Prince
Petrovitch, of practising self-denial, that excellent virtue! that
excellent virtue! So, Baron, you think a Parliament in Russia would be
merely a place for brawling. Well, I will see that the reports of each
session are sent to you regularly.

BARON RAFF. Sire, you are adding another horror to exile.

CZAR. But you will have such time for literature now. You forget you are
diplomatists. Men of thought should have nothing to do with action.

PRINCE PETRO. Sire, we did but jest.

CZAR. Then I banish you for your bad jokes. Bon voyage, Messieurs.[4] If
you value your lives you will catch the first train for Paris. (_Exeunt
MINISTERS._) Russia is well rid of such men as these. They are the
jackals that follow in the lion's track. [5]They have no courage
themselves, except to pillage and rob.[5] But for these men and for
Prince Paul my father would have been a good king, would not have died
so horribly as he did die. How strange it is, the most real parts of
one's life always seem to be a dream! The council, the fearful law which
was to kill the people, the arrest, the cry in the courtyard, the
pistol-shot, my father's bloody hands, and then the crown! One can live
for years sometimes, without living at all, and then all life comes
crowding into a single hour. I had no time to think. Before my father's
hideous shriek of death had died in my ears I found this crown on my
head, the purple robe around me, and heard myself called a king. I would
have given it up all then; it seemed nothing to me then; but now, can I
give it up now? Well, Colonel, well? (_Enter COLONEL OF THE GUARD._)

COLONEL. What password does your Imperial Majesty desire should be given
to-night?

CZAR. Password?

COLONEL. [6]For the cordon of[6] guards, Sire, on night duty around the
palace.

CZAR. You can dismiss them. I have no need of them. (_Exit COLONEL._)
(_Goes to the crown lying on the table._) What subtle potency lies
hidden in this gaudy bauble, the crown,[7] that makes one feel like a
god when one wears it? To hold in one's hand this little fiery coloured
world, to reach out one's arm to earth's uttermost limit, to girdle the
seas with one's hosts; this is to wear a crown! to wear a crown! The
meanest serf in Russia who is loved is better crowned than I. How love
outweighs the balance! How poor appears the widest empire of this
golden world when matched with love! Pent up in this palace, with spies
dogging every step, I have hear