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I wandered around the Castle, unable to find the opening through which I had come out on to the plain. So much anxiety and emotion began to tell upon my mind; I moved aimlessly along, asking myself with dread if madness were not playing a part in my fancies, unable to believe what I had seen, and yet alarmed at the clearness of my perceptions. The image of the master of Nideck waving his torch in the darkness, howling like a wolf, coolly accomplishing an imaginary crime, without omitting a gesture, a circumstance, not even the smallest detail, then escaping and committing to the abyss the secret of the murder, harassed my mind and hung over me like a nightmare. I ran breathless and distracted through the snow, not knowing in what direction to guide my steps.
As day approached, the cold became more intense. At last, exhausted, my legs feeling like lead, and my ears half frozen, I succeeded in discovering the iron grating, and I rang the bell with all my might. It was then about four o'clock in the morning. Knapwurst kept me waiting a terribly long time. His little lodge, built against the rock, just within the principal gate, remained quite silent; it seemed to me that the dwarf would never finish dressing, for I had fancied him in bed and soundly sleeping.