Platoff went so far as to suggest: "Had they not seen enough foreign products, and would it not be better to betake themselves to Russia?" but the Emperor says: "No, I desire to behold still other novelties. They have boasted to me that they make the very finest sort of sugar here."
They drove off.
The Englishmen kept showing the Emperor the different prime products they had, but Platoff stared and stared, and suddenly said: "Show us your manufactures of molva sugar."[11]
But the Englishmen did not even know what molva was. They whispered together, and winked at one another, and kept repeating "Molva, molva" but they could not understand that such a sugar was made in our parts, and were obliged to confess that they had all sorts of sugar, but not molva.
Platoff says: "Well, then, you have nothing to brag about. Come to us, and we will treat you to tea with real molva from the Bobrinsky factories."[12]
But the Emperor plucked him by the sleeve, and said softly: "Please don't ruin my politics."
Then the Englishmen invited the Emperor to the last museum of all, where were collected all the mineral stones and nymfozoria[13] from the whole world, beginning with the hugest Egyptian Keramids,[14] and going down to the subcutaneous flea, which cannot be seen by the eye, though its bite is between the skin and the body.
The Emperor went.