Hauser.  What do you want me to do?  Shall I weep because you have sinned?  Why?  What good would it do you?  That is the way of your kind.  As long as no one has proofs against you, your virtue must always be under the spotlight, but the very minute you trip up, some peculiar background of justification ought to be invented for the smallest sin.  No, my dear friend.  The world’s moral system will not go to pieces just because you slipped and broke your nose.

Beermann.  You cannot realize what suffering you are inflicting upon me right now.

Hauser.  Now please don’t make long speeches.  You did not call me here to grant you absolution.  You want me to help you to quash this affair.

Beermann [jumps up quickly from his chair].  Yes, you must do that.  Good Lord, I beg you.  I am in a terrible position.  You have not the slightest idea how nervous I am.

Hauser.  Will you please sit down and stop exaggerating?

Beermann [sits down].  No man living can have sufficient imagination to enlarge on this.  Imagine it!  Any moment the police are likely to come here and arrest me.

Hauser [seriously].  Have you been carrying on so badly at Hauteville’s?

Beermann.  No.  Not there.  That is not worth while mentioning.

Hauser.  Why then do you fear the police?  That’s all nonsense.  Now just consider everything quietly and calmly.  By the way, has your wife any suspicions ...?

Beermann.  Of this affair?  I don’t think so.  She has just a general one ... but what’s the use of bothering with trifles!  You know that this stupid woman kept a diary, and that they found it in her apartment.

Hauser.  Assuredly I know it.  Without that diary we would not have so many penitents in the City.

Beermann.  Imagine my position.  I know positively that my name is in that book.  It means that I am simply done for by the cursed thing.

Hauser.  Is it so certain that your name is in the book?

Beermann [loudly].  Yes, sir.

Hauser.  It may be possible that ...

Beermann.  It is not at all possible.  My name is there.  Shall I quietly sit and wait until I am ruined?  You know that I would be ruined if it became public.  Fancy, I, the candidate for the Reichstag; I, the President of the Society for the Suppression of Vice!  All the papers would be full of it.

Hauser.  Oh, yes, it would be quite interesting.

Beermann.  Then think of the consequences here in the City!  In the family!  Why, I would be killed outright!  Lord, how I tried to hammer it into the head of that stupid man in the Police Department so he could understand what terrible mischief this will make.

Hauser [frightened].  You went to Police Headquarters?

Beermann.  Of course, I was there.