POMPDEBILE (magnanimously).  You may hold our hand too, Violetta.

VIOLETTA (fervently).  Oh, how good you are, how sympathetic!  But you see it’s impossible just now, as I have to change my gown—­unless you will come with me while I change.

CHANCELLOR (in a voice charged with inexpressible horror).  Your
Majesty!

POMPDEBILE.  Be quiet!  You have been discharged! (He starts to descend, when a HERALD bursts through the door in a state of great excitement.  He kneels before POMPDEBILE.)

HERALD.  We have found him; we have found him, Your Majesty.  In fact,_I_ found him all by myself!  He was sitting under the shrubbery eating a tart.  I stumbled over one of his legs and fell.  “How easy it is to send man and all his pride into the dust,” he said, and then—­I saw him!

POMPDEBILE.  Eating a tart!  Eating a tart, did you say?  The scoundrel!  Bring him here immediately.

(The HERALD rushes out and returns with the KNAVE, followed by the six little PAGES. The KNAVE carries a tray of tarts in his hand.)

POMPDEBILE (almost speechless with rage).  How dare you—­you—­you—­

KNAVE (bowing).  Knave, Your Majesty.

POMPDEBILE.  You Knave, you shall be punished for this.

CHANCELLOR.  Behead him, Your Majesty.

POMPDEBILE.  Yes, behead him at once.

VIOLETTA.  Oh, no, Pompy, not that!  It is not severe enough.

POMPDEBILE.  Not severe enough, to cut off a man’s head!  Really,
Violetta—­

VIOLETTA.  No, because, you see, when one has been beheaded, one’s consciousness that one has been beheaded comes off too.  It is inevitable.  And then, what does it matter, when one doesn’t know?  Let us think of something really cruel—­really fiendish.  I have it—­deprive him of social position for the rest of his life—­force him to remain a mere knave, forever.

POMPDEBILE.  You are right.

KNAVE.  Terrible as this punishment is, I admit that I deserve it,
Your Majesty.

POMPDEBILE.  What prompted you to commit this dastardly crime?

KNAVE.  All my life I have had a craving for tarts of any kind.  There is something in my nature that demands tarts—­something in my constitution that cries out for them—­and I obey my constitution as rigidly as does the Chancellor seek to obey his.  I was in the garden reading, as is my habit, when a delicate odor floated to my nostrils, a persuasive odor, a seductive, light brown, flaky odor, an odor so enticing, so suggestive of tarts fit for the gods—–­ that I could stand it no longer.  It was stronger than I. With one gesture I threw reputation, my chances for future happiness, to the winds, and leaped through the window.  The odor led me to the oven; I seized a tart, and, eating it, experienced the one perfect moment of my existence.  After having eaten that one tart, my craving for other tarts has disappeared.  I shall live with the memory of that first tart before me forever, or die content, having tasted true perfection.