FullReads

JEAN.
[Enters in a state of exaltation]

There you see! And you heard, didn’t you? Do you think it possible to stay here?

JULIA.
No, I don’t think so. But what are we to do?

JEAN.
Run away, travel, far away from here.

JULIA.
Travel? Yes-but where?

JEAN.
To Switzerland, the Italian lakes–you have never been there?

JULIA.
No. Is the country beautiful?

JEAN.
Oh! Eternal summer! Orange trees! Laurels! Oh!

JULIA.
But then-what are we to do down there?

JEAN.
I’ll start a hotel, everything first class, including the customers?

JULIA.
Hotel?

JEAN.
That’s the life, I tell you! Constantly new faces and new languages. Never a minute free for nerves or brooding. No trouble about what to do–for the work is calling to be done: night and day, bells that ring, trains that whistle, ‘busses that come and go; and gold pieces raining on the counter all the time. That’s the life for you!

JULIA.
Yes, that is life. And I?

JEAN.
The mistress of everything, the chief ornament of the house. With your looks–and your manners–oh, success will be assured! Enormous! You’ll sit like a queen in the office and keep the slaves going by the touch of an electric button. The guests will pass in review before your throne and timidly deposit their treasures on your table. You cannot imagine how people tremble when a bill is presented to them–I’ll salt the items, and you’ll sugar them with your sweetest smiles. Oh, let us get away from here–

[pulling a time-table from his pocket]
–at once, with the next train! We’ll be in Malmoe at 6.30; in Hamburg at 8.40 to-morrow morning; in Frankfort and Basel a day later. And to reach Como by way of the St. Gotthard it will take us–let me see–three days. Three days!

JULIA.
All that is all right. But you must give me some courage– Jean. Tell me that you love me. Come and take me in your arms.

JEAN.
[Reluctantly]

I should like to–but I don’t dare. Not in this house again. I love you–beyond doubt–or, can you doubt it, Miss Julia?

JULIA.
[With modesty and true womanly feeling]

Miss? Call me Julia. Between us there can be no barriers here after. Call me Julia!

JEAN.
[Disturbed]

I cannot! There will be barriers between us as long as we stay in this house–there is the past, and there is the count—and I have never met another person for whom I felt such respect. If I only catch sight of his gloves on a chair I feel small. If I only hear that bell up there, I jump like a shy horse. And even now, when I see his boots standing there so stiff and perky, it is as if something made my back bend.

[Kicking at the boots]
It’s nothing but superstition and tradition hammered into us from childhood–but it can be as easily forgotten again. Let us only get to another country, where they have a republic, and you’ll see them bend their backs double before my liveried porter. You see, backs have to be bent, but not mine. I wasn’t born to that kind of thing. There’s better stuff in me–character–and if I only get hold of the first branch, you’ll see me do some climbing. To-day I am a valet, but next year I’ll be a hotel owner. In ten years I can live on the money I have made, and then I’ll go to Roumania and get myself an order. And I may–note well that I say may–end my days as a count.