Demons

It's solely for the sake of Shatov," Pyotr Stepanovich added, with a noble air, "for Shatov alone, out of past friendship ... well, and maybe when you take up your pen to write there, well, you can praise me, if you wish ... I won't object, heh, heh! Adieu, however, I've stayed too long and babbled more than I should have!" he added, not without affability, and got up from the sofa.

"On the contrary, I'm very glad things are begi

"Six days, that's the main thing, give me six days, and make no move for those six days, that's what I need!"

"Very well."

"Naturally, I'm not tying your hands, and wouldn't dare to. You can't really not keep an eye out; only don't frighten the nest ahead of time, this is where I'm counting on your intelligence and experience. And I bet you must have all sorts of hounds and bloodhounds of your own ready, heh, heh!" Pyotr Stepanovich blurted out gaily and thoughtlessly (like a young man).

"Not quite," Lembke dodged affably. "It's a prejudice of youth that there's so much ready... But, incidentally, allow me one word: if this Kirillov was Stavrogin's second, then Mr. Stavrogin, too, in that case..."

"What about Stavrogin?"

"I mean, if they're such friends?"

"Ah, no, no, no! You're way off the mark, though you are cu

"Indeed! But, can it be?" Lembke uttered mistrustfully. "Yulia Mikhailovna told me that, according to her information from Petersburg, he is a man with certain, so to speak, instructions..."

"I know nothing, nothing, nothing at all. Adieu. Avis au lecteur!" Pyotr Stepanovich suddenly and obviously dodged.

He flew to the door.

"Allow me, Pyotr Stepanovich, allow me," cried Lembke, "one other tiny matter—I won't keep you."

He pulled an envelope from his desk drawer.

"Here's one little specimen of the same category, and with this I prove that I trust you in the highest degree. Here, sir, what is your opinion?"

There was a letter in the envelope—a strange letter, anonymous, addressed to Lembke, and received only the day before. To his great vexation, Pyotr Stepanovich read the following:

Your Excellency, For by rank you are so. I herewith a

Your Excellency's desperate man.

At your feet falls the repentant freethinker,

Incognito

Von Lembke explained that the letter had turned up a day agoin 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 downtrodde