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 sex has forfeited in the course of thousands of years.
HOFFMANN
Oho, oho! Emancipation 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 emancipated?—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 …