ou surprise me very much, Baron.

BARON R. 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 R. 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.

CZARE. (_coming back from the window_). I don't think Prince Paul's
nature is such a mystery. He would stab his best friend for the sake of
writing an epigram on his tombstone, or experiencing a new sensation.

PRINCE PAUL. Parbleu! I would sooner lose my best friend than my worst
enemy. To have friends, you know, one need only be good-natured; but
when a man has no enemy left there must be something mean about him.

CZARE. (_bitterly_). If to have enemies is a measure of greatness, then
you must be a Colossus, indeed, Prince.

PRINCE PAUL. Yes, I know I'm the most hated man in Russia, except your
father, [9]except your father, of course,[9] Prince. He doesn't seem to
like it much, by the way, but I do, I assure you. (_Bitterly._) I love
to drive through the streets and see how the canaille scowl at me from
every corner. It makes me feel I am a power in Russia; one man against a
hundred millions! Besides, I have no ambition to be a popular hero, to
be crowned with laurels one year and pelted with stones the next; I
prefer dying peaceably in my own bed.

CZARE. And after death?

PRINCE PAUL (_shrugging his shoulders_). Heaven is a despotism. I shall
be at home there.

CZARE. Do you never think of the people and their rights?

PRINCE PAUL. The people and their rights bore me. I am sick of both. In
these modern days to be vulgar, illiterate, common and vicious, seems to
give a man a marvellous infinity of rights that his honest fathers never
dreamed of. Believe me, Prince, in good democracy every man should be an
aristocrat; but these people in Russia who seek to thrust us out are no
better than the animals in one's preserves, and made to be shot at, most
of them.

CZARE. (_excitedly_). If they are[10] common, illiterate, vulgar, no
better than the beasts of the field, who made them so?

(_Enter AIDE-DE-CAMP._)

AIDE-DE-CAMP. His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor! (_PRINCE PAUL looks at
the CZAREVITCH, and smiles._)

(_Enter the CZAR, surrounded by his guard._)

CZARE. (_rushing forw