"Yes, and you know... very disgusting."
"Well, if you had them before, it must be the same thing now."
"Especially because it's so stupid.
Because these people are educated and wouldn't write so stupidly."
"Of course, of course."
"But what if this is someone who really wants to turn informer?"
"It's not very likely," Pyotr Stepanovitch rapped out dryly.
"What does he mean by a telegram from the Secret Police and a pension?
It's obviously a hoax."
"Yes, yes," Lembke admitted, abashed.
"I tell you what: you leave this with me.
I can certainly find out for you before I track out the others."
"Take it," Lembke assented, though with some hesitation.
"Have you shown it to anyone?"
"Is it likely! No."
"Not to Yulia Mihailovna?"
"Oh, Heaven forbid! And for God's sake don't you show it her!" Lembke cried in alarm.
"She'll be so upset... and will be dreadfully angry with me."
"Yes, you'll be the first to catch it; she'd say you brought it on yourself if people write like that to you.
I know what women's logic is.
Well, good-bye.
I dare say I shall bring you the writer in a couple of days or so.
Above all, our compact!"
IV
Though Pyotr Stepanovitch was perhaps far from being a stupid man, Fedka the convict had said of him truly "that he would make up a man himself and go on living with him too."
He came away from Lembke fully persuaded that for the next six days, anyway, he had put his mind at rest, and this interval was absolutely necessary for his own purposes.
But it was a false idea and founded entirely on the fact that he had made up for himself once for all an Andrey Antonovitch who was a perfect simpleton.
Like every morbidly suspicious man, Andrey Antonovitch was always exceedingly and joyfully trustful the moment he got on to sure ground.
The new turn of affairs struck him at first in a rather favourable light in spite of some fresh and troublesome complications.
Anyway, his former doubts fell to the ground.
Besides, he had been so tired for the last few days, so exhausted and helpless, that his soul involuntarily yearned for rest.
But alas! he was again uneasy.
The long time he had spent in Petersburg had left ineradicable traces in his heart.
The official and even the secret history of the "younger generation" was fairly familiar to him—he was a curious man and used to collect manifestoes—but he could never understand a word of it.
Now he felt like a man lost in a forest. Every instinct told him that there was something in Pyotr Stepanovitch's words utterly incongruous, anomalous, and grotesque, "though there's no telling what may not happen with this 'younger generation,' and the devil only knows what's going on among them," he mused, lost in perplexity.
And at this moment, to make matters worse, Blum poked his head in.
He had been waiting not far off through the whole of Pyotr Stepanovitch's visit.
This Blum was actually a distant relation of Andrey Antonovitch, though the relationship had always been carefully and timorously concealed.
I must apologise to the reader for devoting a few words here to this insignificant person.
Blum was one of that strange class of "unfortunate" Germans who are unfortunate not through lack of ability but through some inexplicable ill luck.
"Unfortunate" Germans are not a myth, but really do exist even in Russia, and are of a special type.
Andrey Antonovitch had always had a quite touching sympathy for him, and wherever he could, as he rose himself in the service, had promoted him to subordinate positions under him; but Blum had never been successful.
Either the post was abolished after he had been appointed to it, or a new chief took charge of the department; once he was almost arrested by mistake with other people.
He was precise, but he was gloomy to excess and to his own detriment. He was tall and had red hair; he stooped and was depressed and even sentimental; and in spite of his being humbled by his life, he was obstinate and persistent as an ox, though always at the wrong moment.
For Andrey Antonovitch he, as well as his wife and numerous family, had cherished for many years a reverent devotion.
Except Andrey Antonovitch no one had ever liked him.
Yulia Mihailovna would have discarded him from the first, but could not overcome her husband's obstinacy.
It was the cause of their first conjugal quarrel. It had happened soon after their marriage, in the early days of their honeymoon, when she was confronted with Blum, who, together with the humiliating secret of his relationship, had been until then carefully concealed from her.
Andrey Antonovitch besought her with clasped hands, told her pathetically all the story of Blum and their friendship from childhood, but Yulia Mihailovna considered herself disgraced forever, and even had recourse to fainting.
Von Lembke would not budge an inch, and declared that he would not give up Blum or part from him for anything in the world, so that she was surprised at last and was obliged to put up with Blum.