Translation:Puss in Boots/Interval 1

INTERVAL

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Fischer Why, it's getting crazier and crazier. What was the purpose of that last scene, I wonder?

Leutner No purpose at all; it was totally unnecessary; just an excuse to introduce some new piece of tomfoolery. We seem to have lost sight of the cat altogether. There's no fixed point of view at all.

Schlosser It's just as if I were drunk.

Müller In what period is the play supposed to be set, then? Obviously, the hussars are a recent invention.

Schlosser We simply shouldn't put up with it; we should kick up a racket. We haven't the faintest idea now what this play is about.

Fischer And no love interest, either! There's nothing in it for the heart, nothing for the imagination!

Leutner I don't know about the rest of you, but at the first sign of any more nonsense, I'm going to start stamping and hissing.

Wiesener to his neighbor I like this play now.

Neighbor Very nice, very nice indeed; he's a great man, the author he has imitated The Magic Flute very well.

Wiesener I especially liked the hussars; people are usually too apprehensive to bring horses onto the stage but why not? They often have more sense than the humans. I would rather see one good horse than several human beings in a modern play.

Neighbor The Moors in Kotzebue after all, a horse is just another kind of Moor.

Wiesener Did you notice what regiment the hussars belonged to?

Neighbor No, I wasn't paying close enough attention to them. Too bad they took themselves off so soon; actually, I'd like to see a whole play with nothing but hussars in it I really like the cavalry.

Leutner to Bötticher What do you think of all this?

Bötticher I simply can't get the excellent acting of the man who's playing the cat out of my head. What a study! What subtlety! What observation! What a costume!

Schlosser That's true; he really does look like a large tom-cat.

Bötticher And just look at his entire mask, as I would prefer to call his costume; for since he has so completely disguised his natural appearance, this word is far more appropriate. God bless me, but God bless the ancients too while He's at it. You probably do not know that in the Classical world, all rôles without exception were performed in masks, as you will find in Athenaeus, Pollux and other authors. It's difficult, don't you see, to know all these details, because one must now and then look them up for oneself in the works of such authors; but, of course, one then has the advantage of being able to quote them. There is a difficult passage in Pausanias

Fischer You were going to be kind enough to say something about the cat.

Bötticher Oh, yes. I only meant to say all the foregoing by the by, so I beg you most earnestly to consider it as a footnote; and to return to the cat  have you noticed, I wonder, that he is not one of those black cats? No, on the contrary, he is almost completely white and has only a few black spots; that expresses his good nature admirably; the whole course of the play and all the emotions which it shall arouse are, as it were, foreshadowed by this very fur.

Fischer The curtain is rising again!