that?

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Bosh! How could a man travel with a woman's passport?

STRAMMFEST. It is quite simple, as you very well know. A dozen
travellers arrive at the boundary. The official collects their
passports. He counts twelve persons; then counts the passports. If there
are twelve, he is satisfied.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Then how do you know that one of the passports was
mine?

STRAMMFEST. A waiter at the Potterdam Hotel looked at the officer's
passport when he was in his bath. It was your passport.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Stuff! Why did he not have me arrested?

STRAMMFEST. When the waiter returned to the hotel with the police the
officer had vanished; and you were there with your own passport. They
knouted him.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. Oh! Strammfest, send these men away. I must speak to
you alone.

STRAMMFEST [rising in horror]. No: this is the last straw: I cannot
consent. It is impossible, utterly, eternally impossible, that a
daughter of the Imperial House should speak to any one alone, were it
even her own husband.

THE GRAND DUCHESS. You forget that there is an exception. She may speak
to a child alone. [She rises.] Strammfest, you have been dandled on my
grandmother's knee. By that gracious action the dowager Panjandrina made
you a child forever. So did Nature, by the way. I order you to speak to
me alone. Do you hear? I order you. For seven hundred years no member of
your family has ever disobeyed an order from a member of mine. Will you
disobey me?

STRAMMFEST. There is an alternative to obedience. The dead cannot
disobey. [He takes out his pistol and places the muzzle against his
temple.]

SCHNEIDEKIND [snatching the pistol from him]. For God's sake, General--

STRAMMFEST [attacking him furiously to recover the weapon]. Dog of a
subaltern, restore that pistol and my honor.

SCHNEIDEKIND [reaching out with the pistol to the Grand Duchess]. Take
it: quick: he is as strong as a bull.

THE GRAND DUCHESS [snatching it]. Aha! Leave the room, all of you except
the General. At the double! lightning! electricity! [She fires shot
after shot, spattering the bullets about the ankles of the soldiers.
They fly precipitately. She turns to Schneidekind, who has by this time
been flung on the floor by the General.] You too. [He scrambles up.]
March. [He flies to the door.]

SCHNEIDEKIND [turning at the door]. For your own sake, comrade--

THE GRAND DUCHESS [indignantly]. Comrade! You!!! Go. [She fires two