COUNT ROUVALOFF:
But he is really too romantic. He objected yesterday to my having the monopoly of the salt tax. He said the people had a right to have cheap salt.
MARQUIS DE POIVRARD:
Oh, that s nothing; but he actually disapproved of a State banquet every night because there is a famine in the Southern provinces. [(The young CZAR enters unobserved, and overhears the rest.)]
PRINCE PETROVITCH:
Quelle betise! The more starvation there is among the people the better. It teaches them self-denial, an excellent virtue, Baron.
BARON RAFF:
I have often heard so.
GENERAL KOTEMKIN:
He talked of a Parliament, too, in Russia, and said the people should have deputies to represent them.
BARON RAFF:
As if there was not enough brawling in the streets already, but we must give the people a room to do it in. But, Messieurs, the worst is yet to come. He threatens a complete reform of the public service on the ground that the people are too heavily taxed.
MARQUIS DE POIVRARD:
He can t be serious there. What is the use of the people except for us to get money out of? But talking of the taxes, my dear Baron you must really let me have forty thousand roubles to-morrow; my wife says she must have a new diamond bracelet.
COUNT ROUVALOFF:
[(aside to BARON RAFF)] Ah, to match the one Prince Paul gave her last week, I suppose.
PRINCE PETROVITCH:
I must have sixty thousand roubles at once, Baron. My son is overwhelmed with debts of honour which he can't pay.
BARON RAFF:
What an excellent son to imitate his father so carefully!
GENERAL KOTEMKIN:
You are always getting money. I never get a single kopeck I have not got a right to. It's unbearable; it's ridiculous! My nephew is going to be married. I must get his dowry for him.
PRINCE PETROVITCH:
My dear General, your nephew must be a perfect Turk. He seems to get married three times a week regularly.
GENERAL KOTEMKIN:
Well, he wants a dowry to console him.
COUNT ROUVALOFF:
I am sick of town. I want a house in the country.
MARQUIS DE POIVRARD:
I am sick of the country. I want a house in town.
BARON RAFF:
Gentlemen, I am extremely sorry for you. It is out of the question.
PRINCE PETROVITCH:
But my son, Baron?
GENERAL KOTEMKIN:
But my nephew?
MARQUIS DE POIVRARD:
But my house in town?
COUNT ROUVALOFF:
But my house in the country?
MARQUIS DE POIVRARD:
But my wife's diamond bracelet?
BARON RAFF:
Gentlemen, impossible! The old régime in Russia is dead; the funeral begins to-day.
COUNT ROUVALOFF:
Then I shall wait for the resurrection.
PRINCE PETROVITCH:
Yes; but, en attendant, what are we to do?
BARON RAFF:
What have we always done in Russia when a Czar suggests reform?---nothing. You forget we are diplomatists. Men of thought should have nothing to do with action. Reforms in Russia are very tragic, but they always end in a farce.
COUNT ROUVALOFF:
I wish Prince Paul were here. By the by, I think this boy is rather ungrateful to him.
