`Where do I come from?' he repeated the question of the ambassador's wife. `Well, there's no help for it - I must confess. From the opera bouffe. I do believe I've seen it a hundred times, and always with fresh enjoyment. It's exquisite! I know it's disgraceful, but I go to sleep at the opera, yet I sit out the opera bouffe to the last minute, and enjoy it. This evening...'

He mentioned a French actress, and was about to tell something about her; but the ambassador's wife, with playful trepidation, cut him short.

`Please, don't tell us about that horror.'

`Very well, I won't - especially as everyone knows those horrors.'

`And we should all go to see them if it were accepted as the correct thing, like the opera,' chimed in Princess Miaghkaia.