COUNT ROUVALOFF:

Still, anything is better than being kept in a sort of prison, like he was---never allowed to go out into the world.

PRINCE PAUL:

My dear Count, for romantic young people like he is the world always looks best at a distance; and a prison where one's allowed to order one's own dinner is not at all a bad place. [(Enter the CZAREVITCH. The courtiers rise.)] Ah! Good afternoon, Prince Your Highness is looking a little pale to-day.

CZAREVITCH:

[(slowly, after a pause)] I want change of air.

PRINCE PAUL:

[(smiling)] A most revolutionary sentiment! Your Imperial father would highly disapprove of any reforms even with the thermometer in Russia.

CZAREVITCH:

[(bitterly)] My Imperial father had kept me for six months in this dungeon of a palace. This morning he has me suddenly woke up to see some wretched Nihilists hung; it sickened me, the bloody butchery, though it was a noble thing to see how well these men can die.

PRINCE PAUL:

When you are as old as I am, Prince, you will understand that there are few things easier than to live badly and to die well.

CZAREVITCH:

Easy to die well! A lesson experience cannot have taught you, much as you know of a bad life.

PRINCE PAUL:

[(shrugging his shoulders)] Experience, the name men give to their mistakes. I never commit any.

CZAREVITCH:

[(bitterly)] No; crimes are more in your line.

PRINCE PETROVITCH:

[(to the CZAREVITCH)] The Emperor was a good deal agitated about your late appearance at the ball last night, Prince.

COUNT ROUVALOFF:

[(laughing)] I believe he thought the Nihilists had broken into the palace and carried you off.

BARON RAFF:

If they had you would have missed a charming dance.

PRINCE PAUL:

And an excellent supper. Gringoire really excelled himself in his salad. Ah! you may laugh, Baron; but to cook a good salad is a much more difficult thing than cooking accounts. To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist---the problem is entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one's vinegar.

BARON RAFF:

A cook and a diplomatist! an excellent parallel. If I had a son who was a fool I'd make him one or the other.

PRINCE PAUL:

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

CZAREVITCH:

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

PRINCE PAUL:

[(bowing)] You forget---or, how could they be? I manage your father's business.

CZAREVITCH:

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

The courtiers look significantly at each other.