Frau Beermann.  Finally when your every glance is artificial, each motion of yours is a pose.  Then it is unbearable.  Add to that my anxiety for our children.  How shall they still retain faith in us, if through an accident their eyes are opened?  I had remained silent all this time for their sake and now you are inviting the whole world to speak.  I cannot continue to live this life of worry and hypocrisy.  All that I have already overcome awakens again and appears to me more ugly than ever before.  I do not know if I can still believe in your good fellowship and remain your friend. [She rises and goes slowly to the door.]

Beermann.  I do not seem to know you any more.  During our entire married life, you have not spoken as seriously as in the last fifteen minutes.

Frau Beermann.  That perhaps was my great mistake.  But I have paid for it. [She opens the door.]

Beermann.  Lena dear, have you nothing further to tell me?

Frau Beermann.  I just beg of you; do not bring your family into ridicule. [Exit.]

Beermann [For a while remains standing; lost in thought; then he turns on the electric light, sighing, goes over to the bookcase, takes out the volume of the encyclopedia wherein the diary of Madams de Hauteville is hidden, opens it and reads standing.  A knock on the door.  Frightened, he quickly hides the diary in his side pocket.]

Beermann.  Come in. [Justizrat Hauser enters on the left.]

Hauser.  Lord; good evening.

Beermann [hurrying toward him].  Lord; how glad I am that you have come.

Hauser.  Has anything happened?

Beermann.  N ... no.

Hauser.  I received your message that you must see me tonight without fail.

Beermann.  Yes, I was at your house twice.

Hauser.  Unfortunately, I was not there. [He has taken off his overcoat and is laying it on a chair.] Tell me, you seem to me all upset.

Beermann.  I am upset.

Hauser.  I suppose that is why you sent for me.  Well, then, what is it?

Beermann.  Have a seat, please. [They sit down to the left on the sofa.] I must begin a little way back. ...  Have a cigar? [He goes over to the humidor, takes out a box of cigars and offers it to Hauser, who takes one.] I must begin a little way back ...  Can you remember the subject we discussed last night?

Hauser.  The genuinely righteous moral life? [He lights his cigar.] Of course, I remember it.  Such sermons are not easily forgotten.

Beermann.  Do you know I got the impression that you have a rather liberal viewpoint.

Hauser.  Liberal?

Beermann.  I mean that you are not a prude.

Hauser.  I am an old lawyer, you know, and just out of sheer habit contradict people.  I made myself blacker than I actually am.  So, if you have scruples on my account ...