BRACCIO [_with a hurried gesture tears off a piece of his sleeve and winds it around his right hand. With the sureness of a wild animal on the hunt, he grasps the ladder that is lying there, like a thin, dark rope, with both hands, makes a loop, throws it over his wife's head and pulls her body towards him._] [_During this time the curtain falls._] LITERATURE A COMEDY BY ARTHUR SCHNITZLER TRANSLATED BY PIERRE LOVING. Copyright, 1917, by Stewart & Kidd Company. All rights reserved. PERSONS MARGARET. CLEMENT. GILBERT. LITERATURE is reprinted from "Comedies of Words" by Arthur Schnitzler, by permission of Messrs. Stewart & Kidd Company, Cincinnati, Ohio. LITERATURE A COMEDY BY ARTHUR SCHNITZLER [SCENE: _Moderately well, but quite inexpensively furnished apartments occupied by Margaret. A small fireplace, a table, a small escritoire, a settee, a wardrobe cabinet, two windows in the back, entrances left and right._ _As the curtain rises, Clement, dressed in a modish, tarnished-gray sack suit, is discovered reclining in a fauteuil near the fireplace. He is smoking a cigarette and perusing a newspaper. Margaret is standing at the window. She walks back and forth, finally goes up directly behind Clement, and playfully musses his hair. Evidently she has something troublesome on her mind._] CLEM. [_reading, seizes her hand and kisses it_]. Horner's certain about his pick and doubly certain about mine; Waterloo five to one; Barometer twenty-one to one; Busserl seven to one; Attila sixteen to one. MARG. Sixteen to one! CLEM. Lord Byron one and one-half to one--that's us, my dear. MARG. I know. CLEM. Besides, it's sixteen weeks yet to the Handicap. MARG. Evidently he looks upon it as a clean "runaway." CLEM. Not quite--but where did you pick up your turf-lingo, Brava? MARG. Oh, I used this kind of talk before I knew you. Is it settled that you are to ride Lord Byron yourself? CLEM. How absurd to ask! You forget, it's the Damenpreis Handicap. Whom else could I get to ride him? And if Horner thought for a moment that I wasn't going to ride him, he'd never put up one and a half to one. You may stake all you've got on that. MARG. I'm well aware of that. You are _so_ handsome when you mount a horse--honest and truly, too sweet for anything! I shall never forget that day in Munich, when I first made your acquaintance-- CLEM. Please do not remind me of it. I had rotten luck that day. But you can believe me, Windy would never have won if it weren't for the ten lengths he gained at the start. But this time--never! You know, of course, it is decided; we leave town the same day. MARG. Same evening, you mean. CLEM. If you will--but why? MARG. Because it's been arranged we're to be married in the morning, hasn't it? CLEM. Quite so. MARG. I am so happy. [_Embraces him._] Now, where shall we spend our honeymoon?