sir, I cannot. Don't come with such requests
to me."

He would have passed on again.

"I repeat that your Excellency is mistaken; it was your wife who asked
me to give, not a lecture, but a literary reading at the fete to-morrow.
But I decline to do so in any case now. I humbly request that you will
explain to me if possible how, why, and for what reason I was subjected
to an official search to-day? Some of my books and papers, private
letters to me, were taken from me and wheeled through the town in a
barrow."

"Who searched you?" said Lembke, starting and returning to full
consciousness of the position. He suddenly flushed all over. He turned
quickly to the chief of police. At that moment the long, stooping, and
awkward figure of Blum appeared in the doorway.

"Why, this official here," said Stepan Trofimovitch, indicating him. Blum
came forward with a face that admitted his responsibility but showed no
contrition.

_"Vous ne faites que des betises,"_ Lembke threw at him in a tone of
vexation and anger, and suddenly he was transformed and completely
himself again.

"Excuse me," he muttered, utterly disconcerted and turning absolutely
crimson, "all this... all this was probably a mere blunder, a
misunderstanding... nothing but a misunderstanding."

"Your Excellency," observed Stepan Trofimovitch, "once when I was young
I saw a characteristic incident. In the corridor of a theatre a man ran
up to another and gave him a sounding smack in the face before the whole
public. Perceiving at once that his victim was not the person whom he
had intended to chastise but some one quite different who only slightly
resembled him, he pronounced angrily, with the haste of one whose
moments are precious--as your Excellency did just now--'I've made
a mistake... excuse me, it was a misunderstanding, nothing but a
misunderstanding.' And when the offended man remained resentful and
cried out, he observed to him, with extreme annoyance: 'Why, I tell you
it was a misunderstanding. What are you crying out about?'"

"That's... that's very amusing, of course"--Lembke gave a wry
smile--"but... but can't you see how unhappy I am myself?"

He almost screamed, and seemed about to hide his face in his hands.

This unexpected and piteous exclamation, almost a sob, was almost more
than one could bear. It was probably the first moment since the previous
day that he had full, vivid consciousness of all that had happened--and
it was followed