A Lesson in Love (1954)

Gunnar Björnstrand: David Erneman

Photos 

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Quotes 

• David Erneman : The marital bed is the death of 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 : Women adore being married.

  Marianne Erneman : How naive.

• 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!

• David Erneman : I'm not a passionate he-man, but a tired wretch full of remorse.

• 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 : It's my inalienable right to go on being a bore.

• David Erneman : Of course I noticed you last summer. Your fragrance was everywhere I dreamt of you. You were summer itself.

• David Erneman : Woman is life itself with its delights and miseries.

• 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.

• David Erneman : We try to be ourselves and find we're other people too.

• 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 : 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!

• David Erneman : You little minx!

• 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!

• 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!

• 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.

• David Erneman : I'm going to kiss the prettiest girl in Denmark!