“I envy you,” said Peter.
“Why? For not having seen one, or because I am at last seeing one?” she asked.
Peter, as usual, found himself wanting to make a good impression. If he had been in a lift with a crossing-sweeper he would certainly have tried to make the crossing-sweeper like him, and have exerted his wits to hit upon something which the crossing-sweeper would think to be admirable, even though on arriving at the next floor he would never see him again. He quickly decided now that the girl would not admire mere drivel.... She happened to want to know what he envied her for.
“For both,” he said. “For getting a new impression. That includes both. You mustn’t have seen an opera before, and you must be seeing one now.”
She looked at him with perfectly unshadowed frankness.
“I believe you meant the first,” she said. “I believe when you said you envied me, that you meant I was lucky in not having spent a quantity of boring evenings.”
“In any case, I don’t mean that now,” said Peter.
“Ah, then you did. Why do you mean it no longer?”
Peter found himself criticizing her. A conversation between the acts of an opera was not meant to degenerate into a catechism. You talked in order to mask the ticking of the minutes. But as he was in for a catechism, it was better to be an agreeable candidate.
“Why?” he asked. “Because I expect that you never spend boring evenings. Probably you are not a person who is bored.”