Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume V).djvu/196

Rh nobility, thought fit to propound his views to the spiritualist, and, of course, gave utterance before long to his famous phrase about the shock to the principle of property, accompanied naturally by an attack on democrats. The spiritualist's American blood was stirred; he began to argue. The prince, as his habit was, at once fell to shouting at the top of his voice; instead of any kind of argument he repeated incessantly: '' 'С'est absurde! cela n'a pas le sens commun!' '' The millionaire Finikov began saying insulting things, without much heed to whom they referred; the Talmudist's piping notes and even the Countess S.'s jarring voice could be heard. ... In fact, almost the same incongruous uproar arose as at Gubaryov's; the only difference was that here there was no beer nor tobacco-smoke, and every one was better dressed. Ratmirov tried to restore tranquillity (the generals manifested their displeasure, Boris's exclamation could be heard,  'Encore cette satanée politique!' ), but his efforts were not successful, and at that point, a high official of the stealthily inquisitorial type, who was present, and undertook to present le résumé en peu de mots, sustained a defeat: in fact he so hummed and hawed, so repeated himself, and was so obviously incapable of listening to or taking in the answers he received, and so unmistakably 176