But, Your Highness——
·46· alexis
Oh, they are excellent actors, I assure you. If you had come in ten minutes ago, you would have witnessed a most interesting scene.
general
Actors, are they, Prince?
alexis
Ay, and very ambitious actors, too. They only care to play before kings.
general
I’ faith, Your Highness, I was in hopes I had made a good haul of Nihilists.
alexis
Nihilists in Moscow, General! with you as head of the police? Impossible!
general
So I always tell your Imperial father. But I heard at the council to-day that that woman Vera Sabouroff, the head of them, had been seen in this very city. The Emperor’s face turned as white as the snow outside. I think I never saw such terror in any man before.
·47· alexis
She is a dangerous woman, then, this Vera Sabouroff?
general
The most dangerous in all Europe.
alexis
Did you ever see her, General?
general
Why, five years ago, when I was a plain Colonel, I remember her, Your Highness, a common waiting girl in an inn. If I had known then what she was going to turn out, I would have flogged her to death on the roadside. She is not a woman at all; she is a sort of devil! For the last eighteen months I have been hunting her, and caught sight of her once last September outside Odessa.
alexis
How did you let her go, General?
general
I was by myself, and she shot one of my horses just as I was gaining on her. If I see her again I shan’t miss my chance. The Emperor has put twenty thousand roubles on her head.
·48· alexis
I hope you will get it, General; but meanwhile you are frightening these honest people out of their wits, and disturbing the tragedy. Good night, General.
general
Yes; but I should like to see their faces, Your Highness.
alexis
No, General; you must not ask that; you know how these gipsies hate to be stared at.
general
Yes. But, Your Highness——
alexis
[Haughtily.] General, they are my friends, that is enough. And, General, not a word of this little adventure here, you understand. I shall rely on you.
general
I shall not forget, Prince. But shall we not see you back to the palace? The State ball is almost over and you are expected.
alexis
I shall be there; but I shall return alone. ·49· Remember, not a word about my strolling players.
general
Or your pretty gipsy, eh, Prince? your pretty gipsy! I’ faith, I should like to see her before I go; she has such fine eyes through her mask. Well, good night, Your Highness; good night.
alexis
Good night, General.
[Exit General and the soldiers.]
vera
[Throwing off her mask.] Saved! and by you!
alexis
[Clasping her hand.] Brothers, you trust me now?
Act-Drop.
·51· Second Act.
SCENE—Council Chamber in the Emperor’s Palace, hung with heavy tapestry. Table, with chair of State, set for the Czar; window behind, opening on to a balcony. As the scene progresses the light outside gets darker.
Present.—Prince Paul Maraloffski, Prince Petrovitch, Count Rouvaloff, Baron Raff, Count Petouchof.
prince petrovitch
So our young scatter-brained Czarevitch has been forgiven at last, and is to take his seat here again.
prince paul
Yes; if that is not meant as an extra punishment. For my own part, at least, I find these Cabinet Councils extremely exhausting.
prince petrovitch
Naturally; you are always speaking.
prince paul
No; I think it must be that I have to listen sometimes.
·52· count r.
Still, anything is better than being kept in a sort of prison, like he was—never allowed to go out into the world.
prince paul
My dear Count, for romantic young people like he is, the world always looks best at a distance; and a prison where one’s allowed to order one’s own dinner is not at all a bad place. [Enter the Czarevitch. The courtiers rise.] Ah! good afternoon, Prince. Your Highness is looking a little pale to-day.
czarevitch
[Slowly, after a pause.] I want a change of air.
prince paul
[Smiling.] A most revolutionary sentiment! Your Imperial father would highly disapprove of any reforms with the thermometer in Russia.
czarevitch
[Bitterly.] My Imperial father had kept me for six months in this dungeon of a palace. This morning he has me suddenly woke up to see some wretched Nihilists hung; it sickened me, the bloody butchery, though it was a noble thing to see how well these men can die.
·53· prince paul
When you are as old as I am, Prince, you will understand that there are few things easier than to live badly and to die well.
czarevitch
Easy to die well! A lesson experience cannot have taught you, whatever you may know of a bad life.
prince paul
[Shrugging his shoulders.] Experience, the name men give to their mistakes. I never commit any.
czarevitch
[Bitterly.] No; crimes are more in your line.
prince petrovitch
[To the Czarevitch.] The Emperor was a good deal agitated about your late appearance at the ball last night, Prince.
count r.
[Laughing.] I believe he thought the Nihilists had broken into the palace and carried you off.
baron raff
If they had you would have missed a charming dance.
·54· prince paul
And an excellent supper. Gringoire really excelled himself in his salad. Ah! you may laugh, Baron; but to make a good salad is a much more difficult thing than cooking accounts. To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist—the problem is so entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one’s vinegar.
baron raff
A cook and a diplomatist! an excellent