"True, marshal; for though the bill affects to treat both creeds, Latin and Greek, alike, yet inasmuch as the Latin convents are numerous and wealthy, while those of the Greek faith are few and comparatively poor—"
"It's a case of 'I'll share my kopek with you, if you'll share your rouble with me,' eh?"
"Just so, marshal. Well, the bill was rushed through its first reading—"
"Fire and brimstone! where, then, was our party with its splendid majority?"
"You forget that Rubini was here last night."
"Who's he?" asked Zabern, whose ignorance of everybody and everything outside the circle of politics was simply astounding.
"Come, marshal, you jest—Rubini, the Italian, the great opera-singer."
"The devil fly away with him! Well?"
"The opera was 'The Bohemian Girl.' Rubini took the part of Thaddeus. It would have brought the tears to your eyes, marshal, to hear him sing, 'When the fair land of Poland was ploughed.'"
"It would—to hear a damnable Italian turning the sorrows of our fatherland into a medium for putting rouble-notes into his pockets. But what has this to do with the Diet?"