The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann Volume I Part 48

Call it that. At all events, we're agreed.

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

But what I want to know is: how did you fall in with this particular family?

LOTH

Hoffmann's an old college friend of mine. Then, too, he was a member--though only a corresponding one--of my colonisation society.

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

I heard about that business at Zuerich.--So he was a.s.sociated with you.

That explains the wretched half-and-half creature that he is.

LOTH

That describes him, no doubt.

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

He isn't even _that_, really.--But, look here, Loth! Is that your honest intention? I mean this thing with the Krause girl.

LOTH

Of course it is! Can you doubt it? You don't think me such a scoundrel--?

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

Very well! Don't exert yourself! You've probably changed in all this long time. And why not? It needn't be entirely a disadvantage. A little bit of humour couldn't harm you. I don't see why one must look at all things in that d.a.m.nably serious way.

LOTH

I take things more seriously than ever. [_He gets up and walks up and down with SCHIMMELPFENNIG, always keeping slightly behind the latter._]

You can't possibly know, and I can't possibly explain to you, what this thing means to me.

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

Hm!

LOTH

Man, you have no notion of the condition I'm in. One doesn't know it by simply longing for it. If one did, one would simply go mad with yearning.

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

Let the devil try to understand how you fellows come by this senseless yearning.

LOTH

You're not safe against an attack yourself yet.

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

I'd like to see that!

LOTH

You talk as a blind man would of colour.

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

I wouldn't give a farthing for that bit of intoxication. Ridiculous! And to build a life-long union on such a foundation. I'd rather trust a heap of s.h.i.+fting sand.

LOTH

Intoxication! Pshaw! To call it that is simply to show your utter blindness to it. Intoxication is fleeting. I've had such spells, I admit.

This happens to be something different.

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

Hm!

LOTH

I'm perfectly sober all through it. Do you imagine that I surround my darling with a kind of a--well, how shall I put it--a kind of an aureole?

Not In the least. She lias her faults; she isn't remarkably beautiful, at least--well, she's certainly not exactly homely either. Judging her quite objectively--of course it's entirely a matter of taste--I haven't seen such a sweet girl before in my life. So when you talk of mere intoxication--nonsense! I am as sober as possible. But, my friend, this is the remarkable thing: I simply can't imagine myself without her any longer. It seems to me like an amalgam, as when two metals are so intimately welded together that you can't say any longer, here's the one, there's the other. And it all seems so utterly inevitable. In short--maybe I'm talking rot--or what I say may seem rot to you, but so much is certain: a man who doesn't know _that_ is a kind of cool-blooded fishy creature. That's the kind of creature I was up till now, and that's the kind of wretched thing you are still.

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

That's a very complete set of symptoms. Queer how you fellows always slide up to the very ears into the particular things that you've long ago rejected theoretically--like yourself into marriage. As long as I've known you, you've struggled with this unhappy mania for marriage.

LOTH

It's instinct with me, sheer instinct. G.o.d knows, I can wriggle all I please--there it is.

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

When all's said and done one can fight down even an instinct.

LOTH

Certainly, if there's a good reason, why not?

DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG

Is there any good reason for marrying?

LOTH