FRIEDRICH: Rita Revera! Oh, no! How often I have read that name these last years--in the newspapers in Berlin, on various placards, in large letters. But how could I ever have thought that you were meant by it? RITA (_laughs_): Why did you not go to the "Winter Garden" when you were in Berlin? FRIEDRICH: I never frequent such places. RITA: Pardon me! Oh, I always forget the old customs. FRIEDRICH: Oh, please, please, dear Erna; not in this tone of voice! RITA: Which tone? FRIEDRICH: Erna! Do not make matters so difficult for me. See, after I had finally discovered, through an agency in Berlin, and after hunting a long time, that you were the famous Revera, I was terribly shocked at first, terribly sad, and, for a moment, I thought of giving up everything. My worst fears were over. I had the assurance that you lived in good, and as I now see, in comfortable circumstances. But, on the other hand, I had to be prepared that you might have grown estranged to the world in which I live--that we could hardly understand each other. RITA: Hm! Shall I tell you what was your ideal--how you would have liked to find me again? As a poor seamstress, in an attic room, who, during the four years, had lived in hunger and need--but respectably, that is the main point. Then you would have stretched forth your kind arms, and the poor, pale little dove would have gratefully embraced you. Will you deny that you have imagined it thus and even wished for it? FRIEDRICH (_looks at her calmly_): Well, is there anything wrong about it? RITA: But how did it happen that, regardless of this, of this disappointment, you, nevertheless, continued to search for me? FRIEDRICH: Thank goodness, at the right moment I recollected your clear, silvery, childlike laughter. Right in the midst of my petty scruples it resounded in my ears, as at the time when you ridiculed my gravity. Do you still remember that time, Erna? (_Rita is silent._) BERTHA (_enters with an enormous bouquet of dark red roses_): My lady--from the Count. RITA (_jumps up, nervously excited_): Roses! My dark roses! Give them to me! Ah! (_She holds them toward Friedrich and asks_) Did he say anything? BERTHA: No, said nothing, but---- FRIEDRICH (_shoves the bouquet, which she holds up closely to his face, aside_): I thank you. RITA (_without noticing him, to Bertha_): Well? BERTHA (_pointing to the bouquet_): The Count has written something on a card. RITA: His card? Where? (_She searches among the flowers_) Oh, here! (_She reads; then softly to Bertha_) It is all right. (_Bertha leaves_.) RITA (_reads again_): "Pour prendre conge." (_With an easy sigh_) Yes, yes. FRIEDRICH: What is the matter? RITA: Sad! His education was hardly half finished and he already forsakes me. FRIEDRICH: What do you mean? I do not understand you at all. RITA (_her mind is occupied_): Too bad. Now he'll grow entirely stupid.