Your Excellency's desperate man.
At your feet falls the repentant freethinker,
Incognito
Von Lembke explained that the letter had turned up a day ago in the doorkeeper's room, while no one was there.
"So what do you think?" Pyotr Stepanovich asked almost rudely.
"I should suppose that this is an anonymous lampoon, a mockery."
"Most likely that's what it is. You're not to be hoodwinked."
"Mainly because it's so stupid."
"And have you received other lampoons here?"
"I have, twice, anonymously."
"Well, naturally they're not going to sign them. In different styles? Different hands?"
"Different styles and different hands."
"And clownish, like this one?"
"Yes, clownish, and you know... extremely vile."
"Well, since there have been some already, it's probably the same now."
"And mainly because it's so stupid. Because those people are educated and probably wouldn't write so stupidly."
"Ah, yes, yes."
"But what if someone indeed wants to make a denunciation?"
"Impossible," Pyotr Stepanovich cut off dryly. "What's this telegram from the Third Department? And the pension? An obvious lampoon."
"Yes, yes," Lembke felt ashamed.
"You know what, why don't you let me keep it. I'll find out definitely for you. Even before I find out the others."
"Take it," von Lembke agreed, though with a certain hesitation.
"Have you shown it to anyone?"
"No, how would I, not to anyone."
"I mean, to Yulia Mikhailovna?"
"Ah, God forbid, and for God's sake don't you show it to her!" Lembke cried out in fright. "She'll be so shocked ... and terribly angry with me."
"Yes, you'll be the first to catch it, she'll say you had it coming, if they write to you like that. We know women's logic. Well, good-bye. I may even present this writer to you within three days. Above all, our agreement!"
IV
Pyotr Stepanovich was perhaps not a stupid man, but Fedka the Convict rightly said of him that he "invents a man and then lives with him." He went away from von Lembke quite certain that he had set him at ease for at least six days, and he needed the time badly. But this notion was a false one, and it all rested on his having invented Andrei Antonovich as a perfect simpleton, from the very start, once and for all.
Like every morbidly insecure man, Andrei Antonovich, each time he emerged from uncertainty, was for the first moment extremely and joyfully trustful. The new turn of affairs presented itself to him at first in a rather agreeable way, despite certain newly emerging, troublesome complications. The old doubts, at least, were reduced to dust. Besides, he had grown so tired in the last few days, felt himself so worn out and helpless, that his soul involuntarily longed for peace. But, alas, once again he was not at peace. Long life in Petersburg had left indelible traces on his soul. He was rather well informed of the official and even the secret history of the "new generation"—he was a curious man and collected tracts—but he never understood the first word of it. And now he was as if in a forest: all his instincts told him that there was something utterly incongruous in Pyotr Stepanovich's words, something outside all forms and conventions—"though devil knows what may go on in this 'new generation,' and devil knows how things are done among them!" he pondered, losing himself in reflections.
And here, as if by design, Blum again stuck his head into the room. Throughout Pyotr Stepanovich's visit, he had bided his time not far away. This Blum was even a relation of Andrei Antonovich's, but a distant one, carefully and timorously concealed all his life. I ask the reader's pardon for granting at least a few words here to this insignificant person. Blum belonged to the strange breed of "unfortunate" Germans—not at all owing to his extreme giftlessness, but precisely for no known reason. "Unfortunate" Germans are not a myth, they really exist, even in Russia, and have their own type. All his life Andrei Antonovich had nursed a most touching sympathy for him, and wherever he could, as he himself succeeded in the service, kept promoting him to subordinate positions within his jurisdiction, but the man had no luck anywhere. Either the position would be abolished, or the superior would be replaced, or else he was once almost put on trial along with some others. He was precise, but somehow excessively, needlessly, and to his own detriment, gloomy; red-haired, tall, stooping, doleful, even sentimental, yet, for all his downtroddenness, stubborn and persistent as an ox, though always at the wrong time. He and his wife, with their numerous children, nursed a long-standing and reverential affection for Andrei Antonovich. Except for Andrei Antonovich, no one had ever loved him. Yulia Mikhailovna discarded him at once, but proved unable to overcome her husband's tenacity. This was their first family quarrel, and it took place just after their wedding, in the very first honey days, when Blum suddenly came to light, after having been carefully hidden from her, along with the offensive secret of his being her relation. Andrei Antonovich entreated her with clasped hands, recounted feelingly the whole story of Blum and of their friendship from very childhood, but Yulia Mikhailovna considered herself disgraced forever and even resorted to swooning. Von Lembke did not yield an inch to her and declared that he would not abandon Blum for anything in the world, nor distance him from himself, so that she was finally surprised and was forced to permit Blum. Only it was decided that their relation must be concealed still more carefully than before, if that were possible, and that Blum's name and patronymic would be changed, because for some reason he, too, was named Andrei Antonovich. Among us Blum made no acquaintances, except with the German pharmacist, paid no calls, and, as was his wont, lived his niggardly and solitary life. He had long known, too, about Andrei Antonovich's literary peccadilloes. He was mainly summoned to listen to his novels in secret, intimate readings, would sit it out like a post for six hours on end; sweated, exerted all his strength to smile and not fall asleep; on coming home would lament, together with his long-legged and lean-fleshed wife, over their benefactor's unfortunate weakness for Russian literature.
Andrei Antonovich looked with suffering at the entering Blum.
"Leave me alone, Blum, I beg you," he began in an alarmed patter, obviously wishing to deflect any renewal of their previous conversation, interrupted by Pyotr Stepanovich's arrival.
"And yet it could be arranged in the most delicate way, quite privately; you do have full authority," Blum respectfully but stubbornly insisted on something, hunching his shoulders and approaching Andrei Antonovich more and more closely on small steps.
"Blum, you are devoted to me and obliging to such a degree that I get beside myself with fear each time I look at you."
"You always say sharp things and sleep peacefully feeling pleased with what you've said, but you do yourself harm that way."
"Blum, I've just become convinced that it's not that, not that at all."
"Is it from the words of this false, depraved young man whom you yourself suspect? He won you over by his flattering praise of your talent for literature."
"Blum, you understand nothing; your project is an absurdity, I tell you. We won't find anything, and there will be a terrible outcry, then laughter, and then Yulia Mikhailovna..."
"We will unquestionably find everything we are looking for," Blum took a firm step towards him, placing his right hand on his heart. "We will make the inspection suddenly, early in the morning, observing all delicacy regarding the person, and all the prescribed strictness of legal form. The young men, Lyamshin and Telyatnikov, insist all too much that we will find everything we want. They have visited there many times. No one is attentively disposed towards Mr. Verkhovensky. The general's widow Stavrogin has clearly denied him her patronage, and every honest man, if there be such in this rude town, is convinced that there has always been concealed there a source of disbelief and social teaching. He keeps all the forbidden books, Ryleev's Ponderings,[134]all of Herzen's works ... I have an approximate catalogue just in case..."