Count R. And the other half much worse?
Baron Raff. Oh, you wrong them, surely, Count. Wholesale trade has always been more respectable than retail.
Count R. But he is really too romantic. He objected yesterday to my having the monopoly of the salt tax. He said the people had a right to have cheap salt.
Marq. de Poiv. Oh, that's nothing; but he actually disapproved of a State banquet every night because there is a famine in the Southern provinces. (The young Czar enters unobserved, and overhears the rest.)
Prince Petro. Quelle bétise! The more starvation there is among the people, the better. It teaches them self-denial, an excellent virtue, Baron, an excellent virtue.
Baron Raff. I have often heard so; I have often heard so.
Gen. Kotemk. He talked of a Parliament, too, in Russia, and said the people should have deputies to represent them.
Baron Raff. As if there was not enough brawling in the streets already, but we must give the people a room to do it in. But, Messieurs, the worst is yet to come. He threatens a complete reform in the public service on the ground that the people are too heavily taxed.
Marq. de Poiv. He can't be serious there. What is the use of the people except[2] to get money out of? But talking of taxes, my dear Baron, you must really let me have forty thousand roubles to-morrow? my wife says she must have a new diamond bracelet.
Count R. (aside to Baron Raff). Ah, to match the one Prince Paul gave her last week, I suppose.