But on this proof of your obedient temper
I must continue to insist; and only
On this condition can I play the agent
For your concerns.
MAX.
Where is she?
COUNTESS.
Whole and entire. Whom could you find, indeed,
More zealously affected to your interest?
No soul on earth must know it—not your father.
He must not, above all.
MAX.
Here is no face on which I might concenter
All, the enraptur'd soul stirs up within me.
O lady! tell me, is all chang'd around me;
Or is it only I?
I find myself,
As among strangers! Not a trace is left
Of all my former wishes, former joys.
Where has it vanish'd to? There was a time
When ev'n, methought, with such a world, as this,
I was not discontented. Now how flat!
How stale! No life, no bloom, no flavour in it!
My comrades are intolerable to me.
My father—even to him I can say nothing.
My arms, my military duties—O!
They are such wearying toys!
