Anything serious, I mean.
since your poor wife died ten years ago.
And besides, you have a profession, so to speak.
Prince: How so?
Count: Why, House of Lords.
Prince: Well,-yes.
Count: And twice you were almost minister.
Prince: Almost....
Count: Who knows? Perhaps some time you’ll really be successful.
And I'm through. Even let myself be pensioned three years ago, foot
that was
Prince: (smiling) But in return you’re now a free man. Entirely
free. The whole world stands open before you.
That's it.
Count: But no desire for anything, old friend.
Not once have I gone to the Casino since then. Do you know what I've
been doing these last evening? Sitting out there under the tree with
Mizzi, playing dominoes.
When one has
Prince: Well then—you see, that's not solitude.
a daughter, and such a olever creature besides, with whom one has always
been such friends......What does she say to your sending all your
evenings at home now?
It used to happen once in a while before. She
Count: nothing.
doesn't say a word. What should she say? It seems to me she doesn’t
notice a thing. Do you think that she knows anything about Lolo?
Prince: (laughs) Listen to that!
But after
Of course she knows.
Count: Oh, certainly. I know.
all, I was almost a young man when her poor mother died. She couldn't
hold it against me.
not.
Prince: certainly/ (lightly) But I imagine she must have felt
how much alone she was,
Count: Has she ever complained about me? Some, you can tell
me.
Prince: But I'm not Mizzi’s confident. Naturally she never com¬
plained to me. Lord, perhaps she didn’t feel it socomply after all.
She has been accustomed to this seöluded quiet life for so long.
Count: Yes. And that's heräste. And then, up to a few
years ago she went out into society a good deal. Between ourselves,
Egon even till three years ago, even till two, I firmly believed that
she would decide.
Prince: Decide? Ah yes....
Count: If you had any idea of the people that even in very nesent