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!
LOTH
Puerility? Ah well, in some ways no doubt it was. We certainly
underestimated the difficulty of such an undertaking.
HOFFMANN
And that you really did go to America, in all seriousness, and with empty
hands ... Why, think, man, what it means to acquire land and foundation
for a model state with empty hands. That was almost cr ... At all events
it was unique in its naivete.
LOTH
And yet I'm particularly satisfied with the result of my American trip.
HOFFMANN
[_Laughing with a touch of boisterousness._] Cold water treatment. That
was an excellent result, if that's what you mean....
LOTH
It may well be that I cooled down quite a little. But that process is
hardly peculiar to myself. It is one which every human being undergoes.
But it's a far cry from that to failing to realise the value of those ...
well, let's call them, our hotheaded days. And it wasn't so frightfully
simple-minded, as you represent it.
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