Master: That was his aunt.
Friend: “Still God is good. I wrote to my friend in town to send me another doctor. In the day I personally superintended the arrangement of the bath-house for the winter. Tarass was to dinner.”
Master: A neighbour.
Friend: “We were much diverted with an anecdote made upon an oracle. My aunt felt herself so much improved at evening, that she was even desirous to be present at a comic performance of the house-servants, and they, rejoiced at her graciousness, did not spare their efforts to amuse and divert her at discretion.”
Master: And this morning I, too, went hunting, in the daytime I superintended the dismantling of the bath-house, and this evening we, too, shall have a comic performance. (Calls.) Grusha! Grusha!
Friend: H’m. (Bitterly.) It’s all right for you to live like this—you’ve got so much money.
Master (seriously): Yes, it is. I’m not complaining.
Friend: Pah! Well, I’m damned! Your frankness is very near cynicism. But are you really satisfied with such a life? (Drinks.)
