(Signora Fantastici enters)
ZEPHERINA:
Ah, mother. I'm very glad to see you. There's a terrible problem here.
SIGNORA FANTASTICI:
Is the ending approaching? But it's not sufficiently prepared. My dear
Licidas, present me to your father and your mother. I will be charmed
to know them.
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL:
Me! That will give me very little pleasure.
MADAME DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL: And as for me, Madame, I should have wished that the obscurity of our life would spare us all this uproar.
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: I get it. One is of the abrupt type, like you would say of The Beneficent Bear. The roles of the uncle and the tutor. As to the other, the prudes. These are easy roles. But one has a German accent and the other an English accent. Which serves very well, why very well.
LICIDAS: Signora. Content yourself with the sons and don't try to bring the father and the mother. That can't be done.
SIGNORA FANTASTICI: Who told you it cannot be done? It's only a question of tearing men from their habits. You have to make them feel the interest of a new life and the insipidity of their own. You must awaken their imaginations, and they are ours.
MR. DE KRIEGSCHENMAHL:
Come on, Commissioner, do your duty.
COMMISSIONER:
Madame I, I am re-responsible