And that's our reward, then, for having always been honest to each other! CECILIA (_turning toward him again_) Honest, you call it...? Have we always been that? AMADEUS Cecilia! CECILIA No, I can't think so any longer. Let everything else have been honest--but that both of us should have resigned ourselves so promptly when you told me of your passion for the Countess and I confessed my affection for Sigismund--that was not honest. If each of us had then flung his scorn, his bitterness, his despair into the face of the other one, instead of trying to appear self-controlled and superior--then we should have been honest--which, as it was, we were not. (_She walks across the veranda outside and disappears into the garden_) AMADEUS (_to himself_) All right--then we were not honest. (_After a pause_) And suppose we had been?! (_For a moment he seems to consider; then he goes to the writing desk and puts the manuscript music lying there into the little handbag; after a glance into the garden, he goes into his own room, returning at once with his hat and overcoat; then he opens the handbag again and picks out a manuscript, which he places on the piano; then he goes out rapidly, taking hat, overcoat and handbag with him; a brief pause follows_) CECILIA (_enters and notices that the handbag is gone; she goes quickly into Amadeus' room, but returns immediately; she crosses the room to the main entrance and remains standing there, opening her arms widely at first, and then letting them sink down again; going to the piano, she catches sight of the manuscript lying there and picks it up; while looking at it, she sinks down on the piano stool_) PETER (appears on the veranda with Albert and calls from there) Mother! CECILIA (_does not hear him_) ALBERT (_observing that Cecilia is alone and sunk in grief, takes Peter with him into the garden again_) CECILIA (_begins to weep softly and lets her head sink down on the piano_) CURTAIN COUNTESS MIZZIE OR THE FAMILY REUNION (_Komtesse Mizzi oder der Familientag_) A COMEDY IN ONE ACT 1907 PERSONS COUNT ARPAD PAZMANDY MIZZIE } His daughter PRINCE EGON RAVENSTEIN LOLO LANGHUBER PHILIP PROFESSOR WINDHOFER WASNER THE GARDENER THE VALET COUNTESS MIZZIE