Kollomietzev laughed. It amused him to have said “gone off a bit.” “Mais c’est un journal qui se respecte,” he continued, “and that is the main thing. I am sorry to say that I interest myself very little in Russian literature nowadays. It has grown so horribly vulgar. A cook is now made the heroine of a novel. A mere cook, parole d’honneur! Of course, I shall read Ladislas’ novel. Il y aura le petit mot pour rire, and he writes with a purpose! He will completely crush the nihilists, and I quite agree with him. His ideas sont très correctes.”
“That is more than can be said of his past,” Valentina Mihailovna remarked.
“Ah! jeton une voile sur les erreurs de sa jeunesse!” Kollomietzev exclaimed, pulling off his other glove.
Valentina Mihailovna half-closed her exquisite eyes and looked at him coquettishly.
“Simion Petrovitch!” she exclaimed, “why do you use so many French words when speaking Russian? It seems to me rather old-fashioned, if you will excuse my saying so.”
“But, my dear lady, not everyone is such a master of our native tongue as you are, for instance. I have a very great respect for the Russian language. There is nothing like it for giving commands or for governmental purposes. I like to keep it pure and uncorrupted by other languages and bow before Karamzin; but as for an everyday language, how can one use Russian? For instance, how would you say, in Russian, de tout à l’heure, c’est un mot? You could not possibly say ‘this is a word,’ could you?”
“You might say ‘a happy expression.’”
Kollomietzev laughed.
“A happy expression! My dear Valentina Mihailovna. Don’t you feel that it savours of the schoolroom; that all the salt has gone out of it?”
“I am afraid you will not convince me. I wonder where Mariana is?” She rang the bell and a servant entered.