Oh, I can understand it. I suppose you have had the same experience with most people. SALA Something very much like it, at least. JOHANNA Yes, one can see it from what you write, too. SALA I hope so. Otherwise it might just as well have been written by somebody else. WEGRAT Did he say when he would be back in Vienna? FELIX Soon, I think. But he didn't say very definitely. JOHANNA I should like to see Mr. Fichtner again. I am fond of that kind of people. WEGRAT What do you mean by "that kind of people"? JOHANNA Who are always arriving from some far-off place. WEGRAT But as a rule he never arrived from far-off places when you knew him, Johanna.... He was living right here. JOHANNA What did it matter whether he was living here or elsewhere?--Even when he came to see us daily, it was always as if he had just arrived from some great distance. WEGRAT Oh, of course.... FELIX I had often the same feeling. WEGRAT Well, it's strange how he has been knocking about in the world--these last few years at least. SALA Don't you think his restlessness goes farther back? Were you not students together in the Academy? WEGRAT Yes. And to know him properly, you must have known him then. There was something fascinating about him as a young man, something that dazzled. Never have I known anybody whom the term "of great promise" fitted so completely. SALA Well, he has kept a whole lot of it. WEGRAT But think of all he might have achieved! REUMANN I believe that what you might achieve you do achieve. WEGRAT Not always. Julian was undoubtedly destined for higher things. What he lacked was the capacity for concentration, the inward calm. He could never feel at home for good anywhere. And the misfortune has been that in his own works, too, he has lived only as a transient, so to speak. FELIX He showed me a couple of sketches he had made recently. WEGRAT Good? FELIX To me there was something gripping about them. MRS. WEGRAT Why gripping? What kind of pictures were they? FELIX Landscapes. And as a rule very pleasant ones at that. JOHANNA Once in a dream I saw a Spring landscape, very sunlit and soft, and yet it made me weep. SALA Yes, the sadness of certain things lies much deeper than we commonly suspect. WEGRAT So he's working again? Then, perhaps, we may expect something out of the ordinary. SALA In the case of anybody who has been an artist once you are never safe against surprises. WEGRAT That's it, Mr. von Sala. That's where the great difference lies. In the case of an official you can feel perfectly safe on that score. (_With cheerful self-contempt_) Such a one paints every year his nice little picture for the exhibition, and couldn't possibly do anything else. REUMANN It is still open to question who do most for the advancement of life and art: officials like you, Professor, or--our so-called men of genius. WEGRAT