"You certainly know that we are not talking about a copy, but a new, entirely new picture," exclaimed Ottilie. "But you understand nothing about it, my dear Emil, or he doesn't want to understand."
"I only do not want to send our friend away again immediately, but to keep him with us."
"Tell the truth, Emil, tell the truth," said Frau Wollnow, shaking her finger at him. "The fact, Herr Weber, is simply that he can't bear Brandow, Heaven knows why. To be sure I can't either, and have no reason for it except that he always teased me at the dancing lessons in his malicious way. But I care nothing about him, only his angelic wife."
"And since husband and wife are one--"
"If everybody thought as you do, dear Emil--and I too, of course; but there is no rule without an exception, and the Brandow marriage is one so thoroughly bad and unfortunate that I really do not see why we--"
"Should talk so much about it," said Herr Wollnow; "and it is all the more unnecessary, as our guest can probably take no special interest in the subject."
"No interest," cried Ottilie, clasping her hands; "no interest. Pray, Herr Gotthold--how I keep falling into the old habit--excuse me--but do tell this man, who thinks Goethe's 'Elective Affinities' in bad taste--"
"Pardon me, I said immoral--"
"No, in bad taste; the evening of the day before yesterday, when we were talking about it at the Herr Conrector's, and you made the unprecedented assertion that Goethe had committed a perfidy--yes, you said perfidy--when he made the only person in the whole novel who uttered anything truthful about marriage-the mediator--a half simpleton."
"But what do you want with your elective affinities!" exclaimed Wollnow almost angrily.