Peter: Liar! Coward! Traitor! When the Polanders and the Swedes fell before me, didst thou congratulate me? Didst thou praise the Lord of Hosts? Wert thou not silent and civil and low-spirited?
Alexis: I lamented the irretrievable loss of human life, I lamented that the bravest and noblest were swept away the first, that order was succeeded by confusion, and that your majesty was destroying the glorious plans you alone were capable of devising.
Peter: Of what plans art thou speaking?
Alexis: Of civilising the Muscovites. The Polanders in parts were civilised; the Swedes more than any other nation.
Peter: Civilised, forsooth? Why the robes of the metropolitan, him at Upsal, are not worth three ducats. But I am wasting my words. Thine are tenets that strike at the root of politeness and sound government.
Alexis: When I hear the God of Mercy invoked to massacres, and thanked for furthering what He reprobates and condemns—I look back in vain on any barbarous people for worse barbarism.
Peter: Malignant atheist! Am I Czar of Muscovy, and hear discourse on reason and religion—from my own son, too? No, by the Holy Trinity! thou art no son of mine. Unnatural brute, I have no more to do with thee. Ho there! Chancellor! What! Come at last! Wert napping, or counting thy ducats?
Chancellor: Your majesty's will, and pleasure!
Peter: Is the senate assembled?
Chancellor: Every member, sire.