PETER: And so, after flying from thy father's house, thou hast returned again from Vienna. After this affront in the face of Europe, thou darest to appear before me?
ALEXIS: My emperor and father! I am brought before your majesty not at my own desire.
PETER: I believe it well. What hope hast thou, rebel, in thy flight to Vienna?
ALEXIS: The hope of peace and privacy; the hope of security, and, above all things, of never more offending you.
ALEXIS: A few gold pieces. Hitherto your liberality, my father, hath supplied my wants of every kind.
PETER: Not of wisdom, not of duty, not of spirit, not of courage, not of ambition. I have educated thee among my guards and horses, among my drums and trumpets, among my flags and masts. I have rolled cannon balls before thee over iron plates; I have shown thee bright new arms, bayonets, and sabres. I have myself led thee forth to the window when fellows were hanged and shot; and I have made thee, in spite of thee, look steadfastly upon them, incorrigible coward! Thy intention, I know, is to subvert the institutions it has been the labour of my lifetime to establish. Thou hast never rejoiced at my victories.
ALEXIS: I have rejoiced at your happiness and your safety.
PETER: Liar! Coward! Traitor! When the Polanders and the Swedes fell before me, didst thou congratulate me? Didst thou praise the Lord of Hosts? Wert thou not silent and civil and low-spirited?
ALEXIS: I lamented the irretrievable loss of human life, I lamented that the bravest and noblest were swept away the first, that order was succeeded by confusion, and that your majesty was destroying the glorious plans you alone were capable of devising.
ALEXIS: Of civilising the Muscovites. The Polanders in parts were civilised; the Swedes more than any other nation.
PETER: Civilised, forsooth? Why the robes of the metropolitan, him at Upsal, are not worth three ducats. But I am wasting my words. Thine are tenets that strike at the root of politeness and sound government.
ALEXIS: When I hear the God of Mercy invoked to massacres, and thanked for furthering what He reprobates and condemns--I look back in vain on any barbarous people for worse barbarism.
PETER: Malignant atheist! Am I Czar of Muscovy, and hear discourse on reason and religion--from my own son, too? No, by the Holy Trinity! thou art no son of mine. Unnatural brute, I have no more to do with thee. Ho there! Chancellor! What! Come at last! Wert napping, or counting thy ducats?