The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 8

SALA

Why remarkable?

JOHANNA

You are building a house, and digging out submerged cities, and writing queer poetry--and human beings who once meant so much to you have been rotting in their graves these seven years--and you are still almost young. How incomprehensible the whole thing is!

SALA

"Thou that livest on, cease thou thy weeping," says Omar Nameh, who was born at Bagdad in the year 412 of the Mohammedan era as the son of a cobbler. For that matter, I know a man who is only thirty-eight. He has buried two wives and seven children, not to speak of grandchildren. And now he is playing the piano in a shabby little Prater[1] restaurant, while artists of both s.e.xes show off their tights and their fluttering skirts on the platform. And recently, when the pitiful performance had come to an end and they were turning out the lights, he went right on, without apparent reason, and quite heedless of everything, playing away on that frightful old rattle-box of his. And then Ronsky and I asked him over to our table and had a chat with him. And then he told us that the piece he had just played was his own composition. Of course, we complimented him. And then his eyes lit up, and he asked us in a voice that shook: "Gentlemen, do you think my piece will make a hit?" He is thirty-eight years old, and his career has come to an end in a small restaurant where his public consists of nurse-girls and non-commissioned officers, and his one longing is--to get their applause!

[1] The Prater is at once the Central Park and the Coney Island of Vienna, plus a great deal more--a park with an area of 2,000 acres bounded by the Danube on one side and by the Danube Ca.n.a.l on the other, full of all kinds of amus.e.m.e.nt places.

REUMANN (_enters_)

Good evening, Miss Johanna. Good evening, Mr. von Sala. (_Shakes hands with both of them at the same time_) How are you?

SALA

Fine. You don't suppose one must be your victim all the time because one has had the honor of consulting you once?

REUMANN

Oh, I had forgotten all about it. However, there are people who feel just that way.--I suppose your mother is having a little rest, Miss Johanna?

JOHANNA (_who apparently has been startled by the few words exchanged between the physician and Sala, and who is looking intently at the latter_) She is probably awake by this time. Felix is with her.

REUMANN

Felix...? You haven't telegraphed for him, have you?

JOHANNA

Not that I know of. Who could have...?

REUMANN

I only wondered. Your father is inclined to get frightened.

JOHANNA

There they are now.

MRS. WEGRAT (_enters from the veranda with Felix_)

How are you, my dear Doctor? What do you think of the surprise I have just had?

[_All the men shake hands._

MRS. WEGRAT

Good evening, Mr. von Sala.

SALA

I am delighted to see you looking so well, Mrs. Wegrat.

MRS. WEGRAT

Yes, I am doing a little better. If only the gloomy season were not so close at hand.

SALA

But now the finest time of the year is coming. When the woods sparkle with red and yellow, and a golden mist lies on the hills, and the sky grows pale and remote as if it were scared by its own infinity...!

MRS. WEGRAT

Yes, that ought to be worth seeing once more.

REUMANN (_reproachfully_)

Mrs. Wegrat....

MRS. WEGRAT

Pardon me--but thoughts of that kind will come. (_Brightening up a little_) If I only knew how much longer I might count on my dear doctor?

REUMANN

I can rea.s.sure you on that score, madam: I shall stay in Vienna.

MRS. WEGRAT

What? Has the matter been settled already?

REUMANN

Yes.

MRS. WEGRAT

So another man has actually been called to Gratz?

REUMANN

No, not that way. But the other man, who was practically sure of the place, has broken his neck climbing a mountain.

FELIX