Moral | Page 6

can tell the lawyer. You'd like to establish a
civil service examination for members of the Reichstag?
HAUSER. You are not afraid that it might hurt them?
BEERMANN [with importance]. Let me tell you, Judge. What a person
achieves in real life is far greater than all your book wisdom. We have
too many lawyers anyway. It's one of our national misfortunes.
FRAU LUND [merrily to Frau Beermann]. Look! He's beginning to
debate already.
BOLLAND [careless pose]. As you know, I run a soap factory where I
employ four hundred and sixty-two workmen ... let me repeat it, four
hundred and sixty-two workmen. Their livelihood and welfare lies in
the palm of my hand; don't you think that requires brains?
HAUSER. But ...
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