[Who has sat down, supports his head on his hand and listens resignedly. Not until SPITTA has ceased speaking for some moments does he look up, as if coming to himself.] Are you quite through, Spitta? If so, I'm much obliged!—You see, my dear fellow, I've really gotten into a deuce of a situation as far as you are concerned: either I tell you impudently to your face that I consider your method of elocution excellent—and in that case I'd be guilty of a lie of the most contemptible kind: or else I tell you that I consider it abominable and then we'd get into another beastly row.
SPITTA
[Turning pale.] Yes, all this stilted, rhetorical stuff is quite foreign to my nature. That's the very reason why I abandoned theology. The preacher's tone is repulsive to me.
HASSENREUTER
And so you would like to reel off these tragic choruses as a clerk of court mumbles a document or a waiter a bill of fare?
SPITTA
I don't care for the whole sonorous bombast of the "Bride of Messina."
HASSENREUTER
I wish you'd repeat that charming opinion.