The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 19

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 G.o.d!

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 w.i.l.l.y-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