I command you to be silent!


_Hedwig:_

Not when my sister's happiness is at stake. If you come back, she will
have to live with you the rest of her life.


_Hoffman:_

That isn't the question now. We are going away--the best of us--to be
shot, most likely. Don't you suppose we want to send some part of
ourselves into the future, since we can't live ourselves? There, that's
straight; and right, too.


_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?