Page:The Makropoulos Secret (1925).pdf/36

THE MAKROPOULOS SECRET

Probably, but even so, that won’t help him.

Tell her about it.

Please do.

Well, if it interests you. [He leans back in his armchair and talks rapidly] Now, from eighteen hundred and twenty on, in the baronial estate of Prus; that is, in the estates of Semonix, Loukov, Nova, Ves, Konigsdord and so on, a feeble-minded baron, Joseph Ferdinand Prus—

Pepi—feeble-minded? No, no!

Well, then, let us say eccentric.

[Strangely insistent]

No Say unfortunate.

Pardon me. You can’t be certain.

You, even less.

Well, anyway—Joseph Ferdinand Prus died childless and without will, in the year eighteen hundred and twenty-seven.