The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 86

AMADEUS

No, not vanity, Cecilia. I love you.

CECILIA (_remains wholly unresponsive_)

AMADEUS

You can't guess, of course, what took place within me while his words were gradually bringing home the truth to me! Once more the doors of heaven have been thrown open to me!

CECILIA

The only thing you forget is that they must remain closed to me forever.

AMADEUS

Don't say that, Cecilia. What has happened to me in the past seems so very insignificant, after all.

CECILIA

Insignificant, you say?--And if it had happened to me, it would have been so significant that people should have had to kill or be killed on that account? How can you think then, that I might get over it so easily?

AMADEUS

How can I...? Because you have proved it already. You knew just what had happened, and yet you became mine again.... You knew that I had been faithless, while you had kept your faith, and yet....

CECILIA

You say that I have kept my faith?--No, I haven't! And even if I should seem faithful to you, I have long ago ceased to be so in my own mind.

_I_ know the desires that have burned within me.... _I_ know how often my body has trembled and yearned in the presence of some man.... 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.

AMADEUS

And because you seemed guilty in your own mind, you remained silent?...

And for no other reason have you left me--me, whose sufferings you might have relieved by a single word--to believe you as guilty as myself?

CECILIA

Perhaps....

AMADEUS

And how long did you mean to let me go on believing that?

CECILIA

Until it became true, Amadeus.

AMADEUS

But there has been enough of it now, Cecilia. It will never become true ... never after this.

CECILIA

Where do you get that idea, Amadeus? It is going to be true. Do you think, perhaps, that all this was meant as a kind of ordeal for you? Do you think I was playing a childish comedy in order to punish you, and that now, when you have discovered the truth prematurely, I shall sink into your arms and declare everything right again? Have you really imagined that everything could now be forgotten, and that we might resume our marriage relations at the exact point where they were interrupted? How can you possibly have wished that such might be the case--so that our marriage would be like thousands of others, where both deceive each other, and become reconciled, and deceive each other again--just as the moment's whim happens to move them?

AMADEUS

We have neither deceived each other, nor become reconciled--we have been free, and have merely found each other again.

CECILIA

Each other, you say?... As if that were possible! What is it then, that has made me seem so desirable to you all at once? Not the fact that I am Cecilia--oh, no! But the fact that I seem to have come back another woman. And have I really become yours again? Not at all! Not unless you have grown so modest all at once that you can be satisfied with a happiness that might have fallen to somebody else perhaps, if he had merely chanced to be on hand at that particular moment.

AMADEUS (_shrinking back_)

But even if last night be sacrificed to this fixed idea of yours, Cecilia--it is daylight now--we are awake--and in this moment of clear light you must feel, no less than I, that we love each other, Cecilia--love as we have never loved before.

CECILIA

This moment might prove deceptive--and I am sure it would. No other moment would be more apt to prove such. Do you think those many moments in which we felt our tenderness gradually ebbing away--those many moments when we felt the lure of other loves--do you think them less worthy of consideration than this one? The only thing urging us together now is our fear of the final leave-taking. And our feelings at this moment make a pretty poor sample upon which to base an eternity. I don't trust them. What has happened once, may ... nay, must repeat itself--to-morrow--or two years from now--or five ... in a more indiscreet manner, perhaps, or in a manner more tragical--but certainly in a manner to be much more regretted.

AMADEUS

Oh, no--never again! Now--after what I have felt and experienced lately, I can vouch for myself.

CECILIA

I don't feel equally certain of myself, Amadeus.

AMADEUS

That doesn't scare me, Cecilia, for now I'm prepared to fight for you--now I'm worthy and capable of fighting for you. Hereafter you shall never more be left unprotected as you were in the past--my tenderness will guard you.

CECILIA

But I don't want to be guarded! I shall no longer permit you to guard me! And I can no more give you any promises than I care to accept yours.

AMADEUS

And if I should forgo them myself--if I should risk it on a mere uncertainty?