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THE MAKROPOULOS SECRET

If you don’t want to, you can stand up.

Beautiful, divine lady. On my knees I beg your pardon.

Why?

I’m an old fool. How could a woman long since dead concern you?

Is she dead?

Yes.

Now, that’s too bad.

She has been dead for fifty years. I used to love her then—fifty years ago.

Yes?

They used to call her Gitana. You know—a gypsy. And she was a gypsy. They used to call her la chula negra. That is, down there in Andalusia. At that time I was in the Embassy at Madrid. Fifty years ago—eighteen seventy.