The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 26

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 pa.s.sionate 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