GREGORY. Oh, that means, "Don't talk, they understand!" It's the same at table. But I understand! You say, there's a difference? I say there is none.
FIRST FOOTMAN. There is a great difference for those who understand.
GREGORY. There is none at all. To-day I am a footman, and to-morrow I may be living no worse than they are. Has it never happened that they've married footmen? I'll go and have a smoke. [Exit].
SECOND FOOTMAN. That's a bold young man you've got.
THEODORE IVÁNITCH. A worthless fellow, not fit for service. He used to be an office boy and has got spoilt. I advised them not to take him, but the mistress liked him. He looks well on the carriage when they drive out.
FIRST FOOTMAN. I should like to send him to our Count; he'd put him in his place! Oh, he don't like those scatterbrains. "If you're a footman, be a footman and fulfil your calling." Such pride is not befitting.
Petrístchef comes running downstairs, and takes out a cigarette.
PETRÍSTCHEF [deep in thought] Let's see, my second is the same as my first. Echo, a-co, co-coa. [Enter Koko Klíngen, wearing his pince-nez] Ko-ko, co-coa. Cocoa tin, where do you spring from?
KOKO KLÍNGEN. From the Stcherbákofs. You are always playing the fool ...
PETRÍSTCHEF. No, listen to my charade. My first is the same as my second, my third may be cracked, my whole is like your pate.
KOKO KLÍNGEN. I give it up. I've no time.
KOKO KLÍNGEN. Where? Of course to the Ívins, to practise for the concert. Then to the Shoúbins, and then to the rehearsal. You'll be there too, won't you?
PETRÍSTCHEF. Most certainly. At the re-her-Sall and also at the re-her-Sarah. Why, at first I was a savage, and now I am both a savage and a general.
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!_[18]
[18] And that won't suit me at all, at all! Not at all, at all!