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.