Ah, but that's just it! The physician here is an unusually capable one. And, do you know, I've found this out: in a doctor, conscientiousness counts for more than genius.
LOTH
Perhaps it is an essential concomitant of a physician's genius.
HOFFMANN
Maybe so. Anyhow, our doctor has a conscience. He's a bit of an idealist—more or less our kind. His success among the miners and the peasants is simply phenomenal! Sometimes, I must say, he isn't an easy man to bear, he's got a mixture of hardness and sentimentality. But, as I said before, I know how to value conscientiousness; no doubt about that. But before I forget … I do attach some importance to it … a man ought to know what he has to look out for … Listen!… Tell me … I see it in your face. Those gentlemen at the next table had nothing good to say of me? Tell me, please, what they did say.
LOTH
I really ought not to do that, for I was going to beg one hundred crowns of you, literally beg, for there is hardly any chance of my ever being able to return them.
HOFFMANN
[Draws a cheque-book from his inner pocket, makes out a cheque and hands it to LOTH.] Any branch of the Imperial Bank will cash it … It's simply a pleasure….