But, even so, it was necessary that Andrei Antonovich be a bit brighter for the fête. He absolutely had to be cheered up and reassured. She sent Pyotr Stepanovich to him on this mission, in hopes that he might influence his despondency in some reassuring way known only to himself. Perhaps even with some information delivered, so to speak, at first mouth. She trusted entirely to his adroitness. It was long since Pyotr Stepanovich had been in Mr. von Lembke's study. He flew in precisely at a moment when the patient was in a particularly tense mood.
II
A certain combination had occurred which Mr. von Lembke was simply unable to resolve. In one district (the same one in which Pyotr Stepanovich had recently been feasting) a certain sub-lieutenant had been subjected to a verbal reprimand by his immediate commander. This had happened in front of the whole company. The sub-lieutenant was still a young man, recently come from Petersburg, always sullen and taciturn, with an air of importance, but at the same time short, fat, red-cheeked. He could not endure the reprimand and suddenly charged at his commander with some sort of unexpected shriek that astonished the whole company, his head somehow savagely lowered; struck him and bit him on the shoulder as hard as he could; they were barely able to pull him away. There was no doubt that he had lost his mind; in any case it was discovered that he had been noted lately for the most impossible oddities. For example, he had thrown two icons belonging to his landlord out of his apartment, and chopped one of them up with an axe; and in his room he had placed the works of Vogt, Moleschott, and Buchner[129] on stands like three lecterns, and before each lectern kept wax church candles burning. From the number of books found in his place it could be concluded that he was a well-read man. If he had had fifty thousand francs, he might have sailed off to the Marquesas Islands like that "cadet" mentioned with such merry humor by Mr. Herzen in one of his works.[130] When he was taken, a whole bundle of the most desperate tracts was found in his pockets and in his lodgings.
Tracts are an empty affair of themselves, and in my opinion not at all worrisome. As if we haven't seen enough of them. Besides, these were not even new tracts: exactly the same ones, it was said later, had been spread recently in Kh—— province, and Liputin, who had been in the district capital and the neighboring province about a month and a half earlier, insisted that he had already seen exactly the same leaflets there. But what chiefly struck Andrei Antonovich was that just at the same time the manager of the Shpigulin factory turned in to the police two or three bundles of exactly the same leaflets as the sublieutenant's, which had been left at the factory during the night. The bundles had not even been undone yet, and none of the workers had had time to read even one. The fact was silly, but Andrei Antonovich fell to pondering strenuously. The affair appeared unpleasantly complicated to him.
In this factory of the Shpigulins there was just beginning that very "Shpigulin story" which caused so much shouting among us and was then passed on with such variations to the metropolitan newspapers. About three weeks previously a worker there had fallen ill and died of Asian cholera; then several more people fell ill. Everyone in town got scared, because cholera was approaching from the neighboring province. I will note that all possibly satisfactory sanitary measures were taken in our town to meet the uninvited guest. But the factory of the Shpigulins, who were millionaires and people with connections, was somehow overlooked. And so everyone suddenly started screaming that it was there that the root and hotbed of disease lay and that the uncleanliness of the factory itself, and especially of the workers' quarters, was so inveterate that even if there had been no cholera, it would have generated there of itself. Naturally, measures were taken at once, and Andrei Antonovich vigorously insisted that they be carried out immediately. The factory was cleaned up in about three weeks, but then for some reason the Shpigulins closed it. One of the Shpigulin brothers resided permanently in Petersburg, and the other, after the order from the authorities about the cleaning, left for Moscow. The manager began paying off the workers and, as it now turns out, was brazenly cheating them. The workers began to murmur, wanted their rightful pay, were foolish enough to go to the police, though without making a great noise or really causing much trouble. It was just at this time that the tracts were turned in to Andrei Antonovich by the manager.
Pyotr Stepanovich flew into the study unannounced, like a good friend and familiar, and with an errand from Yulia Mikhailovna besides. Seeing him, von Lembke scowled sullenly and stopped inimically by his desk. Before then he had been pacing the study, discussing something in private with his chancery official Blum, an extremely awkward and sullen German whom he had brought from Petersburg over the most strenuous opposition of Yulia Mikhailovna. When Pyotr Stepanovich entered, the official retreated to the door, but did not leave. It even seemed to Pyotr Stepanovich that he somehow exchanged significant looks with his superior.
"Oho, caught you this time, you cagey burgomaster!" Pyotr Stepanovich cried out, laughing, and he placed the flat of his hand over the tract lying on the table. "Adding to your collection, eh?"
Andrei Antonovich flared up. Something suddenly became as if distorted in his face.
"Leave off, leave off at once!" he cried, starting with wrath, "and do not dare ... sir..."
"What's the matter with you? You seem angry?"
"Allow me to tell you, my dear sir, that henceforth I by no means intend to suffer your sans-façon,[xciv] and I ask you to recall..."
"Pah, the devil, he really means it!"
"Be still, be still!" von Lembke stamped his feet on the carpet, "and do not dare..."
God knows what it might have come to. Alas, there was one further circumstance here, besides all the rest, which was quite unknown both to Pyotr Stepanovich and even to Yulia Mikhailovna herself. The unhappy Andrei Antonovich had reached a point of such distress that lately he had begun to be secretly jealous about his wife and Pyotr Stepanovich. Alone, especially at night, he had endured some most unpleasant moments.
"And I thought that if a man reads you his novel for two days running, in private, past midnight, and wants your opinion, then he's at least beyond these officialities... Yulia Mikhailovna receives me on a friendly footing; who can figure you out?" Pyotr Stepanovich pronounced, even with some dignity. "Here's your novel, by the way," he placed on the desk a large, weighty notebook, rolled into a tube and entirely wrapped in dark blue paper.
Lembke blushed and faltered.
"Where did you find it?" he asked cautiously, with a flood of joy that he could not contain and that he tried nevertheless to contain with all his might.
"Imagine, it fell behind the chest of drawers, rolled up just as it was. I must have tossed it carelessly on the chest as I came in. It was found only two days ago, when they were scrubbing the floors—and what a job you gave me, really!"
Lembke sternly lowered his eyes.
"Thanks to you I haven't slept for two nights running. They found it two days ago, but I kept it, I've been reading it, I have no time during the day, so I did it at night. Well, sir, and—I'm not pleased: can't warm up to the idea. Spit on it, however, I've never been a critic, but—I couldn't tear myself away, my dear, even though I'm not pleased! The fourth and fifth chapters are ... are ... are ... the devil knows what! And so crammed with humor, I laughed out loud. No, you really know how to poke fun sans que cela paraisse![xcv] Well, but the ninth, the tenth, it's all about love, not my thing; makes an effect, however; and I almost started blubbering over Igrenev's letter, though you present him so subtly... You know, there's feeling there, and at the same time you want to present him as if with a false side, right? Have I guessed, or not? Well, and for the ending I'd simply thrash you. What is it you're pushing there? Why, it's the same old deification of family happiness, of the multiplying of children, and capital, and they lived happily ever after, for pity's sake! You'll charm the reader, because even I couldn't tear myself away, but so much the worse. Readers are as stupid as ever, intelligent people ought to shake them up, while you... But enough, though. Good-bye. Next time don't be angry; I had a couple of important little words to say to you; but you seem somehow..."