DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG But what I want to know is: how did you fall in with this particular family? LOTH Hoffmann's an old college friend of mine. Then, too, he was a member--though only a corresponding one--of my colonisation society. DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG I heard about that business at Zuerich.--So he was associated with you. That explains the wretched half-and-half creature that he is. LOTH That describes him, no doubt. DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG He isn't even _that_, really.--But, look here, Loth! Is that your honest intention? I mean this thing with the Krause girl. LOTH Of course it is! Can you doubt it? You don't think me such a scoundrel--? DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG Very well! Don't exert yourself! You've probably changed in all this long time. And why not? It needn't be entirely a disadvantage. A little bit of humour couldn't harm you. I don't see why one must look at all things in that damnably serious way. LOTH I take things more seriously than ever. [_He gets up and walks up and down with SCHIMMELPFENNIG, always keeping slightly behind the latter._] You can't possibly know, and I can't possibly explain to you, what this thing means to me. DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG Hm! LOTH Man, you have no notion of the condition I'm in. One doesn't know it by simply longing for it. If one did, one would simply go mad with yearning. DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG Let the devil try to understand how you fellows come by this senseless yearning. LOTH You're not safe against an attack yourself yet. DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG I'd like to see that! LOTH You talk as a blind man would of colour. DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG I wouldn't give a farthing for that bit of intoxication. Ridiculous! And to build a life-long union on such a foundation. I'd rather trust a heap of shifting sand. LOTH Intoxication! Pshaw! To call it that is simply to show your utter blindness to it. Intoxication is fleeting. I've had such spells, I admit. This happens to be something different. DR. SCHIMMELPFENNIG Hm! LOTH