“In rebellion? That’s nonsense; I gave the order and they’ve cleaned it.”
“Ech, you are soft, Andrey Antonovitch!”
“In the first place, I am not so soft as you think, and in the second place …” Von Lembke was piqued again. He had exerted himself to keep up the conversation with the young man from curiosity, wondering if he would tell him anything new.
“Ha ha, an old acquaintance again,” Pyotr Stepanovitch interrupted, pouncing on another document that lay under a paper-weight, something like a manifesto, obviously printed abroad and in verse. “Oh, come, I know this one by heart, ‘A Noble Personality.’ Let me have a look at it—yes, ‘A Noble Personality’ it is. I made acquaintance with that personality abroad. Where did you unearth it?”
“You say you’ve seen it abroad?” Von Lembke said eagerly.
“I should think so, four months ago, or may be five.”
“You seem to have seen a great deal abroad.” Von Lembke looked at him subtly.
Pyotr Stepanovitch, not heeding him, unfolded the document and read the poem aloud:
“A NOBLE PERSONALITY
“He was not of rank exalted,
He was not of noble birth,
He was bred among the people
In the breast of Mother Earth.
But the malice of the nobles
And the Tsar’s revengeful wrath
Drove him forth to grief and torture
On the martyr’s chosen path.
He set out to teach the people
Freedom, love, equality,
To exhort them to resistance;
But to flee the penalty
Of the prison, whip and gallows,
To a foreign land he went.
While the people waited hoping
From Smolensk to far Tashkent,
Waited eager for his coming
To rebel against their fate,
To arise and crush the Tsardom
And the nobles’ vicious hate,
To share all the wealth in common,
And the antiquated thrall
Of the church, the home and marriage
To abolish once for all.”