【正文】 they march.Maria: Surely you don’t approve of that?Frau Schmidt: Ever since the Captain lost his poor wife, he runs this house as if it was one of his ships again. Whistles, orders. No more music。 the gates were open and the hills were beckoning and before…Reverend Mother: Maria, I haven’t summoned you here for apologies.Maria: Oh, please Mother, do let me ask forgiveness.Reverend Mother: If it’d make you feel better.Maria: Yes. Well, you see the sky was so blue today and everything is so green and fragrant. I just had to be a part of it. And the Untesberg kept leading me higher and higher as though it wanted me to go right through the clouds with it.Reverend Mother: Child, suppose darkness had e and you were lost?Maria: Oh, Mother, I could never be lost up there. That’s my mountain. I was brought up on it. It was the mountain that led me to you.Reverend Mother: Oh?Maria: When I was a Child, I would e down the mountain and climb a tree and look over into your garden. I’d see the Sisters at work and I’d hear them sing on their way to vespers, which brings me to another transgression, Reverend Mother. I was singing out there today without permission.Reverend Mother: Maria, it is only here in the abbey that we have rules about postulant singing.Maria: I can’t seem to stop singing wherever I am. And what’s worse, I can’t seem to stop saying things, everything and anything I think and feel…Reverend Mother: Some people would call that honesty.Maria: Oh, but it’s terrible, Reverend Mother. You know Sister Bettar always make me kiss the floor after we’ve had a disagreement. Well, lately I’ve taken to kissing the floor when I see her ing…just to save time.Reverend Mother: Ah, Maria, when you saw us over the abbey wall and longed to be one of us that didn’t necessarily mean that you were prepared for the way we live here, did it?Maria: No, Mother, but I pray, and I try … and I am learning。My heart wants to sing every song it hears.My heart wants to beat like the wings of the birds that rise from the lake to the trees…My heart wants to sigh like the chime that flies from a church on a breeze.To laugh like a brook when it trips and falls over stones on its way.To sing through the night like a lark who is learning to pray.I go to the hills when my heart is lonely.I know I will hear what I’ve heard before…My heart will be blessed with the sound of music, and I’ll sing once more.Sister Benny: Reverend Mother.Reverend Mother: Sister Benny?Benny: I simply cannot find her.Reverend Mother: Maria?Benny: She’s missing from the abbey again.Reverend Mother: Perhaps we should put a cow bell around her neck. Have you tried the barn? You know how much she adores the animals.Benny: I have looked everywhere in all of the usual places.Reverend Mother: Sister Benny, considering that it’s Maria, I suggest that you look in some place unusual.Beister: Well, Reverend Mother, I hope this new infraction ends whatever doubt you may still have about Maria’s future here.Reverend Mother: I always try to keep faith in my doubts, Sister Beister.Margaret: After all the wool of a black sheep is just as warm.Reverend Mother: We are not talking about sheep, black or white, Sister Margaret.Beister: Of all the candidates for the novitiate? I would say Maria is the least likely?Reverend Mother: Children, we were speculating about the qualifications of some of our postulants. The mistress of novices and the mistress of postulants were trying to help me by expressing opposite points of view. Tell me, Sister Catherine, what do you think of Maria?Sister Catherine: She is a wonderful girl. Some of the time…Reverend Mother: Sister Agathan.Sister Agathan: It’s very easy to like Maria …except when it’s…er…difficult.Reverend Mother: And you, Sister Sophia.Sister Sophia: Oh, I love her very dearly, but she always seems to be in trouble, doesn’t she?Sisters: Exactly what I say, she climbs a tree and scrapes her knee, her dress has got a tear. She waltzes on her way to mass and whistles on the stair, and underneath her wimple she has curlers in her hair. I even heard her singing in the abbey. She’s always late for chapel, but her penitence is real. She’s always late for everything except for every meal. I hate to have to say it, but very firmly feel. Maria’s not an asset to the abbey. I’d like to say a word in her behalf…Reverend Mother: Then say it, Sister Margaret.Sister Margaret: Maria makes me laugh?Reverend Mother: How do you solve a problem like Maria? How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you find a word that means Maria, a flibbertygibbet, a willo’thewisp, a clown? Many a thing you know you’d like to tell her。 Children, in the morning I shall be going to Vienna.Children: Not again, Father!Gretel: How long will you be gone this time, Father?Captain: I’m not sure, Gretel...not sure.Louisa: To visit Baroness Shoeder again?Fredrick: Mind your own… business!Captain: As a matter of fact, yes, Louisa.Martha: Why can’t we ever get to see the Baroness?Louisa: Why would she want to see you?Captain: It just so happens, Martha, that you are going to see the Baroness. I’m bringing her with me to visit us all.Children: Good.Captain: And uncle Max.Children: ——Uncle Max!( Lisal goes out to the yard)Lisal: Oh. Rolf... I.Rolf: No, Lisal, we mustn’t...Lisal: Why not, silly?Rolf: I don’t know, it’s just that I…Lisal: Isn’t this why you’re here waiting for me?Rolf: Yes, of course, I’ve missed you, Lisal!Lisal: You have? How much?Rolf: So much, that I even thought sending you a telegram, just so I’d be able to deliver it here.Lisal: Oh, that’s a lovely thought。 God bless Louisa, Maria, Martha and Little Gretel... and… oh... I forgot the other boy! What’s his name? Well, God bless what’s his name. God bless the Reverend Mother, and Sister Margaret