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The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 04
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LEANDER (reads).
Excellent! Inspired! Ah! I feel as though I hear the hour of midnight striking. When did you write it?
PRINCESS
Yesterday noon, after dinner.
LEANDER
Beautifully conceived! Truly, beautifully conceived! But with your most gracious permission! The moon shines sadly down in the world. If you will not take it amiss, it should read: into the world.
PRINCESS
Very well, I will note that for the future; it's too stupid that poetry should be made so hard for us; one can't write five or six lines without making a mistake.
LEANDER
That's the obstinacy of language, so to speak.
PRINCESS
Are not the emotions tenderly and delicately phrased!
LEANDER
Indescribably! It is scarcely comprehensible how a feminine mind could write such a thing.
PRINCESS
Now I might try my hand at moonlight descriptions. Don't you think so?
LEANDER
Naturally you keep going farther all the time; you keep rising higher.
PRINCESS
I have also begun a piece: The Unhappy Misanthrope; or, Lost Peace and Restored Innocence!
LEANDER
Even the title itself is fascinating.
PRINCESS
And then I feel an incomprehensible desire within me to write some horrible ghost story. As I said before, if it were not for those grammatical errors!
LEANDER
Do not worry about that, incomparable princess! They are easily corrected.
[Groom from the Chamber enters.]
GROOM
The Prince of Malsinki, who has just arrived, wishes to wait on your royal highness.
[Exit.]
LEANDER
Your obedient servant.
[Exit.]
Prince NATHANIEL of Malsinki. The KING
KING
Here, Prince, is my daughter, a young, simple creature, as you see her before you. (Aside.) Be polite, my daughter, courteous; he is an illustrious prince from afar; his country is not even on my map, I have already looked it up; I have an amazing amount of respect for him.
PRINCESS
I am glad to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance.
NATHAN
Beautiful Princess, the report of your beauty has been spread so widely over the whole world that I have come here from a far distant corner for the happiness of seeing you face to face.
KING
Indeed it is astonishing, how many countries and kingdoms there are! You would not believe how many thousand crown-princes have been here already, to pay their addresses to my daughter; sometimes they arrive by dozens, especially when the weather is fine—and now you have come all the way from—I beg your pardon, topography is such a very extensive subject—in what region does your country lie?
NATHAN
Mighty king, if you travel from here first down the great highway, then you turn to the right and go on; but when you reach a mountain, turn to the left again, then you go to the ocean and sail directly north (if the wind is favorable, of course), and so, if the journey is successful, you reach my dominions in a year and a half.
KING
The deuce! I must have my court scholar explain that to me. You are probably a neighbor of the North Pole or Zodiac, or something like that, I suppose!
NATHAN
Not that I know of.
KING
Perhaps somewhere near the savages?
Excellent! Inspired! Ah! I feel as though I hear the hour of midnight striking. When did you write it?
PRINCESS
Yesterday noon, after dinner.
LEANDER
Beautifully conceived! Truly, beautifully conceived! But with your most gracious permission! The moon shines sadly down in the world. If you will not take it amiss, it should read: into the world.
PRINCESS
Very well, I will note that for the future; it's too stupid that poetry should be made so hard for us; one can't write five or six lines without making a mistake.
LEANDER
That's the obstinacy of language, so to speak.
PRINCESS
Are not the emotions tenderly and delicately phrased!
LEANDER
Indescribably! It is scarcely comprehensible how a feminine mind could write such a thing.
PRINCESS
Now I might try my hand at moonlight descriptions. Don't you think so?
LEANDER
Naturally you keep going farther all the time; you keep rising higher.
PRINCESS
I have also begun a piece: The Unhappy Misanthrope; or, Lost Peace and Restored Innocence!
LEANDER
Even the title itself is fascinating.
PRINCESS
And then I feel an incomprehensible desire within me to write some horrible ghost story. As I said before, if it were not for those grammatical errors!
LEANDER
Do not worry about that, incomparable princess! They are easily corrected.
[Groom from the Chamber enters.]
GROOM
The Prince of Malsinki, who has just arrived, wishes to wait on your royal highness.
[Exit.]
LEANDER
Your obedient servant.
[Exit.]
Prince NATHANIEL of Malsinki. The KING
KING
Here, Prince, is my daughter, a young, simple creature, as you see her before you. (Aside.) Be polite, my daughter, courteous; he is an illustrious prince from afar; his country is not even on my map, I have already looked it up; I have an amazing amount of respect for him.
PRINCESS
I am glad to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance.
NATHAN
Beautiful Princess, the report of your beauty has been spread so widely over the whole world that I have come here from a far distant corner for the happiness of seeing you face to face.
KING
Indeed it is astonishing, how many countries and kingdoms there are! You would not believe how many thousand crown-princes have been here already, to pay their addresses to my daughter; sometimes they arrive by dozens, especially when the weather is fine—and now you have come all the way from—I beg your pardon, topography is such a very extensive subject—in what region does your country lie?
NATHAN
Mighty king, if you travel from here first down the great highway, then you turn to the right and go on; but when you reach a mountain, turn to the left again, then you go to the ocean and sail directly north (if the wind is favorable, of course), and so, if the journey is successful, you reach my dominions in a year and a half.
KING
The deuce! I must have my court scholar explain that to me. You are probably a neighbor of the North Pole or Zodiac, or something like that, I suppose!
NATHAN
Not that I know of.
KING
Perhaps somewhere near the savages?
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