The Complete Plays of Oscar Wilde. Оскар Уайльд

how well these men can die.

      Prince Paul. When you are as old as I am, Prince, you will understand that there are few things easier than to live badly and to die well.

      Czare. Easy to die well! A lesson experience cannot have taught you, whatever you may know of a bad life.

      Prince Paul (shrugging his shoulders). Experience, the name men give to their mistakes. I never commit any.

      Czare. (bitterly). No; crimes are more in your line.

      Prince Petro. (to the Czarevitch). The Emperor was a good deal agitated about your late appearance at the ball last night, Prince.

      Count R. (laughing). I believe he thought the Nihilists had broken into the palace and carried you off.

      Baron Raff. If they had you would have missed a charming dance.

      Prince Paul. And an excellent supper. Gringoire really excelled himself in his salad. Ah! you may laugh, Baron; but to make a good salad is a much more difficult thing than cooking accounts. To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist — the problem is so entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one’s vinegar.

      Baron Raff. A cook and a diplomatist! an excellent parallel. If I had a son who was a fool I’d make him one or the other.

      Prince Paul. I see your father did not hold the same opinion, Baron. But, believe me, you are wrong to run down cookery. For myself, the only immortality I desire is to invent a new sauce. I have never had time enough to think seriously about it, but I feel it is in me, I feel it is in me.

      Czare. You have certainly missed your Prince Paul; the metier,cordon bleu would have suited you much better than the Grand Cross of Honour. But you know you could never have worn your white apron well; you would have soiled it too soon, your hands are not clean enough.

      Prince Paul (bowing). Que voulez vous? I manage your father’s business.

      Czare. (bitterly). You mismanage my father’s business, you mean! Evil genius of his life that you are! before you came there was some love left in him. It is you who have embittered his nature, poured into his ear the poison of treacherous counsel, made him hated by the whole people, made him what he is — a tyrant!

      (The courtiers look significantly at each other.) 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 out.) Prince Petro. (He will be sent into exile, or worse, if he is not careful.to Baron Raff). Foolish boy!

      Baron Raff. Yes. What a mistake it is to be sincere!

      Prince Petro. The only folly you have 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 snuffbox and offers it to Prince Petrovitch.)

      Prince Petro. 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. “Cotelettes à l’impériale” vanished, of course, with the Bourbon, and omelettes went out 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 P. 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 Petro. (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 Petro. 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? I find both of them such excellent 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 Petro. Wrong again, Prince; the Nihilists leave me alone for some reason or other.

      Prince Paul (aside). Ah! true. I forgot. Indifference is the revenge the world takes on mediocrities.

      Prince Petro. 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 R. Prince, I have been thinking a good deal lately —

      Prince Paul (interrupting). You 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, except your father, of course, 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. ( common, illiterate, vulgar, no better than the beasts of the field, who made them so?excitedly). If they are

      (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