Page:Poet Lore, volume 21, 1910.djvu/452

 Matoush.—He does. He is too good a son. If he only were not so taciturn. If he were just a little more energetic.

Maya.—He is going to be a priest—what good would energy be to him?

Matoush.—And do you think that energy does not befit a priest? That is probably because our calling seems to you nothing else but self denial. But, ach, let me tell you, Miss, that it is just this self denial which requires at times lots of energy. It is just in self denial that we must have a strong will, so that it may safely and surely last throughout our life. Under the external, apparent resignation and self denial, there must be a strong, iron will, there must be an inherent internal strength, enough to control the entire being, to dictate to it.

Maya.—To control the whole being. You are right, sir. Even I knew how to act with the entire vehemence of my will power, when necessity called for it. When, many years ago, I wanted to be a teacher, I buried myself in books with great passion, and when my father’s death put an end to all my plans, and I was frightened and tired of life, I sought nothing but an asylum, a refuge where I could devote my entire youthful energy to resignation. I told you how at that time I knocked at the portals of the convent. But as soon as I breathed the atmosphere of the theater I gave myself up to it, without hesitation, happy or unhappy, but entirely, just as if nothing else existed in this world. (Silence.)

Matoush.—You ought to be happy that life took you where you are.

Maya.—I think that my life would have blossomed forth even in other surroundings. Because life to me is a magnificent, wholesome joy. But do not think, father, that because of these things I am frivolous. On the contrary,—my conscience usually is even painfully sensitive. But my profession has taught me to understand the manifold features of our daily life. Something beautifully adventurous I inherited from my father. Even in him there was the blood of an adventurer, even though the traditions and conventionality of bourgeois life got the best of him. But I am a bit more of my own making. Ten years of life on the stage gave me much more training than all my former home and school education. I know the art of being happy, the art of intoxicating myself with everything and any thing—to-day with a great work of art, to-morrow with a mere memory; to-day with a dead faded flower, which I had put in a book years ago when there was spring and sunshine, to-morrow, probably with some sudden and most sorrowful calamity.