“Here are the facts,” he cried, flinging it on the table.
Lembke unfolded it; it turned out to be a note written six months before from here to some address abroad. It was a brief note, only two lines:
“I can’t print ‘A Noble Personality’ here, and in fact I can do nothing; print it abroad.
“Iv. Shatov.”
Lembke looked intently at Pyotr Stepanovitch. Varvara Petrovna had been right in saying that he had at times the expression of a sheep.
“You see, it’s like this,” Pyotr Stepanovitch burst out. “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? What’s so annoying is that perhaps you are only putting it on before me, and most likely you knew all about this poem and everything long ago! How did it come to be on your table? It found its way there somehow! Why are you torturing me, if so?”
He feverishly mopped his forehead with his handkerchief.
“I know something, perhaps.” Lembke parried dexterously. “But who is this Kirillov?”