A242: Englischsprachige Übersetzungen, Seite 42

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times have shown a very likely interest in her...
Prince: That is easily understood.
Count: But she doesn't want to. She absolutely doesn’t want
to. I only mean to say, that she couldn’t have felt quite so alone..
otherwise she would have, since she was not looking in opportunity...
Prince: To be sure. It is her free choice. And then Mizzi has
this other essence besides—that she points. It’s exactly the same
as with my blessed aunt, Fanny Hohenstein, who wrote books till her
very old age and would hear absolutely nothing of marriage.
Count: Yes, it's possible that that goes together with artistic
ambition. I even think sometimes that perhaps all these eccentricities
have a certain sort of psychologic connection.
Prince: Eccentricities? One cannot say that Mizzi is eccentric
Count: Yes, that’s over now. But before...once.
Prince: I have always found Mizzi very sensible and very quiet.
If a person points cases and violets, she doesn’t necessarily have to
be eccentric.
Count: You won’t think me so stipid as to mean that it's be¬
cause of the violets andéroses. But as a very young girl, if you
remember...
Prince: What about it?
Well, the story that time, when Fedor Wangenheim proposed to
Count:
her.
Prince: Lord, are you still thinking of that? That was never
true anyhow. besides, it was allÕghteen or twenty years ago.
Count: And how she wanted to join the Order of St. Ursula
tather than toBarry that spilendid chap, when she was as good as en¬
Couldn’t that be called eccentric.
gaged to him.
Prince: What takes you back to this antiqué story?
Count: Antique? It seems to me as if it happened last year.
It was just at the time when my affair with Lolo began. How strange
it is to think back! Who could have dephecied it then! Do you
know--it started like an adventure. quite frivolously and crazily
Without da ishing to suhime myself, I must admit that
it was luck for us all that my poor wife was, already dead a few
Yes, crazily.
years. Lolo—she was my fate. Sweetheart and housekeeper at the
same time. She could took family, you know. And her coziness.
And always in good sprits and never a cress word. Well, it's over.
Let's not speak about it any more. (Pause)...But tell me, won’t you
say to lunch? I’ll call Mizzi.
Prince: (holding him back) Wait, I have something to tell you.
(Lightly, as if joting) I must prepare you for something.