The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 25

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.