PETRÍSTCHEF. Most certainly. At the re-her-Sall and also at the re-her-Sarah. Why, at first I was a savage, and now I am both a savage and a general.
KOKO KLÍNGEN. How did yesterday's séance go off?
PETRÍSTCHEF. Screamingly funny! There was a peasant, and above all, it was all in the dark. Vovo cried like an infant, the Professor defined, and Márya Vasílevna refined. Such a lark! You ought to have been there.
KOKO KLÍNGEN. I'm afraid, mon cher. You have a way of getting off with a jest, but I always feel that if I say a word, they'll construe it into a proposal. Et ça ne m'arrange pas du tout, du tout. Mais du tout, du tout![18]
PETRÍSTCHEF. Instead of a proposal, make a proposition, and receive a sentence! Well, I shall go in to Vovo's. If you'll call for me, we can go to the re-her-Sarah together.
KOKO KLÍNGEN. I can't think how you can be friends with such a fool. He is so stupid,—a regular blockhead!
PETRÍSTCHEF. And I am fond of him. I love Vovo, but … “with a love so strange, ne'er towards him the path untrod shall be” … [Exit into Vovo's room].
Betsy comes down with a Lady. Koko bows significantly to Betsy.
BETSY [shaking Koko's hand without turning towards him. To Lady] You are acquainted?
LADY. No.