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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) + A Tragedy in Four Acts + +Author: Frank Wedekind + +Translator: Samuel Eliot + +Release Date: August 13, 2009 [EBook #29682] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERDGEIST (EARTH-SPIRIT) *** + + + + +Produced by Michael Roe, Alexander Bauer and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<p class="tnote break-after" style="margin-top: 5em;">Transcriber's Note:<br /><br /> + +Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as +possible, including inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation; +changes (corrections of spelling and punctuation) made to the +original text are marked <ins class="correction" title="transcriber's note">like this</ins>. The original text appears +when hovering the cursor over the marked text. Additionally the changes +are listed at the <a href="#Corrections">end of this text</a>. +</p> + +<h1 style="margin-top: 5em;">ERDGEIST</h1> +<p class="center noindent curtain break-before" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; width: 15em; white-space: nowrap; margin-top: 5em; border:2px solid black; padding: 0.7em"><span style="font-size: 140%; line-height: 150%">LULU</span><br /> +<span style="line-height: 175%">BY FRANK WEDEKIND<br /></span> +<span style="font-size: 85%; line-height: 150%">ERDGEIST (EARTH-SPIRIT) $1.00<br /> +PANDORA'S BOX (<span class="smcap">In Preparation</span>)</span></p> + + +<p class="center noindent" style="font-size: 225%">ERDGEIST</p> + +<p class="center noindent" style="font-size: 145%; margin-top: 1.5em;">(<i>Earth-Spirit</i>)</p> + +<p class="center noindent" style="line-height: 175%; margin-top: 3em;">A Tragedy in Four Acts<br /> +BY<br /> +<span style="font-size: 140%">FRANK WEDEKIND</span></p> + +<p class="center noindent" style="margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 6em;">Translated by Samuel A. Eliot, Jr.</p> + +<p class="center noindent curtain middle" style="line-height: 150%">NEW YORK<br /> +ALBERT AND CHARLES BONI<br /> +1914</p> + +<p class="center noindent smcap curtain middle" style="line-height: 150%">Copyright, 1914<br /> +by<br /> +Albert and Charles Boni</p> + +<div class="prologue"> +<p class="noindent curtain middle"> +"I was created out of ranker stuff<br /> +By Nature, and to the earth by Lust am drawn.<br /> +Unto the spirit of evil, not of good,<br /> +The earth belongs. What deities send to us<br /> +From heaven are only universal goods;<br /> +Their light gives gladness, but makes no man rich;<br /> +And in their state possession not obtains.<br /> +Therefore, the stone of price, all-treasured gold,<br /> +Must from the powers of falsehood be enticed,<br /> +The evil race that dwells beneath the day.<br /> +Not without sacrifice their favor is gained,<br /> +And no man liveth who from serving them<br /> +Hath extricated undefiled his soul."<br /> +</p> + + + +<h2>CHARACTERS</h2> + + +<p class="noindent curtain characters"> +<span class="small">DR. SCHÖN</span>, newspaper owner and editor.<br /> +<span class="small">ALVA</span>, his son, a writer.<br /> +<span class="small">DR. GOLL</span>, <span class="small">M.D.</span><br /> +<span class="small">SCHWARZ</span>, an artist.<br /> +<span class="small">PRINCE ESCERNY</span>, an African explorer.<br /> +<span class="small">ESCHERICH</span>, a reporter.<br /> +<span class="small">SCHIGOLCH</span>, a beggar.<br /> +<span class="small">RODRIGO</span>, an acrobat.<br /> +<span class="small">HUGENBERG</span>, a schoolboy (<i>played by a girl</i>.)<br /> +<span class="small">FERDINAND</span>, a coachman.<br /> +<span class="small">LULU.</span><br /> +<span class="small">COUNTESS GESCHWITZ.</span><br /> +<span class="small">HENRIETTE</span>, a servant.<br /> +</p> + + + +<h2>PROLOGUE</h2> + + +<p>(<i>At rise, is seen the entrance to a tent, out of which +steps an animal-tamer, with long, black curls, dressed +in a white cravat, a vermilion dress-coat, white trowsers +and white top-boots. He carries in his left hand a dog-whip +and in his right a loaded revolver, and enters to the +sound of cymbals and kettle-drums.</i>)</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Walk in! Walk in to the menagery,<br /> +Proud gentlemen and ladies lively and merry!<br /> +With avid lust or cold disgust, the very<br /> +Beast without Soul bound and made secondary<br /> +To human genius, to stay and see!<br /> +Walk in, the show'll begin!—As customary,<br /> +One child to each two persons comes in free.</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Here battle man and brute in narrow cages<br /> +Where one in haught disdain his long whip lashes<br /> +And one, with growls as when the thunder rages,<br /> +Against the man's throat murderously dashes,—<br /> +Where now the crafty conquers, now the strong,<br /> +Now man, now beast, lies cowed the floor along;<br /> +The animal rears,—the human on all fours!<br /> +One ice-cold look of dominance—<br /> +The beast submissive bows before that glance,<br /> +And the proud heel upon his neck adores.</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Bad are the times! Ladies and gentlemen<br /> +Who once before my cage in thronging crescents<br /> +Crowded, now honor operas, and then<br /> +Ibsen, with their so highly valued presence.<br /> +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">8</a>] </span>My boarders here are so in want of fodder<br /> +That they reciprocally devour each other.<br /> +How well off at the theater is a player,<br /> +Sure of the meat upon his ribs, albeit<br /> +His frightful hunger may tear him and he it<br /> +And colleagues' inner cupboards be quite bare!—<br /> +Greatness in art we struggle to inherit,<br /> +Although the salary never match the merit.</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +What see you, whether in light or sombre plays?<br /> +<em>House-animals</em>, whose morals all must praise,<br /> +Who wreak pale spites in vegetarian ways,<br /> +And revel in an easy cry or fret,<br /> +Just like those others—down in the parquet.<br /> +This hero has a head by one dram swirled;<br /> +That is in doubt whether his love be right;<br /> +A third you hear despairing of the world,—<br /> +Full five acts long you hear him wail his plight,<br /> +And no man ends him with a merciful sleight!<br /> +But the <em>real</em> beast, the <em>beautiful</em>, <em>wild</em> beast,<br /> +Your eyes on <em>that</em>, <em class="italic">I</em>, ladies, only feast!</p> + +<p class="noindent" style="margin-bottom: 0.25em;"> +You see the Tiger, that habitually<br /> +Devours whatever falls before his bound;<br /> +The Bear, so ravenous originally,<br /> +Who at a late night-meal sinks dead to ground;<br /> +You see the Monkey, little and amusing,<br /> +From sheer ennui his petty powers abusing,—<br /> +He has some talent, of all greatness scant,<br /> +So, impudently, coquettes with his own want!<br /> +Upon my soul, within my tent's a mammal,<br /> +See, right behind the curtain, here,—a Camel!<br /> +And all my creatures fawn about my feet<br /> +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">9</a>] </span>When my revolver cracks—</p> + +<p class="noindent" style="margin-left: 7em; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;">(<i>He shoots into the audience.</i>)</p> + +<p class="noindent" style="margin-top: 0.25em;"><span style="margin-left: 13em;">Behold!</span><br /> +Brutes tremble all around me. I am cold:<br /> +The <em>man</em> stays cold,—you, with respect, to greet.</p> + +<p class="noindent" style="margin-bottom: 0.25em;"> +Walk in!—You hardly trust yourselves in here?—<br /> +Then very well, judge for yourselves! Each sphere<br /> +Has sent its crawling creatures to your telling:<br /> +Chameleons and serpents, crocodiles,<br /> +Dragons, and salamanders chasm-dwelling,—<br /> +I know, of course, you're full of quiet smiles<br /> +And don't believe a syllable I say.—</p> + +<p class="noindent center" style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;">(<i>He lifts the entrance-flap and calls into the tent.</i>)</p> + +<p class="noindent" style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;">Hi, Charlie!—bring our <em>Serpent</em> just this way!</p> + +<p style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;">(<i>A stage-hand with a big paunch carries out the actress +of <em>Lulu</em> in her Pierrot costume, and sets her down before +the animal-tamer.</i>)</p> + +<p class="noindent" style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;"> +She was created to incite to sin,<br /> +To lure, seduce, poison—yea, murder, in<br /> +A manner no man knows.—My pretty beast,</p> + +<p class="noindent" style="margin-left: 9em; margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;">(<i>Tickling Lulu's chin.</i>)</p> + +<p class="noindent" style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 1em;">Only be <em>unaffected</em>, and not pieced<br /> +Out with distorted, artificial folly,<br /> +Even if the critics praise thee for 't less wholly.<br /> +Thou hast no right to spoil the shape most fitting,<br /> +Most <em>true</em>, of <em>woman</em>, with meows and spitting!<br /> +And mind, all foolery and making faces<br /> +The <em>childish simpleness</em> of <em>Vice</em> disgraces.<br /> +Thou shouldst—to-day I speak emphatically—<br /> +Speak <em>naturally</em> and not unnaturally,<br /> +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">10</a>] </span>For the first principle in every art,<br /> +Since earliest times, was <em>True</em> and <em>Plain</em>, not <em>Smart</em>!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent center" style="margin-bottom: 0.25em; margin-top: 1em;">(<i>To the public.</i>)</p> + +<p class="noindent" style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;"> +There's nothing special now to see in her,<br /> +But wait and watch what later will occur!<br /> +Her strength about the Tiger she coils stricter:<br /> +He roars and groans!—Who'll be the final victor?—<br /> +Hop, Charlie, march! Carry her to her place,</p> + +<p class="noindent center" style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;">(<i>The stage-hand carries Lulu in his arms; the animal-tamer +pats her on the hips.</i>)</p> + +<p class="noindent" style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;">Sweet innocence—my dearest treasure-case!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent center" style="margin-top: 0.25em; margin-bottom: 1em;">(<i>The stage-hand carries Lulu back into the tent.</i>)</p> + +<p class="noindent" style="margin-top: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.25em;"> +And now I'll tell the best thing in the day:<br /> +My poll between the teeth of a beast of prey!<br /> +Walk in! Tho to be sure the show's not new,<br /> +Yet everyone takes pleasure in its view!<br /> +Wrench open this wild animal's jaws I dare,<br /> +And he to bite dares not! My pate's so <em>fair</em>,<br /> +So <em>wild</em>, so <em>gaily decked</em>, it wins respect!<br /> +I offer it him with confidence unchecked.<br /> +One <em>joke</em>, and my two temples crack!—but, lo,<br /> +The lightning of my eyes I will forego,<br /> +Staking my <em>life</em> against a <em>joke</em>! and throw<br /> +My whip, my weapons, down. I am in my skin!<br /> +I yield me to this beast!—His name do ye know?<br /> +—The honored public! that has just walked in!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent center curtain" style="margin-top: 0.25em;">(<i>The animal-tamer steps back into the tent, accompanied +by cymbals and kettledrums.</i>)</p> +</div> + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">11</a>] </span></p> +<h2>ACT I</h2> + + +<p><i>A roomy studio. Entrance door at the rear, left. +Another door at lower left to the bed-room. At centre, +a platform for the model, with a Spanish screen behind +it and a Smyrna rug in front. Two easels at lower +right. On the upper one is the picture of a young girl's +head and shoulders. Against the other leans a reversed +canvas. Below these, toward centre, an ottoman, with a +tiger-skin on it. Two chairs along the left wall. In the +back-ground, right, a step-ladder.</i></p> + +<p><i>Schön sits on the foot of the ottoman, inspecting critically +the picture on the further easel. Schwarz stands +behind the ottoman, his palette and brushes in his hands.</i></p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Do you know, I'm getting acquainted with a +brand new side of the lady.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I have never painted anyone whose expression +changed so continuously. I could hardly keep a +single feature the same two days running.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Pointing to the picture and observing him.</i>) +Do you find that in it?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I have done everything imaginable to call +forth some sort of quiet in her mood by my conversation +during the sittings.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Then I understand the difference. (<i>Schwarz +dips his brush in the oil and draws it over the features +of the face.</i>) Do you think that makes it look more like +her?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> We can only work with art as scientifically +as possible.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Tell me—</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">12</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Stepping back.</i>) The color had sunk in +pretty well, too.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Looking at him.</i>) Have you ever loved a +woman in your life?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Goes to the easel, puts a color on it, and +steps back on the other side.</i>) The dress isn't made to +stand out enough yet. We don't see the living body under +it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I make no doubt that the workmanship is +good.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> If you'll step this way....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Rising.</i>) You must have told her regular +ghost-stories.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> As far back as you can.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Stepping back, knocks down the canvas that +was leaning against the lower easel.</i>) Excuse me—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Picking it up.</i>) That's all right.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Surprised.</i>) What is that?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Do you know her?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> No. (<i>Schwarz sets the picture on the easel. +It is of a lady dressed as Pierrot with a long shepherd's +crook in her hand.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> A costume-picture.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> But, really, you've succeeded with <em>her</em>.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> You know her?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> No. And in that costume—?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> It isn't nearly finished yet. (<i>Schön nods.</i>) +What would you have? While she is posing for me I +have the pleasure of entertaining her husband.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> What?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> We talk about art, of course,—to complete +my good fortune!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">13</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> But how did you make such a charming acquaintance?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> As they're generally made. An ancient, +tottering little man drops in on me here to know if I +can paint his wife. Why, of course, were she as wrinkled +as Mother Earth! Next day at ten prompt the doors fly +open, and the fat-belly drives this little beauty in before +him. I can feel even now how my knees shook. Then +comes a sap-green lackey, stiff as a ramrod, with a package +under his arm. Where is the dressing-room? Imagine +my plight. I open the door there (<i>pointing left</i>). +Just luck that everything was in order. The sweet thing +vanishes into it, and the old fellow posts himself outside +as a bastion. Two minutes later out she steps in this +Pierrot. (<i>Shaking his head.</i>) I never saw anything like +it. (<i>He goes left and stares in at the bedroom.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Who has followed him with his eyes.</i>) +And the fat-belly stands guard?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Turning round.</i>) The whole body in +harmony with that impossible costume as if it had come +into the world in it! Her way of burying her elbows +in her pockets, of lifting her little feet from the rug,—the +blood often shoots to my head....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> One can see that in the picture.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Shaking his head.</i>) People like us, you +know—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Here the model is mistress of the conversation.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> She has never yet opened her mouth.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Is it possible?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Allow me to show the costume to you. +(<i>Goes out left.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Before the Pierrot.</i>) A devilish beauty. +(<i>Before the other picture.</i>) There's more depth here. +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">14</a>] </span>(<i>Coming down stage.</i>) He is still rather young for his +age. (<i>Schwarz comes back with a white satin costume.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What sort of material is that?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Feeling it.</i>) Satin.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> And all in one piece.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> How does one get into it then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> That I can't tell you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Taking the costume by the legs.</i>) What +enormous trowser-legs!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> The left one she pulls up.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Looking at the picture.</i>) Above the knee!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> She does that entrancingly!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> And transparent stockings?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Those have got to be painted, specially.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Oh, you can do that.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> And with it all a coquetry!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> What brought you to that horrible suspicion?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> There are things that our school-philosophy +lets itself never dream of. (<i>He takes the costume +back into his bedroom.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Alone.</i>) When we sleep....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Comes back; looks at his watch.</i>) If +you wish to make her acquaintance too—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> No.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> They must be here in a moment.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> How much longer will the lady have to sit?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I shall probably have to bear the pains of +Tantalus three months longer.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I mean the other one.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I beg your pardon. Three times more at +most. (<i>Going to the door with him.</i>) If the lady will +just leave me the upper part of the dress then....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> With pleasure. Let us see you at my house +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">15</a>] </span>again soon. For Heaven's sake! (<i>As he collides in the +door-way with Dr. Goll and Lulu.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> May I introduce ...</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>To Schön.</i>) What are you doing here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>As Schön kisses her hand in greeting.</i>) +You're not going already?</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> But what wind blows you here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I've been looking at the picture of my bride.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Coming forward.</i>) Your bride is here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> So you're having work done here, too?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Before the upper picture.</i>) Look at it! Enchanting! +Entrancing!</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>Looking round him.</i>) Have you got +her hidden somewhere round here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> So that is the sweet young prodigy who's made +a new person out of you....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> She sits in the afternoon mostly.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> And you don't tell anyone about it?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Turning round.</i>) Is she really so solemn?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Probably the after-effects of the seminary still, +dear lady.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>Before the picture.</i>) One can see that you +have been transformed profoundly.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> But now you mustn't let her wait any longer.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> In a fortnight I think the engagement will +come out.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>To Lulu.</i>) Let's lose no time. Hop!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>To Schön.</i>) Just think, we came at a trot +over the new bridge. I was driving, myself.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>As Schön prepares to leave.</i>) No, no. +We two will talk some more later. Get along, Nellie. +Hop!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Now you're going to talk about me!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">16</a>] </span><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Our Apelles is already wiping his brushes.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I had imagined it would be much more amusing.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> But you have always the satisfaction of preparing +for us the greatest and rarest pleasure.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Going left.</i>) Oh, just wait!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Before the bedroom door.</i>) If madame +will be so kind.... (<i>Shuts the door after her and +stands in front of it.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> I christened her Nellie, you know, in our +marriage-contract.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Did you?—Yes.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> What do you think of it?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Why not call her rather Mignon?</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> That would have been good, too. I didn't +think of that.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Do you consider the name so important?</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Hm.... You know, I have no children.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> But you've only been married a couple of +months.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Thanks, I don't want any.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Having taken out his cigarette-case.</i>) Have +a cigarette?</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>Helps himself.</i>) I've plenty to do with +this one. (<i>To Schwarz.</i>) Say, what's your little danseuse +doing now?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Turning round on Schwarz.</i>) You and a +danseuse?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> The lady was sitting for me at that time +only as a favor. I made her acquaintance on a flying +trip of the Cecilia Society.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>To Schön.</i>) Hm.... I think we're +getting a change of weather.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">17</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> The toilet isn't going so quickly, is it?</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> It's going like lightning! Woman has got +to be a virtuoso in her job. So must we all, each in +his job, if life isn't to turn to beggary. (<i>Calls.</i>) Hop, +Nellie!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Inside.</i>) Just a second!</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>To Schön.</i>) I can't get onto these blockheads. +(<i>Referring to Schwarz.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I can't help envying them. These blockheads +know nothing holier than an altar-cloth, and feel +richer than you and me with 30,000-mark incomes. Besides, +you can't be judge of a man who from childhood +has lived from palette to mouth. Try to get at his +finances: it's an arithmetic example! I haven't the moral +courage, and one can easily burn one's fingers at it, too.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>As Pierrot, steps out of the bed-room.</i>) +Here I am!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Turns; after a pause.</i>) Superb!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Nearer.</i>) Well?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You put shame on the boldest fancy.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> How do you like me?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> A picture before which art must despair.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Don't you think so, too?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>To Lulu.</i>) Have you any notion what you +do?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I'm perfectly possessed of myself!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Then you might be a little more discreet.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> But I'm only doing what's my duty.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You are powdered?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> What do you take me for!</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> I've never seen such a white skin as she's +got. I've told our Raphael here, too, to do just as little +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">18</a>] </span>with the flesh tints as possible. For once, I can't get +enthusiastic about the modern art-nonsense.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>By the easels, preparing his paints.</i>) At +any rate, it's thanks to impressionism that present-day art +can stand up beside the old masters without blushing.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Oh, it can do quite well for a bit of butcher's +work.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> For Heaven's sake don't get excited! (<i>Lulu +falls on Goll's neck and kisses him.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> They can see your undershirt. You must +pull it lower.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I would soonest have left it off. It only bothers +me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> He should be able to paint it out.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Taking the shepherd's crook that leans +against the Spanish screen, and mounting the platform, +to Schön.</i>) What would you say now, if you had to +stand at attention for two hours?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I'd sell my soul to the devil for the chance +to exchange with you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>Sitting, left.</i>) Come over here. Here is +my post of observation.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Plucking her left trowser-leg up to the knee, +to Schwarz.</i>) So?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Yes....</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Plucking it a thought higher.</i>) So?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Yes, yes....</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>To Schön who has seated himself on the +chair next him, with a gesture.</i>) From this place I find +her still more attractive.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Without stirring.</i>) I beg pardon! I am +equally attractive on all sides.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">19</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>To Lulu.</i>) The right knee further forward, +please.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>With a gesture.</i>) The body does show finer +lines perhaps.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> The light to-day can be borne at least half +way.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Oh, you must throw on lots of it! Hold +your brush a bit longer.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Certainly, Dr. Goll.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Treat her as a piece of still-life.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Certainly, Doctor. (<i>To Lulu.</i>) You +used to hold your head a wee mite higher, Mrs. Goll.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Raising her head.</i>) Paint my lips a little +open.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Paint snow on ice. If you get warm doing +that, then instantly your art gets inartistic!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Certainly, Doctor.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Art, you know, must so reproduce nature +that one can find at least some <em>spiritual</em> enjoyment +in it!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Opening her mouth a little, to Schwarz.</i>) +So—look. I'll hold it half opened, so.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> As soon as the sun comes, the wall opposite +throws warm reflections in here.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>To Lulu.</i>) You must keep your position +just as if our Velasquez here didn't exist at all.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Well, a painter <em>isn't</em> a man at all, anyway.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I don't think you ought to judge the whole +profession by just one famous exception.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Stepping back from the easel.</i>) I should +have liked to have had to hire a different studio last +fall.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>To Goll.</i>) What I wanted to ask you—have +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">20</a>] </span>you seen the little Murphy girl yet as a Peruvian +pearl-fisher?</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> I see her to-morrow for the fourth time. +Prince Polossov took me. His hair has already got dark +yellow again with delight.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> So you find her quite fabulous too.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Who ever wants to judge of that beforehand?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I think someone knocked.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Pardon me a moment. (<i>Goes and opens +the door.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>To Lulu.</i>) You can safely smile at him +with less bashfulness!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> He makes nothing of it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> And if he did!—What are we two sitting +here for?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Entering, still behind the Spanish +screen.</i>) May one come in?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> My son!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Oh! It's Mr. Alva!</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Don't mind. Just come along in.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>Stepping forward, shakes hands with Schön +and Goll.</i>) Glad to see you. (<i>Turning toward Lulu.</i>) +Do I see a-right? Oh, if only I could engage you for +my title part!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I don't think I could dance nearly well enough +for your show!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> But you do have a dancing-master such as cannot +be found on any stage in Europe.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> But what brings you here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Maybe you're having somebody or other +painted here, too, in secret!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">21</a>] </span><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>To Schön.</i>) I wanted to take you to the +dress rehearsal.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>As Schön rises.</i>) Do you have 'em dance +to-day in full costume?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Of course. Come along, too. In five minutes +I must be on the stage. (<i>To Lulu.</i>) Unhappy!</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> I've forgotten—what's the name of your +ballet?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Dalailama.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> I thought <em>he</em> was in a madhouse.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You're thinking of Nietzsche, Doctor.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> You're right; I got 'em mixed up.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I have helped Buddhism to its legs.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> By his legs is the stage-poet known.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Corticelli dances the youthful Buddha as tho +she had seen the light of the world by the Ganges.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> So long as her mother lived, she danced with +her legs.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Then when she got free she danced with her +intelligence.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Now she dances with her heart.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> If you'd like to see her—?</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Thank you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Come along with us!</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Impossible.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Anyway, we have no time to lose.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Come with us, doctor. In the third act you +see Dalailama in his cloister, with his monks—</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> The only thing I care about is the young +Buddha.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Well, what's hindering you?</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> I can't. I can't do it.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">22</a>] </span><span class="small">ALVA.</span> We're going to Peter's, after it. There you +can express your admiration.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Don't press it on me, please.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You'll see the tame monkey, the two Brahmans, +the little girls....</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> For heaven's sake, just keep away from +me with your little girls!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Reserve one of the proscenium boxes for us +on Monday, Mr. Alva.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> How could you doubt that I would, dear lady!</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> When I come back the whole picture will +be spoilt on me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Well, it could be painted over.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> If I don't explain to this Caravacci every +stroke of his brush—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Your fears are unfounded, I think....</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Next time, gentlemen!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> The Brahmans are getting impatient. The +daughters of Nirvana are shivering in their tights.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Damned enchantment!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> They'll quarrel with us, if we don't bring +you with us.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> In five minutes I'll be back. (<i>Stands down +right, behind Schwarz and compares the picture with +Lulu.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>To Lulu.</i>) Duty calls me, gracious lady!</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>To Schwarz.</i>) You must model it a bit +more here. The hair is bad. You aren't paying enough +attention to your business!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Come on.</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> Now, just hop it! Ten horses will not +drag me to Peter's.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">23</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Following Alva and Goll.</i>) We'll take my +carriage. It's waiting downstairs. (<i>Exeunt.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Leans over to the right, and spits.</i>) +Pack! If only that were life's end! The bread-basket!—paunch +and mug! Now rears my artist's pride. (<i>After +a look at Lulu.</i>) This company!— (<i>Gets up, goes up +left, observes Lulu from all sides, and sits again at his +easel.</i>) The choice would be a hard one to make. If I +may request Mrs. Goll to raise the right hand a little +higher.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Grasps the crook as high as she can reach; +to herself.</i>) Who would have thought that was possible!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I am quite ridiculous, you think?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He's coming right back.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I can do nothing but paint.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> There he is!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Rising.</i>) Well?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Don't you hear?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Someone is coming....</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I knew it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> It's the janitor. He's sweeping the stairs.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Thank heaven!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Do you perhaps accompany the doctor to +his patients?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Everything <em>but</em> that.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Because, you are not accustomed to being +alone.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> We have a housekeeper at home.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> She keeps you company?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> She has a lot of taste.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What for?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> She dresses me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Do you go much to balls?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">24</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> Never.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Then what do you need the dresses for?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> For dancing.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> You really dance?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Czardas ... Samaqueca ... Skirt-dance.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Doesn't—that—disgust you, then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You find me ugly?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> You don't understand me. But who gives +you lessons then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Him.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Who?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Him.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> He?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He plays the violin—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Every day one learns something new of +the world!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I learned in Paris. I took lessons from Eugenie +Fougère. She let me copy her costumes, too.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What are <em>they</em> like?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> A little green lace skirt to the knee, all in +ruffles, low-necked, of course, very low-necked and awfully +tight-laced. Bright green petticoat, then brighter and +brighter. Snow-white underclothes with a hand's-breadth +of lace....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I can no longer—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Then paint!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Scraping the canvas.</i>) Aren't you cold +at all?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> God forbid! No. What made you ask? Are +you so cold?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Not to-day. No.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Praise God, one can breathe!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> How so?... (<i>Lulu takes a deep breath.</i>) +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">25</a>] </span>Don't do that, please! (<i>Springs up, throws away his +palette and brushes, walks up and down.</i>) The boot-black +only attends to her feet! His color doesn't eat into +his money, either. If I go without supper to-morrow, no +little society lady will ask me if I know anything about +oyster-patties!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Is he going out of his head?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Takes up his work again.</i>) What ever +drove the fellow to this test!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I'd like it better, too, if he had stayed here.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> We are truly the martyrs of our calling!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I didn't wish to cause you pain.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Hesitating, to Lulu.</i>) If you—the left +trowser-leg—a little higher—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Steps to the platform.</i>) Permit me....</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> What do you want?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I'll show you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You mustn't.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> You are nervous ... (<i>Tries to seize her +hand.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Throws the crook in his face.</i>) Let me alone! +(<i>Hurries to the entrance door.</i>) You don't get me for +a long time yet.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> You can't understand a joke.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Oh, yes I can. I understand everything. Just +you leave me be. You'll get nothing at all from me by +force. Go to your work. You have no right to molest +me. (<i>Flees behind the ottoman.</i>) Sit down behind your +easel!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Trying to get around the ottoman.</i>) As +soon as I've punished you—you wayward, capricious—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> But you must have me, first! Go away. You +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">26</a>] </span>can't catch me. In long clothes I'd have fallen into your +clutches long ago—but in the Pierrot!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Throwing himself across the ottoman.</i>) +I've got you!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Hurls the tiger-skin over his head.</i>) Good-night! +(<i>Jumps over the platform and climbs up the step-ladder.</i>) +I can see away over all the cities of the earth.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Unrolling himself from the rug.</i>) This +old skin!!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I reach up into heaven, and stick the stars in +my hair.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Clambering after her.</i>) I'll shake it till +you fall off!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> If you don't stop, I'll throw the ladder down. +(<i>Climbing higher.</i>) Will you let go of my legs? God +save the Poles! (<i>Makes the ladder fall over, jumps onto +the platform, and as Schwarz picks himself up from the +floor, throws the Spanish screen down on his head. Hastening +down-stage, by the easels.</i>) I told you that you +weren't going to get me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Coming forward.</i>) Let us make peace. +(<i>Tries to embrace her.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Keep away from me, or— (<i>She throws the +easel with the finished picture at him, so that both fall +crashing to the floor.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Screams.</i>) Merciful Heaven!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Upstage, right.</i>) You knocked the hole in +it yourself!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I am ruined! Ten weeks' work, my journey, +my exhibition! Now there is nothing more to lose! +(<i>Plunges after her.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Springs over the ottoman, over the fallen step-ladder, +and over the platform, down-stage.</i>) A grave! +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">27</a>] </span>Don't fall into it! (<i>She stamps thru the picture on the +floor.</i>) She made a new man out of him! (<i>Falls +forward.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Stumbling over the Spanish screen.</i>) I +am merciless now!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Up-stage.</i>) Leave me in peace now. I'm +getting dizzy. O Gott! O Gott!... (<i>Comes forward +and sinks down on the ottoman. Schwarz locks +the door; then seats himself next her, grasps her hand, +and covers it with kisses—then pauses, struggling with +himself. Lulu opens her eyes wide.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He may come back.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> How d' you feel?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> As if I had fallen into the water....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I love you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> One time, I loved a student.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Nellie—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> With four-and-twenty scars—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I love you, Nellie.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> My name isn't Nellie. (<i>Schwarz kisses her.</i>) +It's Lulu.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I would call you Eve.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Do you know what time it is?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Looking at his watch.</i>) Half past ten. +(<i>Lulu takes the watch and opens the case.</i>) You don't +love me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Yes I do.... It's five minutes after half past +ten.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Give me a kiss, Eve!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Takes him by the chin and kisses him. +Throws the watch in the air and catches it.</i>) You smell +of tobacco.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Why so distant?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">28</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> It would be uncomfortable to—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> You're just making believe!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You're making believe yourself, it seems to +me. <em class="italic">I</em> make believe? What makes you think that? <em>I +never needed to do that.</em></p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Rises, disconcerted, passing his hand over +his <a name="forehead" id="forehead"></a><ins class='correction' title='forhead'>forehead</ins>.</i>) God in Heaven! The world is strange +to me—!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Screams.</i>) Only don't kill me!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Instantly whirling round.</i>) <em>Thou +hast never yet loved!</em></p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Half raising herself.</i>) <em>You have never +yet loved ...!</em></p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>Outside.</i>) Open the door!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Already sprung to her feet.</i>) Hide me! O +God, hide me!</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>Pounding on the door.</i>) Open the door!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Holding back Schwarz as he goes toward +the door.</i>) He will strike me dead!</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> (<i>Hammering.</i>) Open the door!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Sunk down before Schwarz, gripping his +knees.</i>) He'll beat me to death! He'll beat me to death!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Stand up.... (<i>The door falls crashing +into the studio. Dr. Goll with blood-shot eyes rushes upon +Schwarz and Lulu, brandishing his stick.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">DR. GOLL.</span> You dogs! You ...! (<i>Pants, struggles +for breath a few seconds, and falls headlong to the +ground. Schwarz's knees tremble. Lulu has fled to the +door. Pause.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Mister—Doctor—Doc—Doctor Goll—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>In the door.</i>) Please, though, first put the +studio in order.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Dr. Goll! (<i>Leans over.</i>) Doc— (<i>Steps +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">29</a>] </span>back.</i>) He's cut his forehead. Help me to lay him on +the ottoman.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Shudders backward in terror.</i>) No. No...</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Trying to turn him over.</i>) Dr. Goll.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He doesn't hear.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> But you, help me, please.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> The two of us together couldn't lift him.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Straightening up.</i>) We must send for a +doctor.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He is fearfully heavy.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Getting his hat.</i>) Please, though, be so +good as to put the place a little to rights while I'm away. +(<i>He goes out.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He'll spring up all at once. (<i>Intensely.</i>) +Bussi! He just won't notice anything. (<i>Comes down-stage +in a wide circle.</i>) He sees my feet, and watches +every step I take. He has his eye on me everywhere. +(<i>Touches him with her toe.</i>) Bussi! (<i>Flinching, backward.</i>) +It's serious with him. The dance is over. He'll +send me to prison. What shall I do? (<i>Leans over, to +the floor.</i>) A strange, wild face! (<i>Getting up.</i>) And +no one to do him the last services—isn't that sad! +(<i>Schwarz returns.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Still not come to himself?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Down right.</i>) What shall I do?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Bending over Goll.</i>) Doctor Goll.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I almost think it's serious.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Talk decently!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> <em>He</em> wouldn't say that to me. He makes me +dance for him when he doesn't feel well.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> The doctor will be here in a moment.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Doctoring won't help <em>him</em>.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">30</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> But people do what they can, in such +cases!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> <em>He</em> doesn't think so.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Then won't you at least—get dressed?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Yes,—right off.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What are you waiting for?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Please ...</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What is it?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Shut <em>his</em> eyes.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> You make me shiver.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Not nearly so much as you make <em>me</em>!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You're a born criminal.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Doesn't this moment touch you at all, +then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> It hits me, too, some.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Please, just you keep still now!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> It hits you some, too.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> You really didn't need to say that to a +man, in such a moment.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> <em>Please ...!</em></p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Do what you think necessary. I don't +know how.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Left of Goll.</i>) He's looking at me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Right of Goll.</i>) And at me, too.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You're a coward!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Shuts Goll's eyes with his handkerchief.</i>) +It's the first time in my life that anyone has called me +that.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Didn't you do it to your mother?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Nervously.</i>) No.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You were away, perhaps.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> No!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">31</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> Or else you were afraid?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Violently.</i>) No!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Shivering, backward.</i>) I didn't mean to insult you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> She's still alive.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Then you still have somebody.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> She's as poor as a beggar.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I know what that is.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Don't laugh at me!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Now I am rich—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> It gives me cold shudders— (<i>Goes right.</i>) +She can't help it!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>To herself.</i>) What'll I do?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>To himself.</i>) Absolutely depraved! +(<i>They look at each other mistrustfully. Schwarz goes +over to her and grips her hand.</i>) Look me in the eyes!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Apprehensively.</i>) What do you want?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Takes her to the ottoman and makes her +sit next to him.</i>) Look me in the eyes.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I see myself in them as Pierrot.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Shoves her from him.</i>) Confounded +dancer-ing!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I must change my clothes—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Holds her back.</i>) One question—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I can't answer it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Can you speak the truth?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I don't know.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Do you believe in a Creator?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I don't know.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Can you swear on anything?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I don't know. Leave me alone. You're mad.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What do you believe in, then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I don't know.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">32</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Have you no soul, then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I don't know.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Have you ever once loved—?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I don't know.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Gets up, goes right, to himself.</i>) She +doesn't know!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Without moving.</i>) I don't know.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Glancing at Goll.</i>) He knows.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Nearer him.</i>) What do you want to know?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Angrily.</i>) Go, get dressed! (<i>Lulu +goes into the bed-room. To Goll.</i>) Would I could +change with you, you dead man! I give her back to you. +I give my youth to you, too. I lack the courage and the +faith. I've had to wait patiently too long. It's too late +for me. I haven't grown up big enough for happiness. +I have a hellish fear of it. Wake up! I didn't touch +her. He opens his mouth. Mouth open and eyes shut, +like the children. With me it's the other way round. +Wake up, wake up! (<i>Kneels down and binds his handkerchief +round the dead man's head.</i>) Here I beseech +Heaven to make me <em>able</em> to be happy—to give me the +strength and the freedom of soul to be just a weeny mite +happy! For <em>her sake, only for her sake</em>. +(<i>Lulu comes out of the bed-room, completely dressed, her +hat on, and her right hand under her left arm.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Raising her left arm, to Schwarz.</i>) Would +you hook me up here? My hand trembles.</p> + +<p class="center noindent small curtain">CURTAIN</p> + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">33</a>] </span></p> +<h2>ACT II</h2> + + +<p><i>A very ornamental parlor. Entrance-door rear, left. +Curtained entrances right and left, steps leading up to the +right one. On the back wall over the fire-place, Lulu's +picture as Pierrot in a magnificent frame. Right, a tall +mirror; a couch in front of it. Left, an ebony writing-table. +Centre, a few chairs around a little Chinese table.</i></p> + +<p><i>Lulu stands motionless before the mirror, in a green +silk morning-dress. She frowns, passes a hand over her +forehead, feels her cheeks, and draws back from the mirror +with a discouraged, almost angry, look. Frequently turning +round, she goes left, opens a casket on the writing-table, +lights herself a cigarette, looks for a book among +those that are lying on the table, takes one, and lies down +on the couch opposite the mirror. After reading a moment, +she lets the book sink, and nods seriously to herself +in the glass; then resumes reading. Schwarz enters, left, +palette and brushes in hand, and bends over Lulu, kisses +her on the forehead, and goes up the steps, right.</i></p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Turning in the door-way.</i>) Eve!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Smiling.</i>) At your orders?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Seems to me you look extra charming to-day.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>With a glance at the mirror.</i>) Depends on +what you expect.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Your hair breathes out a morning freshness....</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I've just come out of the water.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Approaching her.</i>) I've an awful lot to +do to-day.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">34</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> That's what you say to yourself.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Lays his palette and brushes down on the +carpet, and sits on the edge of the couch.</i>) What are +you reading?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Reads.</i>) "Suddenly she heard an anchor of +refuge come nodding up the stairs."</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Who under the sun writes so absorbingly?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Reading.</i>) "It was the postman with a +money-order." (<i>Henriette, the servant, comes in, upper +left, with a hat-box on her arm and a little tray of letters +which she puts on the table.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">HENRIETTE.</span> The mail. I'm going to take your hat +to the milliner, madam. Anything else?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> No. (<i>Schwarz signs to her to go out, which +she does, slyly smiling.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What was it you dreamt all last night?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You've asked me that twice already, to-day.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Rises, takes up the letters.</i>) I tremble +for news. Every day I fear the world may go to pieces. +(<i>Giving Lulu a letter.</i>) For you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Sniffs at the paper.</i>) Madame Corticelli. +(<i>Hides it in her bosom.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Skimming a letter.</i>) My Samaqueca-dancer +sold—for fifty thousand marks!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Who says that?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Sedelmeier in Paris. That's the third +picture since our marriage. I hardly know how to save +myself from my luck!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Pointing to the letters.</i>) There are more +there.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Opening an engagement announcement.</i>) +See. (<i>Gives it to Lulu.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Reads.</i>) Sir Henry von Zarnikow has the +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">35</a>] </span>honor to announce the engagement of his daughter, Charlotte +Marie Adelaide, to Doctor Ludwig Schön.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>As he opens another letter.</i>) At last! +He's been an eternal while evading a public engagement. +I can't understand it—a man of his standing and influence. +What can be in the way of his marriage?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> What is that that you're reading?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> An invitation to take part in the international +exhibition at St. Petersburg. I have no idea +what to paint for it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Some entrancing girl or other, of course.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Will you be willing to pose for it?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> God knows there are other pretty girls enough +in existence!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> But with any other model—tho she be +as racy as hell—I can't get such a full display of my powers.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Then I must, I suppose. Wouldn't it go as +well lying down?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Really, I'd liefest have your taste arrange +it for me. (<i>Folding up the letters.</i>) Don't let's forget +to congratulate Schön to-day, anyway. (<i>Goes left and +shuts the letters in the writing-table.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> But we did that a long time ago.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> For his bride's sake.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You can write to him again if you want.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> And now to work! (<i>Takes up his brushes +and palette, kisses Lulu, goes up the steps, right, and turns +around in the door-way.</i>) Eve!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Lets her book sink, smiling.</i>) Your pleasure?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Approaching her.</i>) I feel every day as +if I were seeing you for the very first time.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You're a terror.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">36</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> The fault is yours. (<i>He sinks on his +knees by the couch and caresses her hand.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Stroking his hair.</i>) You're <em>wasting</em> me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> You <em>are mine</em>. But you are never +more ensnaring than when you ought for God's sake to be, +just once, real ugly for a couple of hours! Since I've +had you, I have had nothing more. I'm entirely lost to +myself.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Not so excited! (<i>Bell rings in the corridor.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Pulling himself together.</i>) Confound it!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> No one at home!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Perhaps it's the art-dealer—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> And if it's the Chinese Emperor!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> One moment. (<i>Exit.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Visionary.</i>) Thou? Thou? (<i>Closes her +eyes.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Coming back.</i>) A beggar, who says he +was in the war. I have no small change on me. (<i>Taking +up his palette and brushes.</i>) It's high time, too, that I +should finally go to work. (<i>Goes out, right.</i>) (<i>Lulu +touches herself up before the glass, strokes back her hair, +and goes out, returning leading in Schigolch.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> I'd thought he was more of a swell—a +little more glory to him. He's sort of embarrassed. He +quaked a little in the knees when he saw <em>me</em> in front +of him.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Shoving a chair round for him.</i>) How can +you beg from him, too?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> That's why I've dragged my seventy-seven +summers just here. You told me he kept at his +painting in the mornings.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He hadn't got quite awake yet. How much +do you need?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">37</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Two hundred, if you have that much +handy. Personally, I'd like three hundred. Some of my +clients have evaporated.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Goes to the writing-table and rummages in +the drawer.</i>) Whew, I'm tired!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Looking round him.</i>) That's just what +brought me, too. I've been wanting a long time to see +how things were looking now with you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Well?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> It just sweeps over you. (<i>Looking up.</i>) +Like with me fifty years ago. Instead of the loafing chairs +we still had rusty old sabres then. Devil, but you've +brought it pretty far! (<i>Scuffing.</i>) Carpets....</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Giving him two bills.</i>) I like best to walk +on them bare-footed.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Scanning Lulu's portrait.</i>) Is that you?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Winking.</i>) Pretty fine?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> If all that's genuine.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Have something sweet?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> What?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Getting up.</i>) Elixir de Spaa.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> That doesn't help <a name="me" id="me"></a><ins class='correction' title='me— Does'>me—Does</ins> he drink?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Taking a decanter and glasses from a cupboard +near the fireplace.</i>) Not yet. (<i>Coming down +stage.</i>) The cordial has such various effects!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> He comes to blows?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He goes to sleep. (<i>She fills the two glasses.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> When he's drunk, you can see right into +his insides.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I'd rather <em>not</em>. (<i>Sits opposite Schigolch.</i>) +Tell me about it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> The streets keep on getting longer, and +my legs shorter.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">38</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> And your harmonica?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Has bad air, like me with my asthma. I +just keep a-thinking it isn't worth the trouble to make it +better. (<i>They clink glasses.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Emptying her glass.</i>) I thought you'd come +to an end a long time ago—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> To an end—already up and away? I +thought so, too. But no matter how early the sun goes +down, still we aren't let lie quiet. I'm hoping for winter. +Perhaps then my <a name="my" id="my"></a>(<i>coughing</i><ins class='correction' title=')—'>) —</ins>my—my asthma will invent +some opportunity to carry me off.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Filling the glasses.</i>) Do you think they could +have forgotten you on the other side?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Would be possible, for it certainly isn't +going like it usually does. (<i>Stroking her knee.</i>) Now +you tell—not seen you a long time—my little Lulu.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Jerking back, smiling.</i>) Life is beyond me!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> What do you know about it? You're +still so young!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> That you call me Lulu.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Lulu, isn't it? Have I ever called you +anything else?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> In the memory of man my name has no longer +been Lulu.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Another way of naming?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Lulu sounds to me quite ante-diluvian.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Children! Children!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> My name now is—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> As if the principle wasn't always the +same!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You mean—?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> What is it now?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> <em>Eve.</em></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">39</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Lept, hopped, skipped, jumped....</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I'm listening.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Gazing round.</i>) This is the way I +dreamt of it for you. You've aimed straight for it. +(<i>Seeing Lulu sprinkling herself with perfume.</i>) What's +that?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Heliotrope.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Does that smell better than you?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Sprinkling him.</i>) That needn't bother you +any more.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Who would have dreamt of this royal +luxury before!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> When I think back—Ugh!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Stroking her knee.</i>) How's it going +with you, then? You still keep at the French?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I lie and sleep.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> That's genteel. That always looks like +something. And afterwards?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I stretch—till it cracks.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> And when it has cracked?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> What do you mind about that?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> What do I mind about that? What do +I mind? I'd rather live till the last trump and renounce +all heavenly joys than leave my Lulu deprived of anything +down here behind me. What do I mind about that? +It's my sympathy. To be sure, my better self <em>is</em> already +transfigured—but I still have some sense for this world.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I haven't.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> You're too well off.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Shuddering.</i>) Idiot....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Better than with the old dancing-bear?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Sadly.</i>) I don't dance any more.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> For him it was time, too.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">40</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> Now I am— (<i>Stops.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Speak how it is with you, child! I believed +in you when there was no more to be seen in you +than your two big eyes. What are you now?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> A beast....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> That you—! And what kind of a +beast? A fine beast! An elegant beast! A glorified +beast! Then I'll let them bury me. We're through with +prejudices—even with the one against the corpse-washer.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You needn't be afraid that you will be washed +once more.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Doesn't matter, either. One gets dirty +again.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Sprinkling him.</i>) It would call you back to +life again!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> We are mud.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I beg your pardon! I rub grease into myself +every day and then powder on top of it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Probably worth while, too, on the dressed-up +mucker's account.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> It makes the skin like satin.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> As if it weren't just dirt all the same!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Thank you. I wish to be worth biting at!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> We are. Give a big dinner down below +there pretty soon. Keep open house.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Your guests will hardly over-eat themselves +at it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Patience, girl! Your worshippers won't +put you in alcohol, either. It's "schöne Melusine" as long +as it keeps buoyant. Afterwards? They don't take it +at the zoölogical garden. (<i>Rising.</i>) The gentle beasties +might get stomach-cramps.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Getting up.</i>) Have you enough?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">41</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> There's still enough left over to plant +a juniper on my grave. I'll find my own way out. (<i>Exit. +Lulu follows him, and presently returns with Dr. Schön.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> What's your father doing here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> What's the matter?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> If I were your husband that man would +never come over my threshold.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You can speak intimately. He's not here. +(<i>Referring to Schwarz.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Thank you, I'd rather not.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I don't understand.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I know that. (<i>Offering her a seat.</i>) I +should like to speak with you just on that subject.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Sitting down uncertainly.</i>) Why didn't you +tell me so yesterday, then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Please, nothing now about yesterday. I did +tell you two years ago.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Nervously.</i>) Oh, yes,—Hm!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Please be kind enough to cease your visits +to my house.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> May I offer you an elixir—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Thanks. No elixir. Have you understood +me? (<i>Lulu shakes her head.</i>) Good. You have the +choice. You force me to the most extreme measures:—either +act in accordance with your station—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Or?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Or—you compel me—I should have to turn +to that person who is responsible for your behavior.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> What makes you imagine that?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I shall request your husband, himself to +watch over your ways. (<i>Lulu rises, goes up the steps, +right.</i>) Where are you going?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Calls thru the curtains.</i>) Walter!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">42</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Springing up.</i>) Are you mad?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Turning round.</i>) Aha!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I have made the most superhuman efforts +to raise you in society. You can be ten times as proud +of your name as of your intimacy with me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Comes down the steps and puts her arm +around Schön's neck.</i>) Why are you still afraid, now +that you're at the zenith of your hopes?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> No comedy! The zenith of my hopes? I am +at last engaged: I have now the hope of bringing my bride +into a clean house.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Sitting.</i>) She has developed delightfully in +the two years!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> She no longer looks thru one so earnestly.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> She is now, for the first time, a woman. We +can meet each other wherever it seems suitable to you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> We shall meet each other nowhere but in the +presence of your husband!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You don't believe yourself what you say.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Then <em>he</em> must believe it. Go on and call +him! Thru his marriage to you, thru all that I've done +for him, he has become my friend.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Rising.</i>) Mine, too.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Then I'll cut down the sword over my head.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You have, indeed, chained me up. But I owe +my happiness to you. You will get friends by the crowd +as soon as you have a pretty young wife again.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You judge women by yourself! He's got +the sense of a child or he would have tracked out your +doublings and windings long ago.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I only wish he would! Then, at last he'd get +out of his swaddling-clothes. He puts his trust in the +marriage contract he has in his pocket. Trouble is past +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">43</a>] </span>and gone. One can now give oneself and let oneself +go as if one were at home. That isn't the sense of a +<em>child</em>! It's banal! He has no education; he sees +nothing; he sees neither me nor himself; he is blind, +blind, blind....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Half to himself.</i>) When <em>his</em> eyes open!!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Open his eyes for him! I'm going to ruin. +I'm neglecting myself. He doesn't know me at all. +What am I to him? He calls me darling and little +devil. He would say the same to any piano-teacher. +He makes no pretensions. Everything is alright, to him. +That comes from his never in his life having felt the need +of intercourse with women.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> If that's true!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He admits it perfectly openly.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> A man who has painted them, rags and tags +and velvet gowns, since he was fourteen.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Women make him anxious. He trembles for +his health and comfort. But he isn't afraid of <em>me</em>!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> How many girls would deem themselves +God knows how blessed in your situation.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Softly pleading.</i>) Seduce him. Corrupt +him. You know how. Take him into bad company—you +know the people. I am nothing to him but a woman, +just woman. He makes me feel so ridiculous. He will +be prouder of me. He doesn't know any differences. +I'm thinking my head off, day and night, how to shake +him up. In my despair I dance the can-can. He yawns; +and drivels something about obscenity.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Nonsense. He is an artist, though.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> At least he believes he is.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> That's the chief thing!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">44</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> When <em class="italic">I</em> pose for him.... He believes, too, +that he's a famous man.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> We <em>have</em> made him one.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He believes everything. He's as mistrustful as +a thief, and lets himself be lied to, till one loses all respect! +When we first knew each other I informed him +I had never yet loved— (<i>Schön falls into an easy-chair.</i>) +Otherwise he would really have taken me for a fallen +woman!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You make God knows what exorbitant demands +on <em>legitimate</em> relations!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I make no exorbitant demands. Often I even +dream still of Goll.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> He was, at any rate, not banal!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He is there, as if he had never been away. +Only he walks as tho in his socks. He isn't angry with +me; he's awfully sad. And then he is fearful, as tho +he were there without the permission of the police. +Otherwise, he feels at ease with us. Only he can't +quite get over my having thrown away so much money +since—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You yearn for the whip once more?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Maybe. I don't dance any more.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Teach him to do it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> A waste of trouble.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Out of a hundred women, ninety educate +their husbands to suit themselves.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He loves me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> That's fatal, of course.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He loves me—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> That is an unbridgeable abyss.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He doesn't know me, but he loves me! If he +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">45</a>] </span>had anything like a correct idea of me, he'd tie a stone +around my neck and sink me in the sea where it's deepest.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Let's finish this? (<i>He gets up.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> As you say.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I've married you off. Twice I have married +you off. You live in luxury. I've created a position for +your husband. If that doesn't satisfy you, and he laughs +in his sleeve at it, I don't pretend to meet ideal claims; +but—leave me out of the game, out of it!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Resolutely.</i>) If I belong to any person on +this earth, I belong to you. Without you I'd be—I won't +say where. You took me by the hand, gave me food to +eat, had me dressed,—when I was going to steal your +watch. Do you think that can be forgotten? Anybody +else would have called the police. You sent me to school, +and had me learn manners. Who but you in the whole +world has ever thought anything of me? I've danced +and posed, and was glad to be able to earn my living +that way. But <em>love</em> at command, I can't!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Raising his voice.</i>) Leave <em>me</em> out! Do +what you will. I'm not coming to make scandal; I'm +coming to shake the scandal from my neck. My engagement +is costing me sacrifices enough! I had imagined +that with a healthy young man, than whom a woman of +your years can wish herself no better, you would, at last, +have been contented. If you are under obligations to me, +don't throw yourself a third time in my way! Am I to +wait yet longer before putting my pile in security? Am +I to risk the whole success of my patents falling into the +water again after two years? What good is it to me +to be your married-man, when <em>you</em> can be seen going +in and out of my house at every hour of the day? Why +the devil didn't Dr. Goll stay alive just one year more! +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">46</a>] </span>With him you were in safe keeping. Then I'd have had +my wife long since under my roof!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> And what would you have had then? The +kid gets on your nerves. The child is too uncorrupted +for you. She's been much too carefully brought up. +What should I have against your marriage? But you are +deceived about yourself if you think that on account of +your impending marriage you may express your contempt +to me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Contempt? I shall soon give the child the +right idea. If anything is contemptible, it's your intrigues!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Laughing.</i>) Am I jealous of the child? +That never once entered my head.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Then why talk about the child? The child +is not even a whole year younger than you are. Leave +me my freedom to live what life I still have. No matter +how the child's been brought up, she's got her five senses +just like you.... (<i>Schwarz appears, right, brush in +hand.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What's the matter here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>To Schön.</i>) Well? Go on. Talk.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What's the matter with you two?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Nothing that touches you—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Sharply.</i>) Quiet!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He's had enough of me. (<i>Schwarz leads her +off, to the right.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Turning over the leaves in one of the books +on the table.</i>) It had to come out—I must have my +hands free at last!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Coming back.</i>) Is that a way to jest?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Pointing to a chair.</i>) Please.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What is it?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Please.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">47</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Seating himself.</i>) Well?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Seating himself.</i>) You have married half +a million....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Is it gone?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Not a penny.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Explain to me the peculiar scene....</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You have married half a million—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> No one can make a crime of that.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You have created a name for yourself. You +can work unmolested. You need to deny yourself no +wish—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What have you two got against me?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> For six months you've been revelling in all +the heavens. You have a wife whom the world envies +you, and she deserves a man whom she can respect—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Doesn't she respect me?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> No.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Depressed.</i>) I come from the dark +depths of society. She is above me. I cherish no more +ardent wish than to become her equal. (<i>Offers Schön +his hand.</i>) Thank you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Pressing it, half embarrassed.</i>) Don't mention it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>With determination.</i>) Speak!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Keep a little more watch on her.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I—on her?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> We are not children! We don't trifle! She +demands that she be taken seriously. Her value gives her +a perfect right to be.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What does she do, then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You have married half a million!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Rises; beside himself.</i>) She—?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Takes him by the shoulder.</i>) No, that's not +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">48</a>] </span>the way! (<i>Forces him to sit.</i>) We must speak with +each other very seriously here.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What does she do?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> First count on your fingers what you have +to thank her for, and then—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> What does she do—man!!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> And then make yourself responsible for your +faults, and no one else.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> With whom? With whom?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> If we should shoot each other—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Since when, then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Evasive.</i>) —I don't come here to make +scandal, I come to save you from the scandal.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> You have misunderstood her.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Embarrassed.</i>) That will not do for me. +I can't see you go on living in blindness. The girl deserves +to be a respectable woman. Since I have known +her she has improved as she developed.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Since you have known her? Since when +have you known her then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Since about her twelfth year.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Bewildered.</i>) She told me nothing about +that.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> She sold flowers in front of the Alhambra +Café. Every evening between twelve and two she pressed +in among the guests, bare-footed.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> She told me nothing of that.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> She did right there. I'm telling you, so +you may see that you have not to do with moral degeneracy. +The girl is, on the contrary, of extraordinarily +good disposition.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> She said she had grown up with an aunt.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> That was the woman I gave her to. She +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">49</a>] </span>was her best pupil. The mothers used to make her an +example to their children. She has the feeling for duty. +It is simply and solely your mistake if you have till now +neglected to take her on her best sides.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Sobbing.</i>) O God!—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>With emphasis.</i>) No O God!! Nothing +of the happiness you have cost can be changed. Done is +done. You over-rate yourself against your better knowledge +if you persuade yourself you will lose. You stand +to gain. But with "O God" nothing is gained. A greater +friendliness I have not yet shown you: I speak plainly and +offer you my help. Don't show yourself unworthy of it!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>From now on more and more broken +up.</i>) When I first knew her, she told me she had never +loved.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> When a widow says that—! It does her +credit that she chose you for a husband. Make the same +claims on yourself and your happiness is without a blot.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> She says he made her wear short dresses.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> But he married her! That was her master-stroke. +How she brought the man to it is beyond me. +You really must know it now: you are enjoying the fruits +of her diplomacy.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> How did she get to know Dr. Goll then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Through me! It was after my wife's death, +when I was making the first advances to my present +fiancée. She stuck herself in between. She had fixed +her mind on becoming my wife.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>As if seized with a horrible suspicion.</i>) +And then when her husband died?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You married half a million!!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Wailing.</i>) O, to have stayed where I +was! To have died of hunger!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">50</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Superior.</i>) Do you think, then, that <em class="italic">I</em> make +no compromises? Who is there that does not compromise? +You have married half a million. You are to-day +one of the foremost artists. That can't be done +without money. You are not the man to sit in judgment +on her. You can't possibly treat an origin like Mignon's +according to the notions of bourgeois society.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Quite distraught.</i>) Who are you speaking +of?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Of her father! You're an artist, I say: your +ideals are on a different plane from those of a wage-worker.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I don't understand a word of all that.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I am speaking of the inhuman conditions out +of which, thanks to her good management, the girl has +developed into what she is!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Who?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Who? Your wife.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> <em>Eve?</em></p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I called her Mignon.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I thought her name was Nellie?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Dr. Goll called her so.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I called her Eve—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> What her real name is I don't know.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Absently.</i>) Perhaps she knows.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> With a father like hers, she is, with all her +faults, a miracle. I don't understand you—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> He died in a madhouse—?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> He was here just now!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Who was here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Her father.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Here—in my house?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">51</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> He squeezed by me as I came in. And there +are the two glasses still.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> She says he died in the madhouse.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Let her feel she's in authority—! She craves +nothing but the compulsion to unconditional obedience. +With Dr. Goll she was in heaven, and with him there +was no joking.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Shaking his head.</i>) She said she had +never loved—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> But you, make a beginning with yourself. +Pull yourself together!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> She has sworn—!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You can't demand a sense of duty in her +before you know your own task.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> By her mother's grave!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> She never knew her mother, let alone the +grave. Her mother hasn't got a grave.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> I don't fit in society. (<i>He is in desperation.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> What's the matter?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> Pain—horrible pain!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Gets up, steps back; after a pause.</i>) Guard +her for yourself: she's yours. The moment is decisive. +To-morrow she may be lost to you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Pointing to his breast.</i>) Here, here.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You have married half— (<i>Reflecting.</i>) She +is lost to you if you let this moment slip!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> If I could weep! Oh, if I could cry out!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>With a hand on his shoulder.</i>) You're suffering—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> (<i>Getting up, apparently quiet.</i>) You are +right, quite right.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Gripping his hand.</i>) Where are you going?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">52</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHWARZ.</span> To speak with her.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Right! (<i>Accompanies him to the door, left. +Coming back.</i>) That was tough work. (<i>After a pause, +looking right.</i>) He had taken her into the studio before +though? (<i>A fearful groan, left. He hurries to the door +and finds it locked.</i>) Open! Open the door!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Stepping thru the hangings, right.</i>) What's—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Open it!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Comes down the steps.</i>) That is horrible.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Have you an ax in the kitchen?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He'll open it right off—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I can't kick it down.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> When he's had his cry out.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Kicking the door.</i>) Open! (<i>To Lulu.</i>) +Bring me an ax.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Send for the doctor—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You are not yourself.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> It serves you right. (<i>Bell rings in the corridor. +Schön and Lulu stare at each other. Then +Schön slips up-stage and stands in the doorway.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I mustn't let myself be seen here.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Perhaps it's the art-dealer. (<i>The bell rings +again.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> But if we don't answer it—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Steals toward the door; but Schön holds +her.</i><a name="steals" id="steals"></a><ins class='correction' title=')—'>) —</ins></p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Stop. It sometimes happens that one is not +just at hand— (<i>He goes out on tip-toes. Lulu turns +back to the locked door and listens. Schön returns with +Alva.</i>) Please be quiet.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>Very excited.</i>) A revolution has broken out +in Paris!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Be quiet.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">53</a>] </span><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>To Lulu.</i>) You're as pale as death.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Rattling at the door.</i>) Walter! Walter! +(<i>A death-rattle heard behind the door.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> God pity you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Haven't you brought an ax?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> If there's one there— (<i>Goes slowly out, upper +left.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> He's just keeping us in suspense.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> A revolution has broken out in Paris?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> In the editors' room they're beating their heads +against the wall. No one knows what he ought to write. +(<i>The bell rings in the corridor.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Kicking against the door.</i>) Walter!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Shall I force it in?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I can do that. Who is it coming now? +(<i>Standing up.</i>) To enjoy life and let others be responsible +for it—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Coming back with a kitchen ax.</i>) Henriette +has come home.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Shut the door behind you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Give it here. (<i>Takes the ax and pounds with +it between the jamb and the lock.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You must hold it nearer the end.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> It's cracking— (<i>The lock gives; Alva lets +the ax fall and staggers back.</i>) (<i>Pause.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>To Schön, pointing to the door.</i>) After +you. (<i>Schön flinches, drops back.</i>) Are you getting—dizzy? +(<i>Schön wipes the sweat from his forehead and +goes in.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>From the couch.</i>) Ghastly!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Stopping in the door-way, finger on lips, cries +out sharply.</i>) Oh! Oh! (<i>Hurries to Alva.</i>) I can't +stay here.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">54</a>] </span><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Horrible!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Taking his hand.</i>) Come.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Where to?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I can't be alone. (<i>Goes out with Alva, right.</i>)</p> + +<p>(<i>Schön comes back, a bunch of keys in his hand, which +shows blood. He pulls the door to, behind him, goes to +the writing-table, opens it, and writes two notes.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>Coming back, right.</i>) She's changing her +clothes.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> She has gone?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> To her room. She's changing her clothes. +(<i>Schön rings. Henriette comes in.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You know where Dr. Bernstein lives?</p> + +<p><span class="small">HENRIETTE.</span> Of course, Doctor. Right next door.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Giving her one note.</i>) Take that over to +him, please.</p> + +<p><span class="small">HENRIETTE.</span> In case the doctor is not at home?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> He is at home. (<i>Giving her the other note.</i>) +And take this to police headquarters. Take a cab. (<i>Henriette +goes out.</i>) I am judged!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> My blood is cold.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Toward the left.</i>) The fool!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> He waked up to something, perhaps?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> He has been too absorbed with himself. +(<i>Lulu appears on the steps, right, in dust-coat and hat.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Where are you going now?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Out. I see it on all the walls.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Where are his papers?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> In the desk.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>At the desk.</i>) Where?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Lower right-hand drawer. (<i>She kneels and +opens the drawer, emptying the papers on the floor.</i>) +Here. There is nothing to fear. He had no secrets.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">55</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Now I can just withdraw from the world.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Still kneeling.</i>) Write a pamphlet about +him. Call him Michelangelo.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> What good'll that do? (<i>Pointing left.</i>) +There lies my engagement.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> That's the curse of your game!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Shout it thru the streets!!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>Pointing to Lulu.</i>) If you had treated that +girl fairly and justly when my mother died—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> My engagement is bleeding to death there!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Getting up.</i>) I sha'n't stay here any longer.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> In an hour they'll be selling extras. I dare +not go across the street!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Why, what can you do to help it?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> That's just it! They'll stone me for it!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You must get away—travel.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> To leave the scandal a free field!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>By the couch.</i>) Ten minutes ago he was +lying here.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> This is the reward for all I've done for him! +In one second he wrecks my whole life for me!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Control yourself, please!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>On the couch.</i>) There's no one but ourselves +here.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> But <em>our</em> position?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>To Lulu.</i>) What will you say to the +police?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Nothing.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> He didn't want to remain a debtor to his destiny.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He always thought of death immediately.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> He thought what a human being can only +dream of.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">56</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> He has paid dearly for it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> He had what <em>we</em> don't have!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Suddenly violent.</i>) I know your reasons! +I have no cause to consider you! If you try every means +to prevent having any brothers and sisters, that's all the +more reason why I should get more children.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You've a poor knowledge of men.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You get out an extra yourself!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>With passionate indignation.</i>) He had no +moral sense! (<i>Suddenly controlling himself again.</i>) +Paris in revolution—?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Our editors act as though they'd been struck. +Everything has stopped dead.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> That's got to help me over this! Now if +only the police would come. The minutes are worth +more than gold. (<i>The bell rings in the corridor.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> There they are— (<i>Schön starts to the door. +Lulu jumps up.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Wait, you've got blood—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Where?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Wait, I'll wipe it. (<i>Sprinkles her handkerchief +with heliotrope and wipes the blood from Schön's +hand.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> It's your husband's blood.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> It leaves no trace.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Monster!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You will marry me, though. (<i>The bell rings +in the corridor.</i>) Only have patience, children. (<i>Schön +goes out and returns with Escherich, a reporter.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCHERICH.</span> (<i>Breathless.</i>) Allow me to—to introduce myself—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You've run?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCHERICH.</span> (<i>Giving him his card.</i>) From police +headquarters. A suicide, I understand.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">57</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Reads.</i>) Fritz Escherich, correspondent of +the "News and Novelties." Come along.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCHERICH.</span> One moment. (<i>Takes out his note-book +and pencil, looks around the parlor, writes a few words, +bows to Lulu, writes, turns to the broken door, writes.</i>) +A kitchen-ax. (<i>Starts to lift it.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Holding him back.</i>) Excuse me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCHERICH.</span> (<i>Writing.</i>) Door broken open with a +kitchen-ax. (<i>Examines the lock.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>His hand on the door.</i>) Look before you, +my dear sir.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCHERICH.</span> Now if you will have the kindness to +open the door— (<i>Schön opens it. Escherich lets book +and pencil fall, clutches at his hair.</i>) Merciful Heaven! +God!!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Look it all over carefully.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCHERICH.</span> I can't look at it!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Snorting scornfully.</i>) Then what did you +come here for?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCHERICH.</span> To—to cut up—to cut up his throat with +a razor!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Have you seen it all?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCHERICH.</span> That must feel—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Draws the door to, steps to the writing-table.</i>) +Sit down. Here is paper and pen. Write.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCHERICH.</span> (<i>Mechanically taking his seat.</i>) I can't +write—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Behind his chair.</i>) Write! Persecution—mania....</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCHERICH.</span> (<i>Writes.</i>) Per-secu-tion—mania. (<i>The +bell rings in the corridor.</i>)</p> + +<p class="center noindent small curtain">CURTAIN</p> + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">58</a>] </span></p> +<h2>ACT III</h2> + + +<p><i>A theatrical dressing-room, hung with red. Door upper +right. Across upper left corner, a Spanish screen. Centre, +a table set endwise, on which dance costumes lie. +Chair on each side of this table. Lower right, a smaller +table with a chair. Lower left, a high, very wide, old-fashioned +arm-chair. Above it, a tall mirror, with a make-up +stand before it holding puff, rouge, etc., etc.</i></p> + +<p><i>Alva is at lower right, filling two glasses with red wine +and champagne.</i></p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Never since I began to work for the stage have +I seen a public so uncontrolled in enthusiasm.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Voice from behind the screen.</i>) Don't give +me too much red wine. Will he see me to-day?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Father?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Yes.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I don't know if he's in the theater.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Doesn't he want to see me at all?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> He has so little time.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> His <em>bride</em> occupies him.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Speculations. He gives himself no rest. +(<i>Schön enters.</i>) You? We're just speaking of you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Is he there?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You're changing?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Peeping over the Spanish screen, to Schön.</i>) +You write in all the papers that I'm the most gifted +danseuse who ever trod the stage, a second Taglioni and +I don't know what else—and you haven't once found me +gifted enough to convince yourself of the fact.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I have so much to write. You see, I was +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">59</a>] </span>right: there were hardly any seats left. You must keep +rather more in the proscenium.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I must first accustom myself to the light.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> She has kept herself strictly to her part.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>To Alva.</i>) You must get more out of +your performers! You don't know enough yet about +the technique. (<i>To Lulu.</i>) What do you come as now?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> As a flower-girl.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>To Alva.</i>) In tights?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> No. In a skirt to the ankles.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> It would have been better if you hadn't ventured +on symbolism.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I look at a dancer's feet.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> The point is, what the public looks at. An +apparition like <em>her</em> has no need, thank heaven, of your +symbolic mummery.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> The public doesn't look as if it was bored!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Of course not; because I have been working +for her success in the press for six months. Has the +prince been here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Nobody's been here.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Who lets a dancer come on thru two acts +in raincoats?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Who is the prince?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Shall we see each other afterwards?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Are you alone?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> With acquaintances. At Peter's?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> At twelve?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> At twelve. (<i>Exit.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I'd given up hoping he'd ever come.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Don't let yourself be misled by his grumpy +growls. If you'll only be careful not to spend your +strength before the last number begins— (<i>Lulu steps +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">60</a>] </span>out in a classical, sleeveless dress, white with a red border, +a bright wreath in her hair and a basket of flowers in her +hands.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He doesn't seem to have noticed at all how +cleverly you have used your performers.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I won't blow in sun, moon and stars in the +first act!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Sipping.</i>) You disclose me by degrees.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I knew, though, that you knew all about changing +costumes.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> If I'd wanted to sell my flowers this way before +the Alhambra café, they'd have had me behind lock +and key right off the very first night.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Why? You were a child!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Do you remember me when I entered your +room the first time?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You wore a dark blue dress with black velvet.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> They had to stick me somewhere and didn't +know where.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> My mother had been lying sick two years then.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You were playing theater, and asked me if I +wanted to play too.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> To be sure! We played theater!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I see you still—the way you shoved the figures +back and forth.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> For a long time my most terrible memory +was when all at once I saw clearly into your relations—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You got icy curt towards me then.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Oh, <a name="i" id="i"></a><ins class='correction' title='God— I'>God—I</ins> saw in you something so infinitely +far above me. I had perhaps a higher devotion to you +than to my mother. Think—when my mother died—I +was seventeen—I went and stood before my father and +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">61</a>] </span>demanded that he make you his wife on the spot or we'd +have to fight a duel.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He told me that at the time.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Since I've grown older, I can only pity him. +He will never comprehend me. There he is making up +a story for himself about a little diplomatic game that +puts me in the rôle of laboring against his marriage with +the Countess.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Does she still look as innocently as ever at the +world?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> She loves him. I'm convinced of that. Her +family has tried everything to make her turn back. I +don't think any sacrifice in the world would be too great +for her for his sake.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Holds out her glass to him.</i>) A little more, +please.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>Giving it to her.</i>) You're drinking too much.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He shall learn to believe in my success! He +doesn't believe in any art. He believes only in papers.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> He believes in nothing.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He brought me into the theater in order that +someone might eventually be found rich enough to marry +me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Well, alright. Why need that trouble us?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I am to be glad if I can dance myself into a millionaire's +heart.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> God defend that anyone should take you from +us!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You've composed the music for it, though.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You know that it was always my wish to write +a piece for you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I am not at all made for the stage, however.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You came into the world a dancer!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">62</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> Why don't you write your things at least as +interesting as life is?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Because if we did no man would believe us.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> If I didn't know more about acting than the +people on the stage do, what might not have happened +to me?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I've provided your part with all the impossibilities +imaginable, though.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> With hocus-pocus like that no dog is lured +from the stove in the real world.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> It's enough for me that the public finds itself +most tremendously stirred up.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> But <em class="italic">I</em>'d like to find myself most tremendously +stirred up. (<i>Drinks.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You don't seem to be in need of much more for +that.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> No one of them realizes anything about the +others. Each thinks that he alone is the unhappy victim.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> But how can you feel that?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> There runs up one's body such an icy shudder.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You are incredible. (<i>An electric bell rings over +the door.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> My cape.... I shall keep in the proscenium!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>Putting a wide shawl round her shoulders.</i>) +Here is your cape.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He shall have nothing more to fear for his +shameless boosting.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Keep yourself under control!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> God grant that I dance the last sparks of intelligence +out of their heads. (<i>Exit.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Yes, a more interesting piece could be written +about her. (<i>Sits, right, and takes out his note-book. +Writes. Looks up.</i>) First act: Dr. Goll. Rotten already! +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">63</a>] </span>I can call up Dr. Goll from purgatory or wherever +else he's doing penance for his orgies, but I'll be made +responsible for his sins. (<i>Long-continued but much +deadened applause and bravos outside.</i>) They rage there +as in a menagery when the meat appears at the cage. +Second act: Walter Schwarz. Still more impossible! +How our souls do strip off their last coverings in the +light of such lightning-strokes! Third act? Is it really +to go on this way? (<i>The attendant opens the door from +outside and lets Escerny enter. He acts as though he were +at home, and without greeting Alva takes the chair near +the mirror. Alva continues, not heeding him.</i>) It can +not go on this way in the third act!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> Up to the middle of the third act it didn't +seem to go so well to-day as usual.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I was not on the stage.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> Now she's in full career again.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> She's lengthening each number.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> I once had the pleasure of meeting the +artiste at Schön's.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> My father has brought her before the public +by some critiques in his paper.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> (<i>Bowing slightly.</i>) I was conferring with +Dr. Schön about the publication of my discoveries at Lake +Tanganika.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>Bowing slightly.</i>) His remarks leave no doubt +that he takes the liveliest interest in your work.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> It's a very good thing in the artiste that the +<em>public</em> does not exist for her at all.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> As a child she learned the quick changing of +clothes; but I was surprised to discover such an expressive +dancer in her.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> When she dances her solo she is intoxicated +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">64</a>] </span>with her own beauty, with which she herself seems to be +mortally in love.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Here she comes. (<i>Gets up and opens the door. +Enter Lulu.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Without wreath or basket, to Alva.</i>) You're +called for. I was three times before the curtain. (<i>To +Escerny.</i>) Dr. Schön is not in your box?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> Not in mine.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>To Lulu.</i>) Didn't you see him?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He is probably away again.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> He has the last parquet-box on the left.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> It seems he is ashamed of me!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> There wasn't a good seat left for him.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>To Alva.</i>) Ask him, though, if he likes me +better now.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I'll send him up.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> He applauded.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Did he really?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Give yourself some rest. (<i>Exit.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I've got to change again now.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> But your maid isn't here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I can do it quicker alone. Where did you say +Dr. Schön was sitting?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> I saw him in the left parquet-box farthest +back.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I've still five costumes before me now; dancing-girl, +ballerina, queen of the night, Ariel, and Lascaris.... +(<i>She goes behind the Spanish screen.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> Would you think it possible that at our first +meeting I expected nothing more than to make the acquaintance +of a young lady of the literary world?... +(<i>He sits at the left of the centre table, and remains there +to the end of the scene.</i>) Have I perhaps erred in my +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">65</a>] </span>judgment of your nature, or did I rightly interpret the +smile which the thundering storms of applause called forth +on your lips? That you are secretly pained at the necessity +of profaning your art before people of doubtful disinterestedness? +(<i>Lulu makes no answer.</i>) That you +would gladly exchange at any moment the shimmer of +publicity for a quiet, sunny happiness in distinguished seclusion? +(<i>Lulu makes no answer.</i>) That you feel in +yourself enough dignity and high rank to fetter a man to +your feet—in order to enjoy his utter helplessness?... +(<i>Lulu makes no answer.</i>) That in a comfortable, richly +furnished villa you would feel in a more fitting place than +here,—with unlimited means, to live completely as your +<em>own mistress</em>? (<i>Lulu steps forth in a short, bright, +pleated petticoat and white satin bodice, black shoes and +stockings, and spurs with bells at her heels.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Busy with the lacing of her bodice.</i>) If +there's just one evening I don't go on, I dream the whole +night that I'm dancing and feel the next day as if I'd been +racked.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> But what difference could it make to you +to see before you instead of this mob <em>one</em> spectator, +specially elect?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> That would make no difference. I don't see +anybody anyway.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> A lighted summer-house—the splashing of +the water near at hand.... I am forced in my exploring-trips +to the practise of a quite inhuman tyranny—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Putting on a pearl necklace before the mirror.</i>) +A good school!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> And if I now long to deliver myself unreservedly +into the power of a woman, that is a natural +need for relaxation.... Can you imagine a greater life-happiness +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">66</a>] </span>for a woman than to have a man entirely in her +power?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Jingling her heels.</i>) Oh yes!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> (<i>Disconcerted.</i>) Among cultured men you +will find not one who doesn't lose his head over you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Your wishes, however, no one will fulfill without +deceiving you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> To be deceived by a girl like you must be +ten times more enrapturing than to be uprightly loved by +anybody else.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You have never in your life been uprightly +loved by a girl! (<i>Turning her back to him and pointing.</i>) +Would you undo this knot for me? I've laced myself +too tight. I am always so excited getting dressed.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> (<i>After repeated efforts.</i>) I'm sorry; I can't.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Then leave it. Perhaps I can. (<i>Goes left.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> I confess that I am lacking in deftness. +Maybe I was not docile enough with women.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> And probably you don't have much opportunity +to be so in Africa, either?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> (<i>Seriously.</i>) Let me openly admit to you +that my loneliness in the world embitters many hours.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> The knot is almost done....</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> What draws me to you is not your dancing. +It's your physical and mental refinement, as it is revealed +in every one of your movements. Anyone who is so much +interested in art as I am could not be deceived in that. +For ten evenings I've been studying your spiritual life in +your dance, until to-day when you entered as the flower-girl +I became perfectly clear. Yours is a grand nature—unselfish; +you can see no one suffer; you embody the joy +of life. As a wife you will make a man happy above all +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">67</a>] </span>things.... You are all open-heartedness. You would +be a poor actor. (<i>The bell rings again.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Having somewhat loosened her laces, takes a +deep breath and jingles her spurs.</i>) Now I can breathe +again. The curtain is going up. (<i>She takes from the +centre table a skirt-dance costume—of bright yellow silk, +without a waist, closed at the neck, reaching to the ankles, +with wide, loose sleeves—and throws it over her.</i>) I must +dance.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> (<i>Rises and kisses her hand.</i>) Allow me to +remain here a little while longer.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Please, stay.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> I need some solitude. (<i>Lulu goes out.</i>) +What is to be aristocratic? To be eccentric, like me? +Or to be perfect in body and mind, like this girl? (<i>Applause +and bravos outside.</i>) He who gives me back my +faith in men, gives me back my life. Should not the +children of this woman be more princely, body and soul, +than the children whose mother has no more vitality in +her than I have felt in me until to-day? (<i>Sitting, right; +ecstatically.</i>) The dance has ennobled her body.... +(<i>Alva enters.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> One is never sure a moment that some miserable +chance may not throw the whole performance out +for good. (<i>He throws himself into the big chair, left, so +that the two men are in exactly reversed positions from +their former ones. Both converse somewhat boredly and +apathetically.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> But the public has never yet shown itself +so grateful.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> She's finished the skirt-dance.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> I hear her coming....</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">68</a>] </span><span class="small">ALVA.</span> She isn't coming. She has no time. She +changes her costume in the wings.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> She has two ballet-costumes, if I'm not mistaken?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I find the white one more becoming to her than +the rose.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> Do you?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Don't you?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> I find she looks too body-less in the white +tulle.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I find she looks too animal in the rose-tulle.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> I don't find that.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> The white tulle expresses more the child-like +in her nature.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> The rose tulle expresses more the female in +her nature. (<i>The electric bell rings over the door. Alva +jumps up.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> For heaven's sake, what is wrong?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> (<i>Getting up too</i><a name="stop" id="stop"></a><ins class='correction' title=').'><i>.</i>)</ins> What's the matter? +(<i>The electric bell goes on ringing to the close of the +dialogue.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Something's gone wrong there—</p> + +<p><span class="small">ESCERNY.</span> How can you get so suddenly frightened?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> That must be a hellish confusion! (<i>He runs +out. Escerny follows him. The door remains open. +Faint dance-music heard. Pause. Lulu enters in a long +cloak, and shuts the door to behind her. She wears a +rose-colored ballet costume with flower garlands. She +walks across the stage and sits down in the big arm-chair +near the mirror. After a pause Alva returns.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You had a faint?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Please lock the door.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> At least come down to the stage.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">69</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> Did you see him?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> See whom?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> With his bride?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> With his— (<i>To Schön, who enters.</i>) You +might have spared yourself that jest!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> What's the matter with her? (<i>To Lulu.</i>) +How can you play the scene straight at me!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I feel as if I'd been whipped.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>After bolting the door.</i>) You will dance—as +sure as I've taken the responsibility for you!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Before your bride?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Have you a right to trouble yourself before +whom? You've been engaged here. You receive your +salary ...</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Is that your affair?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You dance for anyone who buys a ticket. +Whom I sit with in my box has nothing to do with your +business!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I wish you'd stayed sitting in your box! (<i>To +Lulu.</i>) Tell me, please, what I am to do. (<i>A knock at +the door.</i>) There is the manager. (<i>Calls.</i>) Yes, in a +moment! (<i>To Lulu.</i>) You won't compel us to break +off the performance?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>To Lulu.</i>) Onto the stage with you!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Let me have just a moment! I can't now. +I'm utterly miserable.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> The devil take the whole theater crowd!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Put in the next number. No one will notice +if I dance now or in five minutes. There's no strength +in my feet.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> But you will dance then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> As well as I can.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">70</a>] </span><span class="small">ALVA.</span> As badly as you like. (<i>A knock at the door +again.</i>) I'm coming.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>When Alva is gone.</i>) You are right to show +me where my place is. You couldn't do it better than by +letting me dance the skirt-dance before your fiancée.... +You do me the greatest service when you point out where +I belong.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Sardonically.</i>) For you with your origin +it's incomparable luck to still have the chance of entering +before respectable people!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Even when my shamelessness makes them not +know where to look.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Nonsense!—Shamelessness?—Don't make a +necessity of virtue! Your shamelessness is balanced with +gold for you at every step. One cries "bravo," another +"fie"—it's all the same to you! Can you wish for +a more brilliant triumph than when a respectable girl can +hardly be kept in the box? Has your life any other aim? +As long as you still have a spark of self-respect, you are no +perfect dancer. The more terribly you make people shudder, +the higher you stand in your profession!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> But it is absolutely indifferent to me what they +think of me. I don't, in the least, want to be any better +than I am. I'm content with myself.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>In moral indignation.</i>) That is your true +nature. I call that straightforward! A corruption!!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I wouldn't have known that I had a spark of +self-respect—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Suddenly distrustful.</i>) No harlequinading—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> O Lord—I know very well what I'd have become +if you hadn't saved me from it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Are you then, perhaps, something different to-day?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">71</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> God be thanked, no!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> That is right!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Laughs.</i>) And how awfully glad I am about +it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Spits.</i>) Will you dance now?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> In anything, before anyone!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Then down to the stage!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Begging like a child.</i>) Just a minute more! +Please! I can't stand up straight yet. They'll ring.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You have become what you are in spite of +everything I sacrificed for your education and your welfare.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Had you overrated your ennobling influence?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Spare me your witticisms.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> The prince was here.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Well?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He takes me with him to Africa.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Africa?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Why not? Didn't you make me a dancer just +so that someone might come and take me away with him?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> But not to Africa, though!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Then why didn't you let me fall quietly in a +faint, and silently thank heaven for it?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Because, more's the pity, I had no reason for +believing in your faint!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Making fun of him.</i>) You couldn't bear it +any longer out there?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Because I had to bring home to you what you +are and to whom you are not to look up.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You were afraid, though, that my legs might +have been seriously injured?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I know too well you are indestructible.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> So you know that?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">72</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Bursting out.</i>) Don't look at me so impudently!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> No one is keeping you here.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I'm going as soon as the bell rings.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> As soon as you have the energy! Where is +your energy? You have been engaged three years. Why +don't you marry? You recognize no obstacles. Why do +you want to put the blame on me? You ordered me to +marry Dr. Goll: I forced Dr. Goll to marry me. You +ordered me to marry the painter: I made the best of a +bad bargain. Artists are your creatures, princes your +protegés. Why don't you marry?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Raging.</i>) Do you imagine <em>you</em> stand in +the way?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>From here to the end of the act triumphant.</i>) +If you knew how happy your rage is making me! How +proud I am that you should humble me by every means +in your power! You debase me as deep—as deep as a +woman can be debased, for you hope you can then jump +over me easier. But you have suffered unspeakably yourself +from everything you just said to me. I see it in you. +Already you are near the end of your self-command. Go! +For your innocent fiancée's sake, leave me alone! One +minute more, your mood will change around and you'll +make a scene with me of another kind, that you can't +answer for now.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I fear you no longer.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Me? Fear yourself! I do not need you. I +beg you to go! Don't give me the blame. You know +I don't need to faint to destroy your future. You have +unlimited confidence in my honorableness. You believe +not only that I'm an ensnaring daughter of Eve; you +believe, too, that I'm a very good-natured creature. I am +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">73</a>] </span>neither the one nor the other. Your misfortune is only +that you think I am.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Desperate.</i>) Leave my thoughts alone! +You have two men under the sod. Take the prince, +dance him into the earth! I am thru with you. I know +when the angel in you stops off and the devil begins. If +I take the world as it's made, the Creator must be responsible, +not I! To me life is not an amusement!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> And, therefore, you make claims on life greater +than anyone can make. Tell me, who of us two is more +full of claims and demands, you or I?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Be silent! I don't know how or what I think. +When I hear you, I don't think any more. In a week +I'll be married. I conjure you, by the angel that is in +you, during that time come no more to my sight!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I will lock my doors.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Go on and boast! God knows since I've been +wrestling with the world and with life I have cursed no +one like you!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> That comes from my lowly origin.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> From your depravity!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> With a thousand pleasures I take the blame +on myself! You must feel clean now; you must think +yourself a model of austerity now, a paragon of unflinching +principle! Otherwise you could never marry the child +in her boundless inexperience—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Do you want me to grab you and—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Yes! What must I say to make you? Not +for the world would I change with the innocent kid now! +Tho the girl loves you as no woman has ever loved you +yet!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Silence, beast! Silence!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">74</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> Marry her—and then she'll dance in her childish +wretchedness before <em>my</em> eyes, instead of I before hers!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Raising his fists.</i>) God forgive me—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Strike me! Where is your riding-whip? Strike +me on the legs—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Grasping his temples.</i>) Away, away! +(<i>Rushes to the door, recollects himself, turns around.</i>) +Can I go before the girl now, this way? Home!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Be a man! Look yourself in the face once:—you +have no trace of a conscience; you are frightened +at no wickedness; in the most cold-blooded way you mean +to make the girl that loves you unhappy; you conquer +half the world; you do what you please;—and you know +as well as I that—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Sunk in the chair, right centre, utterly exhausted.</i>) +Stop!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> That you are too weak—to tear yourself away +from me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Groaning.</i>) Oh! Oh! You make me +weep.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> This moment makes <em>me</em> I cannot tell you +how glad.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> My age! My position!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He cries like a child—the terrible man of +might! Now go so to your bride and tell her what kind +of a girl I am at heart—not a bit jealous!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Sobbing.</i>) The child! The innocent child!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> How can the incarnate devil get so weak all +of a sudden! But now go, please. You are nothing more +now to me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I cannot go to her.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Out with you. Come back to me when you +have regained your strength again.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">75</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Tell me in God's name what I must do.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Gets up; her cloak remains on the chair. +Shoving aside the costumes on the centre table.</i>) Here is +writing-paper—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I can't write....</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Upright behind him, her arm on the back of +his chair.</i>) Write! "My dear young lady<a name="lady" id="lady"></a><ins class='correction' title='.. ..'>....</ins>"</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Hesitating.</i>) I call her Adelheid ...</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>With emphasis.</i>) "My dear young lady ..."</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> My sentence of death! (<i>He writes.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> "Take back your promise. I cannot reconcile +it with my conscience—" (<i>Schön drops the pen and glances +up at her entreatingly.</i>) Write conscience!—"to fasten +you to my unhappy lot...."</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Writing.</i>) You are right. You are right.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> "I give you my word that I am unworthy of +your love—" (<i>Schön turns round again.</i>) Write love! +"These lines are the proof of it. For three years I have +tried to tear myself loose; I have not the strength. I am +writing you by the side of the woman that commands me. +Forget me. Dr. Ludwig Schön."</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Groaning.</i>) O God!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Half startled.</i>) No, no O God! (<i>With emphasis.</i>) +"Dr. Ludwig Schön." Postscript: "Do not attempt +to save me."</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Having written to the end, quite collapses.</i>) +Now—comes the—execution.</p> + +<p class="center noindent small curtain">CURTAIN</p> + + + + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">76</a>] </span></p> +<h2>ACT IV</h2> + + +<p><i>A splendid hall in German Renaissance style, with a +thick floor of oak-blocks. The lower half of the walls +of dark carved wood; the upper half on both sides hung +with faded Gobelins. At rear, a curtained gallery from +which a monumental stair-case leads, right, half-way down +the stage. At centre, under the gallery, the entrance-door, +with twisted posts and pediment. At left, a high and +spacious fire-place with a Chinese folding screen before it. +Further down, left, a French window onto a balcony, +with heavy curtains, closed. Down right, door hung with +Genoese velvet. Near it, a broad ottoman, with a chair +on its left. Behind, near the foot of the stairs, Lulu's Pierrot-picture +on a decorative stand and in a gold frame made +to look antique. In the centre of the hall, a heavy square +table, with three high-backed upholstered chairs round it +and a vase of white flowers on it.</i></p> + +<p><i>Countess Geschwitz sits on the ottoman, in a soldier-like, +fur-trimmed waist, high, upright collar, enormous cuff-links, +a veil over her face and her hands clasped convulsively +in her muff. Schön stands down right. Lulu, +in a big-flowered morning-dress, her hair in a simple knot +in a golden circlet, sits in the arm-chair left of the ottoman.</i></p> + +<p><span class="small">GESCHWITZ.</span> You can't think how glad I shall be to see +you at our artists' ball. (<i>To Lulu.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Is there no sort of possibility of a person like +me smuggling in?</p> + +<p><span class="small">GESCHWITZ.</span> It would be high treason if any of us lent +herself to such an intrigue.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">77</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Crossing to the centre table, behind the ottoman.</i>) +The glorious flowers!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Fräulein von Geschwitz brought me those.</p> + +<p><span class="small">GESCHWITZ.</span> Don't mention it. Oh, you'll be in man's +costume, won't you?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Do you think that becomes me?</p> + +<p><span class="small">GESCHWITZ.</span> You're a dream here. (<i>Signifying the +picture.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> My husband doesn't like it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">GESCHWITZ.</span> Is it by a local man?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You will hardly have known him.</p> + +<p><span class="small">GESCHWITZ.</span> No longer living?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Down left, with a deep voice.</i>) He had +enough.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You're in bad temper. (<i>Schön controls himself.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">GESCHWITZ.</span> (<i>Getting up.</i>) I must go, Mrs. Schön. +I can't stay any longer. This evening we have life-class, +and I have still so much to get ready for the ball. +Good-bye, Dr. Schön. (<i>Exit, up-stage. Lulu accompanies +her. Schön looks around him.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Pure Augean stable. That, the end of my life. +They ought to show me a corner that's still clean. The +pest in the house. The poorest day-laborer has his tidy +nest. Thirty years' work, and this my family circle, the +circle of my people— (<i>Glancing round.</i>) God knows +who is overhearing me again now! (<i>Draws a revolver +from his breast pocket.</i>) Man is, indeed, uncertain of his +life! (<i>The cocked revolver in his right hand, he goes +left and speaks at the closed window curtains.</i>) That, +my family circle! The fellow still has courage! Shall I +not rather shoot <em>myself</em> in the head? Against deadly +enemies one fights, but the— (<i>Throws up the curtains, +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">78</a>] </span>but finds no one hidden behind them.</i>) The dirt—the +dirt.... (<i>Shakes his head and crosses right.</i>) Insanity +has already conquered my reason, or else—exceptions prove +the rule! (<i>Hearing Lulu coming he puts the revolver +back in his pocket. Lulu comes down right.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Couldn't you get away for this afternoon?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Just what did that Countess want?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I don't know. She wants to paint me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Misfortune in human guise, that waits upon +one.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Couldn't you get away, then? I would so +like to drive thru the grounds with you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Just the day when I must be at the exchange. +You know that I'm not free to-day. All my property +is drifting on the waves.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I'd sooner be dead and buried than let my life +be embittered so by my property.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Who takes life lightly does not take death +hard.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> As a child I always had the most horrible fear +of death.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> That is just why I married you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>With her arms round his neck.</i>) You're in +bad humor. You give yourself too much work. For +weeks and months I've seen nothing of you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Stroking her hair.</i>) Your light-heartedness +should cheer up my old days.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Indeed, you didn't marry me at all.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Who else did I marry then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I married you!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> How does that alter anything?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I was always afraid it would alter a great deal.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> It has, indeed, crushed a great deal underfoot.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">79</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> But not one thing, praise God!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Of that I should be covetous.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Your love for me. (<i>Schön's face twitches, he +signs to her to go out in front of him. Both exeunt lower +right. Countess Geschwitz cautiously opens the rear door, +ventures forth, and listens. Hearing voices approaching in +the gallery above her, she starts suddenly.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">GESCHWITZ.</span> Oh dear, there's somebody— (<i>Hides +behind the fire-screen.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Steps out from the curtains onto the +stairs, turns back.</i>) Has the youngster left his heart behind +him in the "Nightlight" café?</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> (<i>Between the curtains.</i>) He is still too +small for the great world, and can't walk so far on foot +yet. (<i>He disappears.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Coming down the stairs.</i>) God be +thanked we're home again at last! What damned skunk +has waxed the stairs again? If I have to have my joints +set in plaster again before being called home, she can +just present me between the palms here to her relations as +the Venus de' Medici. Nothing but steep rocks and +stumbling blocks!</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> (<i>Comes down the stairs, carrying Hugenberg +in his arms.</i>) This thing has a royal police-captain for a +father and not as much courage in his body as the raggedest +hobo!</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> If there was nothing more to it than life +and death, then you'd soon learn to know me!</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> Even with his lover's woe, little brother +don't weigh more than sixty kilos. I'll let myself be +hung on that statement any time.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Throw him up to the ceiling and catch +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">80</a>] </span>him by the feet. That'll whip his young blood into the +proper rhythm right from the start.</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> (<i>Kicking his legs.</i>) Hooray, hooray, I +shall be expelled from school!</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> (<i>Setting him down at the foot of the stairs.</i>) +You've never been to any sensible school at all yet.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Here many a man has already won his +spurs. Only, no timidity! First, I'll set before you a +drop of what can't be had anywhere for money. (<i>Opens +a cupboard under the stairs.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> Now if she doesn't come dancing in on +the instant, I'll wallop you two so you'll still rub your +tails in the hereafter.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> (<i>Seated left of the table.</i>) The strongest +man in the world little brother will wallop! Let mamma +put long trowsers on you first. (<i>Hugenberg sits opposite +him.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> I'd rather you lent me your mustache.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> Maybe you want her to throw you out of +the door straight off?</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> If I only knew now what the devil I +was going to say to her!</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> That she knows best herself.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Putting two bottles and three glasses on +the table.</i>) I started in on one of them yesterday. (<i>Fills +the glasses.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> (<i>Guarding Hugenberg's.</i>) Don't give him +too much, or we'll both have to pay for it.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Supporting himself with both hands on +the table-top.</i>) Will the gentlemen smoke?</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> (<i>Opening his cigarette case.</i>) Havana-imported!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">81</a>] </span><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> (<i>Helping himself.</i>) From papa police-captain?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Sitting.</i>) Everything in the house is +mine. You only need to ask.</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> I made a poem to her yesterday.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> What did you make to her?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> What did he make to her?</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> A poem.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> (<i>To Schigolch.</i>) A poem.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> He's promised me a dollar if I can spy out +where he can meet her alone.</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> Just who does live here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> Here <em>we</em> live!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Jour fix—every stock-market day! Our +health. (<i>They clink.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> Should I read it to her first, maybe?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>To Rodrigo.</i>) What's he mean?</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> His poem. He'd like to stretch her out and +torture her a little first.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Staring at Hugenberg.</i>) His eyes! His +eyes!</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> His eyes, yes. They've robbed her of sleep +for a week.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>To Rodrigo.</i>) You can have yourself +pickled.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> We can both have ourselves pickled! Our +health, gossip Death!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Clinking with him.</i>) Health, jack-in-the-box! +If it's still better later on, I'm ready for departure +at any moment; but—but— (<i>Lulu enters right, +in an elegant Parisian ball-dress, much décolleté, with +flowers in breast and hair.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> But children, children, I expect company!</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">82</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> But I can tell you what, those things must +cost something over there! (<i>Hugenberg has risen. Lulu +sits on the arm of his chair.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You've fallen into pretty company! I expect +visitors, children!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> I guess I've got to stick something in +there, too. (<i>He searches among the flowers on the table.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Do I look well?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> What are those you've got there?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Orchids. (<i>Bending over Hugenberg.</i>) Smell.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> Do you expect Prince Escerny?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Shaking her head.</i>) God forbid!</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> So somebody else again—!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> The prince has gone traveling.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> To put his kingdom up for auction?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He's spying out a fresh tribe in the neighborhood +of Africa. (<i>Rises, hurries up the stairs, and steps +into the gallery.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> (<i>To Schigolch.</i>) He wanted to marry her +originally.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> (<i>Sticking a lily in his button-hole.</i>) I, +too, wanted to marry her originally.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> You wanted to marry her originally?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Didn't you, too, want to marry her +originally?</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> You bet I wanted to marry her originally!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Who has not wanted to marry her originally!!</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> I would never have got a better!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> She has let no one regret that he didn't +marry her.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> Then she's not your child?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Never occurs to her.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">83</a>] </span><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> What is her father's name then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> She has boasted of me!</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> What is her father's name then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> What's he say?</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> What her father's name is.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> She never had one.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Comes down from the gallery and sits again +on Hugenberg's chair-arm.</i>) What have I never had?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALL THREE.</span> A father.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Yes, sure—I'm a wonder-child. (<i>To Hugenberg.</i>) +How are you getting along with your father?</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> He smokes a respectable cigar, anyway, the +police-captain.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Have you locked up upstairs?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> There is the key.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Better have left it in the lock.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Why?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> So no one can unlock it from outside.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> Isn't he at the stock-exchange?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Oh, yes, but he suffers from persecution-mania.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> I take him by the feet, and yup!—there he +stays sticking to the roof.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He hunts you into a mouse-hole with the corner +of his eye.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> What does he hunt? Who does he hunt? +(<i>Baring his arm.</i>) Just look at this biceps!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Show me. (<i>Goes left.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> (<i>Hitting himself on the muscle.</i>) Granite. +Wrought-iron!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Feeling by turns Rodrigo's arm and her own.</i>) +If you only didn't have such long ears—</p> + +<p><span class="small">FERDINAND.</span> (<i>Entering, rear-centre.</i>) Doctor Schön!</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> The rogue! (<i>Jumps up, starts behind the +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">84</a>] </span>fire-screen, recoils.</i>) God preserve me! (<i>Hides, lower +left, behind the curtains.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> Give me the key! (<i>Takes it and drags +himself up the stairs.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Hugenberg having slid under the table.</i>) +Show him in!</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> (<i>Under the front edge of the table-cloth, +listening; to himself.</i>) If he doesn't stay—we'll be alone.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Poking him with her toe.</i>) Sh! (<i>Hugenberg +disappears. Alva is shown in by Ferdinand.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>In evening dress.</i>) Methinks the matinee will +take place with burning lamps. I've— (<i>Notices Schigolch +painfully climbing the stairs.</i>) What the —— is +that?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> An old friend of your father's.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Wholly unknown to me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> They were in the campaign together. He's awfully +badly—</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Is my father here then?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He drank a glass with him. He had to go to +the stock market. We'll have lunch before we go, won't +we?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> When does it begin?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> After two. (<i>Alva still follows Schigolch with +his eyes.</i>) How do you like me? (<i>Schigolch disappears +thru the gallery.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Had I not better be silent to you on that point?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I only mean my appearance.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Your dressmaker manifestly knows you better +than I may permit myself to know you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> When I saw myself in the glass I could have +wished to be a man—my man!—</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You seem to envy your man the joy you offer +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">85</a>] </span>to him. (<i>Lulu is at the right, Alva at the left, of the +centre table. He regards her with shy satisfaction. Ferdinand +enters, rear, covers the table and lays two plates, etc., +a bottle of Pommery, and hors d' oeuvres.</i>) Have you a +toothache?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Across to Alva.</i>) Don't.</p> + +<p><span class="small">FERDINAND.</span> Doctor Schön ...?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> He seems so puckered-up and tearful to-day.</p> + +<p><span class="small">FERDINAND.</span> (<i>Thru his teeth.</i>) One is only a man +after all. (<i>Exit.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>When both are seated.</i>) What I always +think most highly of in you is your firmness of character. +You're so perfectly sure of yourself. Even when you must +have been afraid of quarreling with your father about it, +you always stood up for me like a brother just the same.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Let's drop that. It's just my fate— (<i>Moves +to lift up the table-cloth in front.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Quickly.</i>) That was me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Impossible! It's just my fate, with the most +frivolous ideas always to seize on the best.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You deceive yourself if you make yourself out +worse than you are.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Why do you flatter me so? It is true that +perhaps there is no man living, so bad as I—who has +brought about so much good.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> In any case you're the only man in the world +who's protected me without lowering me in my own eyes!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Do you think that so easy? (<i>Schön appears in +the gallery cautiously parting the hangings between the +middle pillars. He starts, and whispers, "My own son!"</i>) +With gifts from God like yours, one turns those around +one to criminals without ever dreaming of it. I, too, am +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">86</a>] </span>only flesh and blood, and if we hadn't grown up with each +other like brother and sister—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> That's why, too, I give myself to you alone +quite without reserve. From you I have nothing to fear.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I assure you there are moments when one +expects to see one's whole inner self cave in. The more self-restraint +a man loads onto himself, the easier he breaks +down. Nothing will save him from that except— (<i>Stops +to look under the table.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Quickly.</i>) What are you looking for?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I conjure you, let me keep my confession of +faith to myself! As an inviolable sanctity you were more +to me than with all your gifts you could be to anyone else +in your life!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> How do you come to think on that so entirely +differently from your father? (<i>Ferdinand enters, rear, +changes the plates and serves broiled chicken with salad.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>To him.</i>) Are you sick?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>To Alva.</i>) Let him be!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> He's trembling as if he had fever.</p> + +<p><span class="small">FERDINAND.</span> I am not yet so used to waiting ...</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You must have something prescribed for you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">FERDINAND.</span> (<i>Thru his teeth.</i>) I'm a coachman +usually— (<i>Exit.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Whispering from the gallery.</i>) So, he too. +(<i>Seats himself behind the rail, able to cover himself with +the hangings.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> What sort of moments are those of which you +spoke, where one expects to see his whole inner self +tumble in?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I <em>didn't want</em> to speak of them. I should +not like to lose, in joking over a glass of champagne, +what has been my highest happiness for ten years.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">87</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> I have hurt you. I won't begin on that again.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Do you promise me that for always?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> My hand on it. (<i>Gives him her hand across +the table. Alva takes it hesitatingly, grips it in his, and +presses it long and ardently to his lips.</i>) What are you +doing. (<i>Rodrigo sticks his head out from the curtains, +left. Lulu darts an angry look at him across Alva, and +he draws back.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Whispering from the gallery.</i>) And there +is still another!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>Holding the hand.</i>) A soul—that in the +hereafter rubs the sleep out of its eyes.... Oh, this +hand....</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Innocently.</i>) What do you find in it?...</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> An arm....</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> What do you find in it?...</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> A body.....</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Guilelessly.</i>) What do you find in it?...</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>Stirred up.</i>) Mignon!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Wholly ingenuously.</i>) What do you find in +it?...</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>Passionately.</i>) Mignon! Mignon!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Throws herself on the ottoman.</i>) Don't look +at me so—for God's sake! Let us go before it is too +late. You're an infamous wretch!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I told you, didn't I, I was the basest villain.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I see that!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I have no sense of honor, no pride....</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You think I am your equal!</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> You?—you are as heavenly high above me as—as +the sun is over the abyss! (<i>Kneeling.</i>) Destroy me! +I beg you, put an end to me! Put an end to me!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Do you <em>love</em> me then?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">88</a>] </span><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I will pay you with everything that was mine!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Do you love me?</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Do you love me—Mignon?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I? Not a soul.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> I love you. (<i>Hides his face in her lap.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Both hands in his hair.</i>) I poisoned your +mother— (<i>Rodrigo sticks his head out from the curtains, +left, sees Schön sitting in the gallery and signs to +him to watch Lulu and Alva. Schön points his revolver +at Rodrigo; Rodrigo signs to him to point it at Alva. +Schön cocks the revolver and takes aim. Rodrigo draws +back behind the curtains. Lulu sees him draw back, sees +Schön sitting in the gallery, and gets up.</i>) His father! +(<i>Schön rises, lets the hangings fall before him. Alva remains +motionless on his knees. Pause.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Holding a paper in his hand, takes Alva by +the shoulder.</i>) Alva! (<i>Alva gets up as though drunk +with sleep.</i>) A revolution has broken out in Paris.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> To Paris ... let me go to Paris—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> In the editors' room they're beating their heads +against the wall. No one knows what he ought to write. +(<i>He unfolds the paper and accompanies Alva out, rear. +Rodrigo rushes out from the curtains toward the stairs.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Barring his way.</i>) You can't get out here.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> Let me through!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You'll run into his arms.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> He'll shoot me thru the head!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He's coming.</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> (<i>Stumbling back.</i>) Devil, death and demons! +(<i>Lifts the table-cloth.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> No room!</p> + +<p><span class="small">RODRIGO.</span> Damned and done for! (<i>Looks around and +hides in the door-way, right.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">89</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Comes in, centre; locks the door; and goes, +revolver in hand, to the window down left, of which he +throws up the curtains.</i>) Where is <em>he</em> gone?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>On the lowest step.</i>) Out.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Down over the balcony?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He's an acrobat.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> That could not be foreseen. (<i>Turning +against Lulu.</i>) You who drag me thru the muck of the +streets to a tortured death!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Why did you not bring me up better?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> You destroying angel! You inexorable fate! +To be a murderer without drowning in filth; to take me +on board like a released convict, or hang me up over the +morass! You joy of my old age! You hangman's noose!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>In cold blood.</i>) Oh, shut up, and kill me!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Everything I possess I have made over to you, +and asked nothing but the respect that every servant pays +to my house. Your credit is exhausted!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I can answer for my reckoning still for years. +(<i>Coming forward from the stairs.</i>) How do you like my +new gown?</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Away with you, or my brains will give way +to-morrow and my son swim in his own blood! You +infect me like an incurable pest in which I shall groan away +the rest of my life. I <em>will</em> cure myself! Do you +understand? (<i>Pressing the revolver on her.</i>) This is +your physic. Don't break down; don't kneel! You yourself +shall apply it. You or I—which is the weaker? +(<i>Lulu, her strength threatening to desert her, has sunk +down on the couch. Turning the revolver this way and +that.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> It doesn't go off.</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">90</a>] </span><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Do you still remember how I tore you out of +the clutches of the police?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You have much confidence—</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Because I'm not afraid of a street-girl? Shall +I guide your hand for you? Have you no mercy towards +yourself? (<i>Lulu points the revolver at him.</i>) No false +alarms! (<i>Lulu fires a shot into the ceiling. Rodrigo +springs out of the portières, up the stairs and away thru +the gallery.</i>) What was that?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Innocently.</i>) Nothing.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Lifting the portières.</i>) What flew out of +here?</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You're suffering from persecution-mania.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Have you got still more men hidden here? +(<i>Tearing the revolver from her.</i>) Is yet another man +calling on you? (<i>Going left.</i>) I'll regale your men! +(<i>Throws up the window curtains, flings the fire-screen +back, grabs Countess Geschwitz by the collar and drags +her forward.</i>) Did you come down the chimney?</p> + +<p><span class="small">GESCHWITZ.</span> (<i>In deadly terror, to Lulu.</i>) Save me +from him!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Shaking her.</i>) Or are you, too, an acrobat?</p> + +<p><span class="small">GESCHWITZ.</span> (<i>Whimpering.</i>) You hurt me.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Shaking her.</i>) Now you will <em>have</em> to +stay to dinner. (<i>Drags her right, shoves her into the next +room and locks the door after her.</i>) We want no town-criers. +(<i>Sits next Lulu and makes her take the revolver +again.</i>) There's still enough for you in it. Look at me! +I cannot assist the coachman in my house to decorate +my forehead for me. Look at me! I pay my coachman. +Look at me! Am I doing the coachman a favor when +I can't stand the stable-stench?</p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">91</a>] </span><span class="small">LULU.</span> Have the carriage got ready! Please! We're +going to the opera.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> We're going to the devil! Now I am coachman. +(<i>Turning the revolver in her hand from himself +to Lulu's breast.</i>) Think you we let ourselves be mistreated +as you mistreat me, and hesitate between a galley-slave's +shame at the end of life and the merit of freeing +the world of <em>you</em>? (<i>Holds her down by the arm.</i>) +Come, get through. It will be the gladdest remembrance +of my life. Pull the trigger!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> You can get a divorce.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Only that was left! In order that to-morrow +the next man may find his pastime where I have shuddered +from cleft to chasm, suicide upon me and <em>thou</em> +before me! You dare suggest that? That part of my +life I have poured into you I am to see thrown before +wild beasts? Do you see your bed with the sacrifice—the +victim—on it? The boy is homesick for you. Did you +let yourself be divorced? You trod him under your feet, +knocked out his brains, caught up his blood in gold-pieces. +I let myself be divorced? <em>Can</em> one be divorced when two +people have grown into each other and half the man must +go, too? (<i>Reaching for the revolver.</i>) Give it here!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Don't!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> I'll spare you the trouble.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Tears herself loose, holding the revolver +down; in a determined, self-possessed tone.</i>) If men have +killed themselves for my sake, that doesn't lower my value. +You know as well why you made me your wife as I knew +why I took you for husband. You had deceived your best +friends with me; you could not well go on deceiving yourself +with me. If you bring me the close of your life as a +sacrifice, still you have had my whole youth for it. You +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">92</a>] </span>understand ten times better than I do which is the more +valuable. I have never in the world wished to seem to be +anything different from what I am taken for, and I have +never in the world been taken for anything different from +what I am. You want to force me to fire a bullet into +my heart. I'm not sixteen any more, but to fire a bullet +in my heart I am still much too young!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Pursuing her.</i>) Down, murderess! Down +with you! To your knees, murderess! (<i>Crowding her +to the foot of the stairs.</i>) Down, and never dare to stand +again! (<i>Raising his hand. Lulu has sunk to her knees.</i>) +Pray to God, murderess, that he give you strength. Sue +to heaven that strength for it may be lent you! (<i>Hugenberg +jumps up from under the table, knocking a chair +aside, and screams "Help!" Schön whirls toward him, +turning his back to Lulu who instantly fires five shots into +him and continues to pull the trigger. Schön, tottering +over, is caught by Hugenberg and let down in the chair.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> And—there—is—one—more—</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Rushing to Schön.</i>) All merciful—!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Out of my sight! Alva!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Kneeling.</i>) The one man I loved!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Harlot! Murderess! Alva! Alva! Water!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> Water; he's thirsty. (<i>Fills a glass with champagne +and sets it to Schön's lips. Alva comes thru the +gallery, down the stairs.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Father! O God, my father!</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> I shot him.</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> She is innocent!</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>To Alva.</i>) You! It miscarried.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>Tries to lift him.</i>) You must go to bed; +come.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> Don't take me so! I'm drying up. (<i>Lulu +<span class='pagenum'>[Page <a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">93</a>] </span>comes with the champagne-cup; to her.</i>) You are still like +yourself. (<i>After drinking.</i>) Don't let her escape. (<i>To +Alva.</i>) You are the next.</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>To Hugenberg.</i>) Help me carry him to bed.</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> No, no, please, no. Wine, murderess—</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> (<i>To Hugenberg.</i>) Take him up that side. +(<i>Pointing right.</i>) Into the bed-room. (<i>They lift Schön +upright and lead him right. Lulu stays near the table, +the glass in her hand.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">SCHÖN.</span> (<i>Groaning.</i>) O God! O God! O God! +(<i>Alva finds the door locked, turns the key and opens it. +Countess Geschwitz steps out. Schön at the sight of her +straighten up, stiffly.</i>) The Devil. (<i>He falls backward +onto the carpet. Lulu throws herself down, takes his head +in her lap, and kisses him.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> He has got over it. (<i>Gets up and starts toward +the stairs.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> Don't stir!</p> + +<p><span class="small">GESCHWITZ.</span> I thought it was you.</p> + +<p><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Throwing herself before Alva.</i>) You can't +give me up to the law! It is <em>my</em> head that is struck off. +I shot him because he was about to shoot me. I have +loved nobody in the world but him! Alva, demand what +you will, only don't let me fall into the hands of justice. +Take pity on me. I am still young. I will be true to you +as long as I live. I will belong only to you. Look at me, +Alva. Man, look at me! Look at me!! (<i>Knocking on +the door outside.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">ALVA.</span> The police. (<i>Goes to open it.</i>)</p> + +<p><span class="small">HUGENBERG.</span> I shall be expelled from school.</p> + +<p class="center noindent small curtain">CURTAIN</p> + + + + +<div class='tnote' style='margin-bottom: 5em; padding: 0.5em 0em;'><a name="Corrections"></a><div style='margin-left: 0.5em; margin-right: 0.5em;'>Transcriber's Note:<br /><br /> +The following is a list of corrections made to the original.<span class="correction-list"> The first +line is the original line, the second the corrected one.</span></div> +<ul> +<li><a href='#forehead'>Page 28</a>:<br /> +<span class="correction-list">(<i>Rises, disconcerted, passing his hand over +his forhead.</i>)<br /></span> +(<i>Rises, disconcerted, passing his hand over +his <span class='correction' title='forhead'>forehead</span>.</i>) +</li> + +<li><a href='#me'>Page 37</a>:<br /> +<span class="correction-list"><span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> That doesn't help me— Does he drink?<br /></span> +<span class="small">SCHIGOLCH.</span> That doesn't help <span class='correction' title='me— Does'>me—Does</span> he drink? +</li> + +<li><a href='#my'>Page 38</a>:<br /> +<span class="correction-list">Perhaps then my (<i>coughing</i>)—my—my asthma will invent +some opportunity to carry me off.<br /></span> +Perhaps then my (<i>coughing</i><span class='correction' title=')—'>) —</span>my—my asthma will invent +some opportunity to carry me off. +</li> + +<li><a href='#steals'>Page 52</a>:<br /> +<span class="correction-list"><span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Steals toward the door; but Schön holds +her.</i>)—<br /></span> +<span class="small">LULU.</span> (<i>Steals toward the door; but Schön holds +her.</i><span class='correction' title=')—'>) —</span> +</li> + +<li><a href='#i'>Page 60</a>:<br /> +<span class="correction-list">Oh, God— I saw in you something so infinitely +far above me.<br /></span> +Oh, <span class='correction' title='God— I'>God—I</span> saw in you something so infinitely +far above me. +</li> + +<li><a href='#stop'>Page 68</a>:<br /> +<span class="correction-list">(<i>Getting up too</i>). What's the matter?<br /></span> +(<i>Getting up too</i><span class='correction' title=').'><i>.</i>)</span> What's the matter? +</li> + +<li><a href='#lady'>Page 75</a>:<br /> +<span class="correction-list">Write! "My dear young lady.. .."<br /></span> +Write! "My dear young lady<span class='correction' title='.. ..'>....</span>" +</li> + +</ul> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit), by Frank Wedekind + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ERDGEIST (EARTH-SPIRIT) *** + +***** This file should be named 29682-h.htm or 29682-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/6/8/29682/ + +Produced by Michael Roe, Alexander Bauer and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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