[Scene: A large hotel room. There are doors at the right and in the center, and at the left a window with heavy portières. Behind a grand piano at the right stands a Japanese screen which conceals the fireplace. There are several large trunks, open; bunches of flowers are all over the room; many bouquets are piled up on the piano.]
Valet [entering from the adjoining room carrying an armful of clothes which he proceeds to pack in one of the trunks. There is a knock at the door]. Come in.
Bell Boy. There is a lady who wants to know if the Maestro is in.
Valet. He isn't in. [Exit Bell Boy. The Valet goes into the adjoining room and returns with another armful of clothes. There is another knock at the door. He puts the clothes on a chair and goes to the door.] What's this again? [He opens the door and some one hands him several large bunches of flowers, which he places carefully on the piano; then he goes back to his packing. There is another knock. He opens the door and takes a handful of letters. He glances at the addresses and reads aloud: "Mister Gerardo. Monsieur Gerardo. Gerardo Esquire. Signor Gerardo." [He drops the letters on a tray and resumes his packing.]
[Enter Gerardo.]
Gerardo. Haven't you finished packing yet? How much longer will it take you?
Valet. I'll be through in a minute, sir.
Gerardo. Hurry! I still have things to do. Let me see. [He reaches for something in a trunk.] God Almighty! Don't you know how to fold a pair of trousers? [Taking the trousers out.] This is what you call packing! Look here! You still have something to learn from me, after all. You take the trousers like this.... You lock this up here.... Then you take hold of these buttons. Watch these buttons here, that's the important thing. Then—you pull them straight.... There.... There.... Then you fold them here.... See.... Now these trousers would keep their shape for a hundred years.
Valet [respectfully, with downcast eyes]. You must have been a tailor once, sir.
Gerardo. What! Well, not exactly.... [He gives the trousers to the Valet.] Pack those up, but be quick about it. Now about that train. You are sure this is the last one we can take?
Valet. It is the only one that gets you there in time, sir. The next train does not reach Brussels until ten o'clock.
Gerardo. Well, then, we must catch this one. I will just have time to go over the second act. Unless I go over that.... Now don't let anybody.... I am out to everybody.
Valet. All right, sir. There are some letters for you, sir.
Gerardo. I have seen them.
Valet. And flowers!
Gerardo. Yes. all right. [He takes the letters from the tray and throws them on a chair before the piano. Then he opens the letters, glances over them with beaming eyes, crumples them up and throws them under the chair.] Remember! I am out to everybody.
Valet. I know, sir. [He locks the trunks.]
Gerardo. To everybody.
Valet. You needn't worry, sir. [Giving him the trunk keys.] Here are the keys, sir.
Gerardo [pocketing the keys]. To everybody!
Valet. The trunks will be taken down at once. [He goes out.]
Gerardo [looking at his watch]. Forty minutes. [He pulls the score of "Tristan" from underneath the flowers on the piano and walks up and down humming.] "Isolde! Geliebte! Bist du mein? Hab' ich dich wieder? Darf ich dich fassen?" [He clears his throat, strikes a chord on the piano and starts again.] "Isolde! Geliebte! Bist du mein? Hab' ich dich wieder?..." [He clears his throat.] The air is dead here. [He sings.] "Isolde! Geliebte...." It's oppressive here. Let's have a little fresh air. [He goes to the window at the left and fumbles for the curtain cord.] Where is the thing? On the other side! Here! [He pulls the cord and throws his head back with an annoyed expression when he sees Miss Cœurne.]
Miss Cœurne [in three-quarter length skirt, her blonde hair down her back, holding a bunch of red roses; she speaks with an English accent and looks straight at Gerardo]. Oh, please don't send me away.
Gerardo. What else can I do? God knows, I haven't asked you to come here. Do not take it badly, dear young lady, but I have to sing to-morrow night in Brussels. I must confess, I hoped I would have this half-hour to myself. I had just given positive orders not to let any one, whoever it might be, come up to my rooms.
Miss Cœurne [coming down stage]. Don't send me away. I heard you yesterday in "Tannhäuser," and I was just bringing you these roses, and—
Gerardo. And—and what?
Miss Cœurne. And myself.... I don't know whether you understand me.
Gerardo [holding the back of a chair; he hesitates, then shakes his head.] Who are you?
Miss Cœurne. My name is Miss Cœurne.
Gerardo. Yes.... Well?
Miss Cœurne. I am very silly.
Gerardo. I know. Come here, my dear girl. [He sits down in an armchair and she stands before him.] Let's have a good earnest talk, such as you have never had in your life—and seem to need. An artist like myself—don't misunderstand me; you are—how old are you?
Miss Cœurne. Twenty-two.
Gerardo. You are sixteen or perhaps seventeen. You make yourself a little older so as to appear more—tempting. Well? Yes, you are very silly. It is really none of my business, as an artist, to cure you of your silliness.... Don't take this badly.... Now then! Why are you staring away like this?
Miss Cœurne. I said I was very silly, because I thought you Germans liked that in a young girl.
Gerardo. I am not a German, but just the same....
Miss Cœurne. What! I am not as silly as all that.
Gerardo. Now look here, my dear girl—you have your tennis court, your skating club; you have your riding class, your dances; you have all a young girl can wish for. What on earth made you come to me?
Miss Cœurne. Because all those things are awful, and they bore me to death.
Gerardo. I will not dispute that. Personally, I must tell you, I know life from an entirely different side. But, my child, I am a man; I am thirty-six. The time will come when you, too, will claim a fuller existence. Wait another two years and there will be some one for you, and then you won't need to—hide yourself behind curtains, in my room, in the room of a man who—never asked you, and whom you don't know any better than—the whole continent of Europe knows him—in order to look at life from his—wonderful point of view. [Miss Cœurne sighs deeply.] Now then ... Many thanks from the bottom of my heart for your roses. [He presses her hand.] Will this do for to-day?
Miss Cœurne. I had never in all my life thought of a man, until I saw you on the stage last night in "Tannhäuser." And I promise you—
Gerardo. Oh, don't promise me anything, my child.
