Muhlingk. I don't know anything----!
Leonore. You needn't try to hide it from me. According to the rules of modern hypocrisy which are applied to the so-called young ladies, I ought to go about with downcast eyes and play the part of innocent ignorance. Under the circumstances that doesn't work. I have heard about the whole affair.
Frau Muhlingk. And you aren't ashamed of yourself?
Leonore. (Bitterly) I am ashamed of myself.
Muhlingk. Do you know whom you are speaking to? Are you mad?
Leonore. If my tone was impertinent, please forgive me. I want to soften you, not to quarrel with you. Perhaps I have been a bad daughter--Perhaps I really haven't the right to have my own thoughts as long as I do not eat my own bread--If that is true, try to pardon me--I will make up for it a thousand times. But understand--give him back his honor----
Muhlingk. I won't ask you again what the fellow is to you?--what do you mean by "giving him back his honor?"
Leonore. Heavens, you must first at least have the good will to make up for what has happened. Then we can find the means later.
Muhlingk. You think so? Sit down, my child--I shall let my customary mildness still govern me and try to bring you to reason, although perhaps a stricter method would be more in place--Look at this old gray head. A great deal of honor has been piled up there and still in my whole life I have never meddled with this so-called sense of honor--ah, what a person has to endure without even saying "Hum" when he expects to succeed in life. Here is a young man from whom you say, I have taken his honor. Taking for granted that you are right--where does a young fellow like that get his honor? From his family? Or from my business? My clerks are no knights. You say he had honor, and I'm supposed to give it back to him. How? By taking his sister as a daughter-in-law?
Frau Muhlingk. Really, Theodore, you mustn't say these things even as a joke.