Once she did not even conceal her feelings, and laughed aloud. Countess Liza, a lady of superstitious bent, with an inclination for everything extraordinary, after discoursing to her heart’s content with the spiritualist upon Home, turning tables, self-playing concertinas, and so on, wound up by asking him whether there were animals which could be influenced by mesmerism. ‘There is one such animal any way,’ Prince Kokó declared from some way off. ‘You know Melvanovsky, don’t you? They put him to sleep before me, and didn’t he snore, he, he!’ ‘You are very naughty, _mon prince_; I am speaking of real animals, _je parle des bêtes_.’ ‘_Mais moi aussi, madame, je parle d’une bête...._’ ‘There are such,’ put in the spiritualist; ‘for instance--crabs; they are very nervous, and are easily thrown into a cataleptic state.’ The countess was astounded. ‘What? Crabs! Really? Oh, that’s awfully interesting! Now, that I should like to see, M’sieu Luzhin,’ she added to a young man with a face as stony as a new doll’s, and a stony collar (he prided himself on the fact that he had bedewed the aforesaid face and collar with the sprays of Niagara and the Nubian Nile, though he remembered nothing of all his travels, and cared for nothing but Russian puns...). ‘M’sieu Luzhin, if you would be so good, do bring us a crab quick.’ M’sieu Luzhin smirked. ‘Quick must it be, or quickly?’ he queried. The countess did not understand him. ‘_Mais oui_, a crab,’ she repeated, ‘_une écrevisse_.’ ‘Eh? what is it? a crab? a crab?’ the Countess S. broke in harshly. The absence of M. Verdier irritated her; she could not imagine why Irina had not invited that most fascinating of Frenchmen. The ancient ruin, who had long since ceased understanding anything--moreover she was completely deaf--only shook her head. ‘_Oui, oui, vous allez voir._ M’sieu Luzhin, please....’ The young traveller bowed, went out, and returned quickly. A waiter walked behind him, and grinning from ear to ear, carried in a dish, on which a large black crab was to be seen. ‘_Voici, madame_,’ cried Luzhin; ‘now we can proceed to the operation on cancer. Ha, ha, ha!’ (Russians are always the first to laugh at their own witticisms.) ‘He, he, he!’ Count Kokó did his duty condescendingly as a good patriot, and patron of all national products. (We beg the reader not to be amazed and indignant; who can say confidently for himself that sitting in the stalls of the Alexander Theatre, and infected by its atmosphere, he has not applauded even worse puns?) ‘_Merci, merci_,’ said the countess. ‘_Allons, allons, Monsieur Fox, montrez nous ça._’