The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 67

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 n.o.bility, 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 a.s.sure 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 relations.h.i.+p between Cecilia and myself were being profaned by t.i.ttle-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 a.s.serted 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 a.n.a.logy illuminating the whole case.

AMADEUS

An a.n.a.logy, you say...?

ALBERT

Yes, a.n.a.logies 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 G.o.d 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.