"For whom do you make this request, and what does it all signify?" he inquired imposingly, trying to conceal his curiosity.
"It's... it's ... ah, the devil... Am I to blame for believing in you? Am I really to blame for considering you a most noble man and, above all, a sensible one... that is, capable of understanding ... ah, the devil..."
The poor fellow was apparently unable to control himself.
"Do finally understand," he went on, "do understand that by giving you his name, I'm really betraying him to you; I'm betraying him, right? Right?"
"But how am I to guess, however, if you can't bring yourself to say it?"
"That's just it, you always chop it down with that logic of yours, the devil ... so, the devil... this 'shining light,' this 'student'—it's Shatov ... so, there it is!"
"Shatov? That is, how is it Shatov?"
"Shatov, he's the 'student,' the one that's mentioned. He lives here, the former serf, well, the one who gave that slap."
"I know, I know!" Lembke narrowed his eyes. "But, excuse me, what in fact is he accused of, and, most chiefly, what are you interceding for?"
"I'm asking you to save him, do you understand! I've known him since eight years ago, you might say we used to be friends," Pyotr Stepanovich was turning himself inside out. "Well, I really don't owe you any reports on my former life," he waved his hand. "It's all insignificant, all just three men and a half, and with the ones abroad it wouldn't even make ten, and the main thing is that I was counting on your humaneness, your intelligence. You'll understand and you yourself will show the matter in the right way, not as God knows what, but as the foolish dream of a madcap... from misfortunes, mind you, from long misfortunes, and not as devil knows what sort of unprecedented state conspiracy! ..."
He was almost breathless.
"Hm. I see he's to blame for the tracts with the axe," Lembke concluded almost majestically, "but, excuse me, if he's alone, how could he have spread them both here and in other districts, and even in Kh—— province, and ... and, finally, the main thing is— Where'd he get them?"
"But I'm telling you there are apparently five of them in all, or maybe ten, how should I know?"
"You don't know?"
"But how should I know, devil take it?"
"You did know, however, that Shatov was one of the accomplices?"
"Ehh!" Pyotr Stepanovich waved his arm, as if warding off the overwhelming perspicacity of the inquirer. "Well, listen, I'll tell you the whole truth: I know nothing about the tracts, I mean nothing whatsoever, devil take it, do you understand what nothing means? ... Well, of course, that sub-lieutenant, and someone else besides, and someone else here... well, and maybe Shatov, well, and someone else besides, well, that's all, trash and measliness... but I came to plead for Shatov, he must be saved, because this poem is his, he wrote it, and it was published abroad through him; that much I know for sure, but I know nothing whatsoever about the tracts."
"If the verses are his, then most likely the tracts are, too. On what grounds, however, do you suspect Mr. Shatov?"
Pyotr Stepanovich, with the air of a man who has finally lost all patience, snatched his wallet from his pocket, and from it took a note.
"Here are the grounds!" he cried, throwing it on the desk. Lembke unfolded it; the note, as it turned out, had been written about half a year before, from here to somewhere abroad; it was a short note, a couple of words:
Am unable to print "The Shining Light" here; that or anything else; print it abroad.
IV: Shatov
Lembke stared fixedly at Pyotr Stepanovich. Varvara Petrovna correctly referred to his having something of a sheep's gaze, especially at times.
"I mean, this is what it is," Pyotr Stepanovich lurched ahead. "That he wrote these verses here, half a year ago, but couldn't print them here, well, on some secret press—and so he asks for them to be printed abroad... that seems clear?"
"Yes, it's clear, sir, but whom is he asking?—that still isn't clear," Lembke remarked, with the most cunning irony.
"But, Kirillov, finally; the note was written to Kirillov abroad... Didn't you know? What's annoying is that you may only be pretending with me, and knew about these verses a long, long time ago, that's the thing! How else would they turn up on your desk? They did get there somehow! So why are you tormenting me?"
He convulsively wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.
"I am perhaps informed about certain things..." Lembke dodged adroitly, "but who is this Kirillov?"
"Well, so, he's this visiting engineer, acted as Stavrogin's second, a maniac, a madman; your sub-lieutenant may indeed just have brain fever, but this one is totally mad—totally, I guarantee it. Ehh, Andrei Antonovich, if the government only knew what sort of people they are, the lot of them, they wouldn't raise a hand against them. They're all ripe for Bedlam as it is; I saw enough of them in Switzerland and at congresses."
"From where they direct the movement here?"
"Yes, and who is directing it?—three men and another half. One just gets bored looking at them. And what is this movement here? These tracts, or what? And look who they've recruited—brain-sick sublieutenants and two or three students! You're an intelligent man, here's a question for you: Why don't they recruit more significant people, why is it always students and twenty-two-year-old dunces? And how many are there? They must have a million bloodhounds out searching, and how many have they found in all? Seven men. I'm telling you, one gets bored."
Lembke listened attentively, but with an air that seemed to say: "You can't catch an old bird with chaff."
"Excuse me, however, you were pleased to insist just now that the note was addressed abroad; but there's no address here; how is it known to you that the note was addressed to Mr. Kirillov, and, finally, abroad, and... and... that it was in fact written by Mr. Shatov?"
"But just get Shatov's handwriting and check. Some signature of his is bound to turn up in your chancery. And as for its being to Kirillov, it was Kirillov himself who showed it to me right then."
"So you yourself..."
"Well, yes, of course, so I myself. They showed me all kinds of things there. And about these verses, it was supposedly the late Herzen who wrote them for Shatov while he was still wandering abroad, supposedly in memory of their meeting, as praise, as a recommendation—ah, well, the devil... so Shatov is spreading it among the young people. Herzen's own opinion of me, he says."
"Tsk, tsk, tsk," Lembke finally figured it all out, "and here I was thinking: the tracts I understand, but why the verses?"
"But how could you not understand? And devil knows why I'm spilling it all out to you! Listen, you give me Shatov, and the devil take all the rest, even with Kirillov, who has now locked himself up in Filippov's house, where Shatov also lives, and is lying low. They don't like me, because I've gone back... but promise me Shatov and I'll bring you all the rest of them on a platter. I'll prove useful, Andrei Antonovich! I reckon the whole pitiful crew numbers nine—maybe ten—people. I'm keeping an eye on them myself, for my own part, sir. Three are already known to us: Shatov, Kirillov, and that sublieutenant. The rest I'm still making out... not that I'm all that nearsighted. It's like it was in Kh—— province; two students, one high-school boy, two twenty-year-old noblemen, one teacher, and one retired major of about sixty, stupefied with drink, were seized there with tracts—that's all, and believe me, that was all; they were even surprised that that was all. But I'll need six days. I've already worked it out on the abacus; six days, and not before. If you want to get any results, don't stir them up for another six days, and I'll tie them all into a single knot for you; stir them up before then, and the nest will scatter. But give me Shatov. I'm for Shatov... And best of all would be to summon him secretly and amiably, why not here to this study, and examine him, after lifting the veil for him ... And he'll probably throw himself at your feet and weep! He's a nervous man, an unhappy man; his wife goes about with Stavrogin. Coddle him a bit and he'll reveal everything himself, but I need six days... And the main thing, the main thing—not even half a word to Yulia Mikhailovna. A secret. Can we keep it a secret?"