COLONEL. Well, we can try!
GENERAL [getting irritable] No need to try! I don't need to try! I have served the Tsar for forty-four years, I have given and am giving my life to the service, and now this fellow wants to teach me and wants to read me theological lectures! Let him take that to the Priest, but to me—he is either a soldier or a prisoner. That's all!
Enter Borís guarded by two Soldiers and followed by Adjutant and Clerk.
GENERAL [pointing with a finger] Place him there.
BORÍS. I need no placing. I shall stand or sit where I like, for I do not recognise your authority.
GENERAL. Silence! You don't recognise authority? I will make you recognise it.
BORÍS [sits down on a stool] How wrong it is of you to shout so!
GENERAL. Lift him, and make him stand!
Soldiers raise him.
BORÍS. That you can do, and you can kill me; but you cannot make me submit …