When I came to myself, Erik, Christine and the white horse had disappeared.
I felt sure that the poor girl was a prisoner in the house on
the lake. Without hesitation, I resolved to return to the bank,
notwithstanding the attendant danger. For twenty-four hours, I lay
in wait for the monster to appear; for I felt that he must go out,
driven by the need of obtaining provisions. And, in this connection,
I may say, that, when he went out in the streets or ventured to show
himself in public, he wore a pasteboard nose, with a mustache
attached to it, instead of his own horrible hole of a nose.
This did not quite take away his corpse-like air, but it made
him almost, I say almost, endurable to look at.
I therefore watched on the bank of the lake and, weary of long waiting,
was beginning to think that he had gone through the other door,
the door in the third cellar, when I heard a slight splashing in
the dark, I saw the two yellow eyes shining like candles and soon
the boat touched shore. Erik jumped out and walked up to me:
"You've been here for twenty-four hours," he said, "and you're
annoying me. I tell you, all this will end very badly.
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