Moral Part 5

BOLLAND [interrupting]. Do you realize what the amount of detail and the management of the whole factory means?

HAUSER. But friend Beermann never even worked in a soap factory. How can that apply to him?

BEERMANN. Oh, what's the use of discussing things if you're joking.

HAUSER. Really, I can't see the connection.

BEERMANN. At any rate, I'm a better candidate than the book-binder whom the Socialists have put up against me.

BOLLAND. Beermann has had greater experience and has a broader point of view.

FRAU LUND. Then there's something else I heard about Herr Beermann, that I don't like at all.

BEERMANN. About me?

FRAU LUND. Yes, I bear that you are the President of the new Society for the Suppression of Vice. What makes you do such things? That isn't nice.

FRAU BEERMANN. I fully agree with you.

BEERMANN. You do? For what reasons? When honest men select me as their President, is that mere flattery?

FRAU LUND. It is not becoming to you, and you are insincere in it.

FRAU BEERMANN. It's as false as anything can be, and you speak about problems which you have never understood.

BEERMANN. Pardon me! I ought to know best what is becoming for me.

FRAU LUND. There's no one in the world I dislike as much as a preacher.

But if a person wants to be one ... then, according to the gospel he ought to live on bread and water. It doesn't go well with champagne and lobster.

BEERMANN. Do the Scriptures command that we must be poor to be honorable?

FRAU LUND. No, Beermann, but if I still remember, they speak of a camel and a needle.

BOLLAND. The ladies evidently are not acquainted with the purposes of our new society. I am sure they would subscribe to every one of the principles which are incorporated in our By-laws.

FRAU LUND. I certainly would not.

BOLLAND [feeling in his side pocket]. At least read our "Appeal to the Public."

FRAU LUND [refusing]. No, thank you.

BOLLAND. Every woman will rejoice when she reads it.

FRAU LUND. Do you think so? How exceedingly amusing your societies are!

So, cards and bowling no longer offer sufficient entertainment. You have to moralize.

HAUSER. I can't help thinking of the notorious starvation freak at the circus who gets his meals on the sly everyday.

DR. WASNER. Of course, every conviction can be made ridiculous once it's regarded as insincere. You shouldn't accuse without proof.

HAUSER. Herr Professor, politeness requires that each individual be regarded as the exception--but not an entire club.

BOLLAND. It is a pity, indeed, that a great movement like ours is disposed of by a few trifling remarks. That embitters our task of curing the nation of social diseases.

FRAU LUND. Where did you get your Doctor's license to cure?

DR. WASNER. It's sad enough that the cure is left to only a few of us.

HAUSER. Well, I'll remain a patient. You'll need a few anyway to keep up your business.

BEERMANN. I consider all this a very cheap kind of humor. I used to joke about these matters myself, but if you will only look upon this problem from a serious point of view, when your eyes are opened to the ...

FRAU BEERMANN.... Your newly acquired ways of talking are quite unbearable.

BEERMANN. Please, don't make a scene.

FRAU BEERMANN. We have been married for twenty-six years; have been very fortunate with our own children. Why worry about other people?

BEERMANN. You are not logical, my love. The mere fact that I brought up my children properly is all the more reason for my joining this movement....

FRAU BEERMANN. You didn't lose much sleep about their education.

BEERMANN. Evidently I didn't neglect anything.

FRAU LUND. I'm afraid you pride yourselves on a degree of willpower you never exercised.

BEERMANN. Never exercised? My dear Frau Lund, what do you know about the temptations which confront us men. What does a woman know about them?

FRAU LUND. The only thing we women don't know about is the manner in which these temptations terminate.

BEERMANN. Our movement intends to do away with these very deceptions. We want to protect the traditions of the home which women treasure.

FRAU LUND. No. We, women also treasure modesty. We dislike to see men pretend to have better morals than they actually have.

BEERMANN. Seriously, Frau Lund. Public immorality must hurt you more.

FRAU LUND. You are mistaken. It requires a genuine manly feeling to sympathize with misery.

DR. WASNER. Misery and vice are different problems.

FRAU LUND. They're not. And that is why we will never agree.

FRAU BEERMANN. All the more reason why my husband should not set himself up as an example. He knows nothing of worry or care.

BEERMANN. We can never subscribe to Frau Lund's principles.

FRAU LUND. No principles, please!