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

Prince Petro. 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 R. Prince, I have been thinking a good deal lately—

Prince Paul (interrupting). You surprise me very much, Baron.

Baron R. 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.

Czare. (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.

Czare. (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.

Czare. And after death?

Prince Paul (shrugging his shoulders). Heaven is a despotism. I shall be at home there.

Czare. Do you never think of the people and their rights?

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.

Czare. (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.)

Czare. (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 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 Count Petouchof to leave the room. Exit Petouchof and the guards. Czar sinks down into his chair.