A triangular recess communicating by a heavily curtained arch with the
huge ballroom of the palace. The light is subdued by red shades on the
candles. In the wall adjoining that pierced by the arch is a door. The
only piece of furniture is a very handsome chair on the arch side. In
the ballroom they are dancing a polonaise to the music of a brass band.
Naryshkin enters through the door, followed by the soldiers carrying
Edstaston, still trussed to the pole. Exhausted and dogged, he makes no
sound.
NARYSHKIN. Halt. Get that pole clear of the prisoner. [They dump
Edstaston on the floor and detach the pole. Naryshkin stoops over him
and addresses him insultingly.] Well! are you ready to be tortured? This
is the Empress's private torture chamber. Can I do anything to make you
quite comfortable? You have only to mention it.
EDSTASTON. Have you any back teeth?
NARYSHKIN [surprised]. Why?
EDSTASTON. His Majesty King George the Third will send for six of them
when the news of this reaches London; so look out, damn your eyes!
NARYSHKIN [frightened]. Oh, I assure you I am only obeying my orders.
Personally I abhor torture, and would save you if I could. But the
Empress is proud; and what woman would forgive the slight you put upon
her?
EDSTASTON. As I said before: Damn your eyes!
NARYSHKIN [almost in tears]. Well, it isn't my fault. [To the soldiers,
insolently.] You know your orders? You remember what you have to do when
the Empress gives you the word? [The soldiers salute in assent.]
Naryshkin passes through the curtains, admitting a blare of music and
a strip of the brilliant white candlelight from the chandeliers in
the ballroom as he does so. The white light vanishes and the music is
muffled as the curtains fall together behind him. Presently the band
stops abruptly: and Naryshkin comes back through the curtains. He makes
a warning gesture to the soldiers, who stand at attention. Then he
moves the curtain to allow Catherine to enter. She is in full Imperial
regalia, and stops sternly just where she has entered. The soldiers fall
on their knees.
CATHERINE. Obey your orders.
The soldiers seize Edstaston, and throw him roughly at the feet of the
Empress.
CATHERINE [looking down coldly on him]. Also [the German word], you have
put me to the trouble of sending for you twice. You had better have come
the first time.
EDSTASTON [exsufflicate, and pettishly angry]. I haven't come either
time. I've been carried. I call it infernal impudence.
CATHERINE. Take care what you say.
EDSTASTON. No use. I daresay you look very majestic and very handsome;
but I can't see you; and I am not intimidated. I am an Englishman; and
you can kidnap me; but you can't bully me.
NARYSHKIN. Remember to whom you are speaking.
CATHERINE [violently, furious at his intrusion]. Remember that dogs
should be dumb. [He shrivels.] And do you, Captain, remember that famous
as I am for my clemency, there are limits to the patience even of an
Empress.
EDSTASTON. How is a man to remember anything when he is trussed up
in this ridiculous fashion? I can hardly breathe. [He makes a futile
struggle to free himself.] Here: don't be unkind, your Majesty: tell
these fellows to unstrap me. You know you really owe me an apology.
CATHERINE. You think you can escape by appealing, like Prince Patiomkin,
to my sense of humor?
EDSTASTON. Sense of humor! Ho! Ha, ha! I like that. Would anybody with
a sense of humor make a guy of a man like this, and then expect him to
take it seriously? I say: do tell them to loosen these straps.
CATHERINE [seating herself]. Why should I, pray?
EDSTASTON. Why! Why! Why, because they're hurting me.
CATHERINE. People sometimes learn through suffering. Manners, for
instance.
EDSTASTON. Oh, well, of course, if you're an ill-natured woman, hurting
me on purpose, I have nothing more to say.
CATHERINE. A monarch, sir, has sometimes to employ a necessary, and
salutary severity--
EDSTASTON [Interrupting her petulantly]. Quack! quack! quack!
CATHERINE. Donnerwetter!
EDSTASTON [continuing recklessly]. This isn't severity: it's tomfoolery.
And if you think it's reforming my character or teaching me anything,
you're mistaken. It may be a satisfaction to you; but if it is, all I
can say is that it's not an amiable satisfaction.
CATHERINE [turning suddenly and balefully on Naryshkin]. What are you
grinning at?
NARYSHKIN [falling on his knees in terror]. Be merciful, Little Mother.
My heart is in my mouth.
CATHERINE. Your heart and your mouth will be in two separate parts of
your body if you again forget in whose presence you stand. Go. And take
your men with you. [Naryshkin crawls to the door. The soldiers rise.]
Stop. Roll that [indicating Edstaston] nearer. [The soldiers obey.] Not
so close. Did I ask you for a footstool? [She pushes Edstaston away with
her foot.]
EDSTASTON [with a sudden squeal]. Agh!!! I must really ask your
Majesty not to put the point of your Imperial toe between my ribs. I am
ticklesome.
CATHERINE. Indeed? All the more reason for you to treat me with respect,
Captain. [To the others.] Begone. How many times must I give an order
before it is obeyed?
NARYSHKIN. Little Mother: they have brought some instruments of torture.
Will they be needed?
CATHERINE [indignantly]. How dare you name such abominations to a
Liberal Empress? You will always be a savage and a fool, Naryshkin.
These relics of barbarism are buried, thank God, in the grave of Peter
the Great. My methods are more civilized. [She extends her toe towards
Edstaston's ribs.]
EDSTASTON [shrieking hysterically]. Yagh! Ah! [Furiously.] If your
Majesty does that again I will write to the London Gazette.
CATHERINE [to the soldiers]. Leave us. Quick! do you hear? Five thousand
blows of the stick for the soldier who is in the room when I speak
next. [The soldiers rush out.] Naryshkin: are you waiting to be knouted?
[Naryshkin backs out hastily.]
Catherine and Edstaston are now alone. Catherine has in her hand a
sceptre or baton of gold. Wrapped round it is a new pamphlet, in French,
entitled L'Homme aux Quarante Ecus. She calmly unrolls this and begins
to read it at her ease as if she were quite alone. Several seconds
elapse in dead silence. She becomes more and more absorbed in the
pamphlet, and more and more amused by it.
CATHERINE [greatly pleased by a passage, and turning over the leaf].
Ausgezeiehnet!
EDSTASTON. Ahem!
Silence. Catherine reads on.
CATHERINE. Wie komisch!
EDSTASTON. Ahem! ahem!
Silence.
CATHERINE [soliloquizing enthusiastically]. What a wonderful author is
Monsieur Voltaire! How lucidly he exposes the folly of this crazy plan
for raising the entire revenue of the country from a single tax on land!
how he withers it with his irony! how he makes you laugh whilst he is
convincing you! how sure one feels that the proposal is killed by his
wit and economic penetration: killed never to be mentioned again among
educated people!
EDSTASTON. For Heaven's sake, Madam, do you intend to leave me tied up
like this while you discuss the blasphemies of that abominable infidel?
Agh!! [She has again applied her toe.] Oh! Oo!
CATHERINE [calmly]. Do I understand you to say that Monsieur Voltaire is
a great philanthropist and a great philosopher as well as the wittiest
man in Europe?
EDSTASTON. Certainly not. I say that his books ought to be burnt by
the common hangman [her toe touches his ribs]. Yagh! Oh don't. I shall
faint. I can't bear it.
CATHERINE. Have you changed your opinion of Monsieur Voltaire?
EDSTASTON. But you can't expect me as a member of the Church of England
[she tickles him] --agh! Ow! Oh Lord! he is anything you like. He is a
philanthropist, a philosopher, a beauty: he ought to have a statue, damn
him! [she tickles him]. No! bless him! save him victorious, happy and
glorious! Oh, let eternal honors crown his name: Voltaire thrice worthy
on the rolls of fame! [Exhausted.] Now will you let me up? And look
here! I can see your ankles when you tickle me: it's not ladylike.
CATHERINE [sticking out her toe and admiring it critically]. Is the
spectacle so disagreeable?
EDSTASTON. It's agreeable enough; only [with intense expression] for
heaven's sake don't touch me in the ribs.
CATHERINE [putting aside the pamphlet]. Captain Edstaston, why did you
refuse to come when I sent for you?
EDSTASTON. Madam, I cannot talk tied up like this.
CATHERINE. Do you still admire me as much as you did this morning?
EDSTASTON. How can I possibly tell when I can't see you? Let me get up
and look. I can't see anything now except my toes and yours.
CATHERINE. Do you still intend to write to the London Gazette about me?
EDSTASTON. Not if you will loosen these straps. Quick: loosen me. I'm
fainting.
CATHERINE. I don't think you are [tickling him].
EDSTASTON. Agh! Cat!
CATHERINE. What [she tickles him again].
EDSTASTON [with a shriek]. No: angel, angel!
CATHERINE [tenderly]. Geliebter!
EDSTASTON. I don't know a word of German; but that sounded kind.
[Becoming hysterical.] Little Mother, beautiful little darling angel
mother: don't be cruel: untie me. Oh, I beg and implore you. Don't be
unkind. I shall go mad.
CATHERINE. You are expected to go mad with love when an Empress deigns
to interest herself in you. When an Empress allows you to see her foot
you should kiss it. Captain Edstaston, you are a booby.
EDSTASTON [indignantly]. I am nothing of the kind. I have been mentioned
in dispatches as a highly intelligent officer. And let me warn your
Majesty that I am not so helpless as you think. The English Ambassador
is in that ballroom. A shout from me will bring him to my side; and then
where will your Majesty be?
CATHERINE. I should like to see the English Ambassador or anyone else
pass through that curtain against my orders. It might be a stone wall
ten feet thick. Shout your loudest. Sob. Curse. Scream. Yell [she
tickles him unmercifully].
EDSTASTON [frantically]. Ahowyou!!!! Agh! oh! Stop! Oh Lord! Ya-a-a-ah!
[A tumult in the ballroom responds to his cries].
VOICES FROM THE BALLROOM. Stand back. You cannot pass. Hold her back
there. The Empress's orders. It is out of the question. No, little
darling, not in there. Nobody is allowed in there. You will be sent to
Siberia. Don't let her through there, on your life. Drag her back. You
will be knouted. It is hopeless, Mademoiselle: you must obey orders.
Guard there! Send some men to hold her.
CLAIRE'S VOICE. Let me go. They are torturing Charles in there. I WILL
go. How can you all dance as if nothing was happening? Let me go, I tell
you. Let--me--go. [She dashes through the curtain, no one dares follow
her.]
CATHERINE [rising in wrath]. How dare you?
CLAIRE [recklessly]. Oh, dare your grandmother! Where is my Charles?
What are they doing to him?
EDSTASTON [shouting]. Claire, loosen these straps, in Heaven's name.
Quick.
CLAIRE [seeing him and throwing herself on her knees at his side]. Oh,
how dare they tie you up like that! [To Catherine.] You wicked wretch!
You Russian savage! [She pounces on the straps, and begins unbuckling
them.]
CATHERINE [conquering herself with a mighty effort]. Now self-control.
Self-control, Catherine. Philosophy. Europe is looking on. [She forces
herself to sit down.]
EDSTASTON. Steady, dearest: it is the Empress. Call her your Imperial
Majesty. Call her Star of the North, Little Mother, Little Darling:
that's what she likes; but get the straps off.
CLAIRE. Keep quiet, dear: I cannot get them off if you move.