ng?

ALBERT

That Cecilia and Prince Sigismund.... But, of course, you are familiar
with the main facts?

AMADEUS

I'm familiar with nothing. What is in the New Journal?

ALBERT

Just a brief notice--without any names, but not to be mistaken.... It
reads something like this: "One of our foremost artists, who has just
been celebrating triumphs in the metropolis of an adjoining state ...
until now the wife of a gifted musician" ... or perhaps it was "highly
gifted" ... and so on ... and so on ... "and a well-known Austrian
gentleman, belonging to our oldest nobility, intend, we are told ..."
and so on....

AMADEUS

Cecilia and the Prince...?!

ALBERT

Yes ... and then a hint that, in such a case, it would not prove very
difficult to obtain a dispensation from the Pope....

AMADEUS

Has everybody gone crazy?... I can assure you that not a word of it is
true!... You won't believe me?... I hope you don't think I would deny
it, if.... Or do you actually mean that Cecilia might have ... from
me.... Oh, dear, and you are supposed to be a friend of ours, a student
of the human soul, and a poet!

ALBERT

I beg your pardon, but after what has happened it would not seem
improbable....

AMADEUS

Not improbable...? It is simply impossible! Cecilia has never thought
of it!

ALBERT

However, it ought not to surprise you that such a rumor has been
started.

AMADEUS

Nothing surprises me. But I feel as if the relationship between Cecilia
and myself were being profaned by tittle-tattle of that kind.

ALBERT

Pioneers like yourself must scorn the judgment of the world. Else they
are in danger of being proved mere braggarts.

AMADEUS

Oh, I am no pioneer. The whole thing is a private arrangement between
me and Cecilia, which gives us both the greatest possible comfort. Be
kind enough, at least, to tell the people who ask you, that we are not
going to be divorced--but that, on the other hand, we are not deceiving
each other, as it is asserted in these scrawls with which I have been
bombarded for some time. (_He indicates the letter which arrived at
the same time as Cecilia's_)

ALBERT (_picks up the letter, glances through it, and puts it away
again_) An anonymous letter...? Well, that's part of it....

AMADEUS

Explain to them, please, that there can be no talk of deceit where no
lies have been told. Tell them that Cecilia's and my way of keeping
faith with each other is probably a much better one