PRINCESS.

Here. Master Leander, is my essay. I have ent.i.tled it _Thoughts at Night_.

LEANDER (_reads_).

Excellent! Inspired! Ah! I feel as though I hear the hour of midnight striking. When did you write it?

PRINCESS.

Yesterday noon, after dinner.

LEANDER.

Beautifully conceived! Truly, beautifully conceived! But with your most gracious permission! _The moon shines sadly down in the world._ If you will not take it amiss, it should read: _into the world_.

PRINCESS.

Very well, I will note that for the future; it's too stupid that poetry should be made so hard for us; one can't write five or six lines without making a mistake.

LEANDER.

That's the obstinacy of language, so to speak.

PRINCESS.

Are not the emotions tenderly and delicately phrased!

LEANDER.

Indescribably! It is scarcely comprehensible how a feminine mind could write such a thing.

PRINCESS.

Now I might try my hand at moonlight descriptions. Don't you think so?

LEANDER.

Naturally you keep going farther all the time; you keep rising higher.

PRINCESS.

I have also begun a piece: _The Unhappy Misanthrope; or, Lost Peace and Restored Innocence!_

LEANDER.

Even the t.i.tle itself is fascinating.

PRINCESS.

And then I feel an incomprehensible desire within me to write some horrible ghost story. As I said before, if it were not for those grammatical errors!

LEANDER.

Do not worry about that, incomparable princess! They are easily corrected.

[_Groom from the Chamber enters._]

GROOM.

The Prince of Malsinki, who has just arrived, wishes to wait on your royal highness.

[_Exit._]

LEANDER.

Your obedient servant.

[_Exit._]

_Prince_ NATHANIEL _of Malsinki. The_ KING

KING.

Here, Prince, is my daughter, a young, simple creature, as you see her before you. (_Aside._) Be polite, my daughter, courteous; he is an ill.u.s.trious prince from afar; his country is not even on my map, I have already looked it up; I have an amazing amount of respect for him.

PRINCESS.

I am glad to have the pleasure of making your acquaintance.

NATHAN.

Beautiful Princess, the report of your beauty has been spread so widely over the whole world that I have come here from a far distant corner for the happiness of seeing you face to face.

KING.

Indeed it is astonishing, how many countries and kingdoms there are! You would not believe how many thousand crown-princes have been here already, to pay their addresses to my daughter; sometimes they arrive by dozens, especially when the weather is fine--and now you have come all the way from--I beg your pardon, topography is such a very extensive subject--in what region does your country lie?

NATHAN.

Mighty king, if you travel from here first down the great highway, then you turn to the right and go on; but when you reach a mountain, turn to the left again, then you go to the ocean and sail directly north (if the wind is favorable, of course), and so, if the journey is successful, you reach my dominions in a year and a half.

KING.

The deuce! I must have my court scholar explain that to me. You are probably a neighbor of the North Pole or Zodiac, or something like that, I suppose!

NATHAN.

Not that I know of.