He said: “Astounding. I am staggered⁠—I admit it. I had not expected this. Roma locuta. Rome has spoken, and how⁠—how has she spoken! Herr Naphta has before our eyes performed a hieratic salto mortale ⁠—if the epithet is inconsistent, the inconsistency has been ‘temporarily abrogated’⁠—oh, yes! I repeat, it is astounding. Could you conceive, Professor, of any possible criticism, if only on the score of consistency? A few minutes ago you were at pains to make comprehensible to us a Christian individualism based on the dualism of God and the world, and to prove its preeminence over all politically determined morality. And now you profess a socialism pushed to the point of dictatorship and terrorism. How do you reconcile the two things?”