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Count: How!s that? For what?
Prince: I'm bringing a young gentleman to see you today.
Count: (astonished) What, a young gentleman?
Prince: Yes, if you have no objects.
Count: Whaticbjections should I have? But who is he?
Prince: My son, dear Arpad.
Count: (greatly annexed) What?
Prince: Yes, my son. I didn’t want, before going away....
Count: Your son? You have a son?
Prince: Yes.
Count: Now, I've never heard the like.. You have a young man
who is your son... Or rather a son who is a young man. How old is he?
Prince: Seventeen years old.
Count: Seventeen! And he tells me this now for the first time
No, Egon. Egon... Tell me....seventeen years old! You!.. Then your
wife was still alive....
Prince: Yes. My wife was still alive then. One is at times
drawn into xxxxto strange situation, dear Arpad.
Count: Yes, upon my soul, that mus be true!
Prince: And then one day one has a seventeen year old son with
whom one takes journey.
Count: Oh, so you're going away with him?
Prince: I'm taking the liberty.
Count: Honestly, I can hardly tell you...so he has a seventeen
year old son! (Studdenly he takes his hand and then embraces him)
And if I may ask... the mother of your son....since you have begun to
tell me...
Prince: The mother has been dead a long time. Died a few weeks
after the birth. A very young creature.
Count: Of peosant stock?
Prince: Yes, naturally. But anuorming creature. Well, I'll
tell you the details some day. I can hardly remember them all myself.
It was like a dream, the whole affair. If the boy had not been here..