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!] [17]
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.