, first in a low voice, then louder and louder; I repeated a hundred times over that I loved her. I vowed I would never part from her. I would have given everything in the world to hold her cold hand again, to hear again her soft voice, to see her again before me.� She had been so near, she had come to me, her mind perfectly made up, in perfect innocence of heart and feelings, she had offered me her unsullied youth � and I had not folded her to my breast, I had robbed myself of the bliss of watching her sweet face blossom with delight and the peace of rapture.� This thought drove me out of my mind.

�Where can she have gone? What can she have done with herself?� I cried in an agony of helpless despair.� I caught a glimpse of something white on the very edge of the river. I knew the place; there stood there, over the tomb of a man who had been drowned seventy years ago, a stone cross half-buried in the ground, bearing an old inscription. My heart sank � I ran up to the cross; the white figure vanished. I shouted �Acia!� I felt frightened myself by my uncanny voice, but no one called back.

I resolved to go and see whether Gagin had found her.