ACT II · 12

ALL. Bravo! [General enthusiasm].

VASÍLY LEONÍDITCH. Ah! So that's where our spoon was. [To Peasants] Then that's the sort you are!

THIRD PEASANT. What sort? I didn't take your spoon! What are you making out? I didn't take it, and my soul knows nothing about it. I didn't take it—there! Let him do what he likes. I knew he came here for no good. “Where's your bag?” says he. I didn't take it, the Lord is my witness! [Crosses himself] I didn't take it!

The young people group round the Peasant, laughing.

LEONÍD FYÓDORITCH [angrily to his son] Always playing the fool! [To the Third Peasant] Never mind, friend! We know you did not take it; it was only an experiment.

GROSSMAN [removes bandage from his eyes, and pretends to be coming to] Can I have a little water? [All fuss round him].

VASÍLY LEONÍDITCH. Let's go straight from here into the 181coachman's room. I've got a bitch there—épatante![8] Eh, what?

BETSY. What a horrid word. Couldn't you say dog?

VASÍLY LEONÍDITCH. No. I can't say—Betsy is a man, épatant. I should have to say young woman; it's a parallel case. Eh, what? Márya Konstantínovna, isn't it true? Good, eh? [Laughs loudly].

MÁRYA KONSTANTÍNOVNA. Well, let us go. [Exeunt Márya Konstantínovna, Betsy, Petrístchef, and Vasíly Leoníditch].

FAT LADY [to Grossman] Well? how are you? Have you rested? [Grossman does not answer. To Sahátof] And you, Mr. Sahátof, did you feel the effluence?

SAHÁTOF. I felt nothing. Yes, it was very fine—very fine. Quite a success!

BARONESS. Admirable! Ça ne le fait pas souffrir?[9]

LEONÍD FYÓDORITCH. Pas le moins du monde.

PROFESSOR [to Grossman] May I trouble you? [Hands him a thermometer] At the beginning of the experiment it was 37 decimal 2, degrees.[10] [To Doctor] That's right, I think? Would you mind feeling his pulse? Some loss is inevitable.

DOCTOR [to Grossman] Now then, sir, let's have your hand; we'll see, we'll see. [Takes out his watch, and feels Grossman's pulse].

FAT LADY [to Grossman] One moment! The condition you were in could not be called sleep?

GROSSMAN [wearily] It was hypnosis.

SAHÁTOF. In that case, are we to understand that you hypnotised yourself?

GROSSMAN. And why not? An hypnotic state may ensue not only in consequence of association—the sound of the tom-tom, for instance, in Charcot's method—but by merely entering an hypnogenetic zone.

182 SAHÁTOF. Granting that, it would still be desirable to define what hypnotism is, more exactly?

PROFESSOR. Hypnotism is a phenomenon resulting from the transmutation of one energy into another.

GROSSMAN. Charcot does not so define it.

SAHÁTOF. A moment, just a moment! That is your definition, but Liébault told me himself …

DOCTOR [lets go of Grossman's pulse] Ah, that's all right; well now, the temperature?

FAT LADY [interrupting] No, allow me! I agree with the Professor. And here's the very best proof. After my illness, when I lay insensible, a desire to speak came over me. In general I am of a silent disposition, but then I was overcome by this desire to speak, and I spoke and spoke, and I was told that I spoke in such a way that every one was astonished! [To Sahátof] But I think I interrupted you?

SAHÁTOF [with dignity] Not at all. Pray continue.

DOCTOR. Pulse 82, and the temperature has risen three-tenths of a degree.

PROFESSOR. There you are! That's a proof! That's just as it should be. [Takes out pocket-book and writes] 82, yes? And 37 and 5. When the hypnotic state is induced, it invariably produces a heightened action of the heart.

DOCTOR. I can, as a medical man, bear witness that your prognosis was justified by the event.