- Narrator: This comedy might have been a tragedy but the gods were kind. The teacher of this lesson is neither the author nor the actors, but life itself with its absurd twists.
- Nix, David's Daughter: Aren't you afraid of dying?
- Professor Henrik Erneman: Not a bit.
- Nix, David's Daughter: Do you believe in God?
- Professor Henrik Erneman: If by God you mean life, then I do. I believe in this life and the next, in all kinds of life.
- Nix, David's Daughter: But death?
- Professor Henrik Erneman: Just a part of life. How dull if everything was always the same. You die and begin a new life.
- Nix, David's Daughter: Can you operate on a woman and make her a man? The papers say it's possible. Operate on me! I'm sick of being a woman.
- Nix, David's Daughter: Have you seen my hands? I want to make something - not just sun-bathe, read silly magazines and think about love.
- David Erneman: Life at its best is cooperation.
- Nix, David's Daughter: But love's stupid!
- David Erneman: Not the real kind. But to wallow in physical love is to be like the baboons.
- Nix, David's Daughter: Then you're a baboon.
- David Erneman: Maybe.
- David Erneman: Let's not lose a single day, night or hour. Give me back your heart - - I'll tend to it like a holy relic. My darling!
- Susanne Verin: You're a beast! Spoilt, brutal, cynical. A gynecologist who knows nothing about women!
- David Erneman: No disturbing symptoms. But I'd better examine you. Please get undressed.
- Susanne Verin: Do you think I'm pretty?
- Susanne Verin: What's it like to see women undressing all day? I'm so scared. You'll be nice to me?
- David Erneman: Get undressed, others are waiting.
- David Erneman: If I were to have an affair with you what a terrible chain reaction there would be.
- Susanne Verin: Nobody need know.
- David Erneman: I prefer my simple life with its small joys and cares, my slippers by the quiet fire, to your perfumed body and devouring flame that sweeps over home, children, decency and leads to nothing at all. Go now, Susanne. Leave me in peace.
- Susanne Verin: You love me.
- David Erneman: No. But I desire you. I want your fire to burn away my dull apathy and the waste heap of grey monotony. Is that absurd and silly?
- Susanne Verin: Don't talk. Kiss me.
- David Erneman: Of course I noticed you last summer. Your fragrance was everywhere I dreamt of you. You were summer itself.
- Travelling salesman in train: Some book. Modern literature, eh?
- David Erneman: "Arterial Circulation in the Womb and Secondary Sex-Glands and Their Functions"
- Travelling salesman in train: With pictures, eh?
- David Erneman: Yes, but dull ones.
- Marianne Erneman: Could I have a light?
- [Traveling Salesman rushes to light her cigarette]
- Travelling salesman in train: What a woman! What lips, what a bosom! She seems interested.
- David Erneman: In what?
- Travelling salesman in train: In me, of course.
- Nix, David's Daughter: My best friend Eva, we've always been chums. She was to spend the summer here and we were going to swim and fish and have fun. She's changed and uses lipstick and curlers and wiggles her hips in a swim-suit a size too small. She with her great fat behind! Everything I wanted to do she said was silly.
- Marianne Erneman: I often think what power a gynecologist has over women. Don't you ever feel tempted?
- Marianne Erneman: A woman wants to feel she's a woman - not a wife. It's for the husband to find out how.
- David Erneman: A job for millionaires.
- Marianne Erneman: A hobby for men.
- David Erneman: Your virtue is impregnable.
- Marianne Erneman: What do you know of my virtue? Woman is not virtuous by nature. You men have created virginity and virtue, chastity and innocence.
- David Erneman: Amen.
- Marianne Erneman: No! Not at all. A man can be immoral and he's only a "he-man". But a woman who satisfies her instincts is a strumpet.
- Marianne Erneman: You think the fruit is yours for the taking, but it will be a very sour apple. Some things I don't easily forget.
- Marianne Erneman: What is love anyway? A strenuous grimace which ends in a yawn.
- David Erneman: How cynical.
- Marianne Erneman: Your own words.
- David Erneman: Fiddlesticks! Tommyrot!
- Marianne Erneman: Don't let that silly kiss give you ideas. My mind's made up. Never again!
- David Erneman: Never again what?
- Marianne Erneman: I don't know. But never again.
- Carl-Adam: Something must have happened to her.
- David Erneman: The bride's always late. She has a lot to do. Settle with her past, take leave of her virginity...
- Marianne Erneman: Remember that sunny morning last winter when I was posing for Carl-Adam? The look you gave me!
- David Erneman: I saw you naked for the first time.
- Marianne Erneman: You blushed so sweetly and that lout said, "And he's to be a gynecologist!"
- David Erneman: We must tell Carl-Adam.
- Marianne Erneman: He'll kill you.
- David Erneman: With every right. I"m his best friend.
- Marianne Erneman: Let's make love first.
- David Erneman: Marianne, no. Business before pleasure.
- Marianne Erneman: What character!
- Vicar at the wedding: [Marianne and Carl-Adam start fighting] Peace, my friends!
- Carl-Adam: Who's the injured one? Here am I in my innocence...
- Marianne Erneman: Innocent! With girls by the dozen posing both vertically and horizontally. You're a lecherous old goat!
- Carl-Adam: A gentle creature like me was to marry that shrew!
- Marianne Erneman: I'm through doing your chores, exposing my superb bust - - through with your stupid art and immorality... your bragging and your idiotic virility!
- Carl-Adam: And I'm sick of your tantrums! Who dragged you out of the gutter? Made you famous? You're not worthy to lick my boots! I've given you bed and board and gin!
- David Erneman: Every morning I'll sing of your beautiful body and soul, at noon lay flowers at your feet, at night be the fiery lover.
- Marianne Erneman: Sometimes you might have praised my beauty, pretended I was the best lover in the world... though we both know I'm not. Why did we never make-believe?
- David Erneman: In this land of perpetual winter? When I'm ashamed of my skinny arms and fat tummy? It's asking too much!
- Svea Erneman: Stop. Have you got your long underwear on?
- [Nods his head yes]
- Svea Erneman: You're fibbing.
- Professor Henrik Erneman: Must you discuss it in front of everybody? All right, I've short underwear on! It's my birthday.
- Svea Erneman: And tomorrow it'll be your rheumatism. Go and change.
- Marianne Erneman: Sometimes my body aches for a baby. They smell so nice... Oh, to hold them! To give them the breast! I shudder with delight to think of it!
- Marianne Erneman: [David walks up from behind and kisses her neck] What are you doing?
- David Erneman: I love you. I've always loved you. I always will.
- Marianne Erneman: Amen.