_Hedwig:_ [_Nodding slowly._]
What I said--to breed a soldier for the empire; to restock the land.
[_Fiercely._] And for what? For food for the next generation's cannon.
Oh, it is an insult to our womanhood! You violate all that makes
marriage sacred! [_Agitated, she walks about the room._] Are we women
never to get up out of the dust? You never asked us if we wanted this
war, yet you ask us to gather in the crops, cut the wood, keep the world
going, drudge and slave, and wait, and agonize, lose our all, and go on
bearing more men--and more--to be shot down! If we breed the men for
you, why don't you let us say what is to become of them? Do we want them
shot--the very breath of our life?
_Hoffman:_
It is for the fatherland.
_Hedwig:_
You use us, and use us--dolls, beasts of burden, and you expect us to
bear it forever dumbly; but I won't! I shall cry out till I die. And now
you say it almost out loud, "Go and breed for the empire." War brides!
Pah! [_Minna gasps, beginning to be terrified. Hoffman rages. Mother
gazes with anxious concern. Amelia turns pale._]
_Hoffman:_
I never would dream of speaking of Amelia like that.
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