"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: