Lukyánitch stood with his grey head bent on his breast, and stared at me
askance in a strange sort of way.
"Show it,"--I said.
"Well, as you like,"--he replied at last, got the key, and reluctantly
opened the door.
I glanced into the store-room. There really was nothing noteworthy about
it. On the walls hung old portraits with gloomy, almost black
countenances, and vicious eyes. The floor was strewn with all sorts of
rubbish.
"Well, have you seen all you want?"--asked Lukyánitch, gruffly.
"Yes; thanks!"--I hastily replied.
He slammed to the door. I went out into the anteroom, and from the
anteroom into the courtyard.
Lukyánitch escorted me, muttering: "Good-bye, sir!" and went off to his
own wing.
"But who was the lady visitor at your house last night?"--I called after
him:--"I met her this morning in the grove."
I had hoped to daze him with my sudden question, to evoke a thoughtless
answer. But the old man merely laughed dully, and slammed the door
behind him when he went in.
I retraced my steps to Glínnoe. I felt awkward, like a boy who has been
put to shame.
"No,"--I said to myself:--"evidently, I shall not obtain a solution to
this puzzle. I 'll give it up! I will think no more of all this."
An hour later, I set out on my homeward drive, enraged and irritated.
A week elapsed. Try as I might to banish from me the memory of the
Unknown, of her companion, of my meetings with them,--it kept constantly
returning, and besieged me with all the importunate persistence of an
after-dinner fly.... Lukyánitch, with his mysterious looks and reserved
speeches, with his coldly-mournful smile, also recurred incessantly to
my memory. The house itself, when I thought of it,--that house itself
gazed at me cunningly and stupidly through its half-closed shutters, and
seemed to be jeering at me, as though it were saying to me: "And all the
same thou shalt not find out anything!" At last I could endure it no
longer, and one fine day I drove to Glínnoe, and from Glínnoe set out on
foot .... whither? The reader can easily divine.
I must confess that, as I approached the mysterious manor, I felt a
decidedly violent agitation. The exterior of the house had not undergone
the slightest change: the same closed windows, the same melancholy and
desolate aspect; only, on the bench, in front of the wing, instead of
old Lukyánitch, sat some young house-serf or other, of twenty, in a long
nankeen kaftan and a red shirt. He was sitting with his curly head
resting on his palm, and dozing, swaying to and fro from time to time,
and quivering.
"Good morning, brother!"--I said in a loud voice.
He immediately sprang to his feet and stared at me with widely-opened,
panic-stricken eyes.
"Good morning, brother!"--I repeated:--"And where is the old man?"
"What old man?"--said the young fellow, slowly.
"Lukyánitch."
"Ah, Lukyánitch!"--He darted a glance aside.--"Do you want Lukyánitch?"
"Yes, I do. Is he at home?"
"N-no,"--enunciated the young fellow, brokenly,--"he, you know ... how
shall I ... tell ... you ... about .... that ...."
"Is he ill?"
"No."
"What then?"
"Why, he is n't here at all."
"Why not?"
"Because. Something .... unpleasant ... happened to him."
"Is he dead?"--I inquired with surprise.
"He strangled himself."
"Strangled himself!"--I exclaimed in affright, and clasped my hands.
We both gazed in each other's eyes in silence.
"How long ago?"--I said at last.
"Why, to-day is the fifth day since. They buried him yesterday."
"But why did he strangle himself?"
"The Lord knows. He was a freeman, on wages; he did not know want, the
masters petted him as though he were a relation. For we have such good
masters--may God give them health! I simply can't understand what came
over him. Evidently, the Evil One entrapped him."
"But how did he do it?"
"Why, so. He took and strangled himself."
"And nothing of the sort had been previously noticed in him?"
"How shall I tell you.... There was nothing .... particular. He was
always a very melancholy man. He used to groan, and groan. 'I 'm so
bored,' he would say. Well, and then there was his age. Of late, he
really did begin to meditate something. He used to come to us in the
village; for I 'm his nephew.--'Well, Vásya, my lad,' he would say,
'prithee, brother, come and spend the night with me!'--'What for,
uncle?'--'Why, because I 'm frightened, somehow; 't is tiresome alone.'
Well, and so I 'd go to him. He would come out into the courtyard and
stare and stare so at the house, and shake and shake his head, and how
he would sigh!... Just before that night, that is to say, the one on
which he put an end to his life, he came to us again, and invited me.
Well, and so I went. When we reached his wing, he sat for a while on the
bench; then he rose, and went out. I wait, and 'he 's rather long in
coming back'--says I, and went out into the courtyard, and shouted,
'Uncle! hey, uncle!' My uncle did not call back. Thinks I: 'Whither can
he have gone? surely, not into the house?' and I went into the house.
Twilight was already drawing on. And as I was passing the store-room, I
heard something scratching there, behind the door; so I took and opened
the door. Behold, there he sat doubled up under the window.
"'What art thou doing there, uncle?' says I. But he turns round, and how
he shouts at me, and his eyes are so keen, so keen, they fairly blaze,
like a cat's.
"'What dost thou want? Dost not see--I am shaving myself.' And his voice
was so hoarse. My hair suddenly rose upright, and I don't know why I got
frightened ... evidently, about that time the devils had already
assailed him.
"'What, in the dark?'--says I, and my knees fairly shook.
"'Come,' says he, 'it 's all right, begone!'
"I went, and he came out of the store-room and locked the door. So we
went back to the wing, and the terror immediately left me.
"'What wast thou doing in the store-room, uncle?' says I.--He was fairly
frightened.
"'Hold thy tongue!' says he; 'hold thy tongue!' and he crawled up on the
oven-bench.
"'Well,' thinks I to myself,--''t will be better for me not to speak to
him; he surely must be feeling ill to-day.' So I went and lay down on
the oven-bench myself, too. And a night-light was burning in a corner.
So, I am lying there, and just dozing, you know ... when suddenly I hear
the door creaking softly ... and it opens--so, a little. And my uncle
was lying with his back to the door, and, as you may remember, he was
always a little hard of hearing. But this time he sprang up suddenly...
"'Who 's calling me, hey? who is it? hast come for me, for me?!' and out
he ran into the yard without his hat....
"I thought: 'What 's the matter with him?' and, sinful man that I am, I
fell asleep immediately. The next morning I woke up .... and Lukyánitch
was not there.
"I went out of doors and began to call him--he was nowhere. I asked the
watchman:
"'Has n't my uncle come out?' says I.
"'No,' says he, 'I have n't seen him.'...
"'Has n't something happened to him, brother?'.... says I...
"'Oï!'.... We were both fairly frightened.
"'Come, Feodósyeitch,' says I, 'come on,' says I,--'let 's see whether
he is n't in the house.'
"'Come on,'--says he, 'Vasíly Timofyéitch!' but he himself was as white
as clay.
"We entered the house... I was about to pass the store-room, but I
glanced and the padlock was hanging open on the hasp, and I pushed the
door, but the door was fastened inside.... Feodósyeitch immediately ran
round, and peeped in at the window.
"'Vasíly Timofyéitch!' he cries;--'his legs are hanging, his legs ...'
"I ran to the window. And they were his legs, Lukyánitch's legs. And he
had hanged himself in the middle of the room.--Well, we sent for the
judge.... They took him down from the rope; the rope was tied with
twelve knots."
"Well, what did the court say?"
"What did the court say? Nothing. They pondered and pondered what the
cause might be. There was no cause. And so they decided that he must
have been out of his mind. His head had been aching of late, he had been
complaining very frequently of his head...."
I chatted for about half an hour longer with the young fellow, and went
away, at last, completely disconcerted. I must confess that I could not
look at that rickety house without a secret, superstitious terror.... A
month later I quitted my country-seat, and little by little all these
horrors, these mysterious encounters, vanished from my mind.