Great Catherine
By Bernard Shaw
()
About this ebook
Read more from Bernard Shaw
The Perfect Wagnerite Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Black Girl In Search Of God And Some Lesser Tales Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRevolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Perfect Wagnerite, Commentary on the Ring Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maxims for Revolutionists Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBack to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mrs. Warren's Profession Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Tolstoy on Shakespeare: A Critical Essay on Shakespeare Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Admirable Bashville Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTHE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A SUPER-TRAMP: The life of William Henry Davies (With a preface by Bernard Shaw) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPygmalion: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man of Destiny Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsArms and the Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Man of Destiny Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Doctor's Dilemma Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Arms and the Man - An Anti-Romantic Comedy in Three Acts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pygmalion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeartbreak House Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMan and Superman: A Comedy and a Philosophy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMajor Barbara Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Inca of Perusalem Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Miraculous Revenge Little Blue Book #215 Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Caesar and Cleopatra Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Devil's Disciple Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to Great Catherine
Related ebooks
Great Catherine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5War and Peace Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Hounds of Heaven Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Duchess of Malfi Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Rajah's Sapphire Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gentleman Usher: 'I would not stand dreaming of the matter as I do now'' Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Corsican Brothers Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrederick the Great and His Family: A Historical Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe King In Prussia Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMinna Von Barnhelm Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWar and Peace: Bestsellers and famous Books Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Complete Works of John Webster Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWar and Peace Books I - V Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsOur Own Set: A Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWar & Peace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsErlach Court Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWar and Peace: Maude Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Bravest of the Brave — or, with Peterborough in Spain Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Top kindle war and Peace Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRose of the World Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJ. Storer Clouston – The Major Collection Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Gates Of Doom Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCastle Hohenwald: A Romance Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Secrets of Potsdam Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsJ. Storer Clouston: The Best Works Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWAR & PEACE: The Original Maude Translation Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Spanish Cavalier: A Story of Seville Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFrederick the Great and His Family: A Historical Novel Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings"O Thou, My Austria!" Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Black Moth Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
General Fiction For You
The Fellowship Of The Ring: Being the First Part of The Lord of the Rings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It Ends with Us: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Heroes: The Greek Myths Reimagined Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The King James Version of the Bible Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5You: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rebecca Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Unhoneymooners Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Outsider: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Priory of the Orange Tree Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life of Pi: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Cabin at the End of the World: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nettle & Bone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Covenant of Water (Oprah's Book Club) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Terminal List: A Thriller Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shantaram: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silmarillion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beartown: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dry: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dante's Divine Comedy: Inferno Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Labyrinth of Dreaming Books: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cloud Cuckoo Land: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The City of Dreaming Books Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ulysses: With linked Table of Contents Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Great Catherine
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Great Catherine - Bernard Shaw
Catherine
Bernard Shaw
THE FIRST SCENE
1776. Patiomkin in his bureau in the Winter Palace, St. Petersburgh. Huge palatial apartment: style, Russia in the eighteenth century imitating the Versailles du Roi Soleil. Extravagant luxury. Also dirt and disorder.
Patiomkin, gigantic in stature and build, his face marred by the loss of one eye and a marked squint in the other, sits at the end of a table littered with papers and the remains of three or four successive breakfasts. He has supplies of coffee and brandy at hand sufficient for a party of ten. His coat, encrusted with diamonds, is on the floor. It has fallen off a chair placed near the other end of the table for the convenience of visitors. His court sword, with its attachments, is on the chair. His three-cornered hat, also bejewelled, is on the table. He himself is half dressed in an unfastened shirt and an immense dressing-gown, once gorgeous, now food-splashed and dirty, as it serves him for towel, handkerchief, duster, and every other use to which a textile fabric can be put by a slovenly man. It does not conceal his huge hairy chest, nor his half-buttoned knee breeches, nor his legs. These are partly clad in silk stockings, which he occasionally hitches up to his knees, and presently shakes down to his shins, by his restless movement. His feet are thrust into enormous slippers, worth, with their crust of jewels, several thousand roubles apiece.
Superficially Patiomkin is a violent, brutal barbarian, an upstart despot of the most intolerable and dangerous type, ugly, lazy, and disgusting in his personal habits. Yet ambassadors report him the ablest man in Russia, and the one who can do most with the still abler Empress Catherine II, who is not a Russian but a German, by no means barbarous or intemperate in her personal habits. She not only disputes with Frederick the Great the reputation of being the cleverest monarch in Europe, but may even put in a very plausible claim to be the cleverest and most attractive individual alive. Now she not only tolerates Patiomkin long after she has got over her first romantic attachment to him, but esteems him highly as a counsellor and a good friend. His love letters are among the best on record. He has a wild sense of humor, which enables him to laugh at himself as well as at everybody else. In the eyes of the English visitor now about to be admitted to his presence he may be an outrageous ruffian. In fact he actually is an outrageous ruffian, in no matter whose eyes; but the visitor will find out, as everyone else sooner or later fends out, that he is a man to be reckoned with even by those who are not intimidated by his temper, bodily strength, and exalted rank.
A pretty young lady, Yarinka, his favorite niece, is lounging on an ottoman between his end of the table and the door, very sulky and dissatisfied, perhaps because he is preoccupied with his papers and his brandy bottle, and she can see nothing of him but his broad back.
There is a screen behind the ottoman.
An old soldier, a Cossack sergeant, enters.
THE SERGEANT [softly to the lady, holding the door handle]. Little darling honey, is his Highness the prince very busy?
VARINKA. His Highness the prince is very busy. He is singing out of tune;