Читать книгу Peter and Alexis. The Romance of Peter the Great онлайн

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“Your mistress costs you twice your salary!” screamed one.

“Have you forgotten the pickled cibarins?” retorted the other.

Cibarins were pieces of gold, which a cunning petitioner had offered in a small barrel under the guise of mushrooms.

“And how much hemp supplied to the Admiralty did you take off at a gulp, eh?”

“Ah, friends, what is the use of blaming one another? everybody longs for what is good; whether honourable or swindlers, all men are sinners.”

“Bribes are mere accidents!”

“To accept nothing from the petitioners is against nature.”

“Yet by law——”

“What is law but a carriage pole? you can swing it whichever way you like——”

The Tsar listened attentively. It is his custom, when all are drunk, to double the guards and let no one pass out of the door. At the same time, the Tsar, who is never drunk, much as he may take, tries purposely to provoke quarrels among them. He then learns what he could never have known otherwise. There is a proverb to this effect—“When rogues fall out honest men come by their own.” The banquet develops into a public inquiry into character.