Ten years--you've hardly changed much,
though--ten years, a nasty slice of time. How's Schn ... Schnurz? That's
what we called him, eh? And Fips, and the whole jolly bunch of those
days? Haven't you been able to keep your eye on any of them?
LOTH
Look here, is it possible you don't know?
HOFFMANN
What?
LOTH
That he shot himself.
HOFFMANN
Who? Who's done that sort o' thing again?
LOTH
Fips. Friedrich Hildebrandt.
HOFFMANN
Oh come, that's impossible.
LOTH
It's a fact. Shot himself in the Grunewald, on a very beautiful spot on
the shore of the Havelsee. I was there. You have a view toward Spandau.
HOFFMANN
Hm. Wouldn't have believed it of him. He wasn't much of a hero in other
ways.
LOTH
That's the very reason why he shot himself.--He was conscientious, very
conscientious.
HOFFMANN
Conscientious? I don't see.
LOTH
That was the very reason ... otherwise he would probably not have done
it.
HOFFMANN
I'm still in the dark.
LOTH
Well, you know what the colour of his political views was?
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.
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