Go. I am offended.
PATIOMKIN. Don't scold, Lil Mother.
CATHERINE [imperiously]. Go.
PATIOMKIN [rising unsteadily]. Yes: go. Go bye bye. Very sleepy.
Berr go bye bye than go Siberia. Go bye bye in Lil Mother's bed
[he pretends to make an attempt to get into the bed].
CATHERINE [energetically pulling him back]. No, no! Patiomkin!
What are you thinking of? [He falls like a log on the floor,
apparently dead drunk.]
THE PRINCESS DASHKOFF. Scandalous! An insult to your Imperial
Majesty!
CATHERINE. Dashkoff: you have no sense of humor. [She steps down
to the door level and looks indulgently at Patiomkin. He gurgles
brutishly. She has an impulse of disgust.] Hog. [She kicks him as
hard as she can.] Oh! You have broken my toe. Brute. Beast.
Dashkoff is quite right. Do you hear?
PATIOMKIN. If you ask my pi-pinion of Dashkoff, my pipinion is
that Dashkoff is drunk. Scanlous. Poor Patiomkin go bye bye. [He
relapses into drunken slumbers.]
Some of the courtiers move to carry him away.
CATHERINE [stopping them]. Let him lie. Let him sleep it off. If
he goes out it will be to a tavern and low company for the rest
of the day. [Indulgently.] There! [She takes a pillow from the
bed and puts it under his head: then turns to Edstaston: surveys
him with perfect dignity: and asks, in her queenliest manner.
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