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diff --git a/29745.txt b/29745.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4df64fe --- /dev/null +++ b/29745.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15320 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lonely Way--Intermezzo--Countess Mizzie, by +Arthur Schnitzler + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Lonely Way--Intermezzo--Countess Mizzie + Three Plays + +Author: Arthur Schnitzler + +Translator: Edwin Bjorkman + +Release Date: August 21, 2009 [EBook #29745] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE PLAYS *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +THE LONELY WAY: + +INTERMEZZO: + +COUNTESS MIZZIE + + + +THREE PLAYS BY + +ARTHUR SCHNITZLER + + + +TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN +WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY +EDWIN BJOeRKMAN + + + +NEW YORK +MITCHELL KENNERLEY +MCMXV + +COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY MITCHELL KENNERLEY + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +INTRODUCTION vii + +THE LONELY WAY 1 + +INTERMEZZO 139 + +COUNTESS MIZZIE 261 + + + + +INTRODUCTION + + +Hermann Bahr, the noted playwright and critic, tried one day to explain +the spirit of certain Viennese architecture to a German friend, who +persisted in saying: "Yes, yes, but always there remains something that +I find curiously foreign." At that moment an old-fashioned Spanish +state carriage was coming along the street, probably on its way to or +from the imperial palace. The German could hardly believe his eyes and +expressed in strong terms his wonderment at finding such a relic +surviving in an ultra-modern town like Vienna. + +"You forget that our history is partly Spanish," Bahr retorted. "And +nothing could serve better than that old carriage to explain what you +cannot grasp in our art and poetry." + +A similar idea has been charmingly expressed by Hugo von Hofmannsthal +in the poem he wrote in 1892--when he was still using the pseudonym of +"Loris"--as introduction to "Anatol." I am now adding a translation of +that poem to my own introduction, because I think it will be of help in +reading the plays of this volume. The scene painted by Hofmannsthal +might, on the whole, be used as a setting for "Countess Mizzie." For a +more detailed version of that scene he refers us to "Canaletto's +Vienna"--that is, to the group of thirteen Viennese views which were +painted about 1760 by the Venetian Bernardo Belotto (who, like his more +famous uncle and model, Antonio Canale, was generally called +Canaletto), and which are now hanging in one of the galleries of the +_Kunsthistorische Hofmuseum_ at Vienna. The spirit of those pictures +may be described, I am told, as one of stately grace. They are full of +Latin joy in life and beauty. They speak of an existence constantly +softened by concern for the amenities of life. It is just what survives +of their atmosphere that frequently makes foreigners speak of Vienna +with a tender devotion not even surpassed by that bestowed on Paris or +Rome. + +An attempt to understand the atmosphere and spirit of modern Vienna +will carry us far toward a correct appreciation of Schnitzler's art. +And it is not enough to say that Vienna is one of the oldest cities in +Europe. It is not even enough to say that it preserves more of the past +than Paris or London, for instance. What we must always bear in mind is +its position as the meeting place not only of South and North but also +of past and present. In some ways it is a melting-pot on a larger scale +than New York even. Racially and lingually, it belongs to the North. +Historically and psychologically, it belongs to the South. Economically +and politically, it lives very much in the present. Socially and +esthetically, it has always been strongly swayed by tradition. The +anti-Semitic movement, which formed such a characteristic feature of +Viennese life during the last few decades, must be regarded as the last +stand of vanishing social traditions against a growing pressure of +economical requirements. + +Like all cities sharply divided within itself and living above a +volcano of half-suppressed passions, Vienna tends to seek in abandoned +gayety, in a frank surrender to the senses, that forgetfulness without +which suicide would seem the only remaining alternative. Emotions kept +constantly at the boiling-point must have an outlet, lest they burst +their container. Add to this sub-conscious or unconscious craving for a +neutral outlet, the traditional pressure of the Latin inheritance, and +we have the greater part of the causes that explain Schnitzler's +preoccupation with the themes of love and death. For Schnitzler is +first of all Viennese. + + * * * * * + +Arthur Schnitzler was born at Vienna on May 15, 1862. His father was +Professor Johann Schnitzler, a renowned Jewish throat specialist. I am +told that _Professor Bernhardi_ in the play of the same name must be +regarded as a pretty faithful portrait of the elder Schnitzler, who, +besides his large and important practice, had many other interests, +including an extensive medical authorship and the editing of the +_Wiener klinische Rundschau_. It is also to be noticed that _Professor +Bernhardi_ has among his assistants a son, who divides his time between +medicine and the composition of waltz music. + +The younger Schnitzler studied medicine at the Vienna University, as +did also his brother, and obtained his M.D. in 1885. During the next +two years he was attached to the resident staff of one of the big +hospitals. It was also the period that saw the beginning of his +authorship. While contributing medical reviews to his father's journal, +he was also publishing poems and prose sketches in various literary +periodicals. Most of his contributions from this time appeared in a +publication named "_An der schoenen blauen Donau_" (By the Beautiful +Blue Danube), now long defunct. + +He was also continuing his studies, which almost from the start seem to +have turned toward the psychic side of the medical science. The new +methods of hypnotism and suggestion interested him greatly, and in 1889 +he published a monograph on "Functional Aphonia and its Treatment by +Hypnotism and Suggestion." In 1888 he made a study trip to England, +during which he wrote a series of "London Letters" on medical subjects +for his father's journal. On his return he settled down as a practicing +physician, but continued to act as his father's assistant. And as late +as 1891-95 we find him named as his father's collaborator on a large +medical work entitled "Clinical Atlas of Laryngology and Rhinology." + +There are many signs to indicate uncertainty as to his true calling +during those early years. The ensuing inner conflict was probably +sharpened by some pressure exercised by his father, who seems to have +been anxious that he should turn his energies undividedly to medicine. +To a practical and outwardly successful man like the elder Schnitzler, +his own profession must have appeared by far the more important and +promising. While there is no reason to believe that his attitude in +this matter was aggressive, it must have been keenly felt and, to some +extent at least, resented by the son. One of the dominant notes of the +latter's work is the mutual lack of understanding between successive +generations, and this lack tends with significant frequency to assume +the form of a father's opposition to a son's choice of profession. + +This conflict cannot have lasted very long, however, for the younger +Schnitzler proved quickly successful in his purely literary efforts. +The "Anatol" sketches attracted a great deal of attention even while +appearing separately in periodicals, and with their publication in book +form, which occurred almost simultaneously with the first performance +of "A Piece of Fiction" at a Viennese theater, their author was hailed +as one of the most promising among the younger men. From that time he +has been adding steadily to his output and his reputation. When his +collected works were issued in 1912, these included four volumes of +plays and three volumes of novels and stories. Since then he has +finished another play and two volumes of prose sketches. + +It is rare to find an author turning with such regularity from the epic +to the dramatic form and back again. And it is still more rare to find +him so thoroughly at home and successful in both fields. In +Schnitzler's case these two parallel veins have mutually supported and +developed each other. Time and again he has treated the same theme +first in one form and then in another. And not infrequently he has +introduced characters from his plays into his stories, and vice versa. +A careful study of his other works would undoubtedly assist toward a +better understanding of his plays, but I do not regard such a study +essential for the purpose. It is my belief that Schnitzler has given +himself most fully and most typically in his dramatic authorship, and +it is to this side of his creative production I must confine myself +here. + + * * * * * + +"Anatol" is nothing but seven sketches in dramatic form, each sketch +picturing a new love affair of the kind supposed to be especially +characteristic of Viennese life. The man remains the same in all these +light adventures. The woman is always a different one. The story is of +the kind always accompanying such circumstances--one of waxing or +waning attraction, of suspicion and jealousy, of incrimination and +recrimination, of intrigue and counter-intrigue. The atmosphere is +realistic, but the actuality implied is sharply limited and largely +superficial. There is little attempt at getting down to the roots of +things. There is absolutely no tendency or thesis. The story is told +for the sake of the story, and its chief redeeming quality lies in the +grace and charm and verve with which it is told. These were qualities +that immediately won the public's favor when "Anatol" first appeared. +And to some extent it must be counted unfortunate that the impression +made by those qualities was so deep and so lasting. There has been a +strong tendency observable, both within and outside the author's native +country, to regard him particularly as the creator of _Anatol_, and to +question, if not to resent, his inevitable and unmistakable growth +beyond that pleasing, but not very significant starting point. + +And yet his next dramatic production, which was also his first serious +effort as a playwright, ought to have proved sufficient warning that he +was moved by something more than a desire to amuse. "A Piece of +Fiction" (_Das Maerchen_) must be counted a failure and, in some ways, a +step backward. But its very failure is a promise of greater things to +come. It lacks the grace and facility of "Anatol." Worse still, it +lacks the good-humor and subtle irony of those first sketches. Instead +it has purpose and a serious outlook on life. The "piece of fiction" +refers to the "fallen" woman--to the alleged impossibility for any +decent man to give his whole trust to a woman who has once strayed from +the straight path. _Fedor Denner_ denounces this attitude in the +presence of a young girl who loves him and is loved by him, but who +belongs to the category of women under discussion. When he learns her +history, he struggles vainly to resist the feelings of distrust and +jealousy which he had declared absurd a little while earlier. And the +two are forced at last to walk their different ways. Unfortunately the +dialogue is heavy and stilted. The play is a tract rather than a piece +of art, and the tirades of _Fedor_ are equally unconvincing when he +speaks for or against that "fiction" which is killing both his own and +the girl's hope of happiness in mutual love. Yet the play marks a step +forward in outlook and spirit. + +Schnitzler's interest in hypnotism, which had asserted itself in the +first scene of "Anatol," appears again in the little verse-play, +"Paracelsus," which followed. But this time he used it to more purpose. +By the help of it, a woman's innermost soul is laid bare, and some very +interesting light is shed on the workings of the human mind in general. + +"Amours" (_Liebelei_) may be regarded as a cross, or a compromise, +between "Anatol" and "A Piece of Fiction." The crudeness of speech +marking the latter play has given room to a very incisive dialogue, +that carries the action forward with unfailing precision. Some of the +temporarily dropped charm has been recovered, and the gain in sincerity +has been preserved. "Amours" seems to be the first one of a series of +plays dealing with the reverse of the gay picture presented in +"Anatol." A young man is having a love affair with two women at the +same time, one of them married, the other one a young girl with scant +knowledge of the world. Yet she knows enough to know what she is doing, +and she has sufficient strength of mind to rise above a sense of guilt, +though she is more prone to be the victim of fear. Then the married +woman's husband challenges the young man, who is killed. And the girl +takes her own life, not because her lover is dead, not because of +anything she has done, but because his death for the sake of another +woman renders her own faith in him meaningless. + +"Outside the Game Laws" (_Freiwild_) is another step ahead--the first +play, I think, where the real Arthur Schnitzler, the author of "The +Lonely Way" and "Countess Mizzie," reveals himself. It has a thesis, +but this is implied rather than obtruded. In style and character-drawing +it is realistic in the best sense. It shows already the typical +Schnitzlerian tendency of dealing with serious questions--with questions +of life and death--in a casual fashion, as if they were but problems of +which road to follow or which shop to enter. It has one fault that must +appear as such everywhere, namely, a division of purpose. When the play +starts, one imagines that those "outside the game laws" are the women of +the stage, who are presented as the legitimate prey of any man caring to +hunt them. As the play goes on, that starting point is almost lost sight +of, and it becomes more and more plain that those "outside the game +laws" are sensible, decent men who refuse to submit to the silly +dictates of the dueling code. But what I have thus named a fault is +mostly theoretical, and does not mar the effective appeal of the play. +What must appear as a more serious shortcoming from an American +viewpoint is the local nature of the evil attacked, which lessens the +universal validity of the work. + +"Change Partners!" (_Reigen_) was produced about the same time as +"Outside the Game Laws," but was not printed until 1900, and then only +privately. Yet those ten dialogues provoked from the first a storm +which seriously threatened Schnitzler's growing reputation and +popularity. When Vienna finds a work immoral, one may look for +something dreadful. And the work in question attempts a degree of +naturalism rarely equaled in France even. Yet those dialogues are +anything but immoral in spirit. They introduce ten men and as many +women. The man of one scene reappears with a new woman in the next, and +then that woman figures as the partner of a new man in the third scene. +The story is always the same (except in the final dialogue): desire, +satisfaction, indifference. The idea underlying this "ring dance," as +the title means literally, is the same one that recurs under a much +more attractive aspect in "Countess Mizzie." It is the linking together +of the entire social organism by man's natural cravings. And as a +document bearing on the psychology of sex "Change Partners!" has not +many equals. + +In "The Legacy" (_Das Vermaechtnis_) we meet with a forcible presentation +and searching discussion of the world's attitude toward those ties that +have been established without social sanction. A young man is brought +home dying, having been thrown from his horse. He compels his parents +to send for his mistress and their little boy, and he hands both over +to the care of his family. That is his "legacy." The family tries hard +to rise to this unexpected situation and fails miserably--largely, it +must be confessed, thanks to the caddish attitude of a self-made +physician who wants to marry the dead man's sister. The second act ends +with the death of the little boy; the third, with the disappearance and +probable suicide of his mother. The dead man's sister cries out: +"Everything that was his is sacred to us, but the one living being who +meant more to him than all of us is driven out of our home." The one +ray of light offered is that the sister sees through the man who has +been courting her and sends him packing. It is noticeable in this play, +as in others written by Schnitzler, that the attitude of the women is +more sensible and tolerant than that of the men. + +The physician is one of the few members of that profession whom the +author has painted in an unfavorable light. There is hardly one +full-length play of his in which at least one representative of the +medical profession does not appear. And almost invariably they seem +destined to act as the particular mouthpieces of the author. In a play +like "The Lonely Way," for instance, the life shown is the life lived +by men and women observed by Schnitzler. The opinions expressed are the +opinions of that sort of men and women under the given circumstances. +The author neither approves nor disapproves when he makes each +character speak in accordance with his own nature. But like most +creative artists, he has felt the need of stating his own view of the +surrounding throng. This he seems usually to do through the mouth of +men like _Dr. Reumann_ in the play just mentioned, or _Dr. Mauer_ in +"The Vast Country." And the attitude of those men shows a strange +mingling of disapproval and forbearance, which undoubtedly comes very +near being Schnitzler's own. + +The little one-act play "The Life Partner" (_Die Gefaehrtin_) is +significant mainly as a study for bigger canvases developing the same +theme: the veil that hides the true life of man and woman alike from +the partner. And the play should really be named "The Life Partner That +Was Not." Another one-act play, "The Green Cockatoo," is laid at Paris. +Its action takes place on the evening of July 14, 1789--the fall of the +Bastille and the birth of the Revolution. It presents a wonderful +picture of social life at the time--of the average human being's +unconsciousness of the great events taking place right under his nose. + +"The Veil of Beatrice," a verse play in five acts, takes us to Bologna +in the year 1500, when Cesare Borgia was preparing to invest the city +in order to oust its tyrant, Giovanni Bentivoglio (named Lionardo in +the play), and add it to the Papal possessions. All the acts take place +in one night. The fundamental theme is one dear to Schnitzler--the +flaming up of passion under the shadow of impending death. The whole +city, with the duke leading, surrenders to this outburst, the spirit of +which finds its symbol in a ravishingly beautiful girl, _Beatrice +Nardi_, who seems fated to spread desire and death wherever she +appears. With her own death at dawn, the city seems to wake as from a +nightmare to face the enemy already at the gates. The play holds much +that is beautiful and much that is disappointing. To me its chief +importance lies in the fact that it marks a breaking-point between the +period when Schnitzler was trying to write "with a purpose," and that +later and greater period when he has learned how to treat life +sincerely and seriously without other purpose than to present it as it +is. That was his starting point in "Anatol," but then he was not yet +ready for the realism that must be counted the highest of all: the +realism that has no tendency and preaches no lesson, but from which we +draw our own lessons as we draw them from life itself in moments of +unusual lucidity. + +"Hours of Life" (_Lebendige Stunden_), which has given its name to +a volume of four one-act plays, may be described as a mental duel +between two sharply opposed temperaments--the practical and the +imaginative. An elderly woman, long an invalid, has just died, and a +letter to the man who has loved and supported her during her final +years reveals the fact that she has taken her own life because she +feared that the thought of her was preventing her son, a poet, from +working. The duel is between that son and the man who has befriended +his mother. The play constitutes a scathing arraignment of the artistic +temperament. Bernard Shaw himself has never penned a more bitter one. +"Even if you were the world's greatest genius," the old man cries to +the young one, "all your scribbling would be worthless in comparison +with a single one of those hours of real life that saw your mother +seated in that chair, talking to us, or merely listening, perhaps." + +The most important of those four one-act plays, however, is "End of the +Carnival" (_Die letzten Masken_). An old journalist, a might-have-been, +dying in a hospital, sends for a life-long friend, a successful poet, +whom he hates because of his success. All he thinks of is revenge, of +getting even, and he means to achieve this end by disclosing to the +poet the faithlessness of his wife. Once she had been the mistress of +the dying man, and that seems to him his one triumph in life. But when +the poet arrives and begins to talk of the commonplaces of daily life, +of petty gossip, petty intrigues, and petty jealousies, then the dying +man suddenly sees the futility of the whole thing. To him, who has one +foot across the final threshold, it means nothing, and he lets his +friend depart without having told him anything. There is a curious +recurrence of the same basic idea in "Professor Bernhardi," where the +central figure acquires a similar sense of our ordinary life's futility +by spending two months in jail. + +To what extent Schnitzler has studied and been impressed by Nietzsche I +don't know, but the thought underlying "The Lady With the Dagger" is +distinctly Nietzschean. It implies not only a sense of our having lived +before, of having previously stood in the same relationship to the +people now surrounding us, but of being compelled to repeat our past +experience, even if a sudden flash of illumination out of the buried +past should reveal to us its predestined fatal termination. This idea +meets us again in the first act of "The Lonely Way." The fourth of +those one-act plays, "Literature," is what Schnitzler has named it--a +farce--but delightfully clever and satirical. + +Those four plays, and the group of three others published under the +common title of "Puppets" (_Marionetten_), are, next to "Anatol," the +best known works of Schnitzler's outside of Austria and Germany. They +deserve their wide reputation, too, for there is nothing quite like +them in the modern drama. Yet I think they have been over-estimated in +comparison with the rest of Schnitzler's production. "The Puppet +Player," "The Gallant Cassian" and "The Greatest Show of All" (_Zum +grossen Wurstel_) have charm and brightness and wit. But in regard to +actual significance they cannot compare with plays like "The Lonely +Way," for instance. + +The three plays comprised in the volume named "Puppets" constitute +three more exemplifications of the artistic temperament, which again +fares badly at the hands of their author. And yet he has more than one +telling word to say in defense of that very temperament. That these +plays, like "Hours of Life" and "Literature," are expressive of the +inner conflict raging for years within the playwright's own soul, I +take for granted. And they seem to reflect moments when Schnitzler felt +that, in choosing poetry rather than medicine for his life work, he had +sacrificed the better choice. And yet they do not show any regrets, but +rather a slightly ironical self-pity. A note of irony runs through +everything that Schnitzler has written, constituting one of the main +attractions of his art, and it is the more acceptable because the point +of it so often turns against the writer himself. + +"The Puppet Player" is a poet who has ceased writing in order to use +human beings for his material. He thinks that he is playing with their +destinies as if they were so many puppets. And the little drama shows +how his accidental interference has created fates stronger and happier +than his own--fates lying wholly outside his power. The play suffers +from a tendency to exaggerated subtlety which is one of Schnitzler's +principal dangers, though it rarely asserts itself to such an extent +that the enjoyment of his work is spoiled by it. + +His self-irony reaches its climax in the one-act play which I have been +forced to name "The Greatest Show of All" because the original title +(_Zum grossen Wurstel_) becomes meaningless in English. There he +proceeds with reckless abandon to ridicule his own work as well as the +inflated importance of all imaginative creation. But to even up the +score, he includes the public, as representative of ordinary humanity, +among the objects of his sarcasms. And in the end all of us--poets, +players, and spectators--are exposed as mere puppets. The same thought +recurs to some extent in "The Gallant Cassian," which is otherwise a +piece of sheer fun--the slightest of Schnitzler's dramatic productions, +perhaps, but not without the accustomed Schnitzlerian sting. + +When, after reading all the preceding plays, one reaches "The Lonely +Way" (_Der einsame Weg_), it is hard to escape an impression of +everything else having been nothing but a preparation. It is beyond +all doubt Schnitzler's greatest and most powerful creation so far, +representing a tremendous leap forward both in form and spirit. It has +less passion than "The Call of Life," less subtlety than "Intermezzo," +less tolerance than "Countess Mizzie." Instead it combines in perfect +balance all the best qualities of those three plays--each dominant +feature reduced a little to give the others scope as well. It is a +wonderful specimen of what might be called the new realism--of that +realism which is paying more attention to spiritual than to material +actualities. Yet it is by no means lacking in the more superficial +verisimilitude either. Its character-drawing and its whole atmosphere +are startlingly faithful to life, even though the life portrayed may +represent a clearly defined and limited phase of universal human +existence. + +The keynote of the play lies in _Sala's_ words to _Julian_ in the +closing scene of the fourth act: "The process of aging must needs be a +lonely one to our kind." That's the main theme--not a thesis to be +proved. This loneliness to which _Sala_ refers, is common to all +people, but it is more particularly the share of those who, like +himself and _Julian_, have treasured their "freedom" above everything +else and who, for that reason, have eschewed the human ties which to a +man like _Wegrath_ represent life's greatest good and deepest meaning. +Again we find the principal characters of the play typifying the +artistic temperament, with its unhuman disregards of the relationships +that have primary importance to other men. Its gross egoism, as +exemplified by _Julian_, is the object of passionate derision. And yet +it is a man of that kind, _Sala_, who recognizes and points out the +truer path, when he say: "To love is to live for somebody else." + +The play has no thesis, as I have already said. It is not poised on the +point of a single idea. Numerous subordinate themes are woven into the +main one, giving the texture of the whole a richness resembling that of +life itself. Woman's craving for experience and self-determination is +one such theme, which we shall find again in "Intermezzo," where it +practically becomes the dominant one. + +Another one is that fascinated stare at death which is so +characteristic of Latin and Slav writers--of men like Zola, Maupassant, +and Tolstoy--while it is significantly absent in the great Scandinavian +and Anglo-Saxon poets. "Is there ever a blissful moment in any decent +man's life, when he can think of anything but death in his innermost +soul?" says _Sala_. The same thought is expressed in varying forms by +one after another of Schnitzler's characters. "All sorrow is a lie as +long as the open grave is not your own," cries the dying _Catharine_ in +"The Call of Life." It is in this connection particularly that we of +the North must bear in mind Schnitzler's Viennese background and the +Latin traditions forming such a conspicuous part of it. The Latin +peoples have shown that they can die as bravely as the men of any other +race or clime, but their attitude toward death in general is widely +different from the attitude illustrated by Ibsen or Strindberg, for +instance. A certain gloom, having kinship with death, seems ingrained +in the Northern temperament, put there probably by the pressure of the +Northern winter. The man of the sunlit South, on the other hand, seems +always to retain the child's simple horror at the thought that darkness +must follow light. We had better not regard it as cowardice under any +circumstances, and cowardice it can certainly not be called in the +characters of Schnitzler. But the resignation in which he finds his +only antidote, and which seems to represent his nearest approach to a +formulated philosophy, cannot be expected to satisfy us. One of his own +countrymen, Hermann Bahr, has protested sharply against its +insufficiency as a soul-sustaining faith, and in that protest I feel +inclined to concur. + +With "The Lonely Way" begins a series of plays representing not only +Schnitzler's highest achievements so far, but a new note in the modern +drama. To a greater extent than any other modern plays--not even +excepting those of Ibsen--they must be defined as psychological. The +dramas of Strindberg come nearest in this respect, but they, too, lag +behind in soul-revealing quality. Plots are almost lacking in the +Schnitzler productions during his later period. Things happen, to be +sure, and these happenings are violent enough at times, but they do not +constitute a sharply selected sequence of events leading up to a +desired and foreshadowed end. In the further development of this +period, even clearly defined themes are lost sight of, and the course +of the play takes on an almost accidental aspect. This is puzzling, of +course, and it must be especially provoking to those who expect each +piece of art to have its narrow little lesson neatly tacked on in a +spot where it cannot be missed. It implies a manner that exacts more +alertness and greater insight on the part of the reader. But for that +very reason these later plays of Schnitzler should prove stimulating to +those who do not suffer from mental laziness or exhaustion. + +"Intermezzo" (_Zwischenspiel_) might be interpreted as an attack on +those new marital conventions which abolish the old-fashioned demand +for mutual faithfulness and substitute mutual frankness. It would be +more correct, however, to characterize it as a discussion of what +constitutes true honesty in the ever delicate relationship between +husband and wife. It shows, too, the growth of a woman's soul, once she +has been forced to stand on her own feet. Viewed from this point, the +play might very well be classified as feministic. It would be easy, for +one thing, to read into it a plea for a single moral standard. But its +ultimate bearing goes far beyond such a narrow construction. Here as +elsewhere, Schnitzler shows himself more sympathetic toward the female +than toward the male outlook on life, and the creator of _Cecilia +Adams-Ortenburg_ may well be proclaimed one of the foremost living +painters of the woman soul. + +The man who, in "Anatol," saw nothing but a rather weak-minded +restlessness in woman's inconstancy, recognizes in "Intermezzo" woman's +right to as complete a knowledge of life and its possibilities as any +man may acquire. The same note is struck by _Johanna_ in "The Lonely +Way." "I want a time to come when I must shudder at myself--shudder as +deeply as you can only when nothing has been left untried," she says to +_Sala_ in the fourth act. This note sounds much more clearly--one might +say defiantly--through the last two acts of "Intermezzo." And when +_Amadeus_, shrinking from its implications, cries to _Cecilia_ that +thereafter she will be guarded by his tenderness, she retorts +impatiently: "But I don't want to be guarded! I shall no longer permit +you to guard me!" In strict keeping with it is also that Schnitzler +here realizes and accepts woman's capacity for and right to creative +expression. It is from _Cecilia's_ lips that the suggestion comes to +seek a remedy for life's hurts in a passionate abandonment to work. In +fact, the established attitudes of man and woman seem almost reversed +in the cases of _Amadeus_ and _Cecilia._ + +Significant as this play is from any point viewed, I am inclined to +treasure it most on account of the subtlety and delicacy of its +dialogue. I don't think any dramatist of modern times has surpassed +Schnitzler in his ability to find expression for the most refined +nuances of thought and feeling. To me, at least, it is a constant joy +to watch the iridescence of his sentences, which gives to each of them +not merely one, but innumerable meanings. And through so much of this +particular play runs a spirit that can only be called playful--a spirit +which finds its most typical expression in the delightful figure of +_Albert Rhon_, the poet who takes the place of the otherwise inevitable +physician. I like to think of that figure as more or less embodying the +author's conception of himself. All the wit and sparkle with which we +commonly credit the Gallic mind seems to me abundantly present in the +scenes between _Albert_ and _Amadeus_. + +The poise and quiet characterizing "The Lonely Way" and "Intermezzo" +appear lost to some extent in "The Call of Life" (_Der Ruf des Leben_), +which, on the other hand, is one of the intensest plays written by +Schnitzler. The white heat of its passion sears the mind at times, so +that the reader feels like raising a shield between himself and the +words. "It was as if I heard life itself calling to me outside my +door," _Marie_ says in this play when trying to explain to _Dr. +Schindler_ why she had killed her father and gone to seek her lover. +The play might as well have been named "The Will to Live," provided we +remember that mere existence can hardly be called life. Its basic +thought has much in common with that of Frank Wedekind's "Earth +Spirit," but Schnitzler spiritualizes what the German playwright has +vulgarized. There is a lot of modern heresy in that thought--a lot of +revived and refined paganism that stands in sharp opposition to the +spirit of Christianity as it has been interpreted hitherto. It might be +summarized as a twentieth century version of Achilles' declaration that +he would rather be a live dog than the ruler of all the shades in +Hades. "What a creature can I be," cries _Marie_, "to emerge out of +such an experience as out of a bad dream--awake--and living--and +wanting to live?" And the kind, wise, Schnitzlerian doctor's answer is: +"You are alive--and the rest _has been_...." Life itself is its own +warrant and explanation. Unimpaired life--life with the power and will +to go on living--is the greatest boon and best remedy of any that can +be offered. + +The weak point of "The Call to Life" is _Marie's_ father, the old +_Moser_--one of the most repulsive figures ever seen on the stage. It +may have been made what it is in order that the girl's crime might not +hopelessly prejudice the spectator at the start and thus render all the +rest of the play futile. We must remember, too, that the monstrous +egoism of _Moser_ is not represented as a typical quality of that old +age which feels itself robbed by the advance of triumphant youth. What +Schnitzler shows is that egoism grows more repulsive as increasing age +makes it less warranted. The middle act of the play, with its +remarkable conversation between the _Colonel_ and _Max_, brings us back +to "Outside the Game Laws." That earlier play was in its time declared +the best existing stage presentation of the spirit engendered by the +military life. But it has a close second in "The Call of Life." To +anyone having watched the manners of militarism in Europe, the words of +the _Colonel_ to _Max_ will sound as an all-sufficient explanation: "No +physicians have to spend thirty years at the side of beds containing +puppets instead of human patients--no lawyers have to practice on +criminals made out of pasteboard--and even the ministers are not +infrequently preaching to people who actually believe in heaven and +hell." + +If "The Lonely Way" be Schnitzler's greatest play all around, and +"Intermezzo" his subtlest, "Countess Mizzie" is the sweetest, the best +tempered, the one that leaves the most agreeable taste in the mouth. It +gives us a concrete embodiment of the tolerance toward all life that is +merely suggested by the closing sentences of _Dr. Schindler_ in the +last act of "The Call of Life." It brings back the gay spirit of +"Anatol," but with a rare maturity supporting it. The simple +socio-biological philosophy of "Change Partners!" is restated without +the needless naturalism of those early dialogues. The idea of "Countess +Mizzie" is that, if we look deep enough, all social distinctions are +lost in a universal human kinship. On the surface we appear like +flowers neatly arranged in a bed, each kind in its separate and +carefully labeled corner. Then Schnitzler begins to scrape off the +screening earth, and underneath we find the roots of all those flowers +intertwined and matted, so that it is impossible to tell which belong +to the _Count_ and which to _Wasner_, the coachman, which to _Miss +Lolo_, the ballet-dancer, and which to the _Countess_. + +"Young Medardus" is Schnitzler's most ambitious attempt at historical +playwriting. It seems to indicate that he belongs too wholly in the +present age to succeed in that direction. The play takes us back to +1809, when Napoleon appeared a second time outside the gates of Vienna. +The central character, _Medardus Klaehr_, is said to be historical. The +re-created atmosphere of old Vienna is at once convincing and amusing. +But the play is too sprawling, too scattered, to get firm hold on the +reader. There are seventy-four specifically indicated characters, not +to mention groups of dumb figures. And while the title page speaks of +five acts and a prologue, there are in reality seventeen distinct +scenes. Each scene may be dramatically valuable, but the constant +passage from place to place, from one set of characters to another, has +a confusing effect. + +There is, too, a more deep-lying reason for the failure of the play as +a whole, I think. The ironical outlook so dear to Schnitzler--or +rather, so inseparable from his temperament--has betrayed him. Irony +seems hopelessly out of place in a historical drama, where it tends to +make us feel that the author does not believe in the actual existence +of his own characters. I have a suspicion that "Young Medardus" takes +the place within the production of Schnitzler that is held by "Peer +Gynt" in the production of Ibsen--that _Medardus Klaehr_ is meant to +satirize the Viennese character as _Peer Gynt_ satirizes the Norwegian. + +The keynote of the play may be found in the words of _Etzelt_, spoken +as _Medardus_ is about to be shot, after having refused to save his own +life by a promise not to make any attempts against Napoleon's: "God +wanted to make a hero of him, and the course of events turned him into +a fool." The obvious interpretation is that the pettiness of Viennese +conditions defeated the larger aspirations of the man, who would have +proved true to his own possibilities in other surroundings. A more +careful analysis of the plot shows, however, that what turns the +ambitions of _Medardus_ into dreams and words is his susceptibility +to the charms of a woman. Once within the magic circle of her power, +everything else--the danger of his country, the death of his sister, +his duty to avenge the death of his father--becomes secondary to his +passion. And each time he tries to rise above that passion, the +reappearance of the woman is sufficient to deflect him from his +purpose. It is as if Schnitzler wanted to suggest that the greatest +weakness of the Viennese character lies in its sensuous concern with +sex to the detriment of all other vital interests. To me it is a very +remarkable thing to think that such a play was performed a large number +of times at one of the foremost theaters in Vienna, and that, +apparently, it received a very respectful hearing. I cannot but wonder +what would happen here, if a play were put on the stage dealing in a +similar spirit with the American character. + +"The soul is a vast country, where many different things find place +side by side," says Dr. Theodor Reik in his interesting volume named +"Arthur Schnitzler als Psycholog" (Minden, 1913). Thus he explains the +meaning of the title given to "The Vast Country" (_Das Weite Land_). +And I don't think it is possible to get closer than that. Nowhere has +Schnitzler been more casual in his use of what is commonly called plot. +Nowhere has he scorned more completely to build his work around any +particular "red thread." Event follows event with seeming haphazardness. +The only thing that keeps the play from falling apart is the logical +development of each character. It is, in fact, principally, if not +exclusively, a series of soul-studies. What happens serves merely as an +excuse to reveal the reaction of a certain character to certain +external pressures or internal promptings. But viewed in this light, +the play has tremendous power and significance. + +Dr. Reik's book, to which I just referred, has been written to prove +the direct connection between Schnitzler's art and the new psychology +established by Dr. Sigmund Freud of Vienna. That the playwright must +have studied the Freudian theories seems more than probable. That they +may have influenced him seems also probable. And that this influence +may have helped him to a clearer grasp of more than one mystery within +the human soul, I am willing to grant also. What I want to protest +against, is the attempt to make him out an exponent of any particular +scientific theory. He is an observer of all life. He is what _Amadeus_ +in "Intermezzo" ironically charges _Albert Rhon_ with being: "a student +of the human soul." And he has undoubtedly availed himself of every new +aid that might be offered for the analysis and interpretation of that +soul. The importance of man's sub-conscious life seems to have been +clear to him in the early days of "Anatol," and it seems to have grown +on him as he matured. Another Freudian conception he has also made his +own--that of the close connection between man's sexual life and vital +phenomena not clearly designed for the expression of that life. But--to +return to the point I have already tried to make--it would be dangerous +and unjust to read any work of his as the dramatic effort of a +scientific theorizer. + +Schnitzler is of Jewish race. In Vienna that means a great deal more +than in London, Stockholm or New York. It means an atmosphere of +contempt, of suspicion, of hatred. It means frequently complete +isolation, and always some isolation. It means a constant sense of +conflict between oneself and one's surroundings. All these things are +reflected in the works of Schnitzler--more particularly the sense of +conflict and of isolation. Life itself is blamed for it most of the +time, however, and it is only once in a great while that the specific +and localized cause is referred to--as in "Literature," for instance. +And even when Schnitzler undertakes, as he has done in his latest play, +"Professor Bernhardi," to deal directly with the situation of the Jew +within a community with strong anti-Semitic tendencies, he does not +appear able to keep his mind fixed on that particular issue. He starts +to discuss it, and does so with a clearness and fairness that have not +been equaled since the days of Lessing--and then he drifts off in a new +direction. The mutual opposition between Jews and Catholics becomes an +opposition between the skeptical and the mystical temperaments. It is +as if he wanted to say that all differences are unreal except those +between individuals as such. And if that be his intention, he is right, +I believe, and his play is the greater for bringing that thought home +to us. + +The play is a remarkable one in many respects. It deals largely with +the internal affairs of a hospital. An overwhelming majority of the +characters are physicians connected with the big hospital of which +_Professor Bernhardi_ is the head. They talk of nothing but what men of +that profession in such a position would be likely to talk of. In other +words, they are all the time "talking shop." This goes on through five +acts. Throughout the entire play there is not the slightest suggestion +of what the Broadway manager and the periodical editor call a "love +interest." And yet the play holds you from beginning to end, and the +dramatic tension could not be greater if its main theme were the +unrequited love of the professor's son instead of his own right to +place his duties as a physician above all other considerations. To one +who has grown soul-weary of the "triangle" and all other combinations +for the exploiting of illicit or legitimized love, "Professor +Bernhardi" should come as a great relief and a bright promise. + + * * * * * + +These are the main outlines of Schnitzler's work as a dramatist. They +indicate a constant, steady growth, coupled with increased realization +of his own possibilities and powers as well as of his limitations. In +all but a very few of his plays, he has confined himself to the life +immediately surrounding him--to the life of the Viennese middle class, +and more particularly of the professional element to which he himself +belongs. But on the basis of a wonderfully faithful portrayal of local +characters and conditions, he has managed to rear a superstructure of +emotional appeal and intellectual clarification that must render his +work welcome to thinking men and women wherever it be introduced. And +as he is still in the flower of his manhood, it seems reasonable to +expect that still greater things may be forthcoming from his pen. + + + SCHNITZLER'S "ANATOL" + + + Spearhead fences, yew-tree hedges, + Coats of arms no more regilded, + Sphinxes gleaming through the thickets.... + Creakingly the gates swing open. + + With its tritons sunk in slumber, + And its fountains also sleeping, + Mildewed, lovely, and rococo, + Lo ... Vienna, Canaletto's, + Dated Seventeen and Sixty. + + Quiet pools of green-brown waters, + Smooth and framed in snow-white marble, + Show between their mirrored statues + Gold and silver fishes playing. + Slender stems of oleander + Cast their prim array of shadows + On the primly close-cropped greensward. + Overhead, the arching branches + Meet and twine to sheltering niches, + Where are grouped in loving couples + Stiff-limbed heroines and heroes.... + Dolphins three pour splashing streamlets + In three shell-shaped marble basins. + Chestnut blossoms, richly fragrant, + Fall like flames and flutter downward + To be drowned within the basins.... + Music, made by clarinettes and + Violins behind the yew-trees, + Seems to come from graceful cupids + Playing on the balustrade, or + Weaving flowers into garlands, + While beside them other flowers + Gayly stream from marble vases: + Jasmin, marigold, and elder.... + On the balustrade sit also + Sweet coquettes among the cupids, + And some messeigneurs in purple. + At their feet, on pillows resting, + Or reclining on the greensward, + May be seen abbes and gallants. + From perfumed sedans are lifted + Other ladies by their lovers.... + Rays of light sift through the leafage, + Shed on golden curls their luster, + Break in flames on gaudy cushions, + Gleam alike on grass and gravel, + Sparkle on the simple structure + We have raised to serve the moment. + Vines and creepers clamber upward, + Covering the slender woodwork, + While between them are suspended + Gorgeous tapestries and curtains: + Scenes Arcadian boldly woven, + Charmingly designed by Watteau.... + In the place of stage, an arbor; + Summer sun in place of footlights; + Thus we rear Thalia's temple + Where we play our private dramas, + Gentle, saddening, precocious.... + Comedies that we have suffered; + Feelings drawn from past and present; + Evil masked in pretty phrases; + Soothing words and luring pictures; + Subtle stirrings, mere nuances, + Agonies, adventures, crises.... + + Some are listening, some are yawning, + Some are dreaming, some are laughing, + Some are sipping ices ... others + Whisper longings soft and languid.... + + Nodding in the breeze, carnations, + Long-stemmed white carnations, image + Butterflies that swarm in sunlight, + While a black and long-haired spaniel + Barks astonished at a peacock.... + + HUGO VON HOFMANNSTHAL, + (_Edwin Bjoerkman._) + + + + +CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF PLAYS BY ARTHUR SCHNITZLER + + +ANATOL (Anatol); seven dramatic scenes; 1889-91 (1893). + +A PIECE OF FICTION (Das Maerchen); a drama in three acts; 1891 (1894). + +PARACELSUS (Paracelsus); a verse-play in one act; 1892 (1899). + +AMOURS (Liebelei); a drama in three acts; 1894 (1896). + +OUTSIDE THE GAME LAWS (Freiwild); a drama in three acts; 1896 (1897). + +CHANGE PARTNERS! (Reigen); ten dialogues; 1896-97 (1903). + +THE LEGACY (Das Vermaechtnis); a drama in three acts; 1897 (1898). + +THE LIFE PARTNER (Die Gefaehrtin); a drama in one act; 1898 (1899). + +THE GREEN COCKATOO (Der gruene Kakadu); a grotesque in one act; 1898 +(1899). + +THE VEIL OF BEATRICE (Der Schleier der Beatrice); a drama in five acts; +1899 (1900). + +THE LADY WITH THE DAGGER (Die Frau mit dem Dolche); a drama in one act; +1900 (1902). + +HOURS OF LIFE (Lebendige Stunden); an act; 1901 (1902). + +END OF THE CARNIVAL (Die letzten Masken); a drama in one act; 1901 +(1902). + +LITERATURE (Literatur); a farce in one act; 1901 (1902). + +THE PUPPET PLAYER (Der Puppenspieler); a study in one act; 1902 (1906). + +THE GALLANT CASSIAN (Der tapfere Cassian); a puppet play in one act; +1903 (1906). + +THE LONELY WAY (Der einsame Weg); a drama in five acts; 1903 (1904). + +INTERMEZZO (Zwischenspiel); a comedy in three acts; 1904 (1905). + +THE GREATEST SHOW OF ALL (Zum grossen Wurstel); a burlesque in one act; +1904 (1906). + +THE CALL OF LIFE (Der Ruf des Leben); a drama in three acts; 1905 +(1906). + +COUNTESS MIZZIE (Komtesse Mizzi); a comedy in one act; 1909 (1909). + +YOUNG MEDARDUS (Der junge Medardus); a history in five acts with a +prologue; 1909 (1910). + +THE VAST COUNTRY (Das weite Land); a tragicomedy in five acts; 1910 +(1911). + +PROFESSOR BERNHARDI (Professor Bernhardi); a comedy in five acts; 1912 +(1912). + +THE GALLANT KASSIAN (Der tapfere Kassian); a musical comedy in one act, +with music by Oscar Straus; ---- (1909). + +THE VEIL OF PIERRETTE (Der Schleier der Pierrette); a comic opera in +three acts, with music by Ernst von Dohnnanyi; 1909 (not published). + +The figures without brackets indicate the dates of production as given +in the collected edition of Arthur Schnitzler's works issued by the _S. +Fischer Verlag_, Berlin, 1912. The figures within brackets, showing the +dates of publication, are taken from the twenty-fifth anniversary +catalogue of the same house (Berlin, 1911), and from C. G. Kayser's +"_Vollstaendiges Buecher-Lexikon_" (Leipzig, 1891-1912). + +"Anatol" was first published by the _Bibliographische Bureau_ (Berlin, +1893), and "A Piece of Fiction" by E. Pierson (Dresden, 1894). Both +were reprinted by the _Fischer Verlag_ in 1895. The original versions +of "A Piece of Fiction" and "Amours" have been considerably revised. +"Change Partners!" was printed privately in 1900, and was subsequently +published by the _Wiener Verlag_, Vienna. "The Gallant Kassian" was +published by Ludwig Doblinger, Leipzig. + +"The Green Cockatoo," "Paracelsus" and "The Life Partner" appeared in +one volume with the sub-title "Three One-act Plays." "Hours of Life," +"The Lady With the Dagger," "End of the Carnival," and "Literature" +were published together under the title of the first play. "The Puppet +Player," "The Gallant Cassian," and "The Greatest Show of All" were +brought out in a single volume under the title of "Puppets"(_Marionetten_). + +For additional bibliographical data, see "Arthur Schnitzler: a +Bibliography," by Archibald Henderson (_Bulletin of Bibliography_, +Boston, 1913); "The Modern Drama," by Ludwig Lewisohn (New York, 1915), +and "The Continental Drama of Today," by Barrett H. Clark (New York, +1914). A good, though brief, analysis of Schnitzler's work is found in +Dr. Lewisohn's volume. + + + + +A LIST OF FIRST PERFORMANCES OF PLAYS BY ARTHUR SCHNITZLER + + +ANATOL: Deutsches Volkstheater, Vienna, and Lessingtheater, Berlin, +Dec. 3, 1910. + +A PIECE OF FICTION: Deutsches Volkstheater, Vienna, Dec. 1, 1893. + +PARACELSUS: Burgtheater, Vienna, March 1, 1899. + +AMOURS: Burgtheater, Vienna, Oct. 9, 1895. + +OUTSIDE THE GAME LAWS: Deutsche Theater, Berlin, 1896. + +THE LEGACY: Burgtheater, Vienna, Nov. 30, 1898. + +THE LIFE PARTNER: Burgtheater, Vienna, March 1, 1899. + +THE GREEN COCKATOO: Burgtheater, Vienna, March 1, 1899. + +THE VEIL OF BEATRICE: Lobetheater, Breslau, Dec. 1, 1900. + +THE LADY WITH THE DAGGER: Deutsche Theater, Berlin, Jan. 4, 1902. + +HOURS OF LIFE: Deutsche Theater, Berlin, Jan. 4, 1902. + +END OF THE CARNIVAL: Deutsche Theater, Berlin, Jan. 4, 1902. + +LITERATURE: Deutsche Theater, Berlin, Jan. 4, 1902. + +THE PUPPET PLAYER: Deutsche Theater, Berlin, September, 1903. + +THE GALLANT CASSIAN: Kleines Theater, Berlin, Oct. 12, 1905. + +THE LONELY WAY: Deutsche Theater, Berlin, Feb. 13, 1904. + +INTERMEZZO: Burgtheater, Vienna (with Joseph Kainz as _Adams_), Oct. +12, 1905. + +THE GREATEST SHOW OF ALL: Lustspieltheater, Vienna, March 16, 1906. + +THE CALL OF LIFE: Lessingtheater, Berlin, Feb. 24, 1906. + +COUNTESS MIZZIE: Deutsches Volkstheater, Vienna, January, 1909. + +YOUNG MEDARDUS: Burgtheater, Vienna, Nov. 24, 1910. + +THE VAST COUNTRY: Lessingtheater, Berlin, Oct. 14, 1912. + +PROFESSOR BERNHARDI: Kleines Theater, Berlin, Nov. 28, 1912. + +THE VEIL OF PIERRETTE: Hofopernhaus, Dresden, Jan. 22, 1910. + +Single scenes from "Anatol" were given at Ischl in the Summer of 1893, +and at a matinee arranged by the journalistic society "Concordia" at +one of the Vienna theaters in 1909. A Czechic translation of the whole +series was staged at Smichow, Bohemia, sometime during the nineties. +Three of the dialogues in "Change Partners!" were performed by members +of the _Akademisch-dramatischer Verein_ at Munich in 1904. + +The official records of the Burgtheater at Vienna show that, up to the +end of 1912, the eight Schnitzler plays forming part of its repertory +had been performed the following number of times: "Paracelsus," 12; +"Amours," 42; "The Legacy," 11; "The Life Partner," 14; "The Green +Cockatoo," 8; "Intermezzo," 22; "Young Medardus," 43; "The Vast +Country," 30. + +The list of dates given above has been drawn chiefly from "Das moderne +Drama," by Robert F. Arnold (Strassburg, 1912); "Das Burgtheater: +statistische Rueckblick," by Otto Rub (Vienna, 1913), and the current +files of _Buehne und Welt_ (Berlin). For dates of Schnitzler +performances in America and England, see the Henderson bibliography +previously mentioned. + + + + +THE LONELY WAY + +(Der Einsame Weg) + +A DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS + +1903 + + +PERSONS + +PROFESSOR WEGRAT } President of the Academy + } of Plastic Arts + +GABRIELLE } His wife + +FELIX } + } Their children +JOHANNA } + +JULIAN FICHTNER + +STEPHAN VON SALA + +IRENE HERMS + +DR. FRANZ REUMANN } A physician + +FICHTNER'S VALET + +SALA'S VALET + +A MAID AT THE WEGRATS' + + + + +THE LONELY WAY + + + + +THE FIRST ACT + + +_The little garden attached to Professor Wegrat's house. It is almost +surrounded by buildings, so that no outlook of any kind is to be had. +At the right in the garden stands the small two-storied house with its +woodwork veranda, to which lead three wooden steps. Entries are made +from the veranda as well as from either side of the house. Near the +middle of the stage is a green garden table with chairs to match, and +also a more comfortable armchair. A small iron bench is placed against +a tree at the left._ + +_Johanna is walking back and forth in the garden when Felix enters, +wearing the uniform of a uhlan._ + + +JOHANNA (_turning about_) + +Felix! + +FELIX + +Yes, it's me. + +JOHANNA + +How are you?--And how have you been able to get another furlough? + +FELIX + +Oh, it won't last long.--And how's mamma? + +JOHANNA + +Doing pretty well the last few days. + +FELIX + +Do you think she would be scared if I dropped in on her unexpectedly? + +JOHANNA + +No. But wait a little just the same. She's asleep now. I have just come +from her room.--How long are you going to stay, Felix? + +FELIX + +To-morrow night I'm off again. + +JOHANNA (_staring into a fancied distance_) + +Off.... + +FELIX + +Oh, it sounds big! But one doesn't get so very far off--not in any +respect. + +JOHANNA + +And you have wanted it so badly.... (_Pointing to his uniform_) Now +you've got it. And are you not satisfied? + +FELIX + +Well, at any rate it is the most sensible thing I have gone into so +far. For now I feel at least that I might achieve something under +certain circumstances. + +JOHANNA + +I believe you would make good in any profession. + +FELIX + +I have my doubts whether I could get anywhere as a lawyer or an +engineer. And on the whole I feel a good deal better than ever before. +Often it seems to me as if I hadn't been born at the right time. I +think I should have come into the world while there was still so much +of order left in it, that one could venture all sorts of things one +couldn't possibly venture nowadays. + +JOHANNA + +Oh, but you are free--you've got place to move. + +FELIX + +Only within certain limits. + +JOHANNA + +They are a great deal wider than these at any rate. + +FELIX (_looking around with a smile_) + +Well, this is not a prison.... Really, the garden has turned out quite +pretty. How bare it looked when we were children.--What's that? A row +of peach trees? That doesn't look bad at all. + +JOHANNA + +One of Dr. Reumann's ideas. + +FELIX + +Yes, I should have guessed it. + +JOHANNA + +Why? + +FELIX + +Because I can't believe any member of our family capable of such a +useful inspiration. What are his chances anyhow?--I mean in regard to +that professorship at Gratz? + +JOHANNA + +I don't know anything about it. (_She turns away_) + +FELIX + +I suppose mamma is outdoors a good deal these fine days? + +JOHANNA + +Yes. + +FELIX + +Are you still reading to her? Do you try to divert her a little? To +cheer her up? + +JOHANNA + +Just as if it were such an easy thing! + +FELIX + +But you have to put some spunk into it, Johanna. + +JOHANNA + +Yes, Felix, it's easy for you to talk. + +FELIX + +What do you mean? + +JOHANNA (_speaking as if to herself_) + +I don't know if you'll be able to understand me. + +FELIX (_smiling_) + +Why should it all at once be so hard for me to understand you? + +JOHANNA (_looking calmly at him_) + +Now when she is sick, I don't love her as much as before. + +FELIX (_startled_) + +What? + +JOHANNA + +No, it's impossible that you could quite understand. All the time she +is getting farther away from us.... It is as if every day a new set of +veils dropped down about her. + +FELIX + +And what is the meaning of it? + +JOHANNA (_continues to look at him in the same calm way_) + +FELIX + +You think...? + +JOHANNA + +You know, Felix, that I never make any mistakes in things of that kind. + +FELIX + +I _know_, you say...? + +JOHANNA + +When poor little Lillie von Sala had to die, I was aware of it in +advance--before the rest of you knew that she was sick even. + +FELIX + +Yes, you had had a dream--and you were nothing but a child. + +JOHANNA + +I didn't dream it. I knew it. (_Brusquely_) It's something I can't +explain. + +FELIX (_after a pause_) + +And papa--has he resigned himself to it? + +JOHANNA + +Resigned himself?--Do you think he too can see those veils coming down? + +FELIX (_having first shaken his head slightly_) + +Nothing but imagination, Johanna--I am sure.--But now I want to.... +(_Turning toward the house_) Papa hasn't come home yet? + +JOHANNA + +No. As a rule he's very late these days. He has an awful lot to do in +the Academy. + +FELIX + +I'll try not to wake her up--I'll be careful. (_He goes out by way of +the veranda_) + +[_While alone for a while, Johanna seats herself on the garden bench +with her hands clasped across her knees. Sala enters. He is forty-five, +but looks younger. Slender to the verge of leanness, and smooth-shaven. +His brown hair, which has begun to turn gray at the temples, and which +he wears rather long, is parted on the right side. His features are +keen and energetic; his eyes, gray and clear._ + +SALA + +Good evening, Miss Johanna. + +JOHANNA + +Good evening, Mr. von Sala. + +SALA + +They told me your mother was having a little nap, and so I permitted +myself to come out here in the meantime. + +JOHANNA + +Felix just got here. + +SALA + +Well? Have they already granted him another furlough? In my days they +were stricter in that regiment. However, we were then stationed near +the border--somewhere in Galicia. + +JOHANNA + +I can never keep in mind that you have gone through that kind of thing +too. + +SALA + +Yes, it's long ago now. And it didn't last more than a couple of years. +But it was good fun as I look back at it now. + +JOHANNA + +Like almost everything else you have experienced. + +SALA + +Like much of it. + +JOHANNA + +Won't you sit down? + +SALA + +Thank you. (_He seats himself on the support of the armchair_) Am I +permitted? (_Johanna having nodded assent, he takes a cigarette from +his case and lights it_) + +JOHANNA + +Are you already settled in your new place, Mr. von Sala? + +SALA + +I move in to-morrow. + +JOHANNA + +And it gives you a great deal of pleasure, doesn't it? + +SALA + +That would be a little premature. + +JOHANNA + +Are you superstitious? + +SALA + +Well, for that matter--yes.--But that was not what I had in mind. I +only take possession temporarily, not for good. + +JOHANNA + +Why not? + +SALA + +I'm going abroad--for a prolonged stay. + +JOHANNA + +Oh? You are to be envied. I wish I could do the same--go here and there +in the world, and not bother myself about a single human being. + +SALA + +Still at it? + +JOHANNA + +Still at it.... What do you mean? + +SALA + +Oh, I recall how the same kind of schemes for traveling used to occupy +your mind when you were nothing but a little girl. What was it you +wanted to become?--A ballet dancer, I think. Wasn't that it? A very +famous one, of course. + +JOHANNA + +Why do you say that as if it were nothing at all to be a ballet dancer? +(_Without looking at him_) You, in particular, Mr. von Sala, should not +be talking like that. + +SALA + +Why not I, in particular? + +JOHANNA (_glances up calmly at him_) + +SALA + +I don't quite make out what you mean, Miss Johanna.... Unless I +must.... (_Simply_) Johanna, did you know at the time that I was +looking at you? + +JOHANNA + +When? + +SALA + +Last year, when you were in the country, and I came out once and stayed +over night in your attic. It was bright moonlight, and I thought I +could see a fairy gliding back and forth in the meadow. + +JOHANNA (_nods with a smile_) + +SALA + +And it was for me? + +JOHANNA + +Oh, I saw you very well, where you stood behind the curtain. + +SALA (_after a brief pause_) + +I suppose you will never dance like that for other people? + +JOHANNA + +Why not?--I have already. And then, too, you were looking on. Of +course, it was a good while ago.--It happened on one of the Greek +islands. A large number of men stood in a circle around me ... you were +one of them ... and I was a slave girl from Lydia. + +SALA + +A princess in captivity. + +JOHANNA (_earnestly_) + +Don't you believe in such things? + +SALA + +If you want me to--certainly. + +JOHANNA (_still very serious_) + +You should believe everything in which the rest cannot believe. + +SALA + +When the time comes for it, I suppose I shall. + +JOHANNA + +You see--I can rather believe anything than that I should now be in the +world for the first time. And there are moments when I recall quite +clearly all sorts of things. + +SALA + +And at that time you had such a moment? + +JOHANNA + +Yes, a year ago, when I was dancing for you in the meadow that moonlit +summer night. I am sure it was not the first time, Mr. von Sala. +(_After a short pause, with a sudden change of tone_) Where are you +going anyhow? + +SALA (_falling into the same tone_) + +To Bactria, Miss Johanna. + +JOHANNA + +Where? + +SALA + +To Bactria. That's quite a remarkable country, and what's most +remarkable about it is that it doesn't exist any longer. What it means +is that I am joining an expedition which will start next November. You +have read of it in the papers, haven't you? + +JOHANNA + +No. + +SALA + +The proposition is to make excavations where it is supposed the ancient +Ecbatana stood once--some six thousand years ago. That goes even +farther back than your Lydian period, you see. + +JOHANNA + +When did you get hold of this idea? + +SALA + +Only a few days ago. Conversationally, so to speak. Count Ronsky, who +is at the head of the matter, inspired me with a great desire to go. +That wasn't very hard, however. He stirred an old longing within me. +(_With more spirit_) Think of it, Miss Johanna: to be watching with +your own eyes the gradual rising of such a buried city out of the +ground--house by house, stone by stone, century by century. No, it +wasn't meant that I should pass away until I had had this wish of mine +fulfilled. + +JOHANNA + +Why talk of dying then? + +SALA + +Is there ever a blissful moment in any decent man's life when he can +think of anything else in his innermost soul? + +JOHANNA + +I don't suppose a single wish of yours was ever left unfulfilled. + +SALA + +Not a single one...? + +JOHANNA + +I know that you have also had many sad experiences. But frequently I +believe you have longed for those too. + +SALA + +Longed for them...? You may be right, perhaps, in saying that I enjoyed +them when they came. + +JOHANNA + +How perfectly I understand that! A life without sorrow would probably +be as bare as a life without happiness. (_Pause_) How long ago is it +now? + +SALA + +What are you thinking of? + +JOHANNA + +That Mrs. von Sala died? + +SALA + +It's seven years ago, almost to a day. + +JOHANNA + +And Lillie--the same year? + +SALA + +Yes, Lillie died a month later. Do you often think of Lillie, Miss +Johanna? + +JOHANNA + +Quite often, Mr. von Sala. I have never had a girl friend since that +time. (_As if to herself_) She too would have to be called "miss" now. +She was very pretty. She had black hair with a bluish glint in it like +your wife, and the same clear eyes that you have, Mr. von Sala. (_As if +to herself_) "Then both of them walked hand in hand along the gloomy +road that leads through sunlit land...." + +SALA + +What a memory you have, Johanna. + +JOHANNA + +Seven years ago that was.... Remarkable! + +SALA + +Why remarkable? + +JOHANNA + +You are building a house, and digging out submerged cities, and writing +queer poetry--and human beings who once meant so much to you have been +rotting in their graves these seven years--and you are still almost +young. How incomprehensible the whole thing is! + +SALA + +"Thou that livest on, cease thou thy weeping," says Omar Nameh, who was +born at Bagdad in the year 412 of the Mohammedan era as the son of a +cobbler. For that matter, I know a man who is only thirty-eight. He has +buried two wives and seven children, not to speak of grandchildren. And +now he is playing the piano in a shabby little Prater[1] restaurant, +while artists of both sexes show off their tights and their fluttering +skirts on the platform. And recently, when the pitiful performance had +come to an end and they were turning out the lights, he went right on, +without apparent reason, and quite heedless of everything, playing away +on that frightful old rattle-box of his. And then Ronsky and I asked +him over to our table and had a chat with him. And then he told us that +the piece he had just played was his own composition. Of course, we +complimented him. And then his eyes lit up, and he asked us in a voice +that shook: "Gentlemen, do you think my piece will make a hit?" He is +thirty-eight years old, and his career has come to an end in a small +restaurant where his public consists of nurse-girls and +non-commissioned officers, and his one longing is--to get their +applause! + + [1] The Prater is at once the Central Park and the Coney + Island of Vienna, plus a great deal more--a park with an area + of 2,000 acres bounded by the Danube on one side and by the + Danube Canal on the other, full of all kinds of amusement + places. + +REUMANN (_enters_) + +Good evening, Miss Johanna. Good evening, Mr. von Sala. (_Shakes +hands with both of them at the same time_) How are you? + +SALA + +Fine. You don't suppose one must be your victim all the time because +one has had the honor of consulting you once? + +REUMANN + +Oh, I had forgotten all about it. However, there are people who feel +just that way.--I suppose your mother is having a little rest, Miss +Johanna? + +JOHANNA (_who apparently has been startled by the few words exchanged +between the physician and Sala, and who is looking intently at the +latter_) She is probably awake by this time. Felix is with her. + +REUMANN + +Felix...? You haven't telegraphed for him, have you? + +JOHANNA + +Not that I know of. Who could have...? + +REUMANN + +I only wondered. Your father is inclined to get frightened. + +JOHANNA + +There they are now. + +MRS. WEGRAT (_enters from the veranda with Felix_) + +How are you, my dear Doctor? What do you think of the surprise I have +just had? + +[_All the men shake hands._ + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Good evening, Mr. von Sala. + +SALA + +I am delighted to see you looking so well, Mrs. Wegrat. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Yes, I am doing a little better. If only the gloomy season were not so +close at hand. + +SALA + +But now the finest time of the year is coming. When the woods sparkle +with red and yellow, and a golden mist lies on the hills, and the sky +grows pale and remote as if it were scared by its own infinity...! + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Yes, that ought to be worth seeing once more. + +REUMANN (_reproachfully_) + +Mrs. Wegrat.... + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Pardon me--but thoughts of that kind will come. (_Brightening up a +little_) If I only knew how much longer I might count on my dear +doctor? + +REUMANN + +I can reassure you on that score, madam: I shall stay in Vienna. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +What? Has the matter been settled already? + +REUMANN + +Yes. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +So another man has actually been called to Gratz? + +REUMANN + +No, not that way. But the other man, who was practically sure of the +place, has broken his neck climbing a mountain. + +FELIX + +But then your chances should be better than ever. Whom could they +possibly consider besides you? + +REUMANN + +I suppose my chances wouldn't be bad. But I have preferred to forgo +them. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +How? + +REUMANN + +I won't accept the call. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Is that out of superstition? + +FELIX + +Or out of pride? + +REUMANN + +Neither. But the thought of having another man's misfortune to thank +for my own advancement would be extremely painful to me. Half my life +would be spoiled for me. That is neither superstition nor pride, you +see, but just commonplace, small-minded vanity. + +SALA + +You're a subtle one, Doctor. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Well, all I gather is that you are going to stay. Which shows how mean +your thoughts grow when you are sick. + +REUMANN (_changing the subject on purpose_) + +Well, Felix, how do you find life in a garrison? + +FELIX + +Fine. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +So you are really satisfied, boy? + +FELIX + +I feel very thankful to all of you. Especially to you, mamma. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Why to me especially? After all, the decision lay with your father in +the last instance. + +REUMANN + +He would, of course, have preferred to see you choose a more peaceful +calling. + +SALA + +Oh, but to-day there is none more peaceful. + +FELIX + +That's where you are right, Mr. von Sala.--By the by, I was to give you +the regards of Lieutenant-Colonel Schrotting. + +SALA + +Thank you. Does he still remember me? + +FELIX + +Not he alone. We are constantly being reminded of you--at every meal, +in fact. Yours is among the pictures of former officers that hang in +the mess rooms. + +WEGRAT (_enters_) + +Good evening.--Why, Felix, are you here again? What a surprise! + +FELIX + +Good evening, papa. I have applied for a two-day furlough. + +WEGRAT + +Furlough ... furlough? A real one? Or is it another one of those little +brilliant tricks? + +FELIX (_cheerfully and without taking offence_) + +I am not in the habit of fibbing, papa, am I? + +WEGRAT (_in the same tone_) + +I meant no offense, my boy. Even if you had been guilty of deserting +the flag, your longing to see your mother would be sufficient excuse +for you. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +To see his parents, you mean. + +WEGRAT + +Of course--to see us all. But as you are a little under the weather, +you come foremost just now.--Well, how are you getting along, Gabrielle? +Better, are you not? (_In a low voice, almost timidly_) My love.... +(_He strokes her brow and hair_) Love.... The air is so mild. + +SALA + +We are having a wonderful Autumn. + +REUMANN + +Have you just got away from the Academy, Professor? + +WEGRAT + +Yes. Now, when I am also the president of it, there is a whole lot to +do--and all of it is not pleasant or grateful. But I seem to be made +for it, as they have insisted. And I suppose it will have to go on this +way. (_With a smile_) As somebody once called me--an art-official. + +SALA + +Don't be so unjust to yourself, Professor. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +You must have been walking all that long way home again? + +WEGRAT + +I even went out of my way some distance--to pass across the old Turkish +fort.[2] I am awfully fond of that road. On evenings like this the +whole city lies beneath you as if bathed in a silvery mist.--By the by, +Gabrielle, I have some greetings to deliver. I met Irene Herms. + + [2] The place where the Turks fortified themselves before + driven from Vienna by John Sobieski in 1683 is now a small + park, "_Tuerkenschanz-Park_," located in Doebling, one of the + northwestern quarters of Greater Vienna. Only a little ways + south of this park, and overlooking it, stands the + Astronomical Observatory, not far from which Schnitzler has + been living for a number of years. Numerous references to + localities in this play indicate that he has placed the Wegrat + home in that very villa quarter of Waehring, where he himself + is so thoroughly at home. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Is she in Vienna? + +WEGRAT + +Just passing through. She intends to call on you. + +SALA + +Has she still got an engagement at Hamburg? + +WEGRAT + +No, she has left the stage, she told me, and is now living in the +country with her married sister. + +JOHANNA + +I saw her once in a play of yours, Mr. von Sala. + +SALA + +Then you must have been a very small girl indeed. + +JOHANNA + +She played a Spanish princess. + +SALA + +Unfortunately. For princesses were not at all in her line. She has +never in her life been able to treat verse properly. + +REUMANN + +And you can still bear that in mind, Mr. von Sala--that some lady on +some occasion happened to handle your verse badly? + +SALA + +Well, why shouldn't I, my dear Doctor? If you were living at the center +of the earth, you would know that all things are of equal weight. And +were you floating in the center of the universe, you would suspect that +all things are of equal importance. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +How does she look anyhow? + +WEGRAT + +She is still very pretty. + +SALA + +Has she preserved her resemblance to that portrait of hers which is +hanging in the Museum? + +FELIX + +What portrait is that? + +JOHANNA + +Is her portrait really in the Museum? + +SALA + +Oh, you know it. In the catalogue it is labeled "Actress"--just +"Actress." A young woman in the costume of a harlequin, over which she +has draped a Greek toga, while at her feet lie a confused heap of +masks. With her staring glance turned toward the spectators, she stands +there all alone on an empty, dusky stage, surrounded by odd pieces of +misfit scenery--one wall of a room, a forest piece, part of an old +dungeon.... + +FELIX + +And the background shows a southern landscape with palms and plane +trees...? + +SALA + +Yes, and it is partly raised so that still farther off you can see a +pile of furniture, steps, goblets, chandeliers--all glittering in full +daylight. + +FELIX + +But that's Julian Fichtner's picture? + +SALA + +Exactly. + +FELIX + +I had not the slightest idea that the figure of that woman was meant +for Irene Herms. + +WEGRAT + +Twenty-five years have passed since he painted that picture. It caused +a tremendous sensation at the time. It was his first big success. And +to-day I suppose there are lots of people who no longer remember his +name.--Come to think of it, I asked Irene Herms about him. But strange +to say, not even his "perennial best girl" could tell where in this +world he happens to be straying. + +FELIX + +I talked with him only a few days ago. + +WEGRAT + +What? You have seen Julian Fichtner? He was in Salzburg?--When? + +FELIX + +Only about three or four days ago. He looked me up, and we spent the +evening together. + +[_Mrs. Wegrat throws a quick glance at Dr. Reumann._ + +WEGRAT + +How is he doing? What did he tell you? + +FELIX + +He has turned rather gray, but otherwise he didn't seem to have changed +at all. + +WEGRAT + +How long can it be now since he left Vienna? Two years, isn't it? + +MRS. WEGRAT + +A little more. + +FELIX + +He has traveled far and wide. + +SALA + +Yes, now and then I have had a postcard from him. + +WEGRAT + +So have we. But I thought you and he were corresponding regularly. + +SALA + +Regularly? Oh, no. + +JOHANNA + +Isn't he a friend of yours? + +SALA + +As a rule I have no friends. And if I have any, I repudiate them. + +JOHANNA + +But you used to be quite intimate with him. + +SALA + +He with me rather than I with him. + +FELIX + +What do you mean by that, Mr. von Sala? + +JOHANNA + +Oh, I can understand it. I suppose you have had the same experience +with most people. + +SALA + +Something very much like it, at least. + +JOHANNA + +Yes, one can see it from what you write, too. + +SALA + +I hope so. Otherwise it might just as well have been written by +somebody else. + +WEGRAT + +Did he say when he would be back in Vienna? + +FELIX + +Soon, I think. But he didn't say very definitely. + +JOHANNA + +I should like to see Mr. Fichtner again. I am fond of that kind of +people. + +WEGRAT + +What do you mean by "that kind of people"? + +JOHANNA + +Who are always arriving from some far-off place. + +WEGRAT + +But as a rule he never arrived from far-off places when you knew him, +Johanna.... He was living right here. + +JOHANNA + +What did it matter whether he was living here or elsewhere?--Even when +he came to see us daily, it was always as if he had just arrived from +some great distance. + +WEGRAT + +Oh, of course.... + +FELIX + +I had often the same feeling. + +WEGRAT + +Well, it's strange how he has been knocking about in the world--these +last few years at least. + +SALA + +Don't you think his restlessness goes farther back? Were you not +students together in the Academy? + +WEGRAT + +Yes. And to know him properly, you must have known him then. There was +something fascinating about him as a young man, something that dazzled. +Never have I known anybody whom the term "of great promise" fitted so +completely. + +SALA + +Well, he has kept a whole lot of it. + +WEGRAT + +But think of all he might have achieved! + +REUMANN + +I believe that what you might achieve you do achieve. + +WEGRAT + +Not always. Julian was undoubtedly destined for higher things. What he +lacked was the capacity for concentration, the inward calm. He could +never feel at home for good anywhere. And the misfortune has been that +in his own works, too, he has lived only as a transient, so to speak. + +FELIX + +He showed me a couple of sketches he had made recently. + +WEGRAT + +Good? + +FELIX + +To me there was something gripping about them. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Why gripping? What kind of pictures were they? + +FELIX + +Landscapes. And as a rule very pleasant ones at that. + +JOHANNA + +Once in a dream I saw a Spring landscape, very sunlit and soft, and yet +it made me weep. + +SALA + +Yes, the sadness of certain things lies much deeper than we commonly +suspect. + +WEGRAT + +So he's working again? Then, perhaps, we may expect something out of +the ordinary. + +SALA + +In the case of anybody who has been an artist once you are never safe +against surprises. + +WEGRAT + +That's it, Mr. von Sala. That's where the great difference lies. In the +case of an official you can feel perfectly safe on that score. (_With +cheerful self-contempt_) Such a one paints every year his nice little +picture for the exhibition, and couldn't possibly do anything else. + +REUMANN + +It is still open to question who do most for the advancement of life +and art: officials like you, Professor, or--our so-called men of +genius. + +WEGRAT + +Oh, I have not the least intention to play the modest one. But as to +men of genius--we had better not talk of them at all. There you are +dealing with a world by itself, lying outside of all discussion--as do +the elements. + +REUMANN + +My opinion, I must confess, is utterly different. + +WEGRAT + +Oh, it's of no use discussing anybody but those who have distinct +limitations. And what I have found is--that he who knows his own +limitations best is the better man. And on this point I have pretty +good reason for self-respect.--Do you feel chilly, Gabrielle? + +MRS. WEGRAT + +No. + +WEGRAT + +But you had better pull the shawl a little closer about you, and then +we should have a little exercise--in so far as it's possible in here. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +All right.--Please, Doctor, give me your arm. You haven't paid the +least attention to your patient yet. + +REUMANN + +At your service! + +[_The rest start ahead, Johanna walking with her brother, and Wegrat +with Sala. Dr. Reumann and Mrs. Wegrat seem about to follow, when she +suddenly stops._ + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Did you notice his eyes light up--I mean, the eyes of Felix, when they +were talking of _him?_ It was most peculiar. + +REUMANN + +Men of Mr. Fichtner's type appear undoubtedly very interesting to young +people. They seem to carry with them an odor of romance. + +MRS. WEGRAT (_shaking her head_) + +And he looked him up.... It is perfectly clear that he went to Salzburg +just to see him again. I suppose he is beginning to feel a little +deserted. + +REUMANN + +Why not pay a visit to a young friend when one happens to be near the +place where he is living? I can see nothing peculiar in that. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Perhaps you are right. Perhaps I might have looked at the matter in the +same way not long ago. But now, in the face of.... No, Doctor, I am not +going to be sentimental. + +REUMANN + +I don't object to sentiment, but to nonsense. + +MRS. WEGRAT (_smiling_) + +Thank you.--However, I have occasion to think of many different things. +And it is no reason for taking it too seriously, my dear friend. You +know, of course, that I told you everything merely that I might have a +kind and sensible man with whom to discuss the past--and not at all to +be absolved of any guilt. + +REUMANN + +To give happiness is more than being free of guilt. And as this has +been granted you, it is clear that you have made full atonement--if +you'll pardon the use of such a preposterously extravagant term. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +How can you talk like that? + +REUMANN + +Well, am I not right? + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Just as if I couldn't feel how all of us, deceivers and deceived, must +seem equally contemptible to you in particular! + +REUMANN + +Why to me in particular...? What you call contempt, madam--supposing I +did feel anything like it--would, after all, be nothing but disguised +envy. Or do you think I lack the desire to conduct my life as I see +most other people conducting theirs? I simply haven't the knack. If I +am to be frank, madam--the deepest yearning of all within me is just to +be a rogue: a fellow who can dissemble, seduce, sneer, make his way +over dead bodies. But thanks to a certain shortcoming in my +temperament, I am condemned to remain a decent man--and what is still +more painful perhaps: to hear everybody say that I am one. + +MRS. WEGRAT (_who has been listening with a smile_) + +I wonder whether you have told the truth about what is keeping you here +in Vienna? + +REUMANN + +Certainly. Indeed, I have no other reason. I have no right to have any +other. Don't let us talk any more of it. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Are we not such good friends that I can talk calmly with you of +everything? I know what you have in mind. But I believe that it might +be in your power to drive certain illusions and dreams out of the soul +of a young girl. And it would be such a comfort to me if I could leave +you for good among these people, all of whom are so near to me, and who +yet know nothing whatever about each other--who are hardly aware of +their mutual relationships even, and who seem fated to flitter away +from each other to God knows where. + +REUMANN + +We'll talk of those things, madam, when it's time to do so. + +MRS. WEGRAT + +Of course, I regret nothing. I believe I have never regretted anything. +But I have a feeling that something is out of order. Perhaps it's +nothing but that strange glimmer in the eyes of Felix which has caused +all this unrest within me. But isn't it peculiar--uncanny almost--to +think that a man like him may go through the world with all his senses +open and yet never know whom he has to thank for being in the world? + +REUMANN + +Don't let us indulge in generalities, Mrs. Wegrat. In that way you can +set the most solid things shaking and swaying until the steadiest eyes +begin to grow dizzy. My own conclusion is this: that a lie which has +proved strong enough to sustain the peace of a household can be no less +respectable than a truth which could do nothing but destroy the image +of the past, fill the present with sorrow, and confuse the vision of +the future. (_He goes out with Mrs. Wegrat_) + +JOHANNA (_entering with Sala_) + +In this way one always gets back to the same spot. I suppose your +garden is bigger, Mr. von Sala? + +SALA + +My garden is the whole wide woods--that is, for people whose fancy is +not restrained by a light fence. + +JOHANNA + +Your villa has grown very pretty. + +SALA + +Oh, you know it then? + +JOHANNA + +A little while ago I saw it again for the first time in three years. + +SALA + +But three years ago they hadn't put in the foundations yet. + +JOHANNA + +To me it was already standing there. + +SALA + +How mysterious.... + +JOHANNA + +Not at all. If you will only remember. Once we made an excursion to +Dornbach[3]--my parents, and Felix, and I. There we met you and Mr. +Fichtner, and it happened on the very spot where your house was to be +built. And now everything looks just as you described it to us then. + + [3] A suburb near the western limits of Vienna and not far + from the location indicated for the Wegrat home. + +SALA + +But how did you happen to be in that vicinity? + +JOHANNA + +Since mamma was taken sick I have often had to take my walks alone.... + +SALA + +And when was it you passed by my house? + +JOHANNA + +Not long ago--to-day. + +SALA + +To-day? + +JOHANNA + +Yes. I went all around it. + +SALA + +Oh? All around it?--Did you also notice the little gate that leads +directly into the woods? + +JOHANNA + +Yes.--But from that spot the house is almost invisible. The leafage is +very thick.--Where have you placed those busts of the Roman emperors? + +SALA + +They stand on columns at the opening of an avenue of trees. Right by is +a small marble bench, and in front of the bench a little pool has been +made. + +JOHANNA (_nodding_) + +Just as you told us that time.... And there is a greenish gray glitter +on the water--and in the morning the shadow from the beech tree falls +across it.... I know. (_She looks up at him and smiles; both go out +together_) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +THE SECOND ACT + + +_In the home of Julian Fichtner. A pleasant, rather distinguished room +in a state of slight disorder. Books are piled on two chairs, while on +another chair stands an open traveling bag. Julian is seated at a +writing desk, from the drawers of which he is taking out papers. Some +of these he destroys, while others are thrown into the waste-paper +basket._ + + +VALET (_announcing_) + +Mr. von Sala. (_He goes out_) + +SALA (_enters. His custom to walk up and down while talking asserts +itself strikingly during the following scene. Now and then he sits down +for a moment, often only on the arm of a chair. At times he stops +beside Julian, putting his hand on the latter's shoulder while +speaking. Two or three times during the scene he puts his hand to the +left side of his chest, in a manner suggesting discomfort of some kind. +But this gesture is not sharply accentuated_) + +JULIAN + +I am delighted. (_They shake hands_) + +SALA + +So you got back early this morning? + +JULIAN + +Yes. + +SALA + +And mean to stay...? + +JULIAN + +Haven't decided yet. Things are a little upset, as you see. And I fear +they'll never be quite in shape again. I intend to give up this place. + +SALA + +Too bad. I have become so accustomed to it. In what direction are you +going to move? + +JULIAN + +It's possible that I don't take any new quarters at all for a while, +but just keep on moving about as I have been doing the last few years. +I am even considering to have my things sold at auction. + +SALA + +That's a thought which gets no sympathy from me. + +JULIAN + +Really, I haven't got much sympathy for it myself. But the material +side of the question has to be considered a little, too. I have been +spending too much these last years, and it has to be evened up somehow. +Probably I'll settle down again later on. Sometime one must get back to +peace and work, I suppose.--Well, how goes it with you? What are our +friends and acquaintances doing? + +SALA + +So you haven't seen anybody yet? + +JULIAN + +Not one. And you are the only one I have written about my being here. + +SALA + +And you have not yet called on the Wegrats? + +JULIAN + +No. I even hesitate to go there. + +SALA + +Why? + +JULIAN + +After a certain age it would perhaps be better never to put your foot +in any place where your earlier years were spent. It is so rare to find +things and people the same as when you left them. Isn't that so?--Mrs. +Gabrielle is said to have changed considerably in the course of her +sickness. That's what Felix told me at least. I should prefer not to +see her again. Oh, you can understand that, Sala. + +SALA (_rather surprised_) + +Of course, I understand. How long is it you have had no news from +Vienna? + +JULIAN + +I have constantly started ahead of my mail. Not a single letter has +overtaken me during the last fortnight. (_Alarmed_) What has happened? + +SALA + +Mrs. Gabrielle died a week ago. + +JULIAN + +Oh! (_He is deeply moved; for a while he walks back and forth; then +he resumes his seat and says after a pause_) Of course, it was to be +expected, and yet.... + +SALA + +Her death came easily.... You know how those left behind always pretend +to know such things with certainty. Anyhow, she fell asleep quietly one +night and never woke up again. + +JULIAN (_in low voice_) + +Poor Gabrielle!--Did you see anything of her toward the end? + +SALA + +Yes, I went there almost daily. + +JULIAN + +Oh, did you? + +SALA + +Johanna asked me. She was literally afraid of being alone with her +mother. + +JULIAN + +Afraid? + +SALA + +The sick woman inspired her with a sort of horror. She has calmed down +a little now. + +JULIAN + +What a strange creature.... And how does our friend, the professor, +bear up under his loss? Resigned to the will of God, I suppose? + +SALA + +My dear Julian, the man has a position. I fear we cannot grasp that, we +who are Gods by the grace of the moment--and also less than men at +times. + +JULIAN + +Of course, Felix is not here? + +SALA + +I talked with him less than an hour ago, and informed him that you were +here. It made him very happy to have you call on him in Salzburg. + +JULIAN + +It looked so to me. And he did me a lot of good. For that matter, I +have really thought of settling down in Salzburg. + +SALA + +For ever? + +JULIAN + +For a while. On account of Felix, too. His unspoiled nature affects me +very pleasantly--it makes me actually feel younger. Were he not my son, +I might almost envy him--and not on account of his youth alone. (_With +a smile_) Thus there is nothing left for me but to love him. I must say +that I feel a little ashamed at having to do it incognito, so to speak. + +SALA + +Are not these feelings a little belated in their appearance? + +JULIAN + +Oh, I suppose they were there long before I knew. And, you know, I saw +the youngster for the first time when he was ten or eleven years old, +and it was only then I learned that he was my son. + +SALA + +It must have been a strange meeting between you and Mrs. Gabrielle, ten +years after you had committed that piece of hideous perfidy--as our +ancestors used to put it. + +JULIAN + +It wasn't strange even. It came about quite naturally. Shortly after my +return from Paris I happened to meet Wegrat on the street. Of course, +we had heard of each other from time to time, and we met as old +friends. There are people who seem born to a fate of that kind.... And +as for Gabrielle.... + +SALA + +She had forgiven you, of course? + +JULIAN + +Forgiven...? It was more or less than that. Only once did we talk of +the past--she without reproach, and I without regret: as if the whole +story had happened to somebody else. And after that never again. I +might have thought some miracle had wiped those earlier days out of her +memory. In fact, as far as I am concerned, there seemed to be no real +connection between that quiet matron and the creature I had once loved. +And as for the youngster--well, you know--at first I didn't care more +for him than I might have cared for any other pretty and gifted +child.--Of course, ten years ago my life had a different aspect. I was +still clinging to so many things which since then have slipped away +from me. It was only in the course of time that I became more and more +drawn to the house, until at last I began to feel at home there. + +SALA + +I hope you never took offense at my gradual discovery of the true state +of affairs. + +JULIAN + +You, at any rate, didn't think me very sensible.... + +SALA + +Why not? I too find that family life in itself is quite attractive. +Only it ought, after all, to be experienced in one's own family. + +JULIAN + +You know very well that I have frequently felt something like actual +shame at the incongruity of that relationship. It was in fact one of +the things that drove me away. Of course, there were a lot of other +things that pressed on me at the time. Especially that I couldn't make +a real success out of my work. + +SALA + +But you hadn't been exhibiting anything for a long time. + +JULIAN + +It wasn't external success I had in mind. I could never get into the +right mood any more, and I hoped that traveling would help me again, as +it had done so often in earlier years. + +SALA + +And how did you fare? We have heard so little of you here. You might +really have written me a little more frequently and fully. For you +know, of course, that I care a great deal more for you than for most +other people. We have such a knack of giving each other the right +cue--don't you think? There are sentimental people who speak of such a +relation as friendship. And it is not impossible that we used to +address each other by our Christian names some time during the last +century, or that you may even have wept your fill on my shoulder. I +have missed you more than once during these two years--honestly! On my +lonely walks I have quite frequently thought of our pleasant chats in +the Dornbach park, where we were in the habit of disposing temporarily +of (_quoting_) "what is most lofty and profound in this our +world."--Well, Julian, from where do you come anyhow? + +JULIAN + +From the Tyrol? During the Summer I made long tours on foot. I have +even turned mountain climber in my old days. I spent a whole week at +one of those pasturing grounds in the Alps.... Yes, I have been up to +all sorts of things. It's a wonder what you can do when you are all +alone. + +SALA + +And you have really been all alone? + +JULIAN + +Yes. + +SALA + +All these last years? + +JULIAN + +If I don't count a few nonsensical interruptions--yes. + +SALA + +But there should have been no difficulty in that respect. + +JULIAN + +I know. But I cannot rest satisfied with what is still offered me of +that kind of thing. I have been badly spoiled, Sala. Up to a certain +period my life passed away in a constant orgy of tenderness and +passion, and of power, you might say. And that is all over. Oh, Sala, +what pitiful fictions I have had to steal, and beg, and buy, during +these last years! It gives me nausea to look back at it, and it +horrifies me to look ahead. And I ask myself: can there really be +nothing left of all that glow with which I once embraced the world but +a sort of silly wrath because it's all over--because I--_I_--am no +less subject to human laws than anybody else? + +SALA + +Why all this bitterness, Julian? There is still a great deal to be had +out of this world, even when some of the pleasures and enjoyments of +our earlier years have begun to appear tasteless or unseemly. And how +can you, of all people, miss that feeling, Julian? + +JULIAN + +Snatch his part from an actor and ask him if he can still take pleasure +in the beautiful scenery surrounding him. + +SALA + +But you have begun to work again while you were traveling? + +JULIAN + +Hardly at all. + +SALA + +Felix told us that you had brought some sketches from your trunk in +order to show him. + +JULIAN + +He spoke of them? + +SALA + +Yes, and nothing but good. + +JULIAN + +Really? + +SALA + +And as you showed those things to him, you must have thought rather +well of them yourself. + +JULIAN + +That was not the reason why I let him see them. (_Walking back and +forth_) I must tell you--at the risk of having you think me a perfect +fool. + +SALA + +Oh, a little more or less won't count. Speak out. + +JULIAN + +I wanted him at least not to lose faith in me. Can you understand that? +After all, he is nearer to me than the rest. Of course, I know--to +everybody, even to you, I am one who has gone down, who is finished--one +of those whose only talent was his youth. It doesn't bother me very +much. But to Felix I want to be the man I was once--just as I still +_am_ that man. When he learns sometime that I am his father, he must be +proud of it. + +SALA + +When he learns it...? + +JULIAN + +I have no intention to keep it hidden from him forever. Now, when his +mother is dead, less than ever. Last time I talked to him, it became +clear to me, not only that it would be right, but that it would almost +be a duty, to tell him the truth. He has a mind for essentials. He will +understand everything. And I shall have a human being who belongs to +me, who knows that he belongs to me, and for whose sake it is worth +while to keep on living in this world. I shall live near him, and be +with him a good deal. Once more I shall have my existence put on a +solid basis, so to speak, and not hung in mid-air, as it is now. And +then I shall be able to work again--work as I did once--as when I was a +young man. Work, that is what I am going to do--and all of you will +turn out to have been wrong--all of you! + +SALA + +But to whom has it occurred to doubt you? If you could only have heard +us talk of you a little while ago, Julian. Everybody expects that, +sooner or later, you--will find yourself again completely. + +JULIAN + +Well, that's enough about me, more than enough. Pardon me. Let us hear +something about yourself at last. I suppose you have already moved into +your new house? + +SALA + +Yes. + +JULIAN + +And what plans have you for the immediate future? + +SALA + +I am thinking of going to Asia with Count Ronsky. + +JULIAN + +With Ronsky? Are you going to join that expedition about which so much +has been written? + +SALA + +Yes. Some such undertaking has been tempting me for a long time. Are +you perhaps familiar with the Rolston report on the Bactrian and Median +excavations of 1892? + +JULIAN + +No. + +SALA + +Well, it is positively staggering. Think of it--they suspect that under +the refuse and the dust lies a monster city, something like the present +London in extent. At that time they made their way into a palace, where +the most wonderful paintings were found. These were perfectly preserved +in several rooms. And they dug out stairways--built of a marble that is +nowhere to be found nowadays. Perhaps it was brought from some island +which since then has sunk beneath the sea. Three hundred and twelve +steps glittering like opals and leading down into unknown depths.... +Unknown because they ceased digging after they had reached the three +hundred and twelfth step--God only knows why! I don't think I can tell +you how those steps pique my curiosity. + +JULIAN + +But it has always been asserted that the Rolston expedition was lost? + +SALA + +No, not quite as bad as that. Out of twenty-four Europeans, eight got +back after three years in spite of all--and half a dozen of them had +been lost before they ever got there. You have to pass through pretty +bad fever belts. And at that time they had to face an attack of the +Kurds, too, by which several were done for. But we shall be much better +equipped. Furthermore, at the border we shall be joined by a Russian +contingent which is traveling under military escort. And here, too, +they think of putting a military aspect on the affair. As to the +fever--that doesn't scare me--it can't do me any harm. As a young man I +spent a number of particularly dangerous Summer nights in the _thermae_ +of Caracalla--you know, of course, what boggy ground that is--and +remained well. + +JULIAN + +But that doesn't prove anything. + +SALA + +Oh yes, a little. There I came across a Roman girl whose home was right +by the Appian Way. She caught the fever and died from it.... To be +sure, I am not as young as I was then, but so far I have been perfectly +well. + +JULIAN (_who has already smoked several cigarettes, offers one to +Sala_) Don't you smoke? + +SALA + +Thanks. Really, I shouldn't. Only yesterday Dr. Reumann told me I +mustn't.... Nothing particular--my heart is a little restless, that's +all. Well, a single one won't do any harm, I suppose. + +VALET (_enters_) + +Miss Herms, sir. She's asking whether she can see you. + +JULIAN + +Certainly. Ask her to come in. + +VALET (_goes out_) + +IRENE HERMS (_enters. She is about forty-three, but doesn't look it. +Her dress is simple and in perfect taste. Her movements are vivacious, +and at times almost youthful in their swiftness. Her hair is deeply +blonde in color and very heavy. Her eyes are merry, good-humored most +of the time, and easily filled with tears. She comes in with a smile +and nods in a friendly manner to Sala. To Julian, who has gone to meet +her, she holds out her hand with an expression on her face that is +almost happy_) Good evening. Well? (_She has the habit of pronouncing +that "well" in a tone of sympathetic inquiry_) So I did right after all +in keeping my patience a couple of days more. Here I've got you back +now. (_To Sala_) Can you guess the length of time we haven't seen each +other? + +JULIAN + +More than three years. + +IRENE (_nods assent and permits him at last to withdraw his hand from +hers_) In all our lives that has never happened before. And your last +letter is already two months old. I call it "letter" just to save my +face. But it was only a view-card. Where in the world have you been +anyhow? + +JULIAN + +Sit down, won't you? I'll tell you all about it. Won't you take off +your hat? You'll stay a while, I hope? + +IRENE + +Of course.--And the way you look! (_To Sala_) Fine, don't you think? +I've always known that a gray beard would make him look awfully +interesting. + +SALA (_to Julian_) + +Now you'll have nothing but pleasantries to listen to. Unfortunately I +shall have to be moving. + +IRENE + +You're not leaving on my account, I hope? + +SALA + +How can you imagine such a thing, Miss Herms? + +IRENE + +I suppose you are bound for the Wegrats'?--What do you think of it, +Julian? Isn't it dreadful? (_To Sala_) Please give them my regards. + +SALA + +I'm not going there now. I'm going home. + +IRENE + +Home? And you say that in such a matter-of-fact way? I understand you +are now living in a perfect palace. + +SALA + +No, anything but that. A modest country house. It would give me special +pleasure, Miss Herms, if sometime you would make sure of it in person. +My garden is really pretty. + +IRENE + +Have you fruit trees, too, and vegetables? + +SALA + +In this respect I can only offer you a stray cabbage and a wild cherry +tree. + +IRENE + +Well, if my time permit, I shall make a point of coming out there to +have a look at your villa. + +JULIAN + +Must you leave again so soon? + +IRENE + +Certainly. I have to get home again. Only this morning I had a letter +from my little nephew--and he's longing for me. A little rascal of +five, and he, too, is longing already. What do you think of that? + +SALA + +And you are also longing to get back, I suppose? + +IRENE + +It isn't that. But I'm beginning to get accustomed to Vienna again. As +I'm going about the streets here, I run across memories at every +corner.--Can you guess where I was yesterday, Julian? In the rooms +where I used to live as a child. It wasn't easy by any means, as a lot +of strangers are living there now. But I got into the rooms just the +same. + +SALA (_with amicable irony_) + +How did you manage it, Miss Herms? + +IRENE + +I sneaked in under a pretext. I pretended to believe that there was a +room to be let--for a single elderly lady. But at last I fell to +weeping so that I could see the people thought me out of my mind. And +then I told them the true reason for my coming there. A clerk in the +post-office is living there now with his wife and two children. One of +these was such a nice little chap. He was playing railroad with an +engine that could be wound up, and that ran over one of my feet all the +time.... But I can see that all this doesn't interest you very much, +Mr. von Sala. + +SALA + +How _can_ you interrupt yourself like that, Miss Herms, just when it is +most exciting? I should have loved to hear more about it. But now I +must really go, unfortunately. Good-by, Julian.--Then, Miss Herms, I +may count on a visit from you. (_He goes out_) + +IRENE + +Thank God! + +JULIAN (_smiling_) + +Do you still have the same antipathy for him? + +IRENE + +Antipathy?--I hate him! Nothing but your incredible kindness of heart +would let him come near you. For you have no worse enemy. + +JULIAN + +Where did you get that idea? + +IRENE + +My instinct tells me--you can feel such things. + +JULIAN + +I fear, however, that even now you cannot judge him quite objectively. + +IRENE + +Why not? + +JULIAN + +You can't forgive him that you failed in one of his plays ten years +ago. + +IRENE + +Unfortunately it's already twelve years ago. And it wasn't my fault. +For my opinion in regard to his so-called poetry is, that it's +nonsense. And I am not the only one who thinks so, as you know. But you +don't know him, of course. To appreciate that gentleman in all his +glory, you must have enjoyed him at a rehearsal. (_Imitating Sala_) Oh, +madam, that's verse--it's verse, dear madam.... Only when you have +heard that kind of thing from him can you understand how limitless his +arrogance is.... And everybody knows, by the way, that he killed his +wife. + +JULIAN (_amused_) + +But, girl, who in the world put such horrible ideas into your head? + +IRENE + +Oh, people don't die willy-nilly like that, at twenty-five.... + +JULIAN + +I hope, Irene, that you don't talk like this to other people? + +IRENE + +What would be the use? Everyone knows it but you. And I for my part +have no reason to spare Mr. von Sala, who for twenty years has pursued +me with his jeers. + +JULIAN + +And yet you are going to call on him? + +IRENE + +Of course. Beautiful villas interest me very much. And they tell me his +is ravishing. If you were only to see people who.... + +JULIAN + +Hadn't killed anybody.... + +IRENE + +Really, we show him too much honor in talking so long about him. That +ends it.--Well, Julian? How goes it? Why haven't you written me +oftener? Is it possible you didn't dare? + +JULIAN + +Dare...? + +IRENE + +Were you forbidden, I mean? + +JULIAN + +I see.--Nobody can forbid me anything. + +IRENE + +Honestly? You live all by yourself? + +JULIAN + +Yes. + +IRENE + +I'm delighted. I can't help it, Julian, but I am delighted. Although +it's sheer nonsense. This day, or the next, there'll be something new +going on. + +JULIAN + +Those days are past. + +IRENE + +If it were only true!--Can I have a cup of tea? + +JULIAN + +Certainly. The samovar is right there. + +IRENE + +Where?--Oh, over there. And the tea?--Oh, I know! (_She opens a small +cupboard and brings out what she needs; during the next few minutes she +is busy preparing the tea_) + +JULIAN + +So you are really going to stay here only a couple of days more? + +IRENE + +Of course. I have done all my ordering. You understand, in my sister's +house out there one doesn't need to dress up. + +JULIAN + +Tell me about it. How do you like it out there? + +IRENE + +Splendidly. Oh, it's bliss merely to hear nothing more about the +theater. + +JULIAN + +And yet you'll return to it sometime. + +IRENE + +That's where you are completely mistaken. Why should I? You must +remember that I have now reached the goal of all my desires: fresh air, +and woods right by; horseback riding across meadows and fields; early +morning seated in the big park, dressed in my kimono, and nobody daring +to intrude. To put it plainly: no people, no manager, no public, no +colleagues, no playwrights--though, of course, all are not as arrogant +as your precious Sala.--Well, all this I have attained at last. I live +in the country. I have a country house--almost a little palace, you +might say. I have a park, and a horse, and a kimono--to use as much as +I please. It isn't all mine, I admit--except the kimono, of course--but +what does that matter? In the bargain, I live with the best people one +could hope to find in this world. For my brother-in-law is, if +possible, a finer fellow than Lora herself even. + +JULIAN + +Wasn't he rather making up to you once? + +IRENE + +I should say he was! He wanted to marry me at any cost. Of course!--It +was always in me that they were at first--I mean that they always _have +been_ in love with me. But as a rule the clever ones have gone over to +Lora. In fact, I have always felt a little distrustful toward you +because you never fell in love with Lora. And how much she is ahead of +me--well, _you_ know, and it's no use talking of it. What all don't I +owe to Lora!... If it hadn't been for her...!--Well, it's with them I +have been living the last half year. + +JULIAN + +The question is only how long you are going to stand it. + +IRENE + +How long...? But, Julian, I must ask you what there could be to make me +leave such a paradise and return to the morass where I (_in a lowered +voice_) spent twenty-five years of my life. What could I possibly +expect out of the theater anyhow? I am not made for elderly parts. The +heroic mother, the shrewish dame and the funny old woman are equally +little to my liking. I intend to die as "the young lady from the +castle"--as an old maid, you might say--and if everything goes right, I +shall appear to the grandchildren of my sister some hundred years from +now as the Lady in White. In a word, I have the finest kind of a life +ahead of me.--Why are you laughing? + +JULIAN + +It pleases me to see you so jolly again--so youthful. + +IRENE + +It's the country air, Julian. You should try it yourself for a good +long while. It's glorious! In fact, I think I have missed my true +calling. I'm sure the good Lord meant me for a milkmaid or farm girl of +some kind. Or perhaps for a young shepherd. I have always looked +particularly well in pants.--There now. Do you want me to pour a cup +for you at once? (_She pours the tea_) Have you nothing to go with +it? + +JULIAN + +I think there must still be a few crackers left in my bag. (_He takes +a small package out of his traveling bag_) + +IRENE + +Thanks. That's fine. + +JULIAN + +This is quite a new fancy of yours, however. + +IRENE + +Crackers...? + +JULIAN + +No, nature. + +IRENE + +How can you say so? I have always had a boundless love for nature. +Don't you recall the excursions we used to make? Don't you remember how +once we fell asleep in the woods on a hot Summer afternoon? And don't +you ever think of that shrine of the Holy Virgin, on the hill where we +were caught by the storm?... Oh, mercy! Nature is no silly illusion. +And still later--when I struck the bad days and wanted to kill myself +for your sake, fool that I was ... then nature simply proved my +salvation. Indeed, Julian! I could still show you the place where I +threw myself on the grass and wept. You have to walk ten minutes from +the station, through an avenue of acacias, and then on to the brook. +Yes, I threw myself on the grass and wept and wailed. It was one of +those days, you know, when you had again sent me packing from your +door. Well, and then, when I had been lying half an hour in the grass, +and had wept my fill, then I got up again--and began to scamper all +over the meadow. Just like a kid, all by myself. Then I wiped my eyes +and felt quite right again. (_Pause_) Of course, next morning I was at +your door again, setting up a howl, and then the story began all over +again. + +[_It is growing dark._ + +JULIAN + +Why do you still think of all that? + +IRENE + +But you do it, too. And who has proved the more stupid of us two in the +end? Who? Ask yourself, on your conscience. Who?... Have you been more +happy with anybody else than with me? Has anybody else clung to you as +I did? Has anybody else been so fond of you?... No, I am sure. And as +to that foolish affair into which I stumbled during my engagement +abroad--you might just as well have overlooked it. Really, there isn't +as much to that kind of thing as you men want to make out--when it +happens to one of us, that is to say. (_Both drink of their tea_) + +JULIAN + +Should I get some light? + +IRENE + +It's quite cosy in the twilight like this. + +JULIAN + +"Not much to it," you say. Perhaps you are right. But when it happens +to anybody, he gets pretty mad as a rule. And if we had made up +again--it would never have been as before. It's better as it is. When +the worst was over, we became good friends once more, and so we have +been ever since. And that is a pretty fine thing, too. + +IRENE + +Yes. And nowadays I'm quite satisfied. But at that time...! Oh, mercy, +what a time that was! But you don't know anything about it, of course. +It was afterward I began really to love you--after I had lost you +through my own thoughtlessness. It was only then I learned how to be +faithful in the true sense. For anything that has happened to me since +then.... But it's asking too much that a man should understand that +kind of thing. + +JULIAN + +I understand quite well, Irene. You may be sure. + +IRENE + +And besides I want to tell you something: it was nothing but a +well-deserved punishment for both of us. + +JULIAN + +For both of us? + +IRENE + +Yes, that's what I have figured out long ago. A well-deserved +punishment. + +JULIAN + +For both of us? + +IRENE + +Yes, for you, too. + +JULIAN + +But what do you mean by that? + +IRENE + +We had deserved no better. + +JULIAN + +We...? In what way? + +IRENE (_very seriously_) + +You are so very clever otherwise, Julian. Now what do you say--do you +think it could have happened as it did--do you think I could have made +a mistake like that--if we--had had a child? Ask yourself on your +conscience, Julian--do you believe it? I don't, and you don't either. +Everything would have happened in a different way. Everything. We had +stayed together then. We had had _more_ children. We had married. We +might be living together now. I shouldn't have become an old-maidish +"young lady from the castle," and you wouldn't have become.... + +JULIAN + +An old bachelor. + +IRENE + +Well, if you say it yourself. And the main thing is this: we _had_ a +child. I had a child. (_Pause_) + +JULIAN (_walking back and forth_) + +What's the use, Irene? Why do you begin to talk of all those forgotten +things again...? + +IRENE + +Forgotten? + +JULIAN + +... Things gone by. + +IRENE + +Yes, they are bygone, of course. But out there in the country you have +plenty of time. All sorts of things keep passing through your head. And +especially when you see other people's children--Lora has two boys, you +know--then you get all sorts of notions. It almost amounted to a vision +not long ago. + +JULIAN + +What? + +IRENE + +It was toward evening, and I had walked across the fields. I do it +quite often, all by myself. Far and wide there was nobody to be seen. +And the village down below was quite deserted, too. And I walked on and +on, always in direction of the woods. And suddenly I was no longer +alone. You were with me. And between us was the child. We were holding +it by the hands--our little child. (_Angrily, to keep herself from +crying_) It's too silly for anything! I know, of course, that our child +would be a gawky youngster of twenty-three by now--that it might have +turned into a scamp or a good-for-nothing girl. Or that it might be +dead already. Or that it had drifted out into the wide world, so that +we had nothing left of it--oh, yes, yes.... But we should have had it +once, for all that--once there would have been a little child that +seemed rather fond of us. And.... (_She is unable to go on; silence +follows_) + +JULIAN (_softly_) + +You shouldn't talk yourself into such a state, Irene. + +IRENE + +I am not talking myself into anything. + +JULIAN + +Don't brood. Accept things as they are. There have been other things in +your life--better things, perhaps. Your life has been much richer than +that of a mere mother could ever have been.... You have been an artist. + +IRENE (_as if to herself_) + +I don't care that much for it. + +JULIAN + +A great, famous one--that means something after all. And your life has +brought you many other exquisite experiences--since the one with me. I +am sure of it. + +IRENE + +What have I got left of it? What does it amount to? A woman who has no +child has never been a woman. But a woman who once might have had +one--who should have had one, and who--(_with a glance at +him_)--has never become a mother, she is nothing but--oh! But that's +what a man cannot understand! It is what not one of them can +understand! In this respect the very best one of the lot will always +remain something of a cad. Is there one of you who knows how many of +his own offspring have been set adrift in the world? I know at least +that there are none of mine. Can you say as much? + +JULIAN + +And if I did know.... + +IRENE + +How? Have you got one really?--Oh, speak, please! You can tell _me,_ +Julian, can't you? Where is it? How old is it? A boy? Or a girl? + +JULIAN + +Don't question me.... Even if I had a child, it wouldn't belong to you +anyhow. + +IRENE + +He has a child! He has a child! (_Pause_) Why do you permit it to be +drifting around in the world then? + +JULIAN + +You yourself have given the explanation: in this respect the very best +of us remains always something of a cad. And I am not the best one at +that. + +IRENE + +Why don't you go and get it? + +JULIAN + +How could it be any of my concern? How could I dare to make it my +concern? Oh, that's enough.... (_Pause_) Do you want another cup of +tea? + +IRENE + +No, thanks. No more now. (_Pause; it is growing darker_) He has a +child, and I have never known it! (_Protracted silence_) + +VALET (_enters_) + +JULIAN + +What is it? + +VALET + +Lieutenant Wegrat asks if you are at home, sir? + +JULIAN + +Certainly. Ask him in. + +VALET (_goes out after having turned on the light_) + +IRENE + +Young Wegrat?--I thought he had already left again.--The poor chap! He +seemed utterly stunned. + +JULIAN + +I can imagine. + +IRENE + +You visited him at Salzburg? + +JULIAN + +Yes, I happened to be there a couple of days last August. + +FELIX (_enters, dressed as a civilian_) + +Good evening.--Good evening, Miss Herms. + +IRENE + +Good evening, Lieutenant. + +JULIAN + +My dear Felix--I was going to call on you--this very evening. It's +extremely nice of you to take the trouble. + +FELIX + +I have to be off again the day after to-morrow, and so I wasn't sure +whether I could find any chance at all to see you. + +JULIAN + +Won't you take off your coat?--Think of it, I didn't have the slightest +idea.... It was Sala who told me--less than an hour ago. + +[_Irene is looking from one to the other._ + +FELIX + +We didn't dream of this when we took that walk in the Mirabell +Gardens[4] last summer. + + [4] The palace of Mirabell is one of the sights of Salzburg, + the city near the Bavarian border, where Felix's regiment was + stationed. It is now used as a museum. The gardens adjoining + it are of the formal type so dear to, and so characteristic + of, the eighteenth century. + +JULIAN + +Was it very sudden? + +FELIX + +Yes. And I, who couldn't be with her.... Late that evening I had to +leave, and she died during the night. + +IRENE + +Say rather that she didn't wake up again next morning. + +FELIX + +We owe a lot of thanks to you, Miss Herms. + +IRENE + +Oh, please...! + +FELIX + +It always gave my mother so much pleasure to have you with her, +chatting, or playing the piano to her. + +IRENE + +Oh, don't mention my playing...! + +[_A clock strikes._ + +IRENE + +Is it that late? Then I have to go. + +JULIAN + +What's the hurry, Miss Herms? + +IRENE + +I'm going to the opera. I have to make good use of the few days I shall +still be here. + +FELIX + +Shall we see you at our house again, Miss Herms? + +IRENE + +Certainly.--You'll have to leave before me, won't you? + +FELIX + +Yes, my furlough will be up.... + +IRENE (_as if en passant_) + +How long have you been an officer anyhow, Felix? + +FELIX + +For three years really--but I didn't apply for a commission until this +year--a little too late, perhaps. + +IRENE + +Too late? Why?--How old are you, Felix? + +FELIX + +Twenty-three. + +IRENE + +Oh! (_Pause_) But when I saw you four years ago as a volunteer, I +thought at once you would stay in the service.--Do you remember, +Julian, I told you so at the time? + +JULIAN + +Yes.... + +FELIX + +That must have been in the summer, the last time you called on us. + +IRENE + +I think so.... + +FELIX + +Many things have changed since then. + +IRENE + +Indeed! Those were still happy days.--Don't you think so, Julian? For +we haven't met either since we spent those beautiful summer evenings in +the garden of the Wegrats. + +JULIAN (_nods assent_) + +IRENE (_stands again looking now at Julian and now at Felix; brief +pause_) Oh, but now it's high time for me to be gone.--Good-by. +Remember me at home, Lieutenant.--Good-by, Julian. (_She goes out, +accompanied to the door by Julian_) + +FELIX + +Haven't you made some changes here? + +JULIAN + +Not to my knowledge. And how could you know anyhow? You have only been +here two or three times. + +FELIX + +Yes. But the last time at one of the most important moments in my life. +I came here to get your advice. + +JULIAN + +Well, everything has turned out in accordance with your wish. Even your +father has resigned himself to it. + +FELIX + +Yes, he has resigned himself. Of course, he would have preferred to see +me continue my technical studies. But now he has seen that it is quite +possible to lead a sensible life in uniform too--without any debts or +duels. In fact, my life is almost too smooth. However, there is at +least more to anticipate for one of us than for most people. And that's +always something. + +JULIAN + +And how are things at home? + +FELIX + +At home.... Really, it's almost as if that word had lost its meaning. + +JULIAN + +Has your father resumed his duties again? + +FELIX + +Of course. Two days later he was back in his studio. He is wonderful. +But I can't quite understand it.... Am I disturbing you, Mr. Fichtner? +You were putting your papers in order, I think. + +JULIAN + +Oh, there's no hurry about that. They're easily put in order. Most of +them I burn. + +FELIX + +Why? + +JULIAN + +It's more sensible, don't you think, to destroy things one hardly cares +to look at any more? + +FELIX + +But doesn't it make you rather sad to clean out your past like that? + +JULIAN + +Sad?... No, it's entirely too natural a process for that. + +FELIX + +I can't see it that way. Look here. To burn a letter, or a picture, or +something of that kind, immediately after you have got it--that seems +quite natural to me. But something at all worthy of being kept as a +remembrance of some poignant joy or equally poignant sorrow would seem +incapable of ever losing its significance again. And especially in the +case of a life like yours, that has been so rich and so active.... It +would seem to me that at times you must feel something like--awe in the +face of your own past. + +JULIAN + +Where do you get such thoughts--you, who are so young? + +FELIX + +They just came into my head this minute. + +JULIAN + +You are not so very much mistaken, perhaps. But there is something else +besides, that makes me want to clean house. I am about to become +homeless, so to speak. + +FELIX + +Why? + +JULIAN + +I'm giving up my rooms here, and don't know yet what my next step will +be. And so I think it's more pleasant to let these things come to a +decent end rather than to put them in a box and leave them to molder +away in a cellar. + +FELIX + +But don't you feel sorry about a lot of it? + +JULIAN + +Oh, I don't know. + +FELIX + +And then you must have mementoes that mean something to other people +besides yourself. Sketches of all kinds, for instance, which I think +you have saved to some extent. + +JULIAN + +Are you thinking of those little things I showed you in Salzburg? + +FELIX + +Yes, of those too, of course. + +JULIAN + +They are still wrapped up. Would you like to have them? + +FELIX + +Indeed, I should feel very thankful. They seemed to have a particular +charm for me. (_Pause_) But there's something else I wanted to ask of +you. A great favor. If you will let me.... + +JULIAN + +Tell me, please. + +FELIX + +I thought you might still have left a picture of my mother as a young +girl. A small picture in water colors painted by yourself. + +JULIAN + +Yes, I did paint such a picture. + +FELIX + +And you have still got it? + +JULIAN + +I guess it can be found. + +FELIX + +I should like to see it. + +JULIAN + +Did your mother remember this picture...? + +FELIX + +Yes, she mentioned it to me the last evening I ever saw her--the +evening before she died. At the time I didn't imagine, of course, that +the end was so near--and I don't think she could guess it either. +To-day it seems rather peculiar to me that, on that very evening, she +had to talk so much of days long gone by. + +JULIAN + +And of this little picture, too? + +FELIX + +It's a very good one, I understand. + +JULIAN (_as if trying to remember_) + +Where did I put it? Wait now.... (_He goes to a book case, the lower +part of which has solid doors; these he opens, disclosing several +shelves piled with portfolios_) I painted it in the country--in the +little house where your grandparents used to live. + +FELIX + +I know. + +JULIAN + +You can hardly recall the old people, I suppose? + +FELIX + +Very vaguely. They were quite humble people, were they not? + +JULIAN + +Yes. (_He has taken a big portfolio from one of the shelves_) It ought +to be in this portfolio. (_He puts it on the writing desk and opens it; +then he sits down in front of it_) + +FELIX (_stands behind him, looking over his shoulder_) + +JULIAN + +Here is the house in which they lived--your grandparents and your +mother. (_He goes through the sketches, one by one_) And here is a view +of the valley seen from the cemetery. + +FELIX + +In Summer.... + +JULIAN + +Yes.--And here is the little inn at which your father and I used to +stop.... And here.... (_He looks in silence at the sketch; both remain +silent for a long while_) + +FELIX (_picking up the sketch_) + +How old was my mother at the time? + +JULIAN (_who remains seated_) + +Eighteen. + +FELIX (_going a few steps away and leaning against the bookcase in +order to get better light on the picture_) + +A year before she was married, then. + +JULIAN + +It was done that very year. (_Pause_) + +FELIX + +What a strange look that meets me out of those eyes.... There's a smile +on her lips.... It's almost as if she were talking to me.... + +JULIAN + +What was it your mother told you--that last evening? + +FELIX + +Not very much. But I feel as if I knew more than she had told me. What +a queer thought it is, that as she is now looking at me out of this +picture, so she must have been looking at you once. It seems as if +there was a certain timidity in that look. Something like fear +almost.... In such a way you look at people out of another world, for +which you long, and of which you are afraid nevertheless. + +JULIAN + +At that time your mother had rarely been outside the village. + +FELIX + +She must have been different from all other women you have met, wasn't +she?--Why don't you say anything? I am not one of those men who cannot +understand--who won't understand that their mothers and sisters are +women after all. I can easily understand that it must have been a +dangerous time for her--and for somebody else as well. (_Very simply_) +You must have loved my mother very much? + +JULIAN + +You have a curious way of asking questions.--Yes, I did love her. + +FELIX + +And those moments must have been very happy ones, when you sat in that +little garden with its overgrown fence, holding this canvas on your +knees, and out there on the bright meadow, among all those red and +white flowers, stood this young girl with anxiously smiling eyes, +holding her straw hat in one hand. + +JULIAN + +Your mother talked of those moments that last evening? + +FELIX + +Yes.--It is childish perhaps, but since then it has seemed impossible +to me that any other human being could ever have meant so much to you +as this one? + +JULIAN (_more and more deeply moved, but speaking very quietly_) I +shall not answer you.--In the end I should instinctively be tempted to +make myself appear better than I am. You know very well how I have +lived my life--that it has not followed a regulated and direct course +like the lives of most other people. I suppose that the gift of +bestowing happiness of the kind that lasts, or of accepting it, has +never been mine. + +FELIX + +That's what I feel. It is what I have always felt. Often with something +like regret--or sorrow almost. But just people like you, who are +destined by their very nature to have many and varied experiences--just +such people should, I think, cling more faithfully and more gratefully +to memories of a tender, peaceful sort, like this--rather than to more +passionate and saddening memories.--Am I not right? + +JULIAN + +Maybe you are. + +FELIX + +My mother had never before mentioned this picture to me. Isn't it +strange?... That last night she did it for the first time.--We were +left alone on the veranda. The rest had already bid me good-by.... And +all of a sudden she began to talk about those summer days of long, long +ago. Her words had an undercurrent of meanings which she probably did +not realize. I believe that her own youth, which she had almost ceased +to understand, was unconsciously taking mine into its confidence. It +moved me more deeply than I can tell you.--Much as she cared for me, +she had never before talked to me like that. And I believe that she had +never been quite so dear to me as in those last moments.--And when +finally I had to leave, I felt that she had still much more to tell +me.--Now you'll understand why I had such a longing to see this +picture.--I have almost the feeling that it might go on talking to me +as my mother would have done--if I had only dared to ask her one more +question! + +JULIAN + +Ask it now.... Do ask it, Felix. + +FELIX (_who becomes aware of the emotion betrayed in the voice of +Julian, looks up from the picture_) + +JULIAN + +I believe that it can still tell you a great many things. + +FELIX + +What is the matter? + +JULIAN + +Do you want to keep that picture? + +FELIX + +Why...? + +JULIAN + +Well ... take it. I don't give it to you. As soon as I have settled +down again, I shall want it back. But you shall have a look at it +whenever you want. And I hope matters will be so arranged that you +won't have far to go either. + +FELIX (_with his eyes on the picture_) + +It grows more alive every second.... And that look was directed at +you.... That look...? Can it be possible that I read it right? + +JULIAN + +Mothers have their adventures, too, like other women. + +FELIX + +Yes, indeed, I believe it has nothing more to hide from me. + +[_He puts down the picture. Then a long pause follows. At last Felix +puts on his coat._ + +JULIAN + +Are you not going to take it along? + +FELIX + +Not just now. It belongs to you much more than I could guess. + +JULIAN + +And to you ... + +FELIX + +No, I don't want it until this new thing has become fully revealed to +me. (_He looks Julian firmly in the eyes_) I don't quite know where I +am. In reality, of course, there has been no change whatever. +None--except that I know now what I ... + +JULIAN + +Felix! + +FELIX + +No, that was something I could never have guessed. (_Looks long at +Julian with an expression of mingled tenderness and curiosity_) +Farewell. + +JULIAN + +Are you going? + +FELIX + +I need badly to be by myself for a while.--Until to-morrow. + +JULIAN + +Yes, and no longer, Felix. To-morrow I shall come to your--I'll call on +_you_, Felix. + +FELIX + +I shall be waiting for you. (_He goes out_) + +JULIAN (_stands quite still for a moment; then he goes to the writing +desk and stops beside it, lost in contemplation of the picture_) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +THE THIRD ACT + + +_A room at the Wegrats' adjoining the veranda. The outlook is, of +course, determined by the location._ + + +JOHANNA (_is seated on a stool with her hands folded in her lap_) + +SALA (_enters_) + +Good morning, Johanna. + +JOHANNA (_rises, goes to meet him, and draws him close to herself_) Are +you coming for the last time? + +SALA + +For the last time? What an idea! There has not been the slightest +change in our arrangements. To-day is the seventh of October, and the +ship will leave Genoa on the twenty-sixth of November. + +JOHANNA + +Some day you will suddenly have disappeared. And I shall be standing by +the garden door, and nobody will come to open it. + +SALA + +But that sort of thing is not needed between us two. + +JOHANNA + +No, indeed--bear that in mind. + +FELIX (_enters_) + +Oh, is that you, Mr. von Sala? (_They shake hands_) Well, how far have +you got with your preparations? + +SALA + +There are hardly any needed. I shall pack my trunk, pull down the +shades, lock the doors--and be off for the mysteries of far-away. There +is something I want to ask you apropos of that, Felix. Would you care +to come along? + +FELIX (_startled_) + +If I care.... Are you asking seriously, Mr. von Sala? + +SALA + +There is just so much seriousness in my question as you wish to put +into it. + +FELIX + +What does it mean anyhow? If I want to go along to Asia? What use could +they have for me in a venture of that kind? + +SALA + +Oh, that's pretty plain. + +FELIX + +Is the expedition not going to be one of purely scientific character? + +SALA + +Yes, that's what it is meant for, I suppose. But it is quite possible +that various things may happen that would make the presence of some +young men like you very desirable. + +FELIX + +Men like me...? + +SALA + +When Rolston went out there seven years ago, a lot of things happened +which were not provided for in the original program. And they had to +fight a regular battle, on a small scale, in the Kara-Kum district, not +far from the river Amu-Daria. + +REUMANN (_who has entered while Sala was speaking_) + +To those who had to stay behind forever the scale of your battle was +probably large enough. (_All greet each other and shake hands without +letting the conversation be interrupted_) + +SALA + +In that respect you are probably right, Doctor. + +FELIX + +Pardon me, Mr. von Sala, but does this come from you alone? Is it just +a sudden notion--or something more? + +SALA + +I have received no direct request from anybody to speak of this. But +after the conference which took place at the Foreign Department +yesterday, and which I attended, I feel entitled to add a little +more.--Oh, no secrets at all!--You have probably read, Felix, that a +member of the General Staff as well as several artillery and +engineering officers are being sent with us in what might be termed a +semi-official capacity. On account of the latest news from Asia--which, +however, does not seem very reliable to me, as it has come by way of +England--it has been decided to secure the additional cooperation of +some young line officers, and all arrangements of this kind must be +left to private initiative. + +FELIX + +And there might be a possibility for me...? + +SALA + +Will you permit me to speak to Count Ronsky? + +FELIX + +Have you already mentioned my name to him? + +SALA + +I have received permission to ask whether you could be prepared to +board the ship with the rest at Genoa on the twenty-sixth of November. + +REUMANN + +Do you mean to leave Vienna as soon as that? + +SALA (_sarcastically_) + +Yes. Why did you look at me like that, Doctor? That glance of yours was +a little indiscreet. + +REUMANN + +In what respect? + +SALA + +It seemed to say: Yes, you can start, of course, but if you ever come +back, that's more than doubtful. + +REUMANN + +Let me tell you, Mr. von Sala, that in the face of a venture like yours +one might well express such doubts quite openly. But are you at all +interested in whether you get back or not, Mr. von Sala? I don't +suppose you belong to the kind of people who care to put their affairs +in order. + +SALA + +No, indeed. Especially not as, in cases of that kind, it is generally +the affairs of others which give you needless trouble. If I were to be +interested at all in my own chances, it would be for much more selfish +reasons. + +JOHANNA + +What reasons? + +SALA + +I don't want to be cheated out of the consciousness that certain +moments are my final ones. + +REUMANN + +There are not many people who share your attitude in that respect. + +SALA + +At any rate, Doctor, you would have to tell me the absolute truth if I +ever asked you for it. I hold that one has the right to drain one's own +life to the last drop, with all the horrors and delights that may lie +hidden at the bottom of it. Just as it is our evident duty every day to +commit every good deed and every rascality lying within our +capacity.... No, I won't let you rob me of my death moments by any kind +of hocus-pocus. It would imply a small-minded attitude, worthy neither +of yourself nor of me.--Well, Felix, the twenty-sixth of November then! +That's still seven weeks off. In regard to any formalities that may be +required, you need have no worry at all. + +FELIX + +How long a time have I got to make up my mind? + +SALA + +There's no reason to be precipitate. When does your furlough end? + +FELIX + +To-morrow night. + +SALA + +Of course, you are going to talk it over with your father? + +FELIX + +With my father.... Yes, of course.--At any rate I'll bring you the +answer early to-morrow morning, Mr. von Sala. + +SALA + +Fine. It would please me very much. But you must bear in mind: it will +be no picnic. I expect to see you soon, then. Good-by, Miss Johanna. +Farewell, Doctor. + +[_He goes out. A brief pause. Those left behind show signs of emotion._ + +JOHANNA (_rising_) + +I'm going to my room. Good-by, Doctor. (_She goes out_) + +REUMANN + +Have you made up your mind, Felix? + +FELIX + +Almost. + +REUMANN + +You'll come across much that is new to you. + +FELIX + +And my own self among it, I hope--which would be about time.... +(_Quoting_) "The mysteries of far-away ..." And will it really come +true? Oh, the thrill of it! + +REUMANN + +And yet you ask time to consider? + +FELIX + +I hardly know why. And yet ... The thought of leaving people behind +and perhaps never seeing them again--and certainly not as they were +when you left them; the thought, too, that perhaps your going will +hurt them ... + +REUMANN + +If nothing else makes you hesitate, then every moment of uncertainty is +wasted. Nothing is more sure to estrange you from those dear to you +than the knowledge that duty condemns you to stay near them. You must +seize this unique opportunity. You must go to see Genoa, Asia Minor, +Thibet, Bactria.... Oh, it must be splendid! And my best wishes will go +with you. (_He gives his hand to Felix_) + +FELIX + +Thank you. But there will be plenty of time for wishes of that kind. +Whatever may be decided, we shall meet more than once before I leave. + +REUMANN + +I hope so. Oh, of course! + +FELIX (_looking hard at him_) + +Doctor ... it seems to me there was a final farewell in that pressure +of your hand. + +REUMANN (_with a smile_) + +Is it ever possible to tell whether you will meet again? + +FELIX + +Tell me, Doctor--did Mr. von Sala interpret your glance correctly? + +REUMANN + +That has nothing to do with your case anyhow. + +FELIX + +Will he not be able to go with us? + +REUMANN (_with hesitation_) + +That's very hard to predict. + +FELIX + +You have never learned to lie, Doctor. + +REUMANN + +As the matter stands now, I think you can bring it to a successful +conclusion without further assistance. + +FELIX + +Mr. von Sala called on you a few days ago? + +REUMANN + +Yes, it was only a while ago. (_Pause_) Well, you can see for yourself +that he is not well, can't you?--So God be with you, Felix. + +FELIX + +Will you continue to befriend this house when I am gone? + +REUMANN + +Why do you ask questions like that, Felix? + +FELIX + +You don't mean to come here again?--But why? + +REUMANN + +I assure you ... + +FELIX + +I understand ... + +REUMANN (_embarrassed_) + +What can there be to understand...? + +FELIX + +My dear Doctor ... I know now ... why you don't want to come to this +house any more.... It's another case of somebody else breaking his +neck.... Dear friend ... + +REUMANN + +Good luck to you ... Felix ... + +FELIX + +And if anybody should call you back ... + +REUMANN + +Nobody will.... But if I should be _needed_, I can always be found +... + +JOHANNA (_comes into the room again_) + +REUMANN + +Good-by ... Good-by, Miss Johanna ... + +JOHANNA + +Are you going already, Doctor? + +REUMANN + +Yes.... Give my regards to your father. Good-by.... (_He shakes her +hand_) + +JOHANNA (_calmly_) + +Did he tell you that Sala is doomed? + +FELIX (_hesitates about what to say_) + +JOHANNA + +I knew it. (_With an odd gesture of deprecation as Felix wants to say +something_) And you are going--with or without him? + +FELIX + +Yes. (_Pause_) There won't be much doing in this place after this. + +JOHANNA (_remains unmoved_) + +FELIX + +And how are you going to live, Johanna?... I mean, how are the two of +you going to live--you and father? + +JOHANNA (_gives him a look as if his question surprised her_) + +FELIX + +He is going to be lonely. I think he would feel very grateful if you +took a little more interest in him--if you went for a walk for him when +there is time for it. And you, too ... + +JOHANNA (_brusquely_) + +How could that help me or him? What can he be to me or I to him? I was +not made to assist people in days of trial. I can't help it, but that's +the way I am. I seem to be stirred by a sort of hostility against +people who appeal to my pity. I felt it like that all the time mother +was sick. + +FELIX + +No, you were not made for that.... But what were you made for then? + +JOHANNA (_shrugs her shoulders and sits down as before, with hands +folded in her lap and her eyes staring straight ahead_) + +FELIX + +Johanna, why do you never talk to me any more as you used to? Have you, +then, nothing to tell me? Don't you remember how we used to tell each +other everything? + +JOHANNA + +That was long ago. We were children then. + +FELIX + +Why can't you talk to me any longer as you did then? Have you forgotten +how well we two used to understand each other? How we used to confide +all our secrets to each other? What good chums we used to be?... How we +wanted to go out into the wide world together? + +JOHANNA + +Into the wide world.... Oh, yes, I remember. But there is nothing left +now of all those words of wonder and romance. + +FELIX + +Perhaps it depends on ourselves only. + +JOHANNA + +No, those words have no longer the same meaning as before. + +FELIX + +What do you mean? + +JOHANNA + +Into the wide world ... + +FELIX + +What is the matter, Johanna? + +JOHANNA + +Once, when we were in the museum together, I saw a picture of which I +often think. It has a meadow with knights and ladies in it--and a +forest, a vineyard, an inn, and young men and women dancing, and a big +city with churches and towers and bridges. And soldiers are marching +across the bridges, and a ship is gliding down the river. And farther +back there is a hill, and on that hill a castle, and lofty mountains in +the extreme distance. And clouds are floating above the mountains, and +there is mist on the meadow, and a flood of sunlight is pouring down on +the city, and a storm is raging over the castle, and there is ice and +snow on the mountains.--And when anybody spoke of "the wide world," or +I read that term anywhere, I used always to think of that picture. And +it used to be the same with so many other big-sounding words. Fear was +a tiger with cavernous mouth--love was a page with long light curls +kneeling at the feet of a lady--death was a beautiful young man with +black wings and a sword in his hand--and fame was blaring bugles, men +with bent backs, and a road strewn with flowers. In those days it was +possible to talk of all sorts of things, Felix. But to-day everything +has a different look--fame, and death, and love, and the wide world. + +FELIX (_hesitatingly_) + +I feel a little scared on your behalf, Johanna. + +JOHANNA + +Why, Felix? + +FELIX + +Johanna!--I wish you wouldn't do anything to worry father. + +JOHANNA + +Does that depend on me alone? + +FELIX + +I know in what direction your dreams are going, Johanna.--What is to +come out of that? + +JOHANNA + +Is it necessary that something comes out of everything?--I think, +Felix, that many people are destined to mean nothing to each other but +a common memory. + +FELIX + +You have said it yourself, Johanna--that you are not made to see other +people suffer. + +JOHANNA (_shrinks slightly at those words_) + +FELIX + +Suffer ... and ... + +JULIAN (_enters_) + +How are you? (_He shakes hands with Felix_) + +JOHANNA (_who has risen_) + +Mr. Fichtner. (_She holds out her hand to him_) + +JULIAN + +I could hardly recognize you, Johanna. You have grown into a young lady +now.--Has your father not come home yet? + +JOHANNA + +He hasn't gone out yet. He has nothing to do at the Academy until +twelve. + +JULIAN + +I suppose he's in his studio? + +JOHANNA + +I'll call him. + +[_Julian looks around. As Johanna is about to leave the room, Wegrat +enters, carrying his hat and stick._ + +WEGRAT (_giving his hand to Julian_) + +I'm delighted, my dear fellow. + +JULIAN + +I heard of it only after my arrival here yesterday--through Sala. I +don't need to tell you ... + +WEGRAT + +Thank you very much for your sympathy. I thank you with all my +heart.--But sit down, please. + +JULIAN + +You were going out? + +WEGRAT + +Oh, it's no hurry. I have nothing to do in the Academy until twelve. +Johanna, will you please get a carriage for me, just to be on the safe +side? + +[_Johanna goes out. Wegrat seats himself, as does Julian. Felix stands +leaning against the glazed oven._ + +WEGRAT + +Well, you stayed away quite a while this time. + +JULIAN + +More than two years. + +WEGRAT + +If you had only got here ten days earlier, you could have had a last +look at her. It came so very suddenly--although it wasn't unexpected. + +JULIAN + +So I have heard. + +WEGRAT + +And now you are going to stay right here, I suppose? + +JULIAN + +A little while. How long I am not yet able to tell. + +WEGRAT + +Of course not. The making of schedules has never been your line. + +JULIAN + +No, I have a certain disinclination for that kind of thing. (_Pause_) + +WEGRAT + +Oh, mercy, my dear fellow ... how often have I not been thinking of you +recently! + +JULIAN + +And I.... + +WEGRAT + +No, you haven't had much chance for it.... But I.... As I enter the +building where I now hold office and authority, I remember often how we +two young chaps used to sit side by side in the model class, full of a +thousand plans and hopes. + +JULIAN + +Why do you say that in such a melancholy tone? A lot of those things +have come true, haven't they? + +WEGRAT + +Some--yes.... And yet one can't help wanting to be young again, even at +the risk of similar sorrows and struggles.... + +JULIAN + +And even at the risk of also having to live through a lot of nice +things over again. + +WEGRAT + +Indeed, those are the hardest things to bear, once they have turned +into memories.--You have been in Italy again? + +JULIAN + +Yes, in Italy too. + +WEGRAT + +It's a long time now since I was there. Since we made that walk +together through the Ampezzo Valley,[5] with the pack on our backs--to +Pieve, and then right on to Venice. Can you remember? The sun has never +again shone as brightly as it did then. + + [5] One of the main routes through the Dolomites, leading from + Southern Tirol into Italy. It is in part identical with the + route outlined by Albert in "Intermezzo," but parts from it at + Cortina to run straight south. + +JULIAN + +That must have been almost thirty years ago. + +WEGRAT + +No, not quite. You were already pretty well known at the time. You had +just finished your splendid picture of Irene Herms. It was the year +before I married. + +JULIAN + +Yes, yes. (_Pause_) + +WEGRAT + +Do you still recall the summer morning when you went with me to Kirchau +for the first time? + +JULIAN + +Of course. + +WEGRAT + +How the light buggy carried us through the wide, sun-steeped valley? +And do you remember the little garden at Huegelhang, where you became +acquainted with Gabrielle and her parents? + +FELIX (_with suppressed emotion_) + +Father, is the house in which mother used to live still standing? + +WEGRAT + +No, it's gone long ago. They have built a villa on the spot. Five or +six years ago, you know, we went there for the last time to visit the +graves of your grandparents. Everything has been changed, except the +cemetery.... (_To Julian_) Can you still remember that cool, cloudy +afternoon, Julian, when we sat on the lower wall of the cemetery and +had such a remarkable talk about the future? + +JULIAN + +I remember the day very clearly. But I have entirely forgotten what we +were talking about. + +WEGRAT + +Just what we said has passed out of my mind, too, but I can still +remember what an extraordinary talk it was.... In some way the world +seemed to open up more widely. And I felt something like envy toward +you, as I often did in those days. There rose within me a feeling that +I, too, could do anything--if I only wanted. There was so much to be +seen and experienced--and the flow of life was irresistible. Nothing +would be needed but a little more nerve, a little more self-assurance, +and then to plunge in. ... Yes, that was what I felt while you were +talking. ... And then Gabrielle came toward us along the narrow road +from the village, between the acacias. She carried her straw hat in her +hand, and she nodded to me. And all my dreams of the future centered in +her after that, and once more the whole world seemed fitted into a +frame, and yet it was big and beautiful enough. ... Why does the color +all of a sudden come back into those things? It was practically +forgotten, all of it, and now, when she is dead, it comes to life again +with a glow that almost scares me. ... Oh, it were better not to think +of it at all. What's the use? What's the use? (_Pause; he goes to one +of the windows_) + +JULIAN (_struggling to overcome his embarrassment_) It is both wise and +brave of you to resume your regular activities so promptly. + +WEGRAT + +Oh, once you have made up your mind to go on living. ... There +is nothing but work that can help you through this sense of being +alone--of being _left_ alone. + +JULIAN + +It seems to me that your grief makes you a little unjust +toward--much that is still yours. + +WEGRAT + +Unjust...? Oh, I didn't mean to. I hope you don't feel hurt, children +...! Felix, you understand me fully, don't you? There is so much, from +the very beginning, that draws--that lures--that tears the young ones +away from us. We have to struggle to keep our children almost from the +very moment they arrive--and the struggle is a pretty hopeless one at +that. But that's the way of life: they cannot possibly belong to us. +And as far as other people are concerned.... Even our friends come into +our lives only as guests who rise from the table when they have eaten, +and walk out. Like us, they have their own streets, their own affairs. +And it's quite natural it should be so.... Which doesn't prevent us +from feeling pleased, Julian--sincerely pleased, when one of them finds +his way back to us. Especially if it be one on whom we have put great +store throughout life. You may be sure of that, Julian. (_They shake +hands_) And as long as you remain in Vienna, I shall see you here +quite often, I trust. It will give me genuine pleasure. + +JULIAN + +I'll be sure to come. + +MAID (_enters_) + +The carriage is here, Professor. (_She goes out_) + +WEGRAT + +I'm coming. (_To Julian_) You must have a lot to tell me. You were as +good as lost. You understand it will interest me to hear all you have +done--and still more what you intend to do. Felix told us the other day +about some very interesting sketches you had showed him. + +JULIAN + +I'll go with you, if you care to have me. + +WEGRAT + +Thanks. But it would be still nicer of you to stay right here and take +dinner with us. + +JULIAN + +Well ... + +WEGRAT + +I'll be through very quickly. To-day I have nothing but a few business +matters to dispose of--nothing but signing a few documents. I'll be +back in three-quarters of an hour. In the meantime the children will +keep you company as they used to in the old days. ... Won't you, +children?--So you're staying, are you not? Good-by for a little while +then. (_He goes out_) + +[_Long pause._ + +FELIX + +Why didn't you go with him? + +JULIAN + +Your mother was without blame. If any there be, it falls on me alone. +I'll tell you all about it. + +FELIX (_nods_) + +JULIAN + +It had been arranged that we were to go away together. Everything was +ready. We meant to leave the place secretly because, quite naturally, +your mother shrank from any kind of statement or explanation. Our +intention was to write and explain after we had been gone a few days. +The hour of our start had already been settled. He ... who later became +her husband, had just gone to Vienna for a couple of days in order to +get certain documents. The wedding was to take place in a week. +(_Pause_) Our plans were all made. We had agreed on everything. The +carriage that was to pick us up a little ways off had already been +hired. In the evening we bade each other good-night, fully convinced +that we should meet next morning, never to part again.--It turned out +differently.--You mustn't keep in mind that it was your mother. You +must listen to me as if my story dealt with perfect strangers. ... Then +you can understand everything. + +FELIX + +I am listening. + +JULIAN + +I had come to Kirchau in June, one beautiful Summer morning--with +him.... You know about that, don't you? I meant to stay only a few +days. But I stayed on and on. More than once I tried to get away while +it was still time. But I stayed. (_Smiling_) And with fated +inevitability we slipped into sin, happiness, doom, betrayal--and +dreams. Yes, indeed, there was more of those than of anything else. +And after that last farewell, meant to be for a night only--as I got +back to the little inn and started to make things ready for our +journey--only then did I for the first time become really conscious of +what had happened and was about to happen. Actually, it was almost as +if I had just waked up. Only then, in the stillness of that night, as I +was standing at the open window, did it grow clear to me that next +morning an hour would come by which my whole future must be determined. +And then I began to feel ... as if faint shiverings had been streaming +down my body. Below me I could see the stretch of road along which I +had just come. It ran on and on through the country, climbing the hills +that cut off the view, and losing itself in the open, the limitless.... +It led to thousands of unknown and invisible roads, all of which at +that moment remained at my disposal. It seemed to me as if my future, +radiant with glory and adventure, lay waiting for me behind those +hills--but for me alone. Life was mine--but only this one life. And in +order to seize it and enjoy it fully--in order to live it as it had +been shaped for me by fate--I needed the carelessness and freedom I had +enjoyed until then. And I marveled almost at my own readiness to give +away the recklessness of my youth and the fullness of my existence.... +And to what purpose?--For the sake of a passion which, after all, +despite its ardor and its transports, had begun like many others, and +would be destined to end like all of them. + +FELIX + +Destined to end...? _Must_ come to an end? + +JULIAN + +Yes. Must. The moment I foresaw the end, I had in a measure reached it. +To wait for something that must come, means to go through it a thousand +times--to go through it helplessly and needlessly and resentfully. This +I felt acutely at that moment. And it frightened me. At the same time I +felt clearly that I was about to act like a brute and a traitor toward +a human being who had given herself to me in full confidence.--But +everything seemed more desirable--not only for me, but for her +also--than a slow, miserable, unworthy decline. And all my scruples +were submerged in a monstrous longing to go on with my life as before, +without duties or ties. There wasn't much time left for consideration. +And I was glad of it. I had made up my mind. I didn't wait for the +morning. Before the stars had set, I was off. + +FELIX + +You ran away.... + +JULIAN + +Call it anything you please.--Yes, it was a flight, just as good and +just as bad, just as precipitate and just as cowardly as any +other--with all the horrors of being pursued and all the joys of +escaping. I am hiding nothing from you, Felix. You are still young, and +it is even possible that you may understand it better than I can +understand it myself to-day. Nothing pulled me back. No remorse stirred +within me. The sense of being free filled me with intoxication.... At +the end of the first day I was already far away--much farther than any +number of milestones could indicate. On that first day her image began +to fade away already--the image of her who had waked up to meet painful +disillusionment, or worse maybe. The ring of her voice was passing out +of my memory.... She was becoming a shadow like others that had been +left floating much farther behind me in the past. + +FELIX + +Oh, it isn't true! So quickly could she not be forgotten. So +remorselessly could you not go out in the world. All this is meant as a +sort of expiation. You make yourself appear what you are not. + +JULIAN + +I am not telling you these things to accuse or defend myself. I am +simply telling you the truth. And you must hear it. It was your mother, +and I am the man who deserted her. And there is something more I am +compelled to tell you. On the very time that followed my flight I must +look back as the brightest and richest of any I have ever experienced. +Never before or after have I reveled to such an extent in the splendid +consciousness of my youth and my freedom from restraint. Never have I +been so wholly master of my gifts and of my life.... Never have I been +a happier man than I was at that very time. + +FELIX (_calmly_) + +And if she had killed herself? + +JULIAN + +I believe I should have thought myself worth it--in those days. + +FELIX + +And so you were, perhaps, at that time.--And she thought of doing it, I +am sure. She wanted to put an end to the lies and the qualms, just as +hundreds of thousands of girls have done before. But millions fail to +do it, and they are the most sensible ones. And I am sure she also +thought of telling the truth to him she took to husband. But, of +course, the way through life is easier when you don't have to carry a +burden of reproach or, what is worse, of forgiveness. + +JULIAN + +And if she had spoken.... + +FELIX + +Oh, I understand why she didn't. It had been of no use to anybody. And +so she kept silent: silent when she got back from the wedding--silent +when her child was born--silent when, ten years later, the lover came +to her husband's house again--silent to the very last.... Fates of that +kind are to be found everywhere, and it isn't even necessary to +be--depraved, in order to suffer them or invoke them. + +JULIAN + +And there are mighty few whom it behooves to judge--or to condemn. + +FELIX + +I don't presume to do so. And it doesn't even occur to me that I am now +to behold deceivers and deceived where, a few hours ago, I could only +see people who were dear to me and whose relationships to each other +were perfectly pure. And it is absolutely impossible for me to feel +myself another man than I have deemed myself until to-day. There is no +power in all this truth.... A vivid dream would be more compelling than +this story out of bygone days, which you have just told me. Nothing has +changed--nothing whatever. The thought of my mother is as sacred to me +as ever. And the man in whose house I was born and raised, who +surrounded my childhood and youth with care tenderness, and whom my +mother--loved.... He means just as much to me now as he ever meant--and +perhaps a little more. + +JULIAN + +And yet, Felix, however powerless this truth may seem to you--there is +one thing you can take hold of in this moment of doubt: it was as my +son your mother gave birth to you.... + +FELIX + +At a time when you had run away from her. + +JULIAN + +And as my son she brought you up. + +FELIX + +In hatred of you. + +JULIAN + +At first. Later in forgiveness, and finally--don't forget it--in +friendship toward me.... And what was in her mind that last night?--Of +what did she talk to you?--Of those days when she experienced the +greatest happiness that can fall to the share of any woman. + +FELIX + +As well as the greatest misery. + +JULIAN + +Do you think it was mere chance which brought those very days back to +her mind that last evening?... Don't you think she knew that you would +go to me and ask for that picture?... And do you think your wish to see +it could have any other meaning than of a final greeting to me from +your mother?... Can't you understand that, Felix?... And in this +moment--don't try to resist--you have it before your eyes--that picture +you held in your hand yesterday: and your mother is looking at +you.--And the glance resting on you, Felix, is the same one that rested +on me that passionate and sacred day when she fell into my arms and you +were conceived.--And whatever you may feel of doubt or confusion, the +truth has now been revealed to you once for all. Thus your mother +willed it, and it is no longer possible for you to forget that you are +my son. + +FELIX + +Your son.... That's nothing but a word. And it's cried in a +desert.--Although I am looking at you now, and although I know that I +am your son, I can't grasp it. + +JULIAN + +Felix...! + +FELIX + +Since I learned of this, you have become a stranger to me. (_He turns +away_) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +THE FOURTH ACT + + +_The garden belonging to Mr. von Sala's house. At the left is seen the +white, one-storied building, fronted by a broad terrace, from which six +stone steps lead down into the garden. A wide door with panes of glass +leads from the terrace into the drawing-room. A small pool appears in +the foreground, surrounded by a semi-circle of young trees. From that +spot an avenue of trees runs diagonally across the stage toward the +right. At the opening of the avenue, near the pool, stand two columns +on which are placed the marble busts of two Roman emperors. A +semi-circular stone seat with back support stands under the trees to +the right of the pool. Farther back glimpses of the glittering fence +are caught through the scanty leafage. Back of the fence, the woods on +a gently rising hillside are turning red. The autumnal sky is pale +blue. Everything is quiet. The stage remains empty for a few moments._ + +_Sala and Johanna enter by way of the terrace. She is in black. He has +on a gray suit and carries a dark overcoat across his shoulders. They +descend the steps slowly._ + + +SALA + +I think you'll find it rather cool. (_He goes back into the room, picks +up a cape lying there, and puts it around Johanna's shoulders; little +by little they reach the garden_) + +JOHANNA + +Do you know what I imagine?... That this day is our own--that it +belongs to us alone. We have summoned it, and if we wanted, we could +make it stay.... All other people live only as guests in the world +to-day. Isn't that so?... The reason is, I suppose, that once I heard +you speak of this day. + +SALA + +Of this...? + +JOHANNA + +Yes--while mother was still living.... And now it has really come. The +leaves are red. The golden mist is lying over the woods. The sky is +pale and remote--and the day is even more beautiful, and sadder, than I +could ever have imagined. And I am spending it in your garden, and your +pool is my mirror. (_She stands looking down into the pool_) And yet we +can no more make it stay, this golden day, than the water here can hold +my image after I have gone away. + +SALA + +It seems strange that this clear, mild air should be tinged with a +suggestion of winter and snow. + +JOHANNA + +Why should it trouble you? When that suggestion has become reality +here, you are already in the midst of another Spring. + +SALA + +What do you mean by that? + +JOHANNA + +Oh, I suppose that where you go they have no winter like ours. + +SALA (_pensively_) + +No, not like ours. (_Pause_) And you? + +JOHANNA + +I...? + +SALA + +What are you going to do, I mean, when I am gone? + +JOHANNA + +When you are gone...? (_She looks at him, and he stands staring into +the distance_) Haven't you gone long ago? And at bottom, are you not +far away from me even now? + +SALA + +What are you saying? I am here with you.... What are you going to do, +Johanna? + +JOHANNA + +I have already told you. Go away--just like you. + +SALA (_shakes his head_) + +JOHANNA + +As soon as possible. I have still the courage left. Who knows what may +become of me later, if I stay here alone. + +SALA + +As long as you are young, all doors stand open, and the world begins +outside every one of them. + +JOHANNA + +But the world is wide and the sky infinite only as long as you are not +clinging to anybody. And for that reason I want to go away. + +SALA + +Away--that's so easily said. But preparations are needed for that +purpose, and some sort of a scheme. You use the word as if you merely +had to put on wings and fly off into the distance. + +JOHANNA + +To be determined is--the same as having wings. + +SALA + +Are you not at all afraid, Johanna? + +JOHANNA + +A longing free from fear would be too cheap to be worth while. + +SALA + +Where will it lead you? + +JOHANNA + +I shall find my way. + +SALA + +You can choose your way, but not the people that you meet. + +JOHANNA + +Do you think me ignorant of the fact that I cannot expect only +beautiful experiences? What is ugly and mean must also be waiting for +me. + +SALA + +And how are you going to stand it?--Will you be able to stand it at +all? + +JOHANNA + +Of course, I am not going to tell the truth always as I have done to +you. I shall have to lie--and I think of it with pleasure. I shall not +always be in good spirits, nor always sensible. I shall make mistakes +and suffer. That's the way it has to be, I suppose. + +SALA + +Of all this you are aware in advance, and yet...? + +JOHANNA + +Yes. + +SALA + +And why?... Why are you going away, Johanna? + +JOHANNA + +Why am I going away?... I want a time to come when I must shudder at +myself. Shudder as deeply as you can only when nothing has been left +untried. Just as you have had to do when you looked back upon your +life. Or have you not? + +SALA + +Oh, many times. But just in such moments of shuddering there is nothing +left behind at all--everything is once more present. And the present is +the past. (_He sits down on the stone seat_) + +JOHANNA + +What do you mean by that? + +SALA (_covers his eyes with his hand and sits silent_) + +JOHANNA + +What is the matter? Where are you anyhow? + +[_A light wind stirs the leaves and makes many of them drop to the +ground._ + +SALA + +I am a child, riding my pony across the fields. My father is behind and +calls to me. At that window waits my mother. She has thrown a gray +satin shawl over her dark hair and is waving her hand at me.... And I +am a young lieutenant in maneuvers, standing on a hillock and reporting +to my colonel that hostile infantry is ambushed behind that wooded +piece of ground, ready to charge, and down below us I can see the +midday sun glittering on bayonets and buttons.... And I am lying alone +in my boat adrift, looking up into the deep-blue Summer sky, while +words of incomprehensible beauty are shaping themselves in my +mind--words more beautiful than I have ever been able to put on +paper.... And I am resting on a bench in the cool park at the lake of +Lugano, with Helen sitting beside me; she holds a book with red cover +in her hand; over there by the magnolia, Lillie is playing with the +light-haired English boy, and I can hear them prattling and +laughing.... And I am walking slowly back and forth with Julian on a +bed of rustling leaves, and we are talking of a picture which we saw +yesterday. And I see the picture: two old sailors with worn-out faces, +who are seated on an overturned skiff, their sad eyes directed toward +the boundless sea. And I feel their misery more deeply than the artist +who painted them; more deeply than they could have felt it themselves, +had they been alive.... All this--all of it is there--if I only close +my eyes. It is nearer to me than you, Johanna, when I don't see you and +you keep quiet. + +JOHANNA (_stands looking at him with wistful sympathy_) + +SALA + +The present--what does it mean anyhow? Are we then locked breast to +breast with the moment as with a friend whom we embrace--or an enemy +who is pressing us? Has not the word that just rings out turned to +memory already? Is not the note that starts a melody reduced to memory +before the song is ended? Is your coming to this garden anything but a +memory, Johanna? Are not your steps across that meadow as much a matter +of the past as are the steps of creatures dead these many years? + +JOHANNA + +No, it mustn't be like that. It makes me sad. + +SALA (_with a return to present things_) + +Why?... It shouldn't, Johanna. It is in hours like those we know, that +we have lost nothing, and that in reality we cannot lose anything. + +JOHANNA + +Oh, I wish you had lost and forgotten everything, so that I might be +everything to you! + +SALA (_somewhat astonished_) + +Johanna.... + +JOHANNA (_passionately_) + +I love you. (_Pause_) + +SALA + +In a few days I shall be gone, Johanna. You know it--you have known it +right along. + +JOHANNA + +I know. Why do you repeat it? Do you think, perhaps, that all at once I +may begin to clutch at you like a love-sick thing, dreaming of +eternities?--No, that isn't my way--oh, no!... But I want to tell you +once at least that I am fond of you. May I not for once?--Do you hear? +I love you. And I wish that sometime later on you may hear it just as I +am saying it now--at some other moment no less beautiful than +this--when we two shall no longer be aware of each other. + +SALA + +Indeed, Johanna, of one thing you may be sure: that the sound of your +voice shall never leave me.--But why should we talk of parting forever? +Perhaps we shall meet again sooner or later ... in three years ... or +in five.... (_With a smile_) Then you have become a princess perhaps, +and I may be the ruler of some buried city.... Why don't you speak? + +JOHANNA (_pulls the cape more closely about her_) + +SALA + +Do you feel cold? + +JOHANNA + +Not at all.--But now I must go. + +SALA + +Are you in such a hurry? + +JOHANNA + +It is getting late. I must be back before my father gets home. + +SALA + +How strange! To-day you are hurrying home, fearful of being too late, +lest your father get worried. And in a couple of days.... + +JOHANNA + +Then he will no longer be waiting for me. Farewell, Stephan. + +SALA + +Until to-morrow, then. + +JOHANNA + +Yes, until to-morrow. + +SALA + +You'll come through the garden gate, of course? + +JOHANNA + +Wasn't that a carriage that stopped before the house? + +SALA + +The doors are locked. Nobody can get out into the garden. + +JOHANNA + +Good-by, then. + +SALA + +Until to-morrow. + +JOHANNA + +Yes. (_She is about to go_) + +SALA + +Listen, Johanna.--If I should say to you now: stay! + +JOHANNA + +No, I must go now. + +SALA + +That was not what I meant. + +JOHANNA + +What then? + +SALA + +I mean, if I should beg you to stay--for--a long time? + +JOHANNA + +You have a peculiar way of jesting. + +SALA + +I am not jesting. + +JOHANNA + +Do you forget, then, that you--are going away? + +SALA + +I am not bound in any respect. There is nothing to prevent me from +staying at home if I don't feel like going away. + +JOHANNA + +For my sake? + +SALA + +I didn't say so. Maybe for my own sake. + +JOHANNA + +No, you mustn't give it up. You would never forgive me if I took that +away from you. + +SALA + +Oh, you think so? (_Watching her closely_) And if both of us were +to go? + +JOHANNA + +What? + +SALA + +If you should risk going along with me? Well, it takes a little courage +to do it, of course. But you would probably not be the only woman. The +Baroness Golobin is also going along, I hear. + +JOHANNA + +Are you talking seriously? + +SALA + +Quite seriously. I ask if you care to go with me on that journey ... as +my wife, of course, seeing that we have to consider externals like +that, too. + +JOHANNA + +I should...? + +SALA + +Why does that move you so deeply? + +JOHANNA + +With you?--With you...? + +SALA + +Don't misunderstand me, Johanna. That's no reason why you should be +tied to me for all time. When we get back, we can bid each other +good-by--without the least ado. It is a very simple matter. For all +your dreams cannot be fulfilled by me--I know that very well.... You +need not give me an answer at once. Hours like these turn too easily +into words that are not true the next day. And I hope I may never hear +you speak one word of that kind. + +JOHANNA (_who has been looking at Sala as if she wanted to drink up +every one of his words_) No, I am not saying anything--I am not saying +anything. + +SALA (_looking long at her_) + +You are going to think it over, and you'll let me know to-morrow +morning? + +JOHANNA + +Yes. (_She looks long at him_) + +SALA + +What is the matter? + +JOHANNA + +Nothing.--Until to-morrow. Farewell. (_He accompanies her to the garden +gate, through which she disappears_) + +SALA (_comes back and stands looking into the pool_) + +Just as if I wanted to find her image in it.... What could it be that +moved her so deeply?... Happiness?... No, it wasn't happiness.... Why +did she look at me like that? Why did she seem to shrink? There was +something in her glance like a farewell forever. (_He makes a sudden +movement as of fright_) Has it come to that with me?... But how can she +know?... Then others must know it too...! (_He stands staring into +space; then he ascends the terrace slowly and goes into the drawing-room, +from which he returns a few moments later accompanied by Julian_) + +JULIAN + +And you want to leave all these splendors so soon? + +SALA + +They'll be here when I come back, I hope. + +JULIAN + +I hope you will, for the sake of both of us. + +SALA + +You say that rather distrustingly.... + +JULIAN + +Well, yes--I am thinking of that remarkable article in the Daily Post. + +SALA + +Concerning what? + +JULIAN + +What is going on at the Caspian Sea. + +SALA + +Oh, are the local papers also taking that up? + +JULIAN + +The conditions in certain regions through which you have to pass seem +really to be extremely dangerous. + +SALA + +Exaggerations. We have better information than that. According to my +opinion there is nothing back of those articles but the petty jealousy +of English scientists. What you read had been translated from the Daily +News. And it's fully three weeks since it appeared there.--Have you +seen Felix, by the way? + +JULIAN + +He was at my house only last night. And this morning I called on the +Wegrats. He wanted to have a look at that picture of his mother which I +painted twenty-three years ago.--And one thing and another led to my +telling him everything. + +SALA + +Oh, you did? (_Thoughtfully_) And how did he take it? + +JULIAN + +It stirred him rather more than I had thought possible. + +SALA + +Well, I hope you didn't expect him to fall into your arms as the +recovered son does in the play. + +JULIAN + +No, of course not.--I told him everything, without any attempt at +sparing myself. And for that reason he seemed to feel the wrong done to +his mother's husband more strongly than anything else. But that won't +last very long. He'll soon understand that, in the higher sense, no +wrong has been done at all. People of Wegrat's type are not made to +hold actual possession of anything--whether it be wives or children. +They mean a refuge, a dwelling place--but never a real home. Can you +understand what I mean by that? It is their mission to take into their +arms creatures who have been worn out or broken to pieces by some kind +of passion. But they never guess whence such creatures come. And while +it is granted them to attract and befriend, they never understand +whither those creatures go. They exist for the purpose of sacrificing +themselves unconsciously, and in such sacrifices they find a happiness +that might seem a pretty poor one to others.... You are not saying a +word? + +SALA + +I am listening. + +JULIAN + +And have no reply to make? + +SALA + +Oh, well--it is possible to grind out scales quite smoothly even when +the fiddle has got a crack.... + +[_It is growing darker. Felix appears on the terrace._ + +SALA + +Who is that? + +FELIX (_on the terrace_) + +It's me. The servant told me ... + +SALA + +Oh, Felix! Glad you came. + +FELIX (_coming down into the garden_) + +Good evening, Mr. von Sala.--Good evening, Mr. Fichtner. + +JULIAN + +Good evening, Felix. + +SALA + +I am delighted to see you. + +FELIX + +What magnificent old trees! + +SALA + +Yes, a piece of real woods--all you have to do is to forget the +fence.--What brought you anyhow? I didn't expect you until to-morrow +morning. Have you really made up your mind already? + +JULIAN + +Am I in the way? + +FELIX + +Oh, no. There is nothing secret about it.--I accept your offer, Mr. von +Sala, and ask if you would be kind enough to speak to Count Ronsky. + +SALA (_shaking Felix by the hand_) + +I am glad of it.... (_To Julian_) It has to do with our Asiatic +venture. + +JULIAN + +What?--You intend to join the expedition? + +FELIX + +Yes. + +SALA + +Have you already talked it over with your father? + +FELIX + +I shall do so to-night.--But that's a mere formality. I am determined, +provided no other obstacles appear.... + +SALA + +I shall speak to the Count this very day. + +FELIX + +I don't know how to thank you. + +SALA + +There is no reason at all. In fact, I don't have to say another word. +The Count knows everything he needs to know about you. + +VALET (_appearing on the terrace_) + +There is a lady asking if you are at home, sir. + +SALA + +Didn't she give her name?--You'll have to excuse me a moment, +gentlemen. (_He goes toward the valet, and both disappear into the +house_) + +JULIAN + +You are going away? + +FELIX + +Yes. And I am very happy this occasion has offered itself. + +JULIAN + +Have you also informed yourself concerning the real nature of this +undertaking? + +FELIX + +It means at any rate genuine activity and the opening of wider worlds. + +JULIAN + +And couldn't those things be found in connection with more hopeful +prospects? + +FELIX + +That's possible. But I don't care to wait. + +[_Sala and Irene enter._ + +IRENE (_still on the terrace, talking to Sala_) + +I couldn't leave Vienna without keeping my promise. + +SALA + +And I thank you for it, Miss Herms. + +IRENE (_descending into the garden with Sala_) + +You have a wonderful place here.--How do you do, Julian? Good evening, +Lieutenant. + +SALA + +You should have come earlier, Miss Herms, so that you could have seen +it in full sunlight. + +IRENE + +Why, I was here two hours ago. But it was like an enchanted castle. It +was impossible to get in. The bell didn't ring at all. + +SALA + +Oh, of course! I hope you pardon. If I had had the slightest idea.... + +IRENE + +Well, it doesn't matter. I have made good use of my time. I went on +through the woods as far as Neustift and Salmansdorf.[6] And then I got +out and followed a road that I remembered since many years ago. (_She +looks at Julian_) I rested on a bench where I sat once many, many years +ago, with a close friend. (_Smilingly_) Can you guess, Mr. Fichtner? +The outlook is wonderful. Beyond the fields you have a perfect view of +the whole city as far as the Danube. + + [6] Former villages, now suburbs of Vienna, lying still nearer + the city limits than Dornbach, where Sala is living. + +SALA (_pointing to the stone seat_) + +Won't you sit down here for a while, Miss Herms? + +IRENE + +Thanks. (_She raises her lorgnette to study the busts of the two +emperors_) It makes one feel quite Roman.... But I hope, gentlemen, I +haven't interrupted any conference. + +SALA + +Not at all. + +IRENE + +I have that feeling, however. All of you look so serious.--I think I'll +rather leave. + +SALA + +Oh, you mustn't, Miss Herms.--Is there anything more you want to ask me +about that affair of ours, Felix? + +FELIX + +If Miss Herms would pardon me for a minute.... + +IRENE + +Oh, certainly--please! + +SALA + +You'll excuse me, Miss Herms.... + +FELIX + +It is a question of what I should do in regard to my present +commission.--(_He is still speaking as he goes out with Sala_) + +IRENE + +What kind of secrets have those two together? What's going on here +anyhow? + +JULIAN + +Nothing that can be called a secret. That young fellow is also going to +join the expedition, I hear. And so they have a lot of things to talk +over, of course. + +IRENE (_who has been following Felix and Sala with her eyes_) +Julian--it's he. + +JULIAN (_remains silent_) + +IRENE + +You don't need to answer me. The matter has been in my mind all the +time.... The only thing I can't understand is why I haven't discovered +it before. It is he.--And he is twenty-three.--And I who actually +thought when you drove me away: if only he doesn't kill himself!... And +there goes his son. + +JULIAN + +What does that help me? He doesn't belong to me. + +IRENE + +But look at him! He is there--he's alive, and young, and handsome. +Isn't that enough? (_She rises_) And I who was ruined by it! + +JULIAN + +How? + +IRENE + +Do you understand? Ruined.... + +JULIAN + +I have never suspected it. + +IRENE + +Well, you couldn't have helped me anyhow. (_Pause_) Good-by. Make an +excuse for me, please. Tell them anything you want. I am going away, +and I don't want to know anything more. + +JULIAN + +What's the matter with you? Nothing has changed. + +IRENE + +You think so?--To me it is as if all these twenty-three years had +suddenly undergone a complete change.--Good-by. + +JULIAN + +Good-by--for a while. + +IRENE + +For a while? Do you care?--Really?--Do you feel sad, Julian?--Now I am +sorry for you again. (_Shaking her head_) Of course, that's the way you +are. So what is there to do about it? + +JULIAN + +Please control yourself. Here they are coming. + +SALA (_returns with Felix_) + +Now we're all done. + +FELIX + +Thank you very much. I shall have to leave now. + +IRENE + +And to-morrow you are already going away again? + +FELIX + +Yes, Miss Herms. + +IRENE + +You're also going toward the city now, Lieutenant, are you not? If you +don't object, I'll take you along. + +FELIX + +That's awfully kind of you. + +SALA + +What, Miss Herms...? This is a short visit indeed. + +IRENE + +Yes, I have still a few errands to do. For to-morrow I must return to +the wilderness. And probably it will be some time before I get to +Vienna again.--Well, Lieutenant? + +FELIX + +Good-by, Mr. Fichtner. And if I shouldn't happen to see you again.... + +JULIAN + +Oh, we'll meet again. + +IRENE + +Now the people will say: look at the lieutenant with his mamma in tow. +(_She gives a last glance to Julian_) + +SALA (_accompanies Irene and Felix up the steps to the terrace_) + +JULIAN (_remains behind, walking back and forth; after a while he is +joined by Sala_) Have you no doubt that your appeal to Count Ronsky +will be effective? + +SALA + +I have already received definite assurances from him, or I should never +have aroused any hopes in Felix. + +JULIAN + +What caused you to do this, Sala? + +SALA + +My sympathy for Felix, I should say, and the fact that I like to travel +in pleasant company. + +JULIAN + +And did it never occur to you, that the thought of losing him might be +very painful to me? + +SALA + +What's the use of that, Julian? It is only possible to lose what you +possess. And you cannot possess a thing to which you have not acquired +any right. You know that as well as I do. + +JULIAN + +Does not, in the last instance, the fact that you need somebody give +you a certain claim on him?--Can't you understand, Sala, that he +represents my last hope?... That actually I haven't got anything or +anybody left but him?... That wherever I turn, I find nothing but +emptiness?... That I am horrified by the loneliness awaiting me? + +SALA + +And what could it help you if he stayed? And even if he felt something +like filial tenderness toward you, how could that help you?... How can +he or anybody else help you?... You say that loneliness horrifies +you?... And if you had a wife by your side to-day, wouldn't you be +lonely just the same?... Wouldn't you be lonely even if you were +surrounded by children and grandchildren?... Suppose you had kept your +money, your fame and your genius--don't you think you would be lonely +for all that?... Suppose we were always attended by a train of +bacchantes--nevertheless we should have to tread the downward path +alone--we, who have never belonged to anybody ourselves. The process of +aging must needs be a lonely one for our kind, and he is nothing but a +fool who doesn't in time prepare himself against having to rely on any +human being. + +JULIAN + +And do you imagine, Sala, that you need no human being? + +SALA + +In the manner I have used them they will always be at my disposal. I +have always been in favor of keeping at a certain distance. It is not +my fault that other people haven't realized it. + +JULIAN + +In that respect you are right, Sala. For you have never really loved +anybody in this world. + +SALA + +Perhaps not. And how about you? No more than I, Julian.... To love +means to live for the sake of somebody else. I don't say that it is a +more desirable form of existence, but I do think, at any rate, that you +and I have been pretty far removed from it. What has that which one +like us brings into the world got to do with love? Though it include +all sorts of funny, hypocritical, tender, unworthy, passionate things +that pose as love--it isn't love for all that.... Have we ever made a +sacrifice by which our sensuality or our vanity didn't profit?... Have +we ever hesitated to betray or blackguard decent people, if by doing so +we could gain an hour of happiness or of mere lust?... Have we ever +risked our peace or our lives--not out of whim or recklessness--but to +promote the welfare of someone who had given all to us?... Have we ever +denied ourselves an enjoyment unless from such denial we could at least +derive some comfort?... And do you think that we could dare to turn to +any human being, man or woman, with a demand that any gift of ours be +returned? I am not thinking of pearls now, or annuities, or cheap +wisdom, but of some piece of our real selves, some hour of our own +existence, which we have surrendered to such a being without at once +exacting payment for it in some sort of coin. My dear Julian, we have +kept our doors open, and have allowed our treasures to be viewed--but +prodigal with them we have never been. You no more than I. We may just +as well join hands, Julian. I am a little less prone to complain than +you are--that's the whole difference.... But I am not telling you +anything new. All this you know as well as I do. It is simply +impossible for us not to know ourselves. Of course, we try at times +conscientiously to deceive ourselves, but it never works. Our follies +and rascalities may remain hidden to others--but never to ourselves. In +our innermost souls we always know what to think of ourselves.--It's +getting cold, Julian. Let's go indoors. + +(_They begin to ascend the steps to the terrace_) + +JULIAN + +All that may be true, Sala. But this much you have to grant me. If +there be anybody in the world who has no right to make us pay for the +mistakes of our lives, it is a person who has us to thank for his own +life. + +SALA + +There is no question of payment in this. Your son has a mind for +essentials, Julian. You have said so yourself. And he feels that to +have done nothing for a man but to put him into the world, is to have +done very little indeed. + +JULIAN + +Then, at least, everything must become as it was before he knew +anything at all. Once more I shall become to him a human being like +anybody else. Then he will not dare to leave me.... I cannot bear it. +How have I deserved that he should run away from me?... And even if all +that I have held for good and true within myself--even if, in the end, +my very fondness for this young man, who is my son--should prove +nothing but self-delusion--yet I love him now.... Do you understand me, +Sala? I love him, and all I ask is that he may believe it before I must +lose him forever.... + +[_It grows dark. The two men pass across the terrace and enter the +drawing-room. The stage stands empty a little while. In the meantime +the wind has risen somewhat. Johanna enters by the avenue of trees from +the right and goes past the pool toward the terrace. The windows of the +drawing-room are illumined. Sala has seated himself at a table. The +valet enters the room and serves him a glass of wine. Johanna stops. +She is apparently much excited. Then she ascends two of the steps to +the terrace. Sala seems to hear a noise and turns his head slightly. +When she sees this, Johanna hurries down again and stops beside the +pool. There she stands looking down into the water._ + + +CURTAIN + + + + +THE FIFTH ACT + +_The garden at the Wegrats'._ + +REUMANN (_sits at a small table and writes something in his notebook_) + + +JULIAN (_enters quickly by way of the veranda_) + +Is it true, Doctor? + +REUMANN (_rising_) + +Yes, it's true. + +JULIAN + +She has disappeared? + +REUMANN + +Yes, she has disappeared. She has been gone since yesterday afternoon. +She has left no word behind, and she has taken nothing at all with +her--she has simply gone away and never returned. + +JULIAN + +But what can have happened to her? + +REUMANN + +We have not been able to guess even. Perhaps she has lost her way and +will come back. Or she has suddenly made up her mind--if we only knew +to what! + +JULIAN + +Where are the others? + +REUMANN + +We agreed to meet here again at ten. I visited the various hospitals +and other places where it might be possible to find some trace.... I +suppose the professor has made a report to the police by this time. + +FELIX (_enters quickly_) + +Nothing new? + +REUMANN + +Nothing. + +JULIAN (_shakes hands with Felix_) + +REUMANN + +From where do you come? + +FELIX + +I went to see Mr. von Sala. + +REUMANN + +Why? + +FELIX + +I thought it rather possible that he might have a suspicion, or be able +to give us some kind of direction. But he knows nothing at all. That +was perfectly clear. And if he had known anything--had known anything +definite--he would have told me. I am sure of that. He was still in bed +when I called on him. I suppose he thought I had come about my own +matter. When he heard that Johanna had disappeared, he turned very +pale.... But he doesn't know anything. + +WEGRAT (_enters_) + +Anything? + +[_All the others shake their heads. Julian presses his hand._ + +WEGRAT (_sitting down_) + +They asked me to give more details, something more tangible to go by. +But what is there to give?... I have nothing.... The whole thing is a +riddle to me. (_Turning to Julian_) In the afternoon she went out for a +short walk as usual.... (_To Felix_) Was there anything about her that +attracted attention?... It seems quite impossible to me that she could +have had anything in mind when she left the house--that she could know +already--that she was going away forever. + +FELIX + +Perhaps though.... + +WEGRAT + +Of course, she was very reserved--especially of late, since the death +of her mother.... I wonder if it could be that?... Would you think that +possible, Doctor? + +REUMANN (_shrugs his shoulders_) + +FELIX + +Did any one of us really know her? And who takes a real interest in +another person anyhow? + +REUMANN + +It is apparently fortunate that such is the case. Otherwise we should +all go mad from pity or loathing or anxiety. (_Pause_) Now I must get +around to my patients. There are a few calls that cannot be postponed. +I shall be back by dinner-time. Good-by for a while. (_He goes out_) + +WEGRAT + +To think that you can watch a young creature like her grow up--can see +the child turn into girl, and then into a young lady--can speak +hundreds of thousands of words to her.... And one day she rises from +the table, puts on hat and coat, and goes ... and you have no idea as +to whether she has slipped away--if into nothingness or into a new +life. + +FELIX + +But whatever may have happened, father--she wanted to get away from us. +And in that fact, I think, we should find a certain consolation. + +WEGRAT (_shakes his head in perplexity_) + +Everything is fluttering away--willingly or unwillingly--but away it +goes. + +FELIX + +Father, we can't tell what may have happened. It's conceivable, at +least, that Johanna may have formed some decision which she does not +carry out. Perhaps she will come back in a few hours, or days. + +WEGRAT + +You believe ... you think it possible, do you? + +FELIX + +Possible--yes. But if she shouldn't come--of course, father, I shall +give up the plan of which I told you yesterday. Under circumstances +like these I couldn't think of going so far away from you for such a +long time. + +WEGRAT (_to Julian_) + +And now he's going to sacrifice himself for my sake! + +FELIX + +Perhaps I could arrange to have myself transferred here. + +WEGRAT + +No, Felix, you know very well that I couldn't accept such a thing. + +FELIX + +But it's no sacrifice. I assure you, father, that I stay with you only +because I _can't_ go away from you now. + +WEGRAT + +Oh, yes, Felix, you can--you will be able. And you are not to stay here +for my sake--you mustn't. I could never be sure that it would prove of +any help to me to have you give up a plan which you have taken hold of +with such enthusiasm. I think it would be inexcusable of you to draw +back, and wicked of me to permit it. You must be happy at having found +a way at last, by which you may reach all you have longed for. It makes +me happy, too, Felix. If you missed this opportunity, you would regret +it all your life. + +FELIX + +But so much may have changed since yesterday--such a tremendous +lot--for you and for me. + +WEGRAT + +For me, perhaps.... But never mind. I won't stand it--I will not accept +such a sacrifice. Of course, I might accept it, if I could find it of +any special advantage to myself. But I shouldn't have you any more than +if you were gone away ... less ... not at all. This fate that has +descended on us must not add to its inherent power what is still +worse--that it makes us do in our confusion what is against our own +natures. Sometime we always get over every disaster, no matter how +frightful it be. But whatever we do in violation of our innermost +selves can never be undone. (_Turning to Julian_) Isn't that true, +Julian? + +JULIAN + +You are absolutely right. + +FELIX + +Thanks, father. I feel grateful that you make it so easy for me to +agree with you. + +WEGRAT + +That's good, Felix.... During the weeks you will remain in Europe we +shall be able to talk over a lot of things--more perhaps than in the +years gone by. Indeed, how little people know about each other!... But +I am getting tired. We stayed awake all night. + +FELIX + +Won't you rest a while, father? + +WEGRAT + +Rest.... You'll stay at home, Felix, won't you? + +FELIX + +Yes, I shall wait right here. What else is there to do? + +WEGRAT + +I'm racking my brain until it's near bursting.... Why didn't she say +anything to me? Why have I known so little about her? Why have I kept +so far away from her? (_He goes out_) + +FELIX + +How that man has been belied--all his life long--by all of us. + +JULIAN + +There is in this world no sin, no crime, no deception, that cannot be +atoned. Only for what has happened here, there should be no expiation +and no forgetfulness, you think? + +FELIX + +Can it be possible that you don't understand?... Here a lie has been +eternalized. There is no getting away from it. And she who did it was +my mother--and it was you who made her do it--and the lie am I, and +such I must remain as long as I am passing for that which I am not. + +JULIAN + +Let us proclaim the truth then, Felix.--I shall face any judge that you +may choose, and submit to any verdict passed on me.--Must I alone +remain condemned forever? Should I alone, among all that have erred, +never dare to say: "It is atoned"? + +FELIX + +It is too late. Guilt can be wiped out by confession only while the +guilty one is still able to make restitution. You ought to know +yourself, that this respite expired long ago. + +SALA (_enters_) + +FELIX + +Mr. von Sala!--Have you anything to tell us? + +SALA + +Yes.--Good morning, Julian.--No, stay, Julian. I am glad to have a +witness. (_To Felix_) Are you determined to join the expedition? + +FELIX + +I am. + +SALA + +So am I. But it is possible that one of us must change his mind. + +FELIX + +Mr. von Sala...? + +SALA + +It would be a bad thing to risk finding out that you have started on a +journey of such scope with one whom you would prefer to shoot dead if +you knew him completely. + +FELIX + +Where is my sister, Mr. von Sala? + +SALA + +I don't know. Where she is at this moment, I don't know. But last +evening, just before you arrived, she had left me for the last time. + +FELIX + +Mr. von Sala.... + +SALA + +Her farewell words to me were: Until to-morrow. You can see that I had +every reason to be surprised this morning, when you appeared at my +house. Permit me furthermore to tell you, that yesterday, of all days, +I asked Johanna to become my wife--which seemed to agitate her very +much. In telling you this, I have by no means the intention of +smoothing over things. For my question implied no desire on my part to +make good any wrong I might have done. It was apparently nothing but a +whim--like so much else. There is here no question of anything but to +let you know the truth. This means that I am at your disposal in any +manner you may choose.--I thought it absolutely necessary to say all +this before we were brought to the point of having to descend into the +depths of the earth together, or, perhaps, to sleep in the same tent. + +FELIX (_after a long pause_) + +Mr. von Sala ... we shall not have to sleep in the same tent. + +SALA + +Why not? + +FELIX + +Your journey will not last that long. + +[_A very long pause ensues._ + +SALA + +Oh ... I understand. And are you sure of that? + +FELIX + +Perfectly. (_Pause_} + +SALA + +And did Johanna know it? + +FELIX + +Yes. + +SALA + +I thank you.--Oh, you can safely take my hand. The matter has been +settled in the most chivalrous manner possible.--Well?... It is not +customary to refuse one's hand to him who is already down. + +FELIX (_gives his hand to Sala; then he says_) + +And where can she be? + +SALA + +I don't know. + +FELIX + +Didn't she give you any hint at all? + +SALA + +None whatever. + +FELIX + +But have you no conjecture? Has she perhaps established any +connections--abroad? Had she any friends at all, of which I don't know? + +SALA + +Not to my knowledge. + +FELIX + +Do you think that she is still alive? + +SALA + +I can't tell. + +FELIX + +Are you not _willing_ to say anything more, Mr. von Sala? + +SALA + +I am not _able_ to say anything more. I have nothing left to say. +Farewell, and good luck on your trip. Give my regards to Count Ronsky. + +FELIX + +But we are not seeing each other for the last time? + +SALA + +Who can tell? + +FELIX (_holding out his hand to Sala_) + +I must hurry to my father. I think it my duty to let him know what I +have just learned from you. + +SALA (_nods_) + +FELIX (_to Julian_) + +Good-by. (_He goes out_) + +[_Julian and Sala start to leave together._ + +JULIAN (_as Sala suddenly stops_) + +Why do you tarry? Let's get away. + +SALA + +It is a strange thing to _know_. A veil seems to spread in front of +everything.... "Away with you!"--But I don't care to submit to it as +long as I am still here--if it be only for another hour.... + +JULIAN + +Do you believe it then? + +SALA (_looking long at Julian_) + +Do I believe it...? He behaved rather nicely, that son of yours.... "We +shall not have to sleep in the same tent."... Not bad! I might have +said it myself.... + +JULIAN + +But why don't you come? Have you perhaps something more to tell after +all? + +SALA + +That's the question I must put to you, Julian. + +JULIAN + +Sala? + +SALA + +Because I didn't say anything about a peculiar hallucination I +experienced just before coming here. I imagine it was.... + +JULIAN + +Please, speak out! + +SALA + +What do you think of it? Before I left my house--just after Felix had +gone--I went down into my garden--that is to say, I ran through it--in +a remarkable state of excitement, as you may understand. And as I +passed by the pool, it was exactly as if I had seen on the bottom of +it.... + +JULIAN + +Sala! + +SALA + +There is a blue-greenish glitter on the water, and besides, the shadow +of the beech tree falls right across it early in the morning. And by a +strange coincidence Johanna said yesterday: "The water can no more hold +my image...." That was, in a way, like challenging fate.... And as I +passed by the pool, it was as if ... the water had retained her image +just the same. + +JULIAN + +Is that true? + +SALA + +True ... or untrue ... what is that to me? It could be of interest to +me only if I were to remain in this world another year--or another hour +at least. + +JULIAN + +You mean to...? + +SALA + +Of course, I do. Would you expect me to wait for it? That would be +rather painful, I think. (_To Julian, with a smile_) From whom are you +now going to get your cues, my dear friend? Yes, it's all over now.... +And what has become of it?... Where are the _thermae_ of Caracalla? +Where is the park at Lugano?... Where is my nice little house?... No +nearer to me, and no farther away, than those marble steps leading down +to mysterious depths.... Veils in front of everything.... Perhaps your +son will discover if the three-hundred and twelfth be the last one--and +if not, it won't give him much concern anyhow.... Don't you think he +has been acting rather nicely?... I have somehow the impression that a +better generation is growing up--with more poise and less +brilliancy.--Send your regards to heaven, Julian. + +JULIAN (_makes a movement to accompany him_) + +SALA (_gently but firmly_) + +You stay here, Julian. This is the end of our dialogue. Farewell. +(_He goes out quickly_) + +FELIX (_entering rapidly_) + +Is Mr. von Sala gone? My father wanted to talk to him.--And you are +still here?... Why did Mr. von Sala go? What did he tell +you?--Johanna...! Johanna...? + +JULIAN + +She is dead ... she has drowned herself in the pool. + +FELIX (_with a cry of dismay_) + +Where did he go? + +JULIAN + +I don't think you can find him. + +FELIX + +What is he doing? + +JULIAN + +He is paying ... while it's time.... + +WEGRAT (_enters from the veranda_) + +FELIX (_runs to meet him_) + +Father.... + +WEGRAT + +Felix! What has happened? + +FELIX + +We must go to Sala's house, father. + +WEGRAT + +Dead...? + +FELIX + +Father! (_He takes hold of Wegrat's hand and kisses it_) My +father! + +JULIAN (_has left the room slowly in the meantime_) + +WEGRAT + +Must things of this kind happen to make that word sound as if I had +heard it for the first time...? + + +CURTAIN + + + + +INTERMEZZO + +(_Zwischenspiel_) + +A COMEDY IN THREE ACTS + +1904 + + + + +PERSONS + + +AMADEUS ADAMS } A musical conductor + +CECILIA ADAMS-ORTENBURG } His wife, an opera singer + +PETER } Their child, five years old + +ALBERT RHON + +MARIE } His wife + +SIGISMUND, PRINCE MARADAS-LOHSENSTEIN + +COUNTESS FREDERIQUE MOOSHEIM } An opera singer + +GOVERNESS } + } At the Adamses +COUNT ARPAD PAZMANDY } + +_The scene is laid in Vienna at the present day._ + + + + +INTERMEZZO + +THE FIRST ACT + + +_The study of Amadeus. The walls are painted in dark gray, with a very +simple frieze. A door in the background leads to a veranda. On either +side of this door is a window. Through the door one sees the garden, to +which three steps lead down from the veranda. A cabinet stands between +the door and the window at the right; a music-stand holds a +corresponding position to the left of the door. Antique bas-reliefs are +hung above the cabinet as well as the stand. The main entrance is on +the right side in the foreground. Farther back at the right is a door +leading to Cecilia's room. A door finished like the rest of the wall +leads to the room of Amadeus at the left. A tall book case, with a bust +of Verrochio on top of it, stands against the right wall. In the corner +back of it are several columns with tall vases full of flowers. A +fireplace occupies the foreground at the left. Above it is a large +mirror. On the mantelshelf stands a French clock of simple design. A +table surrounded by chairs is placed in front of the fireplace. Farther +back along the same wall are shelves piled with sheet music, and above +them engravings of Schumann, Brahms, Mozart, and other composers. A +bust of Beethoven occupies the farthermost corner at the left. Halfway +down the stage, nearer the left wall, stands a piano with a piano stool +in front of it. An armchair has been moved up close to the piano on the +side toward the public. A writing desk holds a similar position at the +right. Back of it are an easy-chair and a couch, the latter having been +moved close to the table._ + + +AMADEUS (_thirty years old, slender, with dark, smooth hair; his +movements are quick, with a suggestion of restlessness; he wears a gray +business suit of elegant cut, but not well cared for; he has a trick of +taking hold of the lapel of his sack coat with his left hand and +turning it back; he is seated at the piano, accompanying Frederique_) + +FREDERIQUE (_twenty-eight, is dressed in a bright gray tailor-made suit +and a red satin waist; wears a broad-brimmed straw hat, very +fashionable; her hair is blonde, of a reddish tint; her whole +appearance is very dainty; she is singing an aria from the opera +"Mignon"_) "Ha-ha-ha! Is 't true, really true?" (_While singing she is +all the time making a motion as if she were beating the dust out of her +riding suit with a crop_) + +AMADEUS (_accompanying himself as he gives her the cue_) "Yes, you may +laugh. I am a fool to ruin my horse ..." + +FREDERIQUE + +"Maybe you would like ..." + +AMADEUS (_nervously_) + +Oh, wait!... You don't know yet why I have ruined my horse.... "To ruin +my horse for a quicker sight of you ..." + +FREDERIQUE (_with the same gesture as before_) + +"Maybe you would like me to weep?" + +AMADEUS + +"Oh, I regret already that I came." + +FREDERIQUE (_as before_) + +"Well, why...." + +AMADEUS + +G sharp! + +FREDERIQUE (_as before_) + +"Well, why don't you go back? Soon enough I shall see you again." + +AMADEUS + +You should say that ironically, not tenderly. "Soon enough I shall see +you again...." + +FREDERIQUE (_as before_) + +"Soon enough I shall see you again...." + +AMADEUS + +Not angrily, Countess, but ironically. + +FREDERIQUE + +Call me Frederique, and not Countess, when you are working with me. + +AMADEUS + +Now, that's the tone Philine should use. Hold on to it.... And that's +the right look, too.... If you could do that on the stage, you might +almost be an artist. + +FREDERIQUE + +Oh, mercy, I have sung Philine more than twenty times already. + +AMADEUS + +But not here, Freder ... Countess. And not when Mrs. Adams-Ortenburg +was singing the part of Mignon. (_He leans forward so that he can look +out into the garden_) + +FREDERIQUE + +No, she isn't coming yet. (_With a smile_) Perhaps the rehearsal isn't +over. + +AMADEUS (_rising_) + +Perhaps not. + +FREDERIQUE + +Is it true that Mrs. Adams-Ortenburg has been requested to sing in +Berlin next Fall? + +AMADEUS + +Nothing has been settled yet. (_He goes to the window at the right_) If +you'll permit.... (_Opens the window_) + +FREDERIQUE + +What a splendid day! And how fragrant the roses are. It is almost +like.... + +AMADEUS + +Almost like Tremezzo--yes, I know. + +FREDERIQUE + +How can you--as you have never been there? + +AMADEUS + +But you have told me enough about it. A villa standing at the edge of +the water--radiantly white--with marble steps leading straight down to +the blue sea. + +FREDERIQUE + +Yes. And sometimes, on very hot nights, I sleep in the park, right on +the sward, under a plane tree. + +AMADEUS + +That plane tree is famous.--But time is flying. It would be better to +go on with the singing. (_He seats himself at the piano again_) The +polonaise--if you please, Countess. (_He begins the accompaniment_) + +FREDERIQUE (_singing_) + + "Titania, airiest queen of fairies, + Has descended from her blue cloud throne, + And her way across the world is wending + More quickly than the bird or lightning flash..." + +AMADEUS (_interrupts his playing and lets his head sink forward_) No, +no--it's no use!... Please tell the director that he will have to look +after your part himself. As for me, I have certain regards even for +people who go to the opera in Summer. They should not be forced to +accept _anything_. Tell the director, please, that I send him my +regards and that--there are more important things to occupy my time. +(_He closes the score_) + +FREDERIQUE (_quite amicably_) + +I believe it. How's your opera getting along? + +AMADEUS + +For the Lord's sake, please don't pretend to be interested in things of +that kind! Why, nobody expects it of you. + +FREDERIQUE + +Will it soon be finished? + +AMADEUS + +Finished...? How could it be, do you think? I have to conduct two +nights a week at least, and there are rehearsals in the morning, not to +mention singers that have to be coached.... Do you think a man can sit +down after an hour like _this_ and invite his muse? + +FREDERIQUE + +After an hour like _this_...? I don't think you feel quite at your +ease with me, Amadeus. + +AMADEUS + +Not at my ease? I? With you?--I don't think you have imagined in your +most reckless moments, Countess, that my wife might have anything to +fear from you. + +FREDERIQUE + +You are determined to misunderstand me. (_She has gone to the fireplace +and turns now to face Amadeus_) You know perfectly well why you pretend +to be cross with me. Because you are in love with me. + +AMADEUS (_looks straight ahead and goes on playing_) + +FREDERIQUE + +And that chord proves nothing to the contrary. + +AMADEUS + +That chord.... Tell me rather what kind of chord it is. (_He repeats it +in a fury_) + +FREDERIQUE + +A flat major. + +AMADEUS (_in a tone of boredom_) + +G major--of course. + +FREDERIQUE (_close by him, with a smile_) + +Don't let that semi-tone spoil our happiness. + +AMADEUS (_rises, goes toward the background and looks out into the +garden_) + +FREDERIQUE + +Is it your wife? + +AMADEUS + +No, my little boy is playing out there. (_He stands at the window, +waving his hand at somebody outside; pause_) + +FREDERIQUE + +You take life too hard, Amadeus. + +AMADEUS (_still at the window, but turning toward Frederique_) I can't +lie--and I don't want to. Which is not the same as taking life hard. + +FREDERIQUE + +Can't lie...? And yet you have been away from your wife for months at a +time--haven't you? And your wife came here while you were still +conducting somewhere abroad, didn't she?... So that.... + +AMADEUS + +Those are matters which you don't quite comprehend, Countess. (_He +looks again toward the main entrance_) + +FREDERIQUE + +No, your wife can't be here yet. She won't give up her walk on a +wonderful day like this. + +AMADEUS + +What you have in mind now is pretty mean, Frederique. + +FREDERIQUE + +Why so? Of course, I know she takes a walk with you, too, now and then. + +AMADEUS + +Yes, when my time permits. And often she goes out with Sigismund. +To-day she's probably with him--and that's what you wanted to bring +home to me, of course. + +FREDERIQUE + +Why should I? You know it, don't you? And I assure you, it has never +occurred to me to see anything wrong in it. He's a friend of yours. + +AMADEUS + +More than that--or less. He used to be my pupil. + +FREDERIQUE + +I didn't know that. + +AMADEUS + +Ten years ago, while still a mere youngster, I used to live in his +father's palace. It's hard to tell where I might have been to-day, had +it not been for old Prince Lohsenstein. You see, we men have generally +another kind of youth to look back at than you ... + +FREDERIQUE + +... women artists. + +AMADEUS + +No, countesses, I meant to say. For three years I spent every summer in +the palace at Krumau.[1] And there--for the first time in my life--I +could work in peace, all by myself, with nothing more to do than to +instruct Sigismund. + + [1] A small Bohemian city near the border of Upper Austria. On + a high rock, with a wonderful view along the river Moldau, + stands the Schwarzenberg castle, which the author seems to + have had in mind. + +FREDERIQUE + +Did he want to become a pianist? + +AMADEUS + +Not exactly. He wanted to join some monastic order. + +FREDERIQUE + +No? Is that really true?--Oh, it's queer how people change! + +AMADEUS + +They don't as much as you think. He has remained a man of serious mind. + +FREDERIQUE + +And yet he plays dance music so charmingly...? + +AMADEUS + +Why shouldn't he? A good waltz and a good hymn are just as acceptable +to the powers above. + +FREDERIQUE + +How delightful those evenings in your house used to be! No farther back +than last winter.... The Count and I frequently talk of them.--Have you +ceased to invite Prince Sigismund, as you have me? + +AMADEUS + +He was here only a fortnight ago, my dear Countess--and spent the whole +evening with us. We had supper in the summer-house, and then we came in +here and sat chatting for a long while, and finally he improvised some +variations on the Cagliostro Waltzes before he left.--And what my wife +and he say to each other during their walk, when I am not with them, +will no more be hidden from me than I would hide from her what you and +I have been talking of here. That's how my wife and I feel toward each +other--if you'll please understand, Frederique! + +FREDERIQUE + +But there are things one simply _can't_ say to each other. + +AMADEUS + +There can be no secrets between people like my wife and myself. + +FREDERIQUE + +Oh, of course ... but then ... what you have been saying to me will be +only a small part of what you must tell your wife to-day, Amadeus. +Good-by.... (_She holds out her hand to him_) + +AMADEUS + +What's in your mind now, Frederique? + +FREDERIQUE + +Why resist your fate? Is it so very repulsive after all? What you are +to me, nobody else has ever been! + +AMADEUS + +And you want me to believe that? + +FREDERIQUE + +I shall not insist on it. But it is true nevertheless. Good-by now. +Until to-morrow, Amadeus. Life is really much easier than you think.... +It might be so very pleasant--and so it shall be! (_She goes out_) + +AMADEUS (_seats himself at the piano again and strikes a few notes_) It +is getting serious ... or amusing perhaps...? (_He shakes his head_) + +ALBERT RHON (_enters; he is of medium height; his black hair, slightly +streaked with gray, is worn long; he is rather carelessly dressed_) + +AMADEUS + +Oh, is that you, Albert? How are you? + +ALBERT + +I have come to ask how you are getting along with our opera, Amadeus. +Have you done anything? + +AMADEUS + +No. + +ALBERT + +Again nothing? + +AMADEUS + +I doubt whether I can get a chance here. We'll have to wait until the +season is over. I have too much to do. We are now putting on "Mignon" +with new people in some of the parts.... + +ALBERT + +If I'm not very much mistaken, I saw Philine float by--with a rather +intoxicated look in her eyes.... Oh, have I put my foot into it again? +I beg your pardon! + +AMADEUS (_turning away from him_) + +That's right. She was here. Oh, that damned business of private +rehearsals! But I hope it won't last much longer. The coming Winter is +going to decide my future once for all. I have already got my leave of +absence. + +ALBERT + +So you have made up your mind about that tour? + +AMADEUS + +Yes, I shall be gone for two months this time. + +ALBERT + +Within Germany only? + +AMADEUS + +I'll probably take in a few Italian cities also. Yes, my dear fellow, +they know more about me abroad than here. I shall conduct my Third +Symphony, and perhaps also my Fourth. + +ALBERT + +Have you got that far already? + +AMADEUS + +No. But I have hopes of the Summer. Once more I mean to do some real +work. + +ALBERT + +Well, it's about time.--I have made out the schedule for our walking +tour, by the by. And I brought along the map. Look here. We start from +Niederdorf, and then by way of Plaetzwiesen to Schluderbach; then to +Cortina; then through the Giau Pass to Caprile; then by way of the +Fedaja[2].... + + [2] The names used in this passage occur a number of times in + the various plays, indicating that their author probably has + been drawing on experiences obtained during his own walking + tours through the Dolomites. As far as Cortina, the route is + identical with the one mentioned by _Wegrath_ in "The Lonely + Way." The Giau Pass is a little known footpath across Monte + Giau, showing that the intention of _Albert_ is to avoid the + routes frequented by tourists. + +AMADEUS + +I leave all that to you. I rely entirely on you. + +ALBERT + +Then it's settled that we'll don knapsack and alpenstock once more, to +wander through the country as we used to do when we were young...? + +AMADEUS + +Yes, and I am looking forward to it with a great deal of pleasure. + +ALBERT + +You need simply to pull yourself together--a few weeks of mountain air +and quiet will get you out of this. + +AMADEUS + +Oh, I haven't got into anything in particular. I am a little nervous. +That's all. + +ALBERT + +Can't you see, Amadeus, how you have to force yourself in order to use +this evasion toward me, who, of course, has no right whatever to demand +any frankness? Can't you see how you are wasting a part of your mental +energy, so to speak, on this slight disingenuousness? No, dissimulation +is utterly foreign to your nature, as I have always told you. If you +should ever get to the point where you had to deceive one who was near +and dear to you, that would be the end of you. + +AMADEUS + +Your worry is quite superfluous! Haven't you known us long enough--me +and Cecilia--to know that our marriage is based, above all else, on +absolute frankness? + +ALBERT + +Many have good intentions, but their courage often deserts them at the +critical moment. + +AMADEUS + +We have never yet kept anything hidden from each other. + +ALBERT + +Because so far you have had nothing to confess. + +AMADEUS + +Oh, a great deal, perhaps, which other people keep to themselves. Our +common life has not been without its complications. We have had to be +parted from each other for months at a time. I have had to rehearse +in private with other singers than Philine, and (_with an air of +superiority_) other men than Prince Sigismund must have discovered that +Cecilia is pretty. + +ALBERT + +I haven't said a word about Cecilia. + +AMADEUS + +And besides, it would be quite hopeless for Cecilia or me to keep any +secrets. We know each other too well--I don't think two people ever +existed who understood each other so completely as we do. + +ALBERT + +I can imagine a point where the understanding would have to end, and +everything else with it. + +AMADEUS + +Everything else maybe--but not the understanding. + +ALBERT + +Oh, well! If nothing is left but the understanding, that means the +beginning of the end. + +AMADEUS + +Those are--chances that every human being must resign himself to take. + +ALBERT + +You don't talk like one who has resigned himself, however, but like one +who has made up his mind. + +AMADEUS + +Who can be perfectly sure of himself or of anybody else? We two, at any +rate, are not challenging fate by feeling too secure. + +ALBERT + +Oh, when it comes to that, my dear fellow--fate always regards itself +challenged--by doubt no less than by confidence. + +AMADEUS + +To be safe against any surprise brings a certain sense of tranquillity +anyhow. + +ALBERT + +A little more tranquillity would produce a decision to avoid anything +that might endanger an assured happiness. + +AMADEUS + +Do you think anything is to be won by that kind of avoidance? Don't you +feel rather, that the worst and most dangerous of all falsehoods is to +resist temptation with a soul full of longing for it? And that it is +easier to go unscathed through adventures than through desires? + +ALBERT + +Adventures...! Is it actually necessary, then, to live through them? A +painter who has risen above pot-boiling, and who has left the follies +of youth behind him, can be satisfied with a single model for all the +figures that are created out of his dreams--and one who knows how to +live may have all the adventures he could ever desire within the +peaceful precincts of his own home. He can experience them just as +fully as anybody else, but without waste of time, without +unpleasantness, without danger. And if he only possess a little +imagination, his wife may bear him nothing but illegitimate children +without being at all aware of it. + +AMADEUS + +It's an open question whether you have the right to force such a part +on anybody whom you respect. + +ALBERT + +It is not wise to let people know what they mean to you. I have put +this thought into an aphorism: + + If you grasp me, you rasp me; + If I know you, I own you. + +MARIE (_entering from the garden with little Peter_) + +Peter wants me absolutely to come in. I wanted to wait for Cecilia in +the garden. + +AMADEUS + +How are you, Marie? + +MARIE + +I'm not disturbing you, I hope? + +GOVERNESS (_comes from the garden with the intention of taking the boy +away_) Peter! + +PETER + +No, I want to stay with the grown-ups. + +AMADEUS + +Yes, let him be with us for a while. + +GOVERNESS (_returns to the veranda, where she remains visible_) + +MARIE + +Well, have you been working a lot? + +AMADEUS + +Oh, we have just been talking. + +ALBERT + +Do you know why she asks? Because she is in love with Mr. von Rabagas. + +AMADEUS + +With whom? + +ALBERT + +Don't you remember him? He's that interesting young chap who appears in +the first act as one of the King's attendants. She used, at least, to +fall in love only with the heroes of my plays, but nowadays she can't +even resist the subordinate characters. + +AMADEUS + +That should make you proud. + +ALBERT + +Proud, you say? But at times you can't help regretting that you must +put all the beauties and virtues of the world into the figures you +create, so that you have nothing but your wee bit of talent left to get +along with personally. + +CECILIA (_enters from the right_) + +PETER + +There's mamma! + +CECILIA + +Good afternoon. (_She shakes hands with everybody_) How are you, Marie? +This is awfully nice. If I had only known.... I went for a short walk. +It's such a wonderful day.--Well, Peter (_kissing him_), have you had +your meal yet? + +PETER + +Yes. + +GOVERNESS (_entering from the veranda_) + +Good afternoon, Madame. Peter hasn't had his nap yet. + +MARIE + +Does he still have to sleep in the daytime? Our two children have quit +entirely. + +ALBERT + +Instead they play a most exciting game every afternoon--one invented by +themselves. They call it "drums and bugles." + +MARIE + +You must come and see us soon, Peter, so that you can learn to play +that game. + +PETER + +I've got a music-box, and I'll take it along so we can make more noise. + +CECILIA + +Now you have to go. But first you must say good-by nicely. + +PETER + +I'll say "adieu." Good-by is so common. + +[_Everybody laughs. Peter goes out with the Governess. Marie and +Cecilia move slowly toward the fireplace and sit down in front of it._ + +MARIE + +Of course, I have come to ask for something. + +CECILIA + +Well, go on. + +MARIE + +There's to be a concert at which they want you to assist. + +CECILIA + +This season? + +MARIE + +Yes. But it will be in the country, not in the city ... for a +charitable purpose, of course. The committee would be so happy if you +would sing two or three songs. + +CECILIA + +I think I can. + +MARIE + +And I shall feel very grateful, too. + +CECILIA + +Don't you find undertakings of that kind a lot of trouble? + +MARIE + +Well, you must have something to do. If I had any gifts like the rest +of you, I am sure I should never bother with "people's kitchens" or +"charitable teas"--and then, I suppose, I should feel more indifferent +about people, too. + +CECILIA (_with a smile_) + +About _people_, too? + +MARIE + +Oh, I didn't mean it that way. + +ALBERT + +You see, Marie, there is something like the charm of meadows and fields +in your sweet prattle, and you should never desert it for the thickets +of psychological speculations.--Come on, child. These people want their +dinner. + +CECILIA + +No, we won't eat for an hour yet. + +AMADEUS + +We generally work a little before we eat. To-day we might run through +the songs for that concert, for instance. + +CECILIA + +That would suit me perfectly. + +MARIE + +Oh, I feel _so_ thankful to you, Cecilia! + +CECILIA + +And when shall we see each other again? + +ALBERT + +Oh, that reminds me! We have just been talking about the Summer. +Amadeus and I mean to go on a walking tour. How would it be if you two +were to go somewhere with the children--some place in the Tirol, +say--and wait for us there? + +MARIE + +Oh, that would be fine! + +CECILIA + +Did you hear that, Amadeus? + +AMADEUS (_who has been standing a little way off_) + +Certainly. It would be very nice.... You can wait for us in the Tirol. + +CECILIA + +Could you come and see me to-morrow afternoon, Marie? Then we might +settle the matter. + +MARIE + +Yes, indeed. I am always glad when you can spare me a little of your +time.--Until to-morrow, then! + +ALBERT + +Good-by. (_He and Marie go out_) + +AMADEUS (_is walking to and fro_) + +CECILIA (_who is sitting on the couch, follows him with her eyes_) + +AMADEUS (_after a turn to the window and back, speaking in a peculiarly +dry tone_) Well, how did it go? Have you got the finale into shape at +last? + +CECILIA + +Oh, in a manner. + +AMADEUS + +The day before yesterday it had not yet been brought up to the proper +level. I find, for one thing, that they don't let you assert yourself +sufficiently. Your voice should be floating above the rest, instead of +being submerged in the crowd. + +CECILIA + +Won't you come to the rehearsal to-morrow--just once more--if you can +spare the time? + +AMADEUS + +Would it please you...? + +CECILIA + +I always feel more certain of myself when you are within reach. You +know that, don't you? + +AMADEUS + +Yes--I'll come. I'll call off my appointments with Neumann and the +Countess. + +CECILIA + +If it isn't too great a sacrifice.... + +AMADEUS (_with assumed brusqueness_) + +Oh, I can make her come in the afternoon. + +CECILIA + +But then there will be no time left for your _own_ work. No, better let +it be. + +AMADEUS + +What had we better let be? + +CECILIA + +Don't come to the rehearsal to-morrow. + +AMADEUS + +Just as you say, Cecilia. I won't intrude, of course. But a moment ago +you said that you felt more certain of yourself when I was within +reach. And as far as my work is concerned, I don't think--Albert and I +were just talking of it--nothing will come of it until the season is +over. + +CECILIA + +That's what I suspected. + +AMADEUS + +But during the summer I'll complete my Fourth. I must have something +new to conduct this year. And it's only a question of the final +passages, for that matter. All the rest is as good as finished--in my +mind at least. + +CECILIA + +It's a long time since you let me hear anything of it. + +AMADEUS + +It hasn't quite reached the point where it can be played. But, of +course, you know the principal themes ... the Allegro ... and then the +Intermezzo.... (_He goes to the piano and strikes a few notes_) + +CECILIA + +So you are going next November? + +AMADEUS + +Yes, for three months. + +CECILIA + +And during October I shall be in Berlin. + +AMADEUS + +Oh ... is there any news in that matter? + +CECILIA + +Yes, I have practically closed. Reichenbach came to see me at the +opera-house. I'm to appear in three parts. As Carmen under all +circumstances. The other two are left to my own choice. + +AMADEUS + +And what do you...? + +CECILIA + +Tatyana,[3] I suppose. I have heard that they have such a splendid +Onyegin. + + [3] Tatyana and Onyegin are characters in the opera "Eugene + Onyegin," by Tschaikovsky, which is founded on Pushkin's + famous poem of the same name. + +AMADEUS + +Yes, Wedius. I know him. He was in Dresden when I was there.--Carmen, +then, and Tatyana, and...? + +CECILIA + +I am still considering.... Perhaps we might talk it over? + +AMADEUS + +Of course. (_Pause_) + +CECILIA + +It's going to be a busy Winter. + +AMADEUS + +Rather. We won't see much of each other. + +CECILIA + +We'll have to correspond. + +AMADEUS + +As we have done before. + +CECILIA + +We're used to it. + +AMADEUS + +Yes. (_Pause_) Tell me by the way: do you actually want to assist at +that charity concert? + +CECILIA + +Why not? I couldn't say no to Marie. Have you any objection? + +AMADEUS + +No--why should I? But we might use the half hour that's left to go over +something. (_He goes to the music-stand_) What do you want to sing? + +CECILIA + +Oh, something of yours, for one thing ... + +AMADEUS + +Oh, no, no. + +CECILIA + +Why not? + +AMADEUS + +There's nothing within yourself that prompts you to sing it anyhow. + +CECILIA + +Just as you say, Amadeus.--I don't want to intrude either. + +AMADEUS (_bending forward and searching among the music_) How would +Schumann be--"The Snow-drop?" Or ... "Old Melodies" ... and "Love +Betrayed".... + +CECILIA + +Yes. And perhaps von Wolf's "Concealment," and something by Brahms. "No +more to meet you, was my firm decision...." + +AMADEUS + +Yes, I was just holding it in my hand. (_As if casually, and very +dryly_) So you went for a walk with Sigismund after all? + +CECILIA + +Yes. He sent his regards to you. + +AMADEUS (_smiling_) + +Did he? (_As he brings the music sheets to the piano_) Why doesn't he +come here instead? + +CECILIA + +One of the things I like about him is that he won't. + +AMADEUS + +Is that so?--Oh, well!--I'll send him my regards, too. But it's really +too bad that he won't come here any more. It was very nice to hear him +play his waltzes--those evenings were really very pleasant.... I just +happened to mention them to the Countess this afternoon. + +CECELIA + +Oh, you did?--And I have just seen her picture. + +AMADEUS + +Her picture? + +CECILIA + +I went with Sigismund to the Art Gallery. + +AMADEUS + +Oh.--They tell me it's a great success. + +CECILIA + +It would be a wonder if it were not. The artist spent six months on it, +they say.... + +AMADEUS + +Is that too much for a good picture? + +CECELIA + +No, but for the Countess.--She will probably sing Philine pretty well, +by the way. + +AMADEUS + +You think so? I fear you are mistaken.... (_Pause_) Well, Cecilia, what +were you talking of to-day--you and Sigismund? + +CECILIA + +What were we talking of...? (_Pause_) It's so hard to recall the +words.... (_As she goes slowly to the fireplace_) And they have such a +different sound when recalled in that way. + +AMADEUS + +True indeed. (_Coming nearer to her_) And I don't suppose it's the +words that matter.... Well, Cecilia, can it be possible that you have +nothing more to tell me? + +CECILIA + +Nothing _more_...? (_Hesitatingly_) Don't you think, Amadeus, that many +things actually change character when you try to put them into words? + +AMADEUS + +Not for people like us. + +CECILIA + +That may have been true once. But ... you know as well as I do ... that +things are no longer as they used to be. + +AMADEUS + +Not quite, perhaps. I know. But this shouldn't be a reason for either +one of us to refuse telling the other one. Scruples of that kind would +be unworthy of ourselves. This is _we_, Cecilia--you and me! So you may +tell me fearlessly what you have to tell. + +CECILIA (_rising_) + +Don't try to encourage me, Amadeus. + +AMADEUS + +Well...? + +CECILIA (_remains silent_) + +AMADEUS + +Do you love him? + +CECILIA + +Do I love him...? + +AMADEUS (_urgently_) + +Cecilia...! + +CECILIA + +Am I to tell you _more_ than I think is true? Wouldn't that be a lie, +too--as good or as bad as any other one?... No, I don't think I love +him. It is nothing like it was when I became acquainted with you, +Amadeus. + +AMADEUS + +_That_ time is long past.--And you have probably forgotten what it was +like. On the whole, it must be the same thing, I suppose. Only you have +grown a little older since then, and you have been living with me for +seven years.... No matter how far apart we may have been, you have been +living _with me_--and we have a child.... + +CECILIA + +Well, perhaps that's what makes the difference--but there _is_ a +difference. + +AMADEUS + +What really matters is nothing new, however. You feel attracted to him, +don't you? + +CECILIA (_speaking with genuine feeling and almost tenderly_) + +But perhaps there is still something that holds back--that could hold +me back, if it only wanted. + +AMADEUS (_after a pause, brusquely_) + +But it doesn't want to ... it doesn't dare to want it. What sense could +there be in it? Perhaps I might prove the stronger to-day--and the next +time, perhaps--but sooner or later the day must come nevertheless, when +I should suffer defeat. + +CECILIA + +Why?... It ought not to be necessary! + +AMADEUS + +And then, even if I remained victorious every time--could that be +called happiness for which I must fight repeatedly and tremble all the +time? Could that be called happiness in our case, who have known what +is so much better?... No, Cecilia, our love should not be permitted to +end in mutual distrust. I don't hold you, Cecilia, if you are attracted +elsewhere--and you have known all the time that I would never hold you. + +CECILIA + +Maybe you are right, Amadeus. But is it pride alone that makes you let +me slip away so easily? + +AMADEUS + +Is it love alone that brings you back when almost gone? (_Pause; he +goes to the window_) + +CECILIA + +Why should we spoil these hours with bitterness, Amadeus? After all, we +have nothing to reproach each other for. We have promised to be honest +with each other, and _my_ word has been kept so far. + +AMADEUS + +And so has mine. If you want it, I can tell you exactly what I and the +Countess talked of to-day, as I have always done. And for _me_, +Cecilia, it will even be possible to recall the very words. + +CECILIA (_looking long at him_) + +I know enough. (_Pause_) + +AMADEUS (_walking to and fro until he stops some distance away from +her_) And what next? + +CECILIA + +What next...? Perhaps it's just as well that our vacations are soon to +begin. Then we may consider in peace, each one by himself, what is to +come next. + +AMADEUS + +It seems almost as if both of us should have expected this very thing. +We have made no common plans for the summer, although we have always +done so before. + +CECILIA + +The best thing for me is probably to go with the boy to some quiet +place in the Tirol ... as you and Albert suggested. + +AMADEUS + +Yes. + +CECILIA + +And you...? + +AMADEUS + +I...? I shall make that walking tour with Albert. I want to be +scrambling about in the mountains once more. + +CECILIA + +And finally descend into some beautiful valley--is that what you mean? + +AMADEUS + +That--might happen. + +CECILIA (_dryly_) + +But _first_--we should have to bid each other definite good-by, as +there is no return from _that_ place. + +AMADEUS + +Of course, there isn't! No more than from your place. + +CECILIA + +From mine...? + +AMADEUS + +Oh, it might happen that you felt inclined to ... change your plans ... +and instead of staying with Marie ... prefer the undisturbed ... + +CECILIA + +I won't change my plans. And you had better not change yours. + +AMADEUS + +If that be your wish.... + +CECILIA + +It is my wish. (_Pause_) + +AMADEUS + +Can it be possible that now, all at once, the moment should have come? + +CECILIA + +What moment? + +AMADEUS + +Well--the one we used to foresee in our happiest days even--the one we +have expected as something almost inevitable. + +CECILIA + +Yes, it has come. We know now that everything is over. + +AMADEUS + +Over...? + +CECILIA + +That's what we have been talking of all the time, I suppose. + +AMADEUS + +Yes, you are right. At bottom it is better that we put it into plain +words at last. Our moods have been rather too precarious lately. + +CECILIA + +Everything will be improved now. + +AMADEUS + +Improved...? Why?... Oh, of course ... perhaps you are right. I feel +almost as if things had already begun to improve. It's strange, but ... +one ... seems to breathe more freely. + +CECILIA + +Yes, Amadeus, now we are reaping the reward of always having been +honest. Think how exhausted most people would be in a moment like +this--by all sorts of painful evasions, labored truces, and pitifully +sentimental reconciliations. Think of the hostile spirit in which they +would be facing each other during their moment of belated candor. We +two, Amadeus--we shall at least be able to part as friends. (_Pause_) + +AMADEUS + +And our boy? + +CECILIA + +Is he your sole worry? + +AMADEUS + +No, there are many things. How is it going to be arranged anyhow? + +CECILIA + +That's what we shall have to discuss carefully during the next few +days--before we go away. Until then everything must remain as before. +It can perfectly well remain as it has been during the last year. That +involves no wrong to anybody. (_Pause_) + +AMADEUS (_seats himself at the piano; the ensuing pause is laden with +apprehension; then he begins to play the same theme--a Capriccio--which +was heard earlier during the scene_) + +CECILIA (_who has been approaching the door to the veranda, turns about +to listen_) + +AMADEUS (_stops abruptly_) + +CECILIA + +Why don't you go on? + +AMADEUS (_laughs quickly, nervously_) + +CECILIA + +Wasn't that the Intermezzo? + +AMADEUS (_nods_) + +CECILIA (_still at some distance from him_) + +Have you made up your mind what you are going to call it? Is it to be +_Capriccio_? + +AMADEUS + +Perhaps _Capriccio doloroso_. It is peculiar how one often fails to +understand one's own ideas to begin with. The hidden sadness of that +theme has been revealed to me by you. + +CECILIA + +Oh, you would have discovered it yourself, Amadeus. + +AMADEUS + +Maybe. (_Pause_) And whom will you get for the studying of your parts +next year? + +CECILIA + +Oh, I'll always find somebody. Those numbers for the concert--you'll +help me with those just the same, won't you? And I hope you'll be kind +enough to give me the accompaniment at the concert too. + +AMADEUS + +That's a foregone conclusion.--But I should really like to know who is +to assist you with your studies after this. + +CECILIA + +Do you regard that as the most important problem to be solved? + +AMADEUS + +No, of course not. The less so, as I don't quite see why I shouldn't go +on helping you as before. + +CECILIA (_with a smile_) + +Oh, you think...? But then we should have to agree on hours and +conditions. + +AMADEUS + +That was not meant as a joke, Cecilia. Seeing that we are parting in a +spirit of perfect understanding, why shouldn't such an arrangement be +considered tentatively at least? + +CECILIA + +Those things will probably settle themselves later on.... That we ... +that you play my accompaniment at a concert ... or help me to study a +part.... + +AMADEUS + +Why later on?... (_He rises and stands leaning against the piano_) +There can be no reasonable ground for changing our musical +relationships. I think both of us would suffer equally from doing so. +Without overestimating myself, I don't think it likely that you can +find a better coach than I am. And as for my compositions, I don't +know of anybody who could understand them better--with whom I would +rather discuss them than with you. + +CECILIA + +And yet that's what you will have to come to. + +AMADEUS + +I can't see it. After all, we have nobody else to consider--at least, I +have not. + +CECILIA + +Nor have I. I shall know how to preserve my freedom. + +AMADEUS + +Well, then...?! + +CECILIA + +Nevertheless, Amadeus.... That we must meet and talk is made necessary +by our positions, of course.... But even in regard to our work things +cannot possibly remain as hitherto. I'm sure you must realize that. + +AMADEUS + +I can't see it. And--leaving our artistic relations entirely +aside--there is much else to be considered--things of more importance. +Our boy, Cecilia. Why should the youngster all at once be made +fatherless, so to speak? + +CECILIA + +That's entirely out of the question. We must come to an understanding, +of course. + +AMADEUS + +An understanding, you say. But why make difficulties that could be +avoided by a little good-will? The boy is mine as much as yours. Why +shouldn't we continue to bring him up together? + +CECILIA + +You suggest things that simply can't be done. + +AMADEUS + +I don't feel like you about that.--On the contrary! The more I consider +our situation calmly, the more irrational it seems to me that we should +part ways like any ordinary divorced couple ... that we should give up +the beautiful home we have in common.... + +CECILIA + +Now you are dreaming again, Amadeus! + +AMADEUS + +We have been such good chums besides. And so we might remain, I think. + +CECILIA + +Oh, of course, we shall. + +AMADEUS + +Well, then! The things that bind us together are so compelling, after +all, that any new experiences brought by our freedom must seem +absolutely unessential in comparison. Don't you realize that as I do? +And _we_ shouldn't have to consider what people may say. I think we +have the right to place ourselves on a somewhat higher level. In the +last instance, we must always belong together, even if a single tie +should be severed among the hundreds that unite us. Or are we all of a +sudden to forget what we have been to each other--as well as what we +may and should be to each other hereafter? One thing remains certain: +that no one else will ever understand you as I do, and no one me as +you do.... And that's what counts in the end! So why shouldn't we.... + +CECILIA + +No, it's impossible! Not because of the people. They concern me as +little as they do you. But for our own sake. + +AMADEUS + +For our own sake...? + +CECILIA + +You see, there is one thing you forget: that, beginning with to-day, +we shall have _secrets_ to keep from each other. Who knows how +many--or how heavy they may prove?... But even the least of them must +come between us like a veil. + +AMADEUS + +Secrets...? + +CECILIA + +Yes, Amadeus. + +AMADEUS + +No, Cecilia. + +CECILIA + +What do you mean? + +AMADEUS + +That's exactly what must not happen. + +CECILIA + +But--Amadeus! + +AMADEUS + +There must never be any secrets between us two. Everything depends on +that--you are right to that extent. But why should there be any secrets +between us? Remember that after to-day we shall no longer be man and +wife, but chums--just chums, who can hide nothing from each other--who +must not hide anything. Or is that more than you dare? + +CECILIA + +More than I dare...? Of course not. + +AMADEUS + +All right. We'll discuss everything frankly, just as we have been +doing--nay, we shall have more things than ever to discuss. Truth +becomes now the natural basis of our continued relationship--truth +without any reservation whatsoever. And that should prove highly +profitable, not only to our mutual relationship, but to each one of us +individually. Because ... you don't think, do you, that either one of +us could find a better chum than the other one?... Now we shall bring +our joys and sorrows to each other. We shall be as good friends as +ever, if not better still. And our hands shall be joined, even if +chasms open between us. And thus we shall keep all that we have had in +common hitherto: our work, our child, our home--all that we must +continue to have in common if it is to retain its full value to both of +us. And we shall gain many new things for which both of us have +longed--things in which I could take no pleasure, by the way, if I had +to lose you. + +CECILIA (_drops him a curtsey_) + +AMADEUS + +That's how you feel, too, Cecilia. I am sure of it. We simply cannot +live without each other. I certainly cannot live without you.--And how +about you? + +CECILIA + +It's quite likely I should find it a little difficult. + +AMADEUS + +Then we agree, Cecilia! + +CECILIA + +You think so...?! + +AMADEUS + +Cecilia! (_He suddenly draws her closer to himself_) + +CECILIA (_with new hope lighting her glance_) + +What are you doing? + +AMADEUS (_putting his arms about her_) + +I now bid good-by to my beloved. + +CECILIA + +Forever. + +AMADEUS + +Forever. (_Pressing her hand_) And now I am welcoming my friend. + +CECILIA + +For all time to come--nothing but your friend. + +AMADEUS + +For all time...? Of course! + +CECILIA (_draws a deep breath_) + +AMADEUS + +Yes, Cecilia, don't you feel much easier all at once? + +CECILIA + +The whole thing seems very strange to me--like a dream almost. + +AMADEUS + +There is nothing strange about it. Nothing could possibly be simpler or +more sensible. Life goes right on ... and all is well.... Come on, +Cecilia--let us run through those songs. + +CECILIA + +What songs...? + +AMADEUS + +Don't you care? + +CECILIA + +Oh, why not?--With pleasure.... + +AMADEUS (_seating himself at the piano_) + +Really, I can't tell you how happy this makes me! There has practically +been no change whatever. The uneasiness alone is gone ... that +uneasiness of the last few weeks.... I have not had a very happy time +lately. The sky has seemed so black above our house--and not only +above _ours_. Now the clouds are vanishing. The whole world has +actually grown light again. And I am going to write a symphony--oh, a +symphony...! + +CECILIA + +Everything in due time.... Just now let us have one of those songs at +least.... Oh, that one...? + +AMADEUS + +Don't you want it? + +CECILIA + +Oh, as it's there already.... + +AMADEUS + +Now, then--I start. (_He strikes the first chord_) Please don't put a +lot of sentimentality into the opening words. They should be reserved +and ponderous. + +CECILIA (_singing_) + +"No more to meet you was my firm...." + +AMADEUS + +Very fine. + +CECILIA + +O Amadeus! + +AMADEUS + +What is it? + +CECILIA + +I am afraid you will become too lenient now. + +AMADEUS + +Lenient...? You know perfectly well that, as artist considered, you +have no rival in my eyes, and will never have one. + +CECILIA + +Really, Amadeus, you shouldn't be flirting with all your pupils. + +AMADEUS + +I have the greatest respect for you.--Now let's go in! + +CECILIA + +"No more to meet...." + +AMADEUS + +What's the matter? + +CECILIA + +Nothing. I haven't tried to sing anything like this for a long time. Go +right on! + +AMADEUS (_begins playing again_) + +CECILIA + +"No more to meet you was my firm and sworn decision, and yet when +evening comes, I...." + + +CURTAIN + + + + +THE SECOND ACT + + +_The same room as in the previous act. It is an evening in October. +The stage is dark. Marie and the chambermaid enter together. The maid +turns on the light._ + + +MARIE + +Thank you.--But if your mistress is tired, please tell her she mustn't +let me disturb her. + +CHAMBERMAID + +She hasn't arrived yet. She's not expected until this evening. + +AMADEUS (_enters from the right, with hat and overcoat on_) Who is +it?... Oh, is it you, Marie! Glad to see you. Have you been here long? + +MARIE + +No, I just got here. I meant to call on Cecilia, but I hear.... + +AMADEUS + +Then you can keep me company waiting for her. (_Handing overcoat and +hat to the maid_) Please take these. + +CHAMBERMAID (_goes out_) + +AMADEUS + +I have also just got home. I had to do a lot of errands. I start the +day after to-morrow. + +MARIE + +So soon!--That'll be a short reunion. + +AMADEUS + +Yes.--Won't you sit down, please? (_Looking at his watch_) +Cecilia should be here in an hour. + +MARIE + +She has had a tremendous success again. + +AMADEUS + +I should say so! Look here--the telegram I got this morning. (_He +takes it from the writing desk and hands it to Marie_) It refers to +her final appearance last night. + +MARIE + +Oh.... Twenty-seven curtain calls...! + +AMADEUS + +What?... Naw! That flourish belongs to the preceding word. Seven only! +Otherwise she wouldn't be coming to-day. + +MARIE (_reading again_) + +"Have new offer on brilliant terms." + +AMADEUS + +On _brilliant_ terms! + +MARIE + +Then I suppose she'll do it at last? + +AMADEUS + +Do what? + +MARIE + +Settle down in Berlin for good. + +AMADEUS + +Oh, it isn't certain. "Have offer," she says, and not "have accepted +offer." No, we'll have to talk it over first. + +MARIE + +Really? + +AMADEUS + +Of course. We consult each other about everything, my dear Marie--just +as we used to do. And in a much more impersonal spirit than before. As +far as I am concerned, I shall be quite free next year, and have no +more reason to live in Vienna than in Berlin or in America. + +MARIE + +But it will be dreadful for me if Cecilia goes away. + +AMADEUS + +Well, these successes abroad may possibly force the people here to +understand what they have in Cecilia, and to act accordingly. + +MARIE + +I hope so.--Besides, I think really that Cecilia has developed a great +deal lately. To me her voice seems fuller and richer--with more soul to +it, I might say. + +AMADEUS + +Yes, don't you think so? That's my feeling, too. + +MARIE + +But how she _does_ work! It had never occurred to me that a finished +artist might be so industrious. + +AMADEUS + +Might, you say? Must, you should say. + +MARIE + +Last summer, when I came out mornings in the garden to play with my +children, she would be practicing already--just like a young student. +With absolute regularity, from nine until a quarter of ten. Then again +before lunch, from twelve to half past. And finally another half hour +in the evening.... If the weather was good or bad; if she was in good +spirits or.... + +AMADEUS + +Or...? + +MARIE + +She was always in good spirits for that matter. I don't think anything +in the world could have kept her from practicing those runs and trills. + +AMADEUS + +Yes, that's her way. Nothing in the world could keep her from.... But +then, what could there be to keep her from it last Summer? In that +rustic retreat of yours, where you didn't see anybody ... or hardly +anybody.... + +MARIE + +Nobody at all. + +AMADEUS + +Well, you received a call now and then--or Cecilia did, at least. + +MARIE + +Oh, I see. You mean--Prince Sigismund. He could hardly be said to call. + +AMADEUS (_smilingly, with an appearance of unconcern_) + +Why not? + +MARIE + +He merely whisked by on his wheel. + +AMADEUS (_as before_) + +Oh, he must at least have stopped to lean against a tree for a few +moments. He must even have taken time enough--and I am mighty glad he +did--to photograph the little house in which you were living. (_He +takes from the desk a small framed photograph and hands it to Marie, +who is seated on the couch_) + +MARIE (_surprised_) + +And you have that standing on your writing desk? + +AMADEUS (_slightly puzzled_) + +Why shouldn't I? + +MARIE (_studying the photograph_) + +Just as it was--Cecilia and I sitting on the bench there--yes. And +there's the hazel by the garden fence.... How it does bring back the +memory of that beautiful, warm Summer day... + +AMADEUS (_bending over the desk to look at the picture_) + +I can make out you and Cecilia, but those three boys puzzle me +hopelessly. + +MARIE + +In what way...? That's little Peter, who is doing like this ... (_She +blinks_) + +AMADEUS + +Oh, is that it? + +MARIE + +And that's Max--and he with the hoop is Mauritz. + +AMADEUS + +So that's a hoop?... I took it for one of those cabins used by the +watchmen along the railroad. The background comes out much better. The +landscape actually looks as if steeped in Summer and stillness.... +(_Brief pause_) + +MARIE + +It was really nice. The deep shadows of the woods right back of the +house, and that view of the mountain peaks--oh, marvelous! And then the +seclusion.... It's too bad that you never had a look at that darling +place. We thought ... Cecilia did expect you after all.... + +AMADEUS (_has risen and is walking to and fro_) + +I don't believe it.... And it didn't prove feasible, for that matter. +The pull of the South was still on me. + +MARIE (_smiling_) + +You call that the South? + +AMADEUS (_smiling also_) + +Oh, Marie! + +MARIE (_a little embarrassed_) + +I hope you're not offended? + +AMADEUS + +Why should I be? I didn't make a secret of my whereabouts to anybody. + +MARIE (_confidentially_) + +Albert told me about the villa, and the park, and the marble steps.... + +AMADEUS + +So he gave you all those details? And yet he wasn't there more than an +hour. + +MARIE + +I think he intends to use the park for his last act. + +AMADEUS + +Is that so? If he would only bring it to me... I mean the last act. I +want to take it with me on my tour. + +MARIE + +Do you think you'll find time to work? + +AMADEUS + +Why not? I am always working. And I have never in my life been more +eager about it. I, too, am having a brilliant period. For years I +have not been doing better. And I am no less industrious than Cecilia. +With the difference that regular hours are not in my line--nine to +nine-forty-five, twelve to twelve-thirty, and so on. But you ask +Albert! When he threw himself on the bed exhausted, in that inn at the +Fedaja Pass, I sat down and finished the instrumentation for the +_Capriccio_ in my Fourth. + +CHAMBERMAID (_enters with a couple of letters and goes out again_) + +AMADEUS + +You'll pardon me, my dear Marie? + +MARIE + +Please don't mind me. (_She rises_) + +AMADEUS + +A letter from Cecilia, written yesterday, before the performance. I +have had letters like this every day. + +MARIE + +Go right on and read it, please. + +AMADEUS (_having opened the letter_) + +Oh, there's plenty of time. In another hour Cecilia will be telling me +all that's in it.... (_He opens the other letter, runs through it, and +flings it away_) How stupid people are ... _how_ stupid! ... Ugh! And +mean! (_He glances through Cecilia's letter once more_) Cecilia writes +me about a reception at the house of the Director.... Sigismund was +there, too. Yes, you know, of course, that Sigismund has been in +Berlin? + +MARIE (_embarrassed_) + +I ... I thought ... Or rather, I knew ... + +AMADEUS (_with an air of superiority_) + +Well, well--there is no cause for embarrassment in that. Don't you +consider the Prince an uncommonly sympathetic person? + +MARIE + +Yes, he's very pleasant. But I can assure you, Amadeus, that he came +only once to our place in the Pustertal,[4] and he didn't stay more +than two hours. + + [4] A valley along the river Rienz, marking the northern + limit of the Dolomite ranges in the Tirol. + +AMADEUS (_laughing_) + +And what if he had stayed a week...? Really, Marie, you're very funny! + +MARIE (_shyly_) + +May I tell you something? + +AMADEUS + +Anything you want, Marie. + +MARIE + +I'm convinced that you two will find each other again in spite of all. + +AMADEUS + +Find each other...? Who should? Cecilia and I? (_He rises_) Find each +other? (_He walks to and fro, but stops finally near Marie_) A +sensible woman like you, Marie--you ought to understand that Cecilia +and I have never lost each other in any way. I think it's very +singular.... (_He strolls back and forth again_) Oh, you must +understand that the relationship between her and me is so +beautiful--that now only it has become such that we couldn't imagine +anything more satisfactory. We don't have to find each other again! +Look here now--here are her letters. She has been writing me from +eight to twelve pages every day--frank, exhaustive letters, as you can +only write them to a friend--or rather, only to your very best friend. +It is simply impossible to imagine a finer relationship. + +ALBERT (_entering from the right_) + +Good evening. + +AMADEUS + +You're rather late in getting here. + +ALBERT + +Good evening, Marie. (_He pats her patronizingly on the cheek_) + +AMADEUS + +There will hardly be time for work now. Cecilia will be here very soon. + +ALBERT + +Oh, we can always put in half an hour. I have brought along some notes +for the third act. + +MARIE + +I think I shall go home, as the boys will be expecting me soon. + +ALBERT + +All right, child, you go on home. + +AMADEUS + +Why don't you stay instead? I am sure Cecilia will be glad to see you. +And then Albert can take you home. You might get Peter to entertain you +in the meantime.... Or would you prefer to stay here and listen? + +ALBERT + +No, child, you had better go in to Peter. Especially as Mr. von Rabagas +doesn't appear in the third act--so you won't be losing much. + +MARIE + +I'll leave you alone. Bye-bye! (_She goes out_) + +ALBERT + +Now let's fall to! (_He brings out some notes from one of his pockets +and begins to read_) "The stage shows an open stretch of rolling +ground that slopes gradually toward the footlights. In the background +stands a villa, with marble steps leading up to it. Still farther +back, the sea can be felt rather than seen." (_Bowing to Amadeus_) "A +tall plane tree in full leaf stands in the center of the stage." + +AMADEUS (_laughing_) + +So you have got it there? + +ALBERT + +It's meant as a compliment to you. + +AMADEUS + +Many thanks. + +ALBERT (_after a pause_) + +Tell me, Amadeus, is it actually true that the Count has become +reconciled with the Countess after his duel with the painter? + +AMADEUS + +I don't know. For a good long while I haven't seen the Countess except +at the opera. (_He rises and begins walking to and fro again_) + +ALBERT (_shaking his head_) + +There's something uncanny about that affair. + +AMADEUS + +Why? I think it's quite commonplace. A husband who has discovered his +wife's (_sarcastically_) "disloyalty".... + +ALBERT + +That wasn't the point. But that he discovers it only six months too +late, when his wife is already deceiving him with another man.--There +would have been nothing peculiar about the Count having a fight with +you. But the case is much more complicated. Here we have a young man +all but killed because of an affair that is long past. And in the +meantime you are left perfectly unmolested--or have been so far, at +least. + +AMADEUS (_walking as before_) + +ALBERT + +Do you know, what I almost regret--looking at it from a higher +viewpoint? That the painter is not a man of genius ... and that the +Count hasn't _really_ killed him. That would have put something +tremendously tragi-comical into the situation. And that's what would +have happened, if ... _he up there_ had a little more wit.... + +AMADEUS + +How? What do you mean by that? + +ALBERT + +I mean, if I had been writing the play.... + +AMADEUS (_makes a movement as if hearing some noise outside_) + +ALBERT + +What is it? + +AMADEUS + +I thought I heard a carriage, but it was nothing. (_He looks at his +watch_) And it wouldn't be possible yet.... You read on, please. +(_Once more he begins walking back and forth_) + +ALBERT + +You're very preoccupied. I'll rather come back to-morrow morning. + +AMADEUS + +No, go on. I am not at all.... + +ALBERT (_rising_) + +Let me tell you something, Amadeus. If it would please you--and it +would be all one to me, you know--I could go with you. + +AMADEUS + +Where?... What do you mean? + +ALBERT + +On your tour. For a week, at least, or a fortnight, I should be very +glad to stay by you ... (_affectionately_) until you have got over +the worst. + +AMADEUS + +But...! Good gracious, do you think it's because of the Countess...? +Why, that story is over long ago. + +ALBERT + +Which I know. And I know, too, that you are now trying other means of +making yourself insensible. But I see perfectly well that, under the +circumstances, you can't succeed all at once. + +AMADEUS + +What circumstances are you talking of anyhow? + +ALBERT + +My dear fellow, I should never have dreamt of forcing myself into your +confidence, but as the matter has already got into the papers.... + +AMADEUS + +What has got into the papers? + +ALBERT + +Haven't you read that thing in the New Journal to-night? + +AMADEUS + +What thing? + +ALBERT + +That Cecilia and Prince Sigismund.... But, of course, you are familiar +with the main facts? + +AMADEUS + +I'm familiar with nothing. What is in the New Journal? + +ALBERT + +Just a brief notice--without any names, but not to be mistaken.... It +reads something like this: "One of our foremost artists, who has just +been celebrating triumphs in the metropolis of an adjoining state ... +until now the wife of a gifted musician" ... or perhaps it was "highly +gifted" ... and so on ... and so on ... "and a well-known Austrian +gentleman, belonging to our oldest nobility, intend, we are told ..." +and so on.... + +AMADEUS + +Cecilia and the Prince...?! + +ALBERT + +Yes ... and then a hint that, in such a case, it would not prove very +difficult to obtain a dispensation from the Pope.... + +AMADEUS + +Has everybody gone crazy?... I can assure you that not a word of it is +true!... You won't believe me?... I hope you don't think I would deny +it, if.... Or do you actually mean that Cecilia might have ... from +me.... Oh, dear, and you are supposed to be a friend of ours, a student +of the human soul, and a poet! + +ALBERT + +I beg your pardon, but after what has happened it would not seem +improbable.... + +AMADEUS + +Not improbable...? It is simply impossible! Cecilia has never thought +of it! + +ALBERT + +However, it ought not to surprise you that such a rumor has been +started. + +AMADEUS + +Nothing surprises me. But I feel as if the relationship between Cecilia +and myself were being profaned by tittle-tattle of that kind. + +ALBERT + +Pioneers like yourself must scorn the judgment of the world. Else they +are in danger of being proved mere braggarts. + +AMADEUS + +Oh, I am no pioneer. The whole thing is a private arrangement between +me and Cecilia, which gives us both the greatest possible comfort. Be +kind enough, at least, to tell the people who ask you, that we are not +going to be divorced--but that, on the other hand, we are not deceiving +each other, as it is asserted in these scrawls with which I have been +bombarded for some time. (_He indicates the letter which arrived at +the same time as Cecilia's_) + +ALBERT (_picks up the letter, glances through it, and puts it away +again_) An anonymous letter...? Well, that's part of it.... + +AMADEUS + +Explain to them, please, that there can be no talk of deceit where no +lies have been told. Tell them that Cecilia's and my way of keeping +faith with each other is probably a much better one than that practiced +in so many other marriages, where both go their own ways all day long +and have nothing in common but the night. You are a poet, are you +not--and a student of the human soul? Well, why don't you make all this +clear to the people who refuse to understand? + +ALBERT + +To convey all that would prove a rather complicated process. But if it +means so much to you, I could make a play out of it. Then they would +have no trouble in comprehending this new kind of marriage--at least +between the hours of eight-thirty and ten. + +AMADEUS + +Are you so sure of that? + +ALBERT + +Absolutely. In a play I can make the case much clearer than it is +presented by reality--without any of those superfluous, incidental side +issues, which are so confusing in life. The main advantage is, however, +that no spectators attend the entr'acts, so that I can do just what I +please with you during those periods. And besides, I shall make you +offer an analogy illuminating the whole case. + +AMADEUS + +An analogy, you say...? + +ALBERT + +Yes, analogies always have a very soothing effect. You will remark to a +friend--or whoever may prove handy--something like this: "What do you +want me to do anyhow? Suppose that Cecilia and I were living in a nice +house, where we felt perfectly comfortable, and which had a splendid +view that pleased us very much, and a wonderful garden where we liked +to take walks together. And suppose that one of us should feel a desire +sometime to pick strawberries in the woods beyond the fence. Should +that be a reason for the other one to raise a cry all at once about +faithlessness, or disgrace, or betrayal? Should that force us to sell +the house and garden, or make us imagine that we could never more look +out of the window together, or walk under our splendid trees? Merely +because our strawberries happened to be growing on the other side of +the fence..." + +AMADEUS + +And you would make me say that? + +ALBERT + +Do you fear it's too brilliant for you?--Oh, that wouldn't occur to +anybody. Trust me to fix it. In such a play I can do nothing whatever +with your musical talent. You see, I can't let you conduct your +symphony for the benefit of the public. And so I get both myself and +you out of it by putting into your character a little more sense and +energy and consistency.... + +AMADEUS + +Than God has given me originally. + +ALBERT + +Well, it's not very hard to compete with Him! + +AMADEUS + +I shall certainly be curious about one thing: how you mean to end that +play. + +ALBERT (_after a brief pause_) + +Not very happily, my dear fellow. + +AMADEUS (_a little staggered_) + +Why? + +ALBERT + +It is characteristic of all transitional periods, that a conflict which +might not exist to a later generation, must end tragically the moment a +fairly decent person becomes involved in it. + +AMADEUS + +But there is no conflict. + +ALBERT + +I shall not shirk the duty of inventing one. + +AMADEUS + +Suppose you wait a little while yet...? Perhaps life itself might.... + +ALBERT + +My dear chap, I am not at all interested in what may be done with us by +this ridiculous reality which has to get along without stage manager or +prompter--this reality which frequently never gets to the fifth act, +merely because the hero happens to be struck on the head by a brick in +the second. I make the curtain rise when the plot takes a diverting +turn, and I drop it the moment I have proved myself in the right. + +AMADEUS + +Please, my dear fellow, don't forget when writing your play, to +introduce a figure on which reality in this case has lavished much more +care than on the hero--I mean, the fool. + +ALBERT + +You can't insult me in that way. I have always regarded myself as +closely akin to him. + +[_Marie enters with little Peter and the Governess._ + +PETER + +Mamma is coming! + +MARIE + +The carriage has just stopped outside. + +GOVERNESS + +It was impossible to make the boy stay in bed. + +ALBERT + +And look at the fine flowers he has got! + +PETER + +That's for mamma! + +AMADEUS (_takes a flower out of the bunch_) + +I hope you permit, sonny ... + +CECILIA (_enters followed by the Chambermaid_) + +Good evening!--Oh, are you here, too? That's awfully nice! + +PETER + +Mamma!--Flowers! + +CECILIA (_picks him up and kisses him_) + +My boy! My boy! (_Then she shakes hands with the rest_) + +AMADEUS (_handing her the single flower_) + +Peter let me have one, too. + +CECILIA + +Thanks. (_She shakes hands with him; then to the chambermaid_) Get my +things out of the carriage, please. The coachman will help you. He has +been paid already. + +CHAMBERMAID (_goes out_) + +CECILIA (_taking off her hat_) + +Well, Marie?... (_To the other two_) Can it be possible that you +have been working? + +ALBERT + +We have tried. + +CECILIA (_to the governess_) + +Has he behaved like a little man? + +PETER + +Indeed I have! Have you brought anything for me? + +CECILIA + +Of course. But you won't get it until to-morrow morning. + +PETER + +Why not? + +CECILIA + +Because I am too tired to unpack. To-morrow, when you wake up, you'll +find it on your little table. + +PETER + +What is it? + +CECILIA + +You'll see by and by.... + +PETER + +Is my little table big enough for it? + +CECILIA + +We'll hope so. + +AMADEUS (_who is leaning against the piano, keeps looking at her all +the time_) + +CECILIA (_pretends not to notice him_) + +ALBERT + +You're looking splendid. + +CECILIA + +I'm a little bit worn out. + +AMADEUS + +You must be hungry. + +CECILIA + +Not at all. We had something to eat in the dining car. Almost everybody +did. But I do want a cup of tea. (_To the governess_) Will you see +to it, please? + +AMADEUS + +Let me have a cup, too, and please see that I get a few slices of cold +meat. + +GOVERNESS + +I have given orders for it already. (_She goes out_) + +CECILIA + +Have you really been waiting for me with the supper? + +AMADEUS + +No ... I haven't been waiting. I ... simply never thought of it. + +CECILIA (_to Albert and Marie_) + +Why don't you sit down? + +ALBERT + +No, we are going, my dear Cecilia. Let me congratulate you with all my +heart--that will be enough for to-day. + +MARIE + +You have celebrated regular triumphs, they say? + +CECILIA + +Well, it wasn't bad. (_To Amadeus_) Did you get my telegram? + +AMADEUS + +Yes, it pleased me tremendously. + +CECILIA + +Think of it, children! After the performance I was commanded to appear +in the box of His Majesty! + +ALBERT + +Commanded...? Invited, I hope you mean! Neither emperor nor king has +the right to command you. + +CECILIA + +You old anarchist! But what does it matter? One goes to the box +nevertheless. And you would have done that, too. + +ALBERT + +Why not? One must, if possible, study every form of existence at close +quarters. + +AMADEUS + +And what did the Emperor have to say? + +CECILIA + +He was very complimentary. Had never seen a better Carmen. + +ALBERT + +The very next thing he'll order an opera for you from some Spaniard.[5] + + [5] This refers to a habit of Emperor William's, from whom + the Italian composer, Leoncavallo, among others, once received + such an order. + +GOVERNESS (_enters_) + +The tea will be here in a moment. + +AMADEUS + +Now you must get back to bed, Peter. It's late. + +GOVERNESS (_wants to take the boy away_) + +PETER + +No, mamma must take me to bed as when I was a little baby. + +CECILIA + +Come on then!--Mercy me, how heavy you have grown. (_Goes out with +Peter and the governess_) + +MARIE + +My, but she is pretty! + +AMADEUS + +Haven't you discovered that before? + +ALBERT + +Well, good-by then! + +AMADEUS + +Until to-morrow. I shall be expecting you early--between nine and ten. + +MARIE (_to Amadeus as she is going out_) + +Don't you regret having to leave her again at once? + +AMADEUS + +Duty, my dear Marie.... + +CECILIA (_returning_) + +Oh, are you really going?--Good-by then--for a little while! + +[_Albert and Marie go out._ + +CECILIA (_going to the fireplace_) + +Home again! (_She sits down_) + +AMADEUS (_near the door and speaking rather shyly_) + +It's a question whether it can please you as much as it does me. + +CECILIA (_holds out her hand to him_) + +AMADEUS (_takes her hand and kisses it; then he seats himself_) +Tell me all about it. + +CECILIA + +What am I to tell? I haven't left anything untold--or hardly anything. + +AMADEUS + +Well.... + +CECILIA + +Getting home every night--and it was quite late at times, as you +know--I sat down and wrote to you. I wish you had been equally +explicit. + +AMADEUS + +But I have written you every day, too. + +CECILIA + +Nevertheless, my dear, it seems to me you must have lots to add. +(_With a laugh_) To many things you have referred in a strikingly +casual fashion. + +AMADEUS + +I might say the same to you. + +CECILIA + +No, you can't. My letters have practically been diaries. And that's +more than could be said of yours.--Well, Amadeus...? Without frankness +the whole situation becomes meaningless, I should say. + +AMADEUS + +What is there to be cleared up? + +CECILIA + +Is it really all over with Philine? + +AMADEUS + +That was all over--(_rising_) before you left. And you know it. I +really don't think it's necessary to discuss bygone matters. + +CECILIA + +Will she be able to stay in the company, by the way--after this scandal +in connection with your--pardon me!--predecessor? + +AMADEUS + +Everything has been arranged, I hear. And she has even made up with her +husband again. + +CECILIA + +Is that so?--That's rather unpleasant, don't you think? At bottom, it +matters very little then to have the story all over. In the case of a +man who has the disconcerting habit of not finding out certain things +until months afterward.... + +AMADEUS + +It is better not to think of such things. + +CECILIA + +Has she any letters of yours? + +AMADEUS (_having thought for a moment_) + +Only the one in which I bade her farewell. + +CECILIA + +That might be enough. Why haven't you demanded it back? + +AMADEUS + +How could I? + +CECILIA + +How frivolous you are! Yes, frivolous is just the word. (_Putting her +hand on his shoulder_) Now it's possible to talk of a thing like this, +Amadeus. Formerly you might have misunderstood such a remark--taking +it for jealousy, or something like that.... But, really, I do hope you +don't get mixed up in any more affairs of that kind. I don't like to +be scared to death all the time on behalf of my best friend. There is +nothing in the world I begrudge you--of that you may be sure. But +getting killed for the sake of somebody else--that's carrying the joke +a little too far! + +AMADEUS + +I promise you, that you'll no longer have to be scared to death on my +behalf. + +CECILIA + +I hope so. Otherwise I must leave you to take care of yourself.--And +seriously speaking, Amadeus, I hope you don't forget that your life has +been preserved for more sensible and more important things--that you +have a lot more to do in this world. + +AMADEUS + +Yes, that's what I feel. I don't think I have ever felt it so strongly +in all my life. (_Radiantly_) My symphony ... + +CECILIA (_eagerly_) + +... is done? + +AMADEUS + +It is, Cecilia. And ... I didn't mean to tell you about it to-day, but +it leaves me no peace.... + +CECILIA + +Well, what is it? + +AMADEUS + +The chorus in the final passage--you know the principal theme of it +already--it is led and dominated by a soprano solo. And that solo has +been written for you. + +CECILIA + +My revered Master! How proud your trust in me makes me! + +AMADEUS + +Don't make fun of it, Cecilia, I beg you. There is nobody in the world +who can sing that solo like you.... That solo is yours--and only yours. +While writing it, the ring of your voice was in my mind. Next February, +as soon as I get back, I shall have the symphony put on, and then you +must sing that solo. + +CECILIA + +Next Feb...? With pleasure, my dear Amadeus--provided I am still here. + +AMADEUS + +Why? + +CECILIA + +Oh, you haven't heard everything yet. After the performance last night +the Director had a talk with me. + +AMADEUS (_disturbed_) + +Well?!--There was a hint in the telegram about brilliant conditions.... +But, of course, they could only refer to the next season? + +CECILIA + +If I can break away from here, they want me in Berlin from the +beginning of the year. + +AMADEUS + +But you can't break away! + +CECILIA + +Oh, if I really want to. The Director does not care to enforce the +contract. + +AMADEUS + +But you don't want to, Cecilia! + +CECILIA + +That's a matter for careful consideration. I shall be doing a great +deal better there. + +AMADEUS + +Beginning next Fall, I shall--probably be free. You might wait that +long, I should think. Then we could make the move together. But.... + +CECILIA + +It doesn't have to be settled to-day, Amadeus. To-morrow we shall have +time to discuss the whole matter thoroughly. Really, I am not in a +condition to do so to-night. + +AMADEUS + +You are tired...? + +CECILIA + +Of course, you must understand that. In fact, I should very much +prefer.... (_She looks in direction of the door leading to her own +room_) + +CHAMBERMAID (_brings in the tea tray and puts it on a small table_) + +CECILIA + +Oh, that's right!--May I pour you a cup, too? + +AMADEUS + +If you please. + +CECILIA (_pours the tea; to the chambermaid_) + +Open one of the windows a little, will you. There's such a lot of +cigarette smoke in here. + +CHAMBERMAID (_opens the window at the right_) + +AMADEUS + +Won't it be too cold for you? + +CECILIA + +Cold? It has turned very warm again. + +AMADEUS + +And how did last night's performance go otherwise? + +CECILIA + +Very well. Wedius in particular proved himself inimitable again. + +AMADEUS + +You have mentioned him several times in your letters. + +CECILIA + +You know him since your Dresden period, don't you? + +AMADEUS + +Yes. He has great gifts. + +CECILIA + +He thinks a great deal of you, too. + +AMADEUS + +I'm pleased to hear it. + +CHAMBERMAID (_goes out_) + +AMADEUS (_helping himself to the cold meat_) + +Can I help you to some? + +CECILIA + +No, thanks. I have had all I want. + +AMADEUS + +Yes, you have had your supper already--all of you, or "everybody," as +you put it a while ago. + +CECILIA (_ingenuously_) + +I had my supper with Sigismund. + +AMADEUS + +Was he in Berlin all the time? + +CECILIA + +He got there two days after me, as I told you in my letters. + +AMADEUS + +Of course--you have told me everything. Once he accompanied you to the +National Gallery. + +CECILIA + +He also took me to see the Pergamene marbles.[6] + + [6] A large collection of art works and other antiquities, + recovered by excavations on the site of the ancient city of + Pergamon in Asia Minor, are kept in the Pergamene Museum, + Berlin. + +AMADEUS (_facetiously_) + +You're doing a lot for his general education, I must say.--But I should +like to know by what fraud Sigismund got himself into that reception of +the Director's. + +CECILIA + +By what fraud? + +AMADEUS + +Well, you wrote me that he created a regular sensation with those +waltzes of his. + +CECILIA + +So he did. But he didn't have to use fraud to get in. Being a nephew of +the Baroness, there was no reason why he should resort to such methods. + +AMADEUS + +Oh, yes, I didn't remember that. + +CECILIA + +And by the way, the Director asked very eagerly about you. + +AMADEUS + +He thinks a great deal of me.... + +CECILIA (_with a smile_) + +Yes, he really does. The moment your new opera is ready.... + +AMADEUS + +And so on! (_He goes on eating_) It surprises me, however, that he +should ask you about me. + +CECILIA + +Why does that surprise you? + +AMADEUS (_as if meaning no offense_) + +Well, it rather surprises me that he should connect our respective +personalities to that extent. Hasn't Berlin heard yet that we are going +to be divorced? + +CECILIA + +Why ... what does that mean? + +AMADEUS (_laughing_) + +Rumors to that effect are afloat. + +CECILIA + +What? Well, I declare! + +AMADEUS + +Yes, it's incredible what the popular gossip can invent. It's even in +the newspapers. His Highness the Prince Sigismund Maradas-Lohsenstein +is going to lead you to the altar. The necessary dispensation will be +furnished by the Pope. Idiotic--isn't it? + +CECILIA + +Yes.--But, my dear, you say nothing about what is still more idiotic. + +AMADEUS + +And what can that be? + +CECILIA + +That you are on the verge of believing this piece of idiocy. + +AMADEUS + +I...? How can you.... Oh, no! + +CECILIA + +You haven't considered, for instance, that I am three years older than +he. + +AMADEUS (_startled_) + +Well, if it's nothing but those three years of difference in.... + +CECILIA + +No, it isn't that. No, indeed! Even if I were younger than he, I should +never think of it. + +AMADEUS + +But if his devotion should prove more deeply rooted than you have +supposed so far? + +CECILIA + +Not even then. + +AMADEUS + +Why? + +CECILIA + +Why...? I know that it couldn't last forever anyhow. + +AMADEUS + +Have you the end in mind already? + +CECILIA + +I am not saying that I have it in mind.... But I don't doubt it must +come, as it always comes. + +AMADEUS + +And then...? + +CECILIA (_shrugs her shoulders_) + +AMADEUS + +And then? + +CECILIA + +How could I know, Amadeus? There are prospects of so many kinds. + +AMADEUS (_cowering a moment before those words_) + +Yes, that's true. Life is full of prospects. Everywhere, wherever you +turn, there are temptations and promises--when you have determined to +be free, and to take life lightly, as we have done.... That's what you +meant, was it not? + +CECILIA + +Yes, precisely. + +AMADEUS + +Tell me, Cecilia.... (_He draws closer to her_) There is one thing I +should like to know--whether Sigismund has any idea that your mind is +harboring such thoughts--which, after all, would appear rather weird +to the other party concerned. + +CECILIA + +Sigismund...? How can you imagine?! Such things you admit only to your +friends. (_She gives her hand to him_) + +AMADEUS (_in the same friendly manner_) + +But if he should notice anything ... although I think it very +improbable that he is the kind of man who would.... But let us suppose +that he concluded from various signs that some such thoughts were +passing through your head--would you deny them, if he asked you? + +CECILIA + +I believe myself capable of it. + +AMADEUS (_with a shrinking_) + +Oh.... Let me tell you, Cecilia.... You are having something definite +in mind.... Yes, I am sure of it.... It's a question of some definite +prospect. + +CECILIA (_smiling_) + +That might be possible. + +AMADEUS + +What has happened, Cecilia? + +CECILIA + +Nothing. + +AMADEUS + +Then there is danger in the air. + +CECILIA + +Danger...? What could that mean to us? To him who has no obligations +there can be no cause for fear. + +AMADEUS (_taking her lightly by the arm_) + +Stop playing with words! I can see through the whole thing just the +same.--I know! It has been brought home to me by a number of passages +in your letters--although they ceased long ago to have the frankness +due to our friendship. That new prospect is Wedius! + +CECILIA + +In what respect did my letters fail to be frank? Didn't I write you +immediately after the "Onyegin" performance, that there was something +fascinating about his personality? + +AMADEUS + +So you have said before, of many people. But there was never any such +prospect implied in it. + +CECILIA + +Everything begins to take on new meanings when you are free. + +AMADEUS + +You are not telling me everything.... What has happened? + +CECILIA + +Nothing has happened, but (_with sudden decision_) if I had stayed ... +who knows.... + +AMADEUS (_seems to shrink back again; then he walks to and fro; +finally he remains standing in the background, near one of the +windows_) Poor Sigismund! + +CECILIA + +Why pity him? He knows nothing about it. + +AMADEUS (_resuming his superior tone_) + +Is that what draws you to Berlin? + +CECILIA + +No!... Indeed, no! The spell has been broken ... it seems.... + +AMADEUS + +And yet you talk of going about New Year.... + +CECILIA (_rising_) + +My dear Amadeus, I am really too tired to discuss that matter to-day. +Now I shall say good-night to you. It is quite late. (_She holds out +her hand to him_) + +AMADEUS (_faltering_) + +Good-night, Cecilia!... (_He clings to her hand_) You have been gone +three weeks. I shall leave early the day after to-morrow--and when _I_ +return, you will be gone, I suppose.... There can't be so very much to +your friendship, if you won't stay and talk a while with me under such +circumstances. + +CECILIA + +What's the use of being sentimental? Leave-takings are familiar things +to us. + +AMADEUS + +That's true. But nevertheless this will be a new kind of leave-taking, +and a new kind of home-coming also. + +CECILIA + +Well, seeing that it had to turn out this way.... + +AMADEUS + +But neither of us ever imagined that it would turn out this way. + +CECILIA + +Oh? + +AMADEUS + +No, Cecilia, we did _not_ imagine it. The remarkable thing has been +that we retained our faith in each other in the midst of all doubts, +and that, even when away from each other, we used to feel calm and +confident far beyond what was safe, I suppose. But it was splendid. +Separation itself used to have a sort of charm of its own--_formerly_. + +CECILIA + +Naturally. It isn't possible to love in that undisturbed fashion except +when you are miles apart. + +AMADEUS + +You may be able to make fun of it to-day, Cecilia, but there will never +again be anything like it--neither for you nor for me. You can be sure +of that. + +CECILIA + +I know that as well as you do.--But why should you all at once begin to +talk as if, somehow, everything would be over between us two, and as if +the best part of our life had been irretrievably lost? That's not the +case, after all. It cannot possibly be the case. Both of us know that +we remain the same as before--don't we--and that everything else that +has happened to us, or may happen to us, can be of no particular +importance.... And even if it should become important, we shall always +be able to join hands, no matter what chasms open between us. + +AMADEUS + +You speak very sensibly, as usual. + +CECILIA + +If you seduce ladies by the dozen, and if gentlemen shoot each other +dead for my sake--as they do for the sake of Countess Philine--what has +that to do with our friendship? + +AMADEUS + +That's beyond contradiction. Nevertheless, I hadn't expected--in fact, +I think it nothing less than admirable--your ability to adjust yourself +to everything--your way of remaining perfectly calm in the midst of any +new experiences or expectations. + +CECILIA + +Calm...? Here I am ... by our fireplace ... taking tea in your company. +Here I can and shall always be calm. That's the significance of our +whole life in common. Whatever may be my destiny in the world at large +will slip off me when I enter here. All the storms are on the outside. + +AMADEUS + +That's more than you can be sure of, Cecilia. Things might happen that +would weigh more heavily on you than you can imagine at this moment. + +CECILIA + +I shall always have the strength to throw off things according to my +will before I come to you. And if that strength should ever fail me, I +shall come to the door and no farther. + +AMADEUS + +Oh, no, you mustn't! That would not be in keeping with our agreement. +It is just when life grows heavy that I'll be here to help you bear it. + +CECILIA + +Who knows whether you will always be ready to do so? + +AMADEUS + +Always--on my oath! No matter what befall you, whether it be sad or +wretched, you can always find refuge and sympathy with me. But with all +my heart I wish you may be spared most of those things. + +CECILIA + +That I be spared...? No, Amadeus, a wish like that I can't accept. +Hitherto--I have lived so little hitherto. And I am longing for it. I +long for all that's sad and sweet in life, for all that's beautiful and +all that's pitiful. I long for storms, for perils--for worse than that, +perhaps. + +AMADEUS + +No, Cecilia, that's nothing but imagination! + +CECILIA + +Oh, no! + +AMADEUS + +Certainly, Cecilia. You don't know very much as yet, and you imagine +many things simpler and cleaner than they are. But there are things you +couldn't stand, and others of which you are not capable.--I know you, +Cecilia. + +CECILIA + +You know me?--You know only what I have been to you--what I have been +as your beloved and your wife. And as you used to mean the whole world +to me--as all my longing, all my tenderness, was bounded by you--we +could never guess in those days what might prove my destiny when the +real world was thrown open to me.--Even to-day, Amadeus, I am no longer +the same as before.... Or perhaps I have always been the same as I am +now, but didn't know it merely. And something has fallen away, that +used to cover me up in the past.... Yes, that's it: for now I can feel +all those desires that used to pass me by as if deflected by a cuirass +of insensibility.... Now I can feel how they touch my body and my soul, +filling me with qualms and passions. The earth seems full of adventure. +The sky seems radiant with flames. And it is as if I could see myself +stand waiting with wide-open arms. + +AMADEUS (_as if calling to somebody in flight_) + +Cecilia! + +CECILIA + +What is the matter? + +AMADEUS + +Nothing.... The words you speak cannot estrange me after all that I +have learned already. But there is a new ring in your voice that I have +never heard until to-day. Nor have I ever seen that light in your eyes +until to-day. + +CECILIA + +That's what you imagine, Amadeus. If that were really the case, then I +should feel the same in regard to you. But I can see no difference in +you at all. And I can't imagine how you possibly could come to seem +different. To other women you may appear a mischiefmaker--or a silly +youth--which has probably happened many times: but to me you will +always remain the same as ever. And I have a feeling that, in the last +instance, nothing can ever happen to the Amadeus I am thinking of. + +AMADEUS + +If I could only feel the same--in regard to you! But such assurance is +not mine. The recklessness and greed with which you make your way into +an unknown world are filling me with outright fear on your behalf. The +idea that there are people who know as little of you as you of them at +this moment, and to whom you are going to belong... + +CECILIA + +I shall belong to nobody ... now, that I am free ... + +AMADEUS + +... who are part of your destiny already, as you of theirs ... it seems +to me uncanny. And you are no more the Cecilia I used to love--no! You +resemble closely one who was very dear to me, and yet you are not at +all the same as she. No, you are not the woman that was my wife for +years. I could feel it the moment you entered the place.... The +connection between the young girl who sank into my arms one evening +seven years ago and the woman who has just returned from abroad to +dwell for a brief while in this house seems quite mysterious. For seven +years I have been living with another woman--with a quiet, kindly +woman--with a sort of angel perhaps, who has now disappeared. She who +came to-day has a voice that I have never heard, a look that I am +foreign to, a beauty that is strange to me--a beauty not surpassing +what the other had, except in being more cruel possibly--and yet a +beauty that should confer much greater happiness, I think. + +CECILIA + +Don't look at me like that!... Don't talk to me like that!... That's +not the way to talk to a friend! Don't forget I am no more the one I +used to be. When you talk to me like that, Amadeus, it is as if here, +too, I should be fanned by those cajoling breaths that nowadays so +often touch me like caresses--breaths that make life seem incredibly +light, and that make you feel ready for so much that formerly would +have appeared incomprehensible. + +AMADEUS + +If you could guess, Cecilia, how your words hurt me and excite me at +the same time! + +CECILIA (_brusquely_) + +You must not talk like that, Amadeus. I don't want it. Be sensible, for +my sake as well as your own. Good-night. + +AMADEUS + +Are you going, Cecilia? + +CECILIA + +Yes. And bear in mind that we are friends and want to remain such. + +AMADEUS + +Bear in mind that we have always wanted to be _honest_. And it is not +honest--either for you or me--to say that we stand face to face as +friends in this moment.... Cecilia--the _one_ thing I can feel at this +moment is that you are beautiful ... beautiful as you have never been +before! + +CECILIA + +Amadeus, Amadeus, are you forgetting all that has happened? + +AMADEUS + +I could forget it--and so could you. + +CECILIA + +Oh, I remember--I remember! (_She wants to leave_) + +AMADEUS + +Stay, Cecilia, stay! The day after to-morrow I shall be gone--stay! + +CECILIA + +Please don't speak to me like that! I am no longer what I used to +be--no longer proud, or calm, or good. Who knows how little might be +needed to make me the victim of a certain unscrupulous seducer! + +AMADEUS + +Cecilia! + +CECILIA + +Have you so many friends to lose? One is all I have.--Good-night. +(_She tries to get away_) + +AMADEUS (_seizing her by the hand_) + +Cecilia, we have long ago bidden each other good-by as man and +wife--but we have also made up our minds to take life lightly, to be +free, and to lay hold of every happiness that comes within our reach. +Should we be mad enough, or cowardly enough, to shrink from the highest +happiness ever offered us...? + +CECILIA + +And what would it lead to ... my friend? + +AMADEUS + +Don't call me that! I love you and I hate you, but in this moment I am +not your friend. What you have been to me--wife, comrade ... what do I +care! To-day I want to be--your lover! + +CECILIA + +You mustn't...! You can't ... no.... + +AMADEUS + +Not your lover then ... but what is both worse and better ... the man +who takes you away from another one--the one with whom you are +betraying someone else--the one who means to you both bliss and sin at +once! + +CECILIA + +Let me loose, Amadeus. + +AMADEUS + +No more beautiful adventure will ever blossom by the wayside for either +one of us, Cecilia, as long as we may live! + +CECILIA + +And none more dangerous, Amadeus! + +AMADEUS + +Wasn't that what you were longing for...? + +CECILIA + +Good-night, Amadeus. + +AMADEUS + +Cecilia! (_He holds her fast and draws her closer to himself_) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +THE THIRD ACT + + +_The same room. It is the morning of the following day. The stage is +empty at first. Then Amadeus enters from his room at the left. He wears +a dressing-gown, but is otherwise fully dressed. He passes slowly and +pensively across the room to the writing desk, from which he picks up +the waiting pile of letters. Then he puts the letters down again. He +feels chilly, looks around, notices that a window is open, and goes to +close it. Then he stands listening for a while at the door to Cecilia's +room. Finally he returns to the writing desk and begins to pull out +manuscripts from its drawers._ + + +AMADEUS + +Let's get things in order.... I wonder how this is going to turn +out?--I'll write her from some place along my route. I shall never come +back here any more.... I couldn't stand it ... no, I couldn't! +(_Holding a manuscript in his hand_) The Solo--her Solo! Well, I shall +not be present to hear her sing it. + +CHAMBERMAID (_entering_) + +The men are here to take away the trunk. Here's the check from the +expressman. + +AMADEUS + +All right. Tell them to use the back stairs in taking out the things. + +CHAMBERMAID (_goes out_) + +AMADEUS + +... When I say good-by to-morrow, she won't guess it is forever.... And +the boy ... the boy...? (_He walks back and forth_) ... But it has to +be. (_Abruptly_) I'll leave this very evening--not to-morrow. Yes, this +very evening. (_He begins to pile up sheet music_) I'll have a talk +with the Director. If he says no, I'll simply break away. I won't come +back here. (_He goes to Cecilia's door again_) I suppose she's still +asleep. (_He comes forward and sits down on the couch, leaning his head +in his hands_) We have to take lunch together, and she won't guess that +it is for the last time.... She won't guess.... And why not? Let her +find out ... right now ... I am going to have it out with her. Yes, +indeed. (_Rising_) One can't write a thing of that kind. I'll tell her +everything. I'll tell her that I can't bear it--that it drives me crazy +to think of the other fellow. And she'll understand. And even if she +should plead with me to forgive her ... even if she ... oh! (_He goes +to her door_) I must tell her at once.... Oh, I feel like choking +her!... Cecilia! (_He knocks at her door, but gets no answer_) What +does that mean? (_He goes into her room_) She's gone! (_He stays away +for about half a minute and comes back by way of the door leading to +the garden; then he rings_) Where can she.... + +CHAMBERMAID (_enters_) + +AMADEUS (_with pretended unconcern_) + +Has my wife gone out? + +CHAMBERMAID + +Yes, sir--quite a while ago. + +AMADEUS + +Oh...? + +CHAMBERMAID + +It must be nearly two hours now. She said she would be back about one +o'clock. + +AMADEUS + +All right. Thank you. + +CHAMBERMAID + +Can I bring in your breakfast now, sir? + +AMADEUS + +Oh, yes--I had almost forgotten. And a cup of tea, please. + +CHAMBERMAID (_goes out_) + +AMADEUS (_alone_) + +Gone!... Well, there is nothing peculiar in that.... Probably to the +opera.... But why didn't she tell me...? (_He cowers suddenly_) To +him...? No, that couldn't be possible! Oh, no!... And why not?... A +woman like her.... There is nothing to keep her from going to him.... +(_With a threatening gesture_) If I only had him here!... (_With sudden +inspiration_) But that's what I might ... that would be.... To confront +him--that's it! To stand face to face with him!... Thus more than one +thing might be straightened out.... No, she is not with him.... Where +did I get that idea?... That's all over!... But that's what I'll do!... +Either I or he!... Many things might then ... everything might then be +set right.... He or I!... But to live on like this, while he ... I'll +go to Albert. It must be done this very day! (_He disappears into his +own room_) + +ALBERT (_enters_) + +CHAMBERMAID (_follows him, carrying the breakfast tray_) I'll tell +the Master at once, sir. (_She puts the tray on a small table and +goes out to the left_) + +ALBERT (_picks up a moon-shaped roll from the tray and begins to nibble +at one of its tips_) + +AMADEUS (_enters, having changed his dressing-gown for a coat_) + +CHAMBERMAID (_follows him, passes quickly across the room and goes +out_) + +AMADEUS + +Oh, there you are! + +ALBERT + +Yes. I'm not too early, I hope? Are you ready? I want to read you the +third act. (_He takes some papers from his overcoat pocket_) You know +the setting, of course--the park, the villa, the plane tree. But first +of all I must tell you something. Do you remember Mr. von Rabagas, with +whom my wife fell in love? I have retouched him slightly. He's going to +be cross-eyed. And now I am curious to see what Marie's attitude will +be toward him. + +AMADEUS (_nervously_) + +All right--later. For the moment there are more important things. + +ALBERT + +More important...? + +AMADEUS + +Yes, I want you to do me a great service ... a service that will brook +no delay. You have to act as my second. + +ALBERT (_rising_) + +Your...? Twaddle! You'll simply refuse the challenge! You're not going +to let yourself be killed for the sake of Madame Philine--oh, no! + +AMADEUS + +It is not a question of Philine. And I have not been challenged. I +shall issue the challenge. And for that reason I want you to look up +our friend Winter at once, and then I must trouble both of you to call +on Prince Sigismund, and tell him.... + +ALBERT (_interrupting him and breaking into laughter_) + +Oh, Prince Sigismund!--Thank you ever so much! + +AMADEUS (_surprised_) + +What's the matter with you? + +ALBERT + +How obliging! You mean to present me with an ending for the play we +concocted yesterday. Thanks. But it's too banal for me--nobody would +take any stock in it. I have thought of something much better. You are +to be poisoned--yes, sir. And can you guess by whom?--By a brand-new +character--one of the secret lovers of your wife. + +AMADEUS (_furiously_) + +It doesn't interest me in the least. Stop it, please! I'm not making up +endings for your fool comedies! This is real life ... we are right in +the midst of it! + +ALBERT + +You don't mean...?! Well, if I have to stand this unseemly and +ridiculous interruption ... what do you want of me anyhow? + +AMADEUS + +Haven't you understood? The two of you are to challenge Prince +Sigismund on my behalf. + +ALBERT + +Prince Sigismund ... on your behalf.... (_He bursts into laughter_) + +AMADEUS + +You seem to think it very funny, but I assure you.... + +ALBERT + +The point is not that you seem funny to _me_. It's probably balanced by +the fact that a lot of people who have thought you funny until now, +will all of a sudden think you very sensible ... though they ought to +ask themselves, if they had a little logic: why should Mr. Amadeus +Adams become jealous on this particular day?... Up to the twenty-third +of October he was not, and all at once, on the twenty-third, he is.... + +AMADEUS + +A lot of things have changed since yesterday. + +ALBERT + +Have changed...? Since yesterday...? Well, I declare! + +AMADEUS (_after a pause_) + +So that you didn't believe it either? + +ALBERT + +To confess the truth--no. + +AMADEUS + +Which means that I am living among a lot of people who.... + +ALBERT + +Will be in the right ultimately. Why should that arouse your +indignation? If we were to live long enough, every lie that's floating +about would probably become true. Listen to those who belie you, and +you will know the truth about yourself. Gossip knows very rarely what +we are doing, but almost always whither we are drifting. + +AMADEUS + +_We_ didn't know we were drifting this way--that much you will admit, I +hope. + +ALBERT + +And yet it had to come. Friendship between two people of different +sexes is always dangerous--even when they are married. If there is too +much mutual understanding between our souls, many things are swept +along that we would rather keep back; and when our senses are attracted +mutually, the suction affects much more of our souls than we would care +to have involved. That's a universal law, my dear chap, for which the +profound uncertainty of all earthly relations between man and woman +must be held responsible. And only he who doesn't know it, will trust +himself or anybody else.--If you don't mind? (_He begins to butter one +of the rolls_) + +AMADEUS + +So you think you understand...? + +ALBERT + +Of course! That's my specialty, don't you know? + +AMADEUS + +Well, if you understand what has happened, and understand it must have +happened--then you will also understand that I must face the logical +consequences. + +ALBERT + +Logical consequences...? Here I am talking wisdom, and you clamor for +nonsense. And that's what you call logical consequences?... My opinion +is rather, that you are about to behave like a perfect fool. Anybody +else might do what you now propose: you are the only one who mustn't. +For when you propose such a thing, it becomes illogical, ungenerous, +not to say dishonest. You want to call a man to account for something +which, as he sees it, has been declared explicitly permissible.... In +his place I should laugh in your face. If anybody has the right to be +indignant here, and to demand an account, it is the Prince himself, and +nobody else--as he has not deceived you, but you him. + +AMADEUS + +Well, that's all one, as he undoubtedly will demand an account. + +ALBERT + +To do so, he must know. + +AMADEUS + +I'll see to that. + +ALBERT + +You mean to tell him? + +AMADEUS + +If you hold it the shortest road to what I have in mind...? + +ALBERT + +There's a man of honor for you! And is that the discretion you owe the +woman you love, do you think? + +AMADEUS + +Call me illogical, ungenerous, indiscreet--anything you please! I can't +help myself! I love Cecilia--do you hear? And I want to go on living +with her. But I can't do so until some sort of amends have been made +for the past--in my own eyes, in hers, and--I confess it--in the eyes +of the world. Sigismund and I must meet, man to man--nothing else can +end my trouble. + +ALBERT + +And how can it make the slightest difference that you two shoot off +your guns in the air? + +AMADEUS + +One of us must out of the way, Albert!... Won't you understand at last? + +ALBERT + +Now, my dear chap, that's carrying it a little too far! All the time I +have thought you were talking of a duel--and now I find that you are +after his life! + +AMADEUS + +Later on you may feel sorry that you could not refrain from inept +jesting in a moment like this even. The case is urgent, Albert. Please +make up your mind. + +ALBERT + +And suppose he should refuse? + +AMADEUS + +He is a nobleman. + +ALBERT + +He is religious. His father is one of the leaders of the Clerical Party +in the Upper House and a vice-president of the Society for the +Prevention of Dueling. + +AMADEUS + +Well, such things are not inherited. And if he won't, I shall know how +to make him. There's no other way out of it. There can be no other +alternative, if I am to go on living--with or without her. That will +set everything right, but nothing else will. It's the one thing that +can clear the air about us. Until it is over, we dare not belong to +each other again or--be happy. + +ALBERT + +I hope Cecilia won't insist on killing off Philine and a few others. +That would be just as sensible, but would complicate the situation a +great deal. + +AMADEUS + +Won't you go, please! + +ALBERT + +Yes, I am going.... And how about our opera? + +AMADEUS + +Oh, we'll have plenty of time to talk of that. However, just to +reassure you--all that is finished lies here in the second drawer, +everything properly arranged. + +ALBERT + +And who is to compose the third act? + +AMADEUS + +It can be given as a fragment, with some kind of ballet as a filler. + +ALBERT + +Right you are! Something like "Harlequin as Electrician," or +"Forget-me-not." (_He goes out_) + +AMADEUS (_remains alone for a while; at first he seems to ponder on +something; then he returns to the writing desk and falls to work on his +papers; a knock is heard at the door leading to the garden_) What is +it? + +PETER (_outside_) + +It's me, papa. Can I come in? + +AMADEUS + +Certainly, Peter. Come on. + +GOVERNESS (_entering with Peter_) + +Good morning. + +AMADEUS + +Good morning. (_He kisses Peter_) Is it not a little too cold for him +out there? + +GOVERNESS + +He's very warmly dressed, and besides the sun is shining beautifully. + +PETER + +Papa, have you seen what mamma brought me? + +AMADEUS + +What is it? + +PETER + +A theater--a big theater! + +AMADEUS + +Is that so? And you have got it already? + +PETER + +Of course. It's over there in the summer-house. Would you care to look +at it? + +AMADEUS (_glances inquiringly at the governess_) + +GOVERNESS + +Madame brought it to our room quite early, while Peter was still +asleep. + +AMADEUS + +I see. + +PETER + +I can play theater already. There is a king, and a peasant, and a +bride, and a devil--one that's all red--almost as red as the king +himself. And in the back there is a mill, and a sky, and a forest, and +a hunter.... Won't you come and look at it, papa? + +AMADEUS (_seated on the couch, with the boy standing between his knees; +speaking absentmindedly_) Of course I must come and look at it. + +CHAMBERMAID (_entering_) + +Sir.... + +AMADEUS + +What is it? + +CHAMBERMAID + +His Highness asks if you'll see him. + +AMADEUS + +What highness? + +CHAMBERMAID + +His Highness, the Prince Lohsenstein. + +AMADEUS (_rising_) + +What? + +GOVERNESS + +Come, Peter--we'll go back and play in the summer-house. (_She goes out +with Peter_) + +AMADEUS (_with dignity_) + +Tell the Prince.... (_Turning away from her_) One moment, please. (_To +himself_) What can that mean...? (_Abruptly_) Ask him to come in. + +CHAMBERMAID (_goes out_) + +AMADEUS (_walks quickly to and fro, but stops at some distance from +the door when Sigismund enters_) + +SIGISMUND (_is slender, blonde, twenty-six, elegantly dressed, but +appears in no respect foppish; he bows to Amadeus_) Good-morning. + +AMADEUS (_takes a few steps forward to meet him and nods politely_) + +SIGISMUND (_looks around a little shyly, but wholly free from any +ridiculous embarrassment; his manner is in every respect dignified; +there is a slight smile on his face_) We have not seen each other for +some time, and you'll probably assume that my visit to-day has a +special reason. + +AMADEUS + +Naturally. (_Pointing to a chair_) Please. + +SIGISMUND + +Thank you. (_He comes nearer, but remains standing_) I have decided to +take this step--which has not come easy to me, I can assure you--because +I find the situation in which we ... in which all of us have been placed, +untenable and, in a certain sense, ridiculous ... and because I think +that, in one way or another, it should be brought to an end. The sole +object of my visit is to put before you a proposition. + +AMADEUS + +I'm listening. + +SIGISMUND + +I don't want to waste any words. My proposition is that you get a +divorce from your wife. + +AMADEUS (_shrinks back for a moment, staring at Sigismund; then, after +a pause he says calmly_) You wish to marry Cecilia? + +SIGISMUND + +There is nothing I wish more eagerly. + +AMADEUS + +And what is the attitude of Cecilia toward your intentions? + +SIGISMUND + +Not encouraging so far. + +AMADEUS (_puzzled_) + +Cecilia is absolutely in a position to decide for herself. And of +course, she would also have the right to leave me--whenever and +howsoever it might please her to do so. For that reason you must pardon +me if I find the object of your visit incomprehensible, to say the +least. + +SIGISMUND + +You'll soon find it comprehensible, I think. The discouraging attitude +of Mrs. Adams-Ortenburg proves nothing at all in this connection, I +must say. As long as Mrs. Adams-Ortenburg has not been set free by +you--even if that be done against her own will--she is, in a sense, +bound to you. To get this matter fully cleared up, it seems to me +necessary that you yourself, my dear Master, insist on a divorce. Mrs. +Adams-Ortenburg will not be in a position to choose freely until she +has been divorced from you. Until then the struggle between us two will +not be on equal terms--as, I trust, you would like to have it. + +AMADEUS + +There can be no talk of any struggle here. You misunderstand the actual +state of affairs in a manner that seems to me incomprehensible. For I +have no right to suppose that Cecilia has made any secret of the more +deep-lying reasons that have so far prevented us from considering a +dissolution of our marriage. + +SIGISMUND + +Certainly, I am aware of those reasons, but to me they don't by any +means seem sufficiently pressing--not even from your own viewpoint--to +exclude all thought of a divorce. And I am anxious to assure you that, +under all circumstances, I shall feel bound to treat those reasons with +the most profound respect. + +AMADEUS + +What do you mean? + +SIGISMUND + +You know, my dear Master, that the reverence I have for your art, even +if I am not always capable of grasping it, equals the admiration I feel +for the singing of Mrs. Adams-Ortenburg. I know how much you two +mutually owe to each other, and how you--if I may say so--complement +each other musically. And it would never occur to me to put any +difficulties whatsoever in the way of your continued artistic +relationship. I am equally aware of the tenderness with which you +regard your child--for whom, by the way, as you probably know, I have a +great deal of devotion--and I can give you my word that the doors +leading to the quarters of little Peter will always stand open to you. + +AMADEUS + +In other words, you would have no objection to seeing the former +husband of your--of the wife--of the Princess Lohsenstein, admitted to +your house as a friend? + +SIGISMUND + +Any such objection would be regarded by me as an insult to your--to +my--to Mrs. Cecilia Adams-Ortenburg, as well as to you, my dear Master. +With those provisions made, the new arrangement, which I am taking the +liberty to suggest, would be more sensible and--if you'll allow me a +frank expression--more decent than the one to which all of us now have +to submit. I am convinced, my dear Master, that, when you have had +chance to consider the matter calmly, you will not only agree with me, +but you will be surprised that this simple solution of an unbearable +situation has not occurred to yourself long ago. As for me, I want to +add that, to me personally, this solution seems the only possible one. +Yes, I don't hesitate to say that I would leave the city, without hope +of ever seeing Mrs. Cecilia again, rather than keep on compromising her +in a manner that must be equally painful to all of us. + +AMADEUS + +Oh, has it come to that all at once? Well, if the matter doesn't +trouble Cecilia or me, I think _you_ might well regard it with +indifference. I hope you know that we have arranged our life to suit +ourselves, without the least regard for popular gossip, and that I +don't care at all whether or no Cecilia be compromised--as you call it. + +SIGISMUND + +I know you don't. But I feel differently. A lady to whom I'm so +devoted, and whom I respect so highly that I would lead her to the +altar, must appear spotless to God and man alike. + +AMADEUS + +You might have kept that in mind before. Your previous behavior has +given no indication of such a view. You have been waiting for my wife +in the immediate vicinity of the opera; you have been walking with her +for hours at a time; you have visited her in the country; you have +followed her to Berlin and come back here in her company.... + +SIGISMUND (_surprised_) + +But it was in your power to stop all those things, if they didn't suit +you.... + +AMADEUS + +Stop them ... because they didn't suit...? What has that to do with +what I am talking of?--I am not the person who has found this situation +unbearable and compromising. + +SIGISMUND + +Oh, I understand. Considering, however, that you have placed such +emphasis on your indifference to popular gossip, I must say that your +tone sounds pretty excited. But permit me to assure you that this +impresses me rather pleasantly. Bear in mind that I am merely human. +What young man in my place would have refrained from meeting the adored +one, when everything was rendered so easy for him? And nevertheless I +didn't visit the Pustertal or make the tour to Berlin without an inward +struggle--in fact, I have often had to struggle with myself while +waiting for her near the opera. And I cannot tell you how I have +suffered under the searching glances directed at Mrs. Adams-Ortenburg +and myself when we were having supper together after one of the Berlin +performances, for instance, or when we went for an afternoon drive in +the Tiergarten.[7] Not to speak of the painful impression my aunt's +remarks made on me when I called to bid her good-by! Really, I can't +find words to express it. + + [7] A large park in the center of Berlin, corresponding to + the Central Park of New York or the Hyde Park of London. + +AMADEUS + +How much longer do you mean to keep up this remarkable comedy, my dear +Prince? + +SIGISMUND (_drawing back_) + +Do you mean.... + +AMADEUS + +What in the world makes you appear before me in a part which I don't +know whether to call tasteless or foolhardy? + +SIGISMUND + +Sir!... Oh...! You think.... I see now.... And you imagine that I would +have crossed your threshold again under such circumstances? + +AMADEUS + +Why should _that_ particular thing not be imagined? + +SIGISMUND + +Later on we shall get back to what you think of me. But a third person +is concerned in this matter, and I am not going to stand.... + +AMADEUS + +May I ask whether you have been equally angry with everyone who has +dared to question the virtue of Mrs. Adams-Ortenburg? + +SIGISMUND + +You are at least the first one who has dared to question it to my face, +and the last one who may dare to do so unpunished. + +AMADEUS + +Do you think the punishment threatening the impertinent one in your +mind will be apt to restore the reputation of Cecilia? Do you think it +would put an end to the gossip if you, of all people, tried to champion +the honor of Mrs. Adams-Ortenburg? + +SIGISMUND + +Who could, if not I? + +AMADEUS + +If it is _not_ a comedy you are now playing, then you haven't the right +even! + +SIGISMUND + +Do you mean to say that Cecilia is the only woman in the world who must +stand unprotected against _any_ slander? + +AMADEUS + +If you are telling the truth, Prince Sigismund, then there is only one +person in the world who has the right to protect Cecilia, and that +person am I. + +SIGISMUND + +Considering what has happened, I have excellent reason to think that +you will neither avail yourself of that right nor fulfill that duty. + +AMADEUS + +You are mistaken. And if you will take the trouble of returning home, +you will soon be convinced of your mistake. + +SIGISMUND + +What do you mean? + +AMADEUS + +I mean simply that two of my friends are now on their way to your house +on my behalf.... + +SIGISMUND + +Well...? + +AMADEUS + +To demand reparation for what ... (_looking Sigismund straight in the +eye_) I believed you guilty of. + +SIGISMUND (_takes a step back; a pause ensues during which they stare +hard at each other_) You have challenged.... (_Reaching out his hand_) +That's fine! + +AMADEUS (_does not accept the proffered hand_) + +SIGISMUND + +But it's splendid! I can assure you that the whole matter now assumes +quite a different aspect. And, of course, I shall be at your disposal +just the same, if you insist. + +AMADEUS (_draws a deep breath, looks long at Sigismund, and shakes his +head at last_) No, I won't any longer. (_He shakes hands with him, and +then begins walking to and fro, muttering to himself_) Cecilia.... +Cecilia...! (_Returning to Sigismund and addressing him in a totally +different tone_) Won't you please be seated, Sigismund? + +SIGISMUND + +No, thank you. + +AMADEUS (_feeling repelled and suspicious again_) + +Just as you please. + +SIGISMUND + +Don't misunderstand me, please. But I suppose this ends our conference, +my dear Master. (_Looking around_) And yet I must admit that your rude +treatment has made me feel a great deal more at ease. Isn't that +strange? And in spite of the fact that, after this unexpected turn, my +hopes must be held practically--I beg your pardon!--completely disposed +of.... In spite of this I feel actually in much better spirits than I +have done for a long time. Even if I am not to have the happiness of +which I have foolishly dared to dream so long.... + +AMADEUS + +Was it so very foolish? + +SIGISMUND (_good-humoredly_) + +Oh, yes. But this is at least an acceptable conclusion. (_Shaking his +head_) It seems queer! If I hadn't come here at this very moment, you +might never have learned--you might never have believed--might have +believed that Cecilia.... And one of us might perhaps--must perhaps +have.... (_He makes a gesture to complete the sentence_) + +AMADEUS + +It was indeed a strange coincidence that made you choose this +particular moment.... + +SIGISMUND + +Coincidence, you say? Oh, no, there are no coincidences--as you will +discover sooner or later. (_Pause_) Well, good-by then, and give my +regards to Mrs. ... Adams ... + +AMADEUS + +You can safely call her Cecilia. + +SIGISMUND + +... and tell her, please, that she mustn't be angry with me for having +taken such a step without her knowledge. Of course, my going away won't +surprise her. When leaving her yesterday, I told her that I couldn't +continue this kind of existence. + +AMADEUS + +And she...? What did she say? + +SIGISMUND (_hesitatingly_) + +She.... + +AMADEUS (_excited again_) + +She tried to keep you here...? + +SIGISMUND + +Yes. + +AMADEUS + +So that after all...! + +SIGISMUND + +Now she won't try any longer, my dear Master. (_With a wistful smile_) +I have served my purpose. + +AMADEUS + +What do you mean? + +SIGISMUND + +Oh, I can see now why she needed me--of course, you were not at all +aware of it! + +AMADEUS + +Why did she need you? + +SIGISMUND + +Simply and solely as a means of winning you back. + +AMADEUS + +What makes you think...? + +SIGISMUND + +What...? That she has succeeded. + +AMADEUS + +No, Sigismund--she hadn't lost me--in spite of all that had happened. +In fact, I feel as if I had rather lost her than she--me. + +SIGISMUND + +That's awfully kind of you. But now--God be with you! + +AMADEUS (_with something like emotion_) + +And when shall we see you again? + +SIGISMUND + +I don't know. Perhaps never.---Please don't imagine that I might take +my own life. I shall get over it, being still young.--Oh, my dear +Master, if things could only become what they used to be, so that I +could sit here at the fireplace while Cecilia was singing--or hammer +away at the piano after supper...! + +AMADEUS + +Don't be quite so modest, please! The fame of your piano playing has +reached Berlin even, I hear. + +SIGISMUND + +So she has told you that, too?!--But you see, dear Master, all that can +never come back--we could no longer feel at ease with each other.... +So--never to meet again! + +AMADEUS + +Never.... Why? Perhaps I shall see you very soon alone. I am +also--going away. + +SIGISMUND + +I know. We were talking of it yesterday, in the dining car. You are to +conduct your--number-which-one is it now? + +AMADEUS + +The fourth. + +SIGISMUND + +So you have got that far already?--And where are you going anyhow? + +AMADEUS + +To the Rhine district first of all; then by way of Munich to +Italy--Venice, Milan, Rome. + +SIGISMUND + +Rome...? There we may possibly meet. But you'll have to pardon me for +not coming to your concerts. So far I have not been able to understand +your symphonies.... But I am sure I shall sometime! One does grow more +and more clever, and sorrow and experiences in particular have a +maturing influence.... "Now he's making fun of it," I suppose you are +thinking. But, really, I am not in a very humorous mood. Farewell, my +dear Master--and my most respectful compliments to your wife. (_He +goes out_) + +AMADEUS (_walks back and forth; takes a few deep breaths, as if +relieved; goes out into the garden; returns; sits down at the piano and +plays a few improvisations; gets up and goes to the writing desk, where +he begins to look for something among the papers_) Where's that Solo? +... She's going to sing it, and I shall be present...! (_He seats +himself at the piano again, apparently in a very happy mood_) +Cecilia!... Cecilia! + +CECILIA (_enters_) + +AMADEUS (_rising_) + +Ah, there you are at last, Cecilia! + +CECELIA (_very calmly_) + +Good-morning, Amadeus. + +AMADEUS + +A little late. + +CECILIA (_smiling_) + +Yes. (_She takes off her hat and goes to the mirror to arrange her +hair_) + +AMADEUS + +What made you get out so early? + +CECILIA + +Various things I had to attend to. + +AMADEUS + +And may one ask...? + +CECILIA + +One may.--Look here, what I have got for you. (_She takes a letter from +a small bag_) + +AMADEUS + +What's that? (_He takes it_) What...? My letter to Philine...! Did you +go to her, Cecilia? + +CECILIA + +Well, I felt a little nervous about it. Now I think it was rather silly +of me. + +AMADEUS + +And how...? + +CECILIA + +Oh, the simplest thing in the world! I asked her for it, and she gave +it to me. It was lying in an open drawer in her writing desk--with +others. I think you can call yourself lucky. + +AMADEUS + +Cecilia! (_He tears the letter to pieces and throws these into the +fireplace_) + +CECILIA + +Well, you would never have made up your mind to demand it of her, and +that would have kept me in a state of irritation. I can't have anything +like that on my mind when I want to work.--And now that's settled. +(_She turns away_) Then I went to the opera, too. I have had a talk +with the Director. He's going to indorse my request to be set free. + +AMADEUS + +Your request to be set free...? + +CECILIA + +Yes, I shall go to Berlin on the first of January. + +AMADEUS + +But, Cecilia, we haven't talked it over yet.... + +CECILIA + +What's the use of postponing a thing that's already settled in my own +mind?--You know I never like to do that. + +AMADEUS + +But it means a whole year of separation! + +CECILIA + +To start with. But I think it might be just as well to prepare +ourselves for a still longer period. + +AMADEUS + +Do you mean to leave me, Cecilia?! + +CECILIA + +What else can I do, Amadeus? That ought to be as clear to you as it is +to me. + +AMADEUS + +So it would have been a little while ago, Cecilia. But I have come to +see our future in a different light.... Cecilia ... Sigismund has been +here! + +CECILIA + +Sigismund?!... You have talked with him?... What did he want? + +AMADEUS + +What did he want...? Your hand. + +CECILIA + +And you refused...? + +AMADEUS + +He is sending you his farewell greetings through me, Cecilia. + +CECILIA + +So that's what has put you in such a good humor all at once! (_Pause_) +And if he hadn't come here? + +AMADEUS + +If he hadn't come here.... + +CECILIA + +Speak out, please! + +AMADEUS (_remains silent_) + +CECILIA + +You didn't mean to ... to fight him? + +AMADEUS + +I did. Albert was on his way to him at the time. + +CECILIA + +What vanity, Amadeus! + +AMADEUS + +No, not vanity, Cecilia. I love you. + +CECILIA (_remains wholly unresponsive_) + +AMADEUS + +You can't guess, of course, what took place within me while his words +were gradually bringing home the truth to me! Once more the doors of +heaven have been thrown open to me! + +CECILIA + +The only thing you forget is that they must remain closed to me +forever. + +AMADEUS + +Don't say that, Cecilia. What has happened to me in the past seems so +very insignificant, after all. + +CECILIA + +Insignificant, you say?--And if it had happened to me, it would have +been so significant that people should have had to kill or be killed on +that account? How can you think then, that I might get over it so +easily? + +AMADEUS + +How can I...? Because you have proved it already. You knew just what +had happened, and yet you became mine again.... You knew that I had +been faithless, while you had kept your faith, and yet.... + +CECILIA + +You say that I have kept my faith?--No, I haven't! And even if I should +seem faithful to you, I have long ago ceased to be so in my own mind. +_I_ know the desires that have burned within me.... _I_ know how often +my body has trembled and yearned in the presence of some man.... And +what I told you last night--that I am waiting with wide-open arms, full +of longings and expectations--that's true, Amadeus--no less true than +it is that I am standing face to face with you now. + +AMADEUS + +If that be true, what has kept you from satisfying all your +longings--you, who have been as free as I have? + +CECILIA + +I am a woman, Amadeus. And we seem to be like that. Something makes us +hesitate even when we have already made up our minds. + +AMADEUS + +And because you seemed guilty in your own mind, you remained silent?... +And for no other reason have you left me--me, whose sufferings you +might have relieved by a single word--to believe you as guilty as +myself? + +CECILIA + +Perhaps.... + +AMADEUS + +And how long did you mean to let me go on believing that? + +CECILIA + +Until it became true, Amadeus. + +AMADEUS + +But there has been enough of it now, Cecilia. It will never become true +... never after this. + +CECILIA + +Where do you get that idea, Amadeus? It is going to be true. Do you +think, perhaps, that all this was meant as a kind of ordeal for you? Do +you think I was playing a childish comedy in order to punish you, and +that now, when you have discovered the truth prematurely, I shall sink +into your arms and declare everything right again? Have you really +imagined that everything could now be forgotten, and that we might +resume our marriage relations at the exact point where they were +interrupted? How can you possibly have wished that such might be the +case--so that our marriage would be like thousands of others, where +both deceive each other, and become reconciled, and deceive each other +again--just as the moment's whim happens to move them? + +AMADEUS + +We have neither deceived each other, nor become reconciled--we have +been free, and have merely found each other again. + +CECILIA + +Each other, you say?... As if that were possible! What is it then, that +has made me seem so desirable to you all at once? Not the fact that I +am Cecilia--oh, no! But the fact that I seem to have come back another +woman. And have I really become yours again? Not at all! Not unless you +have grown so modest all at once that you can be satisfied with a +happiness that might have fallen to somebody else perhaps, if he had +merely chanced to be on hand at that particular moment. + +AMADEUS (_shrinking back_) + +But even if last night be sacrificed to this fixed idea of yours, +Cecilia--it is daylight now--we are awake--and in this moment of clear +light you must feel, no less than I, that we love each other, +Cecilia--love as we have never loved before. + +CECILIA + +This moment might prove deceptive--and I am sure it would. No other +moment would be more apt to prove such. Do you think those many moments +in which we felt our tenderness gradually ebbing away--those many +moments when we felt the lure of other loves--do you think them less +worthy of consideration than this one? The only thing urging us +together now is our fear of the final leave-taking. And our feelings at +this moment make a pretty poor sample upon which to base an eternity. I +don't trust them. What has happened once, may ... nay, must repeat +itself--to-morrow--or two years from now--or five ... in a more +indiscreet manner, perhaps, or in a manner more tragical--but certainly +in a manner to be much more regretted. + +AMADEUS + +Oh, no--never again! Now--after what I have felt and experienced +lately, I can vouch for myself. + +CECILIA + +I don't feel equally certain of myself, Amadeus. + +AMADEUS + +That doesn't scare me, Cecilia, for now I'm prepared to fight for +you--now I'm worthy and capable of fighting for you. Hereafter you +shall never more be left unprotected as you were in the past--my +tenderness will guard you. + +CECILIA + +But I don't want to be guarded! I shall no longer permit you to guard +me! And I can no more give you any promises than I care to accept +yours. + +AMADEUS + +And if I should forgo them myself--if I should risk it on a mere +uncertainty? + +CECILIA + +That's more than I dare--whether the risk concern you or myself ... +more than I would risk even with certainty in mind. (_She turns away +from him_) + +AMADEUS + +Then I cannot possibly understand you, Cecilia. What is it you want to +make us pay for so dearly--yes, both of us? Is it our guilt or our +happiness? + +CECILIA + +Why should either one of them be paid for? What's the use of such a +word between us? Neither one of us has done anything that requires +atonement. Neither one of us has any right to reproach the other one. +Both of us have been free, and each one has used his freedom in +accordance with his own desire and ability. I think nothing has +happened but what must happen. We have trusted each other too much--or +too little. We were neither made to love each other faithfully forever +nor to maintain a pure friendship. Others have become resigned--I +can't--and you mustn't allow yourself, Amadeus. Our experiment has +failed. Let us admit our disillusionment. That can be borne. But I have +no curiosity to find how it tastes when everything comes to an end in +sheer loathing. + +AMADEUS + +Comes to an end, you say?--But that can't be possible, Cecilia! It +can't be possible that we should really leave each other--part from +each other like strangers! We are still face to face--each of us can +feel the closeness of the other one--and that's why you cannot yet +realize what it would mean. Consider all the things that might come +into your life as well as into mine during a separation of that +kind--so prolonged and so void of responsibility--things that now have +no place in your imagination even, and for which there could be no +reparation. + +CECILIA + +Could they be worse than what has already befallen me? Faithfulness to +each other in the ordinary sense matters least of all, I should think. +And we could probably more easily find our way back to each other +sometime from almost any other experience than that adventure of last +night, or from a moment of self-deception like this one. + +AMADEUS + +Find our way back, you say...? + +CECILIA + +It's also possible that, after a couple of years, we won't care to do +so--that everything may be over between us to such an extent that we +cannot imagine it now. That's possible, I say. But if we stayed +together now, everything would be over within the next few seconds. For +then we should be no better than all those we have despised +hitherto--the one difference being that we had arranged ourselves more +comfortably than the rest. + +ALBERT (_entering_) + +I beg your pardon for coming in unannounced like this, but.... + +CECILIA (_withdraws toward the background_) + +AMADEUS (_going to meet Albert_) + +Yes, I know--you didn't find the Prince--he has been here himself. + +ALBERT + +What does that mean? + +AMADEUS + +That there was no reason why I should want to kill him. + +ALBERT + +I see.--Well, I'll be hanged if I haven't suspected something of the +kind myself!--Then I suppose everything is once more in perfect order +in this house? + +AMADEUS + +Yes, in perfect order. When I return, Cecilia will be in Berlin, and I +shall not follow her. + +ALBERT + +What? Then you are going to ask for a separation after all? + +CECILIA (_approaching them_) + +No, we are not going to ask for a separation. We'll just separate. + +ALBERT + +What?... (_He looks from one to the other; pause_) Really I like that. +Indeed, I do. I think both of you are splendid--but especially you, +Cecilia--and, of course, there is nothing else left for you to do now. + +PETER (_enters, carrying some of his puppets_) + +Papa! Mamma! I can play theater beautifully. Won't you come and look? +Oh, please come! + +CECILIA (_strokes his hair_) + +AMADEUS (_remains standing at some distance from them_) + +ALBERT + +Well, isn't this just like life--the life you are always talking of! +This should be the moment when you had to fall into each others' arms +with absolute certainty, if you had had the luck to be imaginatively +created--that is, not by me, of course. + +CECILIA + +No, the boy means too much to both of us to make that possible--don't +you think so, Amadeus? + +AMADEUS (_losing control of himself after a glance at Peter_) All at +once to be alone in the world again--it's a thought I can hardly face! + +CECILIA + +But we shall be somewhere in that world, you know--your child, and the +mother of your child. We are not parting as enemies, after all.... +(_With a smile_) I am even ready to come here and sing that Solo of +yours--although we shall not be able to study it together. + +AMADEUS + +It's more than I can bear...! + +CECILIA + +It will have to be borne. We must work--both of us. + +ALBERT (_to Amadeus_) + +Yes, and it remains to be seen what effect a real sorrow like this may +have on you. It's just what you have lacked so far. I expect you'll get +a lot out of it. In a sense, I might almost envy you. + +PETER + +What's the matter?... Look here, mamma, how they jump about! That's the +king, and this is the devil. + +ALBERT + +Come on, sonny, and play your piece to _me_. But I insist that the +hero must either marry in the end, or be carried off by the devil. In +either case you can go home quite satisfied when the curtain drops. +(_He goes out with Peter_) + +CECILIA (_after a glance at Amadeus, starts to follow them_) + +AMADEUS + +Cecilia! + +CECILIA (_turns back_) + +AMADEUS (_passionately_) + +Why didn't you show me the door, Cecilia, when you knew...? + +CECILIA + +Well, _did_ I know?... I have loved you, Amadeus. And all I wanted, +perhaps, was that the inevitable end should be worthy of our love--that +we should part after a final moment of bliss, and with a pang. + +AMADEUS + +With a pang, you say...? Do you really feel anything like that? + +CECILIA (_coming close to him and speaking very gently_) + +Why don't you try to understand me, Amadeus? I feel it just as keenly +as you do. But there is another thing I feel more strongly than you, +and it is well for us both that I do. It is this, Amadeus, that we have +been so much to each other that we must keep the memory of it pure. If +that was nothing but an adventure last night, then we have never been +worthy of our past happiness.... If it was a farewell, then we may +expect new happiness in the future ... perhaps.... (_She starts toward +the garden_) + +AMADEUS + +And that's our reward, then, for having always been honest to each +other! + +CECILIA (_turning toward him again_) + +Honest, you call it...? Have we always been that? + +AMADEUS + +Cecilia! + +CECILIA + +No, I can't think so any longer. Let everything else have been +honest--but that both of us should have resigned ourselves so promptly +when you told me of your passion for the Countess and I confessed my +affection for Sigismund--that was not honest. If each of us had then +flung his scorn, his bitterness, his despair into the face of the other +one, instead of trying to appear self-controlled and superior--then we +should have been honest--which, as it was, we were not. (_She walks +across the veranda outside and disappears into the garden_) + +AMADEUS (_to himself_) + +All right--then we were not honest. (_After a pause_) And suppose we +had been?! (_For a moment he seems to consider; then he goes to the +writing desk and puts the manuscript music lying there into the little +handbag; after a glance into the garden, he goes into his own room, +returning at once with his hat and overcoat; then he opens the handbag +again and picks out a manuscript, which he places on the piano; then he +goes out rapidly, taking hat, overcoat and handbag with him; a brief +pause follows_) + +CECILIA (_enters and notices that the handbag is gone; she goes quickly +into Amadeus' room, but returns immediately; she crosses the room to +the main entrance and remains standing there, opening her arms widely +at first, and then letting them sink down again; going to the piano, +she catches sight of the manuscript lying there and picks it up; while +looking at it, she sinks down on the piano stool_) + +PETER (appears on the veranda with Albert and calls from there) Mother! + +CECILIA (_does not hear him_) + +ALBERT (_observing that Cecilia is alone and sunk in grief, takes Peter +with him into the garden again_) + +CECILIA (_begins to weep softly and lets her head sink down on the +piano_) + + +CURTAIN + + + + +COUNTESS MIZZIE + +OR + +THE FAMILY REUNION + +(_Komtesse Mizzi oder der Familientag_) + +A COMEDY IN ONE ACT + + +1907 + + + + +PERSONS + + +COUNT ARPAD PAZMANDY + +MIZZIE } His daughter + +PRINCE EGON RAVENSTEIN + +LOLO LANGHUBER + +PHILIP + +PROFESSOR WINDHOFER + +WASNER + +THE GARDENER + +THE VALET + + + + +COUNTESS MIZZIE + + +_The garden of Count Arpad. In the background, tall iron fence. Near +the middle of this, but a little more to the right, there is a gate. In +the foreground, at the left, appears the facade of the two-storied +villa, which used to be an imperial hunting lodge about 180 years ago +and was remodeled about thirty years ago. A narrow terrace runs along +the main floor, which is raised above the ground. Three wide stairs +lead from the terrace down to the garden. French doors, which are +standing open, lead from the terrace into the drawing-room. The windows +of the upper floor are of ordinary design. Above that floor appears a +small balcony, to which access is had through a dormer window. This +balcony holds a profusion of flowering plants. A garden seat, a small +table and an armchair stand under a tree at the right, in the +foreground._ + + +COUNT (_enters from the right; he is an elderly man with gray +mustaches, but must still be counted decidedly good-looking; his +bearing and manners indicate the retired officer; he wears a riding +suit and carries a crop_) + +VALET (_entering behind the Count_) + +At what time does Your Grace desire to have dinner to-day? + +COUNT (_who speaks with the laconism affected by his former colleagues, +and who, at that particular moment, is engaged in lighting a huge +cigar_) At two. + +VALET + +And when is the carriage to be ready, Your Grace? + +MIZZIE[1] (_appearing on the balcony with a palette and a bunch of +brushes in one hand, calls down to her father_) Good morning, papa. + + [1] Diminutive of Maria. + +COUNT + +Morning, Mizzie. + +MIZZIE + +You left me all alone for breakfast again, papa. Where have you been +anyhow? + +COUNT + +Most everywhere. Rode out by way of Mauer and Rodaun.[2] Perfectly +splendid day. And what are you doing? At work already? Is there +anything new to be seen soon? + + [2] Small towns south of Vienna. The subsequent reference to + the Tiergarten shows that the Pazmandy residence must be in + the little suburb of Lainz, at the extreme southwestern corner + of Vienna. Near the Tiergarten there is actually an imperial + hunting lodge, which the playwright seems to have appropriated + for his purpose. + +MIZZIE + +Yes, indeed, papa. Nothing but flowers though, as usual. + +COUNT + +Isn't the professor coming to see you to-day? + +MIZZIE + +Yes, but not until one. + +COUNT + +Well, don't let me interrupt you. + +MIZZIE (_throws a kiss to him and disappears from the balcony_) + +COUNT (_to the valet_) + +What are you waiting for? Oh, the carriage. I'm not going out again +to-day. Joseph can take a holiday. Or wait a moment. (_He calls up to +the balcony_) Say, Mizzie.... + +MIZZIE (_reappears on the balcony_) + +COUNT + +Sorry to disturb you again. Do you think you'll want the carriage +to-day? + +MIZZIE + +No, thank you, papa. I can think of nothing.... No, thanks. (_She +disappears again_) + +COUNT + +So Joseph can do what he pleases this afternoon. That's--oh, see that +Franz gives the nag a good rubbing down. We got a little excited this +morning--both of us. + +VALET (_goes out_) + +COUNT (_sits down on the garden seat, picks up a newspaper from the +table and begins to read_) + +GARDENER (_enters_) + +Good morning, Your Grace. + +COUNT + +Morning, Peter. What's up? + +GARDENER + +With Your Grace's permission, I have just cut the tea roses. + +COUNT + +Why all that lot? + +GARDENER + +The bush is full up. It ain't wise, Your Grace, to leave 'em on the +stem much longer. If maybe Your Grace could find some use.... + +COUNT + +Haven't got any. Why do you stand there looking at me? I'm not going to +the city. I won't need any flowers. Why don't you put them in some of +those vases and things that are standing about in there? Quite the +fashion nowadays, isn't it? (_He takes the bunch of flowers from the +gardener and inhales their fragrance while he seems to be pondering +something_) Wasn't that a carriage that stopped here? + +GARDENER + +That's His Highness' pair of blacks. I know 'em by their step. + +COUNT + +Thanks very much then. (_He hands back the roses_) + +PRINCE (_comes in by the gate_) + +COUNT (_goes to meet him_) + +GARDENER + +Good morning, Your Highness. + +PRINCE + +Hello, Peter. + +GARDENER (_goes out toward the right_) + +PRINCE (_wears a light-colored Summer suit; is fifty-five, but doesn't +look it; tall and slender; his manner of speech suggests the diplomat, +who is as much at home in French as in his native tongue_) + +COUNT + +Delighted, old chap. How goes it? + +PRINCE + +Thanks. Splendid day. + +COUNT (_offers him one of his gigantic cigars_) + +PRINCE + +No, thank you, not before lunch. Only one of my own cigarettes, if you +permit. (_He takes a cigarette from his case and lights it_) + +COUNT + +So you've found time to drop in at last. Do you know how long you +haven't been here? Three weeks. + +PRINCE (_glancing toward the balcony_) + +Really that long? + +COUNT + +What is it that makes you so scarce? + +PRINCE + +You mustn't mind. But you are right, of course. And even to-day I come +only to say good-by. + +COUNT + +What--good-by? + +PRINCE + +I shall be off to-morrow. + +COUNT + +You're going away? Where? + +PRINCE + +The sea shore. And you--have you made any plans yet? + +COUNT + +I haven't given a thought to it yet--this year. + +PRINCE + +Well, of course, it's wonderful right here--with your enormous park. +But you have to go somewhere later in the Summer? + +COUNT + +Don't know yet. But it's all one. + +PRINCE + +What's wrong now? + +COUNT + +Oh, my dear old friend, it's going downhill. + +PRINCE + +How? That's a funny way of talking, Arpad. What do you mean by +downhill? + +COUNT + +One grows old, Egon. + +PRINCE + +Yes, and gets accustomed to it. + +COUNT + +What do you know about it--you who are five years younger? + +PRINCE + +Six almost. But at fifty-five the springtime of life is pretty well +over. Well--one gets resigned to it. + +COUNT + +You have always been something of a philosopher, old chap. + +PRINCE + +Anyhow, I can't see what's the matter with you. You look fine. (_Seats +himself; frequently during this scene he glances up at the balcony; +pause_) + +COUNT (_with sudden decision_) + +Have you heard the latest? She's going to marry. + +PRINCE + +Who's going to marry? + +COUNT + +Do you have to ask? Can't you guess? + +PRINCE + +Oh, I see. Thought it might be Mizzie. And that would also.... So Lolo +is going to marry. + +COUNT + +She is. + +PRINCE + +But that's hardly the "latest." + +COUNT + +Why not? + +PRINCE + +It's what she has promised, or threatened, or whatever you choose to +call it, these last three years. + +COUNT + +Three, you say? May just as well say ten. Or eighteen. Yes, indeed. In +fact, since the very start of this affair between her and me. It has +always been a fixed idea with her. "If ever a decent man asks me to +marry him, I'll get off the stage _stante pede_." It was almost the +first thing she told me. You have heard it yourself a couple of times. +And now he's come--the one she has been waiting for--and she's to get +married. + +PRINCE + +Hope he's decent at least. + +COUNT + +Yes, you're very witty! But is that your only way of showing sympathy +in a serious moment like this? + +PRINCE + +Now! (_He puts his hand on the Count's arm_) + +COUNT + +Well, I assure you, it's a serious moment. It's no small matter when +you have lived twenty years with somebody--in a _near_-marital state; +when you have been spending your best years with her, and really shared +her joys and sorrows--until you have come to think at last, that it's +never going to end--and then she comes to you one fine day and says: +"God bless you, dear, but I'm going to get wedded on the sixteenth...." +Oh, damn the whole story! (_He gets up and begins to walk about_) And I +can't blame her even. Because I understand perfectly. So what can you +do about it? + +PRINCE + +You've always been much too kind, Arpad. + +COUNT + +Nothing kind about it. Why shouldn't I understand? The clock has struck +thirty-eight for her. And she has said adieu to her profession. So that +anybody can sympathize with her feeling that there is no fun to go on +as a ballet dancer retired on half pay and mistress on active service +to Count Pazmandy, who'll be nothing but an old fool either, as time +runs along. Of course, I have been prepared for it. And I haven't +blamed her a bit--'pon my soul! + +PRINCE + +So you have parted as perfect friends? + +COUNT + +Certainly. In fact, our leave-taking was quite jolly. 'Pon my soul, I +never suspected at first how tough it would prove. It's only by degrees +it has come home to me. And that's quite a remarkable story, I must +say.... + +PRINCE + +What's remarkable about it? + +COUNT + +I suppose I had better tell you all about it. On my way home that last +time--one night last week--I had a feeling all of a sudden--I don't +know how to express it ... tremendously relieved, that's what I felt. +Now you are a free man, I said to myself. Don't have to drive to +Mayerhof Street[3] every night God grants you, merely to dine and +chatter with Lolo, or just sit there listening to her. Had come to be +pretty boresome at times, you know. And then the drive home in the +middle of the night, and, on top of it, to be called to account when +you happened to be dining with a friend in the Casino or taking your +daughter to the opera or a theater. To cut it short--I was in high +feather going home that night. My head was full of plans already.... +No, nothing of the kind you have in mind! But plans for traveling, as I +have long wanted to do--to Africa, or India, like a free man.... That +is, I should have brought my little girl along, of course.... Yes, you +may well laugh at my calling her a little girl still. + + [3] A street in the district of Wieden, near one of the + principal shopping districts and leading to the great + Theresian Riding Academy. + +PRINCE + +Nothing of the kind. Mizzie looks exactly like a young girl. Like quite +a young one. Especially in that Florentine straw hat she was wearing a +while ago. + +COUNT + +Like a young girl, you say! And yet she's exactly of an age with Lolo. +You know, of course! Yes, we're growing old, Egon. Every one of us. Oh, +yes.... And lonely. But really, I didn't notice it to begin with. It +was only by degrees it got hold of me. The first days after that +farewell feast were not so very bad. But the day before yesterday, and +yesterday, as the time approached when I used to start for Mayerhof +Street.... And when Peter brought in those roses a moment ago--for +Lolo, of course--why, then it seemed pretty plain to me that I had +become a widower for the second time in my life. Yes, my dear fellow. +And this time forever. Now comes the loneliness. It has come already. + +PRINCE + +But that's nonsense--loneliness! + +COUNT + +Pardon me, but you can't understand. Your way of living has been so +different from mine. You have not let yourself be dragged into anything +new since your poor wife died ten years ago. Into nothing of a serious +nature, I mean. And besides, you have a profession, in a sense. + +PRINCE + +Have I? + +COUNT + +Well, as a member of the Upper House. + +PRINCE + +Oh, I see. + +COUNT + +And twice you have almost been put into the cabinet. + +PRINCE + +Yes, almost.... + +COUNT + +Who knows? Perhaps you will break in some time. And I'm all done. Had +myself retired three years ago in the bargain--like a fool. + +PRINCE (_with a smile_) + +That's why you are a free man now. Perfectly free. With the world open +before you. + +COUNT + +And no desire to do a thing, old man. That's the whole story. Since +that time I haven't gone to the Casino even. Do you know what I have +been doing the last few nights? I have sat under that tree with +Mizzie--playing domino. + +PRINCE + +Well, don't you see? That's not to be lonely. When you have a daughter, +and particularly such a sensible one, with whom you have always got on +so well.... What does she say about your staying at home nights anyhow? + +COUNT + +Nothing. Besides, it has happened before, quite frequently. She says +nothing at all. And what could she say? It seems to me she has never +noticed anything. Do you think she can have known about Lolo? + +PRINCE (_laughing_) + +Man alive! + +COUNT + +Of course. Yes, I know. Of course, she must have known. But then, I was +still almost a young man when her mother died. I hope it hasn't hurt +her feelings. + +PRINCE + +No, _that_ wouldn't. (_Casually_) But being left so much alone may have +troubled her at times, I should think. + +COUNT + +Has she complained of me? There's no reason why you shouldn't tell me. + +PRINCE + +I am not in her confidence. She has never complained to me. And, +heavens, it may never have troubled her at all. She has so long been +accustomed to this quiet, retired life. + +COUNT + +Yes, and she seems to have a taste for it, too. And then she used to go +out a good deal until a few years ago. Between you and me, Egon, as +late as three years ago--no, two years ago--I still thought she might +make the plunge after all. + +PRINCE + +What plunge? Oh, I see.... + +COUNT + +If you could only guess what kind of men have been paying attention to +her quite recently.... + +PRINCE + +That's only natural. + +COUNT + +But she won't. She absolutely won't. What I mean is, that she can't be +feeling so very lonely ... otherwise she would ... as she has had +plenty of opportunity.... + +PRINCE + +Certainly. It's her own choice. And then Mizzie has an additional +resource in her painting. It's a case like that of my blessed aunt, the +late Fanny Hohenstein, who went on writing books to a venerable old age +and never wanted to hear a word about marriage. + +COUNT + +It may have some connection with her artistic aspirations. At times I'm +inclined to look for some psychological connection between all these +morbid tendencies. + +PRINCE + +Morbid, you say? But you can't possibly call Mizzie morbid. + +COUNT + +Oh, it's all over now. But there was a time.... + +PRINCE + +I have always found Mizzie very sensible and very well balanced. After +all, painting roses and violets doesn't prove a person morbid by any +means. + +COUNT + +You don't think me such a fool that her violets and roses could make me +believe.... But if you remember when she was still a young girl.... + +PRINCE + +What then? + +COUNT + +Oh, that story at the time Fedor Wangenheim wanted to marry her. + +PRINCE + +O Lord, are you still thinking of that? Besides, there was no truth in +it. And that was eighteen or twenty years ago almost. + +COUNT + +Her wanting to join the Ursuline Sisters rather than marry that nice +young fellow, to whom she was as good as engaged already--and then up +and away from home all at once--you might call that morbid, don't you +think? + +PRINCE + +What has put you in mind of that ancient story to-day? + +COUNT + +Ancient, you say? I feel as if it happened last year only. It was at +the very time when my own affair with Lolo had just begun. Ah, harking +back like that...! And if anybody had foretold me at the time...! You +know, it really began like any ordinary adventure. In the same +reckless, crazy way. Yes, crazy--that's it. Not that I want to make +myself out worse than I am, but it was lucky for all of us that my poor +wife had already been dead a couple of years. Lolo seemed ... my fate. +Mistress and wife at the same time. Because she's such a wonderful +cook, you know. And the way she makes you comfortable. And always in +good humor--never a cross word.... Well, it's all over. Don't let us +talk of it.... (_Pause_) Tell me, won't you stay for lunch? And I must +call Mizzie. + +PRINCE (_checking him_) + +Wait--I have something to tell you. (_Casually, almost facetiously_) I +want you to be prepared. + +COUNT + +Why? For what? + +PRINCE + +There is a young man coming here to be introduced. + +COUNT (_astonished_) + +What? A young man? + +PRINCE + +If you have no objection. + +COUNT + +Why should I object? But who is he? + +PRINCE + +Dear Arpad--he's my son. + +COUNT (_greatly surprised_) + +What? + +PRINCE + +Yes, my son. You see, I didn't want--as I'm going away.... + +COUNT + +Your son? You've got a son? + +PRINCE + +I have. + +COUNT + +Well, did you ever...! You have got a young man who is your son--or +rather, you have got a son who is a young man. How old? + +PRINCE + +Seventeen. + +COUNT + +Seventeen! And you haven't told me before! No, Egon ... Egon! And tell +me ... seventeen...? My dear chap, then your wife was still alive.... + +PRINCE + +Yes, my wife was still alive at the time. You see, Arpad, one gets +mixed up in all sorts of strange affairs. + +COUNT + +'Pon my soul, so it seems! + +PRINCE + +And thus, one fine day, you find yourself having a son of seventeen +with whom you go traveling. + +COUNT + +So it's with him you are going away? + +PRINCE + +I am taking that liberty. + +COUNT + +No, I couldn't possibly tell you.... Why, he has got a son of +seventeen!... (_Suddenly he grasps the hand of the Prince, and then +puts his arms about him_) And if I may ask ... the mother of that young +gentleman, your son ... how it happens ... as you have started telling +me.... + +PRINCE + +She's dead long ago. Died a couple of weeks after he was born. A mere +slip of a girl. + +COUNT + +Of the common people? + +PRINCE + +Oh, of course. But a charming creature. I may as well tell you +everything about it. That is, as far as I can recall it myself. The +whole story seems like a dream. And if it were not for the boy.... + +COUNT + +And all that you tell me only now! To-day only--just before the boy is +coming here! + +PRINCE + +You never can tell how a thing like that may be received. + +COUNT + +Tut, tut! Received, you say...? Did you believe perhaps ... I'm +something of a philosopher myself, after all.... And you call yourself +a friend of mine! + +PRINCE + +Not a soul has known it--not a single soul in the whole world. + +COUNT + +But you might have told me. Really, I don't see how you could.... Come +now, it wasn't quite nice. + +PRINCE + +I wanted to wait and see how the boy developed. You never can tell.... + +COUNT + +Of course, with a mixed pedigree like that.... But you seem reassured +now? + +PRINCE + +Oh, yes, he's a fine fellow. + +COUNT (_embracing him again_) + +And where has he been living until now? + +PRINCE + +His earliest years were spent a good way from Vienna--in the Tirol. + +COUNT + +With peasants? + +PRINCE + +No, with a small landowner. Then he went to school for some time at +Innsbruck. And during the last few years I have been sending him to the +preparatory school at Krems.[4] + + [4] Innsbruck is the capital of the province of Tirol. Krems + is a small city on the Donau, not so very far from Vienna, + having a fine high school or "gymnasium." The idea is, of + course, that as the boy grew up, his father became more and + more interested and wanted to have him within easier reach. + +COUNT + +And you have seen him frequently? + +PRINCE + +Of course. + +COUNT + +And what's _his_ idea of it anyhow? + +PRINCE + +Up to a few days ago he thought that he had lost both his parents--his +father as well--and that I was a friend of his dead father. + +MIZZIE (_appearing on the balcony_) + +Good morning, Prince Egon. + +PRINCE + +Good morning, Mizzie. + +COUNT + +Well, won't you come down a while? + +MIZZIE + +Oh, if I am not in the way.... (_She disappears_) + +COUNT + +And what are we going to say to Mizzie? + +PRINCE + +I prefer to leave that to you, of course. But as I am adopting the boy +anyhow, and as a special decree by His Majesty will probably enable him +to assume my name in a few days ... + +COUNT (_surprised_) + +What? + +PRINCE + +... I think it would be wiser to tell Mizzie the truth at once. + +COUNT + +Certainly, certainly--and why shouldn't we? Seeing that you are +adopting him.... It's really funny--but, you see, a daughter, even when +she gets to be an old maid, is nothing but a little girl to her father. + +MIZZIE (_appears; she is thirty-seven, but still very attractive; wears +a Florentine straw hat and a white dress; she gives the Count a kiss +before holding out her hand to the Prince_) Well, how do you do, Prince +Egon? We don't see much of you these days. + +PRINCE + +Thank you.--Have you been very industrious? + +MIZZIE + +Painting a few flowers. + +COUNT + +Why so modest, Mizzie? (_To the Prince_) Professor Windhofer told her +recently that she could safely exhibit. Won't have to fear comparison +with Mrs. Wisinger-Florian herself.[5] + + [5] "Neben der Wiesinger-Florian." The name is slightly + misspelt in the German text. It is that of Mrs. Olga + Wisinger-Florian, a well-known Viennese painter of floral + pieces, whose work is represented in many of the big galleries + in Europe. She was born in 1844, made her name in the early + eighties, and is still living. + +MIZZIE + +That's so, perhaps. But I have no ambition of that kind. + +PRINCE + +I'm rather against exhibiting, too. It puts you at the mercy of any +newspaper scribbler. + +MIZZIE + +Well, how about the members of the Upper House--at least when they make +speeches? + +COUNT + +And how about all of us? Is there anything into which they don't poke +their noses? + +PRINCE + +Yes, thanks to prevailing tendencies, there are people who would +blackguard your pictures merely because you happen to be a countess, +Mizzie. + +COUNT + +Yes, you're right indeed. + +VALET (_entering_) + +Your Grace is wanted on the telephone. + +COUNT + +Who is it? What is it about? + +VALET + +There is somebody who wishes to speak to Your Grace personally. + +COUNT + +You'll have to excuse me a moment. (_To the Prince, in a lowered +voice_) Tell her now--while I am away. I prefer it. (_He goes out +followed by the valet_) + +MIZZIE + +Somebody on the telephone--do you think papa can have fallen into new +bondage already? (_She seats herself_) + +PRINCE + +Into _new_ bondage, you say? + +MIZZIE + +Lolo used always to telephone about this time. But it's all over with +her now. You know it, don't you? + +PRINCE + +I just heard it. + +MIZZIE + +And what do you think of it, Prince Egon. I am rather sorry, to tell +the truth. If he tries anything new now, I'm sure he'll burn his +fingers. And I do fear there is something in the air. You see, he's +still too young for his years. + +PRINCE + +Yes, that's so. + +MIZZIE (_turning so that she faces the Prince_) + +And by the way, you haven't been here for ever so long. + +PRINCE + +You haven't missed me very much ... I fear.... Your art ... and heaven +knows what else.... + +MIZZIE (_without affectation_) + +Nevertheless.... + +PRINCE + +Awfully kind of you.... (_Pause_) + +MIZZIE + +What makes you speechless to-day? Tell me something. Isn't there +anything new in the world at all? + +PRINCE (_as if he had thought of it only that moment_) + +Our son has just passed his examinations for the university. + +MIZZIE (_slightly perturbed_) + +I hope you have more interesting news to relate. + +PRINCE + +More interesting.... + +MIZZIE + +Or news, at least, that concerns me more closely than the career of a +strange young man. + +PRINCE + +I have felt obliged, however, to keep you informed about the more +important stages in the career of this young man. When he was about to +be confirmed, I took the liberty to report the fact to you. But, of +course, we don't have to talk any more about it. + +MIZZIE + +He pulled through, I hope? + +PRINCE + +With honors. + +MIZZIE + +The stock seems to be improving. + +PRINCE + +Let us hope so. + +MIZZIE + +And now the great moment is approaching, I suppose. + +PRINCE + +What moment? + +MIZZIE + +Have you forgotten already? As soon as he had passed his examinations, +you meant to reveal yourself as his father. + +PRINCE + +So I have done already. + +MIZZIE + +You--have told him already? + +PRINCE + +I have. + +MIZZIE (_after a pause, without looking at him_) + +And his mother--is dead...? + +PRINCE + +She is--so far. + +MIZZIE + +And forever. (_Rising_) + +PRINCE + +As you please. + +[_The Count enters, followed by the valet._ + +VALET + +But it was Your Grace who said that Joseph could be free. + +COUNT + +Yes, yes, it's all right. + +VALET (_goes out_) + +MIZZIE + +What's the matter, papa? + +COUNT + +Nothing, my girl, nothing. I wanted to get somewhere quick--and that +infernal Joseph.... If you don't mind, Mizzie, I want to have a few +words with Egon.... (_To the Prince_) Do you know, she has been trying +to get me before. I mean Lolo. But she couldn't get the number. And now +Laura telephones--oh, well, that's her maid, you know--that she has +just started on her way here. + +PRINCE + +Here? To see you? + +COUNT + +Yes. + +PRINCE + +But why? + +COUNT + +Oh, I think I can guess. You see, she has never put her foot in this +place, of course, and I have been promising her all the time that she +could come here once to have a look at the house and the park before +she married. Her standing grievance has always been that I couldn't +receive her here. On account of Mizzie, you know. Which she has +understood perfectly well. And to sneak her in here some time when +Mizzie was not at home--well, for that kind of thing I have never had +any taste. And so she sends me a telephone message, that the marriage +is set for the day after to-morrow, and that she is on her way here +now. + +PRINCE + +Well, what of it? She is not coming here as your mistress, and so I +can't see that you have any reason for embarrassment. + +COUNT + +But to-day of all days--and with your son due at any moment. + +PRINCE + +You can leave him to me. + +COUNT + +But I don't want it. I'm going to meet the carriage and see if I can +stop her. It makes me nervous. You'll have to ask your son to excuse me +for a little while. Good-by, Mizzie. I'll be back right away. (_He goes +out_) + +PRINCE + +Miss Lolo has sent word that she's coming to call, and your papa +doesn't like it. + +MIZZIE + +What's that? Has Lolo sent word? Is she coming here? + +PRINCE + +Your father has been promising her a chance to look over the place +before she was married. And now he has gone to meet the carriage in +order to steer her off. + +MIZZIE + +How childish! And how pathetic, when you come to think of it! I should +really like to make her acquaintance. Don't you think it's too silly? +There is my father, spending half his lifetime with a person who is +probably very attractive--and I don't get a chance--don't have the +right--to shake hands with her even. Why does he object to it anyhow? +He ought to understand that I know all about it. + +PRINCE + +Oh, heavens, that's the way he is made. And perhaps he might not have +minded so much, if he were not expecting another visit at this very +moment.... + +MIZZIE + +Another visit, you say? + +PRINCE + +For which I took the liberty to prepare him. + +MIZZIE + +Who is it? + +PRINCE + +Our son. + +MIZZIE + +Are you ... bringing your son here? + +PRINCE + +He'll be here in half an hour at the most. + +MIZZIE + +I say, Prince ... this is not a joke you're trying to spring on me? + +PRINCE + +By no means. On a departed ... what an idea! + +MIZZIE + +Is it really true? He's coming here? + +PRINCE + +Yes. + +MIZZIE + +Apparently you still think that nothing but a whim keeps me from having +anything to do with the boy? + +PRINCE + +A whim...? No. Seeing how consistent you have been in this matter, it +would hardly be safe for me to call it that. And when I bear in mind +how you have had the strength all these years not even to ask any +questions about him.... + +MIZZIE + +There has been nothing admirable about that. I have had the strength to +do what was worse ... when I had to let him be taken away ... a week +after he was born.... + +PRINCE + +Yes, what else could you--could we have done at the time? The +arrangements made by me at the time, and approved by you in the end, +represented absolutely the most expedient thing we could do under the +circumstances. + +MIZZIE + +I have never questioned their expediency. + +PRINCE + +It was more than expedient, Mizzie. More than our own fate was at +stake. Others might have come to grief if the truth had been revealed +at the time. My wife, with her weak heart, had probably never survived. + +MIZZIE + +Oh, that weak heart.... + +PRINCE + +And your father, Mizzie.... Think of your father! + +MIZZIE + +You may be sure he would have accepted the inevitable. That was the +very time when he began his affair with Lolo. Otherwise everything +might not have come off so smoothly. Otherwise he might have been more +concerned about me. I could never have stayed away several months if he +hadn't found it very convenient at that particular moment. And there +was only one danger connected with the whole story--that you might be +shot dead by Fedor Wangenheim, my dear Prince. + +PRINCE + +Why I by him? It might have taken another turn. You are not a believer +in judgment by ordeal, are you? And the outcome might have proved +questionable from such a point of view even. You see, we poor mortals +can never be sure how things of that kind are regarded up above. + +MIZZIE + +You would never talk like that in the Upper House--supposing you ever +opened your mouth during one of its sessions. + +PRINCE + +Possibly not. But the fundamental thing remains, that no amount of +honesty or daring could have availed in the least at the time. It would +have been nothing but useless cruelty toward those nearest to us. It's +doubtful whether a dispensation could have been obtained--and besides, +the Princess would never have agreed to a divorce--which you know as +well as I do. + +MIZZIE + +Just as if I had cared in the least for the ceremony...! + +PRINCE + +Oh.... + +MIZZIE + +Not in the least. Is that new to you? Didn't I tell you so at the time? +Oh, you'll never guess what might ... (_her words emphasized by her +glance_) what I ... of what I might have been capable at that time. I +would have followed you anywhere--everywhere--even as your mistress. I +and the child. To Switzerland, to America. After all, we could have +lived wherever it happened to suit us. And perhaps, if you had gone +away, they might never even have noticed your absence in the Upper +House. + +PRINCE + +Yes, of course, we might have run away and settled down somewhere +abroad.... But do you still believe that a situation like that would +have proved agreeable in the long run, or even bearable? + +MIZZIE + +No, I don't nowadays. Because, you see, I know you now. But at that +time I was in love with you. And it is possible that I--might have gone +on loving you for a long time, had you not proved too _cowardly_ to +assume the responsibility for what had happened.... Yes, too much of a +coward, Prince Egon. + +PRINCE + +Whether that be the proper word.... + +MIZZIE + +Well, I don't know of any other. There was no hesitation on my part. I +was ready to face everything--with joy and pride. I was ready to be a +mother, and to confess myself the mother of our child. And you knew it, +Egon. I told you so seventeen years ago, in that little house in the +woods where you kept me hidden. But half-measures have never appealed +to me. I wanted to be a mother in every respect or not at all. The day +I had to let the boy be taken away from me, I made up my mind never +more to trouble myself about him. And for that reason I find it +ridiculous of you to bring him here all of a sudden. If you'll allow me +to give you a piece of good advice, you'll go and meet him, as papa has +gone to meet Lolo--and take him back home again. + +PRINCE + +I wouldn't dream of doing so. After what I have just had to hear from +you again, it seems settled that his mother must remain dead. And that +means that I must take still better care of him. He is my son in the +eyes of the world too. I have adopted him. + +MIZZIE + +Have you...? + +PRINCE + +To-morrow he will probably be able to assume my name. I shall introduce +him wherever it suits me. And of course, first of all to my old +friend--your father. If you should find the sight of him disagreeable, +there will be nothing left for you but to stay in your room while he is +here. + +MIZZIE + +If you believe that I think your tone very appropriate.... + +PRINCE + +Oh, just as appropriate as your bad temper. + +MIZZIE + +My bad temper...? Do I look it? Really, if you please ... I have simply +permitted myself to find this fancy of yours in rather poor taste. +Otherwise my temper is just as good as ever. + +PRINCE + +I have no doubt of your good humor under ordinary circumstances.... I +am perfectly aware, for that matter, that you have managed to become +reconciled to your fate. I, too, have managed to submit to a fate +which, in its own way, has been no less painful than yours. + +MIZZIE + +In what way? To what fate have you had to submit...? Everybody can't +become a cabinet minister. Oh, I see ... that remark must refer to the +fact that His Highness did me the honor ten years ago, after the +blissful departure of his noble spouse, to apply for my hand. + +PRINCE + +And again seven years ago, if you'll be kind enough to remember. + +MIZZIE + +Oh, yes, I do remember. Nor have I ever given you any cause to question +my good memory. + +PRINCE + +And I hope you have never ascribed my proposals to anything like a +desire to expiate some kind of guilt. I asked you to become my wife +simply because of my conviction that true happiness was to be found +only by your side. + +MIZZIE + +True happiness!... Oh, what a mistake! + +PRINCE + +Yes, I do believe that it was a mistake at that moment. Ten years ago +it was probably still too early. And so it was, perhaps, seven years +ago. But not to-day. + +MIZZIE + +Yes, to-day too, my dear Prince. Your fate has been never to know me, +never to understand me at all--no more when I loved you than when I +hated you, and not even during the long time when I have been +completely indifferent toward you. + +PRINCE + +I have always known you, Mizzie. I know more about you than you seem +able to guess. Thus, for instance, I am not unfamiliar with the fact +that you have spent the last seventeen years in more profitable +pursuits than weeping over a man who, in all likelihood, was not worthy +of you at the time in question. I am even aware that you have chosen to +expose yourself to several disillusionments subsequent to the one +suffered at my hands. + +MIZZIE + +Disillusionments, you say? Well, for your consolation, my dear Prince, +I can assure you that some of them proved very enjoyable. + +PRINCE + +I know that, too. Otherwise I should hardly have dared to call myself +familiar with the history of your life. + +MIZZIE + +And do you think that I am not familiar with yours? Do you want me to +present you with a list of your mistresses? From the wife of the +Bulgarian attache in 1887 down to Mademoiselle Therese Gredun--if that +be her real name--who retained the honors of her office up to last +Spring at least. It seems likely that I know more than you even, for I +can give you a practically complete list of those with whom she has +deceived you. + +PRINCE + +Oh, don't, if you please. There is no real pleasure in knowledge of +that kind when you don't uncover it yourself. + +[_A carriage is heard stopping in front of the house._ + +PRINCE + +That's he. Do you want to disappear before he comes out here? I can +detain him that long. + +MIZZIE + +Don't trouble yourself, please. I prefer to stay. But don't imagine +that there is anything astir within me.... This is nothing but a young +man coming to call on my father. There he is now.... As to blood being +thicker than water--I think it's nothing but a fairy tale. I can't feel +anything at all, my dear Prince. + +PHILIP (_comes quickly through the main entrance; he is seventeen, +slender, handsome, elegant, but not foppish; shows a charming, though +somewhat boyish, forwardness, not quite free from embarrassment_) Good +morning. (_He bows to Mizzie_) + +PRINCE + +Good morning, Philip.--Countess, will you permit me to introduce my +son? This is Countess Mizzie, daughter of the old friend of mine in +whose house you are now. + +PHILIP (_kisses the hand offered him by Mizzie; brief pause_) + +MIZZIE + +Won't you be seated, please? + +PHILIP + +Thank you. Countess. (_All remain standing_) + +PRINCE + +You came in the carriage? Might just as well send it back, as mine is +here already. + +PHILIP + +Won't you come back with me instead, papa? You see, I think Wasner does +a great deal better than your Franz with his team of ancients. + +MIZZIE + +So Wasner has been driving you? + +PHILIP + +Yes. + +MIZZIE + +The old man himself? Do you know that's a great honor? Wasner won't +take the box for everybody. Up to about two years ago he used to drive +my father. + +PHILIP + +Oh.... + +PRINCE + +You're a little late, by the way, Philip. + +PHILIP + +Yes, I have to beg your pardon. Overslept, you know. (_To Mizzie_) I +was out with some of my colleagues last night. You may have heard that +I passed my examinations a couple of weeks ago, Countess. That's why we +rather made a night of it.[6] + + [6] "... Ein bissel gedraht." The term is specifically + Viennese and implies not only "making a night of it," but also + making the contents of that night as varied as the resources + of the locality will permit. + +MIZZIE + +You seem to have caught on to our Viennese ways pretty quickly, +Mister.... + +PRINCE + +Oh, dear Mizzie, call him Philip, please. + +MIZZIE + +But I think we must sit down first of all, Philip. (_With a glance at +the Prince_) Papa should be here any moment now. (_She and the Prince +sit down_) + +PHILIP (_still standing_) + +If you permit me to say so--I think the park is magnificent. It is much +finer than ours. + +MIZZIE + +You are familiar with the Ravenstein park? + +PHILIP + +Certainly, Countess. I have been living at Ravenstein House three days +already. + +MIZZIE + +Is that so? + +PRINCE + +Of course, gardens cannot do as well in the city as out here. Ours was +probably a great deal more beautiful a hundred years ago. But then our +place was still practically outside the city. + +PHILIP + +It's a pity that all sorts of people have been allowed to run up houses +around our place like that. + +MIZZIE + +We are better off in that respect. And we shall hardly live to see the +town overtake us. + +PHILIP (_affably_) + +But why not, Countess? + +MIZZIE + +A hundred years ago these grounds were still used for hunting. The +place adjoins the Tiergarten, you know. Look over that wall there, +Philip. And our villa was a hunting lodge once, belonging to the +Empress Maria Theresa. The stone figure over there goes back to that +period. + +PHILIP + +And how old is our place, papa? + +PRINCE (_smiling_) + +Our place, sonny, dates back to the seventeenth century. Didn't I show +you the room in which Emperor Leopold spent a night? + +PHILIP + +Emperor Leopold, 1648 to 1705. + +MIZZIE (_laughs_) + +PHILIP + +Oh, that's an echo of the examinations. When I get old enough.... (_He +interrupts himself_) I beg your pardon! What I meant to say was +simply--all that stuff will be out of my head in a year. And, of +course, when I learned those dates, I didn't know Emperor Leopold had +been such a good friend of my own people. + +MIZZIE + +You seem to think your discovery enormously funny, Philip? + +PHILIP + +Discovery, you say.... Well, frankly speaking, it could hardly be +called that. (_He looks at the Prince_) + +PRINCE + +Go on, go on! + +PHILIP + +Well, you see, Countess, I have always had the feeling that I was no +Philip Radeiner by birth. + +MIZZIE + +Radeiner? (_To the Prince_) Oh, that was the name...? + +PRINCE + +Yes. + +PHILIP + +And, of course, it was very pleasant to find my suspicions +confirmed--but I have really known it all the time. I can put two and +two together. And some of the other boys had also figured out--that +I.... Really, Countess, that story about Prince Ravenstein coming to +Krems merely to see how the son of his late friend was getting +along--don't you think it smacked a little too much of story book ... +Home and Family Library, and that sort of thing? All the clever ones +felt pretty sure that I was of noble blood, and as I was one of the +cleverest.... + +MIZZIE + +So it seems.... And what are your plans for the future, Philip? + +PHILIP + +Next October I shall begin my year as volunteer with the Sixth +Dragoons, which is the regiment in which we Ravensteins always serve. +And what's going to happen after that--whether I stay in the army or +become an archbishop--in due time, of course.... + +MIZZIE + +That would probably be the best thing. The Ravensteins have always been +strong in the faith. + +PHILIP + +Yes, it's mentioned in the Universal History even. They were Catholic +at first; then they turned Protestant in the Thirty Years War; and +finally they became Catholic again--but they always remained strong in +their faith. It was only the faith that changed. + +PRINCE + +Philip, Philip! + +MIZZIE + +That's the spirit of the time, Prince Egon. + +PRINCE + +And an inheritance from his mother. + +MIZZIE + +You have been working hard, your father tells me, and have passed your +examinations with honors. + +PHILIP + +Well, that wasn't difficult, Countess. I seem to get hold of things +quickly. That's probably another result of the common blood in me. And +I had time to spare for things not in the school curriculum--such as +horseback riding and ... + +MIZZIE + +And what? + +PHILIP + +Playing the clarinet. + +MIZZIE (_laughing_) + +Why did you hesitate to tell about that? + +PHILIP + +Because.... Well, because everybody laughs when I say that I play the +clarinet. And so did you, too, Countess. Isn't that queer? Did anybody +ever laugh because you told him that you were painting for a diversion? + +MIZZIE + +So you have already heard about that? + +PHILIP + +Yes, indeed, Countess--papa told me. And besides, there is a floral +piece in my bedroom--a Chinese vase, you know, with a laburnum branch +and something purplish in color. + +MIZZIE + +That purplish stuff must be lilacs. + +PHILIP + +Oh, lilacs, of course. I saw that at once. But I couldn't recall the +name just now. + +VALET (_entering_) + +There is a lady who wishes to see the Count. I have showed her into the +drawing-room. + +MIZZIE + +A lady...? You'll have to excuse me for a moment, gentlemen. (_She goes +out_) + +PHILIP + +That's all right, papa--if it's up to me, I have no objection. + +PRINCE + +To what? Of what are you talking? + +PHILIP + +I have no objection to your choice. + +PRINCE + +Have you lost your senses, boy? + +PHILIP + +But really, papa, do you think you can hide anything from me? That +common blood in me, you know.... + +PRINCE + +What put such an idea into your head? + +PHILIP + +Now look here, papa! You have been telling me how anxious you were to +introduce me to your old friend, the Count. And then the Count has a +daughter--which I have known all the time, by the way.... The one thing +I feared a little was that she might be too young. + +PRINCE (_offended, and yet unable to keep serious_) + +Too young, you say.... + +PHILIP + +It was perfectly plain that you had a certain weakness for that +daughter.... Why, you used to be quite embarrassed when talking of her. +And then you have been telling me all sorts of things about her that +you would never have cared to tell otherwise. What interest could I +have in the pictures of a Countess X-divided-by-anything, for +instance--supposing even that you _could_ tell her lilacs from her +laburnums by their color? And, as I said, my one fear was that she +might be too young--as my mother, that is, and not as your wife. Of +course, there is not yet anybody too young or beautiful for you. But +now I can tell you, papa, that she suits me absolutely as she is. + +PRINCE + +Well, if you are not the most impudent rogue I ever came across...! Do +you really think I would ask you, if I should ever.... + +PHILIP + +Not exactly ask, papa ... but a happy family life requires that all the +members affect each other sympathetically ... don't you think so? + +[_Mizzie and Lolo Langhuber enter._ + +MIZZIE + +You must look around, please. I am sure my father would be very sorry +to miss you. (_She starts to make the usual introductions_) Permit me +to.... + +LOLO + +Oh, Your Highness. + +PRINCE + +Well, Miss Pallestri.... + +LOLO + +Langhuber, if you please. I have come to thank the Count for the +magnificent flowers he sent me at my farewell performance. + +PRINCE (_introducing_) + +My son Philip. And this is Miss ... + +LOLO + +Charlotta Langhuber. + +PRINCE (_to Philip_) + +Better known as Miss Pallestri. + +PHILIP + +Oh, Miss Pallestri! Then I have already had the pleasure.... + +PRINCE + +What? + +PHILIP + +You see, I have Miss Pallestri in my collection. + +PRINCE + +What ... what sort of collection is that? + +LOLO + +There must be some kind of mistake here, Your Highness. I can not +recall.... + +PHILIP + +Of course, you can't, for I don't suppose you could feel that I was +cutting out your picture from a newspaper at Krems? + +LOLO + +No, thank heaven! + +PHILIP + +It was one of our amusements at school, you know. There was one who cut +out all the crimes and disasters he could get hold of. + +LOLO + +What a dreadful fellow that must have been! + +PHILIP + +And there was one who went in for historical personalities, like North +Pole explorers and composers and that kind of people. And I used to +collect theatrical ladies. Ever so much more pleasant to look at, you +know. I have got two hundred and thirteen--which I'll show you +sometime, papa. Quite interesting, you know. With a musical comedy star +from Australia among the rest. + +LOLO + +I didn't know Your Highness had a son--and such a big one at that. + +PHILIP + +Yes, I have been hiding my light under a bushel so far. + +PRINCE + +And now you are trying to make up for it, I should say. + +LOLO + +Oh, please let him, Your Highness. I prefer young people like him to be +a little _vif_. + +PHILIP + +So you are going to retire to private life, Miss Pallestri? That's too +bad. Just when I might have the pleasure at last of seeing you on those +boards that signify the world.... + +LOLO + +That's awfully kind of Your Highness, but unfortunately one hasn't time +to wait for the youth that's still growing. And the more mature ones +are beginning to find my vintage a little out of date, I fear. + +PRINCE + +They say that you are about to be married. + +LOLO + +Yes, I am about to enter the holy state of matrimony. + +PHILIP + +And who is the happy man, if I may ask? + +LOLO + +Who is he? Why, he is waiting outside now--with that carriage. + +MIZZIE + +Why--a coachman? + +LOLO + +But, Countess--a coachman, you say?! Only in the same manner as when +your papa himself--beg your pardon!--happens to be taking the bay out +for a spin at times. Cab owner, that's what my fiance is--and house +owner, and a burgess of Vienna, who gets on the box himself only when +it pleases him and when there is somebody of whom he thinks a whole +lot. Now he is driving for a certain Baron Radeiner--whom he has just +brought out here to see your father, Countess. And I am having my +doubts about that Baron Radeiner. + +PHILIP + +Permit me to introduce myself--Baron Radeiner. + +LOLO + +So that's you, Your Highness? + +PHILIP + +I have let nobody but Wasner drive me since I came here. + +LOLO + +And under an assumed name at that, Your Highness? Well, we are finding +out a lot of nice things about you! + +COUNT (_appears, very hot_) + +Well, here I am. (_Taking in the situation_) Ah! + +LOLO + +Your humble servant, Count! I have taken the liberty--I wanted to thank +you for the magnificent flowers. + +COUNT + +Oh, please--it was a great pleasure.... + +PRINCE + +And here, old friend, is my son Philip. + +PHILIP + +I regard myself as greatly honored, Count. + +COUNT (_giving his hand to Philip_) + +I bid you welcome to my house. Please consider yourself at home +here.--I don't think any further introductions are required. + +MIZZIE + +No, papa. + +COUNT (_slightly embarrassed_) + +It's very charming of you, my dear lady. Of course, you know better +than anybody that I have always been one of your admirers.... But tell +me, please, how in the world did you get out here? I have just been +taking a walk along the main road, where every carriage has to pass, +and I didn't see you. + +LOLO + +What do you take me for, Count? My cab days are past now. I came by the +train, which is the proper thing for me. + +COUNT + +I see.... But I hear that your fiance himself.... + +LOLO + +Oh, he has more pretentious customers to look after. + +PHILIP + +Yes, I have just had the pleasure of being conducted here by the fiance +of Miss Pallestri. + +COUNT + +Is Wasner driving for you? Well, that settles it--of course--clear +psychological connection! (_Offers his cigar case_) Want a smoke? + +PHILIP (_accepting_) + +Thank you. + +PRINCE + +But, Philip...! A monster like that before lunch! + +COUNT + +Excellent. Nothing better for the health. And I like you. Suppose we +sit down. + +[_The Count, the Prince and Philip seat themselves, while Mizzie and +Lolo remain standing close to them._ + +COUNT + +So you'll be off with your father to-morrow? + +PHILIP + +Yes, Count. And I'm tremendously pleased to think of it. + +COUNT + +Will you be gone long? + +PRINCE + +That depends on several circumstances. + +PHILIP + +I have to report myself at the regiment on the first of October. + +PRINCE + +And it's possible that I may go farther south after that. + +COUNT + +Well, that's news. Where? + +PRINCE (_with a glance at Mizzie_) + +Egypt, and the Sudan maybe--for a little hunting. + +MIZZIE (_to Lolo_) + +Let me show you the park. + +LOLO + +It's a marvel. Ours isn't a patch on it, of course. (_She and Mizzie +come forward_) + +MIZZIE + +Have you a garden at your place, too? + +LOLO + +Certainly. As well as an ancestral palace--at Ottakring.[7] The +great-grandfather of Wasner was in the cab business in his days +already.--My, but that's beautiful! The way those flowers are hanging +down. I must have something just like it. + + [7] One of the factory districts of Vienna, known chiefly + because of the big insane asylum located there. + +COUNT (_disturbed_) + +Why are the ladies leaving us? + +MIZZIE + +Never mind, papa, I'm merely explaining the architecture of our facade. + +PHILIP + +Do you often get visits of theatrical ladies, Count? + +COUNT + +No, this is merely an accident. + +[_The men stroll off toward those parts of the garden that are not +visible._ + +MIZZIE + +It seems strange that I have never before had a chance of meeting you. +I am very glad to see you. + +LOLO (_with a grateful glance_) + +And so I am. Of course, I have known you by sight these many years. +Often and often have I looked up at your box. + +MIZZIE + +But not at me. + +LOLO + +Oh, that's all over now. + +MIZZIE + +Do you know, I really feel a little offended--on _his_ behalf. + +LOLO + +Offended, you say...? + +MIZZIE + +It will be a hard blow for him. Nobody knows better than I how deeply +he has been attached to you. Although he has never said a word to me +about it. + +LOLO + +Do you think it's so very easy for me either, Countess? But tell me. +Countess, what else could I do? I am no longer a spring chicken, you +know. And one can't help hankering for something more settled. As long +as I had a profession of my own, I could allow myself--what do they +call it now?--to entertain liberal ideas. It goes in a way with the +position I have held. But how would that look now, when I am retiring +to private life? + +MIZZIE + +Oh, I can see that perfectly. But what is _he_ going to do now? + +LOLO + +Why shouldn't he marry, too? I assure you, Countess, that there are +many who would give all their five fingers.... Don't you realize, +Countess, that I, too, have found it a hard step to take? + +MIZZIE + +Do you know what I have been wondering often? Whether he never thought +of making _you_ his wife? + +LOLO + +Oh, yes, that's just what he wanted. + +MIZZIE + +Why...?! + +LOLO + +Do you know when he asked me the last time, Countess? Less than a month +ago. + +MIZZIE + +And you said no? + +LOLO + +I did. It would have done no good. Me a Countess! Can you imagine it? I +being your stepmother, Countess...! Then we could not have been +chatting nicely as we are doing now. + +MIZZIE + +If you only knew how sympathetically you affect me.... + +LOLO + +But I don't want to appear better than I am. And who knows what I +might.... + +MIZZIE + +What might you? + +LOLO + +Well, this is the truth of it. I have gone clear off my head about +Wasner. Which I hope won't make you think the worse of me. In all these +eighteen years I have had nothing to blame myself with, as far as your +dear papa is concerned. But you can't wonder if my feelings began to +cool off a little as the years passed along. And rather than to make +your dear papa--oh, no, no, Countess ... I owe him too much gratitude +for that.... Lord! + +MIZZIE + +What is it? + +LOLO + +There he is now, looking right at me. + +MIZZIE (_looks in the direction indicated_) + +WASNER (_who has appeared at the entrance, raises his tall hat in +salute_) + +LOLO + +Don't you think me an awful fool, Countess? Every time I catch sight of +him suddenly, my heart starts beating like everything. Yes, there's no +fool like an old one. + +MIZZIE + +Old...? Do you call yourself old? Why, there can't be much difference +between us. + +LOLO + +Oh, mercy.... (_With a glance at Mizzie_) + +MIZZIE + +I am thirty-seven.--No, don't look at me with any pity. There is no +cause for that. None whatever. + +LOLO (_apparently relieved_) + +I have heard some whispers. Countess--of course, I didn't believe +anything. But I thank heaven it was true. (_They shake hands_) + +MIZZIE + +I should like to congratulate your fiance right now, if you'll permit +me. + +LOLO + +That's too sweet of you--but what about the Count--perhaps he wouldn't +like...? + +MIZZIE + +My dear, I have always been accustomed to do as I pleased. (_They go +together toward the entrance_) + +WASNER + +You're too kind, Countess.... + +[_The Count, the Prince and Philip have reappeared in the meantime._ + +COUNT + +Look at that, will you! + +WASNER + +Good morning, Count. Good morning, Highness. + +PRINCE + +I say, Wasner, you may just as well take your bride home in that trap +of yours. My son is coming with me. + +WASNER + +Your son...? + +PHILIP + +Why haven't you told me that you were engaged, Wasner? + +WASNER + +Well, there are things you haven't told either ... Mr. von Radeiner! + +COUNT (_to Lolo_) + +Thank you very much for your friendly visit, and please accept my very +best wishes. + +LOLO + +The same to you, Count. And I must say, that when one has such a +daughter.... + +MIZZIE + +It's too bad I haven't come to know you before. + +LOLO + +Oh, really, Countess.... + +MIZZIE + +Once more, my dear Miss Lolo, good luck to you! (_Mizzie embraces +Lolo_) + +COUNT (_looks on with surprise and some genuine emotion_) + +LOLO + +I thank you for the kind reception, Count--and good-by! + +COUNT + +Good-by, Miss Langhuber. I trust you'll be happy ... indeed I do, Lolo. + +LOLO (_gets into the carriage which has driven up to the gate in the +meantime_) + +WASNER (_is on the box, hat in hand; they drive off_) + +MIZZIE (_waves her hand at them as they disappear_) + +PHILIP (_who has been standing in the foreground with the Prince_) Oh, +my dear papa, I can see through the whole story. + +PRINCE + +You can? + +PHILIP + +This Miss Lolo must be the natural daughter of the Count, and a sister +of the Countess--her foster-sister, as they say. + +PRINCE + +No, you would call that a step-sister. But go on, Mr. Diplomat. + +PHILIP + +And of course, both are in love with you--both the Countess and the +ballet dancer. And this marriage between the dancer and Wasner is your +work. + +PRINCE + +Go on. + +PHILIP + +You know--there's something I never thought of until just now! + +PRINCE + +What? + +PHILIP + +I don't know if I dare? + +PRINCE + +Why so timid all at once? + +PHILIP + +Supposing my mother was not dead.... + +PRINCE + +H'm.... + +PHILIP + +And, through a remarkable combination of circumstances, she should now +be going back to the city in the very carriage that brought me out +here...? And suppose it should be my own mother, whose picture I cut +out of that newspaper...? + +PRINCE + +My lad, you'll certainly end as a cabinet minister--Secretary of +Agriculture, if nothing better.--But now it's time for us to say +good-by. + +[_The Count and Mizzie are coming forward again._ + +PRINCE + +Well, my dear friend, this must be our farewell call, I am sorry to +say. + +COUNT + +But why don't you stay.... That would be delightful ... if you could +take lunch with us.... + +PRINCE + +Unfortunately, it isn't possible. We have an appointment at +Sacher's.[8] + + [8] A fashionable restaurant near the Imperial Palace in the + Inner City. + +COUNT + +That's really too bad. And shall I not see you at all during the +Summer? + +PRINCE + +Oh, we shall not be entirely out of touch. + +COUNT + +And are you starting to-morrow already? + +PRINCE + +Yes. + +COUNT + +Where are you going? + +PRINCE + +To the sea shore--Ostend. + +COUNT + +Oh, you are bound for Ostend. I have long wanted to go there. + +PRINCE + +But that would be fine.... + +COUNT + +What do you think, Mizzie? Let's be fashionable. Let's go to Ostend, +too. + +MIZZIE + +I can't answer yet. But there's no reason why you shouldn't go, papa. + +PHILIP + +That would be delightful, Countess. It would please me awfully. + +MIZZIE (_smiling_) + +That's very kind of you, Philip. (_She holds out her hand to him_) + +PHILIP (_kisses her hand_) + +COUNT (_to the Prince_) + +The children seem to get along beautifully. + +PRINCE + +Yes, that's what I have been thinking. Good-by then. Good-by, my dear +Mizzie. And good-by to you, my dear old fellow. I hope at least to see +_you_ again at Ostend. + +COUNT + +Oh, she'll come along. Won't you, Mizzie? After all, you can get +studios by the sea shore, too. Or how about it, Mizzie? + +MIZZIE (_remains silent_) + +PRINCE + +Well, until we meet again! (_He shakes hands with the Count and +Mizzie_) + +PHILIP (_kisses the hand of Mizzie once more_) + +COUNT (_giving his hand to Philip_) + +It has been a great pleasure. + +[_The Prince and Philip go out through the gate and step into the +carriage which has been driving up in the meantime, and which now +carries them off. The Count and Mizzie come forward again and seat +themselves at the table under the tree. Pause._ + +COUNT + +Hasn't this been a queer day? + +MIZZIE + +All life is queer--only we forget it most of the time. + +COUNT + +I suppose you're right. (_Pause_) + +MIZZIE + +You know, papa, you might just as well have brought us together a +little earlier. + +COUNT + +Who? Oh, you and.... + +MIZZIE + +Me and Miss Lolo. She's a dear. + +COUNT + +So you like her? Well, if it were only possible to know in advance.... +But what's the use? Now it's all over. + +MIZZIE (_takes hold of his hand_) + +COUNT (_rises and kisses her on the forehead; strolls about aimlessly +for a few seconds_) Tell me, Mizzie, what you think.... How do you like +the boy? + +MIZZIE + +Philip? Oh, rather fresh. + +COUNT + +Fresh, perhaps, but smart. I hope he'll stay in the army. That's a much +more sensible career than the diplomatic service. Slow, but sure. All +you need is to live long enough in order to become a general. But a +political career.... Now look at Egon ... three times he has almost +become a minister.... And suppose he had succeeded? (_Walking back and +forth_) Yes, yes ... we shall be rather lonely this Summer. + +MIZZIE + +But why shouldn't you go to Ostend, papa? + +COUNT + +Yes, why not...? Really, won't you come along? It would be rather ... +without you, you know.... It's no use looking at me like that. I know! +I haven't paid as much attention to you in the past as I should +have.... + +MIZZIE (_taking his hand again_) + +Oh, papa, you're not going to apologize, are you? I understand +perfectly. + +COUNT + +Oh, well. But, you see, I shall not get much joy out of that trip +without you. And what would you be doing here, all by yourself? You +can't paint all day long. + +MIZZIE + +The only trouble is ... the Prince has asked me to marry him. + +COUNT + +What? Is it possible? No, you don't mean.... And ... and you said no? + +MIZZIE + +Practically. + +COUNT + +You did...? Oh, well.... After all, I have never tried to persuade you. +It must be as you.... But I can't understand why. I have noticed for a +long time, that he.... As far as age is concerned, you wouldn't be +badly matched. And as for the rest ... sixty millions are not to be +despised exactly. But just as you say. + +MIZZIE (_remains silent_) + +COUNT + +Or could it possibly be on account of the boy? That would be to +exaggerate the matter, I assure you. Things of that kind occur in the +very best families. And particularly when you consider that his heart +always remained with his wife.... All of a sudden you get dragged into +an affair of that kind without exactly knowing how. + +MIZZIE + +And some poor girl of the people is thrown aside and allowed to go to +the dogs. + +COUNT + +Oh, please, that's only in the books. And how could he help it? That +kind of women seem always to die off early. And who knows what he might +have done, if she hadn't died.... I really think that his action in +regard to the boy has been pretty decent. That took courage, you know. +I could tell you more than one case.... But don't let us talk of it. If +that should be the only thing against him, however.... And besides, our +being together at Ostend wouldn't commit you in any way. + +MIZZIE + +No, that's true. + +COUNT + +Well, then ... I tell you what. You make the trip with me. And if the +place suits you, you can stay. If not, you can go on to London for a +visit with Aunt Lora. I mean simply, that there is no sense in your +letting me go away alone. + +MIZZIE + +All right. + +COUNT + +What do you mean? + +MIZZIE + +I'll go with you. But without any obligation--absolutely free. + +COUNT + +You'll come with me, you say? + +MIZZIE + +I will, papa. + +COUNT + +Oh, I'm so glad. Thank you, Mizzie. + +MIZZIE + +Why should you thank me? It's a pleasure to me. + +COUNT + +You can't imagine, of course ... without you, Mizzie.... There would be +so much to remember--this time in particular.... You know, of course, +that I took Lolo to Normandy last year? + +MIZZIE + +Of course, I know.... + +COUNT + +And as far as Egon is concerned ... not that I want to persuade you by +any means ... but in a strange place like that you often get more +acquainted with a person in a couple of days than during many years at +home. + +MIZZIE + +It's settled now that I go with you, papa. And as for the rest, don't +let us talk of it--for the time being. + +COUNT + +Then, you know, I'm going to telephone to the ticket office at once and +reserve sleeping car compartments for the day after to-morrow--or for +to-morrow. + +MIZZIE + +Are you in such a hurry? + +COUNT + +What's the use of sitting about here, once we have made up our minds? +So I'll telephone.... Does that suit you? + +MIZZIE + +Yes. + +COUNT (_puts his arms about her_) + +PROFESSOR WINDHOFER (_appears at the garden gate_) + +COUNT + +Why, there's the professor. Have you a lesson to-day? + +MIZZIE + +I had forgotten it, too. + +PROFESSOR (_handsome; about thirty-five; his beard is blond and trimmed +to a point; he is very carefully dressed, and wears a gray overcoat; he +takes off his hat as he enters the garden and comes forward_) + +Good morning, Countess. How do you do, Count? + +COUNT + +Good morning, my dear Professor, and how are you? You have to pardon +me. I was just about to go to the telephone--we are going away, you +know. + +PROFESSOR + +Oh, are you going away? Please, don't let me detain you. + +COUNT + +I suppose I shall see you later, Professor. (_He goes into the house_) + +PROFESSOR + +So you are going away, Countess? + +MIZZIE + +Yes, to Ostend. + +PROFESSOR + +That's rather a sudden decision. + +MIZZIE + +Yes, rather. But that's my way. + +PROFESSOR + +That means an end to the lessons for the present, I suppose? Too bad. + +MIZZIE + +I don't think I shall be able to-day even ... I am feeling a little +upset. + +PROFESSOR + +Do you?--Well, you look rather pale, Maria. + +MIZZIE + +Oh, you think so? + +PROFESSOR + +And how long will you be gone? + +MIZZIE + +Until the Fall probably--perhaps until very late in the Fall even. + +PROFESSOR + +Then we can resume our lessons next November at the earliest, I +suppose? + +MIZZIE (_smiling_) + +I don't think we shall.... + +PROFESSOR + +Oh, you don't think so? (_They look hard at each other_) + +MIZZIE + +No, I don't. + +PROFESSOR + +Which means, Maria--that I am discharged. + +MIZZIE + +How can you put it that way, Rudolph? That is not quite fair. + +PROFESSOR + +Pardon me. But it really came a little more suddenly than I had +expected. + +MIZZIE + +Better that than have it come too slow. Don't you think so? + +PROFESSOR + +Well, girl, I have no intention whatever to make any reproaches. + +MIZZIE + +Well, you have no reason. And it wouldn't be nice either. (_She holds +out her hand to him_) + +PROFESSOR (_takes her hand and kisses it_) + +Will you please excuse me to the Count? + +MIZZIE + +Are you going already...? + +PROFESSOR (_unconcernedly_) + +Isn't that better? + +MIZZIE (_after a pause, during which she looks straight into his eyes_) +Yes, I think so. (_They shake hands_) + +PROFESSOR + +Good luck, Maria. + +MIZZIE + +Same to you.... And remember me to your wife and the children. + +PROFESSOR + +I won't forget, Countess. (_He goes out_) + +MIZZIE (_remains on the same spot for a little while, following him +with her eyes_) + +COUNT (_on the terrace_) + +Everything is ready. We'll leave at nine-thirty to-morrow night.--But +what has become of the professor? + +MIZZIE + +I sent him away. + +COUNT + +Oh, you did?--And can you guess who has the compartment between yours +and mine?... Egon and his young gentleman. Won't they be surprised +though? + +MIZZIE + +Yes ... won't they? (_She goes into the house_) + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Lonely Way--Intermezzo--Countess +Mizzie, by Arthur Schnitzler + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE PLAYS *** + +***** This file should be named 29745.txt or 29745.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/7/4/29745/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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