- Hans: I'm only here to ask you some questions on behalf of myself and the others, and to have a look at you. Look, I could have come at another time to see him too, but, I don't need to speak to him. I don't need to speak to him... in front of you. Useless. With this business of the trial, he's... become too diffident.
- Lucia: He's right.
- Hans: What do you mean?
- Lucia: Because then for the first time he saw you all clearly. Nothing's changed, has it?
- Hans: You're wrong. We've all had our trials. Now we are cured and live in peace with ourselves.
- Lucia: There's no cure.
- Hans: It is you who are ill. Otherwise, you wouldn't be with somebody who made you...
- Lucia: That's my affair.
- Hans: Very well. But nevertheless, your mind is disturbed. That's why you're here, fishing up the past.
- Lucia: Max is more than just the past.
- [Lucia crawls under a table]
- Hans: Listen. Why don't you go to the police? If you want to, I'll take you. Hm?
- Lucia: Dr. Fogler, I remember you so well. You gave a lot of orders.
- Hans: Then you can't have forgotten that your Max was an obedient Sturmscharführer. Remember?
- Lucia: I don't remember.
- Hans: I certainly can't oblige you to remember if you don't want to.
- [clears his throat]
- Hans: I'm only here to ask you to testify, to find out... if the situation in which you find yourself is of your own choice.
- Lucia: I'm all right here.
- Hans: Yes. You both want to live in peace, right? One lives in peace... when one is in harmony with one's close friends, when one respects an agreement. Tell Max that. We could have denounced him to the police for the murder of Mario. But we didn't. Max is ill. He mustn't be too far away from us! He's locked you up here. We could go to the police about that, too, no?
- Lucia: I'm here of my own free will. This chain is because of you, so none of you can take me away.
- Hans: If we wanted to carry you off, would this chain stop us? You poor fool. A chain can be cut. None of us is thinking of violence.
- Lucia: Hmm, I know how your, your witnesses end up. Max told me.
- [Lucia crawls out from under the table, away from Hans]
- Hans: Max doesn't know what he's saying or doing. His mind is disordered.
- Lucia: [crawling into the bathroom] Get out. Go away. Go away!
- [slams the door]
- Hans: If you change your mind, if the chain grows heavy... call me.
- Countess Stein: You were always insane, and you still are.
- Max: Sane, insane then... hm. Who's to judge?
- [referring to himself and Lucia]
- Max: And just you remember... we're both in the same boat.
- [Max and Lucia are laughing while caressing each other]
- Max: Ah, no, no. Too fast, too fast. Too long. Too long.
- [kisses her]
- Lucia: Oh, Max, Max...
- Max: [stressful] Tell me, why'd you come? Tell me. Tell me!
- Lucia: [screams] I WANT YOU!
- Max: Tell me what to do. Tell me where to go. Tell me what to do.
- Lucia: No...
- Max: Tell me what to do!
- Lucia: [laughing] No!
- [they continue to kiss and caress each other]
- Max: I love you so.
- Max: I met her again. A little girl.
- Countess Stein: You mean, a little girl from then?
- [Max nods]
- Max: [clears his throat] I found her again. I found her again. And no one must touch her!
- Countess Stein: Who'd dream of touching her?
- [Max gestures with his hands in objection]
- Countess Stein: Oh, Max, be careful. Before she could testify against you, you should file her away.
- Max: Oh. Oh, no.
- Countess Stein: But...
- Max: No. I love her.
- Countess Stein: [shakes her head] What a madman.
- Max: She was my little girl.
- [close to tears]
- Max: She was very young.
- Countess Stein: And now she's not.
- Max: Yes. Yes, she - she's exactly the same - as she was for me.
- Countess Stein: Oh, Max.
- Max: As she was then!
- Countess Stein: I've never seen you so much in love.
- Max: [chocking up] I - I thought she was dead.
- Countess Stein: What a romantic story.
- Max: No. No, it's - not romantic.
- Countess Stein: No?
- Max: It's not romantic. It's a biblical story!
- [Max has handcuffed Lucia to a long chain attached to the bathroom]
- Lucia: Why?
- Max: So they can't take you away.
- Lucia: Who?
- Max: Klaus... Bert, Hans.
- [Lucia giggles]
- Max: It's nothing to laugh about.
- Lucia: And if they come with a file?
- Max: Then you fight.
- [Lucia continues giggling]
- Max: [angrily] DON'T LAUGH!
- Hans: Remember. We must try to understand if we are victims of guilt complexes or not. If so, we must be *freed* of them. A guilt complex is a disturbance of the psyche, a neurosis.
- Klaus: Let's not delude ourselves. Memory is not made of shadows, but of eyes which can stare straight at you and fingers which point at you.
- Bert: If I were rich, I'd hire you to do everything for me. Would you?
- Max: Yes, of course.
- Bert: You said that because you know I can't.
- Max: No.
- Bert: You don't really want to - you don't want to wipe anybody's arse.
- [Max proceeds to wipe Bert's backside with disinfectant]
- Bert: Be careful.
- [Max gives Bert a shot]
- Bert: You're very good at it. You never hurt.
- Hans: Max, our trials are held in private. They're also therapeutic, right? And the more shock value they have, the more effect they have. Only eyewitnesses can provoke this; because they go into details, they blurt out everything, they... you've seen it, haven't you? Only when confronted with *their* accusations can we discover how far we're able to defend ourselves!
- Klaus: Even if it says a thousand persons on paper - ten thousand - it still makes less impression than one witness, in flesh and blood, staring at you. That is why they are so dangerous, Max. My task is to seek them out, wherever they are... and to see that they are filed away.
- Dobson: We have to defend ourselves - the war is not over. If you want to live hidden away like a church mouse, then go ahead! But we want back the ranks we held. For we have never given up. Never given up!
- Max: [slamming his fists on the table] BUT I HAVEN'T GIVEN UP!
- [calms]
- Max: I'm still here with you.
- Max: [after spending the night with Lucia for the first time in twelve years] When all seems lost... something unexpected happens. Ghosts - take shape in the mind. How can one pull away from it? This phantom. With a voice and a body. This part of one's self.
- Max: My little girl - you, you remember my little girl, don't you? My little girl is waiting for me. Bye.
- Bert: Max, we all want the same thing - to live as peaceful citizens. Each of us has a respectable profession. Even I have some honorable duties. If you had wished, you could have had another career.
- Max: Look, Bert. If I choose to live like a...
- [directed to Dobson]
- Max: Like a church mouse - I have a reason. I have a reason for working at night. It's the light.
- [to the others]
- Max: I have a sense of shame in the light.
- Klaus: We are proud - of having been officers of the finest corps of the Third Reich. And if I were born again, I would do exactly what I did.
- Max: [does a Nazi salute] Sieg Heil!
- Bert, Klaus, Kurt, Dobson: [instinctively do the same] SIEG HEIL!
- [Max breaks out of the salute, and ruefully notes that the others still have their arms outstretched. He walks away, shaking his head]
- Kurt: Why this unexpected meeting?
- Klaus: Max is hiding a dangerous witness in his apartment, and he won't conclude his trial.
- Kurt: It will be concluded. Max, answer me honestly - it'll simplify everything. Have you become a Communist?
- Max: Oh, God - the usual accusation, even for the newly born!
- Dobson: I know you're not a Communist; you're not a defeatist. You're one of us!
- Max: Which means I'm rotten and I stay rotten.
- Dobson: YOU BASTARD!
- [first lines]
- Stumm: Good evening.
- Max: You're early.
- Stumm: I want to get off early tomorrow morning. Ah, here are the flowers, the newspaper and the cigarettes that the countess asked for.
- Max: [puts the flowers in a vase] Thank you.
- Stumm: Has she called down?
- Max: I don't know.
- Stumm: You're always sending only me out to buy things for her.
- Max: [annoyed] You get tipped, don't you?
- Stumm: [sarcastic; shrugs] Oh.
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