HOFFMANN

Oh, yes--green.

LOTH

Put it so, if you want to. You'll have to admit, at all events, that he was a very gifted fellow. And yet for five years he had to work as a stucco-worker, and for another five years he had to starve along, so to speak, on his own hook, and in addition he modelled his little statues.

HOFFMANN

And they were revolting. I want to be cheered by art ... No, that kind of art wasn't a bit to my taste.

LOTH

Not exactly to mine either. Certain ideas had bitten themselves into his mind. However, last spring there was a compet.i.tion for a monument. Some two-penny princeling was to be immortalised, I believe. Fips competed and--won. Shortly afterward, he killed himself.

HOFFMANN

I don't see that that throws any ray of light on his so-called conscientiousness. I call that sort of thing silly and highfalutin.

LOTH

That is the common view.

HOFFMANN

I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid I can't help sharing it.

LOTH

Well, it can make no difference to him now, what....

HOFFMANN

Oh, anyhow, let's drop the subject. At bottom I'm just as sorry for him as you can be. But now that he is dead, the good fellow, tell me something of yourself. What have you been doing? How has the world used you?

LOTH

It has used me as it was my business to expect. Didn't you hear anything about me at all? From the papers, I mean?

HOFFMANN

[_Somewhat embarra.s.sed._] Not that I know of.

LOTH

Nothing of that business at Leipzig?

HOFFMANN

Ah, yes, that! Yes, yes ... I believe so ... but nothing definite.

LOTH

Well, then, the matter was as follows--

HOFFMANN

[_Laying his hand on LOTH'S arm._] Before you begin, won't you take anything at all?

LOTH

Perhaps later.

HOFFMANN

Not even a little gla.s.s of brandy?

LOTH

No; that least of all.

HOFFMANN

Well, then I'll take a little ... There's nothing better for the stomach.

[_He gets a bottle and two little gla.s.ses from the sideboard and places them on the table before LOTH._] Grand champagne, finest brand. I can recommend it. Won't you really?

LOTH

No, thank you.

HOFFMANN

[_Tilting the contents of the gla.s.s into his mouth._] Ah-h--well, now I'm all ears.

LOTH

To put it briefly, I got into a nasty mess.

HOFFMANN

The sentence was two years, wasn't it?

LOTH

Quite right. You seem to be informed after all. Yes, I was sentenced to two years' imprisonment, and afterwards they expelled me from the university too. And at that time I was just--twenty-one. However, during those two years I wrote my first book on economics. In spite of that I couldn't truthfully say that it was very good fun to be behind the bars.

HOFFMANN

Lord, what idiots we were! It's queer. And we had really taken the thing into our heads in good earnest. I can't help thinking, old man, that it was sheer puerility. The idea! A dozen green kids like ourselves to go to America and found ... _we_ found ... a model state. Delicious notion!