Arthur Schnitzler

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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
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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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
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. ”

“ 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?... ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”