The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - novelonlinefull.com
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Brother, you might.... [_She discovers LOTH and withdraws quickly._] Oh, I beg pardon.
[_Exit._
HOFFMANN
Stay here, do!
LOTH
Your wife?
HOFFMANN
No; her sister. Didn't you hear how she addressed me?
LOTH
No.
HOFFMANN
Good-looking, eh? But now, come on. Make up your mind. Coffee? Tea? Grog?
LOTH
No, nothing, thank you.
HOFFMANN
[_Offers him cigars._] Here's something for you then. No!... Not even that?
LOTH
No, thank you.
HOFFMANN
Enviable frugality! [_He lights a cigar for himself and speaks the while._] The ashes ... I meant to say, tobacco ... h-m ... smoke of course ... doesn't bother you, does it?
LOTH
No.
HOFFMANN
Ah, if I didn't get that much ... Good Lord, life anyhow!--But now, do me a favour; tell me something. Ten years--you've hardly changed much, though--ten years, a nasty slice of time. How's Schn ... Schnurz? That's what we called him, eh? And Fips, and the whole jolly bunch of those days? Haven't you been able to keep your eye on any of them?
LOTH
Look here, is it possible you don't know?
HOFFMANN
What?
LOTH
That he shot himself.
HOFFMANN
Who? Who's done that sort o' thing again?
LOTH
Fips. Friedrich Hildebrandt.
HOFFMANN
Oh come, that's impossible.
LOTH
It's a fact. Shot himself in the Grunewald, on a very beautiful spot on the sh.o.r.e of the Havelsee. I was there. You have a view toward Spandau.
HOFFMANN
Hm. Wouldn't have believed it of him. He wasn't much of a hero in other ways.
LOTH
That's the very reason why he shot himself.--He was conscientious, very conscientious.
HOFFMANN
Conscientious? I don't see.
LOTH
That was the very reason ... otherwise he would probably not have done it.
HOFFMANN
I'm still in the dark.
LOTH
Well, you know what the colour of his political views was?
