Knowledge house - Oscar Wilde - The Complete Works

general

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.



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 parallel. If I had a son who was a fool I’d make him one or the other.

prince paul

I see your father did not hold the same opinion, Baron. But, believe me, you are wrong to run down cookery. For myself, the only immortality I desire is to invent a new sauce. I have never had time enough to think seriously about it, but I feel it is in me, I feel it is in me.

czarevitch

You have certainly missed your metier , Prince Paul; the cordon bleu would have suited you much better than the Grand Cross of Honour. But you know you could never have worn your white apron well; you would have ·55· soiled it too soon, your hands are not clean enough.

prince paul

[ Bowing .] Que voulez vous? I manage your father’s business.

czarevitch

[ Bitterly .] You mismanage my father’s business, you mean! Evil genius of his life that you are! before you came there was some love left in him. It is you who have embittered his nature, poured into his ear the poison of treacherous counsel, made him hated by the whole people, made him what he is—a tyrant!

[ The courtiers look significantly at each other .]

prince paul

[ Calmly .] I see Your Highness does want change of air. But I have been an eldest son myself. [ Lights a cigarette .] I know what it is when a father won’t die to please one.

[ The Czarevitch goes to the top of the stage, and leans against the window, looking out .]

prince petrovitch

[ To Baron Raff .] Foolish boy! He will be sent into exile, or worse, if he is not careful.

baron raff

Yes. What a mistake it is to be sincere!

·56· prince petrovitch

The only folly you have never committed, Baron.

baron raff

One has only one head, you know, Prince.