The Lonely Way-Intermezzo-Countess Mizzie Part 17

JULIAN

From the Tyrol? During the Summer I made long tours on foot. I have even turned mountain climber in my old days. I spent a whole week at one of those pasturing grounds in the Alps.... Yes, I have been up to all sorts of things. It's a wonder what you can do when you are all alone.

SALA

And you have really been all alone?

JULIAN

Yes.

SALA

All these last years?

JULIAN

If I don't count a few nonsensical interruptions--yes.

SALA

But there should have been no difficulty in that respect.

JULIAN

I know. But I cannot rest satisfied with what is still offered me of that kind of thing. I have been badly spoiled, Sala. Up to a certain period my life pa.s.sed away in a constant orgy of tenderness and pa.s.sion, and of power, you might say. And that is all over. Oh, Sala, what pitiful fictions I have had to steal, and beg, and buy, during these last years! It gives me nausea to look back at it, and it horrifies me to look ahead. And I ask myself: can there really be nothing left of all that glow with which I once embraced the world but a sort of silly wrath because it's all over--because I--_I_--am no less subject to human laws than anybody else?

SALA

Why all this bitterness, Julian? There is still a great deal to be had out of this world, even when some of the pleasures and enjoyments of our earlier years have begun to appear tasteless or unseemly. And how can you, of all people, miss that feeling, Julian?

JULIAN

s.n.a.t.c.h his part from an actor and ask him if he can still take pleasure in the beautiful scenery surrounding him.

SALA

But you have begun to work again while you were traveling?

JULIAN

Hardly at all.

SALA

Felix told us that you had brought some sketches from your trunk in order to show him.

JULIAN

He spoke of them?

SALA

Yes, and nothing but good.

JULIAN

Really?

SALA

And as you showed those things to him, you must have thought rather well of them yourself.

JULIAN

That was not the reason why I let him see them. (_Walking back and forth_) I must tell you--at the risk of having you think me a perfect fool.

SALA

Oh, a little more or less won't count. Speak out.

JULIAN

I wanted him at least not to lose faith in me. Can you understand that?

After all, he is nearer to me than the rest. Of course, I know--to everybody, even to you, I am one who has gone down, who is finished--one of those whose only talent was his youth. It doesn't bother me very much. But to Felix I want to be the man I was once--just as I still _am_ that man. When he learns sometime that I am his father, he must be proud of it.

SALA

When he learns it...?

JULIAN

I have no intention to keep it hidden from him forever. Now, when his mother is dead, less than ever. Last time I talked to him, it became clear to me, not only that it would be right, but that it would almost be a duty, to tell him the truth. He has a mind for essentials. He will understand everything. And I shall have a human being who belongs to me, who knows that he belongs to me, and for whose sake it is worth while to keep on living in this world. I shall live near him, and be with him a good deal. Once more I shall have my existence put on a solid basis, so to speak, and not hung in mid-air, as it is now. And then I shall be able to work again--work as I did once--as when I was a young man. Work, that is what I am going to do--and all of you will turn out to have been wrong--all of you!

SALA

But to whom has it occurred to doubt you? If you could only have heard us talk of you a little while ago, Julian. Everybody expects that, sooner or later, you--will find yourself again completely.

JULIAN

Well, that's enough about me, more than enough. Pardon me. Let us hear something about yourself at last. I suppose you have already moved into your new house?

SALA

Yes.

JULIAN

And what plans have you for the immediate future?