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THE MAKROPOULOS SECRET

With the Makropoulos secret. Somewhere here is a formula for a three-hundred-year life. Can we get hold of it?

She has it in her bosom.

Good! Gentlemen, it is a thing of unimaginable importance. What shall we do with it?

Nothing at all. The formula belongs to me. I am her heir.

Keep your mouth shut! As long as she is alive, you are not her heir; and she can live for another three hundred years, if she wants to. Don’t you see, we must get hold of it.

By trickery?

Why not? This is something of such importance—for us and for everybody, that—hm. Gentlemen, you understand me? Ought we to let her keep it? What? Should she alone or, at best, some such good-for-nothing as Bombita have the advantage of it? Who will get it?

First of all, we must help her.