Knowledge house - Oscar Wilde - The Complete Works

prince paul

My dear Baron, your head is the last thing any one would wish to take from you. [ Pulls out snuffbox and offers it to Prince Petrovitch .]

prince petrovitch

Thanks, Prince! Thanks!

prince paul

Very delicate, isn’t it? I get it direct from Paris. But under this vulgar Republic everything has degenerated over there. “Cotelettes à, [ E:à] l’impériale” vanished, of course, with the Bourbon, and omelettes went out with the Orleanists. La belle France is entirely ruined, Prince, through bad morals and worse cookery. [ Enter the Marquis de Poivrard .] Ah! Marquis. I trust Madame la Marquise is quite well.

marquis de p.

You ought to know better than I do, Prince Paul; you see more of her.

·57· prince paul

[ Bowing .] Perhaps I see more in her, Marquis. Your wife is really a charming woman, so full of esprit , and so satirical too; she talks continually of you when we are together.

prince petrovitch

[ Looking at the clock .] His Majesty is a little late to-day, is he not?

prince paul

What has happened to you, my dear Petrovitch? you seem quite out of sorts. You haven’t quarrelled with your cook, I hope? What a tragedy that would be for you; you would lose all your friends.

prince petrovitch

I fear I wouldn’t be so fortunate as that. You forget I would still have my purse. But you are wrong for once; my chef and I are on excellent terms.

prince paul

Then your creditors or Mademoiselle Vera Sabouroff have been writing to you? I find both of them such excellent correspondents. But really you needn’t be alarmed. I find the most violent proclamations from the Executive Committee, as they call it, left all over my house. ·58· I never read them; they are so badly spelt as a rule.

prince petrovitch

Wrong again, Prince; the Nihilists leave me alone for some reason or other.

prince paul

[ Aside .] Ah! true. I forgot. Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.

prince petrovitch

I am bored with life, Prince. Since the opera season ended I have been a perpetual martyr to ennui.

prince paul

The maladie du siècle! You want a new excitement, Prince. Let me see—you have been married twice already; suppose you try—falling in love, for once.

baron raff

Prince, I have been thinking a good deal lately—

prince paul

[ Interrupting .] You surprise me very much, Baron.

·59· baron raff

I cannot understand your nature.

prince paul

[ Smiling .] If my nature had been made to suit your comprehension rather than my own requirements, I am afraid I would have made a very poor figure in the world.

count r.

There seems to be nothing in life about which you would not jest.

prince paul

Ah! my dear Count, life is much too important a thing ever to talk seriously about it.

czarevitch

[ Coming back from the window .] I don’t think Prince Paul’s nature is such a mystery. He would stab his best friend for the sake of writing an epigram on his tombstone, or experiencing a new sensation.

prince paul

Parbleu! I would sooner lose my best friend than my worst enemy. To have friends, you know, one need only be good-natured; but when a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.

·60· czarevitch

[ Bitterly .] If to have enemies is a measure of greatness, then you must be a Colossus, indeed, Prince.

prince paul

Yes, I know I’m the most hated man in Russia, except your father, except your father, of course, Prince. He doesn’t seem to like it much, by the way, but I do, I assure you. [ Bitterly .] I love to drive through the streets and see how the canaille scowl at me from every corner. It makes me feel I am a power in Russia; one man against a hundred millions! Besides, I have no ambition to be a popular hero, to be crowned with laurels one year and pelted with stones the next; I prefer dying peaceably in my own bed.

czarevitch

And after death?

prince paul

[ Shrugging his shoulders .] Heaven is a despotism. I shall be at home there.

czarevitch

Do you never think of the people and their rights?

·61· prince paul

The people and their rights bore me. I am sick of both. In these modern days to be vulgar, illiterate, common and vicious, seems to give a man a marvellous infinity of rights that his honest fathers never dreamed of. Believe me, Prince, in good democracy every man should be an aristocrat; but these people in Russia who seek to thrust us out are no better than the animals in one’s preserves, and made to be shot at, most of them.

czarevitch

[ Excitedly .] If they are common, illiterate, vulgar, no better than the beasts of the field, who made them so?

[ Enter Aide-de-Camp .]

aide-de-camp

His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor! [ Prince Paul looks at the Czarevitch, and smiles .]

[ Enter the Czar, surrounded by his guard .]

czarevitch

[ Rushing forward to meet him .] Sire!

czar

[ Nervous and frightened .] Don’t come too near me, boy! Don’t come too near me, I say! There is always something about an heir to a ·62· crown unwholesome to his father. Who is that man over there? I don’t know him. What is he doing? Is he a conspirator? Have you searched him? Give him till to-morrow to confess, then hang him!—hang him!

prince paul

Sire, you are anticipating history. This is Count Petouchof, your new ambassador to Berlin. He is come to kiss hands on his appointment.

czar

To kiss my hand? There is some plot in it. He wants to poison me. There, kiss my son’s hand! it will do quite as well.

[ Prince Paul signs to Petouchof to leave the room. Exit Petouchof and the guards. Czar sinks down into his chair. The courtiers remain silent .]

prince paul

[ Approaching .] Sire! will Your Majesty—

czar

What do you startle me like that for? No, I won’t. [ Watches the courtiers nervously .] Why are you clattering your sword, sir? [ To Count Rouvaloff .] Take it off, I shall have no man wear a sword in my presence [ looking at Czarevitch ], least of all my son. [ To Prince Paul .] ·63· You are not angry with me, Prince? You won’t desert me, will you? Say you won’t desert me. What do you want? You can have anything—anything.

prince paul

[ Bowing very low .] Sire! ’tis enough for me to have your confidence. [ Aside .] I was afraid he was going to revenge himself, and give me another decoration.

czar

[ Returning to his chair .] Well, gentlemen.

marq. de poiv.

Sire, I have the honour to present to you a loyal address from your subjects in the Province of Archangel, expressing their horror at the last attempt on Your Majesty’s life.

prince paul

The last attempt but two, you ought to have said, Marquis. Don’t you see it is dated three weeks back?

czar

They are good people in the Province of Archangel—honest, loyal people. They love me very much—simple, loyal people; give them a new saint, it costs nothing. Well, Alexis ·64· [ turning to the Czarevitch ]—how many traitors were hung this morning?

czarevitch

There were three men strangled, Sire.

czar

There should have been three thousand. I would to God that this people had but one neck that I might strangle them with one noose! Did they tell anything? whom did they implicate? what did they confess?

czarevitch

Nothing, Sire.

czar

They should have been tortured then; why weren’t they tortured? Must I always be fighting in the dark? Am I never to know from what root these traitors spring?