The Grand Duchess Monologue from Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress

From Annajanska, the Bolshevik Empress by Bernard Shaw

female · anguished · 58 sec

My poor Strammfest: you were not often enough at court to tire of it. You were mostly soldiering; and when you came home to have a new order pinned on your breast, your happiness came through looking at my father and mother and at me, and adoring us. Was that not so? (STRAMMFEST: Do YOU reproach me with it? I am not ashamed of it.) Oh, it was all very well for you, Strammfest. But think of me, of me! standing there for you to gape at, and knowing that I was no goddess, but only a girl like any other girl! It was cruelty to animals: you could have stuck up a wax doll or a golden calf to worship; it would not have been bored.

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