l speech. Love of country is a prejudice, an idea that has had its
day, that had sense in the times of Epaminondas or of Theseus, but that
has it no longer. We live in the age of the telegraph, the locomotive;
and I know of nothing more absurd now than a frontier, or more
ridiculous than a patriot. Rumour says that you fought like a hero in
the insurrection of 1863; that you gave proof of incomparable prowess,
and that you killed with your own hand ten Cossacks? What harm had they
done you, those poor Cossacks? Do they not sometimes haunt your dreams?
Can you think of your victims without disquietude and without remorse?"

He replied, in a dry, haughty tone: "I really do not know, princess, how
many Cossacks I have killed; but I do know that there are some subjects
on which I do not love to expatiate."

"You are right--I should not comprehend you. Don Quixote did not do
Sancho the honour to explain himself to him every day."

"Ah, I beg of you, let us talk a little of the man-monkey," he observed,
in a rather more pliant tone than he had at first assumed. "That is a
question that has the advantage of being neither Russian nor Polish."

"You will not succeed that way in throwing me off the track. I mean to
tell you all the evil I think of you, no matter how it may incense you.
You uttered, at table, theories that displeased me. You are not only a
Polish patriot; you are an idealist, a true disciple of Plato, and you
do not know how I always have detested this man. In all these
sixty years that I have been in this world, I have seen nothing but
selfishness, and grasping after self-gratification. Twice during
dinner you spoke of an ideal world. What is an ideal world? Where is it
situated? You speak of it as of a house whose inhabitants you are well
acquainted with, whose key is in your pocket. Can you show me the key? I
promise not to steal it from you. O poet!--for you are quite as much of
a poet as of a Pole, which is not saying much--"

"Nothing remains but to hang me," he interposed, smilingly.

"No, I shall not hang you. Opinions are free, and there is room enough
in the world for all, even idealists. Besides, if you were to be hanged,
it would bring to the verge of despair a charming girl who adores you,
who was created expressly for you, and whom you will shortly marry. When
will the ceremony take place?"

"If I dared hope that you would do me the honour of being present,
princess, I should postpone it until