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It was given him, but after some delays, and Lembke was somewhat embarrassed at having to summon the footman a second time and give him orders. But of himself he asked his visitor whether he would like some supper, and was obviously relieved when he refused and went away. In short, Lembke was making his career, and was living in dependence on his fellow-countryman, the influential general.
"He wrote this poem here six months ago, but he couldn't get it printed here, in a secret printing press, and so he asks to have it printed abroad.... That seems clear." "Yes, that's clear, but to whom did he write? That's not clear yet," Lembke observed with the most subtle irony. "Why, Kirillov, of course; the letter was written to Kirillov abroad.... Surely you knew that?
But do you know, at that factory the workpeople will soon be writing manifestoes for themselves." "What do you mean?" Von Lembke stared at him severely. "What I say. You've only to look at them. You are too soft, Andrey Antonovitch; you write novels. But this has to be handled in the good old way." "What do you mean by the good old way? What do you mean by advising me?
Laughing at his irritability she observed tartly that he evidently did not know how to keep up his own dignity; and that with her, anyway, "the boy" had never permitted himself any undue familiarity, "he was naive and fresh indeed, though not regardful of the conventions of society." Von Lembke sulked. This time she made peace between them.
There were spectators in the boxes, the orchestra moved their bows across their fiddles by machinery, the conductor waved his baton, and in the stalls officers and dandies clapped their hands. It was all made of cardboard, it was all thought out and executed by Lembke himself. He spent six months over this theatre. The general arranged a friendly party on purpose.
In fact, he was seen to be a straightforward man, awkward and impolitic from excess of humane feeling and perhaps from excessive sensitiveness above all, a man of limited intelligence, as Von Lembke saw at once with extraordinary subtlety.
"I can't behave tolerantly when he maintains in my presence and before other people that the government purposely drenches the people with vodka in order to brutalise them, and so keep them from revolution. Fancy my position when I'm forced to listen to that before every one." As he said this, Von Lembke recalled a conversation he had recently had with Pyotr Stepanovitch.
The laughter from the crowd was, of course, provoked not by the allegory, which interested no one, but simply by a man's walking on his head in a swallow-tail coat. Lembke flew into a rage and shook with fury. "Rascal!" he cried, pointing to Lyamshin, "take hold of the scoundrel, turn him over... turn his legs... his head... so that his head's up... up!" Lyamshin jumped on to his feet.
In spite of the rather elevated style of his surroundings in the service, Mr. von Lembke was a very modest man. He would have been perfectly satisfied with some independent little government post, with the right to as much government timber as he liked, or something snug of that sort, and he would have been content all his life long.
It was some time since Pyotr Stepanovitch had been in Mr. von Lembke's study. He popped in on him just when the sufferer was in a most stubborn mood. A combination of circumstances had arisen which Mr. von Lembke was quite unable to deal with.
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