"Well, if it comes to that, it pretty well shattered me," said Wally. "In fact, had anyone told me what sort of a show it was, I wouldn't have gone."
"I must say, that was a dreary piece," admitted Ermyntrude. "I dare say it was all very clever, but it wasn't my idea of a cheery evening."
"To my mind, The Seagull was yet finer," said Alan. "There one had the crushing weight of cumulative gloom pressing on one until it became almost an agony!"
"When I go to the theatre," said Ermyntrude flatly, "I don't want to be crushed by gloom."
It was plain that Alan thought such an attitude of mind contemptible, but the Prince threw Ermyntrude one of his brilliant smiles, and said: "Always you are right, Trudinka. Indeed, you were made for light and laughter."
"Take Gogol!" commanded Alan. "Think of that subtle union of mysticism and realism, more especially in Dead Souls!"
"Well, what of it?" asked Wally. "It's all very well for you to say "take Gogol", but nobody wants to, and what's more we don't want to talk about dead souls either. You run along with Vicky and have a game of billiards, or something."
"The panacea of the inevitable ball!" said Alan, with a bitter smile. "Does it puzzle you, Prince, our obsession with Sport?"
"But I find that you are not obsessed with Sport, my friend, but on the contrary with the literature of my country. Yet I must tell you that in translation something is lost."
The mention of sport put Ermyntrude in mind of the borrowed shot-gun, and she at once turned to catch Wally's eye. Failing, she was obliged to nudge Mary, and to whisper: "Tell him to ask about the gun!"