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author: pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org> 2025-09-13 17:22:03 -0700
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+      Tragedies of sex | Project Gutenberg
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+</head>
+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76872 ***</div>
+<div class='x-ebookmaker-drop'>
+<figure class="figcenter illowp49" id="cover" style="max-width: 114.0em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="Book cover">
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="front">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_i">[i]</span></p>
+
+
+<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza">
+<div class='verse'><h1>TRAGEDIES OF SEX</h1></div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class='chapter'>
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a><a id="Page_iii"></a>[iii]</span></p>
+
+<p class='center mt1 fs250 bold ltsp05'>TRAGEDIES OF SEX</p>
+<p class='center mt2 bold'>BY</p>
+<p class='center mth fs120 bold'>FRANK WEDEKIND</p>
+
+<p class='center mt2 fs90 bold'>Translation and Introduction by</p>
+<p class='center mtq bold'>SAMUEL A ELIOT, <span class="smcap">Jr.</span></p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container mt2"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza sans bold">
+<div class='verse'>Spring’s Awakening (Frühlings Erwachen)</div>
+<div class='verse'>Earth-Spirit (Erdgeist)</div>
+<div class='verse'>Pandora’s Box (Die Büchse der Pandora)</div>
+<div class='verse'>Damnation! (Tod und Teufel)</div>
+</div></div></div>
+
+<div class='mt2'><figure class="figcenter illowp15" id="colophon" style="max-width: 23.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/colophon.jpg" alt="Publisher's Colophon">
+</figure>
+</div>
+
+<p class='center mt2 fs150 ltsp2 bold'>BONI <span class="allsmcap">AND</span> LIVERIGHT</p>
+<p class='center bold'><span class="smcap">Publishers</span>&thinsp; &emsp; &emsp; :&thinsp;:&thinsp; &emsp; &emsp; :&thinsp;: &emsp; &emsp; &thinsp;<span class="smcap">New York</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class='chapter'>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">[iv]</span></p>
+
+<p class='center mt4'><i>Copyright, 1914</i><br>
+ <i>Copyright, 1921</i><br>
+ <i>Copyright, 1923</i></p>
+<p class='center'><span class="smcap">By</span></p>
+<p class='center'><span class="smcap">Boni &amp; Liveright, Inc.</span></p>
+
+<blockquote class='mt6'>
+<p>CAUTION.—All persons are hereby warned that the plays published
+in this volume are fully protected under the copyright laws of the United
+States and all foreign countries, and are subject to royalty, and any one
+presenting any of said plays without the consent of the Author or his
+recognized agents, will be liable to the penalties by law provided.</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class="center fs90">
+Both theatrical and motion picture rights are reserved.
+</p>
+
+<p class='center mt6'>PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">
+    CONTENTS
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<table class='toc'>
+<tr><th></th><th class='tdr'><span class='allsmcap'>PAGE</span></th></tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#INTRODUCTION"><span class="smcap">Introduction</span></a></td>
+  <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_vii'>vii</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href='#SPRINGS_AWAKENING'><span class="smcap">Spring’s Awakening</span> (<span class="smcap">Frühlingserwachen</span>)</a></td>
+  <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#EARTH-SPIRIT"><span class="smcap">Earth-Spirit</span> (<span class="smcap">Erdgeist</span>)</a></td>
+  <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_111'>111</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#PANDORAS_BOX"><span class="smcap">Pandora’s Box</span> (<span class="smcap">Büchse der Pandora</span>)</a></td>
+  <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_217'>217</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td><a href="#DAMNATION"><span class="smcap">Damnation!</span> (<span class="smcap">Tod und Teufel</span>)</a></td>
+  <td class='tdr'><a href='#Page_305'>305</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi"></a><a id="Page_vii"></a>[vii]</span></p>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTION">
+    INTRODUCTION
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>Frank Wedekind’s name is widely, if vaguely,
+known by now, outside of Germany, and at least five
+of his plays have been available in English form for
+quite some years, yet a résumé of biographical facts
+and critical opinions seems necessary as introduction
+to this—I will not say authoritative, but more careful—book.
+The task is genial, since Wedekind was
+my special study at Munich in 1913, and I translated
+his two Lulu tragedies the year after. The timidity
+or disapprobation betrayed in this respect by our
+professional critics of foreign drama makes my duty
+the more imperative. James Huneker merely called
+him “a naughty boy!” Percival Pollard tiptoed
+around him, pointing out a trait here and a trait
+there, like a menagerie-keeper with a prize tiger.
+Viereck once waxed rapturous over Reinhardt’s production
+of <i>Spring’s Awakening</i> (that gave me my
+own first inkling of what Wedekind might mean for
+me), but my friend Moderwell tossed him off in less
+than a page of <i>The Theatre of Today</i> as an immoral
+joker out of <i>Simplicissimus</i>. It is true that Wedekind
+is by no means easy to grasp or tabulate, true
+that greater men, such as Strindberg, have suffered
+from similar slighting and ill-considered estimates
+here, before they were suitably interpreted; but
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_viii">[viii]</span>
+Wedekind has been dead five years, and the time for
+a fair and thoughtful, if very inexhaustive, judgment
+of him has surely come.</p>
+
+<p>Although he was of the same generation as the
+naturalistic dramatists who everywhere came to the
+fore in the 1890’s—Hauptmann, Chekov, Brieux, etc.—Frank
+Wedekind was not of them, but far ahead
+of them. They are now all but out-moded; his
+influence has barely begun. He did not fit his time:
+the first twenty years of his active life, in fact, were
+spent in continuous friction with the contemporary
+world. He experienced the rancor and contempt, the
+smart of injustice and the hopeless hatred, of most
+outcasts from society. Hostility toward bourgeois
+civilization is the keynote of many of his works. He
+is—against, I think, his natural tendency—a pessimist—all
+the blacker for the flame of strange,
+Utopian ideals still flaring up in his most savage
+scenes. The wrestle of contradictory wills within him
+is what gives his writing its abnormal tensity, what
+drives him often to overstrain each dramatic idea till
+its analogy to life is so distorted most people find it
+morbid. He yearns to annihilate the crude, the
+coarse, the ugly and the weak. He has declared,
+“The reunion of holiness and beauty as the divine
+object of pious devotion is the purpose to which
+I offer my life: toward which, indeed, I have striven
+since earliest childhood.” Physical beauty, he means:
+a sort of Pagan worship of the body—its lowest impulses
+and its highest development.... But in
+every direction he found that reunion obstructed by
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_ix">[ix]</span>
+his all-too-well regulated German civilization. Like
+his own Marquis of Keith he feverishly pursued the
+joy of life and could never enjoy his life: when about
+to strike a splendid blow for his Promised Land he
+would see a spike-helmeted angel with a police-club
+sentinel at Eden’s gate. Only in the present century—only,
+indeed, after the Great War had determined,
+for the Continent, what the outstanding characteristics
+of the twentieth century were to be—did
+Wedekind, the Expressionist, who despised literature
+and thrust raw life upon the stage, arrive at his
+present commanding position and win the admiration
+and discipleship of many of his countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>Though he died in March, 1918, he had incorporated
+in many a play before then both the sensational
+content and the free, direct, spasmodic form
+which German literature, especially German drama,
+was to show in the post-War turmoil and distress.
+Georg Kaiser and the other Expressionists so prized
+to-day can make no secret of their debt to him, and
+the wild rush they represent and play to—to contemplate
+man’s lowest impulses, the roots of will and
+feeling, the instincts, not the ideals that actuate confused
+and drifting peoples, and having studied them
+in crude, disordered life to set them down in baldest,
+swiftest speech, in rank but penetrating truth—this
+rush that is observed in all the Continental countries
+but most among the Germans did there alone possess
+a guide and prophet in the dead author, analyzer,
+wry and bitter thinker, Wedekind.</p>
+
+<p>Less than a twelvemonth after his decease, a desperate,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_x">[x]</span>
+revolutionary era found suddenly in this
+perverse and pessimistic man, in his harsh world of
+whores and swindlers, ruthless materialists and
+broken poets, its own true shape and pressure. At
+the same time the former standards of good taste,
+and theatre-censorships, were swept away; the ban
+which had lain heavily on Wedekind throughout his
+stormy life, the legal ban and the far more significant
+disfavor of the “good citizens,” arbiters of general
+opinion, whom he had outraged so in their smug
+goodness, their virtuous ideals, their bourgeois self-esteem,—these
+now were lifted from his works:
+<i>Pandora’s Box</i> became—imagine it—a popular
+attraction; from him who had so foreseen the breakdown
+of conventional formulæ and unreal modes of
+thought all men now feverishly sought some intimation
+of what society, dazzled with commotion, must
+yet look forward to.</p>
+
+<p>For us in America, confirmed, not shattered, in our
+previous illusions and conceit by the war’s outcome,
+there is less reason to embrace this scornful soothsayer,
+this emissary (one is tempted to believe) from
+Mephistopheles himself,—now cold and condescending,
+and again intent with hectic hate. For all the
+foolish outcry over the freer manners, perhaps the
+looser morals, of our youth, we are still certain in
+America of our subjective health, of some objective
+verities at least, of “progress,” of “ideals,” of many
+metaphysical abstractions which Wedekind distrusts,
+shows up, derides. Ambassador Gerard, innately,
+sensibly, was most American. In his <i>Four Years in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xi">[xi]</span>
+Germany</i> he mentions shudderingly our author’s
+name, points to the fact that Berlin still was going,
+over and over, to performances of <i>Earth-Spirit</i> as
+but one more indictment of a degenerate, odious
+nation, and plainly shows us what must be the
+straight American’s reaction to this volume—if such
+“straight,” normal readers should ever take it up.
+But none the less it is important for America to question
+and to try, to root, if need be, hog-like, to the
+bottom of our civilization’s pile, and recognize the
+gross and primitive, the basely human, that underlies
+each separate soul of us and all our deeds.
+Naturalism of one type or another—nineteenth-century
+literalness or twentieth-century explosiveness—is
+for us the necessary form our Art must take;
+for only through the pitiless representing of home
+truth can the easy sentimentalism, so hostile to real
+literature, be combated, and America given self-knowledge
+and real grounds for spiritual leaps in
+after-years. O’Neil in drama, Masters in poetry,
+Anderson, Lewis, Frank and many more in fiction,
+these undeflected observers of our seamier sides, prepare
+the way for the full appreciation due to
+Wedekind. They are more literary, more artfully
+self-conscious than he in his best work. Technique
+concerns them more. But it is not merely for the
+light his drama throws on dominant European interests
+of the moment, it is also for the impulse he may
+give to further, similar probing and expression here
+at home that these four plays have been prepared—revised
+or newly now translated—for eager and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xii">[xii]</span>
+earnest readers and (who knows?) it may be, for the
+stage.</p>
+
+<p>They are linked together, these four culled from
+the score of Wedekind’s writing, not solely in theme
+(for though they are recognized in their own land
+as the <i>Geschlechtstragödien</i> par excellence, there are
+other tragedies of sex from Wedekind’s later years),
+but in sequence too, chronological, philosophic.
+What an echo, for instance, of the freshness and the
+fervor of <i>Spring’s Awakening</i> we hear in the scenes
+where Hugenberg, the schoolboy of <i>Earth-Spirit</i>,
+Act IV, and <i>Pandora’s Box</i>, Act I, reveals his virginal,
+enthusiastic, adventurous, devoted flush of life.
+How subtly is Lulu foreshadowed in the vivid sketch
+of Ilse in <i>Spring’s Awakening</i>: buoyant, unmoral,—simple
+in her acceptance of life complete, more
+likable than Lulu in her pity, too, for those not
+so full-blooded. How keenly Casti-Piani piques our
+interest, in <i>Pandora’s Box</i>, Act II; how satisfyingly
+his life is summed and closed in <i>Tod und Teufel</i>—verily
+<i>Damnation!</i> The four plays hang together,
+and present compactly Wedekind’s own growth of
+mind—from ardor, almost missionary zeal, instilling
+his own subjective sympathy into his youngsters,
+girls as well as boys, of <i>Spring’s Awakening</i> (and his
+own hate, as well, of teachers, parents, all their dry
+repressive world), to the objective but still passionate
+building of full-formed characters, solid plot,
+unswerving tragedy (no Muffled Gentleman here!) in
+<i>Earth-Spirit</i>, and then to the less contained, extravagant
+riot, repulsively cold or hotly ugly,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiii">[xiii]</span>
+perverse, verbose, derisive of his audience and even
+of his art, that he so rightly named <i>Pandora’s Box</i>;
+and lastly to the frank self-revelation, unrealistic
+preaching, unmotivated, unartful, yet superbly confident
+theatricality of his <i>Damnation!</i></p>
+
+<p>What a life of disillusionment, self-questioning and
+pain must lie behind these changes! Its externals
+Wedekind sketched himself, in 1901; but its real
+import can only be deduced from close, fond study
+of his many plays, his stories and his poems. His
+father, a physician, lived—it may be interesting to
+us Americans to know—in San Francisco from the
+beginning of the gold rush in 1849 till 1864. His
+mother was an actress in the German theater there
+when the elder Wedekind, at 46, met her and married
+her, a girl just half his age. Her father, an
+inventor, manufacturer and gifted musician, had died
+some years before in a German insane asylum. One
+child was born to the couple in America, but they
+returned to Germany in 1864 and there, in Hanover,
+Frank (note the American, quite un-German form
+of the name) was born, on the 24th of July.</p>
+
+<p>In 1872 the family moved to Switzerland, where
+Frank grew up, one of six children, amid scenery that
+he praises but which, to judge by the absence of any
+response to the beauties of nature from most of his
+work, had little effect upon him. At 19 he began to
+earn his living, at first as a journalist, at 22 as a
+press-agent, at 24 as a private secretary, traveling
+extensively with his employers (notably the painters
+Rudinoff and Willy Grétor) in France and England.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xiv">[xiv]</span>
+In 1895-96 he was a public reader of Ibsen plays in
+Switzerland; in ’96-97, political editor of <i>Simplicissimus</i>
+in Munich; in ’97-98, an actor and producer
+in a theatrical company which toured North Germany
+in Ibsen plays and first presented on the stage
+his <i>Earth-Spirit</i>, written in ’93, published in ’95. In
+’98-99 he held a similar important post with the resident
+company of the Schauspielhaus in Munich and
+wrote his great, though local, comedy <i>The Marquis
+of Keith</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Save for a term in prison as a result of the
+prosecution of the editors of <i>Simplicissimus</i> for
+lèse-majesté,—a term enriched by the composition of
+his long story of Utopian education—physical
+education—for young girls, named <i>Minne-haha</i>
+(again the influence of America), which to my ears
+is the most pure and limpid piece of German prose
+one is ever likely to find,—he continued to reside
+in Munich, active in this or that playhouse or cabaret,
+for the rest of his life. He composed many
+<i>Brettl-lieder</i>, rhymes and music, and sang them in
+Bohemian restaurants. Every June, after Max
+Reinhardt became a theatrical power in Berlin, he
+appeared there as an actor in a series of his own
+plays, hastily prepared but persistently repeated
+to a slowly growing, grudgingly appreciative public.
+As an actor he was a paradox: more natural than
+Naturalistic, but more Expressionistic than expressive.
+I saw him act several times in his <i>Franziska</i>,
+his new play in 1912-13, and marveled at the almost
+inarticulate strain, the rigid body, popping eyes,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xv">[xv]</span>
+deep-lined and taut-drawn face, that marked him
+then. Sartorially he was something of a dude: to
+be correct was a requirement he forced upon his
+mettlesome temperament. His inheritance, derived
+from a mixture of middle-aged, scientific, abstract-minded,
+cold North German and young, sensuous,
+emotional, artistic Austrian, resulted in a conflict
+that could be seen by anyone: he possessed thesis and
+antithesis but never synthesis. His face expressed by
+turns his fluctuant, opposing sides, Jesuit and ironic
+actor, tragedy and vice, now gray, sharp-eyed, superior,—suddenly
+warm and deep. He was no artist
+on the boards—too stiff, too choked with his own
+earnestness, too genuinely intense,—but he was
+vastly interesting as a man, a sufferer, a moralist
+and preacher inured to being scoffed at and returning
+the too normal world hot scorn for scorn.</p>
+
+<p>Extravagances and overemphasis, unmotivated,
+violent decisions and spasmodic super-vitality in his
+characters, all these his vividest traits, are explicable
+on this score of his own clashing disharmony within.
+But he himself explains them as an artistic revolt,
+merely, against the repressed and colorless dramaturgy
+which conquered Germany in the wake of Ibsen.
+These bookish plays that stood in the way of his
+own starkly abundant theatric art both angered him
+to protest and augmented his own trend toward free
+unnaturalness. He has in his time, he says (in
+<i>Schauspielkunst</i>, a collection of critical notes published
+in 1910), played many parts by Sudermann,
+Hauptmann, Max Halbe, etc., and he is sure that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</span>
+actors trained in their literary technique are unequal
+to his fierce, full-blooded characters. He
+demands acting that shall be like hurdle-racing—bold,
+bounding creativeness—but the lesser actors
+blue-pencil their hurdles out of the way, while the
+greater ones make long “dramatic pauses” before
+them and deprive them so of conviction. Certainly,
+Wedekind’s jerky stage-style requires a rushing performance
+to give even the semblance of smooth
+truth to the preposterous, but, when rightly played,
+thrilling theatric stories he often tells. Short-of-breath,
+dry and uninspired, with voice untrained
+for emotional seizures and outbursts, the ordinary
+cup-and-saucer actor must of course mar Wedekind’s
+plays.</p>
+
+<p>In the field of ethics, however, lay his sharpest
+cleavage from his own generation, and his most
+dangerous pitfall. The mighty influence of Ibsen
+had perverted, when Wedekind began to write, not
+merely stagecraft, but all German drama, and turned
+it to the contemplation not of life and action, but
+of principles: guilt, duty, and atonement. Underrunning
+all the enthusiasm for exact representation
+and thorough character-delineation that reigned in
+1890 was an anæmic current of literary preconceptions,
+second-hand ideals, and prime attention to externals,
+either mere incidental questions of technique
+or moral, philosophic conclusions (most often suicidal)
+to problems of responsibility and conduct
+prearranged for meek and docile characters. In the
+Prologue to <i>Earth-Spirit</i>, Wedekind specifically
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</span>
+mocks the pale and will-less heroes of Hauptmann’s
+<i>Lonely Lives</i> and <i>Before Sunrise</i>, and by implication
+all the conscientious weakness of the then new
+Naturalism. He for his part had a sharp hunger
+for life, irrespective of its moral aims and effects,—life
+boisterous, physical and energizing. It is reflected
+in Melchior in <i>Spring’s Awakening</i>, with
+keenest sympathy. He had also a theory, expressed
+by Alva, his self-portrait in <i>Pandora’s Box</i>, that the
+place to find compelling drama was in the changeful
+lives of people who never read a book, who lived by
+instinct and expressed themselves, words and deeds,
+in total ignorance of cultured ethics. The Paris and
+the London scenes of <i>Pandora’s Box</i> may indicate
+that in those cities the young dramatist plunged into
+this demimonde in person, experienced much, and
+actually undermined, instead of strengthening, his
+artistic creative power.</p>
+
+<p>In ’90-91, when he wrote <i>Spring’s Awakening</i>, the
+26-year-old pioneer playwright was still close to
+adolescent tumult, doubt and rapture. He writes
+a fluent, subtly interconnected, almost musical suite
+of scenes utterly real when dealing with the children
+and youthfully satirical when caricaturing the adults.
+He has no literary by-end, no preoccupation with
+form or naturalism as such, and while he has a moral,
+or rather an anti-moral, purpose, and evidently seeks
+to include in his play the ontogeny of all the more
+common sex-perversions, his chief interest is in Melchior,
+Moritz and Wendla—the vividness and promise
+of the life awakening in them, the cruelty and tragedy
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xviii">[xviii]</span>
+of its extinguishment, for which the adult world must
+take full blame. Whether the play was produced at
+all in the 1890’s I do not know. Reinhardt, who
+had had marked success with <i>Earth-Spirit</i> among his
+very first independent productions, in 1902-03, gave
+a very notable interpretation of <i>Spring’s Awakening</i>
+in 1906 which attained 390 performances; and it
+has been widely acted since then, and in book form
+has far outstripped the popularity of any other
+Wedekind work. A very imperfect translation appeared
+in this country about 1909, and a private
+production was later attempted in New York, with
+ludicrous inartistry. The “lesson” of the play—“Parents,
+respect the possibilities of puberty, and
+give it enlightenment and guidance”—is an old story
+with us now. We must not forget the date on
+Wendla’s tombstone: the play transpires in 1892.
+But the multifarious, teeming life, the lovableness
+and universal naturalness of the chief characters, and
+the free, ardent expression of the young author,—these
+are of no specific time, and will keep
+Wedekind’s name alive for generations of adolescent
+readers.</p>
+
+<p>His foreign experiences seem to have taken place
+between the writing of this play and that of
+<i>Earth-Spirit</i>. The author is quite out of sight in
+<i>Earth-Spirit</i>; he is the animal-tamer of the Prologue,
+the showman putting his performers through
+their acts. There is a grim objectiveness about
+this study of clashing wills and fatal weaknesses.
+No moral is in sight, and if the technique is
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xix">[xix]</span>
+consciously more conventional and studied (note Alva’s
+soliloquy in Act III), the matter is far removed
+from the Ibsen-Hauptmann fashion of its day. The
+dialogue is so idiomatic, so carefully fitted to each
+speaker’s character, that this play is by far the
+hardest of the four to put in English. Wedekind
+has dramatized the attractions and repulsions of
+sex among mature people very variously endowed
+with strength and courage. He has created Lulu,
+the embodiment of primitive, natural, instinctive femininity,
+and watched her drive men mad. He offers
+no judgments, he indulges in no retrospects or explanations:
+this is the fundamental stuff of life as
+he has lived it and observed it. It takes a naturally
+theatric shape: it is violently dramatic just because
+it is real and living.</p>
+
+<p>To these powerful, objective ’90’s of Wedekind
+belong also the one-act play <i>Der Kammersänger</i> or
+<i>The Tenor</i>, acted in New York in 1916 and published
+in <i>Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays</i>; and
+<i>The Marquis of Keith</i>, in which the struggle for success
+and money is as turbulently dramatized as the
+sex-conflict was in <i>Earth-Spirit</i>. But there is a
+moralizing character in <i>The Marquis</i>, a foil for the
+conscienceless hero and also a mouthpiece for Wedekind.
+As he found himself and his message disregarded,
+bitterness overcame him, and more and more
+he scolds or preaches directly at his public. He
+worked over <i>Pandora’s Box</i>, off and on, throughout
+this decade, and the impulse to expound himself ever
+and again peeps through its three distorted pictures
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xx">[xx]</span>
+of low life. Here and there it is deliberately disgusting.
+When it was published, in 1901 or ’02, most
+of Act II was in bad French, much of Act III in
+worse English: author or publisher or both were
+self-conscious about it: and promptly it was banned.
+There ensued appeals through various courts, and
+finally the ban was lifted, an all-German text prepared,
+and occasional productions ventured. My
+translation, published in New York in 1914, has
+never roused objection; why should it?—the bare
+speeches without the accompanying action which
+I have heard vividly described by friends lately in
+Germany, can scarcely be shocking to readers in
+1923. Later, Wedekind published the two <i>Lulu</i>
+plays together under her name, omitting <i>Earth-Spirit</i>,
+Act III (which seems to me indispensable,
+none the less), and <i>Pandora’s Box</i>, Act I—a commendable
+compression, because the whole cholera
+episode is morbid and nearly incredible, and a swift
+flight to France after Schön’s murder is quite thinkable
+without the long, mostly undramatic speeches
+that overload the present commencement of <i>Pandora’s
+Box</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The pessimism of the last act is terrific and leads
+straight to the mood of <i>Damnation!</i>—a sort of satyr-play,
+concluding the three tragedies. In it, quite
+unrealistically, is passionately expressed what <i>Pandora’s
+Box</i> implies—the hopelessness, the impossibility
+of happiness (for one, that is, whose conception
+of happiness is physical) from life as at present
+organized. This was the mission—this and the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxi">[xxi]</span>
+various remedies that Wedekind proposed—which the
+world persistently, unshakably condemned. Wedekind
+writhed. Between <i>Pandora’s Box</i> and <i>Damnation!</i>
+(1905) appeared two scarcely disguised
+subjective plays, <i>King Nicolo</i>, or <i>Such is Life</i>, which
+is very largely autobiography transferred to fourteenth-century
+Italy, a swift, dramatic and pathetic
+tale genuinely engaging our sympathies; and <i>Hidalla</i>,
+or <i>The Giant Dwarf</i>, which partly by satire, partly
+by outright propaganda, sets forth the Wedekindian
+point of view—the necessity for a new morality, for
+those who are rich enough to afford it: a morality
+that puts beauty, not material welfare, first among
+its objects, and especially revolutionizes sexual life.
+The worthlessness, for Wedekind, of intellectual concepts,
+theories, spirituality and all other abstractions—his
+utter absorption in the darker, inner world
+of feeling, will and instinct, especially the world of
+his own jarring soul, unheeding others or society at
+large, robs this one-sided drama of true tragic force.
+He tried again to justify himself in his next two
+plays: <i>Music</i>, a quite objective study of the havoc
+artistic education, seduction, abortion, the punishment
+of abortion, etc., etc., may cause; and <i>Censorship</i>,
+a wholly subjective one-act written after the
+lawsuits over <i>Pandora’s Box</i> had been settled, and
+striving, not too transparently, to show the world his
+truly self-sacrificial and missionary spirit. By this
+time disciples were beginning to come to him; he
+married; and the force of his irritation spent itself.
+His last period begins.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxii">[xxii]</span></p>
+
+<p>It had little that was new to offer. <i>Schloss Wetterstein</i>
+is an engrossing, if extravagant, sex-tragedy
+in three semi-independent acts, reminiscent of the
+<i>Lulu</i> plays but laid in an aristocratic environment.
+The Jack the Ripper of its grewsome end is an
+American millionaire—an artist in sadism. Had
+Wedekind been reading of Harry Thaw? <i>Franziska</i>
+is a parody of <i>Faust</i>, a sort of feminine Faust, a
+phantasmagoria in which there every now and then
+outcrops a striking, profound, or even beautiful
+moment. Franziska finishes not in Faust’s heaven,
+but in domesticity, and one cannot clearly discover
+whether this is mockery or a real change of view.
+<i>Samson</i>, or <i>Shame and Jealousy</i>, and <i>Herakles</i>, are
+blank-verse plays of Hebrew or Hellenic legends,
+written with lessening power and intensity,—plays
+dramatic, poetic, passionate enough to rank with
+Hauptmann’s work of the same period but not “so
+fair, so wild, so brightly flecked” as Wedekind once
+had been. In the first year of the War, finally, appeared
+a curiously objective historical character-study
+in eight scenes, <i>Bismarck</i>, plainly forerunning
+Drinkwater’s <i>Lincoln</i> and its successors, and utterly
+un-Wedekindian in style—not a word of sex, of
+satire, or of himself. The full tale of his work includes,
+besides the above, four very light satiric
+farces—one of them, <i>The World of Youth</i>, dated
+1889, a most interesting prelude to nearly all his
+later ideas; two esoteric verse-dialogues, two pantomime
+scenarios constructed in the ’90’s, the time of
+his greatest power, and anticipating modern movie
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiii">[xxiii]</span>
+and ballet technique; a large number of poems,
+mostly erotic ballads that he sang to his own accompaniment
+(I was reminded of them, and him, when
+I first heard Bobby Edwards of Greenwich Village),
+and some prose tales, shorter than <i>Minne-haha</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Always he dealt in will, in inner urges, often
+specifically in “the hellish drive out of which no joy
+remains alive.” His characters, no matter how often
+balked, derided, or wounded, return to the attack
+Until they are killed. Emotion is an inexhaustible
+force. The drama of opposed views, of contrasted
+attitudes on points of conduct or belief, can offer
+nothing so enthralling as this insatiable struggle for
+the most fundamental pleasures humanity knows—which
+never ultimately or for long are pleasures!
+And the same Satanic return to the attack, repeated
+efforts at destruction, are seen in Wedekind’s own
+life, hurling play after play against conventional
+society. At last, after his death, conventional society
+broke down, and the forces of disruption honored
+him, and the confused masses sought in his
+other, Utopian, constructive work for light upon
+the society that is to come. To few writers is such
+posthumous homage given; by few can such a reversal
+of judgment be expected. Wedekind remained
+ever true to himself, his deeply divided, contrary
+self, now appearing through his plays, now vanishing
+again behind his characters, but always vividly alive:
+one could feel <i>him</i>, one had the sense of human passion
+and struggle, of something personally experienced
+and sweated out, in almost all his work. Hence,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_xxiv">[xxiv]</span>
+in the last analysis, his hold upon our later generation:
+we too want life, not literature—personality,
+not limpid art—original thought, even destructive
+and extravagant, not old truths, even the deepest,
+newly dressed. Wedekind, like Strindberg, like Andreiev,
+and like Shaw, meets these demands. If
+America should ever have reason to turn pessimistic,
+Wedekind will be waiting; and even as America is, in
+Wedekind she can find much that is vital, life-promoting,
+of immediate power and worth.</p>
+
+<p class="right mt1 pr1">
+  <span class="smcap">Samuel A. Eliot, Jr.</span>
+</p>
+
+<p class='no-indent'>
+  Smith College,<br>
+  January, 1923.
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p>
+<h2 class='nobreak' id='SPRINGS_AWAKENING'>SPRING’S AWAKENING</h2>
+
+<p class='center mth bold'>(<span class="smcap">Frühlings Erwachen</span>)</p>
+<p class='center mt2 bold'>A Children’s Tragedy</p>
+<p class='center mt2 bold'><i>Dedicated to</i></p>
+<p class='center mt1 bold'><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h3 class="nobreak">
+    CHARACTERS
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<div>
+<table class='left'>
+<tr>
+<td class='pr1'>
+  <span class="smcap">Melchior Gabor</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Moritz Stiefel</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Hänschen Rilow</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Ernest Roebel</span> <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Lämmermeier</span>   <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Otto</span>          <br>
+  <span class="smcap">George</span>        <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Robert</span>
+</td>
+<td class='vam tight'>
+⎫<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎬<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎭
+</td>
+<td class='vam'>
+<i>Schoolboys,<br>
+aged 14 to 17</i>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class='mt1'>
+<table class='left'>
+<tr>
+<td class='pr1'>
+  <span class="smcap">Diethelm</span> <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Reinhold</span> <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Ruprecht</span> <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Helmuth</span>  <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Gaston</span>
+</td>
+<td class='vam tight'>
+⎫<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎬<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎭
+</td>
+<td class='vam'>
+<i>Boys in a House of Correction</i>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class='mt1'>
+<table class='left'>
+<tr>
+<td class='pr1'>
+  <span class="smcap">Mr. Gabor</span>, a Judge<br>
+  <span class="smcap">Mrs. Fanny Gabor</span>
+</td>
+<td class='vam very-tight'>
+⎫<br>
+⎬<br>
+⎭
+</td>
+<td class='vam'>
+<i>Melchior’s Parents</i>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class='mt1'>
+  <span class="smcap">Mr. Stiefel</span>, <i>Moritz’s Father</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Mr. Ziegenmelker</span>, <i>his Friend</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Mr. Probst</span>, <i>Moritz’s Uncle</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Rev. Mr. Kahlbaugh</span>, <i>Pastor</i><br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class='mt1'>
+<table class='left'>
+<tr>
+<td class='pr1'>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Sonnenstich</span>, Principal<br>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Affenschmalz</span>          <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Knochenbruch</span>          <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Zungenschlag</span>       <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Knüppeldick</span>           <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Hungergurt</span>            <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Fliegentod</span>
+</td>
+<td class='vam x-tight'>
+⎫<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎬<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎭
+</td>
+<td class='vam center'>
+<i>The Faculty of the<br>
+Boys’ School</i><br>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div class='mt1'>
+  <span class="smcap">Habebald</span>, <i>the School Beadle</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Prokrustes</span>, <i>Head of the House of Correction</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">A Locksmith</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. von Brausepulver</span>, M.D.<br>
+  <span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span><br>
+</div>
+<div class='mt1'>
+  <span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Ina Müller</span>, <i>her married daughter</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Wendla Bergmann</span>, <i>her 14-year-old daughter</i><br>
+</div>
+<div>
+<table class='left'>
+<tr>
+<td class='pr1'>
+  <span class="smcap">Martha Bessel</span> <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Thea</span>
+</td>
+<td class='vam very-tight'>
+⎫<br>
+⎬<br>
+⎭
+</td>
+<td class='vam'>
+<i>Wendla’s Friends</i>
+</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+<div>
+  <span class="smcap">Ilse</span>, <i>an older girl, an artist’s model</i>
+</div>
+
+<p class='center mt1'>The Scene is laid in Southern Germany or in<br>
+Switzerland. The Time is from May<br>
+to November, 1892.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="A_Note_on_the_Staging">
+    <span class="smcap">A Note on the Staging</span>
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Spring’s Awakening</span> is divided into Nineteen Scenes
+as follows:</p>
+
+<div class='mth'>
+<table class='left'>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Act</span></td>
+ <td class='tdr pr1'> I:</td>
+ <td class='pr1'><span class='smcap'>Scene 1.</span></td>
+ <td>In Mrs. Bergmann’s House.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 2.</span></td>
+ <td>A Park.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 3.</span></td>
+ <td>The Same.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 4.</span></td>
+ <td>The School Yard.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 5.</span></td>
+ <td>In the Woods.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Act</span></td>
+ <td class='tdr pr1'> II:</td>
+ <td><span class='smcap'>Scene 1.</span></td>
+ <td>Melchior’s Study.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 2.</span></td>
+ <td>Same as I, 1</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 3.</span></td>
+ <td>In the Rilow House.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 4.</span></td>
+ <td>A Hayloft.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 5.</span></td>
+ <td>Mrs. Gabor’s Room.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 6.</span></td>
+ <td>The Bergmann Garden.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 7.</span></td>
+ <td>A Path near the River.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Act</span></td>
+ <td class='tdr pr1'> III:</td>
+ <td><span class='smcap'>Scene 1.</span></td>
+ <td>The Faculty Room at the School.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 2.</span></td>
+ <td>By the Wall of the Graveyard.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 3.</span></td>
+ <td>In the Gabor House.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 4.</span></td>
+ <td>In the House of Correction.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 5.</span></td>
+ <td>Wendla’s Bedroom.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 6.</span></td>
+ <td>A Vineyard.</td>
+</tr>
+<tr><td colspan='2'></td>
+ <td><span class="smcap">Scene 7.</span></td>
+ <td>The Graveyard.</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span></p>
+
+<p class='mt1'>It will be noted that the scenes concluding the
+acts, long scenes all of them, are intended to occupy
+the full stage, and that the prior scenes in each act
+may be played in the foreground.</p>
+
+<p>Two of the scenes, II, 3, and III, 6, have nothing
+to do with the story and to save time may be omitted,
+though the latter has another importance, lightening
+with its idyllic atmosphere the squalor and bitterness
+of the last act. If it <i>is</i> omitted, III, 4, and III,
+5, might be played in reverse order.</p>
+
+<p>The simplest arrangement of the stage would be a
+neutral proscenium, six or seven feet deep, pierced
+with doors. Behind this, different backwalls can be
+lowered, and all the interior scenes played in this
+shallow front space. On the back of the stage should
+be sloping ground covered with underbrush, and a
+path winding down through it. In the middle-stage
+can be set the properties for special scenes—a bench
+in a box-hedge for I, 2 and 3; a huge oak-trunk for
+I, 5; a garden wall with grass and violets for II, 6;
+the graveyard wall with Moritz’s grave for III, 2,
+etc. The swiftest possible sequence of scenes within
+the act is of prime importance.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="SA_ACT_I">
+    ACT I
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span>—<i>A pretty little room, with a window looking
+out on an early spring garden.</i> <span class="smcap">Wendla’s</span>
+<i>bed in one corner, wardrobe in the other, table
+and two chairs between. Doors just below bed
+and wardrobe.</i></p>
+
+<p class='scene2'><span class="smcap">Wendla</span> <i>stands at the foot of the bed, all
+dressed except for her frock, which hangs on the
+chair in front of her. Her mother stands on the
+other side of the table, with a long dress in her
+hands.</i></p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Why did you make the dress so long
+for me, mother?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—You’re fourteen years old to-day!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—If I had known you were going to make
+my dress so long, I’d rather not have been fourteen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—It isn’t too long, Wendla.
+What do you want? Can I help my girl’s growing
+two inches taller every spring? A girl as grown up
+as you can’t go round in a little princess-dress!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—All the same, my little princess-dress
+looks better on me than that nightgown. Let me
+wear it just once more, mother! Just this summer!
+That penitence-frock will suit me just as well at fifteen
+as at fourteen: let’s hang it up till my <span class="gesperrt">next</span>
+birthday! Now I’d only tread on the braid.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—I don’t know what I ought to
+say. I’d like so much to keep you this way, child,—just
+as you are. Other girls are overgrown and
+awkward at your age. You’re just the opposite.
+Who knows what you will be like when the others are
+fully developed?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Who knows? Perhaps I shan’t <span class="gesperrt">be</span>
+at all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Child, child, what makes you
+think such things!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Don’t, mother dear; oh, don’t be sad.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—[<i>Kissing her.</i>] My only darling!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—They come to me so, night-times, when
+I can’t go to sleep. They don’t make me a bit sad,
+and I know I sleep better afterwards. Is it wrong,
+mother, to think about things like that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Go, dear, and hang the “penitence-frock”
+away, and put on your princess-dress
+again, God bless you! When I get the chance I’ll
+put another breadth of ruffles on the bottom of it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Hanging the dress in the wardrobe.</i>]
+No! Then I might as well be all of twenty right
+away!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—If only you don’t get too cold.
+In its time that little dress was plenty long enough
+for you, but now&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Now, with summer coming? Oh,
+mother, not even little children get diphtheria in their
+knees! Why are you so scary? At my age nobody
+freezes, least of all in the legs. Do you think it
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>
+would be better if I got too hot, mother? Thank the
+good God if your darling doesn’t cut off her sleeves
+some morning and come to you at twilight without
+her shoes and stockings!—When I wear my penitence-frock
+I’ll dress like a fairy queen under it....
+Don’t scold, motherkin,—nobody’ll see how, then!</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>Sunday evening. A gravel walk in front
+of a park bench; shrubbery and tree-tops behind.
+<span class="smcap">Melchior</span> enters, followed by the other
+boys</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I’m tired of that: I don’t want to any
+more.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—Then the rest of us can just as well stop,
+too. Have you done your work, Melchior?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Go on playing, why don’t you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Where are you going?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—For a walk.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—It’ll be dark soon.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—Have you done your work already?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—And why shouldn’t I go for a walk in
+the dark?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—Central America!—Louis XV!—Sixty
+lines of Homer!—Seven equations!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Damn the work!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—Oh, if only Latin Comp. didn’t come to-morrow!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—One can’t think of anything without
+some work coming in between!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—I’m going home.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—I, too, home to work!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—Me, too; me, too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—Good night, Melchior.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Sleep well!... [<i>All make off except</i>
+<span class="smcap">Moritz</span>.] Gosh, I’d like to know what we’re in
+the world for!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—School makes me wish I’d been a cabhorse
+sooner!—What do we go to school for? So
+that somebody can examine us. And what are we
+examined for? To make us flunk! Seven of us have
+got to flunk just because the classroom upstairs only
+holds sixty.—I’ve felt so queer since Christmas!
+Devil take me, if it weren’t for Papa I’d tie up my
+bundle this very night and be off to Altoona!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Let’s talk about something else.
+[<i>They go for a walk.</i>]</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>[In practice, <span class="smcap">Melchior</span> can here fling himself down on
+the bench; <span class="smcap">Moritz</span> remain standing.]</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Do you see the black cat there with its
+tail stuck up?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Do you believe in omens?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I don’t quite know.—It came from over
+there.—Means nothing!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I believe that’s a Charybdis everyone
+falls into who has struggled up out of the Scylla of
+religious nonsense. Let’s sit down under this beech.
+The warm spring wind is streaming over the mountains.
+I’d like to be a young Dryad in the woods up
+there letting herself be rocked and swung in the highest
+tree-tops all night long to-night....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Unbutton your vest, Melchior.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Ah, how it blows through one’s
+clothes!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—It’s getting so jolly dark you can’t see
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span>
+your hand before your face. Where are you? [<i>He
+draws</i> <span class="smcap">Melchior</span> <i>down beside him. Only their voices,
+from here on, come out of the darkness.</i>] Don’t you
+believe too, Melchior, that modesty in people is just
+the effect of their bringing-up?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I started thinking about that just the
+day before yesterday. No, after all it seems to me
+to be deeply rooted in human nature. Imagine undressing
+completely before even your best friend!
+You wouldn’t do it unless he did it, too, at the same
+time. But it’s also more or less a matter of custom.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I’ve sometimes thought, if I have children,
+boys and girls, right from the start I’ll have
+them sleep together in the same room—if possible,
+on the same bed—and help each other twice a day
+to dress and undress,—and on hot days, boys and
+girls alike, let ’em wear nothing at all but a short
+tunic, white woolen with just a leather belt. It seems
+to me, if they grew up so, they’d surely, later, be
+more at ease than we are, usually....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Oh, I’m sure of that, Moritz!—The
+only question is, what if the girls should have children?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—How do you mean—have children?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I believe there’s a kind of instinct in
+that matter. I believe, for instance, if you shut up
+a pair of kittens, male and female, and cut them off
+from any contact with the outer world—left them
+absolutely to their own impulses, that is—well, the
+female sooner or later would get pregnant, though
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span>
+neither she nor the male had anyone to imitate or
+show them how.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—With animals—yes—it must happen all
+by itself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—With people, too, just the same! I
+ask you, Moritz,—if your boys are sleeping on the
+same bed as the girls, and all of a sudden the first
+masculine impulses stir in them.... I’d like to bet
+with anybody....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Yes, you may be right there. But all the
+same&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—And with your girls it would be absolutely
+the same at the corresponding age. Not that
+a girl exactly—of course, one can’t tell so well ...
+at least, it would be natural to expect ... and their
+curiosity, too, would be there, to do its share.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—One question by the way&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Well?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—You’ll answer?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Surely.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—True?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—There’s my hand. Well, Moritz?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Have you written your theme yet?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Oh, speak out what you want to say!
+No one can hear us or see us.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—You understand my children would be
+made to work all day in the yard or the garden, or
+play games that called for real physical exertion.
+They’ll have to ride and wrestle and climb, and of
+all things not sleep so soft at night as we do. We
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span>
+are awfully softened! I don’t believe people dream
+when they have hard beds!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I’m going to sleep from now till vintage
+time in just my hammock. I’ve shoved my bed
+behind the stove: they go together. Last winter I
+dreamt once that I whipped our Lolo till he couldn’t
+move a limb! That was the most horrible thing I’ve
+ever dreamt.—What makes you look at me so
+strangely?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Have you felt them yet?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—What?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—How did you phrase it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Masculine impulses?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—M-hm.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Yes indeed!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—In fact I’ve known that quite a while—nearly
+a year.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—It struck me like a bolt of lightning!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—You had dreamt?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Oh, just a flash ... of legs in sky-blue
+tights climbing over the teacher’s desk—to be exact,
+I thought they were going to climb over it. I only
+got a glimpse of them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—George Zirschnitz dreamt of his
+<span class="gesperrt">mother</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Did he tell you that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Out there on the gallows-path.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—If you only knew what I’ve gone through
+since that night!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Qualms of conscience?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Qualms of conscience?—Pangs of death!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Good God....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I thought I was past cure. I thought
+I was suffering from some inward weakness.—I only
+began to feel easier when I set out to take notes on
+the memories of my life. Oh, yes, Melchior! the last
+three weeks have been a Gethsemane for me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I had been more or less prepared for
+it beforehand. I felt a bit ashamed, but that was all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—And yet you’re almost a full year
+younger than me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—On that point, Moritz, I wouldn’t
+waste much thought. By all I can make out, there
+is no definite age for this phantom’s first appearance.
+You know that big Lämmermeier with the straw-colored
+hair and the big nose? He’s three years older
+than me, but Hansy Rilow says that to this very day
+he dreams of nothing but tarts and apricot jelly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I ask you, how can Hansy Rilow tell
+about that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—He’s asked him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—He’s asked him?—I’d never have dared
+to ask anybody!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—You just asked me, didn’t you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Yes, I did!—Maybe Hansy had made his
+will too, beforehand!—Isn’t it a queer game the
+world plays with us?! And we’re supposed to be
+grateful! I don’t remember having felt the least desire
+for this sort of disturbance.—Why couldn’t I
+have been left sleeping quietly until everything was
+still again! Father and mother could have had a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>
+hundred better children. But here I am, with no idea
+how I got here, and now I must be responsible for
+not having stayed away!—Haven’t you sometimes
+thought about that too, Melchior: in what kind of
+a way exactly we got mixed up in this whirl?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Do you mean you don’t know that
+either, Moritz?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—How should I know?—I see how the hens
+lay eggs and hear how Mama says she carried me
+under her heart; but is that enough?—And I remember
+being embarrassed even at five years old when
+someone turned up the queen of hearts, she was so
+décolleté. That feeling has gone; but to-day I can
+scarcely speak to any girl any more without something
+abominable coming into my head—and I swear
+to you, Melchior, I don’t know <span class="gesperrt">what</span>!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I’ll tell you the whole thing. I’ve
+gotten it partly out of books, partly from pictures,
+partly from observations of nature. You’ll be surprised.
+It made me an atheist at first. I told George
+Zirschnitz about it, too. He wanted to tell Hansy
+Rilow, but Hansy had learned it all from his French
+governess when he was a kid.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I’ve gone through Meyer’s Abridged
+from A to Z. Words! just words and more words!
+Not one simple explanation! Oh, this reticence!
+What good to me is an encyclopædia that has nothing
+to say on the most vital question of all?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Did you ever see two dogs running
+about the streets?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—No!—Don’t tell me anything yet—not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span>
+to-day, Melchior! I’ve still got Central America
+and Louis XV before me, not to speak of the sixty
+lines of Homer, the seven equations, the Latin Comp.—I
+should lose out at everything to-morrow again.
+If I am to drudge successfully I must be as dull as
+an ox.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—But come up to my room with me.
+In three-quarters of an hour I’ll have the Homer,
+the algebra, and <span class="gesperrt">two</span> Latin Comp.’s. I’ll put a few
+harmless blunders into yours, and the thing’s done.
+Mama’ll make us some lemonade again, and we’ll
+talk comfortably about propagation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I can’t!—I can’t talk comfortably about
+propagation! If you want to help me, give me your
+information in writing. Write down what you know.
+Make it as short and plain as you can, and stick it
+between my books to-morrow at recess. I’ll carry
+it home without knowing I have it, and come upon
+it sometime unexpectedly. I won’t be able to help
+skimming thru it, even if I’m tired.... If it’s absolutely
+necessary, you can draw something in the
+margin, too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—You’re like a girl.... But just as
+you like. It’ll be an interesting job for me all right.—One
+question, Moritz.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Hm?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Have you ever <span class="gesperrt">seen</span> a girl?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Yes!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—All?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Every bit!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I, too.—Then no illustrations will be
+necessary.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—At the Shooting-meet, in Leilich’s Anatomical
+Museum. If it had come up, I’d have been
+chucked out of school. As beautiful as the daylight—and
+oh, so <span class="gesperrt">true</span>!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I was with Mama in Frankfort last
+summer— Are you going already, Moritz?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—To get my work done.—Good night.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—So long!</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene III.</span>—<i>A stormy afternoon.</i> <span class="smcap">Martha</span>, <span class="smcap">Wendla</span>
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Thea</span> <i>are coming along the path</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—How the water gets into your shoes!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—How the wind whistles past your
+cheeks!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—How your heart pounds!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Let’s go out to the bridge. Ilse said
+the river was full of bushes and trees. The boys
+have a raft on the water. They say Melchi Gabor
+nearly got drowned yesterday evening.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Oh, <span class="gesperrt">he</span> can swim!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—You bet he can, kid!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—If he hadn’t been able to swim, I guess
+he’d have been really drowned.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Your braid’s coming out, Martha, your
+braid’s coming out!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Pooh, let it! It bothers me so all the
+time! I can’t wear my hair short, like you; I can’t
+wear it loose like Wendla; I can’t wear a bang; and
+at home I even have to put it up—all on account of
+my aunt!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I’ll bring scissors with me to-morrow
+to the confirmation-class. While you’re reciting
+“Well for him who erreth not” I’ll cut it off!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—For God’s sake, Wendla! Papa’ll beat
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span>
+me to pieces, and Mama’ll lock me up three nights
+in the coal-hole!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—What’ll he beat you with, Martha?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—It often strikes me that they’d miss
+something, after all, if they didn’t have such a horrid
+little brat as I am.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Oh, my dear!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Aren’t you allowed to have a sky-blue
+ribbon thru the top of your chemise?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Pink satin! Mama thinks pink goes well
+with my pitch-black eyes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Blue’s awfully becoming to me.—Well,
+Mama yanked me out of bed by the hair—this way;
+I fell with my hands out on the floor.—You see Mama
+prays with us night after night....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—In your place I’d have run away from
+them long ago, out into the world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—There! That’s it, that’s just what I’m
+aiming at. That’s just it.—But she’d like to see me!
+Oh, she’d just like to see me! At any rate, I shan’t
+have anything to blame my <span class="gesperrt">mother</span> for later on!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Huh—huh—</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Can you possibly think, Thea, what
+Mama meant by that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Not I— Can you, Wendla?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I would simply have asked her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—I lay on the floor and shrieked and
+screamed. In comes Papa. Rip!—Off with the
+chemise! Out of the door with me! There now!
+Maybe I’d like to go down on the street like that,
+eh?...</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, Martha, that just can’t be true!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—I froze. I told all about it. Well, I
+must sleep in the sack the whole night.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Never in my life could I sleep in a sack!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I really wish I could sleep in your sack
+<span class="gesperrt">for</span> you sometime.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—If only you’re not beaten&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—But don’t you smother in it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Your head stays out. It’s tied under
+your chin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—And then do they beat you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—No. Only when there’s something special.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—What do they beat you <span class="gesperrt">with</span>, Martha?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Oh, what—with anything handy.—Does
+your mother think it’s “disreputable” to eat
+a piece of bread in bed?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—No, no.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—I do believe they enjoy it, though, even
+if they never speak of that.—When once I have children
+I’ll let them grow up like the weeds in our
+flower-garden. No one bothers himself about
+<span class="gesperrt">them</span>, and they stand so high, so thick!—while the
+roses in the beds are flowering worse and worse each
+summer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—When <i>I</i> have children I’ll dress them all
+in rosy pink—pink hats, pink dresses, pink shoes.
+Only their stockings—their stockings will be black as
+night! Then when I go walking I’ll have them march
+ahead of me.—And you, Wendla?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—How do you two know that you’ll have
+any?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Well, why shouldn’t we have some?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—It’s true Aunt Euphemia hasn’t any.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Silly! That’s because she’s not married!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Aunty Bauer was married three times,
+and hasn’t got one.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—If you have any, Wendla, which would
+you rather—boys or girls?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Boys! Boys!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Me too—boys!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Me too—better twenty boys than three
+girls.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Girls are tiresome.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—If I weren’t a girl already, I surely
+wouldn’t want to be one any more!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—That’s a matter of taste, I guess, Martha.
+I’m glad every day that I’m a girl. I wouldn’t
+exchange with a prince, believe me.—But that’s why
+I’d only want boys.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—But that’s nonsense, Wendla, rank nonsense!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—But look here, child,—mustn’t it be a
+thousand times more uplifting to be loved by a man
+than by a girl?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—But you wouldn’t say that forest-inspector
+Pfälle loved Melitta more than she loves
+him!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Yes, I would, too, Thea.—Pfälle is
+proud. Pfälle is proud of being forest-inspector,
+for he has nothing else.—Melitta is <span class="gesperrt">happy</span>,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span>
+because she gets ten thousand times more than she is.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Aren’t you proud of <span class="gesperrt">yourself</span>,
+Wendla?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—That would be silly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—How proud I wish I could be, in your
+place!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Only see how she puts her feet down, how
+straight ahead she looks, how she holds herself, Martha!
+If that isn’t pride—</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—But what for? I’m so happy that I’m
+a girl! If I weren’t one, I’d kill myself, so that next
+time.... [<i>Stops, seeing</i> <span class="smcap">Melchior</span>. <i>He crosses
+past them, greeting them, and goes, followed by their
+eyes.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—He’s got a wonderful head.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—That’s how I think of the young Alexander,
+when he went to school to Aristotle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Oh, good gracious! Greek History!—I
+only remember how Socrates lay in his tub when
+Alexander sold him the donkey’s shadow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—They say he’s the third best in his
+class.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Professor Knochenbruch says he could be
+first, if he wanted to.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—He has a lovely forehead, but his friend
+has more soulful eyes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—Moritz Stiefel?—He’s a stupid!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—I’ve always gotten on with him perfectly
+well.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Thea</span>—He humiliates you, no matter where you
+are with him. At the Rilows’ party he offered me
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span>
+some sugar-almonds. Imagine, Wendla,—they were
+soft and warm! Isn’t that just—— He said he
+had kept them too long in his trousers pocket!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Think of this: Melchi Gabor told me
+that time that he didn’t believe in anything—not in
+God, or in a future life—in just nothing in the
+world!</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene IV.</span>—<i>Near the Boys’ School. All the boys
+but</i> <span class="smcap">Melchior</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Moritz</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Ernest Roebel</span>
+<i>are standing about expectantly</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—[<i>Entering.</i>] Can any of you tell me
+where Moritz Stiefel is keeping himself?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—He’s going to catch it—Oh, he’s going
+to catch it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—He’ll go too far once, and then he’ll get
+what’s coming to him good and plenty.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lämmermeier</span>—Lord knows <i>I</i> wouldn’t like to be
+in his shoes at this moment!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—Some cheek! Some impudence!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—But wha—wha—what do you mean?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—What do we mean?—Well, listen....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lämmermeier</span>—I wish I hadn’t said anything.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—Me too—<span class="gesperrt">wish</span> I hadn’t!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—If you don’t tell me this minute&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—Well, here it is: Moritz Stiefel has
+broken into the Faculty-Room!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—The Faculty-Room!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—The Faculty-Room! Right after Latin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—He was the last out. He stayed behind
+on purpose.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lämmermeier</span>—As I turned the hall corner I saw
+him opening the door.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—You go to&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lämmermeier</span>—Yeah, if only <span class="gesperrt">he</span> doesn’t go
+to&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—I guess someone had left the key in the
+lock.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—Or else Moritz Stiefel has a pick-lock
+on him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—I’d believe it of him!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lämmermeier</span>—If he has luck he’ll only get a
+Sunday afternoon.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—Along with a demerit in his report.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—If he doesn’t get a suspension on top of
+a reprimand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy Rilow</span>—There he is!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Pale as a sheet. [<span class="smcap">Moritz</span> <i>appears,
+in the utmost excitement</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lämmermeier</span>—Moritz, Moritz, what have you
+done?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Nothing—nothing&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—You’re feverish.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—With joy—with rapture—with jubilation&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—You were caught——?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I’ve passed!—Melchior, I’ve passed!
+Oh, let the world go hang now—I have passed!—Who
+would have believed that I’d be promoted! I
+can’t realize it! Twenty times over I read it! I
+can’t believe it—but God be thanked, there it was—there
+it stayed! I <span class="gesperrt">am</span> promoted!—[<i>Smiling.</i>] I
+don’t know—I feel so queer—the earth’s going
+round.... Melchior, Melchior, if you only knew
+what I’ve gone thru!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy Rilow</span>—Congratulations, Moritz!—Just
+be glad that you got away safe!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—You don’t know, Hansy—you can’t
+imagine what depended on it. For the last three
+weeks I’ve slunk past that door as though it were
+the mouth of hell. Then, to-day,—it was ajar! I
+think if a million had been offered me, nothing, oh,
+nothing could have held me back! Before I knew
+it I was standing in the middle of the room—I was
+opening the record book, turning the pages, finding—and
+during all that time—it makes me shudder!&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—During all that time&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—All that time the door behind me was
+standing wide open!—How I got out, how I got down
+the stairs, I don’t remember.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy Rilow</span>—Did Ernest Roebel pass, too?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Oh, yes, Hansy, sure! Ernest Roebel is
+promoted the same way.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—Then you just can’t have read right.
+Not counting the dunces’ bench, there are sixty-one
+of us with you and Roebel, and the upper classroom
+can’t hold more than sixty!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I read perfectly right. Ernest Roebel
+is moved up just as I am—both of us, for the present,
+to be sure, only <span class="gesperrt">provisionally</span>. During
+the first quarter it will be decided which of us must
+make room for the other.—Poor Roebel! God knows
+I’m not afraid for myself any more. I’ve looked
+too far down into the depths this time for that!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—I bet you five marks it’ll be you that makes
+room.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—You haven’t got it. I don’t want to
+rob you.—Gosh, won’t I grind from now on!—Now
+I can tell you all too,—and you can believe it or not,
+it doesn’t matter now—but <i>I</i> know, <i>I</i> know how true
+it is: if I had not been promoted, I’d have shot myself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—Brag!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—The coward!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—I’d like to see you shoot anything!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lämmermeier</span>—Punch his face!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—[<i>Punches</i> <span class="smcap">Lämmermeier</span>.] Come
+along, Moritz. Let’s go to the forester’s house.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—Do you really believe that rot?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Is that your business?—Let ’em talk,
+Moritz. Just let’s get away, out o’ the city. [<i>He
+pulls him away. They meet</i> <span class="smcap">Professors Knochenbruch</span>
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Hungergurt</span>, <i>touch their caps, and
+exeunt. The other boys vanish, to the other side.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Knochenbruch</span>—It is beyond my comprehension,
+dear colleague, how the best of my pupils can feel
+drawn like that to the very worst of them all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hungergurt</span>—And beyond mine too, dear colleague.</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene V.</span>—<i>A sunny afternoon in a wood of beech
+and oak trees. Thick undergrowth. A big oak-trunk
+with mossy roots. By it</i>, <span class="smcap">Wendla</span>
+<i>stands, looking about for the path</i>. <span class="smcap">Melchior</span>
+<i>breaks thru the brush</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—[<i>Seeing her, stops dead.</i>] Is it
+really you, Wendla? What are you doing up here
+so all alone? I’ve been tramping up and down this
+wood for the last three hours without meeting a
+soul, and now all of a sudden you step out of the
+thickest covert at me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Yes, it’s I.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—If I didn’t know you were Wendla
+Bergmann I’d think you were a Dryad fallen out
+of the branches!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—No, no, I’m Wendla Bergmann.—Where
+have you come from?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I’m following my thoughts.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I’m looking for woodruff.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_1_1" href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Mama
+wants to flavor May-wine with them. At first she
+was going to come too, but at the last moment Aunty
+Bauer turned up, and she doesn’t like to climb: so
+I came up here alone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Have you got your woodruff?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—The whole basket full. Over there
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span>
+under the beech-trees they’re as thick as meadow-clover.
+Just now I’m looking round for a way out.
+I seem to have got mixed up. Maybe you can tell
+me what time it is.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Just after ha’ past three.—When do
+they expect you back?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I thought it would be later. I lay a
+long time in the moss by the brook and dreamed.
+The time went by me so quickly, I was afraid it
+would soon be night.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—If nobody’s expecting you yet, let’s
+lie down here a little while. Under the oak there’s
+my favorite place. When you lean your head back
+against the trunk and stare thru the twigs at the
+sky, you get hypnotized. [<i>He does as he says.</i>]
+The ground is still warm from the morning sun.
+[<i>She sits on a root.</i>]—There’s something I’ve wanted
+to ask you for weeks, Wendla.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—But I must be at home before five.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—We’ll go in time together. I’ll take
+the basket and we’ll strike out thru the underbrush
+and get to the bridge in ten minutes. When one
+lies like this, with his forehead in his palm, one gets
+the strangest ideas....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—What was it you wanted to ask me,
+Melchior?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I’ve heard, Wendla, that you go a
+lot to poor people and take them things to eat and
+even clothes and money. Do you do that of your
+own accord or does your mother send you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Generally Mother sends me. There are
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span>
+poor laborers’ families with an awful lot of children.
+Often the man is out of work, and then they’re
+cold or go hungry. We have still such a lot of
+things left in cupboards and bureaus that we don’t
+need any longer.—But what made you think of it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Do you like to go, or not, when your
+mother sends you on such errands?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, I like to ever so much!—How can
+you ask?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—But the children are dirty, the
+women are sick, the rooms are alive with filth, the
+men hate you because you don’t work&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—That isn’t true, Melchior,—and if it
+were true I’d go all the more!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—What do you mean, Wendla,—all the
+more?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I’d go all the more for that: it would
+give me so much more pleasure to be able to help
+them!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Oh, so you go to the poor people for
+the pleasure you get out of it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I go because they’re poor!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—But if it didn’t give you any pleasure,
+would you stop going?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Well, can I help it if it does give me
+pleasure?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—[<i>Rolling over and staring straight
+up.</i>] And yet it’s for that that you’ll get into
+heaven!—So it was true, the thought that has left
+me no peace for the last month!—Can the skinflint
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span>
+help it if it <span class="gesperrt">doesn’t</span> give him any pleasure to go
+and visit sick and dirty children?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, I’m <span class="gesperrt">sure</span> it would give <span class="gesperrt">you</span> the
+<span class="gesperrt">greatest</span> pleasure!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—And yet it’s for that that he’s condemned
+to everlasting death. [<i>Sits up, his back
+against the tree.</i>] I’ll write it up and send it to
+Pastor Kahlbauch. He started me on this. Why
+does he drivel to us about “the joy of sacrifice”?—If
+he can’t answer me I won’t go to his Sunday-school
+any more, nor let myself be confirmed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Why do you want to give pain to your
+dear father and mother? Let yourself be confirmed!
+It won’t cost you your head! If it weren’t
+for our horrid white dresses and your baggy
+trousers, perhaps one could even feel enthusiastic
+about it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—There <span class="gesperrt">is</span> no self-sacrifice. There <span class="gesperrt">is</span>
+no unselfishness.—I see the good rejoice in their
+goodness, and the wicked tremble and groan—I see
+you, Wendla Bergmann, shake your curls and
+laugh, and I get as glum about it as a pariah!—What
+did you dream about just now, Wendla, when
+you lay in the grass by the brookside?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Silly things—foolishness&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—With your eyes open?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, I dreamt I was a poor beggar-child,
+oh, awfully poor, who was shoved out on the
+street at five in the morning and had to beg the
+whole day long in wind and rain among harsh,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span>
+hard-hearted people; and if I came home at night shivering
+with hunger and cold, and hadn’t as much money
+as my father wanted, then I was beaten and
+beaten....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Oh, I know, Wendla. You get that
+out of silly kid-stories. Believe me, such brutal people
+don’t exist any more!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, yes, they do, Melchior,—you don’t
+know!—Martha Bessel is beaten night after night,
+so that you can see the marks the next day. Oh,
+what she must suffer! It makes you boiling hot to
+hear her tell about it. I’m so terribly sorry for
+her, I often have to cry into my pillow in the middle
+of the night. For months I’ve been thinking and
+thinking how to help her. I’d joyfully put myself
+in her place for a week.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Her father should simply be reported
+to the police. Then they’d take the child away
+from him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I, Melchior, have never been whipped
+in my life—not one single time. I can scarcely
+guess what it’s like to be beaten. I’ve tried hitting
+myself, to find out how it feels really, inside.—It
+must be a shuddery sensation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I don’t believe a child is ever made
+better by it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Better by what?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Being struck.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Reaching over and plucking a young
+shoot.</i>] With this switch, for example.—Whew, but
+that’s strong and slender!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—That would draw blood.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Wouldn’t you hit me with it once?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—You?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Yes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—What’s got into you, Wendla?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Drawing back, a little alarmed.</i>]
+Why shouldn’t you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Oh, don’t shrink. I won’t hit you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—But even if I let you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Never, girl!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Even if I ask you to, Melchior?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Have you lost your senses?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I have never in my life been beaten!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—If you can beg for a thing like
+that!...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Thrusting it into his hands.</i>] I do!
+Please!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I’ll teach you to say Please! [<i>Strikes
+her.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, what! I don’t feel the least thing!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—No wonder—thru all your skirts like
+that....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Then hit me on the legs—here!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Wendla! [<i>Strikes her harder.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, you’re just stroking me!—You’re
+stroking me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—You wait, you witch—I’ll beat the
+devil out of you! [<i>He throws the sprig aside and
+falls upon her with his fists so that she breaks out
+with a fearful cry. Undeterred, raging, his blows
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>
+rain on her thick and fast, while big tears overflow
+and streak his cheeks. Of a sudden, he springs upright,
+clasps his temples with both hands, and, passionately
+sobbing, plunges into the forest.</i>]</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="SA_ACT_II">
+    ACT II
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span>—<span class="smcap">Melchior’s</span> <i>study. A recess, rear center,
+with casements looking out upon moonlit
+garden and dark, evening woods. Window-seat.
+Low table with a well-shaded oil lamp,
+books, cigarettes, etc.</i> <span class="smcap">Moritz</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Melchior</span>
+<i>sit on the two ends of the window-seat, in profile,
+facing each other</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Now I’m quite cheerful again—only a
+bit excited. But in the Greek class I went to sleep
+like the besotted Polyphemus! I’m amazed old
+Zungenschlag didn’t tweak my ears. This morning
+again I came within an ace of being late. My first
+thought when I woke up was of the verbs in -MI.
+Gee whiz, but didn’t I conjugate all during breakfast
+and along the road till everything turned green
+before me!—It must have been a little after three
+when I dropped off. The pen left a blot on my
+book. The lamp was smoking when Matilda woke
+me. In the elders under my window the blackbirds
+were twittering so joyously—I got unutterably
+melancholy again at once. I buttoned my collar
+and pulled the brush thru my hair.—But you feel it
+when you force yourself against nature....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Shall I roll you a cigarette?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—No, thanks—I won’t smoke.—If only it
+can keep on like this! I mean to work and work
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span>
+till my eyes pop out of my head. Ernest Roebel
+has fallen down six times already since vacation—three
+times in Greek, twice with Knochenbruch, last
+time in History of Literature. I haven’t been in
+that pitiful fix more than five times, and from to-day
+on it shall never happen again!—Roebel won’t shoot
+himself. Roebel hasn’t got parents who are sacrificing
+their all for him. Whenever he wants to,
+he can be a soldier of fortune or a cowboy or a
+sailor. But if <i>I</i> fail my father’ll have a stroke and
+Mama’ll go crazy. That’s the kind of thing nobody
+would live to see. Before the exam I prayed
+God to let me get consumption, so that the cup
+might pass me by untasted. It did pass over—even
+tho its nimbus still gleams at me from afar so
+that I never dare to lift my eyes.—But now that
+I’ve got hold of the first rung I shall haul myself
+up. I’m sure of that, because the inevitable consequence
+of a fall will be a broken neck.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—There’s an undreamed-of meanness to
+this life. It wouldn’t take much to make me hang
+myself up in the branches.—Wonder where Mama
+can be with the tea.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Your tea will do me good, Melchior.—I’m
+actually trembling! I feel so strangely sensitized.
+Touch me a moment. I see, I hear, I feel much
+more sharply, and yet everything’s so dreamy, so
+charged with atmosphere.—How the garden recedes
+in the moonlight there, so still, so deep, as if it went
+on forever! Dim-veiled figures are moving among the
+bushes; they slip over the open tracts in breathless
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span>
+activity, and vanish in the half-dark. I should say
+they were holding a conference under the chestnut-tree.—Shan’t
+we go down, Melchior?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Let’s wait till we’ve had some tea.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—The leaves whisper so eagerly. It’s as
+if I were hearing dead Grandmother tell the story
+of the Queen without a Head. She was a perfectly
+beautiful queen, fair as the sun, lovelier than all
+the maidens in the land,—only she had come into
+the world, alas! without a head. She couldn’t eat
+nor drink nor see nor laugh nor kiss either. She
+could only make herself understood to her court
+thru her supple little hand. With her dainty feet
+she tossed off declarations of war and death-sentences.
+Then one day she was conquered by a king
+who happened to have two heads that were always
+at outs with each other—quarreled the whole year
+long so hard that neither let the other speak a
+word. So the chief court conjurer took the smaller
+of the two heads and set it on the queen; and lo and
+behold, it was mighty becoming to her; so then the
+king married the queen and the two were no longer
+at loggerheads but kissed each other on the forehead
+and the cheeks and the mouth, and lived for a
+long, long time after in happiness and joy....
+Confounded rot! Since vacation I haven’t been able
+to get the Headless Queen out of my head! If I see
+a beautiful girl, I see her without a head,—and then
+all of a sudden I appear as the Headless Queen—myself!...
+Well, it’s possible that one will be set
+on my shoulders yet. [<span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span> <i>enters with a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span>
+tray of steaming tea, which she sets down on the
+table after moving the lamp a little, and then shakes
+hands with</i> <span class="smcap">Moritz</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—Here, children! Fall to!—Good
+evening, Moritz Stiefel. How are you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—[<i>Standing.</i>] Well, thank you, Mrs.
+Gabor.—I’m listening to the roundelays down there.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—But you’re not looking a bit well.—Don’t
+you feel quite right?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—It’s nothing to speak of. I’ve been
+rather late getting to bed the last few nights.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Think of it—he’s been studying all
+night!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—You shouldn’t do that kind of
+thing, Master Stiefel! You should take care of
+yourself. Look out for your health. School can’t
+take the place of health in your life. Take frequent
+long walks in the fresh air! That is worth
+more to you at your age than correct Middle High
+German!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I will go walking oftener. You’re right.
+One can work, too, while one is walking. Why didn’t
+I think of that myself!—The written lessons I should
+have to do at home just the same.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—You’ll do the written work here with
+me. That way it’ll be easier for both of us.—You
+know, Mama, Max von Trenk has been down with
+brain-fever. Well, this noon Hansy Rilow came
+from Trenk’s death-bed to inform Mr. Sonnenstich
+that Trenk had just died in his presence. “Is that
+so?” says Sonnenstich. “Haven’t you still got two
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span>
+hours’ work to make up from last week? Here’s the
+note to the proctor. See that the thing is cleared
+up at last. The entire class will attend the interment.”—Hansy
+was simply paralyzed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—What is that book you have there,
+Melchior?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—“Faust.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—Have you read it all yet?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Not all thru.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—We’re just at the Walpurgisnacht.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—I should have waited a year or two
+more, if I’d been you, before reading that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I don’t know any book, Mama, that
+I’ve found so much that was beautiful in. Why
+shouldn’t I have read it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—Because you can’t understand it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—How can you know that, Mama? I
+feel plainly enough that I’m not able yet to grasp
+it in its full sublimity, but....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—We always read it together. That
+makes understanding it vastly easier.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—You are old enough, Melchior, to be
+able to judge what is good for you and what isn’t.
+Do whatever you feel you can justify. I shall be
+the first to realize, and be glad, if you never give me
+any reason to have to withhold anything from you.
+I only wanted to remind you that even the best can
+do harm if one is still too immature to appraise it
+rightly. I shall always rather put my trust in you
+than in any possible set of educational rules.—If
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span>
+you want anything else, children, come and call me,
+Melchior: I shall be in my bedroom. [<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Your Mama meant the story of
+Gretchen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Have we lingered even a moment over
+that!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Faust himself can’t have been more cold-blooded
+getting thru it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—After all, that villainy isn’t the
+climax of the poem. Faust could have promised the
+girl marriage, he could have deserted her directly
+after, without being one whit less guilty in my eyes.
+Gretchen could have died of a broken heart for all
+the difference I’d see.—When you behold how intensely
+everyone always looks first for that sort
+of thing, you might think the whole world revolved
+round penis and vulva.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_2_2" href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—To be frank with you, Melchior, I’ve had
+exactly that feeling since I read your paper. It
+fell out at my feet in the first days of vacation. I
+had my Plötz [<span class="fs90">a French grammar</span>] in my hand.—I
+bolted the door and ran through your quivering
+lines like a frightened owl flying through a blazing
+wood. I think I read most of it with my eyes shut.
+At your explanations a stream of vague memories
+rang in my ears like a song one used to hum joyously
+to one’s self in childhood, and at the brink of
+death hears from the mouth of another, and is appalled.—My
+sympathy was aroused most by what
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span>
+you wrote about the girl’s part, I shall never get
+over the impression that made. I’m sure, Melchior,
+to have to suffer wrong is sweeter than to do wrong.
+Blamelessly to have to undergo so sweet a wrong
+seems to me the essence of every earthly bliss.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I don’t want my bliss given me as
+a charity!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—But why not?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I don’t want anything that I haven’t
+had to struggle and win for myself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—But then is it still enjoyable, Melchior?—The
+girl’s delight, Melchior, is like the blessèd
+gods’. The girl represses. Her very nature protects
+her. She is kept free from any bitterness or
+regret up to the last moment, and so can see, all
+at once, heaven itself break over her. She is still
+fearful of hell in the very instant of discovering
+and embracing paradise. Her senses are as fresh
+as the spring that bubbles from pure rock. She lays
+hold of a cup no earthly breath has yet clouded—a
+draught of nectar that she takes and swallows even
+as it flames and flares.... The gratification that
+the man receives seems to me shallow and flat beside
+hers!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Let it seem what it will to you, but
+keep it to yourself. I don’t like to think about it.</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<span class="smcap">Wendla’s</span> <i>room, empty</i>. <span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>,
+<i>her hat on, her shawl round her shoulders,
+a basket on her arm, enters with beaming
+face</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Wendla! Wendla!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Appearing, half dressed, at the other
+door.</i>] What is it, Mother?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Up already, dear? Well!
+That’s nice of you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Have you been out already?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Hurry up now and get dressed!
+You must go straight down to Ina’s and take this
+basket to her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Finishing dressing during the following.</i>]
+Have you been at Ina’s? How is Ina feeling?
+Isn’t she ever going to get better?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Just think, Wendla: the stork
+came to her last night and brought her a new little
+boy!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—A boy?—A boy?—Oh, that’s grand!—So
+it was for that she’s been sick so long with
+influenza!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—A splendid boy!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I’ve got to see him, Mother!—So now
+I’m an aunt for the third time—one niece and two
+nephews!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—And what fine nephews they
+are!—That’s just the way of it when one lives so
+close to the church roof.—It’ll be just two [<span class="fs90">and a
+half?</span>] years to-morrow since she went up those steps
+in her wedding-dress!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Were you with her when he brought
+him, mother?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—He had just that minute flown
+away again!—Don’t you want to pin a rose on here?
+[<i>At the front of her dress.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Why didn’t you get there a little bit
+sooner, Mother?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Why, I do believe, almost, that
+he brought you something too—a brooch or something
+like that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Losing patience.</i>] Oh, it’s really too
+bad!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—But I tell you that he did bring
+you a brooch too!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I’ve got brooches enough....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Why, then be happy, darling.
+What are you troubled about?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I’d like to have known, so much,
+whether he flew in by the window or down the chimney.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—You must ask Ina about that.
+[<i>Laughing.</i>] You must ask Ina about that, dear
+heart! Ina will tell you all about it exactly. Didn’t
+Ina spend a whole half-hour talking to him?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I’ll ask Ina as soon as I get down there.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Be sure you don’t forget, you
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>
+angel child! Really, I’m interested myself in knowing
+if he came in by the window or the chimney!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Or how about asking the chimney-sweep,
+rather?—The chimney-sweep must know
+better than anybody whether he flies down the chimney
+or not.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—No, not the chimney-sweep,
+dear; not the chimney-sweep! What does the chimney-sweep
+know about the stork? He’ll fill you
+chuck-full of nonsense he doesn’t believe himself....
+Wha-what are you staring down the street so at?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—A man, mother, three times as big as
+an ox!—with feet like steamboats—!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—[<i>Plunging to the window.</i>]
+Impossible! Impossible!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Right after her.</i>] He’s holding a
+bedstead under his chin and fiddling “The Watch on
+the Rhine” on it—now he’s just turned the corner....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Well! You are and always
+were a little rogue! To put your simple old mother
+into such a fright!—Go get your hat. I wonder
+when you’ll ever get any sense! I’ve given up hope!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—So have I, Mother; so’ve I. It’s
+pretty sad about my sense! Here I have a sister
+who’s been married two and a half years; here I am
+an aunt three times over; and I haven’t the least
+idea how it all happens!... Don’t be cross,
+motherkin! don’t be cross! Who in the world should
+I ask about it but you? Please, Mother dear, tell
+it to me! Tell me, darling motherkin! I feel
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span>
+ashamed at myself! Please, please, mother, speak!
+Don’t scold me for asking such a thing. Tell me
+about it—how does it happen—how does it all come
+about?—Oh, you can’t seriously expect me still to
+believe in the stork when I’m fourteen!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—But, good Lord, child, how
+queer you are! What things do occur to you!
+Really, I just can’t do that!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—But why not, mother? Why not? It
+can’t be anything ugly, surely, when everyone feels
+so glad about it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Oh, oh, God defend me!—Have
+I deserved to—— Go and put your things on, girl,—put
+your things on.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I’m going ... and supposing your
+child goes out now and asks the chimney-sweep?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Oh, but that’s enough to drive
+me crazy!—Come, child, come here: I’ll tell you....
+Oh, Almighty Goodness!—only not to-day, Wendla!
+To-morrow, day after, next week, whenever you
+want, dear heart!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Tell it to me to-day, mother. Tell
+it to me now; now, at once. Now that I’ve seen you
+so upset, it’s all the more impossible for me to quiet
+down again until you do!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—I just can’t, Wendla.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, but why can’t you, motherkin?—Here
+I’ll kneel at your feet and put my head in your
+lap. Cover my head with your apron and talk and
+talk as if you were sitting all soul alone in the room.
+I won’t move a muscle, I won’t make a sound; I’ll
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span>
+keep perfectly still and listen, no matter what may
+come!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Heaven knows, Wendla, it isn’t
+my fault! The good God knows me.—Come, in His
+name!—I will tell you, little girl, how you came into
+this world—so listen, Wendla....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Under her apron.</i>] I’m listening.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—[<i>Incoherent.</i>] But it’s no use,
+child! That’s all! I can’t justify it.—I know I
+deserve to be put in prison,—to have you taken
+from me....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Under her apron.</i>] Pluck up heart,
+Mother!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Well, then, listen....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Trembling.</i>] O God, O God!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—To have a child—you understand
+me, Wendla?&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Quick, mother! I can’t bear it much
+longer!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—To have a child—one must
+love the man—to whom one is married—<span class="gesperrt">love</span> him,
+I say,—as one can only love a man! You must love
+him so utterly—with all your heart—that—that—it
+can’t be <span class="gesperrt">told</span>! You must love him, Wendla, as you
+at your age can’t possibly love anyone yet....
+Now you know.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Getting up.</i>] Great—God—in
+Heaven!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Now you know what tests lie
+before you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—And that is all?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—God help me, yes, all!—Now
+pick up the basket there and go down to Ina.
+You’ll get some chocolate there, and cakes with it.—Come
+here—let me just look you over—laced
+boots, silk gloves, sailor-blouse, a rose in your hair....
+But your little dress is really getting too short
+now, Wendla!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Have you got meat for dinner already,
+motherkin?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—God bless you and keep you!—I
+must find time to sew another breadth of ruffles
+round your skirt.</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene III.</span>—<i>A toilet—not to be thought of as
+equipped with modern plumbing.</i> <span class="smcap">Hansy Rilow</span>
+<i>enters, a light in his hand; bolts the door and
+opens the lid</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—Hast thou prayed to-night, Desdemona?
+[<i>He draws from his bosom a reproduction of the
+Venus of Palma Vecchio.</i>] I shouldn’t say you
+looked like “Our Father Who Art in Heaven,”
+darling:—awaiting contemplatively whoever may be
+coming, just as in that delicious moment of dawning
+rapture when I beheld thee lying in Schlesinger’s
+shop-window—these supple limbs just as beguiling
+still, these softly swelling hips, these young, upstanding
+breasts!—Oh, how giddy with joy must the great
+master have felt when the fourteen-year-old original
+lay stretched on the divan before his eyes!</p>
+
+<p>And wilt thou sometimes visit me in dreams? With
+eager arms will I receive thee, and kiss thee till thy
+breath is gone. Thou wilt take possession of me as
+the lawful heiress takes possession of her desolated
+castle. Gate and door spring open as by invisible
+hands, and below in the park the fountain joyously
+begins to plash!</p>
+
+<p>“It is the cause! It is the cause!”—That I am
+not lightly moved to murder thee, thou may’st learn
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span>
+from the fearful throbbing in my breast. My throat
+contracts at the thought of my lonely nights. I
+swear to thee, dear, upon my soul, it is not satiety
+inspires me! Who would dare boast that he was
+satiated with <span class="gesperrt">thee</span>?</p>
+
+<p>But thou dost suck the marrow from my bones!
+Thou crook’st my back, and rob’st my eyes of their
+last gleam of youth. You claim too much of me
+with your inhuman coyness, you wear me out with
+your unmoving limbs!—It’s you or I!—and <i>I</i> who
+have prevailed!</p>
+
+<p>If I should count them up—those vanished ones
+with all of whom I have fought this same fight here!—Psyche
+by Thumann—one legacy yet from that
+dried-up Mlle. Angelique, that rattlesnake in the
+Eden of my childhood; Io by Correggio; Galathea by
+Lossow; then an Amor of Bouguereau’s; Ada by
+J. van Beers—that Ada whom I had to abduct
+from a secret drawer in father’s desk, to add her to
+my harem; a quivering, thrilling Leda by Makart,
+that I found by chance among my brother’s college
+lecture-notes; seven, O thou doomed in thy perfect
+flower, who have rushed before thee down this path
+into Tartarus! Let that give thee comfort, and seek
+not to heighten my pangs into agony with these
+supplicating looks!</p>
+
+<p>Thou diest not for <span class="gesperrt">thy</span> sins, but for <span class="gesperrt">mine</span>!
+Need to defend myself against myself drives me
+with bleeding heart to do this seventh murder on
+a mate. There <span class="gesperrt">is</span> something tragic in the rôle
+of Bluebeard. I guess that all his murdered wives
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span>
+together suffered less than he did in the strangling
+of each single one.</p>
+
+<p>But my conscience will grow calmer and my body
+stronger when thou, she-devil, residest no longer
+in the red-silk cushions of my jewel-casket. Then
+in thy stead I will have the Lorelei of Bodenhausen
+or the Forsaken Lass of Linger or the Loni of
+Defregger occupy that voluptuous pleasure-chamber—provided
+I shall have recovered the quicker for
+this! A bare three months more, perhaps, and your
+unveiled Jehoshaphat, sweet soul, would have begun
+devouring my poor brain as the sun a butter-ball.
+It was high time to effect the separation from bed
+and board!</p>
+
+<p>Brrr! I feel a Heliogabalus in me! Moritura me
+salutat!—O girl, girl, why do you press your knees
+together?—why still even now,—in the face of inscrutable
+eternity?—One spasm, and I will let thee
+live! One feminine movement, one sign of sensuality,
+of sympathy, girl! and I will frame thee in gold and
+hang thee above my bed. Art thou not conscious
+that it is thy <span class="gesperrt">purity</span>, nothing more, begets my
+excesses? Woe, woe to the unhuman!</p>
+
+<p>Anyone can see that she’s had the advantage of
+a model education!—Well, <span class="gesperrt">so have <i>I</i> too</span>.</p>
+
+<p>Hast thou prayed to-night, Desdemona?</p>
+
+<p>My heart contracts in convulsions—— Silly!—Holy
+St. Agnes died for her continence too, and was
+not half so naked as thou!—One more kiss on your
+virginal body, your child-like, budding breast, your
+sweetly rounded—cruel, unyielding knees....</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span></p>
+
+<p>It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.</p>
+
+<p>Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!</p>
+
+<p>It is the cause!&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p>[<i>The picture falls into the depths. He shuts
+the lid.</i>]</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene IV.</span>—<i>A hayloft. Murky light, the smell of
+fresh hay</i>, <span class="smcap">Melchior</span> <i>lying in it</i>. <span class="smcap">Wendla</span>
+<i>comes up the ladder</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—So <span class="gesperrt">here’s</span> where you hid! Everybody’s
+looking for you. The wagon’s gone out
+again. You must help. There’s a storm coming
+up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Get away from me!—Get away
+from me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—What’s the matter with you?—Why
+do you hide your face?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Get out! Get out!—Or I’ll throw
+you down on the barn-floor!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Now I certainly won’t go. [<i>She kneels
+beside him.</i>] Why won’t you come out on the hayfield
+with us, Melchior? Here it’s so sultry and
+dark! What if we <span class="gesperrt">do</span> get wet to the skin—we
+don’t care!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—The hay smells so wonderful.—The
+sky outside must be as black as a pall.—I can’t see
+anything but the gleaming poppy at your breast,—and
+your heart, I hear it beating!&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Don’t kiss me, Melchior!—Don’t
+kiss me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Your heart—I hear it beating&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—People love each other—when they
+kiss—— Don’t! Don’t!&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Oh, believe me, there’s no such thing
+as love!—Self-seeking, egoism,—that’s all there is!—I
+love you as little as you love me.&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Don’t!———— Don’t, Melchior!&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>— ... Wendla!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, Melchior!——don’t—don’t&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene V.</span>—<span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span> <i>sits and writes</i>.</p>
+
+<blockquote class='bq-scene'>
+<p class='no-indent'>[<i>Or else she may be shown in a dark room, in
+silhouette against the window, reading her letter
+over by its failing light.</i>]</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—My dear Moritz Stiefel!</p>
+
+<p>I take up my pen with a heavy heart after twenty-four
+hours of considering and reconsidering everything
+that you write me. The money for passage to
+America I am not able, I give you my solemn word,
+to furnish you. In the first place I have not that
+much at my disposal, and in the second, even if I had,
+it would be doing you the greatest wrong I can
+imagine to put into your hands the means of carrying
+out so rash and critical a venture. You would do
+me bitter injustice, Moritz Stiefel, if you saw in
+this refusal of mine any sign of failing affection.
+On the contrary, it would be the grossest failure in
+my duty as your friend and counselor for me to
+be willing to let your momentary loss of judgment
+cause me too to lose my head and blindly follow
+my first, most natural impulses. I am willing and
+ready, if you wish me to, to write to your parents
+and try to convince them that throughout the course
+of this last term you have done all you could and
+drawn so heavily upon your strength that a severe
+attitude towards what has happened to you would
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span>
+not only be unwarranted but, more seriously, might
+have the gravest effect upon your mental and physical
+health.</p>
+
+<p>Your implied threat that you will take your own
+life in case your flight is not made feasible has—to
+speak frankly, Moritz,—rather taken me aback. No
+matter how undeserved a misfortune may be, we
+should never let ourselves be driven to ignoble
+measures. The way in which you seem to wish to
+make me—who have never shown you anything but
+kindness—answerable for a possible shocking outrage
+on your part, might, to a person inclined to think
+evil, look very much like blackmail. I must confess
+that this mode of acting from you, who usually are
+so well aware of what a man owes himself, was the
+very last I should have expected. For the present,
+I cherish the firm conviction that you were still
+suffering too much from the first shock to be able
+to realize fully what you were doing.</p>
+
+<p>And so I am confidently hoping that these words
+of mine will find you already in a more composed
+state of mind. Take the affair as it stands. To my
+way of thinking, it is wholly inadmissible that a
+young man should be judged by his school marks.
+We have too many examples of very bad scholars
+who have become remarkable men, and conversely of
+excellent scholars who have not distinguished themselves
+in life. In any case I assure you that so far
+as I am concerned your mishap will not cause any
+change in your relations with Melchior. It will
+always give me pleasure to see my son in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>
+company of a young man who—let the world judge
+of him as it will—deserved and won not only his
+but my most cordial sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>And so—up with your chin, Moritz Stiefel! Such
+crises, of this kind or of that, come upon us all
+and must just be got over. If everyone so placed
+should snatch forthwith at dagger and poison, there
+might easily soon be no more men and women in the
+world. Let us hear from you soon again, and believe
+me cordially and steadfastly</p>
+
+<p class="right pr3">Your maternal friend,</p>
+<p class='right pr1'><span class="smcap">Fanny G.</span></p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene VI.</span>—<i>The</i> <span class="smcap">Bergmann</span> <i>Garden in the radiance
+of the morning sun</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—[<i>Discovered.</i>] Why have you stolen
+out of the house?—To look for violets!—Because
+mother sees me smiling.—And why can’t you stop,
+and shut your lips tight any more?—I don’t know.—Oh,
+I don’t know—I can’t find words....</p>
+
+<p>The path is like a plush carpet underfoot—not
+one little stone, not a thorn.—My feet don’t touch
+the ground.... Oh, how I did sleep last night.</p>
+
+<p>Here’s where they used to be. [<i>Kneels.</i>] They
+make me feel as solemn as a nun at communion.—Dear
+violets!—All right, motherling! I’ll put on
+my penitence-dress!—Oh, God, if somebody would
+only come whom I could hug and tell!</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene VII.</span>—<i>Twilight. The sky is lightly overcast.
+The path winds through low growth and sedgegrass.
+Not far away the river sounds.</i> <span class="smcap">Moritz</span>
+<i>sits facing the audience, his back to some bushes
+and the path</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—It is better so.—I don’t fit in. Let them
+mount and climb upon each other’s heads.—I will
+pull the door to behind me, and step into the open.
+I won’t pay so much just to let myself be pushed
+around.</p>
+
+<p>I didn’t put myself forward. Why should I put
+myself forward now?—I have no compact with God.
+Let them distort the thing any way they have a mind
+to. I was pressed.—I don’t say my parents are
+responsible. After all, they had to be prepared
+for the worst. They were old enough to know
+what they were doing. I was an infant when I
+came into the world—otherwise even I might have
+been cunning enough to become another person.
+Why should I pay the penalty for all the others’
+being there already!</p>
+
+<p>I suppose I must have fallen on my head....
+If anyone gives me a present of a mad dog, I give
+him his mad dog back; and if he won’t take his mad
+dog back, then I am humane and....</p>
+
+<p>Yes, I just must have fallen on my head!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span></p>
+
+<p>One is born quite by accident, and yet, after the
+most mature consideration, one is not supposed
+to—— It’s enough to make one shoot one’s self
+dead!</p>
+
+<p>At least the weather shows that it sympathizes.
+All day it’s looked like rain, but it’s still holding
+off.—A rare peace is brooding over nature: nowhere
+anything sharp or exciting; heaven and earth like
+a transparent spider’s-web. And everything seems
+to feel so well. The landscape lovely as a lullaby—“Schlafe,
+mein Prinzchen, schlaf’ ein,” as Fraülein
+Snandulia sang. Too bad she holds her elbows
+awkwardly!—It was at the feast of St. Cecilia I
+danced for the last time. Snandulia only dances at
+parties. Her silk dress was cut so low, back and
+front—behind down to the belt at her waist, and in
+front low enough to take away your wits.—She
+can’t have had a chemise on....</p>
+
+<p>That would be something that might stop me yet!—More
+just for curiosity.—It must be an extraordinary
+sensation—a feeling as if one were being
+swept down a torrent—— I shan’t tell anybody
+that I’ve come back with the thing undone. I shall
+act as if I had taken part in all that.... It’s
+rather mortifying, to have been human and not got
+to know the most human thing of all.—You come
+from Egypt, my dear sir, and have not seen the
+<span class="gesperrt">pyramids</span>?!</p>
+
+<p>I don’t want to cry again to-day. I don’t want
+to think any more about my funeral—— Melchior
+will lay a wreath upon my casket; Pastor Kahlbauch
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span>
+will console my parents; old Sonnenstich will
+cite parallels from history.—A gravestone I probably
+won’t get. I should have liked an urn of
+snowy marble on a black syenite base,—but, praise
+God, I shan’t miss it! Memorials are for the living,
+not for the dead.</p>
+
+<p>I should need a year to take leave of everything
+in my thoughts. I don’t want to cry again. I
+am so happy that I can look back without bitterness.
+How many lovely evenings I have spent with
+Melchior!—under the river willows, at the forester’s
+hut, on the highroad out there where the five lindens
+stand, up on castle hill among the peaceful ruins
+of Runenburg—— When the hour has come, I
+shall think with all my might of whipped cream.
+Whipped cream doesn’t sustain you, but it’s filling
+and leaves a pleasant taste.... And I had
+thought mankind was infinitely worse. I haven’t
+found a soul that wouldn’t have wanted to do his
+best; and many a one I have pitied on my account.</p>
+
+<p>I pass to the altar like the youth in ancient
+Etruria whose dying rattle buys his brothers’ prosperity
+through the coming year.—One by one I go
+through all the mysterious shudders of deliverance.
+I gulp with sorrow at my fate.—Life has given
+me the cold shoulder. From up there I see grave,
+friendly looks beckon me: the headless queen, the
+headless queen—sympathy with soft arms awaiting
+me.... Your tenders are for children; I carry my
+free pass within myself. Sinks the shell, off sails
+the butterfly: the dream besets us no more.—You
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span>
+should play no mad games with the fraud! The mist
+dissolves: life is a matter of taste. [<i>His shoulder is
+suddenly grabbed from behind by</i> <span class="smcap">Ilse</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—[<i>In torn clothes, a gay kerchief round her
+head.</i>] What have you lost?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—[<i>Starting to his feet.</i>] Ilse!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—What are you looking for here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—What d’you frighten me so for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—What is it? What have you lost?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—But why did you startle me so awfully?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—I’ve just come from the city.—I’m going
+home.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I don’t know, what I’ve lost.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—Then it’s no good your looking. [<span class="smcap">Moritz</span>
+<i>swears</i>.] It’s four days since I was home.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Sneaking like a cat!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—That’s ’cause I’ve got my dancing-slippers
+on.—Mother <span class="gesperrt">will</span> make eyes!—Come along to the
+house with me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Where have you been bumming around
+again?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—In <span class="gesperrt">Priapia</span>!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Priapia?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—At Nohl’s, at Fehrendorf’s, at Padinsky’s,—with
+Lenz, Rank, Spühler,—with everybody you
+can think of!—Kling, kling,—<span class="gesperrt">she</span> will jump!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Are they painting you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—Fehrendorf’s painting me as St. Stylites,
+standing on a Corinthian capital. Fehrendorf, I
+must tell you, is a mess.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_3_3" href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> Last time I stepped on
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span>
+one of his tubes. Squashed it. He wipes his brush
+on my hair. I give him one on the ear. He throws
+his palette at my head. I knock the easel over. He
+gets after me with the maulstick over couch and
+tables and chairs, all round the studio. Behind
+the stove lay a sketch! Be good, or I’ll tear it!—He
+swore amnesty, and then for a finishing touch he
+kissed me—kissed me, oh, something terrible!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Where do you spend the night when you
+stay in town?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—Last night we were at Nohl’s; night before
+at Boyokevitch’s; Sunday with Oikonomopulos. At
+Padinsky’s there was champagne. Valabregez had
+sold his “Man Sick with the Plague.” Adolar drank
+out of the ash-tray. Lenz sang “The Murd’ress of
+Her Child,” and Adolar played the guitar to pieces.
+I was so drunk they had to put me to bed.—You’re
+still going to school all the time, Moritz?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—No, no—this term, I’m getting out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—You’re right. Oh, how the time flies when
+you’re earning money!—D’you remember how we
+used to play robbers?—Wendla Bergmann and you
+and I and the rest, when you all came out in the
+evening and drank new, warm goat’s milk at our
+house?—What’s Wendla doing? I remember seeing
+her at the flood.—What’s Melchi Gabor doing?—Does
+he still gaze so deeply into things?—In singing-lesson
+we used to stand opposite each other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—He philosophizes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—Wendla came to see us a while ago, and
+brought mother some preserves. I was sitting that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span>
+day for Isidor Landauer. He’s using me for Holy
+Mary, the Mother of God, with the Christ-child.
+He’s a ninny, and disgusting. Whew! like a weathercock!—Have
+you got a “morning after” headache?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—From last night. We swilled like hippopotamuses.
+It was five o’clock when I staggered
+home.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—One only needs to look at you.—Were there
+girls there?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Arabella, the bar-maid,—a Spanish girl.
+The landlord left us all, the whole night through,
+alone with her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—One only needs to look at you, Moritz.—I
+never have these morning-afters! Last Carnival
+I went for three days and three nights without getting
+into a bed, or even out of my clothes. From
+masquerade ball to café; noontimes at the Bellavista,
+evenings at the cabaret, nights to another ball! Lena
+was along, and fatty Viola.—The third night, Henry
+found me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Had he been looking for you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—He’d stumbled over my arm. I was lying
+senseless in the gutter-snow.—So then I joined up
+with him. For two weeks I never left his lodgings.
+That was a horrible time!—Mornings I had to throw
+on his Persian dressing-gown, and evenings walk
+about the room in a black page’s costume—white lace
+at the collar, cuffs, and knees. Every day he’d photograph
+me in a new arrangement: one time on the back
+of the sofa, as Ariadne, another time as Leda, another
+as Ganymede, and once on all fours as a female
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span>
+Nebuchadnezzar. And then he would rave about
+killing—about shooting, suicide, and charcoal fumes.
+Early mornings he’d bring a pistol into bed, load it
+full of cartridges and poke it into my breast: one
+wink, and I’ll fire!—Oh, he would have fired, Moritz;
+he would have fired!—Then he’d stick the thing in his
+mouth like a bean-shooter. Maybe that would wake
+my instinct for self-preservation! And then—Brrr!
+the bullet would have gone through my spine.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Is Henry still alive?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—How do I know?—Over the bed was a mirror
+let into the ceiling. The little room looked
+tower-high and bright as an opera-house. You saw
+yourself actually hanging downwards from the sky.
+I had the most frightful dreams at night.—God,
+O God, when would it be day again!—Good night,
+Ilse. When you sleep you’re beautiful for murder!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Is this Henry still alive?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—God willing, no!—One day when he went to
+get some absinthe I threw my cloak on and slipped
+out onto the street. The Carnival was over. The
+police snapped me up. What was I after in men’s
+clothes?—They took me to headquarters, and there
+came Nohl, Fehrendorf, Padinsky, Spühler, Oikonomopulos,
+the whole Priapia, and bailed me out.
+In a cab they transported me to Adolar’s studio.
+Ever since I’ve been true to the gang. Fehrendorf
+is a monkey, Nohl is a pig, Boyokevitch an owl,
+Loison a hyena, Oikonomopulos a camel—but that’s
+why I love them one and all the same, and don’t care
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span>
+to tie up to anyone else, though the world were full
+of archangels and millionaires!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I must go back, Ilse.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—Come with me as far as our house.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—What for?—What for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—[<i>Kidding him.</i>] To drink fresh, warm
+goat’s milk!—I’ll singe your forelock and hang a
+little bell around your neck. And we still have a
+rocking-horse that you can play with.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I must get back. I still have the Sassanids,
+the Sermon on the Mount and the parallelepipedon
+on my conscience.—Good night, Ilse.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—Sweet dreams!—Do you ever go down to
+the wigwam any more, where Melchi Gabor buried
+my tomahawk?—Brrr! Before you catch on, I’ll lie
+in the dust-bin! [<i>She hurries off.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—One word, it would have cost.—[<i>Calls.</i>]
+Ilse!—Ilse!—— Praise God, she doesn’t hear!</p>
+
+<p>—I am not in the mood.—For that, one needs a
+clear head and a joyful heart.—Too bad, too bad
+the chance is lost!</p>
+
+<p>... I shall say that I have had huge crystal
+mirrors over my beds—and have trained an unruly
+filly—and made her prance before me across the carpet
+in long black silk stockings and patent-leather
+shoes, and long black kid gloves and black velvet
+around her neck;—and how I stifled her in my pillows,
+in an access of madness.... I shall smile
+when the talk is of lust.... I shall&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="gesperrt">scream!—I shall scream!—Oh to be
+you, Ilse!—Priapia!—Unconsciousness!—That
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>
+takes away my power!—This
+favorite of fortune, this
+sunny creature, this daughter of
+joy upon my dolorous path!—Oh!—Oh!</span></p>
+
+<p>[<i>He staggers across the path and falls under the
+high, dark, cavernous bushes on the further side,
+crawling towards the river.</i>]</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>So have I found it again without trying, the grassy
+bank? The mulleins seem to have grown since yesterday.
+The vista between the willows is the same still.
+The river is flowing heavily like melted lead. Don’t
+let me forget.... [<i>He draws</i> <span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor’s</span> <i>letter
+from his pocket, lights a match, and burns it</i>.]—How
+the sparks fly—back and forth—up and down!—Souls!—Shooting
+stars!&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p>Before I lit the match you could still see the
+grasses and a strip of the horizon.—Now it’s gotten
+dark. Now I’m not going home any more.</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="SA_ACT_III">
+    ACT III
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene I.</span>—<i>The Faculty Room. Two small, high windows,
+one of them walled up. Portraits of
+Pestalozzi and J. J. Rousseau on the walls.
+Long, narrow, green table, with a gaspipe and
+six flaring burners over it. At one end, on a
+platform</i>, <span class="smcap">Principal Sonnenstich</span>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_4_4" href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> <i>sits. Behind
+the table sit, quite close together, in a grotesque
+row</i>, <span class="smcap">Professors Affenschmalz</span> (<i>nearest</i>
+<span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>), <span class="smcap">Knochenbruch</span>, <span class="smcap">Fliegentod</span>,
+<span class="smcap">Hungergurt</span>, <span class="smcap">Zungenschlag</span>, <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Knüppeldick</span>.
+<span class="smcap">Habebald</span>, <i>the beadle or proctor of the
+school, cowers near the door</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—May one of the gentlemen perhaps
+have something further to remark?—Gentlemen!—If
+we find ourselves unable to avoid the necessity of
+moving the rustication of our crime-laden pupil before
+a superior Board of Education, it is for the very
+weightiest reasons that we cannot help it. We cannot
+if only to do our best to atone for the misfortune
+that has already burst upon us; still less if we would
+insure our institution for the future against further
+calamities of the same order. We cannot if we are
+to discipline our crime-laden pupil for the demoralizing
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span>
+influence that he has exerted upon his classmates;
+we cannot, most conclusively, if so we may prevent
+him from exerting the like influence upon the remainder
+of his classmates. We are compelled to it—and
+this, gentlemen, is perhaps the most fundamental
+ground of all, against which no protest <span class="gesperrt">can</span> prevail,—because
+it is for us to protect our institution from
+the ravages of a suicide-<span class="gesperrt">epidemic</span>, such as has
+already broken out at various schools like ours and
+has so far defied all efforts to attach the schoolboy
+to those conditions of existence best adapted to his
+education into cultivated manhood.—May one of the
+gentlemen still have something to remark?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Knüppeldick</span>—[<i>Furthest away; middle-aged.</i>]
+I can no longer repel the conviction that it may at
+last be about time to open a window somewhere.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Zungenschlag</span>—[<i>Next him, bearded, choleric.</i>]
+There—there prevails here an at-at-atmosphere like
+that in subterranean cata-catacombs, like tha-tha-that
+in the archive-repositories of the quo-quondam
+star-chamber tribunal at We-Wetzlar!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Habebald!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Habebald</span>—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Open a window. We have, Heaven
+be praised, atmosphere enough out-of-doors.—May
+one of the gentlemen have anything further to remark?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Fliegentod</span>—[<i>The Secretary, with the minutebook;
+bearded, ponderous.</i>] If my worthy colleagues
+wish to have a window opened, I have nothing, personally,
+to object against it; only might I ask that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span>
+they will not wish to have that window opened which
+is directly at my back?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Habebald!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Habebald</span>—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Open the other window!—May one
+of the gentlemen have something still further to
+remark?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hungergurt</span>—[<i>Small, mild, spectacled; between</i>
+<span class="smcap">Fliegentod</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Zungenschlag</span>.] Without any
+wish on my part to aggravate the controversy, might
+I recall the fact that the other window has been
+walled up since the autumn holidays?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Habebald!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Habebald</span>—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Leave the other window closed!—I
+see myself compelled, gentlemen, to bring the matter
+to a vote. I request those colleagues who are <span class="gesperrt">for</span>
+opening the only window that can enter into the question,
+to indicate it by standing. [<i>The three furthest
+from him stand.</i>] One, two three. [<i>Counting the
+seated ones, too.</i>] One, two, three. Habebald!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Habebald</span>—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Leave the one window likewise
+closed.—I for my part am of the opinion that our
+atmosphere leaves nothing to be desired!—May one
+of the gentlemen still have something to remark?—Gentlemen!—Let
+us make the supposition that we
+omit to move the rustication of our crime-laden
+pupil before a superior Board of Education. <span class="gesperrt">We</span>
+will then be held accountable, by the Ministry of
+Education, for the disaster that has befallen us. Of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>
+the various schools that have been visited by this
+suicide-epidemic, those in which twenty-five per cent
+of the pupils have fallen victims to the ravages of the
+suicide-epidemic have been temporarily <span class="gesperrt">closed</span> by
+the Ministry of Education. To preserve our Institution
+from this most staggering blow is our duty, as
+the guardians and safekeepers of our institution. It
+grieves us deeply, gentlemen and colleagues, that we
+are in no position to let our crime-laden pupil’s
+qualifications in other respects count as mitigating
+circumstances. A mild procedure, which might be
+justifiable towards our crime-laden pupil singly, is
+at this time, when the very existence of our institution
+is imperilled in the most dangerous manner conceivable,
+certainly <span class="gesperrt">not</span> justifiable! We see ourselves
+reduced to the necessity of passing judgment on the
+guilty lest we, the innocent, be judged.—Habebald!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Habebald</span>—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Bring him up. [<span class="smcap">Habebald</span> <i>goes
+out</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Zungenschlag</span>—If it is settled that the pre-prevailing
+a-a-a-atmosphere leaves little or nothing to
+be desired, I should like to move that during the summer
+vacation the other window as well should be-be-be-be-be-be-be-be-be-be
+walled up!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Fliegentod</span>—If our dear colleague Zungenschlag
+does not find our sanctum satisfactorily ventilated, I
+should like to set the machinery in motion toward
+having a ventilator installed in our dear colleague
+Zungenschlag’s high and cavernous brow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Zungenschlag</span>—Th-th-that is too much for me
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span>
+to put up with!—Ru-rudenesses are more than I need
+to put up with!—I am in possession of my five
+senses...!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—I must request our colleagues,
+Messrs. Fliegentod and Zungenschlag, to preserve
+decorum. I think I hear our crime-laden pupil already
+on the stairs. [<span class="smcap">Habebald</span> <i>opens the door,
+whereupon</i> <span class="smcap">Melchior</span>, <i>pale but composed, steps before
+the assemblage</i>.] Step up nearer to the table.—When
+Mr. Stiefel had been informed of his son’s
+impious and wicked act, he searched in his grief and
+perplexity among the effects that his son Moritz had
+left behind him, in hopes that so he might happen
+to find the moving cause of that abominable outrage.
+So doing, he stumbled, in an irrelevant place, upon a
+piece of writing which, without yet making the abominable
+outrage understandable in itself, yet offers,
+I regret to say, an explanation only too conclusive
+of the moral obliquity in the criminal which must
+have underlain his act. I am speaking of a twenty-page
+treatise in dialogue form entitled “Coition,” accompanied
+by life-sized drawings, rank with the most
+shameless obscenities, and responding to the most
+perverted demands that a depraved debauchee could
+possibly make upon lascivious literature&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I have&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—You have to keep quiet.—Mr.
+Stiefel handed this manuscript over to us, and we
+promised the distracted father at any cost to identify
+its author. The handwriting was accordingly compared
+with the hands of each one of the dead profligate’s
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span>
+schoolmates, and it proved, in the unanimous
+judgment of the whole faculty and in perfect accord
+with the specialist’s opinion of our esteemed colleague
+in calligraphy, to have the closest conceivable similarity
+to yours&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I have&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—You have to keep quiet.—Notwithstanding
+the crushing fact that this resemblance
+has been marked by unimpeachable authorities, we
+believe that we may refrain for the moment from taking
+any further steps till we have first circumstantially
+interrogated the guilty student concerning his
+crime against morals, in conjunction with the instigation
+to self-murder arising from it, with which he is
+accordingly charged.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I have&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—You have to answer to the particular
+questions which I shall put to you, in order, one
+after the other, with a simple, modest “Yes” or “No.”—Habebald!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Habebald</span>—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—The documents!—I trust that our
+Secretary, Mr. Fliegentod, will from now on record
+the proceedings as nearly verbatim as possible. [<i>To</i>
+<span class="smcap">Melchior</span>.] Do you recognize this manuscript?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Yes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Do you know what this manuscript
+contains?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Yes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Is the writing in this manuscript
+yours?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Yes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Does this obscene manuscript originate
+from you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Yes.—I beg you, Mr. Sonnenstich, to
+show me one obscenity in it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—You are to answer the particular
+questions I put to you with a simple, modest “Yes”
+or “No”!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I have written no more and no less
+than what is very well known to you to be fact.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Insolence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I ask you to show me one offense
+against morals in that paper!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Do you imagine I’d have a mind to
+act the clown for you? Habebald!...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I have&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—You have as little respect for the
+dignity of your assembled teachers as you have decent
+sensibility for mankind’s inbred feeling for the
+modesty of the shamefastness of the moral order of
+the world!—Habebald!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Habebald</span>—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—It’s in fact the Langenscheidt for
+the learning in three hours of agglutinative Volapük!&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_5_5" href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I have&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—I instruct our Secretary, Mr. Fliegentod,
+to close the minutes!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I have&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—You have to keep quiet!—Habebald.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Habebald</span>—Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—Take him down!</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene II.</span>—<i>A graveyard seen through pouring rain.
+Gray stone wall about five feet high, and quite
+close to it, parallel with it, an open grave, behind
+which stands</i> <span class="smcap">Pastor Kahlbauch</span>, <i>umbrella
+in left hand and prayer-book in right,
+flanked by</i> <span class="smcap">Moritz’s</span> <i>father, his friend</i> <span class="smcap">Ziegenmelker</span>,
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Uncle Probst</span>, <i>on the right, and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Principal Sonnenstich</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Professor
+Knochenbruch</span>, <i>with a string of schoolboys,
+on the left. At a little distance, by a half-collapsed
+monument, are</i> <span class="smcap">Ilse</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Martha</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Pastor Kahlbauch</span>— ... For he who rejects
+the mercy wherewith the Eternal Father has blest
+man born in sin, he shall die a spiritual death. He
+who in wilful, carnal denial of God’s proper honor
+liveth for evil and serveth it, he shall die the death
+of the body. He, however, who wantonly throws
+from him the cross which the All-merciful has laid
+upon him for his sins, verily, verily, I say unto you,
+he will die the everlasting death!—[<i>He closes the
+book and puts it in his pocket, takes a shovel from
+the wall-face and with it pushes some mud into the
+grave, and hands the shovel to</i> <span class="smcap">Mr. Stiefel</span>.]—Let
+<span class="gesperrt">us</span>, however, faithful pilgrims upon the thorny way,
+praise the Lord, the All-bountiful, and render him
+thanks for his inscrutable elections. For as truly
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[77]</span>
+as <span class="gesperrt">this</span> soul did die a threefold death, so truly will
+God the Lord induct the righteous man into bliss
+and the Life Everlasting.—Amen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Stiefel</span>—[<i>His voice thick with tears.</i>] The
+boy was none of mine!—The boy was none of mine!—The
+boy never pleased me from childhood up!
+[<i>He throws a shovelful of mud into the grave, and
+gives the shovel back.</i> <span class="smcap">Pastor Kahlbauch</span> <i>hands
+it to</i> <span class="smcap">Professor Sonnenstich</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—[<i>Throws a shovelful of mud into
+the grave.</i>] Self-murder as the most serious conceivable
+offense against the moral order of the world
+is the most perfect conceivable demonstration <span class="gesperrt">of</span> the
+moral order of the world, in that the suicide relieves
+the moral order of the world from passing judgment
+upon him, and establishes its existence. [<i>He passes
+the shovel to</i> <span class="smcap">Professor Knochenbruch</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Prof. Knochenbruch</span>—[<i>Throws a shovelful of
+mud into the grave.</i>] Defective—depraved—delinquent—decayed—and
+detrited! [<i>He walks around
+the grave and hands the shovel to</i> <span class="smcap">Uncle Probst</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Uncle Probst</span>—[<i>Throws a shovelful of mud into
+the grave.</i>] Not from my very mother would I have
+believed a child could act so basely toward his parents!
+[<i>Hands the shovel to</i> <span class="smcap">Ziegenmelker</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ziegenmelker</span>—[<i>Throws a shovelful of mud into
+the grave.</i>] Toward a father who for twenty years
+now has had no thought, early or late, but for his
+child’s welfare! [<i>Puts the shovel back against the
+wall.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Pastor Kahlbauch</span>—[<i>Pressing</i> <span class="smcap">Mr. Stiefel’s</span>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span><i>hand</i>.] We know that for them that love God all
+things work together for good. 1 Corinth. 12, 15.—Think
+of the sorrowing mother, and strive by redoubled
+love to make up to her for her loss. [<i>He
+squeezes out past the Professors and boys.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Sonnenstich</span>—[<i>Pressing</i> <span class="smcap">Mr. Stiefel’s</span> <i>hand</i>.]
+We would probably not have been able to promote
+him, anyway. [<span class="smcap">Stiefel</span> <i>passes him</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Knochenbruch</span>—[<i>Pressing</i> <span class="smcap">Mr. Stiefel’s</span>
+<i>hand</i>.] And if we had promoted him, next spring
+he would most assuredly have failed to pass.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Uncle Probst</span>—[<i>Coming round in front and
+pressing</i> <span class="smcap">Stiefel’s</span> <i>hand</i>.] Now your first duty is
+to think of yourself. You’re the father of a family!...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ziegenmelker</span>—[<i>Doing likewise.</i>] Rely on me.
+I’ll steer you!—Beastly weather! enough to make
+one’s guts crawl. Whoever doesn’t get after that
+right away with a stiff drink ’ll be taken off with
+heart-failure! [<i>Leads him toward</i> <span class="smcap">Pastor Kahlbauch</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Stiefel</span>—[<i>Blowing his nose.</i>] The boy was
+none of mine.... The boy was none of mine....
+[<span class="smcap">Kahlbauch</span> <i>takes his other arm. All the men pass
+off.—The rain lets up.</i> <span class="smcap">Hansy Rilow</span> <i>slips in behind
+the grave</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy Rilow</span>—[<i>Throwing in a shovelful of mud.</i>]
+Rest in peace, old fellow!—Greet my immortal
+brides from me, immolated memories; and commend
+me most humbly to the dear Lord’s mercy—poor
+dumbbell you!—They’ll put up a scarecrow on your
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span>
+grave here yet, in memory of your angel simpleness....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—Has the pistol been found?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—No one need hunt for a pistol!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—Did you see him, Robert?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—A God-damned swindle, I call it.—Who
+did see him?—Who!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—Yeah, that’s the sore point!—They’d
+thrown a cloth over him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—Was his tongue hanging out?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—His eyes!—That’s why they’d thrown
+the cloth over.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—[<i>Shuddering.</i>] Grrr!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—Do you know for sure that he hanged
+himself?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—I’ve heard that his whole head was
+gone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—Nonsense! Rot!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Robert</span>—Why, I’ve had the noose in my hands!—I
+never saw a hanged body yet that you wouldn’t
+have covered up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—He couldn’t have taken his leave in a
+vulgarer way.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—What the devil,—hanging is said to be
+quite handsome!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—I’ve got five marks still owing me from
+him. We had a bet. He swore he’d keep his place.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—It’s your fault that he’s lying there. You
+called him a boaster.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—Poppycock! <i>I</i>’ve got to grind thru the
+nights, too. If he’d learned the history of ancient
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span>
+Greek literature, he wouldn’t have had to hang himself!
+[<i>Turns to go.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—Have you done your composition, Otto?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—Just the introduction.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—I haven’t the least idea what to write.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">George</span>—What, weren’t you there when Affenschmalz
+gave us the choice of subject?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—I’m going to fake up something out of
+Democritus.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—I want to see if Meyer’s Abridged has
+anything left I can use.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Otto</span>—[<i>As all disappear.</i>] Have you done your
+Virgil for to-morrow?—[<i>When they are gone</i>, <span class="smcap">Martha</span>
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Ilse</span> <i>come to the grave</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—Quick! quick!—There come the grave-diggers
+off there.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Hadn’t we better wait, Ilse?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—What for?—We’ll bring new ones, and
+more, and more!—There are enough growing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—You’re right, Ilse!—[<i>She throws an
+ivy-wreath into the grave.</i> <span class="smcap">Ilse</span> <i>opens her apron
+and lets a shower of fresh anemones rain upon the
+coffin</i>.]—I’ll dig up our roses. What if I <span class="gesperrt">am</span> beaten
+for it?—Here they’ll bloom well.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—I will water them as often as I go past.
+I’ll bring forget-me-nots over from the brook, and
+irises from the house.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—It ought to be glorious!—glorious!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—I was just over the bridge up there when
+I heard the shot.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Poor heart!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—And I know the reason too, Martha.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Did he tell you something?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—Parallelepipedon!—But don’t tell anybody.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—I won’t.—There’s my hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—Here is the pistol.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—That’s why it couldn’t be found!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—I took it right out of his hand when I went
+past in the morning.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Give it to me, Ilse!—Please, give it
+to me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—No, I’m going to keep it for remembrance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Martha</span>—Is it true, Ilse, that he’s lying in there
+without a head?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ilse</span>—He must have loaded it with water!—The
+mulleins were spattered all over with blood. His
+brains hung round on the osiers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="allsmcap">CURTAIN</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene III.</span>—<span class="smcap">Mr.</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span> <i>face each other,
+the window between them, lighting them</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>— ... They were in need of a scapegoat.
+They couldn’t disregard the accusations
+that were springing up on every side against <span class="gesperrt">them</span>.
+And now that my son has had the ill luck to fall foul
+of the old pedants at the precise moment, now am
+I, his own mother, to help to complete his executioners’
+work?—God preserve me from it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Gabor</span>—I have looked on at your ingenious
+educational methods for fourteen years in silence.
+They were contrary to my ideas. I had always lived
+under the persuasion that a child was not a plaything,
+that a child had a claim upon our most earnest
+efforts. But I said to myself, if the grace and
+esprit of one parent are able to take the place of
+the other’s serious principles, why, they may be
+preferable to the serious principles.—I am not blaming
+you, Fanny; but don’t stand in my way when
+I am trying to make good to the boy the wrong
+that both you and I have done him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—I will stand in your way as long as
+a drop of blood runs warm in my veins! In a House
+of Correction my child will be lost. A criminal nature
+may perhaps be bettered in such institutions.—I
+don’t know. A child naturally good will there as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>
+certainly become criminal as a plant degenerates
+when deprived of air and sun. I am conscious of
+no wrong done him. I thank God to-day as always
+that He showed me the way to awaken in my child
+an upright character and noble mind. What has
+he done then that’s so dreadful?—I haven’t the least
+idea of trying to exculpate him!—For being turned
+out of school he needs no exculpation; and if he
+<span class="gesperrt">were</span> at fault, he has paid for it.—You may know
+better about all that; you may be perfectly right
+theoretically. But I cannot let my only child be
+driven and forced to his destruction!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Gabor</span>—That does not depend upon us,
+Fanny. That is a risk that we took upon ourselves
+along with our happiness. He that is too feeble for
+the march is left by the wayside. And it is surely
+not so bad as it might be, if the inevitable comes in
+time. May Heaven defend us from it! Our duty
+is to steady the waverer as long as reason can find
+means to do it.—That he has been expelled from
+school is not his fault. If he had <span class="gesperrt">not</span> been expelled
+from school, that wouldn’t have been his fault,
+either.—You take things too lightly. You see only
+inquisitive trifling where fundamental lesions of character
+are really involved. You women are not qualified
+to judge such things. Anyone who can write
+what Melchior writes must be degenerate at the innermost
+core of his being. His essence is tainted.
+No nature that’s half-way healthy permits itself
+that sort of thing. We are all of us flesh and blood:
+every one of us strays from the strict, true path.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span>
+But what he has written represents a <span class="gesperrt">principle</span>.
+What he has written is no chance, casual slip, but
+documentary proof, of ghastly clarity, of that
+frankly affected <span class="gesperrt">purpose</span>, that natural propensity,
+that bent toward the immoral because it <span class="gesperrt">is</span>
+immoral!—it manifests that exceptional spiritual
+corruption that we jurists designate as moral imbecility.—Whether
+his condition can be in any way
+remedied, I am not able to say. If we would retain
+one glimmer of hope,—and, before all, consciences as
+his parents free from remorse,—we must apply ourselves
+with decision and in all earnestness to the
+task.—Let us cease contention, Fanny! I am sensible
+how hard for you it is. I know you idolize
+him, because he suits so perfectly your gifted temperament.
+But be stronger than yourself. Show
+yourself for once at last unselfish toward your son!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—God help me, how can I prevail
+against that!—One must be a <span class="gesperrt">man</span>, to be able to
+say such things! One must be a man to let oneself
+be so blinded by the dead letter! One must be a man
+to close his eyes to what stares him in the face!—I
+have acted toward Melchior conscientiously and
+carefully from the first day I found him susceptible
+to impressions from his environment. Are we responsible
+for <span class="gesperrt">accident</span>? <span class="gesperrt">You</span> may be struck
+down to-morrow by a falling tile, and along will come
+your friend, your father, and instead of tending
+your wounds set his foot upon your head!—I will
+not let my child be ruined before my very eyes!
+Would I be his mother if I did?—It is unthinkable!
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span>
+It is utterly out of the question. What in the world
+did he write then, after all? Isn’t it the most blatant
+proof of his innocence, of his ignorance, of his childish
+immaturity, that he <span class="gesperrt">can</span> write such things?—You
+can have no inkling of knowledge of human
+nature, you must be an utterly soulless bureaucrat,
+or unbelievably narrow, to smell out moral corruption
+here!—Say what you like: if you put Melchior
+in the House of Correction, we must separate—and
+then let me see if nowhere in the world I can find help
+and means to snatch my child from his downfall!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Gabor</span>—You will have to reconcile yourself
+to it—if not to-day, to-morrow. To discount misfortune
+comes hard to everybody. I will stand by
+you, and when your courage threatens to fail I will
+spare no pains, no sacrifice, to ease your heart. I
+see the future so lowering, so gloomy,—it only lacked
+that you too should yet be lost to me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—I shall never see him again; I shall
+never see him again. He will never stand the degradation,
+he will never come to terms with filth. He
+will break the constraint put on him: the terrible
+example is fresh before his eyes.—And if I do see
+him again—O God, O God!—that happy, spring-like
+heart, his ringing laugh,—everything, everything,—his
+child-like resolution to battle manfully
+for right and good,—oh, that unspoiled spirit like
+the morning sky, as I have cherished it in him, clear
+and pure, as my highest good....—Hold <span class="gesperrt">me</span> to
+account, if the wrong cries for reparation! Hold
+<span class="gesperrt">me</span> to account! Do what you will with me! <i>I</i> bear
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span>
+the blame!—But keep your fearful hands off the
+child!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Gabor</span>—It is <span class="gesperrt">he</span> who has gone wrong.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—<span class="gesperrt">He has not gone wrong!</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Gabor</span>—<span class="gesperrt">He has</span> gone wrong!—I would have
+given anything to have spared your boundless love
+this!—A woman came to me this morning distracted,
+scarcely able to speak, with this letter in her hand—a
+letter to her fifteen-year-old daughter.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_6_6" href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> She had
+opened it, she said, from simple curiosity; the child
+was not at home.—In this letter Melchior explains to
+the fifteen-year-old girl that his treatment of her
+leaves him no peace, that he has sinned against her,
+etc., etc., and will naturally take the responsibility
+for everything. She is not to worry, even if she should
+feel consequences. He is already on the way to procure
+help—his expulsion will make that easier for
+him. The misstep they have made may yet lead to
+her happiness—and what more senseless twaddle you
+please!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—Impossible!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Gabor</span>—The letter is forged. It’s a case of
+imposture. Someone is trying to turn his notorious
+expulsion to account. I have not yet spoken with
+the lad—but just look at the hand! Look at the
+writing!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—An unheard-of, shameless piece of
+knavery!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Gabor</span>—[<i>With double meaning.</i>] I fear so.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—No! No! Never in the world!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Gabor</span>—All the better for us, then.—The
+woman asked me, wringing her hands, what she ought
+to do. I told her she ought not to let her fifteen-year-old
+daughter scramble around haylofts. The
+letter she fortunately left with me.—Now if we send
+Melchior to another school where he won’t even be
+under <span class="gesperrt">parental</span> supervision, we shall have the
+same thing happening in three weeks—a new expulsion—his
+joyous, spring-like heart will get accustomed
+to them by degrees.—Tell me, Fanny, where
+<span class="gesperrt">am</span> I to put the lad?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—In the House of Correction&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Gabor</span>—In the...?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>— ... House of Correction!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mr. Gabor</span>—He will find there, first of all, what
+was wrongfully withheld from him at home: iron discipline,
+fundamental principles, and a moral restraint
+to which he will have to submit under all circumstances.—And
+I may add that the House of Correction
+is not the abode of horror you imagine from
+the name. Chief weight there is laid upon the development
+of Christian thought and feeling. The
+lad will there, at last, learn to aim at what’s <span class="gesperrt">good</span>,
+not what’s <span class="gesperrt">interesting</span>, and in his actions take
+account not of his natural impulses but of the law.—Half
+an hour ago I received a telegram from my
+brother which, I think, confirms what the woman
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span>
+told me. Melchior has confided in him and asked
+him for two hundred marks with which to fly to
+England....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Gabor</span>—[<i>Covers her face.</i>] Merciful
+Heaven!</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene IV.</span>—<i>The House of Correction. The setting
+may be the same as for the Faculty Room, without
+any pictures or furniture.</i></p>
+
+<p class='scene2'><span class="smcap">Melchior</span> <i>is shown in company with</i>
+<span class="smcap">Diethelm</span>, <span class="smcap">Reinhold</span>, <span class="smcap">Ruprecht</span>, <span class="smcap">Helmuth</span>,
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Gaston</span>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Diethelm</span>—Here’s a twenty-pfennig piece.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Reinhold</span>—What’s that for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Diethelm</span>—I’ll put it on the floor. You get in a
+circle round it. Whoever hits it, gets it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ruprecht</span>—Aren’t you in on this too, Melchior?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—No, thank you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Helmuth</span>—The Joseph!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Gaston</span>—He can’t any more. He’s here to recover
+his health.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—[<i>To himself.</i>] It isn’t wise for me
+to stay out. Everyone keeps an eye on me. I must
+join in—or my creature will go to the devil.—The
+confinement makes them abuse themselves.—I may
+break my neck: I’ll be glad. I may get away: I’ll
+be glad too. I can only gain, either way.—Ruprecht
+is getting to be my friend: he knows all about
+things here. I’ll treat him to the chapters of
+Judah’s daughter-in-law Tamar, of Moab, of Lot
+and his daughters, of Queen Vashti and of Abishag
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span>
+the Shunammite.—He’s got the sorriest face in the
+lot!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ruprecht</span>—I’m getting it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Helmuth</span>—It’ll come yet!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Gaston</span>—Day after to-morrow, maybe!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Helmuth</span>—Now!—Look!—O God, O God!...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">All</span>—Summa—summa cum laude!!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ruprecht</span>—[<i>Picking up the coin.</i>] Many
+thanks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Helmuth</span>—Come here with that, you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ruprecht</span>—Dirty beast!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Helmuth</span>—Jail-bird!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ruprecht</span>—[<i>Strikes him in the face.</i>] There!
+[<i>Runs away.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Helmuth</span>—[<i>Running after him.</i>] I’ll kill you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Rest</span>—[<i>Rushing after them.</i>] Get after
+him! Hustle! Hey! Hey! Hey!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—[<i>Alone, looking at the window.</i>]
+There’s where the lightning-rod goes down. You
+must wind a handkerchief round it.—When I think
+of <span class="gesperrt">her</span> the blood always shoots to my head. And
+Moritz weighs on me like lead.—I’ll go to a newspaper
+office: pay me by the hundred, I’ll sell
+papers—collect news—write—local—ethical—psychophysical....
+It’s no longer so easy to starve:—lunch-wagons,
+soft-drink places.—The house is
+sixty feet high and the stucco is crumbly.... She
+hates me—she hates me because I’ve robbed her of
+her freedom. No matter how I act, it remains—rape.—All
+I can do is to hope, gradually, in the
+course of years....—In a week it’ll be new moon.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span>
+To-morrow I’ll grease the hinges. By Saturday at
+the latest I must know who has the key.—Sunday
+evening at prayers, a cataleptic fit—please God no
+one else gets sick!—Everything lies as clearly as if
+it had happened before me. I can get over the window-sill
+easily—a swing—a grip—but one must wrap
+a handkerchief around it.—There comes the Head
+Inquisitor. [<i>He goes off.</i> <span class="smcap">Dr. Prokrustes</span> <i>and a</i>
+<span class="smcap">Locksmith</span> <i>enter on the other side</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Prokrustes</span>— ... It’s true the windows are
+in the third story and nettles are planted underneath;
+but what does degeneracy care for nettles?—Last
+winter one climbed out of a skylight on us,
+and we had all the fuss of picking up and carting
+away and burying....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Locksmith</span>—Do you want the grating of
+wrought iron?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Prokrustes</span>—Wrought iron—and since it
+can’t be set in, riveted.</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene V.</span>—<span class="smcap">Wendla’s</span> <i>room</i>. <span class="smcap">Wendla</span> <i>in bed</i>. <span class="smcap">Mrs.
+Bergmann</span> <i>at its foot</i>. <span class="smcap">Ina</span> <i>leaning at the
+window</i>. <span class="smcap">Dr. von Brausepulver</span> <i>discoursing</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Dr. von Brausepulver</span>—How old are you exactly?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Fourteen and a half.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. von Brausepulver</span>—I have been prescribing
+Blaud’s pills for fifteen years, and in a great
+many cases have observed the most inspiring improvement.
+I prefer them to cod-liver oil or tonics
+with iron. Begin with three to four pills per day,
+and increase the quantity as fast as you can assimilate
+it. I had prescribed for the Baroness
+Elfriede von Witzleben an increase of one pill every
+third day. The Baroness misunderstood me and increased
+the dose three pills each day. In less than
+three weeks the Baroness was able to go to Pyrmont
+with her lady mother to complete the cure. Tiring
+walks and extra meals we can dispense with. Instead,
+promise me, my dear, that you will try to
+move about all the more energetically, and not be
+ashamed to ask for nourishment as soon as your
+appetite reappears. Then these oppressed feelings
+round the heart will soon pass off—and the headache,
+the chills, the dizziness—and our terrible bilious
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>
+attacks. Baroness Elfriede von Witzleben
+within a week of beginning the cure was enjoying
+a whole broiled chicken with baked new potatoes for
+breakfast.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—May I offer you a glass of
+wine, Doctor?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. von Brausepulver</span>—Thank you, dear Mrs.
+Bergmann, my carriage is waiting. Don’t take it
+so much to heart. In a few weeks our dear little
+patient will be as fresh and lively again as a gazelle,—be
+sure of it!—Good day, Mrs. Bergmann. Good
+day, my dear. Good day, ladies. Good day. [<i>He
+goes, accompanied by</i> <span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ina</span>—[<i>At the window.</i>] Well, your plane-tree is
+turning already—quite gay again. Can you see it
+from your bed?—A brief display, hardly worth being
+glad about, as one watches it come and go.—I must
+be going soon now, too. August will be waiting for
+me at the post office, and I must see the dressmaker
+first. Mucki is getting his first little trousers, and
+Karl is to have some new leggings for the winter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Often I feel so happy, Ina!—all gladness
+and sunshine. I wouldn’t have dreamed that
+anyone could feel so blissful round the heart. I
+want to go out and walk across the meadows in the
+evening glow and hunt for primroses along the river,
+and sit down at the bank and dream.... And then
+comes the <span class="gesperrt">toothache</span>, and I think I must be
+going to die first thing in the morning: I get hot and
+cold, everything goes black before my eyes, and then
+the uncanny thing flutters in me.—Every time I wake
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span>
+up I see mother crying. Oh, that hurts me so—I
+can’t tell you, Ina!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ina</span>—Hadn’t I better lift your pillow higher?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—[<i>Coming back.</i>] He thinks
+the nausea will get better too; and then you can just
+quietly get up again.... It’s my belief too that
+it’ll be better if you get up again soon, Wendla.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ina</span>—By the next time I drop in, perhaps you’ll
+be dancing round the house again.—Good-bye,
+mother. I’ve just got to get to the dressmaker’s.
+God keep you, Wendla dear. [<i>Kisses her.</i>] Get
+better very, very soon.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Good-bye, Ina.—Bring me some primroses
+when you come again. Good-bye. Kiss your
+youngster for me.... [<span class="smcap">Ina</span> <i>goes</i>.]—What else
+did he say, mother, when he was out there?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—He didn’t say anything. He
+said the Baroness von Witzleben was also subject
+to fainting-spells. It was almost always that way
+with chlorosis.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Did he say, mother, that I had
+chlorosis?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—You’re to drink milk and eat
+meat and vegetables when your appetite has come
+back.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, mother, mother, I don’t believe I
+have chlorosis!...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—You have chlorosis, child. Lie
+still, Wendla, lie still. You have chlorosis.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—No, mother, no! I know I haven’t!
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span>
+I feel it! I haven’t got chlorosis—I’ve got the
+dropsy....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—You have chlorosis. Yes, he
+did say you had chlorosis. Quiet down, girlie. It
+will get better.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—It won’t get better. I have the dropsy.
+I must die, mother.—Oh, mother, I must die!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—You must not die, child! You
+must not die!... Merciful Heaven, you must not
+die!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—But why do you cry, then, so miserably?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—You must not die—child!
+You haven’t got dropsy. You have a <span class="gesperrt">baby</span>, girl!
+You have a baby!—Oh, why, why did you do that
+to me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—I didn’t do anything&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Oh, don’t deny it now, Wendla!—I
+know, I know. See, I couldn’t have said a word
+to you,—Wendla, my Wendla!...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—But that is quite impossible, mother!
+I’m not married!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Great God, that’s just it—that
+you’re not married! That is just the frightful
+thing about it!—Wendla, Wendla, Wendla, what
+did you do!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Why, really, I don’t remember any
+more! We were lying in the hay.... I haven’t
+loved a soul in the world but you—only you, mother.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—My darling&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, mother, why didn’t you tell me
+everything?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—Child, child, let’s not make each
+other’s hearts still heavier. Control yourself!
+Don’t despair, my child!—What, tell that to a fourteen-year-old
+girl? Why, I should sooner have expected
+the sun to go out! I haven’t done anything
+different with you than my dear good mother did
+with me.—Oh, let us trust in the good God, Wendla;
+let us hope for pity, and bear our lot! See, there’s
+still time: nothing has happened <span class="gesperrt">yet</span>, child; and
+if we just don’t get cowardly now, the good God
+won’t forsake us either.—Be brave, Wendla, be
+<span class="gesperrt">brave</span>!—One may be sitting at the window so with
+her hands in her lap, because so far everything has
+turned out good,—and then something bursts in on
+her and makes her heart feel like breaking on the
+spot.... Wha-what are you trembling for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Somebody knocked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—I didn’t hear anything, dear
+heart. [<i>Goes to the door and opens it.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Wendla</span>—Oh, I heard it very clearly.—Who is
+outside?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Mrs. Bergmann</span>—No one.—Schmidt’s mother
+from Garden Street.—You come just right, Mother
+Schmidtin.</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene VI.</span>—<i>Vintagers, men and women, are in the
+Vineyard. In the west the sun is sinking behind
+the mountain peaks. A clear sound of bells
+comes up from the valley.—At the uppermost
+vine-trellis, under the overhanging cliffs</i>, <span class="smcap">Hansy
+Rilow</span> and <span class="smcap">Ernest Roebel</span> <i>sprawl in the drying
+grass</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—I have overworked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—Let’s not be sad.—Too bad how the minutes
+fly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—You see them hanging and can no more—and
+to-morrow they’ll be pressed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—Being tired is as unbearable to me as
+being hungry.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—Oh, I can no more!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—Just this one shining muscatel!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—There’s a limit to my elasticity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—If I bend the spray, it’ll swing back and
+forth between our mouths. We’ll neither of us have
+to stir—just bite off the grapes and let the stalk
+spring back to the vine.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—One no sooner resolves on something
+than lo! the strength that had vanished is renewed
+in him again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—And add the flaming firmament—and the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span>
+evening bells,—my hopes for the future rise scarcely
+higher than this.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—I often see myself as a Reverend Pastor
+already, with a genial, motherly housewife, a voluminous
+library, and offices and honors everywhere.
+Six days you have, to ruminate, and on the seventh
+you open your mouth. When you go walking,
+school-children take your hand, and when you come
+home the coffee is steaming, the cakes are brought
+in, and thru the garden door the girls come up with
+apples.—Can you imagine anything happier?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—I have visions of half-shut lashes, half-opened
+lips, and Turkish draperies.—I don’t believe
+in pathos. You see, our elders pull long faces
+to cover their stupidities from us. Among themselves
+they call each other blockheads as we do. I
+know that.—When I’m a millionaire, I’ll set up a
+memorial to dear God.—Think of the future as a
+milk pudding with sugar and spice. One fellow upsets
+it and bawls. Another stirs it all up in a mess
+and toils. Why not skim it?—or don’t you believe
+that that art can be learned?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—Let us skim!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—What’s left ’ll be chicken-feed.—I’ve
+pulled my head out of so many nooses now already....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—Let us skim, Hansy!—Why do you
+laugh?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—Are you beginning again already?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—One of us has got to begin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—When we think back thirty years hence
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>
+to an evening such as this, it may seem to us beautiful
+beyond words.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—And how beautiful everything <span class="gesperrt">is</span>, now,
+quite of itself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—So why not?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—If one happened to be alone, one might
+even weep.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—Don’t let us be sad. [<i>Kisses him on the
+mouth.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—[<i>Returning the kiss.</i>] I left the house
+with the idea of just merely speaking to you and
+going back again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—I was expecting you.—Virtue isn’t a bad
+clothing, but it belongs on imposing figures.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ernest</span>—It still hangs loose around our limbs.
+I should have been uneasy if I hadn’t found you.—I
+love you, Hansy, as I’ve never loved a living soul....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hansy</span>—Let’s not be sad.—When we think back,
+thirty years hence,—why, we may laugh at ourselves!—And
+now it is all so beautiful! The mountains
+are glowing, the grapes droop into our mouths,
+and the evening breeze whispers along the rocks like
+a little playful wheedling— ...</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span></p>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene VII.</span>—<i>The graveyard, in a clear November
+night. On bush and tree rustles the withered
+foliage. Jagged clouds speed by under the
+moon.</i>—<span class="smcap">Melchior</span> <i>clambers over the wall above</i>
+<span class="smcap">Moritz’s</span> <i>grave—set much farther up-stage
+than in Scene II—and jumps down, knocking
+over</i> <span class="smcap">Moritz’s</span> <i>cross</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—The pack won’t follow me into this
+place.—While they’re searching brothels, I can
+catch my breath and see how far I’ve gotten....</p>
+
+<p>Coat in tatters, pockets empty,—even from the
+most harmless I have something to fear.—During
+the day I must try to get farther on in the wood....</p>
+
+<p>I have kicked down a cross.—The little flowers
+would have been frozen to-night!—All around the
+earth is bare....</p>
+
+<p>In the realm of the dead!</p>
+
+<p>To climb out of the skylight was not so hard as
+the road before me.—This was the only thing that
+I was not prepared for....</p>
+
+<p>I hang above the abyss—everything swallowed up
+and gone!—Oh, that I had stayed back there!</p>
+
+<p>Why she thru my fault?—Why not the guilty one!—Inscrutable
+Providence!—I would have broken
+stones and gone hungry...!</p>
+
+<p>What is left now to keep me straight?—Crime
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span>
+will follow on crime. I am abandoned to the mire.
+Not even the strength left to wind things up....</p>
+
+<p>I was not bad!—I was not bad!—I was not
+bad!...</p>
+
+<p>Never has mortal wandered over graves so filled
+with envy!—Pah! I should never screw up the courage!—Oh,
+if insanity would but seize on me—this
+very night!</p>
+
+<p>I must look over there among the latest ones.—The
+wind whistles past every stone with a different
+note—a heart-chilling symphony! The rotten
+wreaths blow apart and dangle on their long strings
+piecemeal round the marble crosses—a forest of
+scarecrows!—Scarecrows on all the graves, each
+more horrible than the next, house-high, putting the
+devils to flight.—The golden letters glitter so
+coldly.... The weeping willow moans, and gropes
+with gigantic fingers over the inscriptions!...</p>
+
+<p>A praying cherub—a bare slab&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p>Now a cloud casts its shadow down here.—How
+fast it flies, crying!—like a host pursued it rushes
+up in the east.—Not a star in the sky!&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p>Evergreen round the plot?—Evergreen?—a
+girl?...</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_101" style="max-width: 35em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_101.jpg" alt="Wendla Bergmann's grave marker">
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span></p>
+
+<p class='no-indent'>And I am her murderer!—I am her murderer!—Despair
+is left me—only despair!—I may not cry
+here. I must get away—away! [<span class="smcap">Moritz Stiefel</span>,
+<i>with his head under his arm, comes stumping
+over the graves</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—One moment, Melchior. It may be long
+before the chance recurs. You’ve no idea how
+everything depends on the time and place....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Where did <span class="gesperrt">you</span> come from?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—From over there—from the wall. You
+knocked down my cross. I lie by the wall.—Give
+me your hand, Melchior....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—You are <span class="gesperrt">not</span> Moritz Stiefel!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Give me your hand. I’m certain sure
+you’ll thank me. It’ll never be so easy for you
+again. This is a rarely fortunate meeting.—I came
+up especially&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Don’t you sleep?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Not what you call sleeping.—We sit on
+church steeples, on lofty gables,—wherever we
+want....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Ever restless?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—For fun.—We scoot around young
+birch-trees, round lonely forest shrines. Over gatherings
+of people we hover, over sites of misfortune,
+over gardens and festival places. In the dwelling-houses
+we crouch in the chimney-corner and behind
+the bed-curtains.—Give me your hand!—We have
+little to do with each other but we see and hear
+everything that happens in the world. We know
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>
+that everything is folly that men strive for and
+achieve,—and laugh at it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—What good does that do?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—What’s it need to do?—We are out of
+reach—nor good nor evil can touch us any more.
+We stand high, high above the earth-folk, each for
+himself alone. We have nothing to do with each
+other because that bores us. None of us still has
+anything at heart whose loss he could feel. We are
+equally immeasurably far above both grief and rejoicing.
+We are content with ourselves, and that
+is all!—The living we despise beyond words: we can
+hardly pity them. They amuse us with their doings,
+because, being alive, they are not really to be pitied.
+We smile, each to himself, over their tragedies, and
+meditate.—Give me your hand! If you will give me
+your hand, you will fall over with laughing at the
+emotion with which you give me your hand....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Doesn’t that disgust you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—We stand too high above it for that.
+We smile!—At my funeral I was among the mourners.
+I got a lot of entertainment from it. That is
+sublimity, Melchior! I made more noise than any
+of them, and slipped off to the wall to hold my sides
+for laughter. Our unapproachable sublimity is in
+fact the only standpoint that lets us assimilate the
+dirt.... I suppose I was laughed at too before I
+soared aloft!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I have no desire to laugh at myself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>— ... The living as such are truly not
+to be pitied.—I admit I should never have thought
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span>
+so either. And now it’s beyond my comprehension
+how one can be so naïve. Now I see thru the fraud
+so clearly that not the tiniest cloud is left.—How can
+you hesitate, Melchior? Give me your hand. In a
+turn of the head you’ll be standing sky-high above
+yourself.—Your living is a grievous omission, a sin
+of negligence....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Can you dead forget?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—We can do everything. Give me your
+hand! We can be sorry for the young, for the way
+they take their timidity for idealism, and the old,
+whose stoical superiority comes near to breaking
+their hearts. We see the Kaiser shake for dread of
+a street-song, and the beggar for dread of the trump
+of doom. We look straight thru the actor’s make-up,
+and see the poet in the dark don his. We behold
+the contented man in his beggary, and in the weariness
+of his burdened soul the capitalist. We observe
+people in love, and see them blush before each
+other in the presentiment that they are frauds defrauded.
+Parents we see bringing children into the
+world in order that they may call to them “How fortunate
+you are to have such parents!”—and we
+see the children go forth and do the like. We can
+eavesdrop on the innocent in their lonely cravings,
+and the five-groschen drab at her reading of
+Schiller.... God and the devil we see making fools
+of themselves before each other, and cherish in our
+hearts the unshakable conviction that both are
+drunk.... A quiet—a content—Melchior!—You
+need only reach me your little finger.—You may get
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span>
+to be snow-white before such a favorable moment
+appears to you again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—If I shake hands on it, Moritz, it will
+be from self-contempt. I see myself proscribed.
+What lent me courage, lies in the grave. I can no
+longer think myself worthy of noble impulses—and
+perceive nothing, nothing, that might yet stand in
+the way of my descent.—I am, in my own opinion,
+the most detestable creature in the universe....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—What are you waiting for? [<span class="smcap">A Muffled
+Gentleman</span> <i>enters, and addresses</i> <span class="smcap">Melchior</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—The fact is, you’re
+shivering with hunger. You’re in no sort of condition
+to decide.—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Moritz</span>.] Go.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Who are you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—That will come out.—[<i>To</i>
+<span class="smcap">Moritz</span>.] Vanish!—What have you here to
+do?—Why haven’t you got your head on?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I shot myself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—Then stay where you
+belong! You’re altogether done with. Don’t bother
+us here with your charnel stench. Inconceivable—why,
+just look at your fingers! Pah, what the
+devil! they’re crumbling down already!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Don’t send me away, please!...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Who are you, good sir?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Don’t send me away, I beg you! Let
+me take part in things here a little while yet. I will
+not oppose you in anything.—It’s so chilly down
+there!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—Then why do you
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span>
+brag about <span class="gesperrt">sublimity</span>?—You know well enough
+that that’s humbug—sour grapes! Why do you
+wilfully <span class="gesperrt">lie</span>, you coinage of the brain?—If you value
+the favor so highly, stay for all of me; but look out
+for any more hot-air boasting, my friend, and kindly
+keep your rotting hand out of the game!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Are you going to tell me who you are,
+or not?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—No.—I propose that
+you entrust yourself to me. First, I should see to
+your getting away.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—You are—my father?!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—Would you not recognize
+your worthy father by his voice?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—No.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—The gentleman, your
+father, is seeking comfort at this moment in the
+capable arms of your mother.—I open the world to
+you. Your momentary want of balance springs from
+your wretched situation. With a hot supper in your
+belly, you can laugh at it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—[<i>To himself.</i>] They can’t both be
+the devil!—[<i>Aloud.</i>] After what I have been guilty
+of, no hot supper can give my peace of mind back
+to me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—That depends on
+the supper!—So much I can tell you: that the little
+girl would have borne her child first rate! She was
+perfectly built. She simply succumbed to Mother
+Schmidtin’s abortives.—I will take you among men.
+I will give you an opportunity to expand your horizon
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>
+beyond your wildest dreams. I will make you
+acquainted with everything interesting, without exception,
+that the world has to offer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Who are you? Who are you?—I
+can’t consign myself to a person I don’t know!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—You’ll never learn
+to know me unless you entrust yourself to me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Do you think so?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—Fact!—And anyway
+you have no choice.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—I can at any moment give my friend
+here my hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—Your friend is a
+charlatan. Nobody smiles, who has one penny left
+in his pocket. The sublimated humorist is the
+wretchedest, most pitiable creature in creation!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Let the humorist be what he will.
+Tell me who <span class="gesperrt">you</span> are, or I’ll give the humorist my
+hand!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—Well?!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—He is right, Melchior. I have been putting
+on airs. Let him treat you, and make full use
+of him. No matter how muffled he may be, he is, at
+least, that!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Do you believe in God?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—That depends.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Do you want to tell me who discovered
+gunpowder?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—Berthold Schwarz—alias
+Constantine Anklitzen—round 1330, a Franciscan
+monk at Freiburg-im-Breisgau.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—What would I give to have had him let
+it alone!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—You would merely
+have hanged yourself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—What do you think about morality?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—Look here!—am I
+your schoolboy?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Ask me what you are!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Don’t quarrel!—Please don’t quarrel!
+What good will come of that?—What are we sitting,
+one dead and two live men, here together in the
+churchyard at two in the morning for, if we want
+to fall out like tipplers!—It was for my pleasure
+that I was allowed to remain and witness the proceedings.
+If you want to quarrel, I’ll take my head
+under my arm and go.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—You’re still the same old runaway!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—The ghost isn’t so
+wrong. One shouldn’t ignore one’s dignity.—By
+morality I understand the real product of two
+imaginary quantities. The imaginary quantities are
+should and would.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_7_7" href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> The product is called morality,
+and its reality is unquestionable.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Oh, if you had only told me that sooner!
+My morality harried me to death. For my dear
+parents’ sake I clutched at deadly weapons. “Honor
+thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be
+long upon the land.” In my case the text has phenomenally
+stultified itself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—Indulge in no illusions,
+my dear friend. Your precious parents would
+no more have died of it than you. Strictly speaking,
+they would in fact have stormed and blustered merely
+from the necessities of health.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—You may be right so far:—but I can
+tell you positively, good sir, that if I had given
+Moritz my hand just now without more ado, the
+blame would have rested simply and solely on my
+morality.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—But that’s just the
+reason you’re <span class="gesperrt">not</span> Moritz!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—All the same I don’t believe the difference
+is so material—at least, not so conclusive, that
+you might not perchance have met me too, esteemed
+Unknown, as I trotted that time through the alder-thickets
+with the pistol in my pocket.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—And don’t you remember
+me? Why, even at the final moment, you
+still were standing between <span class="gesperrt">Death</span> and <span class="gesperrt">Life</span>.—But
+here, in my opinion, is not exactly the place
+to prolong so deeply probing a debate.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—It is indeed growing cold, gentlemen!—Though
+they did dress me in my Sunday suit,
+I have on under it neither shirt nor drawers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Good-bye, dear Moritz. Where this
+person is taking me, I don’t know; but he is somebody&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Don’t lay it up against me, Melchior,
+that I tried to make away with you! It was old
+attachment.—I’d be willing to have to wail and weep
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span>
+all my life if I could now accompany you out of
+here once more!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—In the end, each has
+his share—<span class="gesperrt">you</span> the consoling consciousness of having
+nothing—<span class="gesperrt">thou</span> the enervating doubt of everything.—[<i>To</i>
+<span class="smcap">Moritz</span>.] Farewell.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—Farewell, Moritz! Accept my cordial
+thanks for appearing to me once more. How
+many glad, untroubled days have we not spent with
+one another in these fourteen years! I promise you,
+Moritz, let chance what will,—tho in the years
+to come I turn ten times a different man,—be my
+path upwards or downwards,—you I shall never
+forget&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Thanks, thanks, dear friend.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Melchior</span>—And when some day I am an old man,
+grizzle-haired, then perhaps it will be <span class="gesperrt">you</span> that
+once again stand closer to me than all those living
+with me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—I thank you.—Luck to your journey,
+gentlemen.—Lose no more time!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The Muffled Gentleman</span>—Come, child! [<i>He
+links arms with</i> <span class="smcap">Melchior</span>, <i>and makes off with him
+over the graves</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Moritz</span>—Here I sit now with my head in my
+arm.—The moon hides her face, unveils again, and
+looks not a hair the wiser.—So now I’ll turn back to
+my little plot, straighten the cross up that the madcap
+kicked so recklessly down on me, and when all
+is in order I’ll lay myself out on my back again,
+warm myself with decay, and smile....</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_1_1" href="#FNanchor_1_1" class="label">[1]</a> <i>Asperula odorata.</i></p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_2_2" href="#FNanchor_2_2" class="label">[2]</a> In the original, P.... and V...., with four dots, not five,
+after the V.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_3_3" href="#FNanchor_3_3" class="label">[3]</a> Literally, a cut-up noodle.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_4_4" href="#FNanchor_4_4" class="label">[4]</a> Sonnenstich means sunstroke: one pictures a round, red
+face enringed with bristling gray hair, and an explosive manner.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_5_5" href="#FNanchor_5_5" class="label">[5]</a> This sentence, in the lack of any authentic stage-direction,
+remains dark. “The Langenscheidt” is evidently a book, but
+why is it here suddenly referred to, or what is done with it?</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_6_6" href="#FNanchor_6_6" class="label">[6]</a> Note Wedekind’s subtlety: Mr. Gabor doesn’t remember
+Wendla’s precise age, and makes her as old as he can, to
+minimize Melchior’s transgression,—well before the days of
+Freud.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_7_7" href="#FNanchor_7_7" class="label">[7]</a> In German, <i>sollen</i> and <i>wollen</i>, verbs representing <span class="gesperrt">duty</span>
+and <span class="gesperrt">desire</span>.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span></p>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="EARTH-SPIRIT">
+    EARTH-SPIRIT
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='center bold'>(<span class="smcap">Erdgeist</span>)</p>
+
+<p class='center bold mt1'>A Tragedy in Four Acts</p>
+
+<div class='poetry-container'>
+<div class='poetry'>
+<div class='stanza'>
+<div class='verse indentq'>“I was created out of ranker stuff</div>
+<div class='verse'>By Nature, and to the earth by Lust am drawn.</div>
+<div class='verse'>Unto the spirit of evil, not of good,</div>
+<div class='verse'>The earth belongs. What deities send to us</div>
+<div class='verse'>From heaven are only universal goods;</div>
+<div class='verse'>Their light gives gladness, but makes no man rich;</div>
+<div class='verse'>In their domain no pelf is seized and held.</div>
+<div class='verse'>The stone of price, all-treasured gold, from false</div>
+<div class='verse'>And evil-natured powers must be won,</div>
+<div class='verse'>Who riot underneath the light of day.</div>
+<div class='verse'>Not without sacrifice their favor is gained,</div>
+<div class='verse'>And no man liveth who from serving them</div>
+<div class='verse'>Hath extricated undefiled his soul.”</div>
+</div>
+<p class="right">[Spoken by Wallenstein in Schiller’s</p>
+<p class='right pr2'><i>Wallenstein’s Death</i>, Act II.]</p>
+</div></div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak">
+    CHARACTERS
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='no-indent'>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Schön</span>, <i>newspaper owner and editor</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Alva</span>, <i>his son, a writer</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>, M.D.<br>
+  <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>, <i>an artist</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Prince Escerny</span>, <i>an African explorer</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Escherich</span>, <i>a reporter</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>, <i>a beggar</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>, <i>an acrobat</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>, <i>a schoolboy</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Ferdinand</span>, <i>a coachman</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Lulu</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Countess Geschwitz</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Henriette</span>, <i>a servant</i>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="PROLOGUE">
+    PROLOGUE
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<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 trousers 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 kettledrums.</i>]</p>
+
+<p class='no-indent mt1'>
+  Walk in! Walk in to the menagerie,<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.<br>
+  <br>
+  Here battle man and brute in narrow cages,<br>
+  Where one in mockery his long whip lashes,<br>
+  The other, growling as when thunder rages,<br>
+  Against the man’s throat murderously dashes,—<br>
+  Where now the crafty, now the strong prevails,<br>
+  Now man, now beast, against the flooring quails.<br>
+  The animal rears,—the human on all fours!<br>
+  One ice-cold look of dominance—The<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span>
+  beast submissive bows before that glance,<br>
+  And the proud heel upon his neck adores.<br>
+  <br>
+  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>
+  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, no matter<br>
+  How terrible the hunger round his platter,<br>
+  And colleagues’ inner cupboards yawning bare!—<br>
+  But if to heights of art we would aspire,<br>
+  We may not reckon merit by its hire.<br>
+  <br>
+  What see you, whether in light or sombre plays?<br>
+  <span class="gesperrt">House-animals</span>, whose morals all must praise,<br>
+  Who vent pale spites in vegetarian ways,<br>
+  And revel in a singsong to-and-fro<br>
+  Just like those others—in the seats below.<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 <span class="gesperrt">real</span> beast, the <span class="gesperrt">beautiful</span>, <span class="gesperrt">wild</span> beast,<br>
+  Your eyes on <span class="gesperrt">that</span>, <i>I</i>, ladies, only, feast!<br>
+  <br>
+  You see the Tiger, that habitually<br>
+  Devours whatever falls before his bound;<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>  The Bear, who, gluttonous from the first sally,<br>
+  Sinks at his late night-meal dead to the 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 and trammel—<br>
+  See, right behind the curtain, here—’s a Camel!<br>
+  And all my creatures fawn about my feet<br>
+  When my revolver cracks—
+</p>
+
+<p class='sdir'>[<i>He shoots into the audience.</i>]</p>
+
+<p class='no-indent'>
+  <span style="margin-left: 16.0em;">Behold!</span><br>
+  Brutes tremble all around me. I am cold:<br>
+  The <span class="gesperrt">man</span> stays cold,—you, with respect, to greet.<br>
+  <br>
+  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='sdir mt1'>[<i>He lifts the entrance-flap and calls into the
+tent.</i>]</p>
+
+<p class='mt1 no-indent'>
+  Hi, Charlie!—bring our <span class="gesperrt">Serpent</span> just this way!
+</p>
+
+<p class='sdir mt1'>[<i>A stage-hand with a big paunch carries out
+the actress of</i> <span class="gesperrt"><span class="smcap">Lulu</span></span> <i>in her Pierrot costume,
+and sets her down before the animal-tamer</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span></p>
+
+<p class='no-indent mt1'>
+  She was created to incite to sin,<br>
+  To lure, seduce, corrupt, drop poison in,—<br>
+  To murder, without being once suspected.</p>
+<p class='sdir'>[<i>Tickling</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span> <i>chin</i>.]</p>
+<p class='no-indent'>
+  My pretty beast, only be <span class="gesperrt">unaffected</span>,<br>
+  Not vain, not artificial, not perverse,<br>
+  Even if the critics therefore turn adverse.<br>
+  Thou hast no right to spoil the shape most fitting,<br>
+  Most <span class="gesperrt">true</span>, of <span class="gesperrt">woman</span>, with meows and spitting!<br>
+  Nor with buffoonery and wry device<br>
+  To foul the <span class="gesperrt">childish simpleness</span> of <span class="gesperrt">Vice</span><br>
+  Thou shouldst—to-day I speak emphatically—<br>
+  Speak <span class="gesperrt">naturally</span> and not unnaturally,<br>
+  For the first principle, of earliest force<br>
+  In every art, has been Be matter-of-course!</p>
+
+<p class='sdir mt1'>[<i>To the public.</i>]</p>
+<p class='no-indent'>
+  There’s nothing special now to see in her,<br>
+  But wait and watch what later will occur!<br>
+  She coils about the Tiger stricter—stricter—<br>
+  He roars and groans!—Who’ll be the final victor?—<br>
+  Hop, Charlie, march! Carry her to her cage,
+</p>
+
+<p class='sdir mt1'>[<i>The stage-hand picks up</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>slantwise in
+his arms; the animal-tamer pats her on the
+hips</i>.]</p>
+
+<p class='no-indent mt1'>
+  Sweet innocence—my dearest appanage!
+</p>
+
+<p class='sdir mt1'>[<i>The stage-hand carries</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>back into the
+tent</i>.]</p>
+
+<p class='no-indent mt1'>
+  And now the best thing yet remains to say:<br>
+  My poll between the teeth of a beast of prey!<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span>
+  Walk in! The show’s not new, yet every heart<br>
+  Takes pleasure in it still! I’ll wrench apart<br>
+  This wild beast’s jaws—I dare—and he’ll not dare<br>
+  To close and bite! Let him be ne’er so fair,<br>
+  So wild and brightly flecked, he feels respect<br>
+  For my poor poll! I offer it him direct:<br>
+  One <span class="gesperrt">joke</span>, and my two temples crack!—but, lo,<br>
+  The lightning of my eyes I will forego,<br>
+  Staking my <span class="gesperrt">life</span> against a <span class="gesperrt">joke</span>! 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!
+</p>
+
+<p class='sdir mt1'>[<i>The animal-tamer steps back into the tent,
+accompanied by cymbals and kettledrums.</i>]</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="ES_ACT_I">
+    ACT I
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene</span>—<i>A roomy studio. Entrance door at the rear,
+left. Another door at lower left to the bedroom.
+At centre, a platform for the model, with a
+Spanish screen behind it, shielding it from the
+rear door, 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 background, right, a step-ladder.</i></p>
+
+<p class='scene2'><span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>sits on the foot of the ottoman, inspecting
+critically the picture on the further
+easel</i>. <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>stands behind the ottoman, his
+palette and brushes in his hands</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Do you know, I’m getting acquainted
+with a brand-new side of the lady.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Pointing to the picture and observing
+him.</i>] Do you find that in it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I have done everything I could think of
+to induce at least some repose in her mood by my
+conversation during the sittings.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Then I understand the difference.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>[<span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—We can do no more than take our art
+as scientifically as possible.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Tell me&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Stepping back.</i>] The color had sunk
+in pretty well, too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Looking at him.</i>] Have you ever in
+your life loved a woman?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Goes to the easel, puts a color on it,
+and steps back on the other side.</i>] The dress hasn’t
+been given relief enough yet. We don’t rightly perceive
+yet that a living body is under it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I make no doubt that the workmanship is
+good.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—If you’ll step this way....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Rising.</i>] You must have told her regular
+ghost-stories.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—As far back as you can.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Stepping back, knocks down the canvas
+that was leaning against the lower easel.</i>] Excuse
+me&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Picking it up.</i>] That’s all right.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Surprised.</i>] What is that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Do you know her?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—No. [<span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—A costume-picture.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—But, really, you’ve succeeded with <span class="gesperrt">her</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—You know her?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—No. And in that costume&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—It isn’t nearly finished yet. [<span class="smcap">Schön</span>
+<i>nods</i>.] What would you have? While she is posing
+for me I have the pleasure of entertaining her husband.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—What?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—We talk about art, of course,—to complete
+my good fortune!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—But how did you come to make such a
+charming acquaintance?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Who has followed him with his eyes.</i>]
+And the fat-belly stands guard?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Turning round.</i>] The whole body in
+harmony with that impossible costume as if it had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span>
+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="smcap">Schön</span>—One can see that in the picture.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Shaking his head.</i>] People like us,
+you know&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Here the model is mistress of the conversation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—She has never yet opened her mouth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Is it possible?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Allow me to show you the costume.
+[<i>Goes out left.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Before the Pierrot.</i>] A devilish beauty.
+[<i>Before the other picture.</i>] There’s more depth here.
+[<i>Coming down-stage.</i>] He is still rather young for
+his age. [<span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>comes back with a white satin
+costume</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What sort of material is that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Feeling it.</i>] Satin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—And all in one piece.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—How does one get into it then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—That I can’t tell you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Taking the costume by the legs.</i>] What
+enormous trouser-legs!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—The left one she pulls up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Looking at the picture.</i>] Above the
+knee!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—She does that entrancingly!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—And transparent stockings?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Those have got to be painted, specially.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Oh, you can do that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—And with it all a coquetry!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—What brought you to that horrible suspicion?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—There are things never dreamt of in
+our school-philosophy. [<i>He takes the costume back
+into his bedroom.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Alone.</i>] When one is asleep....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Comes back; looks at his watch.</i>] If
+you’d like to make her acquaintance, moreover,&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—No.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—They must be here in a moment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—How much longer will the lady have to
+sit?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I shall probably have to bear the pains
+of Tantalus three months longer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I mean the other one.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schön</span>—With pleasure. Let us see you at my
+house again soon. [<i>He collides in the doorway with</i>
+<span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] For Heaven’s sake!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—May I introduce....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span>.] What are you doing
+here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Kissing</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span> <i>hand</i>.] Mrs. Goll....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re not going already?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—But what wind blows you here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I’ve been looking at the picture of my
+intended&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[125]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Coming forward.</i>] Your—intended—is
+here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—So you’re having work done here, too?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Before the upper picture.</i>] Look at it!
+Enchanting! Entrancing!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>Looking round him.</i>] Have you got
+her hidden somewhere round here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—So that is the sweet young prodigy who’s
+made a new person out of you....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—She sits in the afternoon mostly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—And you don’t tell anyone about it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Turning round.</i>] Is she really so solemn?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Probably the after-effects of the seminary
+still, dear lady.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>Before the picture.</i>] One can see
+that you have been transformed profoundly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But now you mustn’t let her wait any
+longer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—In a fortnight I think our engagement
+will come out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] Let’s lose no time.
+Hop!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span>.] Just think, we came at a
+trot over the new bridge. I was driving, myself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>As</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>prepares to leave</i>.] No,
+no. We two have more to talk about. Get along,
+Nellie. Hop!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Now it’s going to be about me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Our Apelles is already wiping his
+brushes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[126]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I had imagined this would be much more
+amusing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—But you have always the satisfaction of
+preparing for us the greatest and rarest pleasure.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Going left.</i>] Oh, just wait!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—I christened her Nellie, you know, in
+our marriage-contract.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Did you?—Yes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—What do you think of it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Why not call her rather Mignon?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—That would have been good, too.
+I didn’t think of that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Do you consider the name so important?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Hm.... You know, I have no children.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—But you’ve only been married a couple
+of months.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Thanks, I don’t want any.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Having taken out his cigarette-case.</i>]
+Have a cigarette?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>Helps himself.</i>] I’ve plenty to do
+with this one. [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>.] Say, what’s your
+little danseuse doing now?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Turning round on</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>.] You and
+a danseuse?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="pagenum" id="Page_127">[127]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span>.] Hm.... I think
+we’re getting a change of weather.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—The toilet isn’t going so quickly, is it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Inside.</i>] Just a second!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span>.] I can’t get onto these
+blockheads. [<i>Referring to</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I can’t help envying them. These blockheads
+know of nothing holier than an altar-cloth, and
+feel richer than you and me with 30,000-mark incomes.
+Besides, you’re no person to judge a man
+who has lived since childhood from palette to mouth.
+Take it upon yourself to finance him: it’s an arithmetic
+example! I haven’t the moral courage, and
+one can easily burn one’s fingers, too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>As</i> <span class="smcap">Pierrot</span>, <i>steps out of the bedroom</i>.]
+Here I am!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Turns; after a pause.</i>] Superb!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Nearer.</i>] Well?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You shame the boldest fancy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—How do you like me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—A picture before which art must despair.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Ah, you think so, too?</p>
+
+<p>Schön—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] Have you any notion what
+you’re doing?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’m perfectly aware of myself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Then you might be a little more discreet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But I’m only doing what’s my duty.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[128]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You are powdered?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What do you take me for!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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 with the flesh tints as possible. I can’t
+get up any enthusiasm for this modern daubing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Oh, it may be quite the thing for a
+brute being led to slaughter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—For Heaven’s sake don’t get excited!
+[<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>falls on</i> <span class="smcap">Goll’s</span> <i>neck and kisses him</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—They can see your undershirt. You
+must pull it lower.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I would soonest have left it off. It only
+bothers me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—He should be able to paint it out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Taking the shepherd’s crook that leans
+against the Spanish screen, and mounting the platform,
+to</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span>.] What would you say now, if you
+had to stand at attention for two hours?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I’d sell my soul to the devil for the chance
+to exchange with you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>Sitting, left.</i>] Come over here.
+Here is my post of observation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Plucking her left trouser-leg up to the
+knee, to</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>.] So?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Yes....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Plucking it a thought higher.</i>] So?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">[129]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Yes, yes....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span>, <i>who has seated himself
+on the chair next him, with a gesture</i>.] I find that
+she shows up even better from here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Without stirring.</i>] I beg pardon! I
+show up equally well from every side.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] The right knee further
+forward, please.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>With a gesture.</i>] The body does show
+finer lines perhaps.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—The lighting is at least half-way bearable
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Oh, you must throw on lots of it!
+Hold your brush a bit longer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Certainly, Dr. Goll.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Treat her as a piece of still-life.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Certainly, Doctor. [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.]
+You used to hold your head a wee mite higher, Mrs.
+Goll.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Raising her head.</i>] Paint my lips a little
+open.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Paint snow on ice. If you get warm
+doing that, then instantly your art gets inartistic!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Certainly, Doctor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Art, you know, must so reproduce nature
+that one can get at least some <span class="gesperrt">spiritual</span>
+enjoyment from it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Opening her mouth a little, to</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>.]
+So—look. I’ll hold it half opened, so.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Every time the sun comes out, the wall
+opposite throws warm reflections in here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">[130]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] You must keep your
+pose and behave as if our Velasquez here were nonexistent.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Well, a painter <span class="gesperrt">isn’t</span> a man, anyway.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I don’t think you ought to judge the
+whole craft from nothing more than one notable exception.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Stepping back from the easel.</i>] However,
+I rather wish I had had to hire a different studio
+last fall.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Goll</span>.] What I wanted to ask you—have
+you seen the little Murphy girl yet as a
+Peruvian pearl-fisher?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schön</span>—So you find her quite fabulous, too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Who ever wants to judge of that beforehand?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I think someone knocked.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Pardon me a moment. [<i>Goes and
+opens the door.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] You can safely smile at
+him less bashfully!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—To him it means nothing at all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—And if it did!—What are we two sitting
+here for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva Schön</span>—[<i>Entering, still behind the Spanish
+screen.</i>] May one come in?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—My son!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Oh! It’s Mr. Alva!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">[131]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Don’t mind. Just come along in.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Stepping forward, shakes hands with</i>
+<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Goll</span>.] Glad to see you. [<i>Turning
+toward</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] Do I see aright? Oh, if only I
+could engage you for my title part!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I don’t think I could dance nearly well
+enough for your show!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Ah, but you have a dancing-master whose
+like cannot be found on any stage in Europe.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—But what brings you here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Maybe you’re having somebody or
+other painted here, too, in secret!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span>.] I wanted to take you to
+the dress rehearsal.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>As</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>rises</i>.] Oho, do you have
+’em dance to-day in full costume already?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Of course. Come along, too. In five minutes
+I must be on the stage. [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] Poor me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—I’ve forgotten—what’s the name of
+your ballet?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Dalailama.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—I thought <span class="gesperrt">he</span> was in a madhouse.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You’re thinking of Nietzsche, Doctor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—You’re right; I got ’em mixed up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I have helped Buddhism to its legs.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—By his legs is the stage-poet known.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Corticelli dances the youthful Buddha as
+tho she had seen the light of the world by the Ganges.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—So long as her mother lived, she danced
+with her legs.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[132]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Then when she got free she danced with
+her intelligence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Now she dances with her heart.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—If you’d like to see her&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Thank you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Come along with us!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Impossible.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Anyway, we have no time to lose.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Come with us, Doctor. In the third act
+you see Dalailama in his cloister, with his monks&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—The only thing I care about is the
+young Buddha.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Well, what’s hindering you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—I can’t. I can’t do it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—We’re going to Peter’s, after it. There
+you can express your admiration.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Don’t press me any further, please.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You’ll see the tame monkey, the two Brahmans,
+the little girls....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—For heaven’s sake, keep away from
+me with your little girls!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Reserve us a proscenium box for Monday,
+Mr. Alva.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—How could you doubt that I would, dear
+lady!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—When I come back this Hellebreugel
+will have messed up the whole picture on me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Well, it could be painted over.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—If I don’t explain to this Caravacci
+every stroke of his brush&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Your fears are unfounded, I think....</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[133]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Next time, gentlemen!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—The Brahmans are getting impatient. The
+daughters of Nirvana are shivering in their tights.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Damned splotchiness!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—We’ll get jumped on if we don’t bring
+you with us.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—In five minutes I’ll be back. [<i>Stands
+down right, behind</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>and compares the picture
+with</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>, <i>regretfully</i>.] Duty calls me,
+gracious lady!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>.] 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="smcap">Alva</span>—Come on.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—Now, just hop it! Ten horses will
+not drag me to Peter’s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Following</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Goll</span>.] We’ll
+take my carriage. It’s waiting downstairs. [<i>Exeunt.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Leans over to the right, and spits.</i>]
+Pack!—If only life could end!—The bread-basket!—paunch
+and mug!—my artist’s pride has got its
+back up. [<i>After a look at</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] This company!—[<i>Gets
+up, goes up left, observes</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>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="smcap">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="pagenum" id="Page_134">[134]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I am quite ridiculous, you think?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He’s coming right back.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I can do no more than paint.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—There he is!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Rising.</i>] Well?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Don’t you hear?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Someone is coming....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I knew it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—It’s the janitor. He’s sweeping the
+stairs.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Thank Heaven!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Do you perhaps accompany the doctor
+to his patients?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Everything <span class="gesperrt">but</span> that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Because, you are not accustomed to
+being alone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—We have a housekeeper at home.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—She keeps you company?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—She has a lot of taste.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—She dresses me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Do you go much to balls?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Never.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Then what do you need the dresses
+for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—For dancing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—You really dance?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Czardas ... Samaqueca ... Skirt-dance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Doesn’t—that—disgust you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You find me ugly?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">[135]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—You don’t understand me. But who
+gives you lessons then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Who?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—He?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He plays the violin&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Every day one learns something new.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I learned in Paris. I took lessons from
+Eugénie Fougère. She let me copy her costumes,
+too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What are <span class="gesperrt">they</span> like?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I can no longer&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Then paint!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Scraping the canvas.</i>] Aren’t you
+cold at all?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—God forbid! No. What made you ask?
+Are you so cold?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Not to-day. No.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Praise God, one can breathe!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—How so?... [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>takes a deep
+breath</i>.] Don’t do that, please! [<i>Springs up,
+throws away his palette and brushes, walks up and
+down.</i>] The bootblack has only her feet to attend
+to, at least! And his color doesn’t eat into his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">[136]</span>
+money, either. If I go without supper to-morrow,
+no little society lady will be asking me if I know
+anything about oyster-patties!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Is he going out of his head?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Takes up his work again.</i>] What
+ever drove the fellow to this test?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’d like it better, too, if he had stayed
+here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—We are truly the martyrs of our calling!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I didn’t wish to cause you pain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Hesitating, to</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] If you—the
+left trouser-leg—a little higher&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Steps to the platform.</i>] Permit
+me....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What do you want?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I’ll show you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You mustn’t.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—You are nervous.... [<i>Tries to seize
+her hand.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Throws the crook in his face.</i>] Let me
+alone! [<i>Hurries to the entrance door.</i>] You’re a
+long way yet from getting me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—You can’t understand a joke.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="pagenum" id="Page_137">[137]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Trying to get around the ottoman.</i>]
+As soon as I’ve punished you—you wayward, capricious&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But you must have me, first! Go away.
+You can’t catch me. In long clothes I’d have fallen
+into your clutches long ago—but in the Pierrot!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Throwing himself across the ottoman.</i>]
+I’ve got you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Unrolling himself from the rug.</i>]
+This old skin!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I reach up into heaven, and stick the stars
+in my hair.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Clambering after her.</i>] I’ll shake it
+till you fall off!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>
+<i>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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Coming forward.</i>] Let us make
+peace. [<i>Tries to embrace her.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Screams.</i>] Merciful Heaven!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[138]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Up-stage, right.</i>] You knocked the hole
+in it yourself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Springs over the ottoman, over the fallen
+step-ladder, and over the platform, down-stage.</i>] A
+grave! 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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Stumbling over the Spanish screen.</i>]
+I am merciless now!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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.</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>
+<i>locks the door; then seats himself next to her, grasps
+her hand, and covers it with kisses—then pauses,
+struggling with himself.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>opens her eyes wide</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He may come back.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—How d’you feel?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—As if I had fallen into the water....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I love you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—One time, I loved a student.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Nellie&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—With four-and-twenty scars&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I love you, Nellie.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—My name isn’t Nellie. [<span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>kisses
+her</i>.] It’s Lulu.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I would call you Eve.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Do you know what time it is?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Looking at his watch.</i>] Half past
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">[139]</span>
+ten. [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>takes the watch and opens the case</i>.]
+You don’t love me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Yes, I do.... It’s five minutes after half
+past ten.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Give me a kiss, Eve!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Call me Walter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It would be uncomfortable to&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—You’re just making believe!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re making believe yourself, it seems
+to me. <i>I</i> make believe? What makes you think
+that? I’ve <span class="gesperrt">never needed to do that</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Rises, disconcerted, passing his hand
+over his forehead.</i>] God in Heaven! The world is
+strange to me&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Screams.</i>] Only don’t kill me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Instantly whirling round.</i>] <span class="gesperrt">Thou
+hast never yet loved!</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Half raising herself.</i>] <span class="gesperrt">You have
+never yet loved</span>...!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>Outside.</i>] Open the door!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Already sprung to her feet.</i>] Hide me!
+O God, hide me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>Pounding on the door.</i>] Open the
+door!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Holding back</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>as he goes toward
+the door</i>.] He will strike me dead!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—[<i>Hammering.</i>] Open the door!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Sunk down before</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>, <i>gripping his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">[140]</span>
+knees.</i>] He’ll beat me to death! He’ll beat me to
+death!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Stand up.... [<i>The door falls crashing
+into the studio.</i> <span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span> <i>with bloodshot eyes
+rushes upon</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>, <i>brandishing his
+stick</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Goll</span>—You dogs! You.... [<i>Pants,
+struggles for breath a few seconds, and falls headlong
+to the ground.</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz’s</span> <i>knees tremble</i>. <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>has fled to the door. Pause.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Mister—Doctor—Doc—Doctor
+Goll&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>In the door.</i>] Please, tho, first put the
+studio in order.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Dr. Goll! [<i>Leans over.</i>] Doc—[<i>Steps
+back.</i>] He’s cut his forehead. Help me to
+lay him on the ottoman.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Shudders backward in terror.</i>] No.
+No....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Trying to turn him over.</i>] Dr. Goll.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He doesn’t hear.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—But you, help me, please.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—The two of us together couldn’t lift him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Straightening up.</i>] We must send
+for a doctor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He is fearfully heavy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Getting his hat.</i>] Please, tho, 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="smcap">Lulu</span>—He’ll spring up all at once. [<i>Intensely.</i>]
+Bussi!—He just won’t notice anything. [<i>Comes
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">[141]</span>
+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 down 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! [<span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>returns</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Still not come to himself?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Down right.</i>] What shall I do?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Bending over</i> <span class="smcap">Goll</span>.] Doctor Goll.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I almost think it’s serious.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Talk decently!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He wouldn’t say that to me. He makes
+me dance for him when he doesn’t feel well.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—The doctor will be here in a moment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Doctoring won’t help <span class="gesperrt">him</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—But people do what they can, in such
+cases!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He doesn’t believe in it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Don’t you want to—at any rate—put
+something on?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Yes,—right off.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What are you waiting for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Please....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What is it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Shut <span class="gesperrt">his</span> eyes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—You make me shiver.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Not nearly so much as you make <span class="gesperrt">me</span>!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re a born criminal.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[142]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Aren’t you the least bit touched by
+this moment?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It hits me, too, some.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Please, just you keep still now!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It hits you some, too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—You really didn’t need to add that, at
+such a moment!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—<span class="gesperrt">Please</span>...!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Do what you think necessary. I don’t
+know how.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Left of</i> <span class="smcap">Goll</span>.] He’s looking at me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Right of</i> <span class="smcap">Goll</span>.] And at me, too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re a coward!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Shuts</i> <span class="smcap">Goll’s</span> <i>eyes with his handkerchief</i>.]
+It’s the first time in my life I’ve ever been
+condemned to that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Didn’t you do it to your mother?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[Nervously.] No.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You were away, perhaps.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—No!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Or else you were afraid?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Violently.</i>] No!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Shivering, backward.</i>] I didn’t mean to
+insult you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—She’s still alive.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Then you still have somebody.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—She’s as poor as a beggar.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I know what that is.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Don’t laugh at me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Now I am rich&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[143]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—It gives me cold shudders—— [<i>Goes
+right.</i>] She can’t help it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>To herself.</i>] What’ll I do?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>To himself.</i>] Absolutely uncivilized!
+[<i>They look at each other mistrustfully.</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>
+<i>goes over to her and grips her hand</i>.] Look me in
+the eyes!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Apprehensively.</i>] What do you want?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—I see myself in them as Pierrot.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Shoves her from him.</i>] Confounded
+dancer-ing!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I must change my clothes&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Holds her back.</i>] One question&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I can’t answer it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Can you speak the truth?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I don’t know.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Do you believe in a Creator?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I don’t know.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Can you swear by anything?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I don’t know. Leave me alone. You’re
+mad.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What do you believe in, then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I don’t know.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Have you no soul, then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I don’t know.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Have you ever once loved——?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I don’t know.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Gets up, goes right, to himself.</i>]
+She doesn’t know!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[144]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Without moving.</i>] I don’t know.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Glancing at</i> <span class="smcap">Goll</span>.] He knows.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Nearer him.</i>] What do you want to
+know?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Angrily.</i>] Go, get dressed! [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>goes into the bedroom</i>. <i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Goll</span>.] 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 <span class="gesperrt">able</span> to be happy—to give me the strength and
+the freedom of soul to be just a weeny mite happy!
+For <span class="gesperrt">her</span> sake, <span class="gesperrt">only for her sake</span>. [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>comes out of the bedroom, completely dressed, her
+hat on, and her right hand under her left arm</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Raising her left arm, to</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>.]
+Would you hook me up here? My hand trembles.</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[145]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="ES_ACT_II">
+    ACT II
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene</span>—<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 fireplace</i>, <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span> <i>Pierrot picture
+in a magnificent frame. Right, above the steps,
+a tall mirror; facing it, right centre, a chaise
+longue. Left, an ebony writing-table. Centre,
+a few chairs around a little Chinese table.</i></p>
+
+<p class='scene2'><span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>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 cigarette-case 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 chaise longue
+opposite the mirror. After reading a moment,
+she lets the book sink, and nods seriously to herself
+in the glass; then resumes reading.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>enters, left, palette and brushes in
+hand, and bends over</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>, <i>kisses her on the
+forehead, and goes up the steps, right</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Turning in the doorway.</i>] Eve!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Smiling.</i>] At your orders?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[146]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Seems to me you look extra charming
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>With a glance at the mirror.</i>] Depends
+on what you expect.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Your hair breathes out a morning
+freshness....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’ve just come out of the water.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Approaching her.</i>] I’ve an awful lot
+to do to-day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You tell yourself you have.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Reads.</i>] “Suddenly she heard an anchor
+of refuge come nodding up the stairs.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Who under the sun writes so absorbingly?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Reading.</i>] “It was the postman with a
+money-order.” [<span class="smcap">Henriette</span>, <i>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="smcap">Henriette</span>—The mail. I’m going to take your
+hat to the milliner, madam. Anything else?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—No. [<span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>signs to her to go out,
+which she does, slyly smiling</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What were all the things you dreamt
+about last night?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’ve asked me that twice already this
+morning.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Rises, takes up the letters.</i>] News
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[147]</span>
+makes me tremble. Every day I fear the world may
+go to pieces. [<i>Giving</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>a letter</i>.] For you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Sniffs at the paper.</i>] Madame Corticelli.
+[<i>Hides it in her bosom.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Skimming a letter.</i>] My Sama-queca-dancer
+sold—for fifty thousand marks!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Who’s that from?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Sedelmeier in Paris. That’s the third
+picture since our marriage. I hardly know how to
+escape my good fortune!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Pointing to the letters.</i>] There are
+more there.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Opening an engagement announcement.</i>]
+See. [<i>Gives it to</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Reads.</i>] “Sir Henry von Zarnikow has
+the honor to announce the engagement of his daughter,
+Charlotte Marie Adelaide, to Doctor Ludwig
+Schön.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—What is that that you’re reading?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—Some entrancing girl or other, of course.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Will you be willing to pose for it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—God knows there are other pretty girls
+enough in existence!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[148]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—But with no other model—tho she be
+as racy as hell—can I so fully show the depth and
+range of my powers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Then I must, I suppose. Mightn’t it go
+as well, perhaps, lying down?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Really, I’d like best to leave the composition
+to your taste. [<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="smcap">Lulu</span>—But we did that a long time ago.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—For his bride’s sake.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You can write to him again if you want.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—And now to work! [<i>Takes up his
+brushes and palette, kisses</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>, <i>goes up the steps,
+right, and turns around in the doorway</i>.] Eve!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Lets her book sink, smiling.</i>] Your
+pleasure?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re a terror.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—You make me one. [<i>He sinks on his
+knees by the couch and caresses her hand.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Stroking his hair.</i>] You’re using me up
+fast.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—You are mine. And 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 further. I’ve
+lost hold of myself entirely.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[149]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Don’t be so passionate! [<i>Bell rings in
+the corridor.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Pulling himself together.</i>] Confound
+it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—No one at home!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Perhaps it’s the art-dealer&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—And if it’s the Chinese Emperor!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—One moment. [<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Visionary.</i>] Thou? Thou? [<i>Closes
+her eyes.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>touches herself up before the
+glass, strokes back her hair, and goes out, returning
+leading in</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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
+<span class="gesperrt">me</span> in front of him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Shoving a chair round for him.</i>] How
+can you beg from him, too?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I’ve dragged my seventy-seven
+spring-times here just for that. You told me he
+kept at his painting in the mornings.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He hadn’t got quite awake yet. How
+much do you need?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="pagenum" id="Page_150">[150]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Goes to the writing-table and rummages
+in the drawers.</i>] Whew, I’m tired!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Looking round him.</i>] This helped
+bring me, too. I’ve been wanting a long time to see
+how things were looking with you now.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Well?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—It gives one cold shivers. [<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="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Giving him two bills.</i>] I like best to
+walk on them bare-footed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Scanning</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span> <i>portrait</i>.] Is
+that you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Winking.</i>] Pretty fine?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—If that’s the sort of thing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Have something sweet?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—What?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Getting up.</i>] Elixir de Spaa.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—That doesn’t help me—— Does he
+drink?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schigolch</span>—He comes to blows?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He goes to sleep. [<i>She fills the two
+glasses.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—When he’s drunk, you can see right
+into his insides.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[151]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’d rather not. [<i>Sits opposite</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>.]
+Talk to me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—The streets keep on getting longer,
+and my legs shorter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—And your harmonica?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Wheezes, 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="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Emptying her glass.</i>] I’d been thinking
+that at last you were&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—At last I was 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 [<i>coughing</i>]—my—my
+asthma will invent some opportunity to carry
+me off.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Filling the glasses.</i>] Do you think they
+could have forgotten you up there?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Jerking back, smiling.</i>] Life is beyond
+me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—What do you know about it? You’re
+still so young!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—That you call me Lulu.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Lulu, isn’t it? Have I ever called
+you anything else?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I haven’t been called Lulu since man can
+remember.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">[152]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Some other kind of name?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Lulu sounds to me quite antediluvian.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Children! Children!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—My name now is&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—As if the principle wasn’t always the
+same!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You mean&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—What is it now?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—<span class="gesperrt">Eve</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Leapt, hopped, skipped, jumped....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—That’s what I answer to.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Gazing round.</i>] This is the way I
+dreamt it for you. It’s your natural bent. [<i>Seeing</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>sprinkling herself with perfume</i>.] What’s
+that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Heliotrope.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Does that smell better than you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Sprinkling him.</i>] That needn’t bother
+you any more.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Who would have dreamt of this royal
+luxury before!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—When I think back—Ugh!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Stroking her knee.</i>] How’s it
+going with you, then? You still keep at the French?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I lie and sleep.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—That’s genteel. That always looks
+like something. And afterwards?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I stretch—till it cracks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—And when it has cracked?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What do you mind about that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—What do I mind about that? What
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">[153]</span>
+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 <span class="gesperrt">is</span> already transfigured—but I still
+have some understanding of this world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I haven’t.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—You’re too well off.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Shuddering.</i>] Idiot....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Better than with the old dancing-bear?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Sadly.</i>] I don’t dance any more.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—He got his call all right.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Now I am—— [<i>Stops.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Speak out from your heart, 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="smcap">Lulu</span>—A beast....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—The deuce you—— And what kind
+of a beast? A fine beast! An elegant beast! A
+glorified beast!—Well, let them bury me quickly!
+We’re through with prejudices—even with the one
+against the corpse-washer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You needn’t be afraid that you will be
+washed once more.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Doesn’t matter, either. One gets
+dirty again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Sprinkling him.</i>] It would call you back
+to life again!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—We are mud.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[154]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I beg your pardon! I rub grease into
+myself every day and then powder on top of it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Probably worth while, too, on the
+dressed-up mucker’s account.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It makes the skin like satin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—As if it weren’t just dirt all the
+same!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Thank you. I wish to be worth nibbling
+at!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—We are. Give a big dinner down below
+there pretty soon. Keep open house.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Your guests will hardly overeat themselves
+at it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Patience, girl! Your worshippers
+won’t put you in alcohol, either. It’s “schöne
+Melusine” as long as it keeps reacting. Afterwards?
+They don’t take it at the zoölogical garden. [<i>Rising.</i>]
+The gentle beasties might get stomach-cramps.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Getting up.</i>] Have you enough?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Enough and some to spare for planting
+a juniper on my grave.—I’ll find my own way
+out. [<i>Exit.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>follows him, and presently returns
+with</i> <span class="smcap">Dr. Schön</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—What’s your father doing here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What’s the matter?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—If I were your husband that man would
+never cross my threshold.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You can be intimate with me. He’s not
+here. [<i>Referring to</i> <span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Thank you, I’d rather not.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[155]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I don’t understand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I know you don’t. [<i>Offering her a seat.</i>]
+That is just the point I’d like to speak to you about.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Sitting down uncertainly.</i>] Then why
+didn’t you yesterday?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Please, nothing now about yesterday. I
+did tell you two years ago.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Nervously.</i>] Oh, yes,—hm!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Please be kind enough to cease your visits
+to my house.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—May I offer you an elixir&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Thanks. No elixir. Have you understood
+me? [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>shakes her head</i>.] Good. You
+have the choice. You force me to the most extreme
+measures:—either act in accordance with your station&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Or?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Or—you compel me—I may have to turn
+to that person who is responsible for your behavior.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—How can you imagine that——?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I shall request your husband, himself to
+keep watch over your doings. [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>rises, goes up
+the steps, right</i>.] Where are you going?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Calls thru the curtains.</i>] Walter!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Springing up.</i>] Are you mad?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Turning round.</i>] Aha!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="pagenum" id="Page_156">[156]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Comes down the steps and puts her arm
+around</i> <span class="smcap">Schön’s</span> <i>neck</i>.] Why are you still afraid,
+now that you’re at the zenith of your hopes?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—No comedy! The zenith of my hopes?
+I am at last engaged: I have still to hope that I may
+bring my bride into a clean house.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Sitting.</i>] She has developed delightfully
+in the two years!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—She no longer looks thru one so earnestly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—She is now, for the first time, a woman.
+We can meet each other wherever seems suitable to
+you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—We shall meet each other nowhere but in
+the presence of your husband!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You don’t believe yourself what you say.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Then <span class="gesperrt">he</span> must believe it, at least. 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="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Rising.</i>] Mine, too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—And that way I’ll cut down the sword
+over my head.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You have, indeed, put chains upon me.
+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="smcap">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="smcap">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.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[157]</span>
+Trouble is past and gone. One can now give oneself
+and let oneself go as if one were at home. That isn’t
+the sense of a <span class="gesperrt">child</span>! 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="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Half to himself.</i>] When <span class="gesperrt">his</span> eyes
+open!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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 all right, to
+him. That comes from his never in his life having
+felt the need of intercourse with women.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—If that’s true!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He admits it perfectly openly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—A man who has painted them, rags and
+tags and velvet gowns, since he was fourteen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Women make him anxious. He trembles
+for his health and comfort. But he isn’t afraid of
+<span class="gesperrt">me</span>!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—How many girls would deem themselves
+God knows how blessed in your situation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[158]</span>
+the can-can. He yawns; and drivels something
+about obscenity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Nonsense. He is an artist, though.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—At least he believes he is.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—That’s the chief thing!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—When <i>I</i> pose for him.... He believes,
+too, that he’s a famous man.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—We <span class="gesperrt">have</span> made him one.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He believes everything. He’s as diffident
+as a thief, and lets himself be lied to, till one loses
+all respect! When we first got to know each other
+I made him believe I had never loved before—[<span class="smcap">Schön</span>
+<i>falls into an easy-chair</i>.] Otherwise he
+would really have taken me for some sort of reprobate!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You make God knows what exorbitant demands
+on <span class="gesperrt">legitimate</span> relations!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I make no exorbitant demands. Often I
+even dream still of Goll.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—He was, at any rate, not banal!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You yearn for the whip once more?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Maybe. I don’t dance any more.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Teach him to do it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—A waste of trouble.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[159]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Out of a hundred women, ninety educate
+their husbands to suit themselves.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He loves me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—That’s fatal, of course.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He loves me&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—That is an unbridgeable abyss.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He doesn’t know me, but he loves me! If
+he had anything approaching a true 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="smcap">Schön</span>—Let’s finish this. [<i>He gets up.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—As you say.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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 indulge
+in ideal expectations, but—leave me out of the
+game, out of it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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
+had any kindness for me? I’ve danced and posed,
+and was glad to be able to earn my living that way.
+But <span class="gesperrt">love</span> at command, I can’t!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Raising his voice.</i>] Leave <span class="gesperrt">me</span> out!
+Do what you will. I haven’t come to raise a row;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[160]</span>
+I’ve come to shake myself free of it. My engagement
+is costing me sacrifices enough! I had imagined
+that with a healthy young husband—and a
+woman of your years can hope for none 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 letting the
+final success of all my concessions during the last
+two years slip from me? What good is it to me to
+have you married, when you 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! With him you were in safe keeping.
+Then I’d have had my wife long since under my roof!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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’re making a big mistake if you
+think that your imminent marriage warrants you
+in expressing your contempt of me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Contempt?—I shall soon give the child
+the right idea. If anything is contemptible, it’s
+your intrigues!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Laughing.</i>] Am I jealous of the child?
+That never once entered my head.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">[161]</span>
+got her five senses just like you.... [<span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>
+<i>appears, right, brush in hand</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What’s the matter here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span>.] Well? Go on. Talk.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What’s the matter with you two?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Nothing that touches you&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Sharply.</i>] Quiet!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He’s had enough of me. [<span class="smcap">Schwarz</span> <i>leads
+her off, to the right</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Coming back.</i>] Is that any way to
+jest?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Pointing to a chair.</i>] Please.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What is it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Please.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Seating himself.</i>] Well?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Seating himself.</i>] You have married
+half a million....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Is it gone?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Not a penny.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Explain to me the peculiar scene....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You have married half a million&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—No one can make a crime of that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You have created a name for yourself.
+You can work unmolested. You need to deny yourself
+no wish&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What have you two got against me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—For six months you’ve been revelling in
+all the heavens. You have a wife whom the world
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">[162]</span>
+envies you, and she deserves a man whom she can
+respect&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Doesn’t she respect me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—No.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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</i>
+<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>his hand</i>.] Thank you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Pressing it, half embarrassed.</i>] Don’t
+mention it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>With determination.</i>] Speak!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Keep a little more watch on her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I—on her?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—We are not children! We don’t trifle!
+We live!—She demands that she be taken seriously.
+Her value gives her a perfect right to be.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What does she do, then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You have married half a million!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Rises; beside himself.</i>] She——?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Takes him by the shoulder.</i>] No, that’s
+not the way! [<i>Forces him to sit.</i>] We have a very
+grave matter here to discuss.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What does she do?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—First count over on your fingers all you
+have to thank her for, and then&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—What does she do—man!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—And then make yourself responsible for
+your failings,—no one else.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—With whom? With whom?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—If we should shoot each other&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Since when, then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">[163]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Evasive.</i>] —I have not come here to
+make a scandal, but to rescue you <span class="gesperrt">from</span> scandal.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Shaking his head.</i>] You have misunderstood
+her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Embarrassed.</i>] That gets us nowhere.
+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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Since you have known her? Since
+when have you known her then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Since about her twelfth year.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Bewildered.</i>] She never told me that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—She used to sell flowers in front of the
+Alhambra Café. Every evening between twelve and
+two she would press in among the guests, bare-footed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—She told me nothing of that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—She did right there. I’m telling you, so
+you may see that hers is not a case of moral degeneracy.
+The girl is, on the contrary, of extraordinarily
+good disposition.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—She said she had grown up with an
+aunt.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—That was the woman I gave her to. She
+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 appeal to the best
+in her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Sobbing.</i>] O God!&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>With emphasis.</i>] No O God! Of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[164]</span>
+happiness you have enjoyed nothing can be changed.
+The past is past. You overrate yourself against
+your better knowledge if you persuade yourself you
+will lose. You stand to gain. But with “O God”
+nothing is gained. I have never done you a greater
+kindness: I speak out plainly and offer you my help.
+Don’t show yourself unworthy of it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>From now on more and more broken
+up.</i>] When I first knew her, she told me she had
+never loved before.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—When a widow says <span class="gesperrt">that</span>—— 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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—She says he had her wear short dresses.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—But he married her! That was her master-stroke.
+How she brought the man to it is beyond
+me. But you must know by now. You are enjoying
+the fruits of her diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Where did Dr. Goll get to know her?
+How?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Through me! It was after my wife’s
+death, when I was making the first advances to my
+present fiancée. She thrust herself between us.
+She had set her heart on becoming my wife.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>As if seized with a horrible suspicion.</i>]
+And then when her husband died?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You married half a million!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Wailing.</i>] Oh, to have stayed where
+I was! To have died of hunger!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Superior.</i>] Do you think, then, that <i>I</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">[165]</span>
+make no compromises? Who is there that does not
+compromise? You have married half a million.
+You are to-day one of our foremost artists. Such
+things 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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Quite distraught.</i>] Whom are you
+speaking of?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I don’t understand a word of all that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Who?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Who? Your wife.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—<span class="gesperrt">Eve</span>?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I called her Mignon.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I thought her name was Nellie?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Dr. Goll called her so.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I called her Eve&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—What her real name is I don’t know.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Absently.</i>] Perhaps she knows.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—With a father like hers, she is, with all
+her faults, an utter miracle. I don’t understand
+you&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—He died in a madhouse&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—He was here just now!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Who was here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">[166]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Her father.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Here—in my home?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—He squeezed by me as I came in. And
+there are the two glasses still.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—She says he died in the madhouse.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Encouragingly.</i>] Let her feel your authority!
+Only make her render you unconditional
+obedience, and she asks no more. With Dr. Goll she
+was in heaven, and there was no joking him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Shaking his head.</i>] She said she
+had never loved&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—But start with yourself. Pull yourself
+together!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—She has sworn&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You can’t expect a sense of duty in her
+before you know your own task.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—By her mother’s grave!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—She never knew her mother, let alone the
+grave. Her mother hasn’t got a grave.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—I don’t fit in society. [<i>He is in desperation.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—What’s the matter?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—Pain—horrible pain!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Gets up, steps back; after a pause.</i>]
+Guard her for yourself, because she’s yours.—The
+moment is decisive. To-morrow she may be lost to
+you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Pointing to his breast.</i>] Here, here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You have married half——[<i>Reflecting.</i>]
+She is lost to you if you let this moment slip!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">[167]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—If I could weep! Oh, if I could cry
+out!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>With a hand on his shoulder.</i>] You’re
+suffering&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—[<i>Getting up, apparently quiet.</i>] You
+are right, quite right.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Gripping his hand.</i>] Where are you
+going?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schwarz</span>—To speak with her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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, tho...? [<i>A fearful
+groan, left. He hurries to the door and finds it
+locked.</i>] Open! Open the door!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Stepping thru the hangings, right.</i>]
+What’s&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Open it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Comes down the steps.</i>] That is horrible.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Have you an ax in the kitchen?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He’ll open it right off&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I can’t kick it in.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—When he’s had his cry out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Kicking the door.</i>] Open! [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.]
+Bring me an ax.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Send for the doctor&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You are not yourself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It serves you right. [<i>Bell rings in the
+corridor.</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>stare at each other.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">[168]</span>
+Then</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>slips up-stage and stands in the doorway</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I mustn’t let myself be seen here now.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Perhaps it’s the art-dealer. [<i>The bell
+rings again.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—But if we don’t answer it—— [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>steals toward the door; but</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>holds her</i>.] Stop.
+It sometimes happens that one is not just at hand—[<i>He
+goes out on tiptoe.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>turns back to the
+locked door and listens</i>. <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>returns with</i>
+<span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] Please be quiet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Very excited.</i>] A revolution has broken
+out in Paris!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Be quiet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] You’re as pale as death.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Rattling at the door.</i>] Walter! Walter!
+[<i>A death-rattle is heard behind the door.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—God pity you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Haven’t you brought an ax?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—If there’s one there—— [<i>Goes slowly out,
+upper left.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—He’s just keeping us in suspense.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—A revolution has broken out in Paris?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Up in the office the editors are tearing
+their hair. Not one of them knows what to write
+about it. [<i>The bell rings in the corridor.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Kicking against the door.</i>] Walter!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Shall I run against it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I can do that. Who may be coming
+now? [<i>Standing up.</i>] That’s what it is to enjoy
+life and let others take the consequences!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">[169]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Coming back with a kitchen-ax.</i>] Henriette
+has come home.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Shut the door behind you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Give it here. [<i>Takes the ax and pounds
+with it between the jamb and the lock.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You must hold it nearer the end.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—It’s cracking— [<i>The lock gives</i>; <span class="smcap">Alva</span>
+<i>lets the ax fall and staggers back. Pause.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span>, <i>pointing to the door</i>.] After
+you. [<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>flinches, drops back</i>.] Are you getting—dizzy?
+[<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>wipes the sweat from his
+forehead and goes in</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>From the couch.</i>] Ghastly!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Stopping in the doorway, finger on lips,
+cries out sharply.</i>] Oh! Oh! [<i>Hurries to</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.]
+I can’t stay here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Horrible!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Taking his hand.</i>] Come.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Where to?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I can’t be alone. [<i>Goes out with</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>,
+<i>right</i>. <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>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="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Coming back, right.</i>] She’s changing
+her clothes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—She has gone?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—To her room. She’s changing her clothes.
+[<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>rings</i>. <span class="smcap">Henriette</span> <i>comes in</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You know where Dr. Bernstein lives?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Henriette</span>—Of course, Doctor. Right next door.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">[170]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Giving her one note.</i>] Take that over
+to him, please.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Henriette</span>—In case the doctor is not at home?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—He is at home. [<i>Giving her the other
+note.</i>] And take this to police headquarters. Take
+a cab. [<span class="smcap">Henriette</span> <i>goes out</i>.] I am judged!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—My blood has congealed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Toward the left.</i>] The fool!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—He waked up to something, perhaps?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—He has been too much absorbed in himself.
+[<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>appears on the steps, right, in dustcoat
+and hat</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Where are you going now?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Out. I see it on all the walls.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Where are his papers?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—In the desk.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>At the desk.</i>] Where?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schön</span>—Now I can just withdraw from the world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Still kneeling.</i>] Write a pamphlet about
+him. Call him Michelangelo.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—What good’ll that do? [<i>Pointing left.</i>]
+There lies my engagement.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—That’s the curse of your game!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Shout it through the streets!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Pointing to</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] If you had treated
+that girl fairly and justly when my mother died&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—My engagement is bleeding to death there!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">[171]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Getting up.</i>] I shan’t stay here any
+longer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—In an hour they’ll be selling extras. I
+dare not go across the street!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Why, what can you do to help it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—That’s just it! They’ll stone me for it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You must get away—travel.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—To leave the scandal a free field!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>By the couch.</i>] Ten minutes ago he was
+lying here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Alva</span>—Control yourself, please!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>On the couch.</i>] There’s no one here
+but us!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—But look at <span class="gesperrt">us</span>!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] What do you want to tell
+the police?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Nothing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—He didn’t want to remain a debtor to his
+destiny.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He always had thoughts of death immediately.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—He had thoughts that an ordinary
+human can only dream of.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He had paid dearly for it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—He had what we don’t have!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Suddenly violent.</i>] I know your motives!
+I have no cause to consider you! If you try
+every means to prevent having any brothers and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">[172]</span>
+sisters, that’s all the more reason why I should
+get more children.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You’ve a poor knowledge of men.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You get out an extra yourself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Alva</span>—Our editors act as though they’d been
+struck. Everything has stopped dead.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Alva</span>—There they are—— [<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>starts to the
+door</i>. <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>jumps up</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Wait, you’ve got blood&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Where?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Wait, I’ll wipe it. [<i>Sprinkles her handkerchief
+with heliotrope and wipes the blood from</i>
+<span class="smcap">Schön’s</span> <i>hand</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—It’s your husband’s blood.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It leaves no trace.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Monster!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You will marry me, all the same. [<i>The
+bell rings in the corridor.</i>] Only have patience,
+children. [<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>goes out and returns with</i> <span class="smcap">Escherich</span>,
+<i>a reporter</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escherich</span>—[<i>Breathless.</i>] Allow me to—to introduce
+myself&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You’ve run?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">[173]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escherich</span>—[<i>Giving him his card.</i>] From police
+headquarters. A suicide, I understand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Reads.</i>] “Fritz Escherich, correspondent
+of the ‘News and Novelties.’” Come along.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escherich</span>—One moment. [<i>Takes out his notebook
+and pencil, looks around the parlor, writes
+a few words, bows to</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>, <i>writes, turns to
+the broken door, writes</i>.] A kitchen-ax. [<i>Starts
+to lift it.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Holding him back.</i>] Excuse me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escherich</span>—[<i>Writing.</i>] Door broken open with
+a kitchen-ax. [<i>Examines the lock.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>His hand on the door.</i>] Look before
+you, my dear sir.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escherich</span>—Now if you will have the kindness to
+open the door—— [<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>opens it</i>. <span class="smcap">Escherich</span>
+<i>lets book and pencil fall, clutches at his hair</i>.] Merciful
+Heaven! God!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Look it all over carefully.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escherich</span>—I can’t look at it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Snorting scornfully.</i>] Then what did
+you come here for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escherich</span>—To—to cut up—to cut up his throat
+with a razor!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Have you seen it all?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escherich</span>—That must feel&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Escherich</span>—[<i>Mechanically taking his seat.</i>] I
+can’t write&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">[174]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Behind his chair.</i>] Write! Persecution—mania....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escherich</span>—[<i>Writes.</i>] Per-secu-tion—mania.
+[<i>The bell rings in the corridor.</i>]</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">[175]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="ES_ACT_III">
+    ACT III
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene</span>—<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 class='scene2'><span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>is at lower right, filling two glasses
+with red wine and champagne</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Never since I began to work for the
+stage have I seen the public so wildly enthusiastic.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Alva</span>—Father?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Yes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I don’t know if he’s in the theater.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Doesn’t he want to see me at all?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—He has so little time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—His <span class="gesperrt">bride</span> occupies him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Speculations. He gives himself no rest.
+[<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>enters</i>.] You? We’re just speaking of
+you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">[176]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Is he there?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You’re changing?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Peeping over the Spanish screen, to</i>
+<span class="smcap">Schön</span>.] 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="smcap">Schön</span>—I have so much to write. You see, I was
+convincing to others: there are hardly any seats
+left.—You must keep rather more in the proscenium.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I must first accustom myself to the light.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—She has kept strictly to her part.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] You must get more out of
+your performers! You don’t know enough yet about
+the technique. [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] What do you come as
+now?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—As a flower-girl.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] In tights?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—No. In a skirt to the ankles.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—It would have been better if you hadn’t
+bothered with symbolism.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I look at a dancer’s feet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—The point is, what the public looks at.
+A vision like <span class="gesperrt">her</span> has no need, praise God, of your
+symbolic mummery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—The public doesn’t look as if it were being
+bored!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Of course not; because I have been working
+the press in her favor for the last six months.
+Has the Prince been here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">[177]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Nobody’s been here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Well, that’s what you get for letting a
+dancer come on thru two acts in raincoats.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Who is the Prince?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Shall we see each other afterwards?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Are you alone?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—With acquaintances. At Peter’s?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—At twelve?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—At twelve. [<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’d given up hoping that he’d ever come.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Don’t let yourself be misled by his grumpy
+growls. If you’ll only be careful not to spend all
+your strength before the last number begins—[<span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>steps 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="smcap">Lulu</span>—He doesn’t seem to have noticed at all how
+cleverly you have deployed your performers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I won’t blow in sun, moon and stars in the
+first act!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Sipping.</i>] You disclose me by degrees.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—And I was well aware that you knew all
+about changing costumes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—If I’d tried to sell my flowers <span class="gesperrt">so</span> before
+the Alhambra café, they’d have had me behind lock
+and key right off the very first night.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Why? You were a child!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Do you remember how I looked the first
+time I came into your room?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You wore a dark blue dress with black
+velvet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">[178]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—They had to stick me somewhere and didn’t
+know where.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—My mother had been lying sick for two
+years already then.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You were playing theater, and asked me
+if I wanted to play, too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—To be sure! We played theater!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I see you still—the way you shoved the
+figures back and forth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—For a long time my most terrible memory
+was when all at once I saw clearly into your relations&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You got icy curt towards me then.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Oh, God— I saw in you something so
+infinitely far above me. I had perhaps more veneration
+for you than for my mother. Think—when
+my mother died—I was seventeen—I went and stood
+before my father and demanded that he make you
+his wife on the spot or we’d have to fight a duel.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He told me that at the time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—Does she still look out upon the world
+as innocently as ever?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—She loves him. I’m convinced of that.
+Her family has done everything to induce her to
+turn back. I don’t think any sacrifice in the world
+would be too great for her to make for his sake.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">[179]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Holds out her glass to him.</i>] A little
+more, please.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Giving it to her.</i>] You’re drinking too
+much.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He shall learn to believe in my success!
+He doesn’t believe in art at all. He only believes
+in newspapers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—He believes in nothing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He brought me into the theater so that
+eventually someone might be found rich enough to
+marry me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Well, all right. Why need that trouble us?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I am to feel pleased if I can dance myself
+into a millionaire’s heart.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—God forbid that anyone should snatch you
+from us!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’ve composed the music for it, tho.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You know that it was always my desire
+to write a piece for you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I am not at all suited to the stage, however.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You came into the world a dancer!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Then why don’t you make your pieces as
+interesting as life is, at least?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Because if we did no man would believe us.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—If I hadn’t known more about acting than
+people on the stage pretend to, what might not have
+happened to me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I provided your part with all the impossibilities
+imaginable, though.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">[180]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Nobody in the real world is taken in by
+hocus-pocus like that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—It’s enough for me that the public finds
+itself most tremendously stirred up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But <i>I</i>’d like to find myself most tremendously
+stirred up. [<i>Drinks.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You don’t seem to be in need of much more
+for that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Can you wonder, since every one of my
+scenes has an ulterior purpose? There are some
+men down there debating with themselves very
+earnestly already.—I can feel that without looking.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—What does it feel like?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—No one of them has any notion of the
+others. Each thinks that he alone is the unhappy
+victim.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—But how can you feel that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—One gets such an icy thrill running up
+one’s body.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You are incredible. [<i>An electric bell rings
+over the door.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—My cape.... I shall keep in the proscenium!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Putting a wide shawl round her shoulders.</i>]
+Here is your cape.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He shall have nothing more to fear for his
+shameless boosting.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Keep yourself under control!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—God grant that I dance the last sparks of
+intelligence out of their heads. [<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Yes, a more interesting piece could be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">[181]</span>
+written about her. [<i>Sits, right, and takes out his
+notebook. Writes. Looks up.</i>] First act: Dr.
+Goll. Rotten already! I can call up Dr. Goll from
+purgatory or wherever he’s doing penance for his
+orgies, but <i>I</i>’ll be made to answer for his sins.
+[<i>Long-continued but much deadened applause and
+bravos outside.</i>] That storm sounds like a menagerie
+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</i> <span class="smcap">Escerny</span> <i>enter. He acts as
+tho he were at home, and without greeting</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>
+<i>takes the chair near the mirror.</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>continues,
+not heeding him.</i>] It can not go on this way in the
+third act!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—Up to the middle of the third act it
+didn’t seem to be going so well to-day as sometimes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I was not on the stage.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—Now she’s in full career again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—She’s lengthening each number.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—I once had the pleasure of meeting the
+artiste at Dr. Schön’s house.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—My father introduced her to the public
+through certain critiques in his paper.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—[<i>Bowing slightly.</i>] I was conferring
+with Dr. Schön about the publication of my discoveries
+at Lake Tanganyika.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Bowing slightly.</i>] From what he has let
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">[182]</span>
+drop there can be no doubt that he takes the liveliest
+interest in your book.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—One very good thing about the artiste
+is that the audience seems not to exist for her at all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—As a child she learned the quick changing
+of clothes; but I was surprised to discover in her
+so important a danseuse.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—When she dances her solo she grows
+intoxicated with her own beauty,—she seems to be
+mortally love-sick of it herself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Here she comes. [<i>Gets up and opens the
+door. Enter</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Without wreath or basket, to</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.]
+You’re called for. I was three times before the curtain.
+[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Escerny</span>.] Dr. Schön is not in your box?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—Not in mine.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] Didn’t you see him?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He is probably away again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—He has the furthest lower box on the
+left.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It seems he is ashamed of me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—There wasn’t a good seat left for him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] Ask him, though, if he likes
+me better now.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I’ll send him up.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—He applauded.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Did he really?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Give yourself some rest. [<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’ve got to change again now.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—But your dresser isn’t here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">[183]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I can do it quicker alone. Where did you
+say Dr. Schön was sitting?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—I saw him in the left parquet-box
+farthest back.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’ve still five costumes now before me;
+dancing-girl, ballerina, queen of the night, Ariel, and
+Lascaris.... [<i>She goes behind the Spanish
+screen.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—Would you think it possible that at
+our first encounter 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 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? [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>makes no answer</i>.]
+That you would gladly exchange the shimmer
+of publicity at every moment for a quiet, sunny
+happiness in distinguished seclusion? [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>makes
+no answer</i>.] That you feel you possess enough dignity
+and rank to fetter a man to your feet—in order
+to enjoy his utter helplessness?... [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>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
+<span class="gesperrt">own mistress</span>? [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>steps forth in a short,
+bright, pleated petticoat and white satin bodice, black
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">[184]</span>
+shoes and stockings, and spurs with bells at her
+heels</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Escerny</span>—But what difference could it make to
+you to see before you instead of this mob <span class="gesperrt">one</span> spectator,
+specially elect?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—That would make no difference. I don’t
+see anybody anyway.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—A lighted summer-house—the splashing
+of the water near at hand.... I am forced in my
+exploring-trips to the practice of a quite inhuman
+tyranny&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Putting on a pearl necklace before the
+mirror.</i>] A good school!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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 for a woman than to have
+a man entirely in her power?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Jingling her heels.</i>] Oh, yes!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—[<i>Disconcerted.</i>] Among men of culture
+you will not find one who can help losing his
+head over you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Your wishes, however, no one can quite
+fulfil without deceiving you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="pagenum" id="Page_185">[185]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You have not known what it was to be
+uprightly loved by any girl yet in all your life!
+[<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="smcap">Escerny</span>—[<i>After repeated efforts.</i>] I’m sorry;
+I can’t.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Then leave it. Perhaps I can. [<i>Goes
+left.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—I confess that I am lacking in deftness.
+Maybe I was a poor student in my relations with
+women.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—And probably you don’t have much opportunity
+in Africa, either?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—[<i>Seriously.</i>] Let me confess to you
+frankly that my isolation in the world embitters many
+an hour.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—The knot is almost done....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—What draws me to you is not your
+dancing. It’s your physical and spiritual refinement,
+as revealed in every one of your movements. No
+one who takes the interest I do in works of art could
+be deceived as to 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 things....
+You are all open-heartedness. You would be
+a poor actor. [<i>The bell rings again.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">[186]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Escerny</span>—[<i>Rises and kisses her hand.</i>] Allow me
+to remain here a little while longer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Please stay.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—I need a little solitude. [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>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>] She
+gives me back my faith in humanity,—gives me back
+my life. Should not this woman’s children be more
+princely, body and soul, than 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.... [<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>enters</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—One is never sure a moment that some miserable
+chance won’t 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="smcap">Escerny</span>—But the audience has never shown itself
+so responsive before.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—She’s finished the skirt-dance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—I hear her coming....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—She isn’t coming. She has no time. She
+changes her costume in the wings.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">[187]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—She has two ballet-costumes, if I’m not
+mistaken?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I find the white one more becoming to her
+than the rose-color.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—Do you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Don’t you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—I find she looks too bodiless in the white
+tulle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I find she looks too animal in the rose
+tulle.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—I don’t find that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—The white tulle brings out the child-like
+side of her nature more.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—The rose tulle brings out the womanly
+side of her nature more. [<i>The electric bell rings
+over the door.</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>jumps up</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—For heaven’s sake, what is wrong?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—[<i>Getting up too.</i>] What’s the matter?
+[<i>The electric bell continues ringing till after they
+go out.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Something’s gone wrong there&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Escerny</span>—How can you get so frightened all of
+a sudden?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—That must be a hellish confusion! [<i>He
+runs out.</i> <span class="smcap">Escerny</span> <i>follows him. The door remains
+open. Faint dance-music heard. Pause.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>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</i>
+<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>returns</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">[188]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You had a faint?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Please lock the door.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—At least come down to the stage.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Did you see him?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—See whom?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—With his fiancée?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—With his—— [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span>, <i>who enters</i>.]
+You might have spared yourself that jest!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—What’s the matter with her? [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.]
+How can you play the scene straight at me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I feel as if I’d been whipped.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—Before your fiancée?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Have you a right to trouble yourself before
+whom? You’ve been engaged here. You receive
+your salary....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Is that your affair?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Alva</span>—I wish you’d stayed sitting in your box!
+[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] 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</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] You won’t compel
+us to break off the performance?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] Onto the stage with you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Let me have just a moment! I can’t now.
+I’m utterly miserable.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—The devil take the whole theater crowd!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Put in the next number. No one will notice
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">[189]</span>
+if I dance now or in five minutes. There’s no strength
+in my feet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—But you will dance then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—As well as I can.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—As badly as you like. [<i>A knock at the
+door again.</i>] I’m coming.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>When</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>is gone</i>.] You are right to
+show me where I belong. You couldn’t do it better
+than by letting me dance that skirt-dance before
+your fiancée.... You do me the greatest service
+when you point out to me where my place is.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Sardonically.</i>] For you with your
+origin it’s incomparable luck to still have the chance
+of appearing before respectable people!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Even when my shamelessness makes them
+not know where to look.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Nonsense!—Shamelessness?—Don’t make
+a necessity of virtue! Your shamelessness is what
+balances your every step with gold. 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="smcap">Lulu</span>—And 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="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>In moral indignation.</i>] That is your
+true nature. That’s straight!—Corruption!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">[190]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I wouldn’t have known that I had had a
+spark of self-respect&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Suddenly distrustful.</i>] No harlequinading&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schön</span>—Are you anything different then to-day?—heh?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—God be thanked, no!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Just so!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Laughs.</i>] And how awfully glad of it
+I am!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Spits.</i>] Will you dance now?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—In anything, before anyone!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Then down to the stage!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schön</span>—You have become what you are in spite
+of everything I sacrificed for your education and
+your welfare.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Had you overrated your ennobling influence?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Spare me your witticisms.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—The Prince was here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Well?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He takes me with him to Africa.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Africa?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="pagenum" id="Page_191">[191]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—But not to Africa, though!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Then why didn’t you calmly let me fall in
+a faint, and mutely thank the Lord for it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Because, more’s the pity, I had no reason
+for believing in your faint!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Making fun of him.</i>] You couldn’t bear
+it any longer out front there?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—You were afraid, though, that my legs
+might possibly have been really injured?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I know too well you are indestructible.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—So you know that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Bursting out.</i>] Don’t look at me so
+impudently!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—No one is keeping you here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I’m going as soon as the bell rings.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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 try 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 protégés. Why don’t you
+marry?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Raging.</i>] Do you imagine <span class="gesperrt">you</span> stand in
+the way?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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 take every means to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">[192]</span>
+humble me! You push me down as low—as low as
+a woman can be debased to, for then, you hope, you
+can sooner get over me. But you have suffered unspeakably
+yourself from everything you said just
+now to me. I see it in your eyes. Already you are
+near the end of your composure. Go! For your
+innocent fiancée’s sake, leave me alone! One minute
+more and your mood will change, and then you’ll
+make a scene with me of another kind, that you can’t
+answer for now.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I fear you no longer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Me? Fear yourself! I do not need you.
+I beg you to go! Don’t give me the blame. You
+know that 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 neither the
+one nor the other. The bad thing for you is that you
+think I am.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Desperate.</i>] Leave my thoughts alone!
+You have two husbands under the sod. Take the
+Prince, dance <span class="gesperrt">him</span> into the ground. I am through
+with you. I know where the angel in you leaves off
+and the devil begins. If I take the world as it’s made,
+the Creator must bear the responsibility, not I! To
+me life is not an amusement!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—And, therefore, you make claims upon 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="pagenum" id="Page_193">[193]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—I will lock my doors.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Go on and boast! God knows that since
+I began wrestling with the world and with life I have
+cursed no one like you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—That comes from my lowly origin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—From your depravity!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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—or else you can’t marry the
+child at all in her boundless inexperience&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Do you want me to grab you and&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Yes! Yes! What must I say to make
+you? Not for the world now would I exchange
+with the innocent child! Besides, the girl loves you
+as no woman has ever loved you yet!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Silence, beast! Silence!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Marry her—and then she’ll dance in her
+childish wretchedness before <span class="gesperrt">my</span> eyes, instead of
+I before hers!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Raising his fists.</i>] God forgive me&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Strike me! Where is your riding-whip?
+Strike me on the legs&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Grasping his temples.</i>] Away, away!
+[<i>Rushes to the door, recollects himself, turns
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">[194]</span>
+around.</i>] Can I go before the girl now, this way?
+Home!—If I could only slip out of the world!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Be a man! Look yourself in the face
+once:—you have no trace of a conscience; you shrink
+back from no wickedness; in the most cold-blooded
+way you are meaning 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&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Sunk in the chair, right centre, utterly
+exhausted.</i>] Stop.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—That you are too weak—to tear yourself
+away from me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Groaning.</i>] Oh! Oh! You make me
+weep.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—This moment makes <span class="gesperrt">me</span> I cannot tell you
+how glad.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—My age! My position!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Sobbing.</i>] The child! The innocent
+child!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schön</span>—I cannot go to her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Out with you. Come to me again when
+you have got back your strength.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Tell me in God’s name what I must do.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">[195]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Gets up; her cloak remains on the chair.
+Shoving aside the costumes on the centre table.</i>]
+Here is writing-paper&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I can’t write....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Upright behind him, her arm on the back
+of his chair.</i>] Write! “My dear Countess....”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Hesitating.</i>] I call her Adelheid....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>With emphasis.</i>] “My dear Countess....”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—My sentence of death! [<i>He writes.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—“Take back your promise. I cannot
+reconcile it with my conscience——” [<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>drops
+the pen and glances up at her entreatingly</i>.] Write
+“conscience”! “—to fetter you to my unhappy
+lot....”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Writing.</i>] You are right. You are
+right.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—“I give you my word that I am unworthy
+of your love——” [<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>turns round again</i>.]
+Write “love”! “These lines are the proof of it.
+For three years I have tried to tear myself free; I
+have not the strength. I am writing you at the side
+of the woman who commands me. Forget me. Dr.
+Ludwig Schön.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Groaning.</i>] O God!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Having written to the end, quite collapses.</i>]
+Now—comes the—execution.</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">[196]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="ACT_IV">
+    ACT IV
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene</span>—<i>A splendid hall in German Renaissance style,
+with a heavy ceiling of carved oak. 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, at right,
+a monumental staircase descends to halfway
+down stage. At centre, under the gallery, the
+entrance-door, with twisted posts and pediment.
+At left, a high and spacious fireplace 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
+an arm-chair on its left. Behind, near the foot
+of the stairs</i>, <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span> <i>Pierrot-picture on a decorative
+stand and in a gold frame made to look
+antique. In the centre of the hall, down-stage,
+a heavy square table, with three high-backed upholstered
+chairs round it and a vase of white
+flowers on it.</i></p>
+
+<p class='scene2'><span class="smcap">Countess Geschwitz</span> <i>sits on the ottoman, in
+a soldier-like, fur-trimmed waist, high, upstanding
+collar, enormous cufflinks, a veil over her
+face, and her hands clasped convulsively in her
+muff</i>. <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>stands down right</i>. <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>, <i>in a
+big-flowered morning-dress, her hair in a simple
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">[197]</span>
+knot in a golden circlet, sits in the arm-chair
+left of the ottoman</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] You can’t think how
+glad I shall be to see you at our lady artists’ ball.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Is there no sort of possibility of a person
+like me smuggling in?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—It would be high treason if any of us
+lent herself to such an intrigue.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Crossing to the centre table, behind the
+ottoman.</i>] The glorious flowers!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Fräulein von Geschwitz brought me those.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Don’t mention it.—Oh, you’ll be in
+man’s costume, won’t you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Do you think that becomes me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—You’re a dream here. [<i>Signifying
+the picture.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—My husband doesn’t like it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Is it by a local man?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You will hardly have known him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—No longer living?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Down left, with a deep voice.</i>] He had
+enough.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re in bad temper. [<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>controls
+himself</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>accompanies her</i>. <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>looks around
+him</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">[198]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Pure Augean stable. That, the end of
+my life. Show me one 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 home of my—— [<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
+<span class="gesperrt">myself</span> in the head? Against deadly enemies one
+fights, but the—— [<i>Throws up the curtains, 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</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>coming he
+puts the revolver back in his pocket</i>. <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>comes
+down to him</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Couldn’t you get away for this afternoon?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Just what did that Countess want?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I don’t know. She wants to paint me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Misfortune in human guise, paying her
+respects!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Couldn’t you get away, then? I would
+so like to drive through the grounds with you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’d sooner be dead and buried than let
+my life be embittered so by my property.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">[199]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Who takes life lightly does not take death
+hard.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—As a child I always had the most horrible
+fear of death.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—That is just why I married you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>With her arms round his neck.</i>] You’re
+in bad humor. You invent too many worries. For
+weeks and months I’ve seen nothing of you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Stroking her hair.</i>] Your light-heartedness
+should cheer up my old days.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Indeed, you didn’t marry me at all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Whom else did I marry then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I married you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—How does that alter anything?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I was always afraid it would alter a great
+deal.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—It has, indeed, crushed a great deal underfoot.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But not one thing, praise God!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Of that I should be covetous.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Your love for me. [<span class="smcap">Schön’s</span> <i>face twitches,
+he signs to her to go out in front of him. Both
+exeunt lower right</i>. <span class="smcap">Countess Geschwitz</span> <i>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="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Oh, dear, there’s somebody——[<i>Hides
+behind the fire-screen.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="pagenum" id="Page_200">[200]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">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 stick me up between the palms
+here and present me to her relations as the Venus
+de’ Medici. Nothing but steep rocks and stumbling
+blocks!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Comes down the stairs, carrying</i>
+<span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span> <i>in his arms</i>.] This thing has a royal
+police-captain for a father and not as much spunk
+in his body as the raggedest hobo!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Even with his lover’s woe, little brother
+don’t weigh more than sixty kilos. On the truth
+o’ that I’ll let ’em hang me any time.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Throw him up to the ceiling and
+catch him by the feet. That’ll snap his young blood
+into the proper fizz right from the start.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—[<i>Kicking his legs.</i>] Hooray, hooray,
+I shall be expelled from school!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Setting him down at the foot of the
+stairs.</i>] You’ve never been to any sensible school
+yet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Here many a man has won his spurs
+before you. Only, no timidity! First, I’ll set before
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">[201]</span>
+you a drop of what can’t be had anywhere for money.
+[<i>Opens a cupboard under the stairs.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Seated left of the table.</i>] The strongest
+man in the world little brother will wallop! Let
+mama put long trousers on you first. [<span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>
+<i>sits opposite him</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—I’d rather you lent me your mustache.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Maybe you want her to throw you out
+of the door straight off?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—If I only knew now what the devil
+I was going to say to her!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—That she knows best herself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Guarding</i> <span class="smcap">Hugenberg’s</span>.] Don’t give
+him too much, or we’ll both have to pay for it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Supporting himself with both hands
+on the table-top.</i>] Will the gentlemen smoke?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—[<i>Opening his cigar-case.</i>] Havana-imported!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Helping himself.</i>] From papa police-captain?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Sitting.</i>] Everything in the house
+is mine. You only need to ask.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—I made a poem to her yesterday.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—What did you make to her?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">[202]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—What did he make to her?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—A poem.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>.] A poem.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—He’s promised me a dollar if I can
+spy out where he can meet her alone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—Just who does live here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Here <span class="gesperrt">we</span> live!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Jour fix—every stock-market day!
+Our health. [<i>They clink.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—Should I read it to her first, maybe?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>.] What’s he mean?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—His poem. He’d like to stretch her out
+and torture her a little first.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Staring at</i> <span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>.] His eyes!
+His eyes!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—His eyes, yes. They’ve robbed her of
+sleep for a week.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>.] You can have yourself
+pickled.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—We can both have ourselves pickled!
+Our health, gossip Death!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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—— [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>enters right, in an elegant Parisian ball-dress, much
+décolleté, with flowers in breast and hair</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But children, children, I expect company!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—But I can tell you what, those things
+must cost something over there! [<span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span> <i>has
+risen</i>. <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>sits on the arm of his chair</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">[203]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’ve fallen into pretty company.—I
+expect visitors, children!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I guess I’ve got to stick something
+in there myself, too. [<i>He searches among the flowers
+on the table.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Do I look well?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—What are those you’ve got there?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Orchids. [<i>Bending over</i> <span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>.]
+Smell.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Do you expect Prince Escerny?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Shaking her head.</i>] God forbid!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—So somebody else again——!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—The Prince has gone traveling.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—To put his kingdom up for auction?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He’s exploring a fresh string of tribes in
+the neighborhood of Africa. [<i>Rises, hurries up the
+stairs, and steps into the gallery.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>.] He really wanted
+to marry her originally.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Sticking a lily in his buttonhole.</i>]
+I, too, wanted to marry her originally.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—You wanted to marry her originally?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Didn’t you, too, want to marry her
+originally?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—You bet I wanted to marry her originally!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Who has not wanted to marry her
+originally!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I could never have done better!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—She hasn’t let anybody be sorry that
+he didn’t marry her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">[204]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>— ... Then she’s not your child?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Never occurs to her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—What is her father’s name then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—She’s just boasted of me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—What is her father’s name then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—What’s he say?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—What her father’s name is.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—She never had one.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Comes down from the gallery and sits
+again on</i> <span class="smcap">Hugenberg’s</span> <i>chair-arm</i>.] What have I
+never had?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">All Three</span>—A father.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Yes, sure—I’m a wonder-child. [<i>To</i>
+<span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>.] How are you getting along with
+<span class="gesperrt">your</span> father? Contented?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—He smokes a respectable cigar, anyway,
+the police-captain.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Have you locked up upstairs?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—There is the key.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Better have left it in the lock.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Why?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—So no one can unlock it from outside.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Isn’t he at the stock-exchange?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Oh, yes, but he suffers from persecution-mania.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I take him by the feet, and yup!—there
+he stays sticking to the roof.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He hunts you into a mouse-hole with the
+corner of his eye.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—What does he hunt? Who does he
+hunt? [<i>Baring his arm.</i>] Just look at this biceps!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Show me. [<i>Goes left.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">[205]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Hitting himself on the muscle.</i>]
+Granite. Wrought-iron!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Feeling by turns</i> <span class="smcap">Rodrigo’s</span> <i>arm and
+her own</i>.] If you only didn’t have such long
+ears&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ferdinand</span>—[<i>Entering, rear centre.</i>] Doctor&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_8_8" href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>
+Schön!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—The rogue! [<i>Jumps up, starts behind
+the fire-screen, recoils.</i>] God preserve me! [<i>Hides,
+lower left, behind the curtains.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Give me the key! [<i>Takes it and
+drags himself up the stairs.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span> <i>having slid under the table</i>.]
+Show him in!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—[<i>Under the front edge of the tablecloth,
+listening; to himself.</i>] If he doesn’t stay—we’ll
+be alone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Poking him with her toe.</i>] Sh! [<span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>
+<i>disappears</i>. <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>is shown in by</i> <span class="smcap">Ferdinand</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>In evening dress.</i>] Methinks the matinée
+will take place by burning lamplight. I’ve—— [<i>Notices</i>
+<span class="smcap">Schigolch</span> <i>painfully climbing the stairs</i>.]
+What the —— is that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—An old friend of your father’s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Quite unknown to me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—They were in the campaign together. He’s
+awfully badly&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Is my father here then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He drank a glass with him. He had to go
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">[206]</span>
+to the stock market. We’ll have lunch before we go,
+won’t we?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—When does it begin?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—After two. [<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>still follows</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>
+<i>with his eyes</i>.] How do you like me? [<span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>
+<i>disappears thru the gallery</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Had I not better be silent to you on that
+point?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I only mean my appearance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Your dressmaker manifestly knows you
+better than I—may permit myself to know you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—When I saw myself in the glass I could
+have wished to be a man—my man!...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You seem to envy your man the delight
+you offer to him. [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>is at the right</i>, <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>at
+the left, of the centre table. He regards her with
+shy satisfaction.</i> <span class="smcap">Ferdinand</span> <i>enters, rear, covers
+the table and lays two plates, etc., a bottle of Pommery,
+and hors d’œuvres.</i>] Have you a toothache?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Across to</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] Don’t.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ferdinand</span>—Doctor Schön...?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—He seems so puckered-up and tearful to-day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ferdinand</span>—[<i>Thru his teeth.</i>] One is only a
+man after all. [<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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 falling out with
+your father on my account, you always stood up
+for me like a brother just the same.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">[207]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Let’s drop that. It’s just my fate—[<i>Moves
+to lift up the tablecloth in front.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Quickly.</i>] That was me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Impossible!—It’s just my fate, with the
+most trivial thoughts always to attain the best.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You deceive yourself if you make yourself
+out worse than you are.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">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="smcap">Alva</span>—Do you think that so easy? [<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>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 only flesh and
+blood, and if we hadn’t grown up with each other
+like brother and sister&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—And that’s why I only give myself to you
+alone quite without reserve. From you I have nothing
+to fear.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I assure you there are moments when one
+expects to see one’s whole inner self cave in. The
+more self-suppression a man loads onto himself, the
+easier he breaks down. Nothing will save him from
+it except——[<i>Stops to look under the table.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Quickly.</i>] What are you looking for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I conjure you, let me keep my confession
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">[208]</span>
+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="smcap">Lulu</span>—How extraordinarily different your mind
+is, on that, from your father’s! [<span class="smcap">Ferdinand</span> <i>enters,
+rear, changes the plates and serves broiled chicken
+with salad</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>To him.</i>] Are you sick?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] Let him be!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—He’s trembling as if he had fever.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ferdinand</span>—I am not yet so used to waiting....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You must have something prescribed for
+you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ferdinand</span>—[<i>Thru his teeth.</i>] I’m a coachman
+usually——[<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">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="smcap">Alva</span>—I <span class="gesperrt">didn’t want</span> 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="smcap">Lulu</span>—I have hurt you. I don’t want to begin
+on that again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Do you promise me that for always?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—My hand on it. [<i>Gives him her hand
+across the table.</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>takes it hesitatingly, grips
+it in his, and presses it long and ardently to his lips</i>.]
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">[209]</span>
+What are you doing? [<span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span> <i>sticks his head out
+from the curtains, left</i>. <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>darts an angry look
+at him across</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>, <i>and he draws back</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Whispering from the gallery.</i>] And
+there is still another!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Holding the hand.</i>] A soul—that in the
+hereafter will rub the sleep out of its eyes.... Oh,
+this hand....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Innocently.</i>] What do you find in it?...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—An arm....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What do you find in it?...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—A body....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Guilelessly.</i>] What do you find in it?...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Stirred up.</i>] Mignon!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Wholly ingenuously.</i>] What do you find
+in it?...</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Passionately.</i>] Mignon! Mignon!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Alva</span>—I told you, didn’t I, I was the basest villain....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I see that!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I have no sense of honor, no pride....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You think I am your equal!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—Do you <span class="gesperrt">love</span> me then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">[210]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I will pay you with everything that was
+mine!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Do you love me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Do you love me—Mignon?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I? Not a soul.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I love you. [<i>Hides his face in her lap.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Both hands in his hair.</i>] I poisoned
+your mother—— [<span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span> <i>sticks his head out from
+the curtains, left, sees</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>sitting in the gallery
+and signs to him to watch</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>. <span class="smcap">Schön</span>
+<i>points his revolver at</i> <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>; <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span> <i>signs to him
+to point it at</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>. <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>cocks the revolver and
+takes aim</i>. <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span> <i>draws back behind the curtains</i>.
+<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>sees him draw back, sees</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>sitting in the
+gallery, and gets up</i>.] His father! [<span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>rises,
+lets the hangings fall before him</i>. <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>remains
+motionless on his knees. Pause.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>A newspaper in his hand, takes</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>
+<i>by the shoulder</i>.] Alva! [<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>gets up as though
+drunk with sleep</i>.] A revolution has broken out in
+Paris.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—To Paris ... let me go to Paris&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Up in the office the editors are tearing
+their hair. Not one of them knows what to write
+about it. [<i>He unfolds the paper and accompanies</i>
+<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>out, rear</i>. <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span> <i>rushes out from the curtains
+toward the stairs</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Barring his way.</i>] You can’t get out
+here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Let me through!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’ll run into his arms.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">[211]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—He’ll shoot me thru the head!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He’s coming.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Stumbling back.</i>] Devil, death and
+demons! [<i>Lifts the tablecloth.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—No room!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Damned and done for! [<i>Looks around
+and hides in the doorway, right.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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 <span class="gesperrt">he</span>
+gone?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>On the lowest step.</i>] Out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Down over the balcony?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He’s an acrobat.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—That could not be foreseen. [<i>Turning
+against</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] You who drag me thru the muck
+of the streets to a tortured death!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Why did you not bring me up better?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—You destroying angel! You inexorable
+fate!—To turn murderer or else to drown in filth;
+to take ship like a fleeing convict, or hang myself
+over the mire!—You joy of my old age! You hangman’s
+noose!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>In cold blood.</i>] Oh, shut up, and kill
+me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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="smcap">Lulu</span>—I can answer for my account for years
+to come. [<i>Coming forward from the stairs.</i>] How
+do you like my new gown?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">[212]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Away with you, or my brains will crack
+to-morrow and my son swim in his blood! You infect
+me like an incurable pest in which I shall groan
+away the rest of my life. I <span class="gesperrt">will</span> 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 it to be? [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span>, <i>her strength threatening
+to desert her, has sunk down on the couch, turning
+the revolver this way and that</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It doesn’t go off.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Do you still recall how I snatched you
+out of the clutches of the police?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You have great confidence&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Because I’m not afraid of a street-girl?
+Shall I guide your hand for you? Have you no
+mercy towards yourself? [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>points the revolver
+at him</i>.] No false alarms! [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>fires a shot into
+the ceiling</i>. <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span> <i>springs out of the portières,
+up the stairs and away thru the gallery</i>.] What
+was that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Innocently.</i>] Nothing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Lifting the portières.</i>] What flew out
+of here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re suffering from persecution-mania.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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</i> <span class="smcap">Countess Geschwitz</span> <i>by the
+collar and drags her forward</i>.] Did you come down
+the chimney?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">[213]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>In deadly terror, to</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] Save
+me from him!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Shaking her.</i>] Or are you, too, an acrobat?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>Whimpering.</i>] You hurt me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Shaking her.</i>] Now you will <span class="gesperrt">have</span> 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 to</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>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 if I can’t
+bear the vile stable-stench?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Have the carriage got ready! Please!
+We’re going to the opera.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—We’re going to the devil! Now I am
+coachman. [<i>Turning the revolver in her hand from
+himself to</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span> <i>breast</i>.] Do you believe that anyone,
+abused as you have abused me, would hesitate
+between an old age of slavish infamy and the merit
+of freeing the world from <span class="gesperrt">you</span>? [<i>Holds her down
+by the arm.</i>] Come, get through. It shall be the
+happiest remembrance of my life. Pull the trigger!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You can get a divorce.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Only that was left! In order that to-morrow
+the next man may find his pastime where
+I have shuddered from pit to pit, suicide upon my
+neck and <span class="gesperrt">you</span> before me! You dare suggest that?
+That part of my life I have poured into you, am I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">[214]</span>
+to see it tossed before wild beasts? Do you see your
+bed with the sacrifice—the victim—on it? The lad
+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? <span class="gesperrt">Can</span> one be divorced when
+two people have grown into one another and half
+the man must go too? [<i>Reaching for the revolver.</i>]
+Give it here!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Don’t!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—I’ll spare you the trouble.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">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 knew quite 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 your old age in sacrifice, you
+have had my whole youth in return. You 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="smcap">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,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">[215]</span>
+and never dare to stand again! [<i>Raising his hand.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>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! [<span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>
+<i>jumps up from under the table, knocking a chair
+aside, and screams “Help!”</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>whirls toward
+him, turning his back to</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>, <i>who instantly fires
+five shots into him and continues to pull the trigger</i>.
+<span class="smcap">Schön</span>, <i>tottering over, is caught by</i> <span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span> <i>and
+let down in the chair</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—And—there—is—one—more&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Rushing to</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span>.] All merciful——!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Out of my sight! Alva!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Kneeling.</i>] The one man I loved!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Harlot! Murderess!—Alva! Alva!—Water!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Water; he’s thirsty. [<i>Fills a glass with
+champagne and sets it to</i> <span class="smcap">Schön’s</span> <i>lips</i>. <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>comes
+thru the gallery, down the stairs</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Father! O God, my father!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I shot him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—She is innocent!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] You! It miscarried.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Tries to lift him.</i>] You must get to
+bed; come.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—Don’t take hold of me so! I’m drying
+up. [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>comes with the champagne-cup; to her</i>.]
+You are still like yourself. [<i>After drinking.</i>]
+Don’t let her escape. [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] You are the
+next.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>.] Help me carry him
+to bed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">[216]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—No, no, please, no. Wine, murderess&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>.] Take hold of him on
+that side. [<i>Pointing right.</i>] Into the bedroom.
+[<i>They lift</i> <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>upright and lead him right</i>. <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>stays near the table, the glass in her hand</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schön</span>—[<i>Groaning.</i>] O God! O God! O God!
+[<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>finds the door locked, turns the key and opens
+it</i>. <span class="smcap">Countess Geschwitz</span> <i>steps out</i>. <span class="smcap">Schön</span> <i>at the
+sight of her straightens up, stiffly</i>.] The Devil.
+[<i>He falls backward onto the carpet.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>throws
+herself down, takes his head in her lap, and kisses
+him</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He has got thru. [<i>Gets up and starts
+toward the stairs.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Don’t stir!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—I thought it was you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Throwing herself before</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] You
+can’t give me up to the law! It is <span class="gesperrt">my</span> 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 be wholly yours, yours only! Look at me,
+Alva. Man, look at me! Look at me! [<i>Knocking
+on the door outside.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—The police. [<i>Goes to open it.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—I shall be expelled from school.</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_8_8" href="#FNanchor_8_8" class="label">[8]</a> That is, since Act III Alva has won his Ph.D.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">[217]</span></p>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="PANDORAS_BOX">
+    PANDORA’S BOX
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='center bold'>(<span class="smcap">Die Büchse der Pandora</span>)</p>
+
+<p class='center bold mt1'>A Tragedy in Three Acts</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a><a id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak">
+    CHARACTERS
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='no-indent'>
+  <span class="smcap">Lulu</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Alva Schön, Ph.D.</span>, <i>a writer</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Rodrigo Quast</span>, <i>acrobat</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Alfred Hugenberg</span>, <i>escaped from a reform-school</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Countess Geschwitz</span></p>
+<div>
+<table class='left'>
+<tr>
+<td class='pr1'>
+  <span class="smcap">Bianetta</span>                 <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Ludmilla Steinherz</span>       <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Magelone</span>                 <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>, <i>her daughter</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Count Casti-Piani</span>        <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>, <i>a banker</i>    <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>, <i>a journalist</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Bob</span>, <i>a groom, aged 15</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">A Detective</span>
+</td>
+<td class='vam x-tight'>
+⎫<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎬<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎭
+</td>
+<td class='vam'>In Act II</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+<div>
+<table class='left'>
+<tr>
+<td class='pr1'>
+  <span class="smcap">Mr. Hunidei</span>         <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Kungu Poti</span>, <i>imperial prince of Uahubee</i><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>, <i>tutor</i>            <br>
+  <span class="smcap">Jack</span>
+</td>
+<td class='vam very-tight'>
+⎫<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎬<br>
+⎪<br>
+⎭
+</td>
+<td class='vam'>In Act III</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p class='center mt1'>The first act takes place in Germany, the second in<br>
+France, the third in England.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a><a id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="PB_ACT_I">
+    ACT I
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene</span>—<i>The hall of “Earth-Spirit,” Act IV,
+feebly lighted by an oil lamp on the centre table.
+Even this is dimmed by a heavy shade.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span>
+<i>picture is gone from the easel, which still stands
+by the foot of the stairs. The fire-screen and
+the chair by the ottoman are gone too. Down
+left is a small tea-table, with a coffee-pot and a
+cup of black coffee on it, and an arm-chair
+next it.</i></p>
+
+<p class='scene2'><i>In this chair, deep in cushions, with a plaid
+shawl over her knees, sits</i> <span class="smcap">Countess Geschwitz</span>
+<i>in a tight black dress</i>. <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>, <i>clad as a servant,
+sits on the ottoman. At the rear</i>, <span class="smcap">Alva
+Schön</span> <i>is walking up and down before the entrance
+door</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—He lets people wait for him as if he
+were a concert conductor!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—I beg of you, don’t speak!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Hold my tongue? with a head as full
+of thoughts as mine is!—I absolutely can’t believe
+she’s changed so awfully much to her advantage
+there!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—She is more glorious to look at than
+I have ever seen her!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—God preserve me from founding my life-happiness
+upon <span class="gesperrt">your</span> taste and judgment! If the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">[222]</span>
+disease has hit her as it has you, I’m smashed and
+thru! You’re leaving the contagious ward like a
+rubber-lady who’s had an accident and taken to
+hunger-striking. You can scarcely blow your nose
+any more. First you need a quarter-hour to sort
+your fingers, and then you have to be mighty careful
+not to break off the tip.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—What puts <span class="gesperrt">us</span> under the ground
+gives <span class="gesperrt">her</span> health and strength again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—That’s all right and fine enough. But
+I don’t think I’ll be travelling off with her this evening.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—You will let your bride journey all
+alone, after all?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—In the first place, the old fellow’s going
+with her to protect her in case anything serious——My
+escort could only be suspicious. And secondly,
+I must wait here till my costumes are ready. I’ll
+get across the frontier soon enough all right,—and
+I hope in the meantime she’ll put on a little embonpoint,
+too. Then we’ll get married, provided I can
+present her before a respectable public. I love the
+practical in a woman: what theories they make up
+for themselves are all the same to me. Aren’t they
+to you too, Doctor?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I haven’t heard what you were saying.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I’d never have got my person mixed
+up in this plot at all if she hadn’t kept tickling my
+bare pate, before her sentence. If only she doesn’t
+start exercising again too hard the moment she’s
+out of Germany! I’d like best to take her to London
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">[223]</span>
+for six months, and let her fill up on plum-cakes. In
+London one expands just from the sea air. And
+then, too, in London one doesn’t feel with every
+swallow of beer as if the hand of fate were at one’s
+throat.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I’ve been asking myself for a week now
+whether a person who’d been sentenced to prison
+could still be made to go as the chief figure in a modern
+drama.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—If the man would only come, now!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I’ve still got to redeem my properties
+out of the pawn-shop here, too. Six hundred kilos
+of the best iron. The baggage-rate on ’em is always
+three times as much as my own ticket, so that the
+whole junket isn’t worth a trousers button. When
+I went into the pawn-shop with ’em, dripping with
+sweat, they asked me if the things were genuine!—I’d
+have really done better to have had the costumes
+made abroad. In Paris, for instance, they see at the
+first glance where one’s best points are, and bravely
+lay them bare. But you can’t learn that sitting
+cross-legged; it’s got to be studied on classically
+shaped people. In this country they’re as scared
+of naked skin as they are abroad of dynamite bombs.
+Two years ago at the Alhambra Theater I was stuck
+for a fifty-marks fine because people could see I had
+a few hairs on my chest, not enough to make a respectable
+toothbrush! But the Fine Arts Minister
+opined that the little schoolgirls might lose their
+joy in knitting stockings because of it; and since
+then I have myself shaved once a month.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">[224]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—If I didn’t need every bit of my creative
+power now for the “World-Conqueror,” I might like
+to test the problem and see what could be done with
+it. That’s the curse of our young literature: we’re
+so much too literary. We know only such questions
+and problems as come up among writers and cultured
+people. We cannot see beyond the limits of our own
+professional interests. In order to get back on the
+trail of a great and powerful art we must live as
+much as possible among men who’ve never read a
+book in their lives, who are moved by the simplest
+animal instincts in all they do. I’ve tried already,
+with all my might, to work according to those principles—in
+my “Earth-Spirit.” The woman who was
+my model for the chief figure in that, breathes to-day—and
+has for a year—behind barred windows; and
+on that account for some incomprehensible reason
+the play was only brought to performance by the
+Society for Free Literature. As long as my father
+was alive, all the stages of Germany stood open to
+my creations. That has been vastly changed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I’ve had a pair of tights made of the
+tenderest blue-green. If <span class="gesperrt">they</span> don’t make a success
+abroad, I’ll sell mouse-traps! The trunks are
+so delicate I can’t sit on the edge of a table in ’em.
+The only thing that will disturb the good impression
+is my awful bald head, which I owe to my active
+participation in this great conspiracy. To lie in
+the hospital in perfect health for three months would
+make a fat pig of the most run-down old hobo. Since
+coming out I’ve fed on nothing but Karlsbad pills.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">[225]</span>
+Day and night I have orchestra rehearsals in my
+intestines. I’ll be so washed out before I get across
+the frontier that I won’t be able to lift a bottle-cork.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—How the attendants in the hospital
+got out of her way yesterday! That was a refreshing
+sight. The garden was still as the grave: in
+the loveliest noon sunlight the convalescents didn’t
+venture out of doors. Away back by the contagious
+ward she stepped out under the mulberry trees and
+swayed on her ankles on the gravel. The doorkeeper
+had recognized me, and a young doctor who
+met me in the corridor shrunk up as tho a revolver
+shot had struck him. The Sisters vanished into the
+big rooms or stayed stuck against the walls. When
+I came back there was not a soul to be seen in the
+garden or at the gate. No better chance could have
+been found, if we had had the curséd passports. And
+now the fellow says he isn’t going with her!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I understand the poor hospital-brothers.
+One has a bad foot and another has a swollen
+cheek, and there bobs up in the midst of them the
+incarnate death-insurance-agentess! In the Hall of
+the Knights, as the blessed division was called from
+which I organized my spying, when the news got
+around there that Sister Theophila had departed this
+life, not one of the fellows could be kept in bed.
+They scrambled up to the window-bars, if they had
+to drag their pains along with them by the hundredweight.
+I never heard such swearing in my life!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">[226]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Allow me, Fräulein von Geschwitz, to come
+back to my proposition once more. Tho she shot
+my father in this very room, still I can see in the
+murder, as in the punishment, nothing but a horrible
+misfortune that has befallen <span class="gesperrt">her</span>; nor do I think
+that my father, if he had come through alive, would
+have withdrawn his support from her entirely.
+Whether your plan for freeing her will succeed still
+seems to me very doubtful, tho I wouldn’t like to
+discourage you; but I can find no words to express
+the admiration with which your self-sacrifice, your
+energy, your superhuman scorn of death, inspires
+me. I don’t believe any man ever risked so much
+for a woman, let alone for a friend. I am not aware,
+Fräulein von Geschwitz, how rich you are, but the
+outlay for what you have accomplished must have
+shattered your fortune. May I venture to offer you
+a loan of 20,000 marks—which I should have no
+trouble raising for you in cash?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—How we did rejoice when Sister
+Theophila was really dead! From that day on we
+were free from supervision. We changed our beds
+as we liked. I had done my hair like hers, and copied
+every tone of her voice. When the professor
+came he called <span class="gesperrt">her</span> “gnädiges Fräulein” and said
+to me, “It’s better living here than in prison!”...
+When the Sister suddenly was missing, we looked at
+each other in suspense: we had both been sick five
+days: now was the deciding moment. Next morning
+came the assistant.—“How is Sister Theophila?”—“Dead!”—We
+communicated behind his back, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">[227]</span>
+when he had gone we sank in each other’s arms:
+“God be thanked! God be thanked!”—What pains
+it cost me to keep my darling from betraying how
+well she already was! “You have nine years of
+prison before you,” I cried to her early and late.
+And now they probably wouldn’t let her stay in the
+contagious ward three days more!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I lay in the hospital full three months
+to spy out the ground, after toilfully peddling together
+the qualities necessary for such a long stay.
+Now I act the valet here with you, Dr. Schön, so
+that no strange servants may come into the house.
+Where is the bridegroom who’s ever done so much
+for his bride? My fortune has also been shattered.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—When you succeed in developing her into
+a respectable artiste you will have put the world in
+debt to you. With the temperament and the beauty
+that she has to give out from the inmost depths of
+her nature she can make the most blasé public hold
+its breath. And then, too, she will be protected, by
+<span class="gesperrt">acting</span> passion, from a second time becoming a
+criminal in reality.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I’ll soon drive her kiddishness out of
+her!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—There he comes! [<i>Steps louden in
+the gallery. Then the curtains part at the head of
+the stairs and</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span> <i>in a long black coat with
+a white sun-shade in his right hand comes down.
+Thruout the play his speech is interrupted with frequent
+yawns.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">[228]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Confound the darkness! Outdoors
+the sun burns your eyes out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>Wearily unwrapping herself.</i>] I’m
+coming!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Her ladyship has seen no daylight for
+three days. We live here like in a snuff-box.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Since nine o’clock this morning I’ve
+been round to all the old-clothes-men. Three brand-new
+trunks stuffed full of old trousers I’ve expressed
+to Buenos Aires via Bremerhaven. My legs are
+dangling on me like the tongue of a bell. It’s going
+to be a different life for me from now on!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Where are you going to get off to-morrow
+morning?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I hope not straight into Ox-butter
+Hotel again!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I can tell you a fine hotel. I lived there
+with a lady lion-tamer. The people were born in
+Berlin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>Upright in the arm-chair.</i>] Come
+and help me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Hurries to her and supports her.</i>]
+And you’ll be safer from the police there than on a
+high tight-rope!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—He means to let you go with her
+alone this afternoon.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Maybe he’s still suffering from his
+chilblains!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Do you want me to start my new engagement
+in bath-robe and slippers?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Hm—Sister Theophila wouldn’t
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">[229]</span>
+have gone to heaven so promptly either, if she hadn’t
+felt so affectionate towards our patient.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—When one has to serve thru a honeymoon
+with her, she’ll have a very different value.
+Anyway, it can’t hurt her if she gets a little fresh
+air beforehand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>A pocketbook in his hand, to</i> <span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>,
+<i>who is leaning on a chair-back by the centre table</i>.]
+This holds 10,000 marks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Thank you, no.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Please take it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>.] Come along, at
+last!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Patience, Fräulein. It’s only a
+stone’s throw across Hospital Street. I’ll be here
+with her in five minutes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You’re bringing her here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I’m bringing her here. Or do you
+fear for your health?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You see that I fear nothing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—According to the latest wire, the doctor
+is on his way to Constantinople to have his “Earth-Spirit”
+produced before the Sultan by harem-ladies
+and eunuchs.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Opening the centre door under the gallery.</i>]
+It’s shorter for you thru here. [<i>Exeunt</i>
+<span class="smcap">Schigolch</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Countess Geschwitz</span>. <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>locks
+the door</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—You were going to give more money to
+the crazy skyrocket!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—What has that to do with you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">[230]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I get paid like a lamp-lighter, tho I
+had to demoralize all the Sisters in the hospital.
+Then came the assistants’ and the doctors’ turn, and
+then&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Will you seriously inform me that the medical
+professors let themselves be influenced by you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—With the money those gentlemen cost
+me I could become President of the United States!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—But Fräulein von Geschwitz has reimbursed
+you for every penny that you spent. So
+much I know, and you’re still getting five hundred
+marks a month from her besides. It is often pretty
+hard to believe in your love for the unhappy murderess.
+When I asked Fräulein von Geschwitz just
+now to accept my help, it certainly was not done to
+stir up <span class="gesperrt">your</span> insatiable avarice. The admiration
+which I have learnt to have for Fräulein von
+Geschwitz in this affair, I am far from feeling
+towards you. It is not at all clear to me what
+claims of any kind you can make upon me. That
+you chanced to be present at the murder of my
+father has not yet created the slightest bond of relationship
+between you and me. On the contrary, I
+am firmly convinced that if the heroic undertaking
+of Countess Geschwitz had not come your way you
+would be lying somewhere to-day, without a penny,
+drunken in the gutter.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—And do you know what would have become
+of you if you hadn’t sold for two millions the
+tuppenny paper your father ran? You’d have
+hitched up with the stringiest sort of ballet-girl and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">[231]</span>
+been to-day a stable-boy in the Humpelmeier Circus.
+What work do you do? You’ve written a
+drama of horrors in which my bride’s calves are the
+two chief figures and which no high-class theater will
+produce. You walking pajamas! You fresh ragbag,
+you! Two years ago I balanced two saddled
+cavalry-horses on this chest. How that’ll go now,
+after this [<i>clasping his bald head</i>], is a question sure
+enough. The foreign girls will get a fine idea of
+German art when they see the sweat come beading
+thru my tights at every fresh kilo-weight! I shall
+make the whole auditorium stink with my exhalations!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You’re weak as a dish-clout!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Would to God you were right! or did
+you perhaps intend to insult me? If so, I’ll set the
+tip of my toe to your jaw so that your tongue’ll
+crawl along the carpet over there!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Try it! [<i>Steps and voices outside.</i>]
+Who is that...?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—You can thank God that I have no public
+here before me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Who can that be!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—That is my beloved. It’s a full year
+now since we’ve seen each other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—But how should they be back already!
+Who can be coming there? I expect no one.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Oh, the devil, unlock it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Hide yourself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I’ll get behind the portières. I’ve stood
+there once before, a year ago. [<i>Disappears, right.</i>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">[232]</span><span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>opens the rear door, whereupon</i> <span class="smcap">Alfred Hugenberg</span>
+<i>enters, hat in hand</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—With whom have I—.... You? Aren’t
+you——?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—Alfred Hugenberg.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—What can I do for you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—I’ve come from Münsterburg. I
+ran away this morning.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—My eyes are bad. I am forced to keep the
+blinds closed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—I need your help. You will not refuse
+me. I’ve got a plan ready.—Can anyone
+hear us?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—What do you mean? What sort of a
+plan?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—Are you alone?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Yes. What do you want to impart to me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—I’ve had two plans already that I
+let drop. What I shall tell you now has been worked
+out to the last possible chance. If I had money I
+should not confide it to you; I thought about that a
+long time before coming.... Don’t you want to
+let me explain my scheme to you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Will you kindly tell me just what you are
+talking about?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—She cannot possibly be so indifferent
+to you that I must tell you that. The evidence
+<span class="gesperrt">you</span> gave the coroner helped her more than everything
+the defending counsel said.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I beg to decline the supposition.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—You would say that; I understand
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">[233]</span>
+that, of course. But all the same you were her best
+witness.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—<span class="gesperrt">You</span> were! You said my father was
+about to force her to shoot herself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—He was, too. But they didn’t believe
+me. I wasn’t put on my oath.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Where have you come from now?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—From a reform-school I broke out
+of this morning.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—And what do you have in view?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—I’m trying to get into the confidence
+of a turnkey.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—What do you mean to live on?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—I’m living with a girl who’s had a
+child by my father.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Who is your father?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—He’s a police captain. I know the
+prison without ever having been inside it; and nobody
+in it will recognize me as I am now. But I
+don’t count on that at all. I know an iron ladder
+by which one can get from the first court to the roof
+and thru an opening there into the attic. There’s
+no way up to it from inside. But in all five wings
+boards and laths and great heaps of shavings are
+lying under the roofs, and I’ll drag them all together
+in the middle and set fire to them. My pockets
+are full of matches and all the things used to
+make fires.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—But then you’ll burn up there!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—Of course, if I’m not rescued. But
+to get into the first court I must have the turnkey
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">[234]</span>
+in my power, and for that I need money. Not that
+I mean to bribe him; that wouldn’t go. I must lend
+him money to send his three children to the country,
+and then at four o’clock in the morning when
+the prisoners of respected families are discharged,
+I’ll slip in the door. He’ll lock-up behind me and
+ask me what I’m after, and I’ll ask him to let me
+out again in the evening. And before it gets light,
+I’m up in the attic.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—How did you escape from the reform-school?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—Jumped out the window. I need
+two hundred marks for the rascal to send his family
+to the country.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Stepping out of the portières, right.</i>]
+Will the Herr Baron have coffee in the music-room
+or on the veranda?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—How did that man come here? Out
+of the same door! He jumped out of the same
+door!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I’ve taken him into my service. He is dependable.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—[<i>Grasping his temples.</i>] Fool that
+I am! Oh, fool!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Oh, yah, we’ve seen each other here before!
+Cut away now to your vice-mama. Your
+kid brother might like to uncle his brothers and sisters.
+Make your sir-papa the grandfather of his
+children! You’re the only thing we’ve missed. If
+you once get into my sight in the next two weeks,
+I’ll beat your bean up for porridge.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">[235]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Be quiet, you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—I’m a fool!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—What do you want to do with your
+fire? Don’t you know the lady’s been dead three
+weeks?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—Did they cut off her head?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—No, she’s got that still. She was
+mashed by the cholera.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—That is not true!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—What do you know about it! There,
+read it: here! [<i>Taking out a paper and pointing
+to the place.</i>] “The murderess of Dr. Schön....”
+[<i>Gives</i> <span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span> <i>the paper. He reads</i>:]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—“The murderess of Dr. Schön has
+in some incomprehensible way fallen ill of the cholera
+in prison.” It doesn’t say that she’s dead.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Well, what else do you suppose she is?
+She’s been lying in the churchyard three weeks.
+Back in the left-hand corner behind the rubbish-heap
+where the little crosses are with no names on
+them, there she lies under the first one. You’ll know
+the spot because the grass hasn’t grown on it. Hang
+a tin wreath there, and then get back to your nursery-school
+or I’ll denounce you to the police. I
+know the female that beguiles her leisure hours with
+you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] Is it true that she’s
+dead?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Thank God, yes!—Please, do not keep me
+here any longer. My doctor has forbidden me to
+receive visitors.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">[236]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—My future life means so little now!
+I would gladly have given the last scrap of what life
+is worth to me for her happiness. Heigh-ho! One
+way or another I’ll sure go to the devil now!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—If you dare in any way to approach me
+or the doctor here or my honorable friend Schigolch
+too near, I’ll inform on you for intended arson. You
+need three good years of prison to learn where not
+to stick your fingers in! Now get out!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Hugenberg</span>—Fool!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Get out! [<i>Throws him out the door.
+Coming down.</i>] I wonder you didn’t put your purse
+at that rogue’s disposal, too!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I won’t stand your damned jabbering!
+The boy’s little finger is worth more than all you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I’ve had enough of this Geschwitz’s
+company! If my bride is to become a corporation
+with limited liability, somebody else can go in ahead
+of me. I propose to make a magnificent trapeze-artiste
+out of her, and willingly risk my life to do
+it. But then I’ll be master of the house, and will
+myself indicate what cavaliers she is to receive!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—The boy has what our age lacks: a hero-nature;
+therefore, of course, he is going to ruin. Do
+you remember how before sentence was passed he
+jumped out of the witness-box and yelled at the justice:
+“How do you know what would have become of
+<span class="gesperrt">you</span> if you’d had to run around the cafés barefoot
+every night when you were ten years old?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—If I could only have given him one in
+the jaw for that right away! Thank God, there
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">[237]</span>
+are jails where scum like that gets some respect for
+the law pounded into them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—One like him might have been my model
+for my “World-conqueror.” For twenty years literature
+has presented nothing but demi-men: men
+who can beget no children and women who can bear
+none. That’s called “The Modern Problem.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I’ve ordered a hippopotamus-whip two
+inches thick. If that has no success with her, you
+can fill my cranium with potato-soup. Be it love
+or be it whipping, female flesh never inquires. Only
+give it some amusement, and it stays firm and fresh.
+She is now in her twentieth year, has been married
+three times and has satisfied a gigantic horde of lovers,
+and her heart’s desires are at last pretty plain.
+But the man’s got to have the seven deadly sins on
+his forehead, or she honors him not. If he looks as
+if a dog-catcher had spat him out on the street,
+then, with such women-folks, he needn’t be afraid of
+a prince! I’ll rent a garage fifty feet high and break
+her in there; and when she’s learnt the first diving-leap
+without breaking her neck I’ll pull on a black
+coat and not stir a finger the rest of my life. With
+her practical equipment it costs a woman not half
+the trouble to support her husband as the other way
+round, if only the man looks after the mental work
+for her, and doesn’t let the sense of the family go
+to wreck.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I have learnt how to master humanity and
+drive it in harness before me like a well-broken four-in-hand,—but
+that boy sticks in my head. Really,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">[238]</span>
+I can still take private lessons in the scorn of the
+world from that schoolboy!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—She’ll just comfortably let her hide be
+papered with thousand-mark bills! I’ll extract
+salaries out of the directors with a centrifugal pump.
+I know their kind. When they don’t need a man,
+let him shine their shoes for them; but when they
+must have an artiste they’ll cut her down from the
+very gallows with their own hands and with the most
+binding compliments.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—In my circumstances there’s nothing left
+in the world that I should fear—but death. Yet in
+feelings and sensations I am the poorest beggar.—However,
+I can no longer scrape up the moral courage
+to exchange my established position for the excitements
+of the wild, adventurous life!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—She had sicked Papa Schigolch and me
+out on a hunt together to rout her out some strong
+antidote for insomnia. We each got a twenty-mark
+piece for expenses. There in the Nightlight Café
+we see the youngster sitting like a criminal on the
+prisoner’s bench. Schigolch sniffed at him from all
+sides, and remarked, “He is still virgin.” [<i>Up in
+the gallery, dragging steps are heard.</i>] There she
+is! The future magnificent trapeze-artiste of the
+present age! [<i>The curtains part at the stair-head,
+and</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>appears, supported by</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span> <i>and
+in</i> <span class="smcap">Countess Geschwitz’s</span> <i>black dress, slowly and
+wearily descending</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Hui, old moldy! We’ve still to get
+over the frontier to-day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">[239]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Glaring stupidly at</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] Thunder
+of heaven! Death!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Speaks, to the end of the act, in the gayest
+tones.</i>] Slowly! You’re pinching my arm!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—How did you ever get the shamelessness
+to break out of prison with such a wolf’s face?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Stop your snout!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I’ll run for the police! I’ll give information!
+This scarecrow let herself be seen in
+tights? The padding alone would cost two months’
+salary!—You’re the most perfidious swindler that
+ever had lodging in Ox-butter Hotel!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Kindly refrain from insulting the lady!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Insulting, you call that? For this
+gnawed bone’s sake I’ve worn myself away! I can’t
+earn my own living! I’ll be a clown if I can still
+stand firm under a broomstick! But let the lightning
+strike me on the spot if I don’t worm ten thousand
+marks a year for life out of your tricks and
+frauds! I can tell you that! A pleasant trip!
+I’m going for the police! [<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Run, run.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He’ll take good care of himself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—We’re rid of <span class="gesperrt">him</span>!—And now some
+black coffee for the lady!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>At the table left.</i>] Here is coffee, ready
+to pour.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I must look after the sleeping-car
+tickets.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Brightly.</i>] Oh, freedom! Thank God
+for freedom!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">[240]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I’ll be back for you in half an hour.
+We’ll celebrate our departure in the station-restaurant.
+I’ll order a supper that’ll keep us going till
+to-morrow.—Good morning, Doctor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Good evening.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Pleasant rest!—Thanks, I know
+every door-handle here. So long! Have a good
+time! [<i>Exit, centre.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I haven’t seen a room for a year and a
+half. Curtains, chairs, pictures....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Won’t you drink it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’ve swallowed enough black coffee these
+five days. Have you any brandy?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I’ve got some elixir de Spaa.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—That reminds one of old times. [<i>Looks
+round the hall while</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>fills two glasses</i>.]
+Where’s my picture gone?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I’ve got it in my room, so no one shall
+see it here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Bring it here, do!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Haven’t you got over your vanity even in
+prison?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—How anxious at heart you get when you
+don’t see yourself for months! One day I got a
+brand-new dust-pan. When I swept up at seven in
+the morning I held the back of it up before my face.
+Tin doesn’t flatter, but I took pleasure in it all the
+same.—Get the picture out of your room. Shall I
+come, too?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—No, Heaven’s sake! You must spare yourself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">[241]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’ve been sparing myself long enough now!
+[<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>goes out, right, to get the picture</i>.] He has
+heart-trouble; but to have to plague one’s self with
+imagination fourteen months!... He kisses with
+the fear of death on him, and his two knees shake like
+a frozen vagabond’s. In God’s name!... In this
+room—if only I had not shot his father in the back!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Returns with the picture of</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>in the
+Pierrot-dress</i>.] It’s covered with dust. I had leant
+it against the fireplace, face to the wall.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You didn’t look at it all the time I was
+away?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I had so much business to attend to, with
+the sale of our paper and everything. Countess
+Geschwitz would have liked to have hung it up in her
+house, but she had to be prepared for search-warrants.
+[<i>He puts the picture on the easel.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Merrily.</i>] Now the poor monster is getting
+personally acquainted with the life of joy in
+Hotel Ox-butter!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Even now I don’t understand how events
+hang together.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Oh, Geschwitz arranged it all very cleverly.
+I do admire her inventiveness. But the cholera must
+have raged fearfully in Hamburg this summer; and
+on that she based her plan for freeing me. She took
+a course in hospital nursing here, and when she had
+the necessary documents she journeyed to Hamburg
+with them and nursed the cholera patients. At the
+first opportunity that offered she put on the underclothes
+that a sick woman had just died in and which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">[242]</span>
+really ought to have been burnt. The same morning
+she traveled back here and came to see me in prison.
+In my cell, while the wardress was outside, we two,
+as quick as we could, exchanged underclothes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—So that was the reason why the Countess
+and you fell sick of the cholera the same day!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Exactly, that was it! Geschwitz of
+course was instantly brought from her house to the
+contagious ward in the hospital. But with me, too,
+they couldn’t think of any other place to take me.
+So there we lay in one room in the contagious ward
+behind the hospital, and from the first day Geschwitz
+put forth all her art to make our two faces as like
+each other as possible. Day before yesterday she
+was let out as cured. Just now she came back and
+said she’d forgotten her watch. I put on her clothes,
+she slipped into my prison frock, and then I came
+away. [<i>With pleasure.</i>] Now she’s lying over there
+as the murderess of Dr. Schön.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—So far as outward appearance goes you
+can hold your own with the picture as well as ever.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’m a little peaked in the face, but otherwise
+I’ve lost nothing. Only one gets incredibly
+nervous in prison.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You looked horribly sick when you came in.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I had to, to get our necks out of the
+noose.—And you? What have you done in this year
+and a half?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I’ve had a succès d’estime in literary circles
+with a play I wrote about you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Who’s your sweetheart now?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">[243]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—An actress I’ve rented a house for in Karl
+Street.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Does she love you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—How should I know that? I haven’t seen
+the woman for six weeks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Can you stand that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You will never grasp it—but with me
+there’s the closest alternation between my sensuality
+and my creative powers. So, as regards you, for
+example, I have to make the choice of either setting
+you forth artistically or of loving you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>In a fairy-story tone.</i>] I used to dream,
+once, every other night, that I’d fallen into the
+hands of a sadist.... Come, give me a kiss!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—It’s shining in your eyes like the water
+in a deep well one has just thrown a stone into.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Come!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Kisses her.</i>] Your lips have got pretty
+thin, sure enough.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Come! [<i>Pushes him into a chair and seats
+herself on his knee.</i>] Do you shudder at me?—In
+Hotel Ox-butter we all got a lukewarm bath every
+four weeks. The wardresses took that opportunity
+to search our pockets as soon as we were in the
+water. [<i>She kisses him passionately.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Oh, oh!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re afraid that when I’m away you
+couldn’t write any more poems about me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—On the contrary, I shall write a dithyramb
+upon your glory.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">[244]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’m only sore about the hideous shoes I’m
+wearing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—They do not encroach upon your charms.
+Let us be thankful for the favor of this moment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I don’t feel at all like that to-day.—Do
+you remember the costume ball where I was dressed
+like a knight’s squire? How those wine-full women
+ran after me that time? Geschwitz crawled round,
+round my feet, and begged me to step on her face with
+my cloth shoes.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Come, dear heart!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>In the tone with which one quiets a restless
+child.</i>] Quietly! I shot your father.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I do not love you less for that. One kiss!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Bend your head back. [<i>She kisses him
+with deliberation.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You hold back the fire of my soul with
+the most dexterous art. And your breast breathes
+so virginly too. Yet if it weren’t for your two great,
+dark, child’s eyes, I must needs have thought you
+the cunningest whore that ever hurled a man to
+destruction.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>In high spirits.</i>] Would God I were!
+Come over the border with us to-day! Then we
+can see each other as often as we will, and we’ll get
+more pleasure from each other than now.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Through this dress I feel your body like
+a symphony. These slender ankles, this cantabile.
+This rapturous crescendo. And these knees, this
+capriccio. And the powerful andante of lust!—How
+peacefully these two slim rivals press against each
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">[245]</span>
+other in the consciousness that neither equals the
+other in beauty—till their capricious mistress wakes
+up and the rival lovers separate like the two hostile
+poles. I shall sing your praises so that your senses
+shall whirl!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Merrily.</i>] Meanwhile I’ll bury my hands
+in your hair. [<i>She does so.</i>] But here we’ll be disturbed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You have robbed me of my reason!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Aren’t you coming with me to-day?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—But the old fellow’s going with you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He won’t turn up again.—Is not that the
+divan on which your father bled to death?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Be still. Be still....</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">[246]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="PB_ACT_II">
+    ACT II
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene</span>—<i>A spacious salon in white stucco. In the
+rear wall, between two high mirrors, a wide folding
+doorway showing in the rear room a big
+card-table surrounded by Turkish upholstered
+chairs. In the left wall two doors, the upper
+one to the entrance-hall, the lower to the dining-room.
+Between them a rococo console with a
+white marble top, and above it</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span> <i>Pierrot-picture
+in a narrow gold frame let into the wall.
+Two other doors, right; near the lower one a
+small table. Wide and brightly covered chairs
+stand about, with thin legs and fragile arms;
+and in the middle is a sofa of the same style
+(Louis XV).</i></p>
+
+<p class='scene2'><i>A large company is moving about the salon
+in lively conversation. The men</i>—<span class="smcap">Alva</span>, <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>,
+<span class="smcap">Marquis Casti-Piani</span>, <span class="smcap">Banker Puntschu</span>,
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Journalist Heilmann</span>—<i>are in
+evening dress</i>. <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>wears a white Directoire
+dress with huge sleeves and white lace falling
+freely from belt to feet. Her arms are in white
+kid gloves, her hair done high with a little tuft
+of white feathers.</i> <span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span> <i>is in a bright
+blue hussar-waist trimmed with white fur and
+laced with silver braid, a tall tight collar with
+a white bow, and stiff cuffs with huge ivory links</i>.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">[247]</span><span class="smcap">Magelone</span> <i>is in bright rainbow-colored shot
+silk with very wide sleeves, long narrow waist,
+and three ruffles of spiral rose-colored ribbons
+and violet bouquets. Her hair is parted in the
+middle and drawn low over her temples. On her
+forehead is a mother-of-pearl ornament, held by
+a fine chain under her hair.</i> <span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>, <i>her
+daughter, twelve years old, has bright-green
+satin gaiters which yet leave visible the tops of
+her white silk socks, and a white-lace-covered
+dress with bright-green narrow sleeves, pearl-gray
+gloves, and free black hair under a big
+bright-green hat with white feathers</i>. <span class="smcap">Bianetta</span>
+<i>is in a loose-sleeved dress of dark-green velvet,
+the bodice sewn with pearls, and the skirt full,
+without a waist, embroidered at the hem with
+great false topazes set in silver</i>. <span class="smcap">Ludmilla
+Steinherz</span> <i>is in a glaring summer frock striped
+red and blue</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='scene2'><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span> <i>stands, centre, a full glass in his
+hand</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Ladies and gentlemen—I beg your pardon—please
+be quiet—I drink—permit me to drink—for
+this is the birthday party of our amiable
+hostess—[<i>taking</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span> <i>arm</i>] of Countess Adelaide
+d’Oubra—damned and done for!—I drink therefore — — and
+so forth, go to it, ladies! [<i>All surround</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>and clink with her</i>. <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>presses</i> <span class="smcap">Rodrigo’s</span>
+<i>hand</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I congratulate you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">[248]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I’m sweating like a roast pig.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] Let’s see if everything’s in
+order in the card-room. [<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>exeunt,
+rear</i>. <span class="smcap">Bianetta</span> <i>speaks to</i> <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bianetta</span>—They were telling me just now you
+were the strongest man in the world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—That I am. May I put my strength at
+your disposal?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—I love sharp-shooters better. Three
+months ago a sharp-shooter appeared in the Casino,
+and every time he went “bang!” I felt like this.
+[<i>She wriggles her hips.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Who speaks thruout the act in a
+bored and weary tone, to</i> <span class="smcap">Magelone</span>.] Say, dearie,
+how does it happen we see your nice little princess
+here for the first time to-night? [<i>Meaning</i> <span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—Do you really find her so delightful?—She
+is still in the convent. She must be back in
+school again on Monday.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—What did you say, Mama?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—I was just telling the gentlemen that
+you got the highest mark in geometry last week.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—Some pretty hair she’s got!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Just look at her feet: the way she
+walks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—By God, she’s a thoroughbred!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—[<i>Smiling.</i>] But, my dear sirs, take
+pity on her! She’s nothing but a child still!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—That’d trouble me damned little!
+[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>.] I’d give ten years of my life if
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">[249]</span>
+I could initiate the young lady into the ceremonies
+of our secret society!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—But you won’t get me to consent to
+that for a million. I won’t have the child’s youth
+ruined, the way mine was!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Confessions of a lovely soul! [<i>To</i>
+<span class="smcap">Magelone</span>.] Would you not grant your permission
+even for a set of real diamonds?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—Don’t brag! You’ll give as few real
+diamonds to me as to my child. You know that
+best yourself. [<span class="smcap">Kadidia</span> <i>goes into the rear room</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—But is nobody at all going to play,
+this evening?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>—Why, of course, Comtesse. I’m
+counting on it very much, for one!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bianetta</span>—Then let’s take our places right away.
+The gentlemen will soon come then.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—May I ask you to excuse me just a
+second more? I must say a word to my friend.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Offering his arm to</i> <span class="smcap">Bianetta</span>.]
+May I have the honor to be your partner? You
+always hold such a lucky hand!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>—Now just give me your other arm and
+then lead us into the gambling-hell. [<i>The three go
+off so, rear.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—Say, Mr. Puntschu, have you still got
+a few Jungfrau-shares for me, maybe?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—Jungfrau-shares? [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>.]
+The lady means the stock of the funicular railway on
+the Jungfrau. The Jungfrau, you know,—the Virgin—is
+a mountain and they’re going to build a wire
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">[250]</span>
+railway up it. [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Magelone</span>.] You understand,—just
+so there may be no confusion;—and how easy
+that would be in this select circle!—Yes, I still have
+some four thousand Jungfrau-shares, but I should
+like to keep those for myself. There won’t be such
+another chance soon of making a little fortune out
+of hand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—I’ve only one lone share of this Jungfrau-stock
+so far. I should like to have more, too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—I’ll try, Mr. Heilmann, to look after
+some for you. But I tell you beforehand you’ll have
+to pay drug-store prices for them!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—My fortune-teller advised me to look
+about me in time. All my savings are in Jungfrau-shares
+now. If it doesn’t turn out well, Mr. Puntschu,
+I’ll scratch your eyes out!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—I am perfectly sure of my affairs,
+my dearie!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Who has come back from the card-room,
+to</i> <span class="smcap">Magelone</span>.] I can guarantee your fears are
+absolutely unfounded. I paid very dear for my
+Jungfrau-stock and haven’t regretted it a minute.
+They’re going up steadily from day to day. There
+never was such a thing before.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—All the better, if you’re right. [<i>Taking</i>
+<span class="smcap">Puntschu’s</span> <i>arm</i>.] Come, my friend, let’s try
+our luck now at baccarat. [<i>All go out, rear, except</i>
+<span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>, <i>who scribbles something on
+a piece of paper and folds it up, then notices</i>
+<span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Hm, madam Countess—— [<span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">[251]</span><i>starts and shrinks</i>.] Do I look as dangerous as
+that? [<i>To himself.</i>] I must make a bon mot.
+[<i>Aloud.</i>] May I perhaps make so bold&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—You can go to the devil!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>As he leads</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>in</i>.] You will
+allow me a word or two.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Not noticing</i> <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>, <i>who presses his
+note into her hand</i>.] Oh, as many as you like.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>As he bows and goes out, rear.</i>] I beg
+you will excuse me....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>.] Leave us alone!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>.] Have I vexed you
+again somehow?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Since</i> <span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span> <i>does not stir</i>.]
+Are you deaf? [<span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>, <i>sighing deeply, goes
+out, rear</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Just say straight out how much you want.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—With money you can no longer
+serve me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What makes you think that we have no
+more money?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—You handed out the last bit of it to
+me yesterday.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—If you’re sure of that then I suppose
+it’s so.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—You’re down to bedrock, you and
+your writer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Then why all these words?—If you want
+to have me for yourself you need not first threaten
+me with execution.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—I know that. But I’ve told you
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">[252]</span>
+more than once that you are not the sort I fall for.
+I haven’t plundered you because you loved me, but
+loved you in order to fleece you. Bianetta is more
+to my taste from top to bottom than you. You set
+out the choicest lot of sweetmeats, and when one has
+frittered his time away at them he finds he’s hungrier
+than before. You’ve loved too long, even for our
+relations here. With a healthy young man, you
+only ruin his nervous system. But you’ll fit all the
+more perfectly in the position I have sought out for
+you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re crazy! Have I commissioned you
+to find a position for me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—I told you, though, that I was an
+employment-agent.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You told me you were a police spy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—One can’t live on that alone. I was
+an employment-agent originally, till I blundered over
+a minister’s daughter I’d got a position for in Valparaiso.
+The little darling in her childhood’s
+dreams had imagined the life to be even more intoxicating
+than it is, and complained about it to
+Mama. On that, they nabbed me; but by reliable
+demeanor I soon enough won the confidence of the
+criminal police and they sent me here on a hundred
+and fifty marks a month, because they were tripling
+our contingent here on account of these everlasting
+bomb-explosions. But who can get along in Paris
+on a hundred and fifty marks a month? My colleagues
+get women to support them; but, of course,
+I found it more convenient to take up my former
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">[253]</span>
+calling again; and of the numberless adventuresses
+of the best families of the entire world, whom chance
+brings together here, I have already forwarded many
+a young creature hungry for life to the place of her
+natural vocation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Decisively.</i>] I’m no good for that business.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Your views on that question make
+no difference whatever to me. The department of
+justice will pay anyone who delivers the murderess
+of Dr. Schön into the hands of the police a thousand
+marks. I only need to whistle for the constable
+who’s standing down at the corner to have earned
+a thousand marks. Against that, the House of
+Oikonomopulos in Cairo bids sixty pounds for you—twelve
+hundred marks—two hundred more than
+the Attorney General. And, besides, I am still so
+far a friend of mankind that I prefer to help my
+loves to happiness, not hurl them into misery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>As before.</i>] The life in such a house can
+never in the world make a woman of my sort happy.
+When I was fifteen, I might have liked it. I was
+desperate then—thought I should never be happy.
+I bought a revolver, and ran one night barefoot
+through the deep snow over the bridge to the park
+to shoot myself there. But then by good luck I lay
+three months in the hospital without once getting
+sight of a man, and in that time my eyes were opened
+and I got to know myself. Night after night in my
+dreams I saw the man for whom I was created and
+who was created for me, so that when I was let out
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">[254]</span>
+on the men again I was a silly goose no longer. Since
+then I can see on a man, in a pitch-dark night and
+a hundred feet away, whether we’re meant for each
+other; and if I sin against that insight I feel the
+next day dirtied, body and soul, and need weeks to
+get over the loathing I have for myself. And now
+you imagine I’ll give myself to every and any Tom
+and Harry!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Toms and Harries don’t patronize
+Oikonomopulos of Cairo. His custom consists of
+Scottish lords, Russian dignitaries, Indian governors,
+and our jolly Rhineland captains of industry. I
+must only guarantee that you speak French. With
+your gift for languages you’ll quickly enough learn
+as much English, besides, as you’ll need to get on
+with. And you’ll reside in a royally furnished
+apartment with an outlook on the minarets of the
+El Azhar Mosque, and walk around all day on Persian
+carpets as thick as your fist, and dress every
+evening in a fabulous Paris gown, and drink as much
+champagne as your customers can pay for, and,
+finally, you’ll even remain, up to a certain point, your
+own mistress. If the man doesn’t please you, you
+needn’t play up to him at all. Just let him give in
+his card, and then——[<i>Shrugs, and snaps his fingers.</i>]
+If the ladies didn’t get used to that the whole
+business would be simply impossible, because every
+one of them after the first few weeks would go headlong
+to the devil.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Her voice shaking.</i>] I do believe that
+since yesterday you’ve got a screw loose somewhere.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">[255]</span>
+Am I to understand that the Egyptian will pay fifteen
+hundred francs for a person whom he’s never
+seen?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—I took the liberty of sending him
+your pictures.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Those pictures that I gave you, you’ve
+sent to him?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—You see he can value them better
+than I. The picture in which you stand before the
+mirror as Eve he’ll probably hang up at the house-door,
+after you’ve got there.... And then there’s
+one thing more for you to notice: with Oikonomopulos
+in Cairo you’ll be safer from your bloodhounds
+than if you crept into a Canadian wilderness.
+It isn’t so easy to transport an Egyptian courtesan
+to a German prison,—first, on account of the mere
+expense, and second, from fear of treading too close
+upon eternal Justice.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Proudly, in a clear voice.</i>] What have
+I to do with your eternal Justice! You can see as
+plain as your five fingers I shan’t let myself be locked
+up in any such amusement-place!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Then will you permit me to whistle
+up the policeman?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>In wonder.</i>] Why don’t you simply ask
+me for twelve hundred marks, if you want the money?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—I want for no money! And I also
+don’t ask for it because you’re dead broke.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—We still have thirty thousand marks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—In Jungfrau-stock! I never have
+anything to do with stock. The Attorney General
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">[256]</span>
+pays in the imperial currency, and Oikonomopulos
+pays in English gold. You can be on board early
+to-morrow. The passage doesn’t last much more
+than five days. In two weeks at most you’re in
+safety. Here you are nearer to prison than anywhere.
+It’s a wonder which I, as one of the secret
+police, cannot understand, that you two have been
+able to live for a full year unmolested. But just
+as <i>I</i> came on the track of your antecedents, so any
+day, with your mighty consumption of men, one of
+my colleagues may make the happy discovery. Then
+I may just wipe my mouth, and you spend the most
+enjoyable years of your life in prison. If you will
+kindly decide quickly. The train goes at 12:30.
+If we haven’t struck a bargain before eleven, I
+whistle up the policeman. If we have, I pack you,
+just as you stand, into a carriage, drive you to the
+station, and to-morrow night escort you on board
+ship.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But is it possible you can be serious in all
+this?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Don’t you understand that your
+bodily rescue is the only thing left me to do?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’ll go with you to America or to China,
+but I can’t let myself be sold of my own accord!
+That is worse than prison!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Drawing a letter from his pocket.</i>]
+Just read this effusion! I’ll read it to you. Here’s
+the postmark “Cairo,” so you won’t believe I work
+with forged documents. The girl is a Berliner, was
+married two years and to a man whom you would
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">[257]</span>
+have envied her, a former comrade of mine. He
+travels now for some Hamburg colonial company....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Merrily.</i>] Then perhaps he <span class="gesperrt">visits</span> his
+wife occasionally?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—That is not incredible. But hear
+this impulsive expression of her feelings. My white-slave
+traffic seems to me absolutely no more honorable
+than the first judge you happened on would
+think it, but a cry of joy like this lets me feel a
+certain moral satisfaction for a moment. I am proud
+to earn my money by scattering happiness with full
+hands. [<i>Reads.</i>] “Dear Mr. Meyer”—that’s my
+name as a white-slave trader—“when you go to Berlin,
+please go right away to the conservatory on the
+Potsdamer Strasse and ask for Gusti von Rosenkron—the
+most beautiful woman that I’ve ever seen anywhere—delightful
+hands and feet, naturally small
+waist, straight back, full body, big eyes and short
+nose—just the sort you like best. I have written to
+her already. She has no prospects with her singing.
+Her mother hasn’t a penny. Sorry she’s already
+twenty-two, but she’s pining for love. Can’t marry,
+because absolutely without means. I have spoken
+with Madame. They’d like to take another German,
+if she’s well educated and musical. Italians and
+Frenchwomen can’t compete with us;—not cultured
+enough. If you should see Fritz”—Fritz is the husband;
+he’s getting a divorce, of course,—“tell him
+it was all a bore. He didn’t know any better, neither
+did I.” Now come the exact details&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">[258]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Goaded.</i>] I cannot sell the only thing
+that ever was my own!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Let me read some more.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>As before.</i>] This very evening, I’ll hand
+over to you our entire wealth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Believe me, for God’s sake, I’ve <span class="gesperrt">got</span>
+your last red cent! If we haven’t left this house before
+eleven, you and your lot will be transported
+to-morrow in a police-car to Germany.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You <span class="gesperrt">can’t</span> give me up!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Do you think that would be the
+worst thing I “can” have done in my life?... I
+must, in case we go to-night, have just a brief word
+with Bianetta. [<i>He goes into the card-room, leaving
+the door open behind him.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>stares before her,
+mechanically crumpling up the note that</i> <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>
+<i>stuck into her hand, which she has held in her fingers
+thruout the dialogue</i>. <span class="smcap">Alva</span>, <i>behind the card-table,
+gets up, a bill in his hand, and comes into the
+salon</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] Brilliantly! It’s going brilliantly!
+Geschwitz is wagering her last shirt.
+Puntschu has promised me ten more Jungfrau-shares.
+Steinherz is making her little gains and profits.
+[<i>Exit, lower right.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I in a bordel? [<i>She reads the paper she
+holds, and laughs madly.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Coming back with a cash-box in his
+hand.</i>] Aren’t you going to play, too?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Oh, yes, surely—why not?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—By the way, it’s in the “Berliner Tageblatt”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">[259]</span>
+to-day that Alfred Hugenberg has hurled himself
+over the stairs in prison.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Is he too in prison?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Only in a sort of house of detention.
+[<i>Exit, rear.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>is about to follow, but</i> <span class="smcap">Countess
+Geschwitz</span> <i>meets her in the doorway</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—You are going because I come?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Resolutely.</i>] No, God knows. But when
+you come then I go.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—You have defrauded me of all the
+good things of this world that I still possessed. You
+might at the very least preserve the outward forms
+of politeness in your intercourse with me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>As before.</i>] I am as polite to you as to
+any other woman. I only beg you to be equally so
+to me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Have you forgotten the passionate
+endearments you used, while we lay together in the
+hospital, to seduce me into letting myself be locked
+into prison for you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Well, why else did you bring me down with
+the cholera beforehand? I swore very different
+things to myself, even while it was going on, from
+what I had to promise you! I am shaken with horror
+at the thought that that should ever become reality!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Then you cheated me consciously,
+deliberately!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Gaily.</i>] And what have you been cheated
+of, eh? Your physical advantages have found so
+enthusiastic an admirer here, that I ask myself if
+I won’t have to give piano lessons once more, to keep
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">[260]</span>
+alive! No seventeen-year-old child could make a
+man madder with love than you, a pervert, are making
+him, poor fellow, by your shrewishness.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Of whom are you speaking? I don’t
+understand a word.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>As before.</i>] I’m speaking of your acrobat,
+of Rodrigo Quast. He’s an athlete: he balances
+two saddled cavalry horses on his chest. Can a
+woman desire anything more glorious? He told me
+just now that he’d jump into the water to-night if
+you did not take pity on him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—I do not envy you your cleverness at
+torturing the helpless victims sacrificed to you by
+their inscrutable destiny. I cannot envy you at all.
+My own misery has not yet wrung from me the pity
+that I feel for you. <i>I</i> feel free as a god when I
+think to what creatures <span class="gesperrt">you</span> are enslaved.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Whom do you mean?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Casti-Piani, upon whose forehead the
+most degenerate baseness is written in letters of fire!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Be silent! I’ll kick you, if you speak ill
+of <span class="gesperrt">him</span>. He loves me so uprightly that your most
+venturous self-sacrifices are beggary in comparison!
+He gives me such proofs of self-denial as reveal <span class="gesperrt">you</span>
+for the first time in all your loathsomeness! You
+didn’t get finished in your mother’s womb, neither
+as woman nor as man. You have no human nature
+like the rest of us. The stuff didn’t go far enough
+for a man, and for a woman you got too much brain
+in your noddle. That’s the reason you’re crazy!
+Turn to Miss Bianetta! She can be had for everything
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">[261]</span>
+for pay! Press a gold-piece into her hand
+and she’ll be yours. [<i>All the company save</i> <span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>
+<i>throng in out of the card-room</i>.] For the Lord’s
+sake, what has happened?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—Nothing whatever! We’re thirsty,
+that’s all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—Everybody has won. We can’t believe
+it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bianetta</span>—Seems to me I have won quite a
+fortune!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>—Don’t boast of it, my child. That
+isn’t lucky.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—But the bank has won, too! How is
+that <span class="gesperrt">possible</span>?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—It is colossal, where all the money comes
+from!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Let us not ask! Enough that we
+need not spare the champagne.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—I can pay for a supper in a respectable
+restaurant afterwards, anyway!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—To the buffet, ladies! Come to the buffet!
+[<i>All exeunt, lower left.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Holding</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>back</i>.] Un momong,
+my heart. Have you read my billet-doux?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Threaten me with discovery as much as
+you like! I have no more twenty thousands to dispose
+of.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Don’t lie to me, you punk! You’ve still
+got forty thousand in Jungfrau-stock. Your so-called
+spouse has just been bragging of it himself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Then turn to <span class="gesperrt">him</span> with your blackmailing!
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">[262]</span>
+It’s all one to me what he does with his money.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Thank you! With that blockhead I’d
+need twice twenty-four hours to make him grasp what
+I was talking about. And then come his explanations,
+that make one deathly sick; and meanwhile
+my bride-to-be writes me to call it off, and I can
+just hang a hurdy-gurdy over my shoulder.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What, have you got engaged here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Maybe I ought to have asked your permission
+first? What were my thanks here for having
+freed you from prison at the cost of my health?
+You abandoned me! I might have had to turn porter
+if this girl hadn’t taken me up! At my entrance,
+the very first evening, somebody threw a velvet-covered
+arm-chair at my head! This country is too
+decadent to value genuine shows of strength any
+more. If I’d been a boxing kangaroo they’d have
+interviewed me and put my picture in all the papers.
+Thank Heaven, I’d already made the acquaintance of
+my Celestine. She’s got the savings of twenty years
+deposited with the government; and she loves me
+just for myself. She doesn’t aim at vile vulgarities
+and nothing else like you. She’s had three children
+by an American bishop—all of the greatest promise.
+Early day after to-morrow we’re going to get married
+at the registrar’s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You have my blessing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Your blessing can be stolen from me.
+I’ve told my bride I had twenty thousand in stock
+at the bank.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">[263]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Amused.</i>] And after that he boasts the
+woman loves him for himself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—She honors in me the man of feeling, not
+the man of force as you and all the others have done.
+That’s well over now. First they’d tear the clothes
+from one’s body and then waltz around with the
+chambermaid. I’ll be a skeleton before I’ll let myself
+in again for such diversions!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Then why the devil do you especially pursue
+poor Geschwitz with your proposals?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Because the thing is of noble blood.
+I’m a man of the world, and can do distinguished
+conversation better than any of you. But now [<i>with
+a gesture</i>] my talk is hanging out of my mouth!
+Will you get me the money before to-morrow evening,
+or won’t you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I have no money.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I’ll have hen-droppings in my head
+before I’ll let myself be put off with that! He’ll give
+you his last cent if you’ll only do your damned debt
+and duty by him once! You lured the poor lad here,
+and now he can see where to scare up a suitable
+engagement for his accomplishments.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What is it to you if he wastes his money
+with women or at cards?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Do you absolutely <span class="gesperrt">want</span>, then, to
+throw the last penny that his father earned by his
+paper into the jaws of this rapacious pack? You’ll
+make four people happy if you’ll strain a point and
+sacrifice yourself for a philanthropic purpose! Has
+it got to be only Casti-Piani <span class="gesperrt">forever</span>?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">[264]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Lightly.</i>] Shall I ask him perhaps to
+light you down the stairs?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—As you wish, Countess! If I don’t get
+the twenty thousand marks by to-morrow evening,
+I make a statement to the police and your salon
+comes to an end. Auf Wiedersehen! [<span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>
+<i>enters, breathless, upper right</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re looking for Miss Magelone? She’s
+not here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—No, I’m looking for something else&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Taking him to the entry-door, opposite
+him.</i>] Second door on the left.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>.] Did you learn that from
+your bride?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—[<i>Bumping into</i> <span class="smcap">Puntschu</span> <i>in the
+doorway</i>.] Excuse me, my angel!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—Ah, it’s you. Miss Magelone’s waiting
+for you in the lift.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—You go up with her, please. I’ll be
+right back. [<i>He hurries out, left.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>goes out
+at lower left</i>. <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span> <i>follows her</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—Some heat, that! If I don’t cut off
+<span class="gesperrt">your</span> ears, you’ll cut ’em off me! If I can’t hire
+out my Jehoshaphat,&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_9_9" href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> I’ve just got to help myself
+with my brains! Won’t they get wrinkled, my
+brains! Won’t they get indisposed! Won’t they
+need to bathe in Eau de Cologne! [<span class="smcap">Bob</span>, <i>a groom
+in a red jacket, tight leather breeches, and twinkling
+riding-boots, fifteen years old, brings in a telegram</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bob</span>—Mr. Puntschu, the banker!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">[265]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—[<i>Breaks open the telegram and murmurs</i>:]
+“Jungfrau Funicular Stock fallen to——”
+Ay, ay, so goes the world! [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Bob</span>.] Wait!
+[<i>Gives him a tip.</i>] Tell me—what’s your name?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bob</span>—Well, my name is Freddy, but they call me
+Bob, because that’s the fashion now.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—How old are you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bob</span>—Fifteen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—[<i>Enters hesitatingly from lower left.</i>] I
+beg your pardon, can you tell me if Mama is here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—No, my dear. [<i>Aside.</i>] Devil, she’s
+got breeding!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—I’m hunting all over for her; I can’t
+find her anywhere.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—Your mama will turn up again soon,
+as true as my name’s Puntschu! [<i>Looking at</i> <span class="smcap">Bob</span>.]
+And that pair of breeches! God of Justice! It gets
+uncanny! [<i>He goes out, upper right.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—Haven’t <span class="gesperrt">you</span> seen my mama, perhaps?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bob</span>—No, but you only need to come with me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—Where is she then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bob</span>—She’s gone up in the lift. Come along.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—No, no, I can’t go up with you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bob</span>—We can hide up there in the corridor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—No, no, I can’t come, or I’ll be scolded.
+[<span class="smcap">Magelone</span>, <i>terribly excited, rushes in, upper left,
+and possesses herself of</i> <span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—Ha, there you are at last, you common
+creature!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—[<i>Crying.</i>] O Mama, Mama, I was
+hunting for you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">[266]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—Hunting for me? Did I tell you to
+hunt for me? What have you had to do with this
+fellow? [<span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>, <span class="smcap">Alva</span>, <span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>, <span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>,
+<span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>, <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>enter, lower left</i>. <span class="smcap">Bob</span> <i>has
+slipped away</i>.] Now don’t bawl before all the people
+on me; look out, I tell you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>As they all surround</i> <span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>.] But
+you’re crying, sweetheart! Why are you crying?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—By God, she’s really been crying!
+Who’s done anything to hurt you, little goddess?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>—[<i>Kneels before her and folds her in
+her arms.</i>] Tell me, cherub, what bad thing has
+happened. Do you want a cookie? Do you want
+some chocolate?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—It’s just nerves. The child’s getting
+them much too soon. It would be best, anyway, if
+no one paid any attention to her!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—That sounds like you! You’re a
+pretty mother! The courts’ll take the child away
+from you yet and appoint me her guardian! [<i>Stroking</i>
+<span class="smcap">Kadidia’s</span> <i>cheeks</i>.] Isn’t that so, my little goddess?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—I should be glad if we could start the
+baccarat again at last! [<i>All go into the dining-room
+again.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>is held back at the door by</i> <span class="smcap">Bob</span>, <i>who
+comes from the upper entrance</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>When</i> <span class="smcap">Bob</span> <i>has whispered to her</i>.] Certainly!
+Let him come in! [<span class="smcap">Bob</span> <i>opens the hall door
+and lets</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span> <i>enter, in evening dress, his patent-leather
+shoes much worn, and keeping on his
+shabby opera hat</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">[267]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>With a look at</i> <span class="smcap">Bob</span>.] Where did
+you get him from?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—The circus.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—How much does he get?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Ask him if it interests you. [<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Bob</span>.]
+Shut the doors. [<span class="smcap">Bob</span> <i>goes out lower left, shutting
+the door behind him</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Sitting down.</i>] The truth is, I’m
+in need of money. I’ve hired a flat for my mistress.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Have you taken another mistress here,
+too?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—She’s from Frankfort. In her youth
+she was mistress to the King of Naples. She tells me
+every day she was once very bewitching.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Outwardly with complete composure.</i>]
+Does she need the money very badly?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—She wants to fit up her own apartments.
+Such sums are of no account to <span class="gesperrt">you</span>. [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>is suddenly overcome with a fit of weeping</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Flinging herself at</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>.] O God
+Almighty!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Patting her.</i>] Well? What is it
+now?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Sobbing violently.</i>] It’s too horrible!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Draws her onto his knee and holds
+her in his arms like a little child.</i>] Hm—You’re
+trying to do too much, child. You must go to bed,
+now and then, with a story.—Cry, that’s right, cry
+it all out. It used to shake you just so fifteen years
+ago. Nobody has screamed since then, the way you
+could scream! You didn’t wear any white tufts
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">[268]</span>
+on your head then, nor any transparent stockings
+on your legs: you had neither shoes nor stockings
+then.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Crying.</i>] Take me home with you!
+Take me home with you to-night! Please! We’ll
+find carriages enough downstairs!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I’ll take you with me; I’ll take you
+with me.—What is it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It’s going round my neck! I’m to be
+shown up!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—By whom? Who’s showing you up?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—The acrobat.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>With the utmost composure.</i>] I’ll
+look after him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Look after him! <span class="gesperrt">Please</span>, look after
+him! Then do with me what you will!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—If he comes to me, he’s done for. My
+window is over the water. But [<i>shaking his head</i>]
+he won’t come; he won’t come.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What number do you live at?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—376, the last house before the hippodrome.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’ll send him there. He’ll come with the
+crazy woman that creeps about my feet. He’ll come
+this very evening. Go home and let them find it
+comfortable.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Just let them come.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—To-morrow bring me the gold rings he
+wears in his ears.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Has he got rings in his ears?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You can take them out before you let him
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">[269]</span>
+down. He doesn’t notice anything when he’s drunk.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—And then, child—what then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Then I’ll give you the money for your mistress.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I call that pretty stingy.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—And whatever else you want! Whatever
+I have.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—It’ll soon be ten years since we knew
+each other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Is that all?—But you’ve got a mistress.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—My Frankforter is no longer of to-day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But then swear!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Haven’t I always kept my word to
+you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Swear that you’ll look after him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I’ll look after him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Swear it to me! Swear it to me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Puts his hand on her ankle.</i>] By
+everything that’s holy! To-night, if he comes&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—By everything that’s holy!—How that
+cools me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—How this heats me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Oh, do drive straight home. They’ll come
+in half an hour! Take a carriage!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I’m going.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Quick! Please!— —All-powerful&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Why do you stare at me so again
+already?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Nothing— ...</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">[270]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Well? Is your tongue frozen on
+you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—My garter’s broken.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—What if it is? Is that all?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What does that augur?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—What does it? I’ll fasten it for you
+if you’ll keep still.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—That augurs misfortune!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Yawning.</i>] Not for you, child.
+Cheer up, I’ll look after him! [<i>Exit.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>puts
+her left foot on a foot-stool, fastens her garter, and
+goes out into the card-room. Then</i> <span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span> <i>is cuffed
+in from the dining-room, lower left, by</i> <span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—You can treat me decently anyway!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Still perfectly unemotional.</i>]
+Whatever would induce me to do that? I wish to
+know what you said to her here a little while ago.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Then you can be very fond of me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Will you bandy words with me, dog?
+You demanded that she go up in the lift with you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—That’s a shameless, perfidious lie!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—She told me so herself. You
+threatened to denounce her if she didn’t go with you.—Shall
+I shoot you on the spot?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—The shameless hussy! As if anything
+like that could occur to me!—Even if I should want
+to have her, God knows I don’t first need to threaten
+her with prison!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Thank you. That’s all I wanted to
+know. [<i>Exit, upper left.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Such a hound! A fellow I could throw
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">[271]</span>
+up onto the roof so he’d stick like a Limburger
+cheese!—Come back here, so I can wind your guts
+round your neck. That would be even better!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Enters, lower left; merrily.</i>] Where were
+you? I’ve been hunting for you like a pin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—I’ve shown <span class="gesperrt">him</span> what it means to start
+anything with me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Whom?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Your Casti-Piani! What made you tell
+him, you slut, that I wanted to seduce you?!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Did you not demand that I give myself
+to my late husband’s son for twenty thousand in
+Jungfrau-shares?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Because it’s your duty to take pity on
+the poor young fellow! You shot away his father
+before his nose in the prime of his life! But your
+Casti-Piani will think it over before he comes into
+<span class="gesperrt">my</span> sight again. I gave him one in the basket that
+made his tripe fly to heaven like Roman candles. If
+that’s the best substitute you have for me, then I’m
+sorry I ever enjoyed your favor!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Lady Geschwitz is in the fearfullest case.
+She twists herself up in fits. She’s at the point of
+jumping into the water if you let her wait any
+longer.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—What’s the beast waiting for?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—For you to take her with you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Then give her my regards, and she can
+jump into the water.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—She’ll lend me twenty thousand marks to
+save me from destruction if you will preserve her
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">[272]</span>
+from it herself. If you’ll take her off to-night, I’ll
+deposit twenty thousand marks to-morrow in your
+name at any bank you say.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—And if I don’t take her off with me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Denounce me! Alva and I are dead broke.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Devil and damnation!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You make four people happy if you strain
+a point and sacrifice yourself for a worthy end.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—It won’t go; I know that, beforehand.
+I’ve tried the thing out thoroughly. Who’d have
+expected such a creditable feeling in that bag
+o’ bones! What interested me in her was her being
+an aristocrat. My behavior was as gentleman-like,
+and more, as you could find among German circus-people.
+If I’d only just pinched her in the calves
+once!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Watchfully.</i>] She is still a virgin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Sighing.</i>] If there’s a God in heaven,
+you’ll get paid for your jokes some day! I prophesy
+that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Geschwitz waits. What shall I tell her?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—My very best wishes, and I am perverse.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I will deliver that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Wait a second. Is it certain sure I
+get twenty thousand marks from her?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Ask herself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—Then tell her I’m ready. I await her
+in the dining-room. I must just first look after a
+barrel of caviare. [<i>Exit, left.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>opens the rear
+door and calls in a clear voice “Martha!”</i> <span class="smcap">Countess
+Geschwitz</span> <i>enters, closing the door behind her</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">[273]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Pleased.</i>] Dear heart, you can save me
+from death to-night.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—How?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—By going to a certain house with the acrobat.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—What for, dear?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—He says you must belong to him this very
+night or he’ll denounce me to-morrow.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—You know I can’t belong to any man.
+My fate has not permitted that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—If you don’t please him, that’s his own fix.
+Why has he fallen in love with you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—But he’ll get as brutal as a hangman.
+He’ll revenge himself for his disappointment and beat
+my head in. I’ve been through that already....
+Can you not possibly spare me this ultimate test?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What will you gain by his denouncing me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—I have still enough left of my fortune
+to take us to America together in the steerage.
+There you’d be safe from all your pursuers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Pleased and gay.</i>] I want to stay here.
+I can never be happy in any other city. You must
+tell him that you can’t live without him. Then he’ll
+feel flattered and be gentle as a lamb. You must pay
+the coachman, too: give him this paper with the address
+on it. 376 is a fourth-class hotel where they’re
+expecting you with him this evening.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>Shuddering.</i>] How can such a
+monstrosity save your life? I don’t understand that.
+You have conjured up to torture me the most terrible
+fate that can fall upon outlawed me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">[274]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Watchful.</i>] Perhaps the encounter will
+cure you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>Sighing.</i>] O Lulu, if an eternal
+retribution does exist, I hope I may not have to answer
+then for you. I cannot make myself believe that
+no God watches over us. Yet you are probably
+right that there is nothing there, for how can an
+insignificant worm like me have provoked his wrath
+so as to experience only horror there where all living
+creation swoons for bliss?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You needn’t complain. When you <span class="gesperrt">are</span>
+happy you’re a hundred thousand times happier than
+one of us ordinary mortals ever is!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—I know that too! I envy no one!
+But I am still waiting. You have deceived me so
+often already.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I am yours, my darling, if you quiet Mr.
+Acrobat till to-morrow. He only wants his vanity
+placated. You must beseech him to take pity on you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—And to-morrow?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I await you, my heart. I shall not open
+my eyes till you come: see no chambermaid, receive
+no hairdresser, not open my eyes before you are
+with me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Then let him come.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But you must throw yourself at his head,
+dear! Have you got the house-number?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Three-seventy-six. But quick now!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Calls into the dining-room.</i>] Ready, my
+darling?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">[275]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—[<i>Entering.</i>] The ladies will pardon
+my mouth’s being full.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>Seizing his hand.</i>] I implore you,
+have mercy on my need!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Rodrigo</span>—A la bonne heure! Let us mount the
+scaffold! [<i>Offers her his arm.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Good night, children! [<i>Accompanies
+them into the corridor ... then quickly returns
+with</i> <span class="smcap">Bob</span>.] Quick, quick, Bob! We must get away
+this moment! You escort me! But we must change
+clothes!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bob</span>—[<i>Curt and clear.</i>] As the gracious lady
+bids.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Oh what, gracious lady! You give me
+your clothes and put on mine. Come! [<i>Exeunt
+into the dining-room. Noise in the card-room, the
+doors are torn open, and</i> <span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>, <span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>,
+<span class="smcap">Alva</span>, <span class="smcap">Bianetta</span>, <span class="smcap">Magelone</span>, <span class="smcap">Kadidia</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>
+<i>enter</i>, <span class="smcap">Heilmann</span> <i>holding a piece of paper with a
+glowing Alpine peak at its top</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>.] Will you accept
+this share of Jungfrau-stock, sir?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—But that paper has no exchange, my
+friend.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—You rascal! You just don’t want to
+give me my revenge!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Bianetta</span>.] Have you any
+idea what it’s all about?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>—Puntschu has taken all his money from
+him, and now gives up the game.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—Now he’s got cold feet, the filthy Jew!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">[276]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—How have I given up the game? How
+have I got cold feet? The gentleman has merely
+to lay plain cash! Is this my banking-office I’m
+in? He can proffer me his trash to-morrow morning!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—Trash you call that? The stock to
+my knowledge is at 210!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—Yesterday it was at 210, you’re right.
+To-day, it’s just nowhere. And to-morrow you’ll
+find nothing cheaper or more tasteful to paper your
+stairs with.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—But how is that possible? Then we
+<span class="gesperrt">would</span> be down and out!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—-Well, what am <i>I</i> to say, who have
+lost my whole fortune in it! To-morrow morning
+I shall have the pleasure of taking up the struggle
+for an assured existence for the thirty-sixth time!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—[<i>Pressing forward.</i>] Am I dreaming
+or do I really understand the Jungfrau-stock has
+fallen?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—Fallen even lower than you! Tho
+you can use ’em for curl-paper.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—O God in Heaven! Ten years’ work!
+[<i>Falls in a faint.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—Wake up, Mama! Wake up!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Bianetta</span>—Say, Mr. Puntschu, where will you
+eat this evening, since you’ve lost your whole fortune?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Puntschu</span>—Wherever you like, young lady!
+Take me where you will, but quickly! Here it’s getting
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">[277]</span>
+quite alarming. [<i>Exeunt</i> <span class="smcap">Puntschu</span> <i>and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Bianetta</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—[<i>Squeezing up his stock and flinging
+it to the ground.</i>] That is what one gets from this
+pack!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>—Why did you speculate on the Jungfrau
+too? But just send a few little notes on the
+company here to the German police, and you may
+still win something in the end.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—I’ve never tried that yet, but if you
+want to help me——?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>—Let’s go to an all-night restaurant.
+Do you know the Five-footed Calf?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—I’m very sorry&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>—Or the Sucking Lamb, or the Smoking
+Dog? They’re all right near here. We’ll be
+all by ourselves there, and before dawn we’ll have a
+little article ready.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Heilmann</span>—Don’t you sleep?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>—Oh, of course; but not at night.
+[<i>Exeunt</i> <span class="smcap">Heilmann</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Ludmilla</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Who has been trying to resuscitate</i>
+<span class="smcap">Magelone</span>.] Ice-cold hands! Ah, what a splendid
+woman! We must undo her waist. Come, Kadidia,
+undo your mother’s waist! She’s so fearfully tight-laced.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—[<i>Without stirring.</i>] I’m afraid.
+[<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>enters lower left in a jockey-cap, red jacket,
+white leather breeches and riding boots, a riding cape
+over her shoulders</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Have you any cash, Alva?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">[278]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Looking up.</i>] Have you gone crazy?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—In two minutes the police’ll be here. We
+are denounced. You can stay, of course, if you’re
+eager to!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Springing up.</i>] Merciful Heaven! [<i>Exeunt</i>
+<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—[<i>Shaking her mother, in tears.</i>]
+Mama, Mama! Wake up! They’ve all run away!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—[<i>Coming to herself.</i>] And youth
+gone! And my best days behind me! Oh, this life!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—But I’m young, Mama! Why shouldn’t
+I earn any money? I don’t want to go back to the
+convent! Please, Mama, keep me with you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—God bless you, sweetheart! You
+don’t know what you say——Oh, no, I shall look
+around for a vaudeville engagement, and sing the
+people my misfortunes with the Jungfrau-stock.
+Things like that are always applauded.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—But you’ve got no voice, Mama!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—Ah, yes, that’s true!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—Take me with you into vaudeville!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Magelone</span>—No, it would break my heart!—But,
+well, if it can’t be otherwise, and you’re so made for
+it,—I can’t change things!—Yes, we can go to the
+Olympia together to-morrow!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kadidia</span>—O Mama, how glad that makes me feel!
+[<i>A plain-clothes detective enters, upper left.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Detective</span>—In the name of the law—I arrest
+you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Following him, bored.</i>] What
+sort of nonsense is that? <span class="gesperrt">That</span> isn’t the right one!</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">[279]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak" id="PB_ACT_III">
+    ACT III
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene</span>—<i>An attic room, without windows, but with
+two skylights, under one of which stands a bowl
+filled with rain-water. Down right, a door
+thru a board partition into a sort of cubicle
+under the slanting roof. Near it, a wobbly
+flower-table with a bottle and a smoking oil-lamp
+on it. Upper right, a worn-out couch.
+Door centre; near it, a chair without a seat.
+Down left, below the entrance door, a torn gray
+mattress. None of the doors can shut tight.</i></p>
+
+<p class='scene2'><i>The rain beats on the roof</i>. <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span> <i>in
+a long gray overcoat lies on the mattress</i>;
+<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>on the couch, wrapped in a plaid whose
+straps still hang on the wall above him</i>.</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—The rain’s drumming for the parade.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Cheerful weather for her first appearance!
+I dreamt just now we were dining together at the
+Olympia. Bianetta was with us there again. The
+tablecloth was dripping on all four sides with champagne.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Ya, ya. And I was dreaming of a
+Christmas pudding. [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>appears with her rather
+short hair falling to her shoulders, barefoot, in a
+torn black dress</i>.] Where have you been, child?
+Curling your hair first?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—She only does that to revive old memories.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">[280]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—If one could only get warmed up a little,
+from one of you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Are you going to enter barefoot on your
+pilgrimage?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—The first step always costs all kinds
+of moaning and groaning. Twenty years ago it was
+no whit better, and what she has learned since then!
+The coals only have to be blown. When she’s been
+at it a week, not ten locomotives will hold her in our
+miserable attic.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—The bowl is running over.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What shall I do with the water?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Pour it out the window. [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>gets up
+on the chair and empties the bowl thru the skylight</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It looks as if the rain were going to let
+up at last.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—You’re wasting the time when the
+clerks go home after supper.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Would to God I were lying somewhere
+where no step would wake me any more!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Would that I were, too! Why prolong
+this life? Let’s rather starve to death together this
+very evening in peace and concord! Aren’t we at
+the last stage now?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Why don’t <span class="gesperrt">you</span> go out and get us something
+to eat? You’ve never earned a penny in your
+whole life!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—In this weather, when no one would kick
+a dog from his door?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But me! I, with the little blood I have
+left in my limbs, I am to stop your mouths!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">[281]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I don’t touch a farthing of the money!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Let her go, just! I long for one
+more Christmas pudding; then I’ve had enough.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—And I long for one more beefsteak and a
+cigarette; then die! I was just dreaming of a
+cigarette, such as has never yet been smoked!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—She’ll rather see us finished before
+her eyes, than go and do herself a little pleasure.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—The people on the street will sooner leave
+cloak and coat in my hands than go with me for nothing!
+If you hadn’t sold my clothes, I at least
+wouldn’t need to be afraid of the lamp-light. I’d like
+to see the woman who could earn anything in the
+rags I’m wearing on my body!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I have left nothing human untried. As
+long as I had money I spent whole nights making
+up tables with which one couldn’t help winning
+against the cleverest card-sharps. And yet evening
+after evening I lost more than if I had shaken out
+gold by the pailful. Then I offered my services to
+the courtesans; but they don’t take anyone that the
+courts haven’t first branded, and they see at the first
+glance if one’s related to the guillotine or not.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Ya, ya.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I spared myself no disillusionments; but
+when I made jokes, they laughed at <span class="gesperrt">me</span>, and when I
+behaved as respectable as I am, they boxed my ears,
+and when I tried being smutty, they got so chaste
+and maidenly that my hair stood up on my head
+for horror. Him who has not prevailed over society,
+they have no confidence in.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">[282]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Won’t you kindly put on your boots
+now, child? I don’t think I shall grow much older
+in this lodging. It’s months since I had any feeling
+in the ends of my toes. Toward midnight, I’ll
+drink a bit more down in the pub. The lady that
+keeps it told me yesterday I still had a serious chance
+of becoming her lover.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—In the name of the three devils, I’ll go
+down! [<i>She puts to her mouth the bottle on the
+flower-table.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—So they can smell your stink a half-hour
+off!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I shan’t drink it all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—You won’t go down. You’re my woman.
+You shan’t go down. I forbid it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—What would you forbid your woman when
+you can’t support yourself?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Whose fault is that? Who but my woman
+has laid me on the sick-bed?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Am <i>I</i> sick?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Who has trailed me thru the dung? Who
+has made me my father’s murderer?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Did <span class="gesperrt">you</span> shoot him? He didn’t lose much,
+but when I see you lying there I could hack off both
+my hands for having sinned against my judgment!
+[<i>She goes out, into her room.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—She infected me from her Casti-Piani. It’s
+a long time since she was susceptible to it herself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Little devils like her can’t begin putting
+up with it too soon, if angels are ever going to
+come out of them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">[283]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—She ought to have been born Empress of
+Russia. Then she’d have been in the right place. A
+second Catherine the Second! [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>re-enters with
+a worn-out pair of boots, and sits on the floor to put
+them on</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—If only I don’t go headfirst down the
+stairs! Ugh, how cold! Is there anything in the
+world more dismal than a daughter of joy?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Patience, patience! It’s just a question
+of getting the right push into the business.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It’ll be all right with me! No one need
+pity me any more. [<i>Puts the bottle to her lips.</i>]
+That fires one!—O accursed! [<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—When we hear her coming, we must
+creep into my cubby-hole awhile.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I’m damned sorry for her! When I think
+back.... I grew up with her in a way, you know.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—She’ll hold out as long as I live, anyway.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—We treated each other at first like brother
+and sister. Mama was still living then. I met her
+by chance one morning when she was dressing. Dr.
+Goll had been called for a consultation. Her hairdresser
+had read my first poem, that I’d had printed
+in “Society”: “Follow thy pack far over the mountains;
+it will return again, covered with sweat and
+dust——”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Oh, ya!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—And then she came, in rose-colored muslin,
+with nothing under it but a white satin slip—for
+the Spanish ambassador’s ball. Dr. Goll seemed to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">[284]</span>
+feel his death near. He asked me to dance with her,
+so she shouldn’t cause any mad acts. Papa meanwhile
+never turned his eyes from us, and all thru
+the waltz she was looking over my shoulder, only at
+him.... Afterwards she shot him. It is unbelievable.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I’ve only got a strong doubt whether
+anyone will bite any more.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I shouldn’t like to advise anyone to!
+[<span class="smcap">Schigolch</span> <i>grunts</i>.]—At that time, tho she was a
+fully developed woman, she had the expression of
+a five-year-old, joyous, utterly healthy child. And
+she was only three years younger than me then—but
+how long ago it is now! For all her immense
+superiority in matters of practical life, she let me
+explain “Tristan and Isolde” to her—and how entrancingly
+she could listen! Out of the little sister
+who even in her marriage still felt like a schoolgirl,
+came the unhappy, hysterical artist’s wife. Out of
+the artist’s wife came then the spouse of my murdered
+father, and out of <span class="gesperrt">her</span> came, then, my mistress.
+Well, so that is the way of the world. Who
+will prevail against it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—If only she doesn’t skid away from
+the gentlemen with honorable intentions and bring
+us up instead some vagabond she’s exchanged her
+heart’s secrets with.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I kissed her for the first time in her
+rustling bridal dress. But afterwards she didn’t remember
+it.... All the same, I believe she had
+thought of me even in my father’s arms. It can’t
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">[285]</span>
+have been often with him: he had his best time behind
+him, and she deceived him with coachman and
+bootblack; but when she did give herself to him,
+then <i>I</i> stood before her soul. That was the way,
+without my realizing it, that she acquired this dreadful
+power over me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—There they are! [<i>Heavy steps are
+heard mounting the stairs.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Starting up.</i>] I will not endure it! I’ll
+throw the fellow out!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Wearily picks himself up, takes</i>
+<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>by the collar and cuffs him toward the left</i>.]
+Forward, forward! How is the young man to confess
+his trouble to her with us two sprawling round
+here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—But if he demands other things—low
+things—of her?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—If, well, if! What more will he demand
+of her? He’s only a man like the rest of us!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—We must leave the door open.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Pushing</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>in, right</i>.] Nonsense!
+Lie down!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I’ll hear it soon enough. Heaven spare
+him!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Closing the door, from inside.</i>]
+Shut up!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Faintly.</i>] He’d better look out! [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>enters, followed by</i> <span class="smcap">Hunidei</span>, <i>a gigantic figure with
+a smooth-shaven, rosy face, sky-blue eyes, and a
+friendly smile. He wears a tall hat and overcoat and
+carries a dripping umbrella.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">[286]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Here’s where I live. [<span class="smcap">Hunidei</span> <i>puts his
+finger to his lips and looks at</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>significantly.
+Then he opens his umbrella and puts it on the floor,
+rear, to dry.</i>] Of course, I know it isn’t very comfortable
+here. [<span class="smcap">Hunidei</span> <i>comes forward and puts
+his hand over her mouth</i>.] What do you mean me
+to understand by that? [<span class="smcap">Hunidei</span> <i>puts his hand
+over her mouth, and his finger to his lips</i>.] I don’t
+know what that means. [<span class="smcap">Hunidei</span> <i>quickly stops her
+mouth</i>. <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>frees herself</i>.] We’re quite alone
+here. No one will hear us. [<span class="smcap">Hunidei</span> <i>lays his finger
+on his lips, shakes his head, points at</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>, <i>opens
+his mouth as if to speak, points at himself and
+then at the door</i>.] Good Lord, he’s a monster!
+[<span class="smcap">Hunidei</span> <i>stops her mouth; then goes rear, folds up
+his overcoat and lays it over the chair near the door;
+then comes down with a broad smile, takes</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>’s
+<i>head in both his hands and kisses her on the forehead.
+The door, right, half opens.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Behind the door.</i>] He’s got a
+screw loose.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—He’d better look out!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—She couldn’t have brought up anything
+drearier!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Stepping back.</i>] I hope you’re going
+to give me something! [<span class="smcap">Hunidei</span> <i>stops her mouth
+and presses a gold-piece in her hand, then looks at
+her uncertain, questioningly, as she examines it and
+throws it from one hand to the other</i>.] All right,
+it’s good. [<i>Puts it in her pocket.</i> <span class="smcap">Hunidei</span>
+<i>quickly stops her mouth, gives her a few silver coins,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">[287]</span>
+and glances at her commandingly</i>.] Oh, that’s nice
+of you! [<span class="smcap">Hunidei</span> <i>leaps madly about the room,
+brandishing his arms and staring upward in despair</i>.
+<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>cautiously nears him, throws an arm round him
+and kisses him on the mouth. Laughing soundlessly,
+he frees himself from her and looks questioningly
+around. She takes up the lamp and opens the door
+to her room. He goes in smiling, taking off his hat.
+The stage is dark save for what light comes thru the
+cracks of the door.</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span> <i>creep out
+on all fours</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—They’re gone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>Behind him.</i>] Wait.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—One can hear nothing here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—You’ve heard that often enough!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I will kneel before her door.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Little mother’s sonny! [<i>Presses
+past</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>, <i>gropes across the stage to</i> <span class="smcap">Hunidei</span>’s
+<i>coat, and searches the pockets</i>. <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>crawls to</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lulu</span>’s <i>door</i>.] Gloves, nothing more! [<i>Turns the
+coat round, searches the inside pockets, pulls a book
+out that he gives to</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] Just see what that is.
+[<span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>holds the book to the light</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Wearily deciphering the title-page.</i>]
+Warnings to pious pilgrims and such as wish to be
+so. Very helpful. Price, 2s. 6d.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—It looks to me as if God had left
+<span class="gesperrt">him</span> pretty completely. [<i>Lays the coat over the
+chair again and makes for the cubby-hole.</i>] There’s
+nothing <span class="gesperrt">to</span> these people. The country’s best time’s
+behind it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">[288]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Life is never as bad as it’s painted. [<i>He,
+too, creeps back.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Not even a silk muffler he’s got and
+yet in Germany we creep on our bellies before this
+rabble.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Come, let’s vanish again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—She only thinks of herself, and takes
+the first man that runs across her path. Hope the
+dog remembers her the rest of his life! [<i>They disappear,
+left, shutting the door behind them.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>re-enters, setting the lamp on the table</i>. <span class="smcap">Hunidei</span>
+<i>follows</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Will you come to see me again? [<span class="smcap">Hunidei</span>
+<i>stops her mouth. She looks upward in a sort of despair
+and shakes her head</i>. <span class="smcap">Hunidei</span>, <i>putting his
+coat on, approaches her grinning; she throws her
+arms around his neck; he gently frees himself, kisses
+her hand, and turns to the door. She starts to accompany
+him, but he signs to her to stay behind and
+noiselessly leaves the room.</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span> <i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>
+<i>re-enter</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Tonelessly.</i>] How he has stirred me up!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—How much did he give you?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>As before.</i>] Here it is! All! Take it!
+I’m going down again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—We can still live like princes up here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—He’s coming back.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Then let’s just retire again, quick.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—He’s after his prayer-book. Here it is.
+It must have fallen out of his coat.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">[289]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Listening.</i>] No, that isn’t he. That’s
+someone else.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Someone’s coming up. I hear it quite
+plainly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Now there’s someone tapping at the door.
+Who can it be?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Probably a good friend he’s recommended
+us to. Come in! [<span class="smcap">Countess Geschwitz</span>
+<i>enters, in poor clothes, with a canvas roll in her
+hand</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>To</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] If I’ve come at a bad
+time, I’ll turn around again. The truth is, I haven’t
+spoken to a living soul for ten days. I must just
+tell you right off, I haven’t received any money. My
+brother never answered me at all.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—And now your ladyship would like
+to stretch her feet out under <span class="gesperrt">our</span> table?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Tonelessly.</i>] I’m going down again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Where are you going, in this finery?—Tho
+penniless, I have come not wholly empty-handed.
+I bring you something else. On my way
+here an old-clothes-man offered me twelve shillings for
+it, yes—but I could not force myself to part from
+it. You can sell it if you want to, tho.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—What is it?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Let us see it. [<i>Takes the canvas and unrolls
+it. Visibly rejoiced.</i>] Oh, by God, it’s Lulu’s
+portrait!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Screaming.</i>] Monster, you brought that
+here? Get it out of my sight! Throw it out of
+the window!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">[290]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Suddenly with renewed life, deeply
+pleased.</i>] Why, I should like to know? Looking
+on this picture I regain my self-respect. It makes
+my fate comprehensible to me. Everything we have
+endured gets clear as day. [<i>In a somewhat elegiac
+strain.</i>] Let him who feels secure in his respectable
+citizenship when he sees these blossoming pouting
+lips, these child-eyes, big and innocent, this rose-white
+body abounding in life,—let him cast the first
+stone at us!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—We must nail it up. It will make
+an excellent impression on our patrons.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Energetic.</i>] There’s a nail sticking all
+ready for it in the wall.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—But how did you come upon this acquisition?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—I secretly cut it out of the wall in
+your house, there, after you were gone.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Too bad the color’s got rubbed off round
+the edges. You didn’t roll it up carefully enough.
+[<i>Fastens it to a high nail in the wall.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—It’s got to have another one underneath
+if it’s going to hold. It makes the whole flat
+look more elegant.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Let me alone; I know how I’ll do it. [<i>He
+tears several nails out of the wall, pulls off his left
+boot, and with its heel nails the edges of the picture
+to the wall.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—It’s just got to hang awhile again,
+to get its proper effect. Whoever looks at that’ll
+imagine afterwards he’s been in an Indian harem.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">[291]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Putting on his boot again, standing up
+proudly.</i>] Her body was at its highest point of development
+when that picture was painted. The lamp,
+dear child! Seems to me it’s got extraordinarily
+dark.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—-He must have been an eminently
+gifted artist who painted that!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Perfectly composed again, stepping before
+the picture with the lamp.</i>] Didn’t you know
+him, then?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—No. It must have been long before
+my time. I only occasionally heard chance remarks
+of yours, that he had cut his throat from persecution-mania.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Comparing the picture with</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>.] The
+child-like expression in the eyes is still absolutely
+the same in spite of all she has lived thru since. [<i>In
+joyous excitement.</i>] But the dewy freshness that
+covers her skin, the sweet-smelling breath from her
+lips, the rays of light that beam from her white forehead,
+and this challenging splendor of young flesh
+in throat and arms&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—All that’s gone with the rubbish
+wagon. She can say with self-assurance: That was
+me once! The man she falls into the hands of to-day’ll
+have no conception of what we were when we
+were young.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Cheerfully.</i>] God be thanked, we don’t
+notice the gradual decline when we see a person all
+the time. [<i>Lightly.</i>] The woman blooms for us in
+the moment when she hurls the man to destruction
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">[292]</span>
+for the rest of his life. That is, so to say, her nature
+and her destiny.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Down in the street-lamp’s shimmer
+she’s still a match for a dozen walking spectres. The
+man who still wants to make connections at this hour
+looks out more for heart-qualities than mere physical
+good points. He decides for the pair of eyes
+from which the least thievery sparkles.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Now as pleased as</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] I shall see
+if you’re right. Adieu.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>In sudden anger.</i>] You shall not go
+down again, as I live!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Where do you want to go?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Down to fetch up a man.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Lulu!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—She’s done it once to-day already.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Lulu, Lulu, where you go I go, too.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—If you want to put your bones up
+for sale, kindly hunt up a district of your own!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Lulu, I shall not stir from your side!
+I have weapons upon me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Confound it all, her ladyship means
+to fish with our bait!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re killing me. I can’t stand it here
+any more. [<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—You need fear nothing. I am with
+you. [<i>Follows her.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—[<i>Whimpering, throws himself on his
+couch.</i> <span class="smcap">Schigolch</span> <i>swears, loudly and grumbling</i>.]
+I guess there’s not much more good to expect on
+this side!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">[293]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—We ought to have held the creature
+back by the throat. She’ll scare away everything
+that breathes with her aristocratic death’s head.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—She’s flung me onto a sick-bed and larded
+me with thorns outside and in!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>On</i> <span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span> <i>still</i>.] All the
+same, she’s got enough spirit in her for ten men,
+she has!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—No mortally wounded man’ll ever be more
+thankful for his coup-de-grâce than I!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—If she hadn’t enticed the acrobat
+into my place that time, we’d still have had <span class="gesperrt">him</span>
+round our necks to-day.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I see it trembling above my head as Tantalus
+saw the branch with the golden apples!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—[<i>On his mattress.</i>] Won’t you turn
+up the lamp a little?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I wonder, can a simple, natural man in
+the wilderness suffer so unspeakably, too?—God,
+God, what have I made of my life!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—What’s the beastly weather made of
+my ulster!—When <i>I</i> was five-and-twenty, I knew
+how to help myself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—Not everyone has had the joy of my
+sunny, glorious youth!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—I guess it’s going right out. When
+they come back it’ll be as dark in here again as in
+the womb.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—With the clearest consciousness of my purpose
+I sought the companionship of people who’d
+never read a book in their lives. With self-denial,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">[294]</span>
+with exaltation, I clung to the elements, that I might
+be carried to the loftiest heights of poetic fame.
+The reckoning was false. I am the martyr of my
+calling. Since the death of my father I have not
+written a single verse!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—If only they haven’t stayed together!
+Nobody but a silly boy will go with two, no matter
+what.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—They’ve not stayed together!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—That’s what I hope. If need be,
+she’ll keep the creature off from her with kicks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—One, risen from the dregs, is the most celebrated
+man of his nation; another, born in the purple,
+lies in the mud and cannot die!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Here they come!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—And what blessed hours of mutual joy in
+creation they had lived thru with each other!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—That they can rightly do for the
+first time now!—We must hide again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I stay here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Just what do you pity them for?—He
+who spends his money has his good reasons for it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Alva</span>—I have no longer the moral courage to let
+my comfort be disturbed for a miserable sum of
+money! [<i>He wraps himself up in his plaid.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Noblesse oblige! A respectable man
+does what he owes his position. [<i>He hides, left.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>opens the door, saying “Come right in, dearie,”
+and there enters</i> <span class="smcap">Prince Kungu Poti</span>, <i>heir-apparent
+of Uahubee, in a light suit, white spats, tan button-boots,
+and a gray tall hat. His speech, interrupted
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">[295]</span>
+with frequent hiccoughs, abounds with the peculiar
+African hiss-sounds.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kungu Poti</span>—God damn—it’s dark on the stairs!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It’s lighter here, sweetheart. [<i>Pulling
+him forward by the hand.</i>] Come on!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kungu Poti</span>—But it’s cold here, awful cold!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Have some brandy?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kungu Poti</span>—Brandy? You bet—always!
+Brandy’s good!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Giving him the bottle.</i>] I don’t know
+where the glass is.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kungu Poti</span>—Doesn’t matter. [<i>Drinks.</i>]
+Brandy! Lots of it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You’re a nice-looking young man.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kungu Poti</span>—My father’s the emperor of Uahubee.
+I’ve got six wives here, two Spanish, two English,
+two French. Well—I don’t like my wives. Always
+I must take a bath, take a bath, take a
+bath....</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—How much will you give me?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kungu Poti</span>—Gold! You trust me, you’ll have
+gold! One gold-piece. I always give gold-pieces.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You can give it to me later, but show it
+to me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kungu Poti</span>—I never pay beforehand.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But you can show it to me, tho!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kungu Poti</span>—Don’t understand, don’t understand!
+Come, Ragapsishimulara! [<i>Seizing</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>round the waist</i>.] Come on!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Defending herself with all her strength.</i>]
+Let me be! Let me be! [<span class="smcap">Alva</span>, <i>who has risen painfully
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">[296]</span>
+from his couch, sneaks up to</i> <span class="smcap">Kungu Poti</span> <i>from
+behind and pulls him back by the collar</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Kungu Poti</span>—[<i>Whirling round.</i>] Oh! Oh!
+This is a murder-hole! Come, my friend. I’ll put
+you to sleep! [<i>Strikes him over the head with a
+loaded cane.</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span> <i>groans and falls in a heap</i>.]
+Here’s a sleeping-draught! Here’s opium for you!
+Sweet dreams to you! Sweet dreams! [<i>Then he
+gives</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>a kiss; pointing to</i> <span class="smcap">Alva</span>.] He dreams
+of you, Ragapsishimulara! Sweet dreams! [<i>Rushing
+to the door.</i>] Here’s the door! [<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But I’ll not stay here?!—Who can stand
+it here now!—Rather down onto the street! [<i>Exit.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Schigolch</span> <i>comes out</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—Blood!—Alva!—He’s got to be put
+away somewhere. Hop!—Or else our friends’ll get
+a shock from him—Alva! Alva!—He that isn’t
+quite clear about it—— One thing or t’other; or
+it’ll soon be too late! I’ll give him legs! [<i>Strikes
+a match and sticks it into</i> <span class="smcap">Alva’s</span> <i>collar</i>....] He
+will have his rest. But no one sleeps here.—[<i>Drags
+him by the head into</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span> <i>room. Returning, he
+tries to turn up the light.</i>] It’ll be time for me, too,
+right soon now, or they’ll get no more Christmas
+puddings down there in the tavern. God knows when
+she’ll be coming back from her pleasure tour! [<i>Fixing
+an eye on</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span> <i>picture</i>.] She doesn’t understand
+business! She can’t live off love, because her
+life is love.—There she comes. I’ll just talk straight
+to her once—— [<span class="smcap">Countess Geschwitz</span> <i>enters</i>.] ...
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">[297]</span>
+If you want to lodge with us to-night, kindly take
+a little care that nothing is stolen here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—How dark it is here!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—It gets much darker than this.—The
+doctor’s already gone to rest.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—She sent me ahead.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Schigolch</span>—That was sensible.—If anyone asks
+for me, I’m sitting downstairs in the pub.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>After he has gone.</i>] I will sit behind
+the door. I will look on at everything and not
+quiver an eyelash. [<i>Sits on the broken chair.</i>]
+Men and women don’t know themselves—they know
+not what they are. Only one who is neither man
+nor woman knows them. Every word they say is
+untrue, a lie. And they do not know it, for they are
+to-day so and to-morrow so, according as they have
+eaten, drunk, and loved, or not. Only the body remains
+for a time what it is, and only the children
+have reason. The men and women are like the animals: none
+knows what it does. When they are
+happiest they bewail themselves and groan, and in
+their deepest misery they rejoice over every tiny
+morsel. It is strange how hunger takes from men
+and women the strength to withstand misfortune.
+But when they have fed full they make this world a
+torture-chamber, they throw away their lives to satisfy
+a whim, a mood. Have there ever once been
+men and women to whom love brought happiness?
+And what is their happiness, save that they sleep
+better and can forget it all? My God, I thank thee
+that thou hast not made me as these. I am not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">[298]</span>
+man nor woman. My body has nothing common
+with their bodies. Have I a human soul? Tortured
+humanity has a little narrow heart; but I know it’s
+no virtue of mine if I resign all, sacrifice all....
+[<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>opens the door, and</i> <span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span> <i>enters</i>.
+<span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>, <i>unnoticed, remains motionless by the
+door</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Gaily.</i>] Come right in! Come!—you’ll
+stay with me all night?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>—[<i>His accent is very broad and flat.</i>&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_10_10" href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>]
+But I have no more than five shillings on me. I
+never take more than that when I go out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—That’s enough, seeing it’s you! You have
+such faithful eyes! Come, give me a kiss! [<i>She
+flings herself down on the couch.</i> <span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span> <i>begins
+to swear in his native tongue</i>.&#x2060;<a id="FNanchor_11_11" href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>] Please, don’t say
+that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>—By the devil, this is really the first
+time I’ve ever gone with a girl! You can believe
+me. Mass, I hadn’t thought it would be like this!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Are you married?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>—Heaven and Hail, why do you think I
+am married?—No, I’m a tutor; I read philosophy
+at the University. The truth is, I come of a very
+old country family. When I was a student, I only
+got two gulden a week for pocket-money, and I could
+make better use of that than for girls!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">[299]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—So you have never been with a woman?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>—Just so, yeah! But I want it now.
+I got engaged this evening to a country-woman of
+mine. She’s a governess here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Is she pretty?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>—Yeah, she’s got a hundred thousand.—I
+am very much excited, as it seems to me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Tossing back her hair and getting up.</i>]
+I <span class="gesperrt">am</span> in luck! [<i>Takes the lamp.</i>] Well, if you
+please, Mr. Tutor? [<i>They go into her room.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span> <i>draws a small black revolver from her
+pocket and sets it to her forehead</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—Come, come,—beloved! [<span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>
+<i>tears open the door again</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>—[<i>Plunging in.</i>] Insane seraphs!
+Someone’s lying in there!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Lamp in hand, holds him by the sleeve.</i>]
+Stay with me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>—A dead man! A corpse!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Stay with me! Stay with me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>—[<i>Tearing away.</i>] A corpse is lying
+in there! Horrors! Hail! Heaven!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Stay with me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>—Where d’s it go out? [<i>Sees</i> <span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>.]
+And there is the devil!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Please, stop, stay!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Dr. Hilti</span>—Devil, devilled devilry.—Oh, thou
+eternal——[<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Rushing after him.</i>] Stop! Stop!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>Alone, lets the revolver sink.</i>] Better,
+hang! If now she sees me lying in my blood,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">[300]</span>
+she’ll not weep a tear for me! I have always been
+to her but the docile tool that she could use for
+the most difficult tasks. From the first day she has
+abhorred me from the depths of her soul.—Shall I
+not rather jump from the bridge? Which could be
+colder, the water or her heart? I would dream till
+I was drowned.——Better, hang!——Stab?—Hm,
+there would be no use in that—— How often have I
+dreamt that she kissed me! But a minute more; an
+owl knocks there at the window, and I wake up——Better,
+hang! Not water; water is too clean for
+me. [<i>Starting up.</i>] There!—There! There it is!—Quick
+now, before she comes! [<i>Takes the plaid-straps
+from the wall, climbs on the chair, fastens
+them to a hook in the doorpost, puts her head thru
+them, kicks the chair away, and falls to the ground.</i>]
+Accursed life!—Accursed life!—Could it be before
+me still?—Let me speak to your heart just once,
+my angel! But you are cold!—I am not to go yet!
+Perhaps I am even to have been happy once.—Listen
+to him, Lulu! I am not to go yet! [<i>She
+drags herself before</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu’s</span> <i>picture, sinks on her
+knees and folds her hands</i>.] My adoréd angel!
+My love! My star!—Have mercy upon me, pity
+me, pity me, pity me! [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>opens the door, and</i>
+<span class="smcap">Jack</span> <i>enters—a thick-set man of elastic movements,
+with a pale face, inflamed eyes, arched and heavy
+brows, a drooping mustache, thin imperial and
+shaggy whiskers, and fiery red hands with gnawed
+nails. His eyes are fixed on the ground. He wears
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">[301]</span>
+a dark overcoat and a little round felt hat. Entering,
+he notices</i> <span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—Who is that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—That’s my sister, sir. She’s crazy. I
+don’t know how to get rid of her.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—Your mouth looks beautiful.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—It’s my mother’s.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—Looks like it. How much do you want?
+I haven’t got much money.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Won’t you spend the night with me here?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—No, haven’t got the time. I must get home.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—You can tell them at home to-morrow that
+you missed the last ’bus and spent the night with a
+friend.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—How much do you want?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’m not after lumps of gold, but, well, a
+little something.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—[<i>Turning.</i>] Good night! Good night!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Holds him back.</i>] No, no! Stay, for
+God’s sake!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—[<i>Goes past</i> <span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span> <i>and opens the cubicle</i>.]
+Why should I stay here till morning? Sounds
+suspicious! When I’m asleep they’ll turn my pockets
+out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—No, I won’t do that! No one will! Don’t
+go away again for that! I beg you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—How much do you want?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Then give me the half of what I said!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—No, that’s too much. You don’t seem to
+have been at this long?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">[302]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—To-day is the first time. [<span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>,
+<i>still on her knees, has half risen toward</i> <span class="smcap">Jack</span>; <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>
+<i>yanks her back by the straps around her neck</i>.] Lie
+down and be quiet!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—Let her alone! She isn’t your sister. She
+is in love with you. [<i>Strokes</i> <span class="smcap">Geschwitz’s</span> <i>head like
+a dog’s</i>.] Poor beast!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Why do you stare at me so all at once?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—I got your measure by the way you walked.
+I said to myself: That girl must have a well-built
+body.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—But how can you tell a thing like that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—I even saw that you had a pretty mouth.
+But I’ve only got a florin on me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—Well, what difference does that make!
+Just give that to me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—But you’ll have to give me half back, so
+I can take the ’bus to-morrow morning.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I have nothing on me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—Just look, though. Hunt thru your
+pockets!—Well, what’s that? Let’s see it!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Showing him.</i>] That’s all I have.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—Give it to me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—I’ll change it to-morrow, and then give
+you half.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—No, give it all to me.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Giving it.</i>] In God’s name! But now
+you come! [<i>Takes up the lamp.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—We need no light. The moon’s out.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Puts the lamp down.</i>] As you say.
+[<i>She falls on his neck.</i>] I won’t harm you at all!
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">[303]</span>
+I love you so! Don’t let me beg you any longer!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—All right; I’m with you. [<i>Follows her into
+the cubby-hole. The lamp goes out. On the floor
+under the two skylights appear two vivid squares of
+moonlight. Everything in the room is clearly seen.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>As in a dream.</i>] This is the last
+evening I shall spend with these people. I’m going
+back to Germany. My mother’ll send me the money.
+I’ll go to a university. I must fight for woman’s
+rights; study law.... [<span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>shrieks, and tears
+open the door</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Barefoot, in chemise and petticoat, holding
+the door shut behind her.</i>] Help! Help!
+[<span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span> <i>rushes to the door, draws her revolver,
+and crying “Let go!” pushes</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span> <i>aside. As she
+aims at the door</i>, <span class="smcap">Jack</span>, <i>bent double, tears it open
+from inside, and runs a knife into</i> <span class="smcap">Geschwitz’s</span> <i>body.
+She fires one shot, at the roof, and falls with suppressed
+crying, crumpling up.</i> <span class="smcap">Jack</span> <i>tears her revolver
+from her and throws himself against the exit-door</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—God damn! I never saw a prettier mouth!
+[<i>Sweat drips from his hairy face. His hands are
+bloody. He pants, gasping violently, and stares at
+the floor with eyes popping out of his head.</i> <span class="smcap">Lulu</span>,
+<i>trembling in every limb, looks wildly round. Suddenly
+she seizes the bottle, smashes it on the table,
+and with the broken neck in her hand rushes upon</i>
+<span class="smcap">Jack</span>. <i>He swings up his right foot and throws her
+onto her back. Then he lifts her up.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">[304]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—No, no!—Mercy!—Murder!—Police! Police!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—Be still. You’ll never get away from me
+again. [<i>Carries her in.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Lulu</span>—[<i>Within, right.</i>] No.—No!—No!—Ah!—Ah!...
+[<i>After a pause</i>, <span class="smcap">Jack</span> <i>re-enters.
+He puts the bowl on the table.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Jack</span>—That <span class="gesperrt">was</span> a piece of work! [<i>Washing
+his hands.</i>] I <span class="gesperrt">am</span> a damned lucky chap! [<i>Looks
+round for a towel.</i>] Not even a towel, these folks
+here! Hell of a wretched hole! [<i>He dries his hands
+on</i> <span class="smcap">Geschwitz’s</span> <i>petticoat</i>.] This invert is safe
+enough from me! [<i>To her.</i>] It’ll soon be all up
+with you, too. [<i>Exit.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Geschwitz</span>—[<i>Alone.</i>] Lulu!—My angel!—Let
+me see thee once more! I am near thee—stay near
+thee—forever! [<i>Her elbows give way.</i>] O
+cursed—!! [<i>Dies.</i>]</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes"><h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_9_9" href="#FNanchor_9_9" class="label">[9]</a> For the meaning of this see page 51.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_10_10" href="#FNanchor_10_10" class="label">[10]</a> In the original he comes from Basle, Switzerland. English
+with a Dutch accent might offer the best equivalent.</p></div>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a id="Footnote_11_11" href="#FNanchor_11_11" class="label">[11]</a> “Hiemäl, Härgoht, Töüfäl, Kräuzpataliohn,” such is the
+weird appearance of all his German.</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">[305]</span></p>
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="DAMNATION">
+    DAMNATION!
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class='center bold'>(<span class="smcap">Tod und Teufel</span>)</p>
+
+<p class='center mt1 bold'>A Death-Dance in Three Scenes</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container-right mt4">
+  <div class="poetry">
+    <div class="stanza">
+      <div class="verse indent0">“Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">ὅτι οἱ πόρναι</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">προάγουσιν ὑμᾶς</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">εἰς τῆν βασιλείαν</div>
+      <div class="verse indent0">τοῦ Θεοῦ.”</div>
+      <div class="verse indent8">ὁ Ἰησοῦς.</div>
+<p class="right" style='margin-right: -1.5em;'>(<i>Matth.</i> 21. 31.)</p>
+    </div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_306"></a><a id="Page_307"></a>[307]</span></p>
+
+  <h3 class="nobreak">
+    CHARACTERS
+  </h3>
+</div>
+
+<p class='no-indent' >
+  <span class="smcap">Marquis Casti-Piani</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Fräulein Elfriede von Malchus</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Herr König</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Lisiska</span><br>
+  <span class="smcap">Three Girls</span>
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_308"></a><a id="Page_309"></a>[309]</span></p>
+
+
+<p class='scene1'><span class="smcap">Scene</span>—<i>A room with three doors, and windows with
+the blinds drawn. On each side, facing each
+other, two arm-chairs upholstered in red. In
+both down-stage corners are little trellis screens
+behind which the actor is hidden from the stage
+tho not from the audience. Red upholstered
+stools in both these corners.</i></p>
+
+<p class='scene2'><span class="smcap">Elfriede von Malchus</span> <i>sits in one of the
+arm-chairs. She is evidently uneasy. She
+wears a modern “reformed” dress with hat,
+cloak, and gloves.</i></p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—How much longer are they going to
+keep me waiting? [<i>Long pause. She remains sitting
+motionless.</i>] How much longer are they going
+to keep me waiting! [<i>Long pause as before.</i>]
+How much longer are they going to keep me waiting
+here!! [<i>After a moment, she gets up, takes off her
+cloak and lays it on the chair, takes off her hat and
+puts it on the cloak, and then walks up and down
+twice with manifest excitement. Stopping, she
+cries again</i>:] How much longer will they keep me
+waiting here??!! [<i>On her last word, the</i> <span class="smcap">Marquis
+Casti-Piani</span> <i>enters thru the centre door. He is a
+tall, bald-headed man, with a high forehead, great
+black, melancholy eyes, strong, hooked nose, and
+thick, drooping black mustache. He wears a black
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">[310]</span>
+coat, a dark, fancy waistcoat, dark gray trousers,
+patent-leather shoes and a black cravat with a diamond
+pin.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Bowing.</i>] What can I do for you,
+madam?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—I have already explained it to the—lady,
+as clearly as I can possibly explain it, <span class="gesperrt">why</span> I
+am here.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—The—lady told me why you were
+here. The lady told me also that you were a member
+of the International Union for the Suppression
+of the White Slave Traffic.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—<span class="gesperrt">That</span> I <span class="gesperrt">am</span>! I <span class="gesperrt">am</span> a member of the
+International Union for the Suppression of the
+White Slave Traffic. But even if I did <span class="gesperrt">not</span> belong
+to it I could not possibly have spared myself this
+search! For nine months I’ve been on the track of
+this unfortunate, and everywhere I’ve been so far
+she’d just been carried off to another city. But she
+is in this house! She’s here at this moment! The—lady
+who was here just now admitted that, without
+any beating round the bush. She promised me
+she would send the girl here to this room, so that I
+could speak with her in private and undisturbed.
+I am waiting here now for the girl, and for no one
+else. I have no desire and no need to go through a
+second cross-examination.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—I beg you, madam, not to excite
+yourself further. The girl felt she should present
+herself to you—respectably dressed. The lady
+asked me to tell you that, for she feared that in your
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">[311]</span>
+agitation you might be tempted to take some needlessly
+violent measure. And she asked me to do
+what I could to help you through the embarrassment
+which waiting in these surroundings would naturally
+cause you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Walking up and down.</i>] Pray keep
+your amiable conversation to yourself! There is
+nothing new for me now in the atmosphere of this
+place. The first time I entered such a house, I had
+to fight physical nausea. Only then did I realize
+what tremendous self-suppression my entrance into
+the Union for the Suppression of the White Slave
+Traffic had involved me in. Till then I had taken
+part in our activities as an idle pastime, solely to
+avoid growing old and gray in uselessness.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—This confession awakens in me so
+much sympathy that I feel tempted to ask you for
+your credentials as an active member of the International
+Union for the Suppression of the White
+Slave Traffic. We know from experience that a lot
+of people crowd into that calling who have quite
+other ends in view than the rescue of fallen girls.
+If you are earnestly bent on attaining your high
+purposes, the strict precautions we are compelled
+to use will assuredly meet your approval.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—I have been a member of our Union
+for nearly three years now. My name is—Fräulein
+von Malchus.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Elfriede von Malchus?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—Yes, Elfriede von Malchus.—How do
+you know my first name?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">[312]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Why, we read the annual reports of
+the Union. If I remember right, you were a distinguished
+speaker at last year’s annual meeting in
+Cologne?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—I am sorry to say that for two whole
+years I did nothing but write and speak and speak
+and write, without ever working up courage to attack
+the white slave traffic directly, until finally the
+white slave traffic found a victim under my own roof,
+in my own family!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—If I am rightly advised, however,
+only your own papers, books, and magazines were to
+blame for this misfortune. Apparently you did not
+keep them carefully enough away from the young
+person for whose rescue you are here at this moment?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—There you are absolutely right! I
+grieve to confess I cannot contradict you there!
+Night after night, when I had stretched under the
+bed-clothes, content with myself and the world, for
+a ten-hour sleep undisturbed by any earthly emotion,
+that seventeen-year-old girl crept into my study
+without my ever dreaming of it and glutted her love-starved
+imagination with the most seductive pictures
+of sensual pleasure, and the fearfullest vice, from
+my piles of books on the suppression of the white
+slave traffic. Silly goose that I was, in spite of my
+twenty-eight years, I never saw the next morning
+that the girl had sat up all night! I had never in
+my life known a sleepless night! When I went to
+work again in the morning I never once asked myself
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">[313]</span>
+how my papers could have got into such atrocious
+confusion!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—If I mistake not, my dear young
+lady, the girl had been engaged by your parents to
+do the lighter housework?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—To her destruction! Yes! Mama as
+well as Papa was enchanted with her propriety and
+modesty. To Papa, who is a ministerial official and
+a bureaucrat of the purest water, her presence in
+our house was like a sunbeam. At her sudden disappearance,
+Papa as well as Mama stopped calling
+my activities for the Union an old maid’s eccentricity.
+They called it an outright crime.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—The girl is the illegitimate child of
+a wash-woman?—Do you perhaps know who her
+father was?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—No, I never asked her about that.—But
+pray who are you? How do you come to know
+all this?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Hm—the girl had read in one of
+your Union’s publications that certain advertisements
+were published in the daily papers by which,
+under certain well-known false pretenses, the white-slavers
+decoyed young girls into their clutches in
+order to introduce them to the love-market. Accordingly,
+the girl looked up an insertion of that
+kind in the first paper that came to hand, and on
+finding one, wrote a very correct letter of application
+for the position falsely advertised in the insertion.
+In this way I made her acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">[314]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—And you dare tell me that—with such
+cynicism!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—I dare tell you that, my dear young
+lady, with just such objectivity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>In the utmost excitement, with fists
+clenched.</i>] So the monster who delivered up this
+girl to a life of shame was you!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>With a disconsolate smile.</i>] If
+you guessed, my dear young lady, the hidden springs
+of your diabolical excitement, you would be wise
+enough, perhaps, to keep perfectly calm in the presence
+of such a monster as <i>I</i> seem to you to be.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Curt.</i>] I don’t understand that. I
+don’t know what you mean!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—You—are—still—a virgin?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Gasping.</i>] How dare you put such
+a question to me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Who in God’s wide world will forbid
+me!—But we’ll leave that. In any case, you have
+not married. You are, as you just informed me
+yourself, twenty-eight years old. These facts may
+be sufficient to prove to you that in comparison with
+other women, not to speak of that child of nature
+for whose rescue you have come here,—you are only
+to a very slight degree open to sensuous influences.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—You may be right in that.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—I speak, of course, only with the
+understanding that I shall not annoy you with this
+discussion. I am very far from thinking you unhealthily
+or unnaturally constituted. But do you
+know, my young lady, how you have satisfied those
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">[315]</span>
+sensuous cravings that you have?—to be sure, as
+you admit, extremely weak?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—Well?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—By joining the International Union
+for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Restraining her anger.</i>] Who are
+you, my dear sir!—I came here to free an unfortunate
+girl from the claws of vice! I did not come
+here to listen to lectures, in very bad taste, from
+you.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Nor did I suppose you did. But
+you see, when viewed from this standpoint, we are
+more allied to one another than you in your proud
+little bourgeois virtue ever dreamt. On <span class="gesperrt">you</span> nature
+has conferred but an extremely scant sensuous susceptibility.
+The storms of life have long since made
+a horribly chilly desert of <span class="gesperrt">me</span>. But what fighting
+the white slave traffic is to <span class="gesperrt">your</span> sensual life, that,
+to mine, if you will still grant me something of the
+kind,—is the white slave traffic itself!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Aroused.</i>] Don’t dissemble so
+shamelessly, you vile creature! Do you think you
+can lull me to sleep with your fantastic <span class="gesperrt">sense</span>-hocus-pocus?—me,
+who’ve run after that girl from one
+den of vice to another like a hunted brute?! I’m
+not here now as a member of the Union for the Suppression
+of the White Slave Traffic. I’m here as
+an unhappy criminal who has unintentionally
+plunged an innocent young life into suffering and
+despair. I shall never be happy again as long as
+I live if I can’t snatch this child from her ruin now.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">[316]</span>
+You would have me believe an impure curiosity drives
+me into this house. You’re a liar! You don’t believe
+your own words! And it was not unsatisfied
+sensuality that made you barter this girl away, but
+money-greed! You lured and sold this girl because
+it was good business!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Good business! Naturally! But
+good business is based on profits for both parties.
+I may say that I do no business which is <span class="gesperrt">not</span> good.
+Every business that is not good is immoral!—Or
+do you believe perhaps that the love-business is a
+<span class="gesperrt">bad</span> business for the woman?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—How do you mean?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—I mean simply this—I don’t know
+whether you’re just in the mood at this moment to
+listen to me with some attentiveness?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—Save your introduction, for God’s
+sake!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Well then, I mean this: When a
+man finds himself in dire need there is often no
+choice left him but stealing or starving. But when
+a woman is in need, she has a third choice: the possibility
+of selling her love. This way out remains
+for the woman only because in granting her body
+she need not experience any emotion. Now since the
+world was created, woman has made use of this
+advantage. To speak of nothing else, man is by
+nature vastly superior to woman from the sheer
+fact that the woman suffers in childbirth&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—That’s the screaming incongruity exactly!
+That’s what I’m always saying. To <span class="gesperrt">bear</span>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">[317]</span>
+children is pain and care, but to <span class="gesperrt">beget</span> them passes
+as an amusement. And nevertheless benevolent Creation
+(which suffers from crazy fits in many other
+respects, too) has laid the burden of pain and care
+on the weaker sex!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—On that, young lady, we’re quite of
+the same opinion. And now you want to rob your
+unfortunate sisters of the little advantage over the
+male which—“crazy Creation” did confer on them:
+the advantage of being able, in extreme need, to sell
+their sexual favors,—by representing this sale as an
+inexpiable shame! I’ll say you’re a fine champion
+of woman’s rights!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Almost in tears.</i>] That possibility
+of selling ourselves weighs on our oppressed sex as
+an unspeakable misfortune, an everlasting curse!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—But—God in heaven knows—it
+isn’t <span class="gesperrt">our</span> fault that the buying and selling of love
+weighs on the female sex as an everlasting curse! We
+traders have no dearer aim than that this love-business
+should be as open and unmolested as any other
+honest trade! We have no loftier ideal than that
+prices in the love-business should be as high as they
+can possibly be made to be. Hurl your accusations,
+if you would fight the oppression of your unfortunate
+sex, in the face of conventional society! If you
+would defend your sisters’ natural rights, attack first
+of all the International Union for the Suppression
+of the White Slave Traffic!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Boiling over.</i>] I won’t let you humbug
+me here any longer! I am firmly convinced that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">[318]</span>
+you have no serious intention of setting the girl free.
+While I play the fool here listening to your sociological
+lectures, the poor thing’ll be hustled into a cab
+somehow, packed off to the station and transported
+to some place where she’ll be safe all her life from
+members of the Union for the Suppression of the
+White Slave Traffic.—Very well, I know what I have
+to do! [<i>Takes hat.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Smiling.</i>] If you guessed, dear
+lady, how your outburst of rage beautified your bourgeois
+appearance, you would not be in such a hurry
+to depart.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—Let me out! It’s high time!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Where are you thinking of going
+now?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—You know quite as well as I do where
+I am going now!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Takes her by the throat, chokes
+her, and forces her into one of the chairs.</i>] You’ll
+stay here. I’ve still got a word to say to you! Try
+to scream, go ahead, try it! We are accustomed
+here to every possible outcry. Shriek as loud as
+you can shriek!—[<i>Letting her go.</i>] I shall be surprised
+if I don’t bring you to reason before you run
+straight from this house to the police!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Gasping, toneless.</i>] It’s the first time
+in my life violence like that has been offered me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—You have done so awfully much in
+your useless life for the uplift of the daughters of
+joy! Now for once do something useful for the uplift
+of <span class="gesperrt">joy</span>! Then you needn’t feel sorry for the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">[319]</span>
+poor creatures any more. Because the joy-business
+is branded as the vulgarest, shamefullest of all professions,
+girls and women of good society give themselves
+to a man for nothing rather than let their
+favors be paid for! Thereby these girls and women
+degrade their sex in the same way as a tailor degrades
+his craft if he gives clothes to his customers for
+nothing!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Still as though stunned.</i>] I don’t
+understand one word of all that! I went to school
+when I was five and stayed there till I was fourteen.
+Then I had to sit on a school-bench three more years
+before taking my teacher’s examinations. As long
+as I was young, our house was frequented by gentlemen
+of the best society. I had a proposal from one
+man who had inherited an estate of twenty square
+miles and who would have followed me to the ends
+of the world if I had wanted him to. But I felt I
+couldn’t love him. Perhaps it wasn’t right of me.
+Perhaps I was only lacking that minimum of passion
+which is essential to marriage under any circumstances.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Have you calmed down at last?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—Just explain one more thing to me.
+If the girl in the course of the life she’s living
+here, brings a child into the world, who will take
+care of that child?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—You take care of it! Or as a feminist,
+have you perhaps something on earth more
+important to do? So long as any woman under
+God’s sun must still be afraid of becoming a mother,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">[320]</span>
+all the “emancipation” in the world is nothing but
+empty gabble! Motherhood is a necessity of nature
+for a woman, like breathing and sleeping. And this
+innate right has been most barbarously restricted
+by conventional society. A natural child is almost
+as big a disgrace as the love-business itself! <span class="gesperrt">Whore</span>
+here and <span class="gesperrt">whore</span> there! The mother of an illegitimate
+child is no more spared the name of whore than
+is a girl in this house. If ever anything in your woman’s
+movement inspired me with loathing, it was the
+<span class="gesperrt">morality</span> that you inject into your disciples on
+life’s way. Do you imagine the love-business would
+ever in the world’s history have been described as a
+disgrace if the man could have competed with the
+woman in the love-market? Envy! Nothing but commercial
+envy! Nature accorded to the woman the
+monopoly of being able to trade in her love. Therefore
+conventional society, which is governed by man,
+would like nothing better than over and over again
+to represent that trade as the most shameful of
+crimes!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Stands up and lays her cloak over
+the chair. Walking up and down.</i>] I confess I am
+at this moment quite unable to tell whether your
+opinions on that point are right or not. But how
+in the world is it possible for a man of your culture,
+of your social views, of your intellectual eminence, to
+throw his life away among the vilest elements of
+society! God knows it may have been only your
+beastly brutality that has made me take your assertions
+seriously. But I feel very sure you’ve given
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">[321]</span>
+me things to think about for a long time to come,
+things I’d never in my life have thought of myself.
+Every winter for years I’ve heard from twelve to
+twenty lectures by all the male and female authorities
+on the woman movement; but I can’t remember
+ever having heard a word that went to the bottom
+of the business the way your statements do.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>In a singsong.</i>] Let us always
+realize quite clearly, my dear lady, that we all are
+as though walking in our sleep on a ridge-pole, and
+that any unexpected enlightenment can be the breaking
+of our necks.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Staring at him.</i>] What do you mean
+by <span class="gesperrt">that</span>?—There’s something monstrous in your
+mind?!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Very quietly.</i>] I said it only in
+regard to your views, which so far have let you
+feel so innocently safe in throwing round epithets
+like <span class="gesperrt">respectable</span> and <span class="gesperrt">vile</span> as if you were
+specially commissioned of God to sit in judgment
+on your fellow-mortals.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Staring at him.</i>] You’re a great
+man.—You’re a high-minded man!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Your words probe the mortal
+wound that I brought with me into the world and that
+I shall probably die of, some day. [<i>Throws himself
+into a chair.</i>] I am—a moralist!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—And would you bewail your fate on
+that account?! Because the power of making other
+men happy was given you? [<i>After a short inner
+struggle, she throws herself at his feet.</i>] Marry me,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">[322]</span>
+marry me, for mercy’s sake! Before I saw <span class="gesperrt">you</span> I was
+never able to imagine the possibility of giving myself
+to a man! I am absolutely inexperienced; that
+I can swear to you by the sacredest oaths. Till
+this moment I never guessed what the word <span class="gesperrt">love</span>
+meant. With you, here, I feel it for the first time.
+Love lifts the lover up above his miserable self. I’m
+an everyday average woman, but my love for you
+makes me so free and fearless that nothing is impossible
+to me. Continue, in God’s name, from crime
+to crime! I will go before you! Go to prison!
+I will go before you! Go from prison to the scaffold!
+I will go before you. Don’t, I beseech you, don’t
+let this fortunate opportunity escape! Marry me,
+marry me, marry me! So shall help come to us
+two poor children of men!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Stroking her head, without looking
+at her.</i>] Whether you love me or don’t love me, you
+dear animal, is all one to me. Of course, you cannot
+know how many thousand times I have already had
+to undergo just such outbursts of emotion. Far be
+it from me to undervalue love. But alas, love must
+also serve as the vindication of all those innumerable
+women who merely satisfy their sensual wants, without
+asking the least return, and by their unrecompensed
+abandon only ruin the market.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—Marry me! There is still time for you
+to begin a new life! Marriage will reconcile you with
+society. You can be editor of a socialist paper,
+you can be a representative in the Reichstag! Marry
+me, and then even you will learn for once in your
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">[323]</span>
+life what superhuman sacrifices a woman is capable
+of in her boundless love!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Still without looking at her, stroking
+her hair.</i>] The best your superhuman sacrifices
+could do would be to turn my stomach. All my life
+I have loved tigresses. With bitches I was never
+anything but a stick of wood. My only consolation
+is that marriage, which you glorify so rapturously
+and for which bitches are bred, is a civilized institution.
+Civilized institutions arise only that they may
+be surmounted. The race will win beyond marriage
+just as it has surmounted slavery. The <span class="gesperrt">free
+love-market</span>, where the tigress triumphs, is
+founded on a <span class="gesperrt">primordial law</span> of <span class="gesperrt">unalterable
+nature</span>. And how proud and high will
+woman stand in the world, so soon as she has conquered
+the right to sell herself, unbranded, at the
+highest price a man will bid for her! Illegitimate
+children will be better cared for then by the mother,
+than legitimate ones are now by the father. Then the
+pride and ambition of woman will no longer lie in
+the man who allots her her place, but in the world,
+where she struggles up to the highest position that
+her value can give her. Then what a glorious fresh
+vital sound the words “daughter of joy” will have!
+In the story of paradise it is written that Heaven
+endowed woman with the power to seduce. Woman
+seduces whom she will. Woman seduces when she will.
+She does not wait for love. And conventional society
+combats this hellish danger to our sacred civilization,
+by bringing woman up in an artificial darkness of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">[324]</span>
+mind and soul. The growing girl must not know
+what it means <span class="gesperrt">to be a woman</span>. All our institutions
+might go to smash if she did! No hangman’s
+dodge is too base for the defense of conventional
+society! With every advance of civilization the
+love-business expands. The cleverer the world gets,
+the bigger is the love-market. And our celebrated
+civilization, in the name of morality, condemns these
+millions of daughters of joy to starvation, or robs
+them in the name of morality of their self-respect
+and life-vindication, yea, hurls them down to the
+level of beasts, all in the name of morality! How
+many centuries more will an <span class="gesperrt">immorality</span> which
+cries to Heaven ravage this world with the sword and
+ax of morality!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Voicelessly whimpering.</i>] Marry me!
+You stand above and beyond the world! For the
+first time, to-day I offer my hand to a man!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Stroking her hair without looking
+at her.</i>] Materialism! Commercialism!—What
+would the world know about morality at all, if man
+could commandeer love as he bosses politics!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—I hope for no higher happiness from
+our marriage than the privilege of kneeling so before
+you all my life and listening to your words!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Have you ever asked yourself what
+marriage means?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—Till this moment I’ve had no occasion
+to do so. [<i>Rising.</i>] Tell me! I shall do everything
+to come up to your requirements.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Draws her onto his knee.</i>] Come
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">[325]</span>
+here, my child. I’ll explain it to you. [<span class="smcap">Elfriede</span> <i>is
+prudish for a moment</i>.] Please keep still.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—I have never sat on a man’s knee.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Give me a kiss. [<i>She kisses him.</i>]
+Thanks. [<i>Holding her off.</i>] You’d like to know
+what marriage is?—Tell me, which is stronger: a man
+who has <span class="gesperrt">one</span> dog or a man who has <span class="gesperrt">none</span>?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—The man who has the dog is stronger.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—And now tell me again, which is
+stronger: a man who has one dog or a man who
+has <span class="gesperrt">two</span> dogs?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—I guess the man who has one dog is
+stronger, for of course, two dogs couldn’t very well
+help getting jealous of each other.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—That would be the least consideration.
+But he would have to feed <span class="gesperrt">two</span> dogs or else
+they’d run away, while <span class="gesperrt">one</span> dog takes care of himself
+and also if there is need protects his master from
+robbers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—And by this abominable comparison
+you would explain the unselfish inseparable union
+of man and wife? Merciful God, what a life you must
+have had!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—The man with one wife is economically
+stronger than if he had none; but he is also
+economically stronger than if he had to take care
+of two or more wives. That is the cornerstone of
+marriage. Woman would never have dreamt of this
+ingenious device!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—You poor pitiable man! Did you ever
+know a home and family? Did you ever have a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">[326]</span>
+mother to nurse you when you were sick, to read you
+stories when you were convalescing, for you to confide
+in when there was something in your heart, and
+who helped you always and always, even when you
+had thought for the longest time that there was no
+more help for you on God’s earth?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—What I lived through as a child no
+human creature could live through without having
+his will and energy broken and ruined. Can you
+imagine yourself a young man of sixteen and still
+whipped because the logarithm of Pi won’t go into
+his head? And the man who whipped me was my
+father! And I whipped back! I beat my father
+to death! He died after I’d beaten him once.—But
+these are trifles. You see what sort of creatures I live
+with here. I have never heard among these creatures
+the insults that were my mother’s share all through
+my childhood and which her spitefulness earned
+afresh for her each day. But those are trifles. The
+slaps, blows and kicks with which father, mother and
+a dozen teachers vied with one another to demean
+my defenseless body, were trifling in comparison with
+the slaps, blows and kicks with which the vicissitudes
+of life have vied with one another to degrade my
+defenseless <span class="gesperrt">soul</span>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Kisses him.</i>] If you could guess how
+much I love you for all those frightful experiences!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—The life of man is tenfold death
+<span class="gesperrt">before</span> death. Not merely for me. For you!
+For everything that breathes! For the ordinary
+man, life consists of pains, aches and tortures which
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">[327]</span>
+his <span class="gesperrt">body</span> suffers. And if a man struggles up to a
+higher plane, in the hope of escaping the sufferings
+of the body, then for him life consists of pains, aches
+and tortures which the soul endures and beside which
+the torments of the body were a kindness. How <span class="gesperrt">horrible</span>
+this life is is shown by mankind’s having had
+to think out a Being that consisted of nothing but
+goodness, but love, but kindness,—and by all humanity’s
+having to pray daily, hourly to this Being,
+in order to endure its life at all!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Caressing him.</i>] When you marry
+me, pains of the body and soul-pains alike will have
+an end! You need not plague yourself any longer
+with all these frightful questions. My mama has
+a private fortune of sixty thousand marks, and after
+all their twenty-five years of happy married life,
+Papa hasn’t an inkling of it. Doesn’t the prospect
+lure you, of marrying me and having sixty thousand
+marks cash suddenly at your disposal?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Pushing her off nervously.</i>] You
+don’t understand how to caress, young lady! You
+act like an ass that’s trying to be a setter. Your
+hands irritate me! That’s not because you haven’t
+learnt anything. It’s because of your having sprung
+from the enslaved love-life of conventional society.
+There’s nothing thoroughbred in your body. You
+lack the necessary delicacy! Delicacy, modesty,
+shame! You lack the feeling for the <span class="gesperrt">effect</span> of
+your caresses, a feeling that every thoroughbred
+child is born with.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">[328]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Springing up.</i>] And you dare to tell
+me that in this house?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Rising simultaneously.</i>] That I
+dare tell you in this house!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—In this house? That I lack the necessary
+delicacy, the necessary <span class="gesperrt">shame</span>?!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—That you lack the necessary delicacy
+and sense of shame! In this house of ill-fame
+I tell you that! Get it into your head, once and
+for all, with what <span class="gesperrt">fine tact</span> these creatures
+apply themselves to their defamed calling! The girl
+most lately come into this house knows more about
+the soul of man than the most famous professor of
+psychology in the most renowned university. You,
+young lady, would assuredly experience the same
+disappointments here as you have always had. The
+woman who is created for the love-market can be
+recognized at the first glance. Her frank and
+regular features shine with <span class="gesperrt">innocent rapture</span>
+and blissful <span class="gesperrt">innocence</span>.—[<i>Regarding</i>
+<span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>.] In <span class="gesperrt">your</span> face, with all due respect,
+I can find no trace of either rapture or innocence.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Hesitating.</i>] Don’t you believe, my
+lord, that with my iron will, my energy, and my
+insuperable enthusiasm for the beautiful, I might
+yet acquire the delicacy and the fine tact of which
+you speak?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—No, no, madam!—please, no! Get
+rid of those notions on the spot!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—I am so deeply convinced of the moral
+significance of everything you say that the <span class="gesperrt">utmost
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">[329]</span>
+sacrifice</span> by which I could overcome my bourgeois
+helplessness would not be too great for me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—No, no. I won’t agree to that!
+That would be horrible. Life is horrible enough.
+No, no, madam! Keep your fearful fingers off the
+one divine ray that pierces the shuddering night of
+our tortured earthly existence! What am I living
+for? Why do I take part in this civilization of
+ours? No, no! The one pure flower of heaven
+in life’s thorn-thicket, befouled with sweat and blood,
+shall not be trampled out under clumsy feet! Believe
+me, I beg you, that I would have shot a bullet
+through my head half a century ago if it had not
+been that above the wail shrieking to heaven from
+birth-pangs, woes of life and death-agonies, still
+gleamed this <span class="gesperrt">one bright star</span>!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—The utmost mental exertion fails to
+give me even an inkling of your meaning! What is
+that ray that pierces the night of our existence?
+What is the <span class="gesperrt">one pure flower of heaven</span>
+that must not be trampled into the dirt?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Taking</i> <span class="smcap">Elfriede’s</span> <i>hand and whispering
+mysteriously</i>.] Sensual pleasure, gracious
+lady!—The laughing, sunny enjoyment of the senses!
+<span class="gesperrt">Sensual joy is the ray</span>, the <span class="gesperrt">flower of
+heaven</span>, because it is the one unclouded bliss, the
+one pure rapture undefiled, that earthly existence
+offers us. Believe me when I say that for half a
+century nothing has kept me in this world but selfless
+worship of this one full-throated laughing joy, this
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">[330]</span><span class="gesperrt">sensual pleasure</span> that repays mankind for
+all the torments of existence!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—I think somebody’s coming.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Lisiska, probably!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—Lisiska? Who is Lisiska?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—The girl who studied those books on
+the suppression of the white slave traffic in your
+house! In a moment you can convince yourself if
+I have said too much! We are prepared for such
+occasions, thank heaven. [<i>Takes her down right.</i>]
+Sit down behind this screen. From here, even <span class="gesperrt">you</span>
+can for once in your life watch the <span class="gesperrt">clear, unsullied</span>
+bliss of two people whom the <span class="gesperrt">joy of
+the senses</span> draws together! [<span class="smcap">Elfriede</span> <i>seats
+herself on the stool behind the screen, right</i>. <span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>
+<i>goes to the centre door, glances out, and then
+retires behind the screen, left, and sits</i>. <span class="smcap">Herr König</span>
+<i>and</i> <span class="smcap">Lisiska</span> <i>enter, centre. He is a young man of
+twenty-five, in a gay sport-suit with knee-breeches.</i>
+<span class="smcap">Lisiska</span> <i>is dressed in a simple white garment reaching
+to the calf, black stockings, patent-leather slippers,
+and a white bow in her loose black hair</i>.]</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  I have not come to while my time away,<br>
+  A sensualist in the circle of your charms,<br>
+  And will with gratitude and friendship pay<br>
+  If quickly sober’d I can leave your arms.
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  Speak not so friendly in my ear.<br>
+  Here you are lord, and command us here.<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">[331]</span>
+  Hesitate not to color my pallid<br>
+  And bloodless cheeks with buffets untallied!<br>
+  That for a whore like me<br>
+  Is an unheard-of fee!<br>
+  Helpless lamenting, sobbing and wailing<br>
+  Need not cause you the slightest quailing.<br>
+  Shallow’s the bliss from such abuse!<br>
+  Pile pitiless blow upon blow without truce!<br>
+  If your fist should smash in my face entire<br>
+  Even that would not slake my desire!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  I am not prepared for such words, such a test....<br>
+  Is this a merry welcome for the guest?<br>
+  You speak as if in purgatory already<br>
+  Here, you atoned for lust enjoyed and gone.
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  Oh, no! Untamed the Monster, Lust, doth eddy,<br>
+  Raging forever in flesh, blood and bone!<br>
+  Think you I, the devil’s spouse,<br>
+  Would ever have happened into this house<br>
+  If my heart’s horrible hammering stopped<br>
+  When Rapture seized me and shone?<br>
+  Rapture evaporates, dropped<br>
+  On a hot stone!<br>
+  And Lust, an unstilled throe,<br>
+  A hungering woe,<br>
+  Plunges, to find death, into this<br>
+  And every abyss!<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">[332]</span>
+  Are you not cruel, good sir, in your joys?<br>
+  I should be sorry!<br>
+  But what do you care for my noise?<br>
+  Strike me, your quarry!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  If that dark urge is really yours, to go<br>
+  From the last depths to something yet below,—<br>
+  I could shed tears that from the spring-time crew<br>
+  Of amorous girls I picked and chose just you.<br>
+  Out of your eyes, so innocent, so gay,<br>
+  There gleamed on me a <span class="gesperrt">bliss without alloy</span>....
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  Do you wish that our time pass away—<br>
+  And we have no joy?<br>
+  Down there, over our rules and tenets,<br>
+  Mother Adele sits, watch in hand:<br>
+  Counts and reckons, immovable, bland,<br>
+  My enjoyment’s minutes!</p>
+<p class='sdir2'>
+  [<i>Pause.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  You have grown tired of ecstasy at length<br>
+  And hope for lassitude from tears and pain,—<br>
+  For some deep calm to overcome the strength<br>
+  Of your hot craving day and night in vain.
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">[333]</span></p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  If I sleep, then please with a sudden hard<br>
+  Punch in the ribs wake me up, well-jarred!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  That note was false! A flaw is in the reed!<br>
+  —How can a human being understand that?!<br>
+  Whistle at happiness—at life—you can that,—<br>
+  But <span class="gesperrt">sleep</span>? No! that was blasphemy indeed!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  I am not your property,<br>
+  You need not protect me;<br>
+  Spare not then so anxiously<br>
+  The joys that still affect me;<br>
+  Seek no means to comfort me;<br>
+  Kindness knows not how to;<br>
+  Who beats me up most mercilessly,—<br>
+  He’s the one I bow to.</p>
+<p class='ml8'>You ask me<br>
+Whether or no<br>
+I still can blush?<br>
+Unmask me<br>
+With a quick blow,<br>
+And mark the flush!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  Cold sweat runs down me, chill’d in skull and spine,<br>
+  Shuddering!—Let me out!... Half in a dream<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">[334]</span>
+  I hoped to pluck the sweet fruits of love’s vine.<br>
+  You offer thorns to me instead!... You seem<br>
+  A young wild thing; how came it that you strayed—<br>
+  Impossible!—from flower-paths to these briars?
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  Leave not my sore desires<br>
+  All unallayed!<br>
+  Turn not heartless away from your slave!<br>
+  Before me I have my grave,<br>
+  And my only hope is to leave behind<br>
+  No more of this world than I needs must.<br>
+  Think you, we only come to such lust<br>
+  Because in this house we are kept confined?<br>
+  No, it is but the senses’ torturing thirst<br>
+  Holds us here accursed!<br>
+  But this, too, was reckoned without insight:<br>
+  Night by night<br>
+  I see it, blinding-clear:—that even<br>
+  In this house no heaven<br>
+  Of peace to the senses is given!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>In her hiding-place, to herself, with
+astonishment.</i>] God Almighty! That is just the
+<span class="gesperrt">exact contrary</span> of what I’ve imagined it for
+ten long years!</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">[335]</span></p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>In his hiding-place, to himself, with
+horror.</i>] Devil! Devil! Devil! That is the
+<span class="gesperrt">exact contrary</span> of what I’ve imagined about
+sensual joy for fifty years!</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  Don’t go away from me! Hear me, hard-hearted!<br>
+  I was an innocent child, and started<br>
+  Life earnestly, full of duty and zeal!<br>
+  I could never carelessly smile,—but <span class="gesperrt">feel</span>—?!...<br>
+  From my teachers, even my brothers and sisters,<br>
+  I often heard awed admiring whispers,<br>
+  And my parents would both presage:<br>
+  “You’ll be the delight of our old age.”<br>
+  Then with a sudden blast<br>
+  That was past!<br>
+  And once-awakened lust<br>
+  Grew over all bounds, all “oughts,”<br>
+  Over all my thoughts,<br>
+  Over all my heart’s feeling of trust,<br>
+  So that I marvel’d, driven<br>
+  Infatuate, master’d, what it implied,<br>
+  That I saw no lightning strike at my side<br>
+  Nor heard any thunder from heaven.<br>
+  Then it came to me—hope, that our life had been given<br>
+  For joy to us, joy never glutted nor dried.
+</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">[336]</span></p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  And this high hope you found was not fulfilled?<br>
+  —I speak, I know, as a blind man of—of——
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  No—it was only a hellish <span class="gesperrt">drive</span><br>
+  Whence no joy remained alive.
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  But when so many girls have died of love—<br>
+  Was it with all of them—Desire unstilled?<br>
+  —But then, how should such hordes of women press<br>
+  By thousands down <span class="gesperrt">your</span> path of dire excess?
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  Have you no will to glory<br>
+  In the stripes upon my body?<br>
+  For what was it made so soft,—<br>
+  For what was it so tender created?<br>
+  Speechless looks have dilated<br>
+  O’er stroke upon stroke here, oft!<br>
+  Flagging desires anew to inflame<br>
+  Boasting I tell from whom they came.
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  Be still, I tell you! One more word thereon<br>
+  And I’ll have stayed too long!... ’Tis plain to see<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">[337]</span>
+  In your pale features how tempestuously<br>
+  Youth fled from you!... Your innocence once gone,<br>
+  Did he who robbed you of it leave you in shame?
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  No—but another came,<br>
+  Found glee and blame;<br>
+  For always I swore eternal troth<br>
+  To the young fools, and broke the oath.<br>
+  Always I hoped my curse<br>
+  Must disappear with another man.<br>
+  Each time it was bitterness or worse.<br>
+  No rest could be found for me, or can,<br>
+  For ’twas always only the hellish drive<br>
+  Out of which no joy came forth alive!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  So to this house you came at last, and lead<br>
+  A life of riot and revel here indeed!<br>
+  Music resounds, champagne drips from the tables,<br>
+  Laughter roars through the graying dawn full oft,<br>
+  Nought the long working-day knows but the soft<br>
+  Sound of hot tongues’ husht lisping of love’s fables.—<br>
+  What a low, common beggar I must be<br>
+  To you—proud queen of joy and ecstasy!<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">[338]</span>
+  I came with what was mine from you to purchase<br>
+  A plain, straightforward interchange of pleasure.<br>
+  I could tear my hair with rage! For without measure<br>
+  Hideous is the lust that here besmirches<br>
+  Those libertines your friends and you their game!<br>
+  They set no stops to their inhuman glee!<br>
+  Hasten and wreathe <span class="gesperrt">their</span> limbs! A purer aim<br>
+  And element upbuoys and quickens me!<br>
+  I sought refreshment, and have no desire<br>
+  To smear myself in the earth’s deepest mire!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  Oh, stay! If you desert me now, ’tis harder,—<br>
+  ’Tis night around me again! Don’t go away!<br>
+  Like a lip-lash already each word you say<br>
+  Flicks me, and stings my craving with pricking whips:<br>
+  Would you might loathe and hate me with such ardor<br>
+  That it would be your fists and not your lips<br>
+  Whose blow on blow aches through my body’s smart!<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">[339]</span>
+  Once you’ve been pressed to my heart<br>
+  Then go back whence you came,<br>
+  Smilingly write my name<br>
+  In your notebook ... —while with me<br>
+  There will stay but the ghastly curse—to be<br>
+  Once more in the grip of the hellish drive<br>
+  Out of which no joy remained alive!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  I can’t believe my senses now!—It seems,<br>
+  You’ve fallen in <span class="gesperrt">love</span> with me? Oh, cruel!—Spurned<br>
+  By women, I have wept aloud and yearned<br>
+  Thru many—how many—nights of tortured dreams!<br>
+  Is the first love in all my life now faltering<br>
+  Toward me upon bought lips?!—Are you not bound<br>
+  To give to every stranger, without paltering,<br>
+  His will,—and hopes of comfort would you found<br>
+  On me?—to me lay passionately bare<br>
+  Your soul, whose lurid charms shall hold me fast?<br>
+  If e’er my lot so close to yours were cast<br>
+  I should be seized with horror past compare!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  For God’s sake, don’t believe in my love!<br>
+  ’Tis my duty here to affect the dove!<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">[340]</span>
+  Think to yourself just once what it means<br>
+  When suddenly someone parts the screens!—<br>
+  Rake up love’s coals, be alive and elated;<br>
+  There is a <span class="gesperrt">man</span> by God created!—<br>
+  —Do you want me to play that wretched game<br>
+  With <span class="gesperrt">you</span> here?<br>
+  To feel but loathing when your high’st flame<br>
+  Burns thru here?!<br>
+  But if you thoroly with your Hunnish<br>
+  Fists my body and limbs will punish,—<br>
+  That, if you find pleasure in it,<br>
+  Can unite us till my dying minute!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  White robe of innocence! Spirit unstained<br>
+  By even this house! Your purity makes blind<br>
+  My eyes; your beauty takes my heart and mind<br>
+  With infinite gazing.—Rioting unrestrained<br>
+  In fierce self-martyrdom without repose—<br>
+  You fight the soul’s unfathomable woes,—<br>
+  Death in your face, and in your heart hot hate<br>
+  For all earth’s vain delights turned desolate!</p>
+<p class='sdir2'>[<i>He kneels.</i>]</p>
+<p class='ml3'>
+  Let me be friend, be brother to you! Whether<br>
+  You give your body up to me—lies deep<br>
+  Beneath us!—so have you exalted me!<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">[341]</span>
+  To your slim knees here solemnly I vow<br>
+  That only as soul cleaves to soul art thou<br>
+  My own—so only am I thine—together!<br>
+  Out of hell’s agony to heaven’s steep<br>
+  You soared, and now unconscious of the sweep,<br>
+  Of lusts that ebb and flow beneath your height<br>
+  Must bleed your life out in sublimity<br>
+  Thru me shall that be shown to all men’s sight!<br>
+  From my chaste poetry the world shall learn<br>
+  To weigh the wrong and misery of sold love!<br>
+  I swear it by the eternal stars above,<br>
+  The purest light that in our night can burn.<br>
+  Give me a pledge, avow to me openly:—<br>
+  Have you by love been gladden’d? once? or ever?
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—[<i>Raising him.</i>]</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  If you killed me now straight off, I could never<br>
+  Say it differently!<br>
+  It was always only the hellish drive<br>
+  Whence no joy remained alive.<br>
+  Thus, once for all, it is in this place:<br>
+  Here is the rendezvous<br>
+  Of all to whom love is a pang without grace<br>
+  And a hankering ever new!<br>
+  What other chance callers may appear<br>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">[342]</span>
+  Aren’t taken in earnest by us here!<br>
+  Men such as you<br>
+  Are few<br>
+  For they count for nothing where<br>
+  We house, whom men compare<br>
+  With beasts unheeded.—<br>
+  But now have I yet succeeded<br>
+  In bringing you round to grant<br>
+  Comfort to my wild want?
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Herr König</span>—</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  What wilderness of paths your hand may lead me,<br>
+  Still gleams a star above us that will speed me!
+</p>
+
+<p class='mth'><span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>—[<i>Hugs and kisses him.</i>]</p>
+
+<p class='ml3'>
+  Then come, love! pliable at last, for trysts<br>
+  In ancient, ne’er-disturbed tranquillity,<br>
+  As uttermost lust’s calm bliss long known to me!<br>
+  Oh, if I only died under your fists!</p>
+<p class='sdir2'>[<i>Both exeunt, right.</i>]
+</p>
+
+<p class='mt1'><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Breaking out of his hiding-place,
+wildly.</i>] What was that?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Breaking out likewise, passionately.</i>]
+What was that! Worthless parasite that I am!
+What did my withered brain ever think the joy of
+the senses was! Self-immolation, glowing martyrdom,
+that’s what the life in this house is! And I, in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_343">[343]</span>
+my lying arrogance, in my threadbare virtue, supposed
+this house a breeding-place of depravity!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—I am smashed and shattered!!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—All my youth, that the good God gave
+me overflowing with the desire and the power to love,—I
+have wantonly dragged it through the gray, soul-smothering
+dirt of the streets! Coward that I was,
+the sacredness of sensual passion seemed to me the
+basest reprobacy!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Stunned.</i>] That was the blinding-bright
+enlightenment that unforeseen breaks his neck
+who walks in his sleep on the ridge-pole!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Passionately.</i>] That was the blinding-bright
+enlightenment!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—What am I still doing in the world,
+if even sensual pleasure is nothing but a hellish flaying
+of man, nothing but a satanic butchery of mankind,
+like all the rest of our earthly existence?! So
+<span class="gesperrt">that’s</span> the true aspect of the <span class="gesperrt">one divine
+ray</span> that pierces the horrible night of our tormented
+life! Oh, if only I had shot a bullet through my
+head half a century ago! Then I would have been
+spared this pitiful bankruptcy of my bilked and
+swindled spiritual wealth.</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—What is there still for you to do in
+the world? I can tell you! You trade in girls. You
+boast you trade in girls. Anyway, you have the
+closest relations with all the places that count in the
+white slave trade. Sell me! I beseech you, sell me
+into a house like this! You can make a very lucrative
+bargain of me! I have never loved; and, surely,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_344">[344]</span>
+that doesn’t lower my value! I won’t bring you any
+disgrace! You shall add, by me, to the honor in
+which your customers hold you! I promise! I will
+guarantee myself to you with any oath you ask me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Half-crazed.</i>] What will keep me
+from breaking my neck? What will help me across
+the icy shudders of death?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—I will help you across! <i>I!</i> Sell me!
+Then you’ll be saved!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Who are <span class="gesperrt">you</span>?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—I want to find my death in the joy of
+the senses. I want to give myself up to be slaughtered
+on the altar of sensuous love!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Am I to sell you—<span class="gesperrt">you</span>?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—I want to die the martyr’s death that
+this girl who was just here is dying! Have <i>I</i> no natural
+human rights the same as others?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Heaven preserve me from it!
+[<i>With mounting emphasis.</i>] This—this—this is the
+<span class="gesperrt">derisive laughter of Hell</span>, that rings
+above my plunge into death!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Sinking to his feet.</i>] Sell me!
+Sell me!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—The most terrible times of my life
+arise before me. Once before, I sold in the love-market
+a girl whom nature had not intended for it!
+For that crime against nature I spent six full years
+behind <span class="gesperrt">prison bars</span>. Of course she, too, was
+one of those temperamentless creatures in whose
+<span class="gesperrt">faces</span> one can see “big feet.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Clasping his knees.</i>] On my soul I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_345">[345]</span>
+implore you, sell me! You were right. My activity
+in combating the white slave traffic was unsatisfied
+sensuality. But my sensuousness is <span class="gesperrt">not</span> weak! Ask
+me for proofs. Shall I kiss you madly, insanely?</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>In utmost despair.</i>] And this ear-piercing
+howl of suffering at my feet? What <span class="gesperrt">is</span>
+that! This echoing shriek for help from birth-pangs,
+woes of life, and death-agonies I will no
+longer endure. I cannot stand this earth’s continuous
+crying any longer!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Wringing her hands.</i>] <span class="gesperrt">To you
+yourself</span>, if you will, I will yield up my virginity!
+<span class="gesperrt">To you yourself</span>, if you will, I will give my
+first love-night!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—[<i>Shrieking.</i>] The last straw! [<i>A
+shot.</i> <span class="smcap">Elfriede</span> <i>utters a piercing yell</i>. <span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>,
+<i>the smoking revolver in his right hand, his left
+pressed convulsively to his breast, totters to one of
+the arm-chairs and breaks down in it</i>.]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—I—I beg your pardon—Baroness.
+I’ve—I’ve hurt myself.—That was not—not gallant
+of me&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Bending over him.</i>] God have mercy,
+you haven’t hit yourself with it?!</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—Don’t—don’t hurt my ears—shrieking!
+Be loving—loving—loving—if you can&#x2060;——</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Stands up in horror, both hands in
+her hair, stares at him and screams.</i>] No! No! No!
+I <span class="gesperrt">can’t</span> be loving with this sight before me! I
+<span class="gesperrt">can’t</span> be loving! [<i>Directly after the shot, three
+slim young girls, dressed exactly like</i> <span class="smcap">Lisiska</span>, <i>have
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_346">[346]</span>
+curiously one after the other stepped out of the
+three doors. Hesitatingly they approach</i> <span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>,
+<i>and, with the minimum of action or emotion,
+gesturing silently among themselves, they essay to
+ease his death-struggles. He looks up and sees
+them.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span>—And that—and that—ve-vengeance?
+Spirits of vengeance?—No! No!—That—that is
+Marushka! I see you now. That is Euphemia!—That,
+Theophila!— —Marushka! Kiss me, Marushka!
+[<i>The slenderest of the three girls bends
+over</i> <span class="smcap">Casti-Piani</span> <i>and kisses him on the mouth</i>.] No!
+[<i>In anguish.</i>] No! No! That wasn’t anything!—Kiss—kiss
+me differently! [<i>She kisses him again.</i>]—So!—So,
+so, so!—I have de-deceived you [<i>slowly
+raising himself, supported by</i> <span class="smcap">Marushka</span>]—deceived
+you all! The joy of the senses—torture—bloody
+agony!— —At last—at last—deliverance!
+[<i>He stands, straight and stiff, as though seized with
+catalepsy, his eyes very wide open.</i>] We—we must
+receive—His Worship— —standing.... [<i>He
+falls dead.</i>]</p>
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>—[<i>Drowned in tears, to the three girls.</i>]
+Well?—Is none of you girls brave enough to do it?
+You were more to this man than I was permitted
+to be! [<i>The three girls shake their heads and withdraw
+shyly, frightened, but cold and impassive.</i> <span class="smcap">Elfriede</span>,
+<i>sobbing, turns to the corpse</i>:] Then forgive
+me miserable! While you were alive, you abhorred
+me with all your soul! Forgive me that I come near
+you now! [<i>Kisses him passionately on the mouth.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_347">[347]</span>
+Breaking into a flood of tears</i>.] This last disillusion,
+even in your fearfullest blackest pessimism you can
+never have conceived,—that a <span class="gesperrt">virgin</span> was to close
+your eyes! [<i>She closes his eyes and sinks, weeping
+piteously, at his feet.</i>]</p>
+
+<p class='curtain'>CURTAIN</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class='chapter'>
+<div class="transnote mt2">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Notes">
+    Transcriber’s Notes
+  </h2>
+
+<ul>
+<li>Obvious typographic erros silently corrected.</li>
+
+<li>Variations in hyphenation and punctuation kept as in the original.</li>
+
+<li>Footnotes numbered consecutively and relocated to the end of each
+   play.
+</li>
+</ul>
+</div></div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76872 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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author	pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org>	2025-09-13 17:22:03 -0700
committer	pgww <pgww@lists.pglaf.org>	2025-09-13 17:22:03 -0700
commit	822c00be78e001cadd1dfd22cacb2d8d468b1597 (patch)
tree	77103885e3aa009391421765a319820d0bd517bb /76872-h