The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories Part 14

I was ashamed: I could not complete the sentence I had begun.

Lukyanitch 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 Lukyanitch, gruffly.

"Yes; thanks!"--I hastily replied.

He slammed to the door. I went out into the anteroom, and from the anteroom into the courtyard.

Lukyanitch 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 Glinnoe. 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.... Lukyanitch, 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 Glinnoe, and from Glinnoe 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 Lukyanitch, sat some young house-serf or other, of twenty, in a long nankeen kaftan and a red s.h.i.+rt. 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.

"Lukyanitch."

"Ah, Lukyanitch!"--He darted a glance aside.--"Do you want Lukyanitch?"

"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 G.o.d 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, Vasya, 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 pa.s.sing 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 hoa.r.s.e. My hair suddenly rose upright, and I don't know why I got frightened ... evidently, about that time the devils had already a.s.sailed 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.