The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann Volume I Part 30

So there is. The woman, for instance, must have physical and mental health. That's a _conditio sine qua non_.

HOFFMANN

[_Laughing._] Better and better! I suppose then that a previous medical examination of the lady would be necessary.

LOTH

[_Quite seriously_.] You must remember that I make demands upon myself too.

HOFFMANN

[_More and more amused._] I know, I know! I remember your going through all the literature of love once in order to determine quite conscientiously whether that which you felt at that time for a certain lady was really the tender pa.s.sion. So, let's hear a few more of your demands.

LOTH

My wife, for instance, would have to practice renunciation.

HELEN

If ... if ... Ah, I don't know whether it's right to ... but I merely wanted to say that women, as a rule, are accustomed to renounce.

LOTH

For heaven's sake! You understand me quite wrongly. I did not mean renunciation in the vulgar sense. I would demand renunciation only in so far, or, rather, I would simply ask my wife to resign voluntarily and gladly that part of myself which belongs to my chosen work. No, no, in regard to every thing else, it is my wife who is to make demands--to demand all that her s.e.x has forfeited in the course of thousands of years.

HOFFMANN

Oho, oho! Emanc.i.p.ation of woman! Really, that sudden turn was admirable--now you are in the right channel. Fred Loth, or the agitator in a vest-pocket edition. How would you formulate your demands in this respect, or rather: to what degree would yam wife have to be emanc.i.p.ated?--It really amuses me to hear you talk! Would she have to smoke cigars? Wear breeches?

LOTH

Hardly that. I would want her, to be sure, to have risen above certain social conventions. I should not want her, for instance, to hesitate, if she felt genuine love for me, to be the first to make the avowal.

HOFFMANN

[_Has finished his breakfast. He jumps up in half-humorous, half-serious indignation._] Do you know? That ... that is a really _shameless_ demand.

And I prophesy, too, that you'll go about with it unfulfilled to your very end--unless you prefer to drop it first.

HELEN

[_Mastering her deep emotion with difficulty._] If you gentlemen will excuse me now--the household ... You know [_to HOFFMANN_] that mama is upstairs and so ...

HOFFMANN

Don't let us keep you.

_HELEN bows and withdraws._

HOFFMANN

[_Holding a match case in his hand and walking over to the cigar-box which stands on the table._] There's no doubt ... you do get a man excited ... it's almost uncanny. [_He takes a cigar from the box and sits down on the sofa in the foreground, left. He cuts off the end of his cigar, and, during what follows, he holds the cigar in his left, the severed end between the fingers of his right hand._] In spite of all that ... it does amuse me. And then, you don't know how good it feels to pa.s.s a few days in the country this way, away from all business matters. If only to-day this confounded ... how late is it anyhow? Unfortunately I have to go into town to a dinner to-day. It couldn't be helped: I had to give this banquet. What are you going to do as a business man? t.i.t for tat. The mine officials are used to that sort of thing.--Well, I've got time enough to smoke another cigar--quite in peace, too.

[_He carries the cigar end to a cuspidor, sits down on the sofa again and lights his cigar._]

LOTH

[_Stands at the table and turns the leaves of a deluxe volume._] "The Adventures of Count Sandor."

HOFFMANN

You'll find that trash among all the farmers in the neighbourhood.

LOTH

[_Still turning the leaves._] How old is your sister-in-law?

HOFFMANN

She was twenty-one last August.

LOTH

Is she in delicate health?

HOFFMANN

Don't know. I hardly think so, though. Does she make that impression on you?

LOTH

She really looks rather worried than ill.

HOFFMANN

Well, if you consider all the miseries with her step-mother ...

LOTH

She seems to be rather excitable, too.

HOFFMANN

In such an environment ... I should like to see any one who wouldn't become excitable.

LOTH

She seems to possess a good deal of energy.