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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Great Catherine, by George Bernard Shaw
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Great Catherine
+
+Author: George Bernard Shaw
+
+Posting Date: February 1, 2009 [EBook #3488]
+Release Date: October, 2002
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT CATHERINE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eve Sobol
+
+
+
+
+
+GREAT CATHERINE (WHOM GLORY STILL ADORES)
+
+By George Bernard Shaw
+
+
+     "In Catherine's reign, whom Glory still adores"
+                                           BYRON
+
+
+
+
+THE AUTHOR'S APOLOGY FOR GREAT CATHERINE
+
+Exception has been taken to the title of this seeming tomfoolery on the
+ground that the Catherine it represents is not Great Catherine, but the
+Catherine whose gallantries provide some of the lightest pages of modern
+history. Great Catherine, it is said, was the Catherine whose diplomacy,
+whose campaigns and conquests, whose plans of Liberal reform, whose
+correspondence with Grimm and Voltaire enabled her to cut such a
+magnificent figure in the eighteenth century. In reply, I can only
+confess that Catherine's diplomacy and her conquests do not interest
+me. It is clear to me that neither she nor the statesmen with whom she
+played this mischievous kind of political chess had any notion of
+the real history of their own times, or of the real forces that were
+moulding Europe. The French Revolution, which made such short work of
+Catherine's Voltairean principles, surprised and scandalized her as much
+as it surprised and scandalized any provincial governess in the French
+chateaux.
+
+The main difference between her and our modern Liberal Governments was
+that whereas she talked and wrote quite intelligently about Liberal
+principles before she was frightened into making such talking and
+writing a flogging matter, our Liberal ministers take the name of
+Liberalism in vain without knowing or caring enough about its meaning
+even to talk and scribble about it, and pass their flogging Bills, and
+institute their prosecutions for sedition and blasphemy and so forth,
+without the faintest suspicion that such proceedings need any apology
+from the Liberal point of view.
+
+It was quite easy for Patiomkin to humbug Catherine as to the condition
+of Russia by conducting her through sham cities run up for the occasion
+by scenic artists; but in the little world of European court intrigue
+and dynastic diplomacy which was the only world she knew she was more
+than a match for him and for all the rest of her contemporaries. In such
+intrigue and diplomacy, however, there was no romance, no scientific
+political interest, nothing that a sane mind can now retain even if
+it can be persuaded to waste time in reading it up. But Catherine as a
+woman with plenty of character and (as we should say) no morals,
+still fascinates and amuses us as she fascinated and amused her
+contemporaries. They were great sentimental comedians, these Peters,
+Elizabeths, and Catherines who played their Tsarships as eccentric
+character parts, and produced scene after scene of furious harlequinade
+with the monarch as clown, and of tragic relief in the torture chamber
+with the monarch as pantomime demon committing real atrocities, not
+forgetting the indispensable love interest on an enormous and utterly
+indecorous scale. Catherine kept this vast Guignol Theatre open for
+nearly half a century, not as a Russian, but as a highly domesticated
+German lady whose household routine was not at all so unlike that of
+Queen Victoria as might be expected from the difference in their notions
+of propriety in sexual relations.
+
+In short, if Byron leaves you with an impression that he said very
+little about Catherine, and that little not what was best worth saying,
+I beg to correct your impression by assuring you that what Byron said
+was all there really is to say that is worth saying. His Catherine is my
+Catherine and everybody's Catherine. The young man who gains her favor
+is a Spanish nobleman in his version. I have made him an English country
+gentleman, who gets out of his rather dangerous scrape, by simplicity,
+sincerity, and the courage of these qualities. By this I have given some
+offence to the many Britons who see themselves as heroes: what they mean
+by heroes being theatrical snobs of superhuman pretensions which, though
+quite groundless, are admitted with awe by the rest of the human race.
+They say I think an Englishman a fool. When I do, they have themselves
+to thank.
+
+I must not, however, pretend that historical portraiture was the motive
+of a play that will leave the reader as ignorant of Russian history
+as he may be now before he has turned the page. Nor is the sketch of
+Catherine complete even idiosyncratically, leaving her politics out of
+the question. For example, she wrote bushels of plays. I confess I
+have not yet read any of them. The truth is, this play grew out of the
+relations which inevitably exist in the theatre between authors and
+actors. If the actors have sometimes to use their skill as the author's
+puppets rather than in full self-expression, the author has sometimes to
+use his skill as the actors' tailor, fitting them with parts written to
+display the virtuosity of the performer rather than to solve problems of
+life, character, or history. Feats of this kind may tickle an author's
+technical vanity; but he is bound on such occasions to admit that the
+performer for whom he writes is "the onlie begetter" of his work,
+which must be regarded critically as an addition to the debt dramatic
+literature owes to the art of acting and its exponents. Those who have
+seen Miss Gertrude Kingston play the part of Catherine will have no
+difficulty in believing that it was her talent rather than mine that
+brought the play into existence. I once recommended Miss Kingston
+professionally to play queens. Now in the modern drama there were no
+queens for her to play; and as to the older literature of our stage: did
+it not provoke the veteran actress in Sir Arthur Pinero's Trelawny of
+the Wells to declare that, as parts, queens are not worth a tinker's
+oath? Miss Kingston's comment on my suggestion, though more elegantly
+worded, was to the same effect; and it ended in my having to make good
+my advice by writing Great Catherine. History provided no other queen
+capable of standing up to our joint talents.
+
+In composing such bravura pieces, the author limits himself only by the
+range of the virtuoso, which by definition far transcends the modesty
+of nature. If my Russians seem more Muscovite than any Russian, and
+my English people more insular than any Briton, I will not plead, as
+I honestly might, that the fiction has yet to be written that can
+exaggerate the reality of such subjects; that the apparently outrageous
+Patiomkin is but a timidly bowdlerized ghost of the original; and
+that Captain Edstaston is no more than a miniature that might hang
+appropriately on the walls of nineteen out of twenty English country
+houses to this day. An artistic presentment must not condescend to
+justify itself by a comparison with crude nature; and I prefer to admit
+that in this kind my dramatic personae are, as they should be, of the
+stage stagey, challenging the actor to act up to them or beyond them,
+if he can. The more heroic the overcharging, the better for the
+performance.
+
+In dragging the reader thus for a moment behind the scenes, I am
+departing from a rule which I have hitherto imposed on myself so rigidly
+that I never permit myself, even in a stage direction, to let slip a
+word that could bludgeon the imagination of the reader by reminding him
+of the boards and the footlights and the sky borders and the rest of
+the theatrical scaffolding, for which nevertheless I have to plan as
+carefully as if I were the head carpenter as well as the author. But
+even at the risk of talking shop, an honest playwright should take at
+least one opportunity of acknowledging that his art is not only limited
+by the art of the actor, but often stimulated and developed by it. No
+sane and skilled author writes plays that present impossibilities to
+the actor or to the stage engineer. If, as occasionally happens, he asks
+them to do things that they have never done before and cannot conceive
+as presentable or possible (as Wagner and Thomas Hardy have done,
+for example), it is always found that the difficulties are not really
+insuperable, the author having foreseen unsuspected possibilities both
+in the actor and in the audience, whose will-to-make-believe can perform
+the quaintest miracles. Thus may authors advance the arts of acting and
+of staging plays. But the actor also may enlarge the scope of the drama
+by displaying powers not previously discovered by the author. If the
+best available actors are only Horatios, the authors will have to
+leave Hamlet out, and be content with Horatios for heroes. Some of the
+difference between Shakespeare's Orlandos and Bassanios and Bertrams and
+his Hamlets and Macbeths must have been due not only to his development
+as a dramatic poet, but to the development of Burbage as an actor.
+Playwrights do not write for ideal actors when their livelihood is at
+stake: if they did, they would write parts for heroes with twenty arms
+like an Indian god. Indeed the actor often influences the author too
+much; for I can remember a time (I am not implying that it is yet wholly
+past) when the art of writing a fashionable play had become very
+largely the art of writing it "round" the personalities of a group of
+fashionable performers of whom Burbage would certainly have said that
+their parts needed no acting. Everything has its abuse as well as its
+use.
+
+It is also to be considered that great plays live longer than great
+actors, though little plays do not live nearly so long as the worst of
+their exponents. The consequence is that the great actor, instead of
+putting pressure on contemporary authors to supply him with heroic
+parts, falls back on the Shakespearean repertory, and takes what he
+needs from a dead hand. In the nineteenth century, the careers of Kean,
+Macready, Barry Sullivan, and Irving, ought to have produced a group of
+heroic plays comparable in intensity to those of Aeschylus, Sophocles,
+and Euripides; but nothing of the kind happened: these actors played
+the works of dead authors, or, very occasionally, of live poets who
+were hardly regular professional playwrights. Sheridan Knowles, Bulwer
+Lytton, Wills, and Tennyson produced a few glaringly artificial high
+horses for the great actors of their time; but the playwrights proper,
+who really kept the theatre going, and were kept going by the theatre,
+did not cater for the great actors: they could not afford to compete
+with a bard who was not for an age but for all time, and who had,
+moreover, the overwhelming attraction for the actor-managers of not
+charging author's fees. The result was that the playwrights and the
+great actors ceased to think of themselves as having any concern with
+one another: Tom Robertson, Ibsen, Pinero, and Barrie might as well have
+belonged to a different solar system as far as Irving was concerned; and
+the same was true of their respective predecessors.
+
+Thus was established an evil tradition; but I at least can plead that
+it does not always hold good. If Forbes Robertson had not been there to
+play Caesar, I should not have written Caesar and Cleopatra. If Ellen
+Terry had never been born, Captain Brassbound's Conversion would never
+have been effected. The Devil's Disciple, with which I won my cordon
+bleu in America as a potboiler, would have had a different sort of hero
+if Richard Mansfield had been a different sort of actor, though the
+actual commission to write it came from an English actor, William
+Terriss, who was assassinated before he recovered from the dismay into
+which the result of his rash proposal threw him. For it must be said
+that the actor or actress who inspires or commissions a play as often
+as not regards it as a Frankenstein's monster, and will have none of it.
+That does not make him or her any the less parental in the fecundity of
+the playwright.
+
+To an author who has any feeling of his business there is a keen and
+whimsical joy in divining and revealing a side of an actor's genius
+overlooked before, and unsuspected even by the actor himself. When I
+snatched Mr Louis Calvert from Shakespeare, and made him wear a frock
+coat and silk hat on the stage for perhaps the first time in his life, I
+do not think he expected in the least that his performance would enable
+me to boast of his Tom Broadbent as a genuine stage classic. Mrs
+Patrick Campbell was famous before I wrote for her, but not for playing
+illiterate cockney flower-maidens. And in the case which is provoking me
+to all these impertinences, I am quite sure that Miss Gertrude
+Kingston, who first made her reputation as an impersonator of the most
+delightfully feather-headed and inconsequent ingenues, thought me more
+than usually mad when I persuaded her to play the Helen of Euripides,
+and then launched her on a queenly career as Catherine of Russia.
+
+It is not the whole truth that if we take care of the actors the plays
+will take care of themselves; nor is it any truer that if we take care
+of the plays the actors will take care of themselves. There is both give
+and take in the business. I have seen plays written for actors that made
+me exclaim, "How oft the sight of means to do ill deeds makes deeds ill
+done!" But Burbage may have flourished the prompt copy of Hamlet under
+Shakespeare's nose at the tenth rehearsal and cried, "How oft the sight
+of means to do great deeds makes playwrights great!" I say the tenth
+because I am convinced that at the first he denounced his part as a
+rotten one; thought the ghost's speech ridiculously long; and wanted to
+play the king. Anyhow, whether he had the wit to utter it or not, the
+boast would have been a valid one. The best conclusion is that every
+actor should say, "If I create the hero in myself, God will send an
+author to write his part." For in the long run the actors will get the
+authors, and the authors the actors, they deserve.
+
+Great Catherine was performed for the first time at the Vaudeville
+Theatre in London on the 18th November 1913, with Gertrude Kingston as
+Catherine, Miriam Lewes as Yarinka, Dorothy Massingham as Claire, Norman
+McKinnell as Patiomkin, Edmond Breon as Edstaston, Annie Hill as the
+Princess Dashkoff, and Eugene Mayeur and F. Cooke Beresford as Naryshkin
+and the Sergeant.
+
+
+
+
+GREAT CATHERINE
+
+
+
+
+THE FIRST SCENE
+
+1776. Patiomkin in his bureau in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburgh.
+Huge palatial apartment: style, Russia in the eighteenth century
+imitating the Versailles du Roi Soleil. Extravagant luxury. Also dirt
+and disorder.
+
+Patiomkin, gigantic in stature and build, his face marred by the loss
+of one eye and a marked squint in the other, sits at the end of a
+table littered with papers and the remains of three or four successive
+breakfasts. He has supplies of coffee and brandy at hand sufficient for
+a party of ten. His coat, encrusted with diamonds, is on the floor. It
+has fallen off a chair placed near the other end of the table for the
+convenience of visitors. His court sword, with its attachments, is on
+the chair. His three-cornered hat, also bejewelled, is on the table.
+He himself is half dressed in an unfastened shirt and an immense
+dressing-gown, once gorgeous, now food-splashed and dirty, as it serves
+him for towel, handkerchief, duster, and every other use to which a
+textile fabric can be put by a slovenly man. It does not conceal his
+huge hairy chest, nor his half-buttoned knee breeches, nor his legs.
+These are partly clad in silk stockings, which he occasionally hitches
+up to his knees, and presently shakes down to his shins, by his restless
+movement. His feet are thrust into enormous slippers, worth, with their
+crust of jewels, several thousand roubles apiece.
+
+Superficially Patiomkin is a violent, brutal barbarian, an upstart
+despot of the most intolerable and dangerous type, ugly, lazy, and
+disgusting in his personal habits. Yet ambassadors report him the ablest
+man in Russia, and the one who can do most with the still abler Empress
+Catherine II, who is not a Russian but a German, by no means barbarous
+or intemperate in her personal habits. She not only disputes with
+Frederick the Great the reputation of being the cleverest monarch in
+Europe, but may even put in a very plausible claim to be the cleverest
+and most attractive individual alive. Now she not only tolerates
+Patiomkin long after she has got over her first romantic attachment to
+him, but esteems him highly as a counsellor and a good friend. His love
+letters are among the best on record. He has a wild sense of humor,
+which enables him to laugh at himself as well as at everybody else. In
+the eyes of the English visitor now about to be admitted to his presence
+he may be an outrageous ruffian. In fact he actually is an outrageous
+ruffian, in no matter whose eyes; but the visitor will find out, as
+everyone else sooner or later fends out, that he is a man to be reckoned
+with even by those who are not intimidated by his temper, bodily
+strength, and exalted rank.
+
+A pretty young lady, Yarinka, his favorite niece, is lounging on an
+ottoman between his end of the table and the door, very sulky and
+dissatisfied, perhaps because he is preoccupied with his papers and his
+brandy bottle, and she can see nothing of him but his broad back.
+
+There is a screen behind the ottoman.
+
+An old soldier, a Cossack sergeant, enters.
+
+
+THE SERGEANT [softly to the lady, holding the door handle]. Little
+darling honey, is his Highness the prince very busy?
+
+VARINKA. His Highness the prince is very busy. He is singing out of
+tune; he is biting his nails; he is scratching his head; he is hitching
+up his untidy stockings; he is making himself disgusting and odious to
+everybody; and he is pretending to read state papers that he does
+not understand because he is too lazy and selfish to talk and be
+companionable.
+
+PATIOMKIN [growls; then wipes his nose with his dressing-gown]!!
+
+VARINKA. Pig. Ugh! [She curls herself up with a shiver of disgust and
+retires from the conversation.]
+
+THE SERGEANT [stealing across to the coat, and picking it up to replace
+it on the back of the chair]. Little Father, the English captain,
+so highly recommended to you by old Fritz of Prussia, by the English
+ambassador, and by Monsieur Voltaire (whom [crossing himself] may God in
+his infinite mercy damn eternally!), is in the antechamber and desires
+audience.
+
+PATIOMKIN [deliberately]. To hell with the English captain; and to hell
+with old Fritz of Prussia; and to hell with the English ambassador; and
+to hell with Monsieur Voltaire; and to hell with you too!
+
+THE SERGEANT. Have mercy on me, Little Father. Your head is bad this
+morning. You drink too much French brandy and too little good Russian
+kvass.
+
+PATIOMKIN [with sudden fury]. Why are visitors of consequence announced
+by a sergeant? [Springing at him and seizing him by the throat.] What
+do you mean by this, you hound? Do you want five thousand blows of the
+stick? Where is General Volkonsky?
+
+THE SERGEANT [on his knees]. Little Father, you kicked his Highness
+downstairs.
+
+PATIOMKIN [flinging him dawn and kicking him]. You lie, you dog. You
+lie.
+
+THE SERGEANT. Little Father, life is hard for the poor. If you say it is
+a lie, it is a lie. He FELL downstairs. I picked him up; and he kicked
+me. They all kick me when you kick them. God knows that is not just,
+Little Father!
+
+PATIOMKIN [laughs ogreishly; then returns to his place at the table,
+chuckling]!!!
+
+VARINKA. Savage! Boot! It is a disgrace. No wonder the French sneer at
+us as barbarians.
+
+THE SERGEANT [who has crept round the table to the screen, and
+insinuated himself between Patiomkin's back and Varinka]. Do you think
+the Prince will see the captain, little darling?
+
+PATIOMKIN. He will not see any captain. Go to the devil!
+
+THE SERGEANT. Be merciful, Little Father. God knows it is your duty to
+see him! [To Varinka.] Intercede for him and for me, beautiful little
+darling. He has given me a rouble.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Oh, send him in, send him in; and stop pestering me. Am I
+never to have a moment's peace?
+
+The Sergeant salutes joyfully and hurries out, divining that Patiomkin
+has intended to see the English captain all along, and has played this
+comedy of fury and exhausted impatience to conceal his interest in the
+visitor.
+
+VARINKA. Have you no shame? You refuse to see the most exalted persons.
+You kick princes and generals downstairs. And then you see an English
+captain merely because he has given a rouble to that common soldier. It
+is scandalous.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Darling beloved, I am drunk; but I know what I am doing. I
+wish to stand well with the English.
+
+VARINKA. And you think you will impress an Englishman by receiving him
+as you are now, half drunk?
+
+PATIOMKIN [gravely]. It is true: the English despise men who cannot
+drink. I must make myself wholly drunk [he takes a huge draught of
+brandy.]
+
+VARINKA. Sot!
+
+The Sergeant returns ushering a handsome strongly built young English
+officer in the uniform of a Light Dragoon. He is evidently on fairly
+good terms with himself, and very sure of his social position. He
+crosses the room to the end of the table opposite Patiomkin's, and
+awaits the civilities of that statesman with confidence. The Sergeant
+remains prudently at the door.
+
+THE SERGEANT [paternally]. Little Father, this is the English captain,
+so well recommended to her sacred Majesty the Empress. God knows, he
+needs your countenance and protec-- [he vanishes precipitately,
+seeing that Patiomkin is about to throw a bottle at him. The Captain
+contemplates these preliminaries with astonishment, and with some
+displeasure, which is not allayed when, Patiomkin, hardly condescending
+to look at his visitor, of whom he nevertheless takes stock with the
+corner of his one eye, says gruffly]. Well?
+
+EDSTASTON. My name is Edstaston: Captain Edstaston of the Light
+Dragoons. I have the honor to present to your Highness this letter from
+the British ambassador, which will give you all necessary particulars.
+[He hands Patiomkin the letter.]
+
+PATIOMKIN [tearing it open and glancing at it for about a second]. What
+do you want?
+
+EDSTASTON. The letter will explain to your Highness who I am.
+
+PATIOMKIN. I don't want to know who you are. What do you want?
+
+EDSTASTON. An audience of the Empress. [Patiomkin contemptuously throws
+the letter aside. Edstaston adds hotly.] Also some civility, if you
+please.
+
+PATIOMKIN [with derision]. Ho!
+
+VARINKA. My uncle is receiving you with unusual civility, Captain. He
+has just kicked a general downstairs.
+
+EDSTASTON. A Russian general, madam?
+
+VARINKA. Of course.
+
+EDSTASTON. I must allow myself to say, madam, that your uncle had better
+not attempt to kick an English officer downstairs.
+
+PATIOMKIN. You want me to kick you upstairs, eh? You want an audience of
+the Empress.
+
+EDSTASTON. I have said nothing about kicking, sir. If it comes to that,
+my boots shall speak for me. Her Majesty has signified a desire to have
+news of the rebellion in America. I have served against the rebels; and
+I am instructed to place myself at the disposal of her Majesty, and to
+describe the events of the war to her as an eye-witness, in a discreet
+and agreeable manner.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Psha! I know. You think if she once sets eyes on your face
+and your uniform your fortune is made. You think that if she could stand
+a man like me, with only one eye, and a cross eye at that, she must fall
+down at your feet at first sight, eh?
+
+EDSTASTON [shocked and indignant]. I think nothing of the sort; and I'll
+trouble you not to repeat it. If I were a Russian subject and you made
+such a boast about my queen, I'd strike you across the face with my
+sword. [Patiomkin, with a yell of fury, rushes at him.] Hands off, you
+swine! [As Patiomkin, towering over him, attempts to seize him by the
+throat, Edstaston, who is a bit of a wrestler, adroitly backheels him.
+He falls, amazed, on his back.]
+
+VARINKA [rushing out]. Help! Call the guard! The Englishman is murdering
+my uncle! Help! Help!
+
+The guard and the Sergeant rush in. Edstaston draws a pair of small
+pistols from his boots, and points one at the Sergeant and the other at
+Patiomkin, who is sitting on the floor, somewhat sobered. The soldiers
+stand irresolute.
+
+EDSTASTON. Stand off. [To Patiomkin.] Order them off, if you don't want
+a bullet through your silly head.
+
+THE SERGEANT. Little Father, tell us what to do. Our lives are yours;
+but God knows you are not fit to die.
+
+PATIOMKIN [absurdly self-possessed]. Get out.
+
+THE SERGEANT. Little Father--
+
+PATIOMKIN [roaring]. Get out. Get out, all of you. [They withdraw, much
+relieved at their escape from the pistol. Patiomkin attempts to rise,
+and rolls over.] Here! help me up, will you? Don't you see that I'm
+drunk and can't get up?
+
+EDSTASTON [suspiciously]. You want to get hold of me.
+
+PATIOMKIN [squatting resignedly against the chair on which his clothes
+hang]. Very well, then: I shall stay where I am, because I'm drunk and
+you're afraid of me.
+
+EDSTASTON. I'm not afraid of you, damn you!
+
+PATIOMKIN [ecstatically]. Darling, your lips are the gates of truth. Now
+listen to me. [He marks off the items of his statement with ridiculous
+stiff gestures of his head and arms, imitating a puppet.] You are
+Captain Whatshisname; and your uncle is the Earl of Whatdyecallum; and
+your father is Bishop of Thingummybob; and you are a young man of the
+highest spr--promise (I told you I was drunk), educated at Cambridge,
+and got your step as captain in the field at the GLORIOUS battle of
+Bunker's Hill. Invalided home from America at the request of Aunt Fanny,
+Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen. All right, eh?
+
+EDSTASTON. How do you know all this?
+
+PATIOMKIN [crowing fantastically]. In er lerrer, darling, darling,
+darling, darling. Lerrer you showed me.
+
+EDSTASTON. But you didn't read it.
+
+PATIOMKIN [flapping his fingers at him grotesquely]. Only
+one eye, darling. Cross eye. Sees everything. Read lerrer
+inceince--istastaneously. Kindly give me vinegar borle. Green borle.
+On'y to sober me. Too drunk to speak porply. If you would be so kind,
+darling. Green borle. [Edstaston, still suspicious, shakes his head and
+keeps his pistols ready.] Reach it myself. [He reaches behind him up
+to the table, and snatches at the green bottle, from which he takes a
+copious draught. Its effect is appalling. His wry faces and agonized
+belchings are so heartrending that they almost upset Edstaston. When the
+victim at last staggers to his feet, he is a pale fragile nobleman,
+aged and quite sober, extremely dignified in manner and address, though
+shaken by his recent convulsions.] Young man, it is not better to be
+drunk than sober; but it is happier. Goodness is not happiness. That is
+an epigram. But I have overdone this. I am too sober to be good company.
+Let me redress the balance. [He takes a generous draught of brandy, and
+recovers his geniality.] Aha! That's better. And now listen, darling.
+You must not come to Court with pistols in your boots.
+
+EDSTASTON. I have found them useful.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Nonsense. I'm your friend. You mistook my intention because
+I was drunk. Now that I am sober--in moderation--I will prove that I
+am your friend. Have some diamonds. [Roaring.] Hullo there! Dogs, pigs:
+hullo!
+
+The Sergeant comes in.
+
+THE SERGEANT. God be praised, Little Father: you are still spared to us.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Tell them to bring some diamonds. Plenty of diamonds. And
+rubies. Get out. [He aims a kick at the Sergeant, who flees.] Put up
+your pistols, darling. I'll give you a pair with gold handgrips. I am
+your friend.
+
+EDSTASTON [replacing the pistols in his boots rather unwillingly]. Your
+Highness understands that if I am missing, or if anything happens to me,
+there will be trouble.
+
+PATIOMKIN [enthusiastically]. Call me darling.
+
+EDSTASTON. It is not the English custom.
+
+PATIOMKIN. You have no hearts, you English! [Slapping his right breast.]
+Heart! Heart!
+
+EDSTASTON. Pardon, your Highness: your heart is on the other side.
+
+PATIOMKIN [surprised and impressed]. Is it? You are learned! You are
+a doctor! You English are wonderful! We are barbarians, drunken pigs.
+Catherine does not know it; but we are. Catherine's a German. But I have
+given her a Russian heart [he is about to slap himself again.]
+
+EDSTASTON [delicately]. The other side, your Highness.
+
+PATIOMKIN [maudlin]. Darling, a true Russian has a heart on both sides.
+
+The Sergeant enters carrying a goblet filled with precious stones.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Get out. [He snatches the goblet and kicks the Sergeant out,
+not maliciously but from habit, indeed not noticing that he does it.]
+Darling, have some diamonds. Have a fistful. [He takes up a handful and
+lets them slip back through his fingers into the goblet, which he then
+offers to Edstaston.]
+
+EDSTASTON. Thank you, I don't take presents.
+
+PATIOMKIN [amazed]. You refuse!
+
+EDSTASTON. I thank your Highness; but it is not the custom for English
+gentlemen to take presents of that kind.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Are you really an Englishman?
+
+EDSTASTON [bows]!
+
+PATIOMKIN. You are the first Englishman I ever saw refuse anything
+he could get. [He puts the goblet on the table; then turns again to
+Edstaston.] Listen, darling. You are a wrestler: a splendid wrestler.
+You threw me on my back like magic, though I could lift you with one
+hand. Darling, you are a giant, a paladin.
+
+EDSTASTON [complacently]. We wrestle rather well in my part of England.
+
+PATIOMKIN. I have a Turk who is a wrestler: a prisoner of war. You shall
+wrestle with him for me. I'll stake a million roubles on you.
+
+EDSTASTON [incensed]. Damn you! do you take me for a prize-fighter? How
+dare you make me such a proposal?
+
+PATIOMKIN [with wounded feeling]. Darling, there is no pleasing you.
+Don't you like me?
+
+EDSTASTON [mollified]. Well, in a sort of way I do; though I don't know
+why I should. But my instructions are that I am to see the Empress;
+and--
+
+PATIOMKIN. Darling, you shall see the Empress. A glorious woman, the
+greatest woman in the world. But lemme give you piece 'vice--pah! still
+drunk. They water my vinegar. [He shakes himself; clears his throat;
+and resumes soberly.] If Catherine takes a fancy to you, you may ask for
+roubles, diamonds, palaces, titles, orders, anything! and you may aspire
+to everything: field-marshal, admiral, minister, what you please--except
+Tsar.
+
+EDSTASTON. I tell you I don't want to ask for anything. Do you suppose I
+am an adventurer and a beggar?
+
+PATIOMKIN [plaintively]. Why not, darling? I was an adventurer. I was a
+beggar.
+
+EDSTASTON. Oh, you!
+
+PATIOMKIN. Well: what's wrong with me?
+
+EDSTASTON. You are a Russian. That's different.
+
+PATIOMKIN [effusively]. Darling, I am a man; and you are a man; and
+Catherine is a woman. Woman reduces us all to the common denominator.
+[Chuckling.] Again an epigram! [Gravely.] You understand it, I hope.
+Have you had a college education, darling? I have.
+
+EDSTASTON. Certainly. I am a Bachelor of Arts.
+
+PATIOMKIN. It is enough that you are a bachelor, darling: Catherine will
+supply the arts. Aha! Another epigram! I am in the vein today.
+
+EDSTASTON [embarrassed and a little offended]. I must ask your Highness
+to change the subject. As a visitor in Russia, I am the guest of the
+Empress; and I must tell you plainly that I have neither the right nor
+the disposition to speak lightly of her Majesty.
+
+PATIOMKIN. You have conscientious scruples?
+
+EDSTASTON. I have the scruples of a gentleman.
+
+PATIOMKIN. In Russia a gentleman has no scruples. In Russia we face
+facts.
+
+EDSTASTON. In England, sir, a gentleman never faces any facts if they
+are unpleasant facts.
+
+PATIOMKIN. In real life, darling, all facts are unpleasant. [Greatly
+pleased with himself.] Another epigram! Where is my accursed chancellor?
+these gems should be written down and recorded for posterity. [He rushes
+to the table: sits down: and snatches up a pen. Then, recollecting
+himself.] But I have not asked you to sit down. [He rises and goes to
+the other chair.] I am a savage: a barbarian. [He throws the shirt and
+coat over the table on to the floor and puts his sword on the table.] Be
+seated, Captain.
+
+EDSTASTON Thank you.
+
+They bow to one another ceremoniously. Patiomkin's tendency to grotesque
+exaggeration costs him his balance; he nearly falls over Edstaston, who
+rescues him and takes the proffered chair.
+
+PATIOMKIN [resuming his seat]. By the way, what was the piece of advice
+I was going to give you?
+
+EDSTASTON. As you did not give it, I don't know. Allow me to add that I
+have not asked for your advice.
+
+PATIOMKIN. I give it to you unasked, delightful Englishman. I remember
+it now. It was this. Don't try to become Tsar of Russia.
+
+EDSTASTON [in astonishment]. I haven't the slightest intention--
+
+PATIOMKIN. Not now; but you will have: take my words for it. It will
+strike you as a splendid idea to have conscientious scruples--to desire
+the blessing of the Church on your union with Catherine.
+
+EDSTASTON [racing in utter amazement]. My union with Catherine! You're
+mad.
+
+PATIOMKIN [unmoved]. The day you hint at such a thing will be the day of
+your downfall. Besides, it is not lucky to be Catherine's husband. You
+know what happened to Peter?
+
+EDSTASTON [shortly; sitting down again]. I do not wish to discuss it.
+
+PATIOMKIN. You think she murdered him?
+
+EDSTASTON. I know that people have said so.
+
+PATIOMKIN [thunderously; springing to his feet]. It is a lie: Orloff
+murdered him. [Subsiding a little.] He also knocked my eye out; but
+[sitting down placidly] I succeeded him for all that. And [patting
+Edstaston's hand very affectionately] I'm sorry to say, darling, that if
+you become Tsar, I shall murder you.
+
+EDSTASTON [ironically returning the caress]. Thank you. The occasion
+will not arise. [Rising.] I have the honor to wish your Highness good
+morning.
+
+PATIOMKIN [jumping up and stopping him on his way to the door]. Tut tut!
+I'm going to take you to the Empress now, this very instant.
+
+EDSTASTON. In these boots? Impossible! I must change.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Nonsense! You shall come just as you are. You shall show her
+your calves later on.
+
+EDSTASTON. But it will take me only half an hour to--
+
+PATIOMKIN. In half an hour it will be too late for the petit lever.
+Come along. Damn it, man, I must oblige the British ambassador, and the
+French ambassador, and old Fritz, and Monsieur Voltaire and the rest of
+them. [He shouts rudely to the door.] Varinka! [To Edstaston, with tears
+in his voice.] Varinka shall persuade you: nobody can refuse Varinka
+anything. My niece. A treasure, I assure you. Beautiful! devoted!
+fascinating! [Shouting again.] Varinka, where the devil are you?
+
+VARINKA [returning]. I'll not be shouted for. You have the voice of a
+bear, and the manners of a tinker.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Tsh-sh-sh. Little angel Mother: you must behave yourself
+before the English captain. [He takes off his dressing-gown and throws
+it over the papers and the breakfasts: picks up his coat: and disappears
+behind the screen to complete his toilette.]
+
+EDSTASTON. Madam! [He bows.]
+
+VARINKA [courtseying]. Monsieur le Capitaine!
+
+EDSTASTON. I must apologize for the disturbance I made, madam.
+
+PATIOMKIN [behind the screen]. You must not call her madam. You must
+call her Little Mother, and beautiful darling.
+
+EDSTASTON. My respect for the lady will not permit it.
+
+VARINKA. Respect! How can you respect the niece of a savage?
+
+EDSTASTON [deprecatingly]. Oh, madam!
+
+VARINKA. Heaven is my witness, Little English Father, we need someone
+who is not afraid of him. He is so strong! I hope you will throw him
+down on the floor many, many, many times.
+
+PATIOMKIN [behind the screen]. Varinka!
+
+VARINKA. Yes?
+
+PATIOMKIN. Go and look through the keyhole of the Imperial bed-chamber;
+and bring me word whether the Empress is awake yet.
+
+VARINKA. Fi donc! I do not look through keyholes.
+
+PATIOMKIN [emerging, having arranged his shirt and put on his diamonded
+coat]. You have been badly brought up, little darling. Would any lady or
+gentleman walk unannounced into a room without first looking through the
+keyhole? [Taking his sword from the table and putting it on.] The great
+thing in life is to be simple; and the perfectly simple thing is to look
+through keyholes. Another epigram: the fifth this morning! Where is my
+fool of a chancellor? Where is Popof?
+
+EDSTASTON [choking with suppressed laughter]!!!!
+
+PATIOMKIN [gratified]. Darling, you appreciate my epigram.
+
+EDSTASTON. Excuse me. Pop off! Ha! ha! I can't help laughing: What's his
+real name, by the way, in case I meet him?
+
+VARINKA [surprised]. His real name? Popof, of course. Why do you laugh,
+Little Father?
+
+EDSTASTON. How can anyone with a sense of humor help laughing? Pop off!
+[He is convulsed.]
+
+VARINKA [looking at her uncle, taps her forehead significantly]!!
+
+PATIOMKIN [aside to Varinka]. No: only English. He will amuse Catherine.
+[To Edstaston.] Come, you shall tell the joke to the Empress: she is by
+way of being a humorist [he takes him by the arm, and leads him towards
+the door].
+
+EDSTASTON [resisting]. No, really. I am not fit--
+
+PATIOMKIN. Persuade him, Little angel Mother.
+
+VARINKA [taking his other arm]. Yes, yes, yes. Little English Father:
+God knows it is your duty to be brave and wait on the Empress. Come.
+
+EDSTASTON. No. I had rather--
+
+PATIOMKIN [hauling him along]. Come.
+
+VARINKA [pulling him and coaxing him]. Come, little love: you can't
+refuse me.
+
+EDSTASTON. But how can I?
+
+PATIOMKIN. Why not? She won't eat you.
+
+VARINKA. She will; but you must come.
+
+EDSTASTON. I assure you--it is quite out of the question--my clothes--
+
+VARINKA. You look perfect.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Come along, darling.
+
+EDSTASTON [struggling]. Impossible--
+
+VARINKA. Come, come, come.
+
+EDSTASTON. No. Believe me--I don't wish--I--
+
+VARINKA. Carry him, uncle.
+
+PATIOMKIN [lifting him in his arms like a father carrying a little boy].
+Yes: I'll carry you.
+
+EDSTASTON. Dash it all, this is ridiculous!
+
+VARINKA [seizing his ankles and dancing as he is carried out]. You must
+come. If you kick you will blacken my eyes.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Come, baby, come.
+
+By this time they have made their way through the door and are out of
+hearing.
+
+
+
+
+THE SECOND SCENE
+
+The Empress's petit lever. The central doors are closed. Those who
+enter through them find on their left, on a dais of two broad steps, a
+magnificent curtained bed. Beyond it a door in the panelling leads to
+the Empress's cabinet. Near the foot of the bed, in the middle of
+the room, stands a gilt chair, with the Imperial arms carved and the
+Imperial monogram embroidered.
+
+The Court is in attendance, standing in two melancholy rows down the
+side of the room opposite to the bed, solemn, bored, waiting for the
+Empress to awaken. The Princess Dashkoff, with two ladies, stands
+a little in front of the line of courtiers, by the Imperial chair.
+Silence, broken only by the yawns and whispers of the courtiers.
+Naryshkin, the Chamberlain, stands by the head of the bed.
+
+A loud yawn is heard from behind the curtains.
+
+NARYSHKIN [holding up a warning hand]. Ssh!
+
+The courtiers hastily cease whispering: dress up their lines: and
+stiffen. Dead silence. A bell tinkles within the curtains. Naryshkin and
+the Princess solemnly draw them and reveal the Empress.
+
+Catherine turns over on her back, and stretches herself.
+
+CATHERINE [yawning]. Heigho--ah--yah--ah--ow--what o'clock is it? [Her
+accent is German.]
+
+NARYSHKIN [formally]. Her Imperial Majesty is awake. [The Court falls on
+its knees.]
+
+ALL. Good morning to your Majesty.
+
+NARYSHKIN. Half-past ten, Little Mother.
+
+CATHERINE [sitting up abruptly]. Potztausend! [Contemplating the
+kneeling courtiers.] Oh, get up, get up. [All rise.] Your etiquette
+bores me. I am hardly awake in the morning before it begins. [Yawning
+again, and relapsing sleepily against her pillows.] Why do they do it,
+Naryshkin?
+
+NARYSHKIN. God knows it is not for your sake, Little Mother. But you see
+if you were not a great queen they would all be nobodies.
+
+CATHERINE [sitting up]. They make me do it to keep up their own little
+dignities? So?
+
+NARYSHKIN. Exactly. Also because if they didn't you might have them
+flogged, dear Little Mother.
+
+CATHERINE [springing energetically out of bed and seating herself on
+the edge of it]. Flogged! I! A Liberal Empress! A philosopher! You are a
+barbarian, Naryshkin. [She rises and turns to the courtiers.] And then,
+as if I cared! [She turns again to Naryshkin.] You should know by this
+time that I am frank and original in character, like an Englishman. [She
+walks about restlessly.] No: what maddens me about all this ceremony
+is that I am the only person in Russia who gets no fun out of my being
+Empress. You all glory in me: you bask in my smiles: you get titles and
+honors and favors from me: you are dazzled by my crown and my robes: you
+feel splendid when you have been admitted to my presence; and when I
+say a gracious word to you, you talk about it to everyone you meet for
+a week afterwards. But what do I get out of it? Nothing. [She throws
+herself into the chair. Naryshkin deprecates with a gesture; she hurls
+an emphatic repetition at him.] Nothing!! I wear a crown until my neck
+aches: I stand looking majestic until I am ready to drop: I have to
+smile at ugly old ambassadors and frown and turn my back on young and
+handsome ones. Nobody gives me anything. When I was only an Archduchess,
+the English ambassador used to give me money whenever I wanted it--or
+rather whenever he wanted to get anything out of my sacred predecessor
+Elizabeth [the Court bows to the ground]; but now that I am Empress
+he never gives me a kopek. When I have headaches and colics I envy the
+scullerymaids. And you are not a bit grateful to me for all my care of
+you, my work, my thought, my fatigue, my sufferings.
+
+THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. God knows, Little Mother, we all implore you
+to give your wonderful brain a rest. That is why you get headaches.
+Monsieur Voltaire also has headaches. His brain is just like yours.
+
+CATHERINE. Dashkoff, what a liar you are! [Dashkoff curtsies with
+impressive dignity.] And you think you are flattering me! Let me tell
+you I would not give a rouble to have the brains of all the philosophers
+in France. What is our business for today?
+
+NARYSHKIN. The new museum, Little Mother. But the model will not be
+ready until tonight.
+
+CATHERINE [rising eagerly]. Yes, the museum. An enlightened capital
+should have a museum. [She paces the chamber with a deep sense of the
+importance of the museum.] It shall be one of the wonders of the world.
+I must have specimens: specimens, specimens, specimens.
+
+NARYSHKIN. You are in high spirits this morning, Little Mother.
+
+CATHERINE [with sudden levity.] I am always in high spirits, even when
+people do not bring me my slippers. [She runs to the chair and sits
+down, thrusting her feet out.]
+
+The two ladies rush to her feet, each carrying a slipper. Catherine,
+about to put her feet into them, is checked by a disturbance in the
+antechamber.
+
+PATIOMKIN [carrying Edstaston through the antechamber]. Useless to
+struggle. Come along, beautiful baby darling. Come to Little Mother. [He
+sings.]
+
+March him baby, Baby, baby, Lit-tle ba-by bumpkins.
+
+VARINKA [joining in to the same doggerel in canon, a third above]. March
+him, baby, etc., etc.
+
+EDSTASTON [trying to make himself heard]. No, no. This is carrying a
+joke too far. I must insist. Let me down! Hang it, will you let me
+down! Confound it! No, no. Stop playing the fool, will you? We don't
+understand this sort of thing in England. I shall be disgraced. Let me
+down.
+
+CATHERINE [meanwhile]. What a horrible noise! Naryshkin, see what it is.
+
+Naryshkin goes to the door.
+
+CATHERINE [listening]. That is Prince Patiomkin.
+
+NARYSHKIN [calling from the door]. Little Mother, a stranger.
+
+Catherine plunges into bed again and covers herself up. Patiomkin,
+followed by Varinka, carries Edstaston in: dumps him down on the foot
+of the bed: and staggers past it to the cabinet door. Varinka joins
+the courtiers at the opposite side of the room. Catherine, blazing with
+wrath, pushes Edstaston off her bed on to the floor: gets out of bed:
+and turns on Patiomkin with so terrible an expression that all kneel
+down hastily except Edstaston, who is sprawling on the carpet in angry
+confusion.
+
+CATHERINE. Patiomkin, how dare you? [Looking at Edstaston.] What is
+this?
+
+PATIOMKIN [on his knees, tearfully]. I don't know. I am drunk. What is
+this, Varinka?
+
+EDSTASTON [scrambling to his feet]. Madam, this drunken ruffian--
+
+PATIOMKIN. Thas true. Drungn ruffian. Took dvantage of my being drunk.
+Said: take me to Lil angel Mother. Take me to beaufl Empress. Take me
+to the grea'st woman on earth. Thas whas he he said. I took him. I was
+wrong. I am not sober.
+
+CATHERINE. Men have grown sober in Siberia for less, Prince.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Serve em right! Sgusting habit. Ask Varinka.
+
+Catherine turns her face from him to the Court. The courtiers see that
+she is trying not to laugh, and know by experience that she will not
+succeed. They rise, relieved and grinning.
+
+VARINKA. It is true. He drinks like a pig.
+
+PATIOMKIN [plaintively]. No: not like pig. Like prince. Lil Mother made
+poor Patiomkin prince. Whas use being prince if I mayn't drink?
+
+CATHERINE [biting her lips]. Go. I am offended.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Don't scold, Lil Mother.
+
+CATHERINE [imperiously]. Go.
+
+PATIOMKIN [rising unsteadily]. Yes: go. Go bye bye. Very sleepy. Berr go
+bye bye than go Siberia. Go bye bye in Lil Mother's bed [he pretends to
+make an attempt to get into the bed].
+
+CATHERINE [energetically pulling him back]. No, no! Patiomkin! What
+are you thinking of? [He falls like a log on the floor, apparently dead
+drunk.]
+
+THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. Scandalous! An insult to your Imperial Majesty!
+
+CATHERINE. Dashkoff: you have no sense of humor. [She steps down to the
+door level and looks indulgently at Patiomkin. He gurgles brutishly. She
+has an impulse of disgust.] Hog. [She kicks him as hard as she can.] Oh!
+You have broken my toe. Brute. Beast. Dashkoff is quite right. Do you
+hear?
+
+PATIOMKIN. If you ask my pi-pinion of Dashkoff, my pipinion is that
+Dashkoff is drunk. Scanlous. Poor Patiomkin go bye bye. [He relapses
+into drunken slumbers.]
+
+Some of the courtiers move to carry him away.
+
+CATHERINE [stopping them]. Let him lie. Let him sleep it off. If he
+goes out it will be to a tavern and low company for the rest of the day.
+[Indulgently.] There! [She takes a pillow from the bed and puts it under
+his head: then turns to Edstaston: surveys him with perfect dignity: and
+asks, in her queenliest manner.] Varinka, who is this gentleman?
+
+VARINKA. A foreign captain: I cannot pronounce his name. I think he is
+mad. He came to the Prince and said he must see your Majesty. He can
+talk of nothing else. We could not prevent him.
+
+EDSTASTON [overwhelmed by this apparent betrayal]. Oh! Madam: I am
+perfectly sane: I am actually an Englishman. I should never have dreamt
+of approaching your Majesty without the fullest credentials. I have
+letters from the English ambassador, from the Prussian ambassador.
+[Naively.] But everybody assured me that Prince Patiomkm is all-powerful
+with your Majesty; so I naturally applied to him.
+
+PATIOMKIN [interrupts the conversation by an agonized wheezing groan as
+of a donkey beginning to bray]!!!
+
+CATHERINE [like a fishfag]. Schweig, du Hund. [Resuming her impressive
+royal manner.] Have you never been taught, sir, how a gentleman should
+enter the presence of a sovereign?
+
+EDSTASTON. Yes, Madam; but I did not enter your presence: I was carried.
+
+CATHERINE. But you say you asked the Prince to carry you.
+
+EDSTASTON. Certainly not, Madam. I protested against it with all my
+might. I appeal to this lady to confirm me.
+
+VARINKA [pretending to be indignant]. Yes, you protested. But, all the
+same, you were very very very anxious to see her Imperial Majesty.
+You blushed when the Prince spoke of her. You threatened to strike him
+across the face with your sword because you thought he did not speak
+enthusiastically enough of her. [To Catherine.] Trust me: he has seen
+your Imperial Majesty before.
+
+CATHERINE [to Edstaston]. You have seen us before?
+
+EDSTASTON. At the review, Madam.
+
+VARINKA [triumphantly]. Aha! I knew it. Your Majesty wore the hussar
+uniform. He saw how radiant! how splendid! your Majesty looked. Oh! he
+has dared to admire your Majesty. Such insolence is not to be endured.
+
+EDSTASTON. All Europe is a party to that insolence, Madam.
+
+THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. All Europe is content to do so at a respectful
+distance. It is possible to admire her Majesty's policy and her eminence
+in literature and philosophy without performing acrobatic feats in the
+Imperial bed.
+
+EDSTASTON. I know nothing about her Majesty's eminence in policy or
+philosophy: I don't pretend to understand such things. I speak as a
+practical man. And I never knew that foreigners had any policy: I always
+thought that policy was Mr. Pitt's business.
+
+CATHERINE [lifting her eyebrows]. So?
+
+VARINKA. What else did you presume to admire her Majesty for, pray?
+
+EDSTASTON [addled]. Well, I--I--I--that is, I--[He stammers himself
+dumb.]
+
+CATHERINE [after a pitiless silence]. We are waiting for your answer.
+
+EDSTASTON. But I never said I admired your Majesty. The lady has twisted
+my words.
+
+VARINKA. You don't admire her, then?
+
+EDSTASTON. Well, I--naturally--of course, I can't deny that the uniform
+was very becoming--perhaps a little unfeminine--still--Dead silence.
+Catherine and the Court watch him stonily. He is wretchedly embarrassed.
+
+CATHERINE [with cold majesty]. Well, sir: is that all you have to say?
+
+EDSTASTON. Surely there is no harm in noticing that er--that er--[He
+stops again.]
+
+CATHERINE. Noticing that er--? [He gazes at her, speechless, like a
+fascinated rabbit. She repeats fiercely.] That er--?
+
+EDSTASTON [startled into speech]. Well, that your Majesty
+was--was--[soothingly] Well, let me put it this way: that it was rather
+natural for a man to admire your Majesty without being a philosopher.
+
+CATHERINE [suddenly smiling and extending her hand to him to be kissed].
+Courtier!
+
+EDSTASTON [kissing it]. Not at all. Your Majesty is very good. I have
+been very awkward; but I did not intend it. I am rather stupid, I am
+afraid.
+
+CATHERINE. Stupid! By no means. Courage, Captain: we are pleased. [He
+falls on his knee. She takes his cheeks in her hands: turns up his face:
+and adds] We are greatly pleased. [She slaps his cheek coquettishly: he
+bows almost to his knee.] The petit lever is over. [She turns to go into
+the cabinet, and stumbles against the supine Patiomkin.] Ach! [Edstaston
+springs to her assistance, seizing Patiomkin's heels and shifting him
+out of the Empress's path.] We thank you, Captain.
+
+He bows gallantly and is rewarded by a very gracious smile. Then
+Catherine goes into her cabinet, followed by the princess Dashkoff, who
+turns at the door to make a deep courtsey to Edstaston.
+
+VARINKA. Happy Little Father! Remember: I did this for you. [She runs
+out after the Empress.]
+
+Edstaston, somewhat dazed, crosses the room to the courtiers, and is
+received with marked deference, each courtier making him a profound bow
+or curtsey before withdrawing through the central doors. He returns
+each obeisance with a nervous jerk, and turns away from it, only to find
+another courtier bowing at the other side. The process finally reduced
+him to distraction, as he bumps into one in the act of bowing to another
+and then has to bow his apologies. But at last they are all gone except
+Naryshkin.
+
+EDSTASTON. Ouf!
+
+PATIOMKIN [jumping up vigorously]. You have done it, darling. Superbly!
+Beautifully!
+
+EDSTASTON [astonished]. Do you mean to say you are not drunk?
+
+PATIOMKIN. Not dead drunk, darling. Only diplomatically drunk. As a
+drunken hog, I have done for you in five minutes what I could not have
+done in five months as a sober man. Your fortune is made. She likes you.
+
+EDSTASTON. The devil she does!
+
+PATIOMKIN. Why? Aren't you delighted?
+
+EDSTASTON. Delighted! Gracious heavens, man, I am engaged to be married.
+
+PATIOMKIN. What matter? She is in England, isn't she?
+
+EDSTASTON. No. She has just arrived in St. Petersburg.
+
+THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF [returning]. Captain Edstaston, the Empress is
+robed, and commands your presence.
+
+EDSTASTON. Say I was gone before you arrived with the message. [He
+hurries out. The other three, too taken aback to stop him, stare after
+him in the utmost astonishment.]
+
+NARYSHKIN [turning from the door]. She will have him knouted. He is a
+dead man.
+
+THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. But what am I to do? I cannot take such an answer
+to the Empress.
+
+PATIOMKIN. P-P-P-P-P-P-W-W-W-W-W-rrrrrr [a long puff, turning into a
+growl]! [He spits.] I must kick somebody.
+
+NARYSHKIN [flying precipitately through the central doors]. No, no.
+Please.
+
+THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF [throwing herself recklessly in front of Patiomkin
+as he starts in pursuit of the Chamberlain]. Kick me. Disable me. It
+will be an excuse for not going back to her. Kick me hard.
+
+PATIOMKIN. Yah! [He flings her on the bed and dashes after Naryshkin.]
+
+
+
+
+THE THIRD SCENE
+
+In a terrace garden overlooking the Neva. Claire, a robust young English
+lady, is leaning on the river wall. She turns expectantly on hearing
+the garden gate opened and closed. Edstaston hurries in. With a cry of
+delight she throws her arms round his neck.
+
+CLAIRE. Darling!
+
+EDSTASTON [making a wry face]. Don't call me darling.
+
+CLAIRE [amazed and chilled]. Why?
+
+EDSTASTON. I have been called darling all the morning.
+
+CLAIRE [with a flash of jealousy]. By whom?
+
+EDSTASTON. By everybody. By the most unutterable swine. And if we do
+not leave this abominable city now: do you hear? now; I shall be called
+darling by the Empress.
+
+CLAIRE [with magnificent snobbery]. She would not dare. Did you tell her
+you were engaged to me?
+
+EDSTASTON. Of course not.
+
+CLAIRE. Why?
+
+EDSTASTON. Because I didn't particularly want to have you knouted, and
+to be hanged or sent to Siberia myself.
+
+CLAIRE. What on earth do you mean?
+
+EDSTASTON. Well, the long and short of it is--don't think me a coxcomb,
+Claire: it is too serious to mince matters--I have seen the Empress;
+and--
+
+CLAIRE. Well, you wanted to see her.
+
+EDSTASTON. Yes; but the Empress has seen me.
+
+CLAIRE. She has fallen in love with you!
+
+EDSTASTON. How did you know?
+
+CLAIRE. Dearest: as if anyone could help it.
+
+EDSTASTON. Oh, don't make me feel like a fool. But, though it does sound
+conceited to say it, I flatter myself I'm better looking than Patiomkin
+and the other hogs she is accustomed to. Anyhow, I daren't risk staying.
+
+CLAIRE. What a nuisance! Mamma will be furious at having to pack, and at
+missing the Court ball this evening.
+
+EDSTASTON. I can't help that. We haven't a moment to lose.
+
+CLAIRE. May I tell her she will be knouted if we stay?
+
+EDSTASTON. Do, dearest.
+
+He kisses her and lets her go, expecting her to run into the house.
+
+CLAIRE [pausing thoughtfully]. Is she--is she good-looking when you see
+her close?
+
+EDSTASTON. Not a patch on you, dearest.
+
+CLAIRE [jealous]. Then you did see her close?
+
+EDSTASTON. Fairly close.
+
+CLAIRE. Indeed! How close? No: that's silly of me: I will tell mamma.
+[She is going out when Naryshkin enters with the Sergeant and a squad of
+soldiers.] What do you want here?
+
+The Sergeant goes to Edstaston: plumps down on his knees: and takes
+out a magnificent pair of pistols with gold grips. He proffers them to
+Edstaston, holding them by the barrels.
+
+NARYSHKIN. Captain Edstaston: his Highness Prince Patiomkin sends you
+the pistols he promised you.
+
+THE SERGEANT. Take them, Little Father; and do not forget us poor
+soldiers who have brought them to you; for God knows we get but little
+to drink.
+
+EDSTASTON [irresolutely]. But I can't take these valuable things. By
+Jiminy, though, they're beautiful! Look at them, Claire.
+
+As he is taking the pistols the kneeling Sergeant suddenly drops them;
+flings himself forward; and embraces Edstaston's hips to prevent him
+from drawing his own pistols from his boots.
+
+THE SERGEANT. Lay hold of him there. Pin his arms. I have his pistols.
+[The soldiers seize Edstaston.]
+
+EDSTASTON. Ah, would you, damn you! [He drives his knee into the
+Sergeant's epigastrium, and struggles furiously with his captors.]
+
+THE SERGEANT [rolling on the ground, gasping and groaning]. Owgh!
+Murder! Holy Nicholas! Owwwgh!
+
+CLAIRE. Help! help! They are killing Charles. Help!
+
+NARYSHKIN [seizing her and clapping his hand over her mouth]. Tie
+him neck and crop. Ten thousand blows of the stick if you let him go.
+[Claire twists herself loose: turns on him: and cuffs him furiously.]
+Yow--ow! Have mercy, Little Mother.
+
+CLAIRE. You wretch! Help! Help! Police! We are being murdered. Help!
+
+The Sergeant, who has risen, comes to Naryshkin's rescue, and grasps
+Claire's hands, enabling Naryshkin to gag her again. By this time
+Edstaston and his captors are all rolling on the ground together. They
+get Edstaston on his back and fasten his wrists together behind his
+knees. Next they put a broad strap round his ribs. Finally they pass a
+pole through this breast strap and through the waist strap and lift him
+by it, helplessly trussed up, to carry him of. Meanwhile he is by no
+means suffering in silence.
+
+EDSTASTON [gasping]. You shall hear more of this. Damn you, will
+you untie me? I will complain to the ambassador. I will write to the
+Gazette. England will blow your trumpery little fleet out of the water
+and sweep your tinpot army into Siberia for this. Will you let me
+go? Damn you! Curse you! What the devil do you mean by it?
+I'll--I'll--I'll-- [he is carried out of hearing].
+
+NARYSHKIN [snatching his hands from Claire's face with a scream, and
+shaking his finger frantically]. Agh! [The Sergeant, amazed, lets go her
+hands.] She has bitten me, the little vixen.
+
+CLAIRE [spitting and wiping her mouth disgustedly]. How dare you put
+your dirty paws on my mouth? Ugh! Psha!
+
+THE SERGEANT. Be merciful, Little angel Mother.
+
+CLAIRE. Do not presume to call me your little angel mother. Where are
+the police?
+
+NARYSHKIN. We are the police in St Petersburg, little spitfire.
+
+THE SERGEANT. God knows we have no orders to harm you, Little Mother.
+Our duty is done. You are well and strong; but I shall never be the same
+man again. He is a mighty and terrible fighter, as stout as a bear.
+He has broken my sweetbread with his strong knees. God knows poor folk
+should not be set upon such dangerous adversaries!
+
+CLAIRE. Serve you right! Where have they taken Captain Edstaston to?
+
+NARYSHKIN [spitefully]. To the Empress, little beauty. He has insulted
+the Empress. He will receive a hundred and one blows of the knout. [He
+laughs and goes out, nursing his bitten finger.]
+
+THE SERGEANT. He will feel only the first twenty and he will be
+mercifully dead long before the end, little darling.
+
+CLAIRE [sustained by an invincible snobbery]. They dare not touch an
+English officer. I will go to the Empress myself: she cannot know who
+Captain Edstaston is--who we are.
+
+THE SERGEANT. Do so in the name of the Holy Nicholas, little beauty.
+
+CLAIRE. Don't be impertinent. How can I get admission to the palace?
+
+THE SERGEANT. Everybody goes in and out of the palace, little love.
+
+CLAIRE. But I must get into the Empress's presence. I must speak to her.
+
+THE SERGEANT. You shall, dear Little Mother. You shall give the poor old
+Sergeant a rouble; and the blessed Nicholas will make your salvation his
+charge.
+
+CLAIRE [impetuously]. I will give you [she is about to say fifty
+roubles, but checks herself cautiously]--Well: I don't mind giving you
+two roubles if I can speak to the Empress.
+
+THE SERGEANT [joyfully]. I praise Heaven for you, Little Mother. Come.
+[He leads the way out.] It was the temptation of the devil that led
+your young man to bruise my vitals and deprive me of breath. We must be
+merciful to one another's faults.
+
+
+
+
+THE FOURTH SCENE
+
+A triangular recess communicating by a heavily curtained arch with the
+huge ballroom of the palace. The light is subdued by red shades on the
+candles. In the wall adjoining that pierced by the arch is a door. The
+only piece of furniture is a very handsome chair on the arch side. In
+the ballroom they are dancing a polonaise to the music of a brass band.
+
+Naryshkin enters through the door, followed by the soldiers carrying
+Edstaston, still trussed to the pole. Exhausted and dogged, he makes no
+sound.
+
+NARYSHKIN. Halt. Get that pole clear of the prisoner. [They dump
+Edstaston on the floor and detach the pole. Naryshkin stoops over him
+and addresses him insultingly.] Well! are you ready to be tortured? This
+is the Empress's private torture chamber. Can I do anything to make you
+quite comfortable? You have only to mention it.
+
+EDSTASTON. Have you any back teeth?
+
+NARYSHKIN [surprised]. Why?
+
+EDSTASTON. His Majesty King George the Third will send for six of them
+when the news of this reaches London; so look out, damn your eyes!
+
+NARYSHKIN [frightened]. Oh, I assure you I am only obeying my orders.
+Personally I abhor torture, and would save you if I could. But the
+Empress is proud; and what woman would forgive the slight you put upon
+her?
+
+EDSTASTON. As I said before: Damn your eyes!
+
+NARYSHKIN [almost in tears]. Well, it isn't my fault. [To the soldiers,
+insolently.] You know your orders? You remember what you have to do when
+the Empress gives you the word? [The soldiers salute in assent.]
+
+Naryshkin passes through the curtains, admitting a blare of music and
+a strip of the brilliant white candlelight from the chandeliers in
+the ballroom as he does so. The white light vanishes and the music is
+muffled as the curtains fall together behind him. Presently the band
+stops abruptly: and Naryshkin comes back through the curtains. He makes
+a warning gesture to the soldiers, who stand at attention. Then he
+moves the curtain to allow Catherine to enter. She is in full Imperial
+regalia, and stops sternly just where she has entered. The soldiers fall
+on their knees.
+
+CATHERINE. Obey your orders.
+
+The soldiers seize Edstaston, and throw him roughly at the feet of the
+Empress.
+
+CATHERINE [looking down coldly on him]. Also [the German word], you have
+put me to the trouble of sending for you twice. You had better have come
+the first time.
+
+EDSTASTON [exsufflicate, and pettishly angry]. I haven't come either
+time. I've been carried. I call it infernal impudence.
+
+CATHERINE. Take care what you say.
+
+EDSTASTON. No use. I daresay you look very majestic and very handsome;
+but I can't see you; and I am not intimidated. I am an Englishman; and
+you can kidnap me; but you can't bully me.
+
+NARYSHKIN. Remember to whom you are speaking.
+
+CATHERINE [violently, furious at his intrusion]. Remember that dogs
+should be dumb. [He shrivels.] And do you, Captain, remember that famous
+as I am for my clemency, there are limits to the patience even of an
+Empress.
+
+EDSTASTON. How is a man to remember anything when he is trussed up
+in this ridiculous fashion? I can hardly breathe. [He makes a futile
+struggle to free himself.] Here: don't be unkind, your Majesty: tell
+these fellows to unstrap me. You know you really owe me an apology.
+
+CATHERINE. You think you can escape by appealing, like Prince Patiomkin,
+to my sense of humor?
+
+EDSTASTON. Sense of humor! Ho! Ha, ha! I like that. Would anybody with
+a sense of humor make a guy of a man like this, and then expect him to
+take it seriously? I say: do tell them to loosen these straps.
+
+CATHERINE [seating herself]. Why should I, pray?
+
+EDSTASTON. Why! Why! Why, because they're hurting me.
+
+CATHERINE. People sometimes learn through suffering. Manners, for
+instance.
+
+EDSTASTON. Oh, well, of course, if you're an ill-natured woman, hurting
+me on purpose, I have nothing more to say.
+
+CATHERINE. A monarch, sir, has sometimes to employ a necessary, and
+salutary severity--
+
+EDSTASTON [Interrupting her petulantly]. Quack! quack! quack!
+
+CATHERINE. Donnerwetter!
+
+EDSTASTON [continuing recklessly]. This isn't severity: it's tomfoolery.
+And if you think it's reforming my character or teaching me anything,
+you're mistaken. It may be a satisfaction to you; but if it is, all I
+can say is that it's not an amiable satisfaction.
+
+CATHERINE [turning suddenly and balefully on Naryshkin]. What are you
+grinning at?
+
+NARYSHKIN [falling on his knees in terror]. Be merciful, Little Mother.
+My heart is in my mouth.
+
+CATHERINE. Your heart and your mouth will be in two separate parts of
+your body if you again forget in whose presence you stand. Go. And take
+your men with you. [Naryshkin crawls to the door. The soldiers rise.]
+Stop. Roll that [indicating Edstaston] nearer. [The soldiers obey.] Not
+so close. Did I ask you for a footstool? [She pushes Edstaston away with
+her foot.]
+
+EDSTASTON [with a sudden squeal]. Agh!!! I must really ask your
+Majesty not to put the point of your Imperial toe between my ribs. I am
+ticklesome.
+
+CATHERINE. Indeed? All the more reason for you to treat me with respect,
+Captain. [To the others.] Begone. How many times must I give an order
+before it is obeyed?
+
+NARYSHKIN. Little Mother: they have brought some instruments of torture.
+Will they be needed?
+
+CATHERINE [indignantly]. How dare you name such abominations to a
+Liberal Empress? You will always be a savage and a fool, Naryshkin.
+These relics of barbarism are buried, thank God, in the grave of Peter
+the Great. My methods are more civilized. [She extends her toe towards
+Edstaston's ribs.]
+
+EDSTASTON [shrieking hysterically]. Yagh! Ah! [Furiously.] If your
+Majesty does that again I will write to the London Gazette.
+
+CATHERINE [to the soldiers]. Leave us. Quick! do you hear? Five thousand
+blows of the stick for the soldier who is in the room when I speak
+next. [The soldiers rush out.] Naryshkin: are you waiting to be knouted?
+[Naryshkin backs out hastily.]
+
+Catherine and Edstaston are now alone. Catherine has in her hand a
+sceptre or baton of gold. Wrapped round it is a new pamphlet, in French,
+entitled L'Homme aux Quarante Ecus. She calmly unrolls this and begins
+to read it at her ease as if she were quite alone. Several seconds
+elapse in dead silence. She becomes more and more absorbed in the
+pamphlet, and more and more amused by it.
+
+CATHERINE [greatly pleased by a passage, and turning over the leaf].
+Ausgezeiehnet!
+
+EDSTASTON. Ahem!
+
+Silence. Catherine reads on.
+
+CATHERINE. Wie komisch!
+
+EDSTASTON. Ahem! ahem!
+
+Silence.
+
+CATHERINE [soliloquizing enthusiastically]. What a wonderful author is
+Monsieur Voltaire! How lucidly he exposes the folly of this crazy plan
+for raising the entire revenue of the country from a single tax on land!
+how he withers it with his irony! how he makes you laugh whilst he is
+convincing you! how sure one feels that the proposal is killed by his
+wit and economic penetration: killed never to be mentioned again among
+educated people!
+
+EDSTASTON. For Heaven's sake, Madam, do you intend to leave me tied up
+like this while you discuss the blasphemies of that abominable infidel?
+Agh!! [She has again applied her toe.] Oh! Oo!
+
+CATHERINE [calmly]. Do I understand you to say that Monsieur Voltaire is
+a great philanthropist and a great philosopher as well as the wittiest
+man in Europe?
+
+EDSTASTON. Certainly not. I say that his books ought to be burnt by
+the common hangman [her toe touches his ribs]. Yagh! Oh don't. I shall
+faint. I can't bear it.
+
+CATHERINE. Have you changed your opinion of Monsieur Voltaire?
+
+EDSTASTON. But you can't expect me as a member of the Church of England
+[she tickles him] --agh! Ow! Oh Lord! he is anything you like. He is a
+philanthropist, a philosopher, a beauty: he ought to have a statue, damn
+him! [she tickles him]. No! bless him! save him victorious, happy and
+glorious! Oh, let eternal honors crown his name: Voltaire thrice worthy
+on the rolls of fame! [Exhausted.] Now will you let me up? And look
+here! I can see your ankles when you tickle me: it's not ladylike.
+
+CATHERINE [sticking out her toe and admiring it critically]. Is the
+spectacle so disagreeable?
+
+EDSTASTON. It's agreeable enough; only [with intense expression] for
+heaven's sake don't touch me in the ribs.
+
+CATHERINE [putting aside the pamphlet]. Captain Edstaston, why did you
+refuse to come when I sent for you?
+
+EDSTASTON. Madam, I cannot talk tied up like this.
+
+CATHERINE. Do you still admire me as much as you did this morning?
+
+EDSTASTON. How can I possibly tell when I can't see you? Let me get up
+and look. I can't see anything now except my toes and yours.
+
+CATHERINE. Do you still intend to write to the London Gazette about me?
+
+EDSTASTON. Not if you will loosen these straps. Quick: loosen me. I'm
+fainting.
+
+CATHERINE. I don't think you are [tickling him].
+
+EDSTASTON. Agh! Cat!
+
+CATHERINE. What [she tickles him again].
+
+EDSTASTON [with a shriek]. No: angel, angel!
+
+CATHERINE [tenderly]. Geliebter!
+
+EDSTASTON. I don't know a word of German; but that sounded kind.
+[Becoming hysterical.] Little Mother, beautiful little darling angel
+mother: don't be cruel: untie me. Oh, I beg and implore you. Don't be
+unkind. I shall go mad.
+
+CATHERINE. You are expected to go mad with love when an Empress deigns
+to interest herself in you. When an Empress allows you to see her foot
+you should kiss it. Captain Edstaston, you are a booby.
+
+EDSTASTON [indignantly]. I am nothing of the kind. I have been mentioned
+in dispatches as a highly intelligent officer. And let me warn your
+Majesty that I am not so helpless as you think. The English Ambassador
+is in that ballroom. A shout from me will bring him to my side; and then
+where will your Majesty be?
+
+CATHERINE. I should like to see the English Ambassador or anyone else
+pass through that curtain against my orders. It might be a stone wall
+ten feet thick. Shout your loudest. Sob. Curse. Scream. Yell [she
+tickles him unmercifully].
+
+EDSTASTON [frantically]. Ahowyou!!!! Agh! oh! Stop! Oh Lord! Ya-a-a-ah!
+[A tumult in the ballroom responds to his cries].
+
+VOICES FROM THE BALLROOM. Stand back. You cannot pass. Hold her back
+there. The Empress's orders. It is out of the question. No, little
+darling, not in there. Nobody is allowed in there. You will be sent to
+Siberia. Don't let her through there, on your life. Drag her back. You
+will be knouted. It is hopeless, Mademoiselle: you must obey orders.
+Guard there! Send some men to hold her.
+
+CLAIRE'S VOICE. Let me go. They are torturing Charles in there. I WILL
+go. How can you all dance as if nothing was happening? Let me go, I tell
+you. Let--me--go. [She dashes through the curtain, no one dares follow
+her.]
+
+CATHERINE [rising in wrath]. How dare you?
+
+CLAIRE [recklessly]. Oh, dare your grandmother! Where is my Charles?
+What are they doing to him?
+
+EDSTASTON [shouting]. Claire, loosen these straps, in Heaven's name.
+Quick.
+
+CLAIRE [seeing him and throwing herself on her knees at his side]. Oh,
+how dare they tie you up like that! [To Catherine.] You wicked wretch!
+You Russian savage! [She pounces on the straps, and begins unbuckling
+them.]
+
+CATHERINE [conquering herself with a mighty effort]. Now self-control.
+Self-control, Catherine. Philosophy. Europe is looking on. [She forces
+herself to sit down.]
+
+EDSTASTON. Steady, dearest: it is the Empress. Call her your Imperial
+Majesty. Call her Star of the North, Little Mother, Little Darling:
+that's what she likes; but get the straps off.
+
+CLAIRE. Keep quiet, dear: I cannot get them off if you move.
+
+CATHERINE [calmly]. Keep quite still, Captain [she tickles him.]
+
+EDSTASTON. Ow! Agh! Ahowyow!
+
+CLAIRE [stopping dead in the act of unbuckling the straps and turning
+sick with jealousy as she grasps the situation]. Was THAT what I thought
+was your being tortured?
+
+CATHERINE [urbanely]. That is the favorite torture of Catherine the
+Second, Mademoiselle. I think the Captain enjoys it very much.
+
+CLAIRE. Then he can have as much more of it as he wants. I am sorry I
+intruded. [She rises to go.]
+
+EDSTASTON [catching her train in his teeth and holding on like a
+bull-dog]. Don't go. Don't leave me in this horrible state. Loosen me.
+[This is what he is saying: but as he says it with the train in his
+mouth it is not very intelligible.]
+
+CLAIRE. Let go. You are undignified and ridiculous enough yourself
+without making me ridiculous. [She snatches her train away.]
+
+EDSTASTON. Ow! You've nearly pulled my teeth out: you're worse than the
+Star of the North. [To Catherine.] Darling Little Mother: you have a
+kind heart, the kindest in Europe. Have pity. Have mercy. I love you.
+[Claire bursts into tears.] Release me.
+
+CATHERINE. Well, just to show you how much kinder a Russian savage can
+be than an English one (though I am sorry to say I am a German) here
+goes! [She stoops to loosen the straps.]
+
+CLAIRE [jealously]. You needn't trouble, thank you. [She pounces on
+the straps: and the two set Edstaston free between them.] Now get up,
+please; and conduct yourself with some dignity if you are not utterly
+demoralized.
+
+EDSTASTON. Dignity! Ow! I can't. I'm stiff all over. I shall never be
+able to stand up again. Oh Lord! how it hurts! [They seize him by the
+shoulders and drag him up.] Yah! Agh! Wow! Oh! Mmmmmm! Oh, Little Angel
+Mother, don't ever do this to a man again. Knout him; kill him; roast
+him; baste him; head, hang, and quarter him; but don't tie him up like
+that and tickle him.
+
+CATHERINE. Your young lady still seems to think that you enjoyed it.
+
+CLAIRE. I know what I think. I will never speak to him again. Your
+Majesty can keep him, as far as I am concerned.
+
+CATHERINE. I would not deprive you of him for worlds; though really I
+think he's rather a darling [she pats his cheek].
+
+CLAIRE [snorting]. So I see, indeed.
+
+EDSTASTON. Don't be angry, dearest: in this country everybody's a
+darling. I'll prove it to you. [To Catherine.] Will your Majesty be good
+enough to call Prince Patiomkin?
+
+CATHERINE [surprised into haughtiness]. Why?
+
+EDSTASTON. To oblige me.
+
+Catherine laughs good-humoredly and goes to the curtains and opens them.
+The band strikes up a Redowa.
+
+CATHERINE [calling imperiously]. Patiomkin! [The music stops suddenly.]
+Here! To me! Go on with your music there, you fools. [The Redowa is
+resumed.]
+
+The sergeant rushes from the ballroom to relieve the Empress of the
+curtain. Patiomkin comes in dancing with Yarinka.
+
+CATHERINE [to Patiomkin]. The English captain wants you, little darling.
+
+Catherine resumes her seat as Patiomkin intimates by a grotesque bow
+that he is at Edstaston's service. Yarinka passes behind Edstaston and
+Claire, and posts herself on Claire's right.
+
+EDSTASTON. Precisely. [To Claire. ] You observe, my love: "little
+darling." Well, if her Majesty calls him a darling, is it my fault that
+she calls me one too?
+
+CLAIRE. I don't care: I don't think you ought to have done it. I am very
+angry and offended.
+
+EDSTASTON. They tied me up, dear. I couldn't help it. I fought for all I
+was worth.
+
+THE SERGEANT [at the curtains]. He fought with the strength of lions and
+bears. God knows I shall carry a broken sweetbread to my grave.
+
+EDSTASTON. You can't mean to throw me over, Claire. [Urgently.] Claire.
+Claire.
+
+VARINKA [in a transport of sympathetic emotion, pleading with clasped
+hands to Claire]. Oh, sweet little angel lamb, he loves you: it shines
+in his darling eyes. Pardon him, pardon him.
+
+PATIOMKIN [rushing from the Empress's side to Claire and falling on his
+knees to her]. Pardon him, pardon him, little cherub! little wild duck!
+little star! little glory! little jewel in the crown of heaven!
+
+CLAIRE. This is perfectly ridiculous.
+
+VARINKA [kneeling to her]. Pardon him, pardon him, little delight,
+little sleeper in a rosy cradle.
+
+CLAIRE. I'll do anything if you'll only let me alone.
+
+THE SERGEANT [kneeling to her]. Pardon him, pardon him, lest the mighty
+man bring his whip to you. God knows we all need pardon!
+
+CLAIRE [at the top of her voice]. I pardon him! I pardon him!
+
+PATIOMKIN [springing up joyfully and going behind Claire, whom he raises
+in his arms]. Embrace her, victor of Bunker's Hill. Kiss her till she
+swoons.
+
+THE SERGEANT. Receive her in the name of the holy Nicholas.
+
+VARINKA. She begs you for a thousand dear little kisses all over her
+body.
+
+CLAIRE [vehemently]. I do not. [Patiomkin throws her into Edstaston's
+arms.] Oh! [The pair, awkward and shamefaced, recoil from one another,
+and remain utterly inexpressive.]
+
+CATHERINE [pushing Edstaston towards Claire]. There is no help for it,
+Captain. This is Russia, not England.
+
+EDSTASTON [plucking up some geniality, and kissing Claire ceremoniously
+on the brow]. I have no objection.
+
+VARINKA [disgusted]. Only one kiss! and on the forehead! Fish. See how I
+kiss, though it is only my horribly ugly old uncle [she throws her arms
+round Patiomkin's neck and covers his face with kisses].
+
+THE SERGEANT [moved to tears]. Sainted Nicholas: bless your lambs!
+
+CATHERINE. Do you wonder now that I love Russia as I love no other place
+on earth?
+
+NARYSHKIN [appearing at the door]. Majesty: the model for the new museum
+has arrived.
+
+CATHERINE [rising eagerly and making for the curtains]. Let us go. I can
+think of nothing but my museum. [In the archway she stops and turns to
+Edstaston, who has hurried to lift the curtain for her.] Captain, I wish
+you every happiness that your little angel can bring you. [For his
+ear alone.] I could have brought you more; but you did not think so.
+Farewell.
+
+EDSTASTON [kissing her hand, which, instead of releasing, he holds
+caressingly and rather patronizingly in his own]. I feel your Majesty's
+kindness so much that I really cannot leave you without a word of plain
+wholesome English advice.
+
+CATHERINE [snatching her hand away and bounding forward as if he had
+touched her with a spur]. Advice!!!
+
+PATIOMKIN. Madman: take care!
+
+NARYSHKIN. Advise the Empress!!
+
+THE SERGEANT. Sainted Nicholas!
+
+VARINKA. Hoo hoo! [a stifled splutter of laughter].
+
+EDSTASTON [following the Empress and resuming kindly but judicially].
+After all, though your Majesty is of course a great queen, yet when all
+is said, I am a man; and your Majesty is only a woman.
+
+CATHERINE. Only a wo-- [she chokes].
+
+EDSTASTON [continuing]. Believe me, this Russian extravagance will not
+do. I appreciate as much as any man the warmth of heart that prompts it;
+but it is overdone: it is hardly in the best taste: it is really I must
+say it--it is not proper.
+
+CATHERINE [ironically, in German]. So!
+
+EDSTASTON. Not that I cannot make allowances. Your Majesty has, I know,
+been unfortunate in your experience as a married woman--
+
+CATHERINE [furious]. Alle Wetter!!!
+
+EDSTASTON [sentimentally]. Don't say that. Don't think of him in that
+way. After all, he was your husband; and whatever his faults may have
+been, it is not for you to think unkindly of him.
+
+CATHERINE [almost bursting]. I shall forget myself.
+
+EDSTASTON. Come! I am sure he really loved you; and you truly loved him.
+
+CATHERINE [controlling herself with a supreme effort]. No, Catherine.
+What would Voltaire say?
+
+EDSTASTON. Oh, never mind that vile scoffer. Set an example to Europe,
+Madam, by doing what I am going to do. Marry again. Marry some good man
+who will be a strength and support to your old age.
+
+CATHERINE. My old--[she again becomes speechless].
+
+EDSTASTON. Yes: we must all grow old, even the handsomest of us.
+
+CATHERINE [sinking into her chair with a gasp]. Thank you.
+
+EDSTASTON. You will thank me more when you see your little ones round
+your knee, and your man there by the fireside in the winter evenings--by
+the way, I forgot that you have no fireside here in spite of the
+coldness of the climate; so shall I say by the stove?
+
+CATHERINE. Certainly, if you wish. The stove by all means.
+
+EDSTASTON [impulsively]. Ah, Madam, abolish the stove: believe me, there
+is nothing like the good old open grate. Home! duty! happiness! they
+all mean the same thing; and they all flourish best on the drawing-room
+hearthrug. [Turning to Claire.] And now, my love, we must not detain the
+Queen: she is anxious to inspect the model of her museum, to which I am
+sure we wish every success.
+
+CLAIRE [coldly]. I am not detaining her.
+
+EDSTASTON. Well, goodbye [wringing Patiomkin's hand] goo-oo-oodbye,
+Prince: come and see us if ever you visit England. Spire View, Deepdene,
+Little Mugford, Devon, will always find me. [To Yarinka, kissing her
+hand.] Goodbye, Mademoiselle: goodbye, Little Mother, if I may call you
+that just once. [Varinka puts up her face to be kissed.] Eh? No, no, no,
+no: you don't mean that, you know. Naughty! [To the Sergeant.] Goodbye,
+my friend. You will drink our healths with this [tipping him].
+
+THE SERGEANT. The blessed Nicholas will multiply your fruits, Little
+Father.
+
+EDSTASTON. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.
+
+He goes out backwards, bowing, with Claire curtseying, having been
+listened to in utter dumbfoundedness by Patiomkin and Naryshkin, in
+childlike awe by Yarinka, and with quite inexpressible feelings by
+Catherine. When he is out of sight she rises with clinched fists and
+raises her arms and her closed eyes to Heaven. Patiomkin: rousing
+himself from his stupor of amazement, springs to her like a tiger, and
+throws himself at her feet.
+
+PATIOMKIN. What shall I do to him for you? Skin him alive? Cut off his
+eyelids and stand him in the sun? Tear his tongue out? What shall it be?
+
+CATHERINE [opening her eyes]. Nothing. But oh, if I could only have had
+him for my--for my--for my--
+
+PATIOMKIN [in a growl of jealousy]. For your lover?
+
+CATHERINE [with an ineffable smile]. No: for my museum.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Great Catherine, by George Bernard Shaw
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