On the following morning my mother regained her composure at last ...
the fever passed off ... she fell asleep. Committing her to the care of
our landlord and landlady and the servants, I set out on my quest.




XI


First of all, as a matter of course, I betook myself to the coffee-house
where I had met the baron; but in the coffee-house no one knew him or
had even noticed him; he was a chance visitor. The proprietors had
noticed the negro--his figure had been too striking to escape notice;
but who he was, where he stayed, no one knew either. Leaving my address,
in case of an emergency, at the coffee-house, I began to walk about the
streets and the water-front of the town, the wharves, the boulevards; I
looked into all the public institutions, and nowhere did I find any one
who resembled either the baron or his companion.... As I had not caught
the baron's name, I was deprived of the possibility of appealing to the
police; but I privately gave two or three guardians of public order to
understand (they gazed at me in surprise, it is true, and did not
entirely believe me) that I would lavishly reward their zeal if they
should be successful in coming upon the traces of those two individuals,
whose personal appearance I tried to describe as minutely as possible.

Having strolled about in this manner until dinner-time, I returned home
thoroughly worn out. My mother had got out of bed; but with her habitual
melancholy there was mingled a new element, a sort of pensive