Page:Five Russian plays and one Ukrainian.pdf/137

 in Greece are one thing, and the people in Russia are another. And the “karavia” which sail on the sea you call ships, and those that go on land you call railways—I understand well. We are Greeks, you are Russians, and I want nothing—I can say—Russia is one thing and Greece is another. (Enter Newnin.)


 * Stop, ladies and gentlemen, don’t go on eating! Wait a little! Madame, just half a minute! Please come here! (Takes Nastasia aside, breathlessly.) Listen, the general’s just coming. At last I’ve found one. I was simply in agony. A real general, in the flesh, old, eighty, perhaps, or ninety, years old


 * When is he coming?


 * This very moment. You’ll be grateful to me all your life. He’s not a general, he’s a peach! A marvel! Not any foot regiment, not infantry at all, but navy! In rank he’s a secondgrade captain, and with them, in the navy, that’s just the same as a field-marshal or, in civil rank, a privy councillor. Absolutely the same! Even higher!


 * You’re not deceiving me, Andrew?


 * Now, am I a rascal? Don’t you worry.