GROSSMAN [searches excitedly round the Third Peasant] It is here; I feel it is! FAT LADY. Do you feel an effluence? [Grossman stoops and finds the spoon in the bag]. 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 coachman's room. I've got a bitch there--_épâtante_![8] Eh, what? [8] Stunning! BETSY. What a horrid word. Couldn't you say dog? VASÍLY LEONÍDITCH. No. I can't say--Betsy is a man, _épâtant_. 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._ [9] BARONESS. Capital! Does it not cause him any pain? LEONÍD FYÓDORITCH. Not the slightest. 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. [10] He uses a Centigrade thermometer. 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. 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.