f
of police, though he did not turn his head towards him, and was all the
time gazing at Stepan Trofimovitch.

"Retired college assessor, Stepan Trofimovitch Verhovensky, your
Excellency," answered Stepan Trofimovitch, bowing majestically. His
Excellency went on staring at him with a very blank expression, however.

"What is it?" And with the curtness of a great official he turned his
ear to Stepan Trofimovitch with disdainful impatience, taking him for an
ordinary person with a written petition of some sort.

"I was visited and my house was searched to-day by an official acting in
your Excellency's name; therefore I am desirous..."

"Name? Name?" Lembke asked impatiently, seeming suddenly to have an
inkling of something. Stepan Trofimovitch repeated his name still more
majestically.

"A-a-ah! It's... that hotbed... You have shown yourself, sir, in such a
light.... Are you a professor? a professor?"

"I once had the honour of giving some lectures to the young men of the X
university."

"The young men!" Lembke seemed to start, though I am ready to bet that
he grasped very little of what was going on or even, perhaps, did not
know with whom he was talking.

"That, sir, I won't allow," he cried, suddenly getting terribly angry.
"I won't allow young men! It's all these manifestoes? It's an assault
on society, sir, a piratical attack, filibustering.... What is your
request?"

"On the contrary, your wife requested me to read something to-morrow at
her fete. I've not come to make a request but to ask for my rights... ."

"At the fete? There'll be no fete. I won't allow your fete. A lecture? A
lecture?" he screamed furiously.

"I should be very glad if you would speak to me rather more politely,
your Excellency, without stamping or shouting at me as though I were a
boy."

"Perhaps you understand whom you are speaking to?" said Lembke, turning
crimson.

"Perfectly, your Excellency."

"I am protecting society while you are destroying it!... You... I
remember about you, though: you used to be a tutor in the house of
Madame Stavrogin?"

"Yes, I was in the position... of tutor... in the house of Madame
Stavrogin."

"And have been for twenty years the hotbed of all that has now
accumulated... all the fruits.... I believe I saw you just now in the
square. You'd better look out, sir, you'd better look out; your way of
thinking is well known. You may be sure that I keep my eye on you. I
cannot allow your lectures,