Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume VI).djvu/248

Rh like to learn from you,' she began, 'excuse me! My cousin, Sila Samsonitch, you must know, makes fun of an old woman like me, and my old-fashioned ignorance.'

'How so?'

'Why, if any one wants to put the question, "What is it?" in the French dialect, ought he to say, "Ke-se-ke-se-ke-se-là?"'

'Yes.'

'And can he also say, " Ke-se-ke-se-là?"'

'Yes, he can.'

And simply, "Ke-se-là?"'

'Yes, he could say that too', And all that would be the same?'

'Yes.'

Fimushka pondered deeply, and threw up her hands.

'Well, Silushka,' she said at last, 'I was wrong and you were right But these Frenchmen! Poor things!'

Paklin began begging the old people to sing them some little ballad. They both laughed and wondered how such an idea could occur to him; they soon consented, however, but only on the condition that Snanduliya sat down to the harpsichord and accompanied them─she would know what. In one corner of the drawing-room there turned out to be a diminutive piano, which not one of them had noticed at the