The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 59

AMADEUS

Improved...? Why?... Oh, of course ... perhaps you are right. I feel almost as if things had already begun to improve. It's strange, but ...

one ... seems to breathe more freely.

CECILIA

Yes, Amadeus, now we are reaping the reward of always having been honest. Think how exhausted most people would be in a moment like this--by all sorts of painful evasions, labored truces, and pitifully sentimental reconciliations. Think of the hostile spirit in which they would be facing each other during their moment of belated candor. We two, Amadeus--we shall at least be able to part as friends. (_Pause_)

AMADEUS

And our boy?

CECILIA

Is he your sole worry?

AMADEUS

No, there are many things. How is it going to be arranged anyhow?

CECILIA

That's what we shall have to discuss carefully during the next few days--before we go away. Until then everything must remain as before.

It can perfectly well remain as it has been during the last year. That involves no wrong to anybody. (_Pause_)

AMADEUS (_seats himself at the piano; the ensuing pause is laden with apprehension; then he begins to play the same theme--a Capriccio--which was heard earlier during the scene_)

CECILIA (_who has been approaching the door to the veranda, turns about to listen_)

AMADEUS (_stops abruptly_)

CECILIA

Why don't you go on?

AMADEUS (_laughs quickly, nervously_)

CECILIA

Wasn't that the Intermezzo?

AMADEUS (_nods_)

CECILIA (_still at some distance from him_)

Have you made up your mind what you are going to call it? Is it to be _Capriccio_?

AMADEUS

Perhaps _Capriccio doloroso_. It is peculiar how one often fails to understand one's own ideas to begin with. The hidden sadness of that theme has been revealed to me by you.

CECILIA

Oh, you would have discovered it yourself, Amadeus.

AMADEUS

Maybe. (_Pause_) And whom will you get for the studying of your parts next year?

CECILIA

Oh, I'll always find somebody. Those numbers for the concert--you'll help me with those just the same, won't you? And I hope you'll be kind enough to give me the accompaniment at the concert too.

AMADEUS

That's a foregone conclusion.--But I should really like to know who is to a.s.sist you with your studies after this.

CECILIA

Do you regard that as the most important problem to be solved?

AMADEUS

No, of course not. The less so, as I don't quite see why I shouldn't go on helping you as before.

CECILIA (_with a smile_)

Oh, you think...? But then we should have to agree on hours and conditions.

AMADEUS

That was not meant as a joke, Cecilia. Seeing that we are parting in a spirit of perfect understanding, why shouldn't such an arrangement be considered tentatively at least?

CECILIA

Those things will probably settle themselves later on.... That we ...

that you play my accompaniment at a concert ... or help me to study a part....

AMADEUS

Why later on?... (_He rises and stands leaning against the piano_) There can be no reasonable ground for changing our musical relationships. I think both of us would suffer equally from doing so.

Without overestimating myself, I don't think it likely that you can find a better coach than I am. And as for my compositions, I don't know of anybody who could understand them better--with whom I would rather discuss them than with you.

CECILIA

And yet that's what you will have to come to.

AMADEUS