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 cunning. And you even surprise me. I thought you were not uninformed with regard to that. . . Hm, Stavrogin is something totally the opposite—I mean, totally...
'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.
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 announce an attempt on the life of the persons of generals and the fatherland; for it leads straight to that. I myself have constantly been spreading them for a multitude of years. And godlessness, too. A rebellion is in preparation, there being several thousand tracts, and a hundred men will run after each one with their tongues hanging out, if not taken away by the authorities beforehand, for a multitude is promised as a reward, and the simple people are stupid, and also vodka. People considering the culprit are destroying one and another, and, fearing both sides, I repented of what I did not participate in, for such are my circumstances. If you want a denunciation to save the fatherland, and also the churches and icons, I alone can. But, with that, a pardon by telegraph from the Third Department,[133] immediately, to me alone out of all of them, and the rest to be held responsible. As a signal, every evening at seven o'clock put a candle in the doorkeeper's window. Seeing it, I will believe and come to kiss the merciful hand from the capital, but, with that, a pension, otherwise what will I live on? And you will not regret it, because you will get a star. It has to be on the quiet, or else there will be a neck wrung.
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?'
