14
in divinie judgment? And even then the result would have been
questionable. Because we poor mortals never know how He above
us thinks about such things.
You'd talk difficulty in Parliament, -If your
Countess:
voice were ever heard there.
Prince: Possibly. The essential remains, that honesty and
daring wouldn't have been of the slightest use to us. A
useless cruelty to people, that we loved. How could we have
gained the Pope’s dispensation? – And apart from that, the
Princes’s would never have consented to a diverse, you know that
as well as I.
Countess: As if I'd had theolightest desire to many you.
Prince: Oh, -
I said the
Countess: No. That isn't new to you, is it?
same to you then. You don’t grasp how, at that time(Looking
at him). What you could have made of me. I would have
I, and our
followed you everywhere, even as your mistress.
child. To Switzerland, to America. We might have lived any¬
And perhaps in Parliament they wouldn’t have even
where.
noticed your absence
Prince: Why, of course, we might have fled and lived some¬
where outside, but I doubt whether now even you
would think such an existence desirable or even bearable.
because now I know you. But then
Countess: Not now, no.
loved you. And perhaps I might have loved you for a very
long time, if you hadn’t been too great a toward to take the
responsibility of what happened. - Too great a toward, Prince
Egon.
Prince: whether that’s just the right expression.....
Countess: Yes, there is no other. You didn’t find me wanting.
with pride,
I was ready, to take everything on myself- With joy,
I was ready to declare myself as my child’s mother. You knew
it, Egon. Seventeen years ago, in the little forest lodge
where you hid me, I told you, that I was ready for everything.
But not for half measures. I wanted to be a mother— But wholly
or not at all. On the day I had to give up the boy, I made up
my mind never to think of him again. And I think it ridicu¬
lous of you to bring him out here all of a sudden. take my
advice, go and meet him, as Papa did with Lolo, and drive back
home with him.
Prince: I have no such intention. After what you told me
just now, I see that his mother must remain dead. But I must
I have adopted
care for him all the more. He s my son, opening,
him.
in divinie judgment? And even then the result would have been
questionable. Because we poor mortals never know how He above
us thinks about such things.
You'd talk difficulty in Parliament, -If your
Countess:
voice were ever heard there.
Prince: Possibly. The essential remains, that honesty and
daring wouldn't have been of the slightest use to us. A
useless cruelty to people, that we loved. How could we have
gained the Pope’s dispensation? – And apart from that, the
Princes’s would never have consented to a diverse, you know that
as well as I.
Countess: As if I'd had theolightest desire to many you.
Prince: Oh, -
I said the
Countess: No. That isn't new to you, is it?
same to you then. You don’t grasp how, at that time(Looking
at him). What you could have made of me. I would have
I, and our
followed you everywhere, even as your mistress.
child. To Switzerland, to America. We might have lived any¬
And perhaps in Parliament they wouldn’t have even
where.
noticed your absence
Prince: Why, of course, we might have fled and lived some¬
where outside, but I doubt whether now even you
would think such an existence desirable or even bearable.
because now I know you. But then
Countess: Not now, no.
loved you. And perhaps I might have loved you for a very
long time, if you hadn’t been too great a toward to take the
responsibility of what happened. - Too great a toward, Prince
Egon.
Prince: whether that’s just the right expression.....
Countess: Yes, there is no other. You didn’t find me wanting.
with pride,
I was ready, to take everything on myself- With joy,
I was ready to declare myself as my child’s mother. You knew
it, Egon. Seventeen years ago, in the little forest lodge
where you hid me, I told you, that I was ready for everything.
But not for half measures. I wanted to be a mother— But wholly
or not at all. On the day I had to give up the boy, I made up
my mind never to think of him again. And I think it ridicu¬
lous of you to bring him out here all of a sudden. take my
advice, go and meet him, as Papa did with Lolo, and drive back
home with him.
Prince: I have no such intention. After what you told me
just now, I see that his mother must remain dead. But I must
I have adopted
care for him all the more. He s my son, opening,
him.