'Two people of some sort--his countrymen they must have been--came to
him the day before yesterday, before dinner.'

'Bulgarians! what makes you think so?'

'Why as far as I could hear, they talked to him in some language I did
not know, but Slavonic . . . You are always saying, Elena Nikolaevna,
that there's so little mystery about Insarov; what could be more
mysterious than this visit? Imagine, they came to him--and then there
was shouting and quarrelling, and such savage, angry disputing. . . .
And he shouted too.'

'He shouted too?'

'Yes. He shouted at them. They seemed to be accusing each other. And
if you could have had a peep at these visitors. They had swarthy,
heavy faces with high cheek bones and hook noses, both about forty
years old, shabbily dressed, hot and dusty, looking like workmen--not
workmen, and not gentlemen--goodness knows what sort of people they
were.'

'And he went away with them?'

'Yes. He gave them something to eat and went off with them. The woman
of the house told me they ate a whole huge pot of porridge between the
two of them. They outdid one another, she said, and gobbled it up like
wolves.'

Elena gave a faint smile.