This gives me pleasure, and
wherefore is the world here but to be enjoyed?"
"A little also for labor," said Stephano, with a sly smile.
"For that I have my slaves, for that I have also you!" responded Orloff,
laughing. "There is only one labor for me here in Rome, and that is to
create as much disturbance as possible in the city; to set the people
at odds with the government, so that they may have their hands full, and
find no time for observing our nice game with our little princess, or
to interfere with it. We must have freedom of action, that is the most
important. Hence we must protect these pious Jesuits, and offer support
to the enemies of this too-enterprising pope, by which means we shall
ultimately attain our own ends, and that is enough for us!"
"We have not yet advanced a step with our Princess Natalie," said
Stephano, shrugging his shoulders; "that, it seems, is an impregnable
fortress!"
"It must, however, yield to us," laughingly responded Alexis Orloff,
"and she shall yet acknowledge us as conquerors. We are undermining,
Stephano, and when the building crushes her in its crashing fall, will
she first discover that she has long been in danger. And what said
you--that we have not yet advanced a step? And yet Rasczinsky is gone,
and we have known how to keep Cardinal Bernis, who would have interested
himself for the little one, so very much occupied with the affair of the
Jesuits, that he has yet had no time to think of the princess.
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