CLAIRE. Serve you right! Where have they taken Captain Edstaston
to?

NARYSHKIN [spitefully]. To the Empress, little beauty. He has
insulted the Empress. He will receive a hundred and one blows of
the knout. [He laughs and goes out, nursing his bitten finger.]

THE SERGEANT. He will feel only the first twenty and he will be
mercifully dead long before the end, little darling.

CLAIRE [sustained by an invincible snobbery]. They dare not touch
an English officer. I will go to the Empress myself: she cannot
know who Captain Edstaston is--who we are.

THE SERGEANT. Do so in the name of the Holy Nicholas, little
beauty.

CLAIRE. Don't be impertinent. How can I get admission to the
palace?

THE SERGEANT. Everybody goes in and out of the palace, little
love.

CLAIRE. But I must get into the Empress's presence. I must speak
to her.

THE SERGEANT. You shall, dear Little Mother. You shall give the
poor old Sergeant a rouble; and the blessed Nicholas will make
your salvation his charge.