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printed for the last six months, Sire. I knew you would need them.
     
    Czar. That’s good! That’s very good! Let us begin at once. Ah, Prince, if every king in Europe had a minister like you —
     
    Czare. There would be less kings in Europe than there are.
     
    Czar ( in frightened whisper, to Prince Paul ). What does he mean? Do you trust him? His prison hasn’t cured him yet. Shall I banish him? Shall I ( whispers )...? The Emperor Paul did it. The Empress Catherine there( points to picture on the wall ) did it. Why shouldn’t I?
     
    Prince Paul. Your Majesty, there is no need for alarm. The Prince is a very ingenuous young man. He pretends to be devoted to the people, and lives in a palace; preaches socialism, and draws a salary that would support a province. He’ll find out one day that the best cure for Republicanism is the Imperial crown, and will cut up the “bonnet rogue” of Democracy to make decorations for his Prime Minister.
     
    Czar. You are right. If he really loved the people, he could not be my son.
     
    Prince Paul. If he lived with the people for a fortnight, their bad dinners would soon cure him of his democracy. Shall we begin, Sire?
     
    Czar. At once. Read the proclamation. Gentlemen, be seated. Alexis, Alexis, I say, come and hear it! It will be good practice for you; you will be doing it yourself some day.
     
    Czare. I have heard too much of it already. ( Takes his seat at the table. Count Rouvaloff whispers to him. )
     
    Czar. What are you whispering about there, Count Rouvaloff?
     
    Count R. I was giving his Royal Highness some good advice, your Majesty.
     
    Prince Paul. Count Rouvaloff is the typical spendthrift, Sire; he is always giving away what he needs most. ( Lays papers before the Czar . ) I think, Sire, you will approve of this:— “Love of the people,” “Father of his people,” “Martial law,” and the usual allusions to Providence in the last line. All it requires now is your Imperial Majesty’s signature.
     
    Czare. Sire!
     
    Prince Paul ( hurriedly ). I promise your Majesty to crush every Nihilist in Russia in six months if you sign this proclamation; every Nihilist in Russia.
     
    Czar. Say that again! To crush every Nihilist in Russia; to crush this woman, their leader, who makes war upon me in my own city. Prince Paul Maraloffski, I create you Marechale of the whole Russian Empire to help you to carry out martial law.
     
    Czar. Give me the proclamation. I will sign it at once.
     
    Prince Paul ( points on paper ). Here, Sire.
     
    Czare. ( starts up and puts his hands on the paper ). Stay! I tell you, stay! The priests have taken heaven from the people, and you would take the earth away too.
     
    Prince Paul. We have no time, Prince, now. This boy will ruin everything. The pen, Sire.
     
    Czare. What! is it so small a thing to strangle a nation, to murder a kingdom, to wreck an empire? Who are we who dare lay this ban of terror on a people? Have we less vices than they have, that we bring them to the bar of judgment before us?
     
    Prince Paul. What a Communist the Prince is! He would have an equal distribution of sin as well as of property.
     
    Czare. Warmed by the same sun, nurtured by the same air, fashioned of flesh and blood like to our own, wherein are they different to us, save that they starve while we surfeit, that they toil while we idle, that they sicken while we poison, that they die while we strangle?
     
    Czar. How dare — ?
     
    Czare. I dare all for the people; but you would rob them of common rights of common men.
     
    Czar. The people have no rights.
     
    Czare. Then they have great wrongs. Father, they have won your battles for you; from the pine forests of the Baltic to the palms of India they have ridden on victory’s mighty wings in search of your glory! Boy as I am in years, I have seen wave after wave of living men sweep up the heights of battle to their death; ay, and snatch perilous conquest from the scales of war when the