Hashovit: I dont care if you take her to Brighton or Nijni Novgorod—if youre such a blasted fool as to spend so much money on her. I dont care if you sit all day squeezing her hand, looking into her eyes till you both squint, pawing her about, and talking that horrible sickly twaddle I couldn’t help overhearing last night (he shudders at the recollection).... But—(rising to his feet)—but I will not have all your friends and my friends whispering and talking about me as though I were something to be pitied. (His voice rising to a scream.) If you want to know, I think Im just about the damn luckiest fellow alive to have unloaded this viperish, discontented, addle-headed, empty-hearted baggage on the most crass and pitiable fool Ive ever met—and if you want to say any more—(his poor, overstrained voice cracks and dies away in his throat with a mouse’s squeak; whereat he expresses his feelings by tearing the cushions to pieces and scattering the bits on the floor.)
The Colonel: Come, come, my dear fellow—pull yourself together.
Mercia (crisply): What I like about Harmodius is his obvious self-control.
Hashovit (his eyes bulging; he speaks in a hoarse whisper): Shut up, you she-porcupine, you hateful female skunk, you—(his vocal chords snap and his voice goes for ever.)
Mercia: His manners are so perfect, too: and hes so brave.... Cry-baby!
Hashovit (inarticulately): o o o o o o o b b—(or some similar noise. Blood gushes from his mouth.)
Nurse Allsopp: There, my poddle-poodkins, come with nursey-wursey. (Addressing the others sharply): And if you want any lunch go and wash your hands, all of you. (She leads Harmodius out by the hand. The others, except Eustace and Mercia, follow her meekly.)
Eustace (uneasily): You expect me to admire all that, I suppose.
Mercia (fixing him with vampire eyes): I expect you to admire nothing except me.
Eustace: Admire you. I loathe you. I struggle to escape from you. Youre like some awful drug, the same odious intoxication, the same irresistible fascination, and the same deadly remorse when its all over. You steal away my senses, and make me a slave.