"It is part of the punishment I have inflicted on myself," answered Sárvölgyi, with humble acquiescence.
"The devil take your punishment; it is me that will come in for ridicule if they hear about it yonder. You become more of a fool every day."
"Say what is on your tongue, my good Boris; heaven will order you to do penance as well as me."
Mistress Boris slammed the door after her, and cried outside in bitter disappointment.
The lawyer swore to himself that he would eat whatever followed, even if it were poison.
It was worse: it was fish.
We have medical certificates to enable us to assert that whenever the lawyer ate fish he promptly had to go to bed. He was forced to say that if they chased him from the house with boiling water he could not venture to put his teeth into it.
Mistress Boris said nothing now. She actually kept silent. As we all know, the last stage but one of a woman's anger is when she is silent, and cannot utter a word. There is one stage more, which was imminent. The lawyer thought the dinner was over, and with true sincerity begged Mistress Boris to prepare a little coffee for him and the magistrate.
Boris left the room without a word, placing the coffee machine before Sárvölgyi himself; he did not allow anyone else to make it, and occupied himself with the preparations till Mistress Boris came back.
The magistrate was just dreaming that that fellow swinging from the ceiling turned to him, and said "will you have a cup of coffee?" It did him good starting from his doze, to see his host, not on the chandelier, but sitting in a chair before him, saying: "Will you have a cup of coffee?"