PRINCE PAUL:

[(calmly)] I see your Highness does want change of air. But I have been an eldest son myself. [(Lights a cigarette.)] I know what it is when a father won't die to please one.

The CZAREVITCH goes to the top of the stage, and leans against the window, looking oat.

PRINCE PETROVITCH:

[(to BARON RAFF)] Foolish boy! He will be sent into exile, or worse, if he is not careful.

BARON RAFF:

Yes. What a mistake it is to be sincere!

PRINCE PETROVITCH:

The only folly you never committed, Baron.

BARON RAFF:

One has only one head, you know, Prince.

PRINCE PAUL:

My dear Baron, your head is the last thing any one would wish to take from you. [(Pulls out snuff-box and offers it to PRINCE PETROVITCH.)]

PRINCE PETROVITCH:

Thanks, Prince! Thanks!

PRINCE PAUL:

Very delicate, isn't it? I get it direct from Paris. But under this vulgar Republic everything has degenerated over there. Côtelettes à l'impériale vanished of course with the Bonaparte, and omelettes went our with the Orleanists. La belle France is entirely ruined, Prince, through bad morals and worse cookery. [(Enter the MARQUIS DE POIVRARD.)] Ah! Marquis. I trust Madame la Marquise is well.

MARQUIS DE POIVRARD:

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

PRINCE PAUL:

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

PRINCE PETROVITCH:

[(looking at the clock)] His Majesty is a little late to-day, is he not?

PRINCE PAUL:

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

PRINCE PETROVITCH:

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

PRINCE PAUL:

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

PRINCE PETROVITCH:

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

PRINCE PAUL:

[(aside)] True! Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.

PRINCE PETROVITCH:

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

PRINCE PAUL:

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

BARON RAFF:

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 ROUVALOFF:

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.