Great Catherine (Whom Glory Still Adores) | Page 9

damn you!
PATIOMKIN [ecstatically]. Darling, your lips are the gates of truth. Now listen to me. [He marks off the items of his statement with ridiculous stiff gestures of his head and arms, imitating a puppet.] You are Captain Whatshisname; and your uncle is the Earl of Whatdyecallum; and your father is Bishop of Thingummybob; and you are a young man of the highest spr--promise (I told you I was drunk), educated at Cambridge, and got your step as captain in the field at the GLORIOUS battle of Bunker's Hill. Invalided home from America at the request of Aunt Fanny, Lady-in-Waiting to the Queen. All right, eh?
EDSTASTON. How do you know all this?
PATIOMKIN [crowing fantastically]. In er lerrer, darling, darling, darling, darling. Lerrer you showed me.
EDSTASTON. But you didn't read it.
PATIOMKIN [flapping his fingers at him grotesquely]. Only one eye, darling. Cross eye. Sees everything. Read lerrer inceince-istastaneously. Kindly give me vinegar borle. Green borle. On'y to sober me. Too drunk to speak porply. If you would be so kind, darling. Green borle. [Edstaston, still suspicious, shakes his head and keeps his pistols ready.] Reach it myself. [He reaches behind him up to the table, and snatches at the green bottle, from which he takes a copious draught. Its effect is appalling. His wry faces and agonized belchings are so heartrending that they almost upset Edstaston. When the victim at last staggers to his feet, he is a pale fragile nobleman, aged and quite sober, extremely dignified in manner and address, though shaken by his recent convulsions.] Young man, it is not better to be drunk than sober; but it is happier. Goodness is not happiness. That is an epigram. But I have overdone this. I am too sober to be good company. Let me redress the balance. [He takes a generous draught of brandy, and recovers his geniality.] Aha! That's better. And now listen, darling. You must not come to Court with pistols in your boots.
EDSTASTON. I have found them useful.
PATIOMKIN. Nonsense. I'm your friend. You mistook my intention because I was drunk. Now that I am sober--in moderation--I will prove that I am your friend. Have some diamonds. [Roaring.] Hullo there! Dogs, pigs: hullo!
The Sergeant comes in.
THE SERGEANT. God be praised, Little Father: you are still spared to us.
PATIOMKIN. Tell them to bring some diamonds. Plenty of diamonds. And rubies. Get out. [He aims a kick at the Sergeant, who flees.] Put up your pistols, darling. I'll give you a pair with gold handgrips. I am your friend.
EDSTASTON [replacing the pistols in his boots rather unwillingly]. Your Highness understands that if I am missing, or if anything happens to me, there will be trouble.
PATIOMKIN [enthusiastically]. Call me darling.
EDSTASTON. It is not the English custom.
PATIOMKIN. You have no hearts, you English! [Slapping his right breast.] Heart! Heart!
EDSTASTON. Pardon, your Highness: your heart is on the other side.
PATIOMKIN [surprised and impressed]. Is it? You are learned! You are a doctor! You English are wonderful! We are barbarians, drunken pigs. Catherine does not know it; but we are. Catherine's a German. But I have given her a Russian heart [he is about to slap himself again.]
EDSTASTON [delicately]. The other side, your Highness.
PATIOMKIN [maudlin]. Darling, a true Russian has a heart on both sides.
The Sergeant enters carrying a goblet filled with precious stones.
PATIOMKIN. Get out. [He snatches the goblet and kicks the Sergeant out, not maliciously but from habit, indeed not noticing that he does it.] Darling, have some diamonds. Have a fistful. [He takes up a handful and lets them slip back through his fingers into the goblet, which he then offers to Edstaston.]
EDSTASTON. Thank you, I don't take presents.
PATIOMKIN [amazed]. You refuse!
EDSTASTON. I thank your Highness; but it is not the custom for English gentlemen to take presents of that kind.
PATIOMKIN. Are you really an Englishman?
EDSTASTON [bows]!
PATIOMKIN. You are the first Englishman I ever saw refuse anything he could get. [He puts the goblet on the table; then turns again to Edstaston.] Listen, darling. You are a wrestler: a splendid wrestler. You threw me on my back like magic, though I could lift you with one hand. Darling, you are a giant, a paladin.
EDSTASTON [complacently]. We wrestle rather well in my part of England.
PATIOMKIN. I have a Turk who is a wrestler: a prisoner of war. You shall wrestle with him for me. I'll stake a million roubles on you.
EDSTASTON [incensed]. Damn you! do you take me for a prize-fighter? How dare you make me such a proposal?
PATIOMKIN [with wounded feeling]. Darling, there is no pleasing you. Don't you like me?
EDSTASTON [mollified]. Well, in a sort of way I do; though I don't know why I should. But my instructions are that I am to see the Empress; and--
PATIOMKIN. Darling, you shall see the Empress. A glorious woman, the greatest woman