[In a rebukeful tone.] What I tell you is by no means absurd!
HELEN
One has to have a sense for the absurd, and that's what you haven't.
HOFFMANN
[In the same manner.] That isn't what we're discussing. I assure you once more that what I tell you is not at all absurd, but something that I must ask you to take as actually true … I have my own experience to guide me. Notions like that befog one's mind; one rants of universal brotherhood, of liberty and equality and, of course, transcends every convention and every moral law…. In those old days, for the sake of this very nonsense, we were ready to walk over the bodies of our parents to gain our ends … Heaven knows it. And he, I tell you, would be prepared, in a given case, to do the same thing to-day.
HELEN
And how many parents, do you suppose, walk year in and out over the bodies of their children without anybody's …
HOFFMANN
[Interrupting her.] That is nonsense! Why, that's the end of all…. I tell you to take care, in every … I tell you emphatically, in every respect. You won't find a trace of moral scrupulousness in that quarter.