SAHÁTOF [smiling] Well, I don't deny it: still you understand that, never having seen it, we, the uninitiated, have some difficulty in believing.
LEONÍD FYÓDORITCH. You say you find it difficult to believe! We do not ask for faith; all we demand of you is to investigate! How can I help believing in this ring? Yet this ring came from there!
SAHÁTOF. From there? What do you mean? From where?
LEONÍD FYÓDORITCH. From the other world. Yes!
SAHÁTOF [smiling] That's very interesting—very interesting!
LEONÍD FYÓDORITCH. Well, supposing we admit that I'm a man carried away by an idea, as you think, and that I am deluding myself. Well, but what of Alexéy Vladímiritch Krougosvétlof—he is not just an ordinary man, but a distinguished professor, and yet he admits it to be a fact. And not he alone. What of Crookes? What of Wallace?
SAHÁTOF. But I don't deny anything. I only say it is very interesting. It would be interesting to know how Krougosvétlof explains it!
LEONÍD FYÓDORITCH. He has a theory of his own. Could you come to-night?—he is sure to be here. First we shall have Grossman—you know, the famous thought-reader?
SAHÁTOF. Yes, I have heard of him but have never happened to meet him.
LEONÍD FYÓDORITCH. Then you must come! We shall first have Grossman, then Kaptchítch, and our mediumistic séance.… [To Theodore Ivánitch] Has the man returned from Kaptchítch?