Hedwig:
Not when my sister's happiness is at stake. If you come back, she will have to live with you the rest of her life.
Hoffman:
That isn't the question now. We are going away—the best of us—to be shot, most likely. Don't you suppose we want to send some part of ourselves into the future, since we can't live ourselves? There, that's straight; and right, too.
Hedwig: [Nodding slowly.]
What I said—to breed a soldier for the empire; to restock the land. [Fiercely.] And for what? For food for the next generation's cannon. Oh, it is an insult to our womanhood! You violate all that makes marriage sacred! [Agitated, she walks about the room.] Are we women never to get up out of the dust? You never asked us if we wanted this war, yet you ask us to gather in the crops, cut the wood, keep the world going, drudge and slave, and wait, and agonize, lose our all, and go on bearing more men—and more—to be shot down! If we breed the men for you, why don't you let us say what is to become of them? Do we want them shot—the very breath of our life?
Hoffman:
It is for the fatherland.
Hedwig:
You use us, and use us—dolls, beasts of burden, and you expect us to bear it forever dumbly; but I won't! I shall cry out till I die. And now you say it almost out loud, "Go and breed for the empire." War brides! Pah! [Minna gasps, beginning to be terrified. Hoffman rages. Mother gazes with anxious concern. Amelia turns pale.]