"Yes, and consequently you drag about with you through life such a heap of old, dusty, battered illusions that I really cannot see where you find the strength to hold fast to one healthy vital sensation. Bah! painful as it is, one must bury one's dead in time!"
"I prefer to embalm mine," the captain rejoined, with dignity.
"Let me congratulate you upon your collection of mummies," said his wife.
"You have no capacity for veneration," the captain declared.
"Because I disapprove of whining ad infinitum as homage to a vanished enthusiasm,--ridiculous!" said Katrine.
"Don't quarrel, my doves!" Stasy entreated, clasping her hands after a child-like fashion.
"We have no idea of doing so," the mistress of the house replied, good-humouredly. "We never quarrel. Our complaint is a chronic difference of opinion. What were we really talking about?"
"About illusions," remarked Baron Rohritz.
"Oh, that was merely a side-issue,--only an after-piece," said Frau von Leskjewitsch, bethinking herself. "What was the starting-point of our discussion?--Oh, yes: we were speaking of my little niece."
"Perhaps you can show us a photograph of her," said Anastasia.