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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76872 ***





TRAGEDIES OF SEX




                            TRAGEDIES OF SEX

                                   BY

                             FRANK WEDEKIND

                    Translation and Introduction by
                          SAMUEL A ELIOT, JR.

                Spring’s Awakening (Frühlings Erwachen)
                Earth-Spirit (Erdgeist)
                Pandora’s Box (Die Büchse der Pandora)
                Damnation! (Tod und Teufel)

                             [Illustration]




 _

                           BONI AND LIVERIGHT
                    PUBLISHERS   ::   ::   NEW YORK




 _Copyright, 1914_
 _Copyright, 1921_
 _Copyright, 1923_
 BY
 BONI & LIVERIGHT, INC.


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.

      Both theatrical and motion picture rights are reserved.


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




CONTENTS


                                          PAGE

 INTRODUCTION                              vii

 SPRING’S AWAKENING (FRÜHLINGSERWACHEN)      1

 EARTH-SPIRIT (ERDGEIST)                   111

 PANDORA’S BOX (BÜCHSE DER PANDORA)        217

 DAMNATION! (TOD UND TEUFEL)               305




INTRODUCTION


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
_Spring’s Awakening_ (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 _The Theatre of Today_ as an immoral joker out of
_Simplicissimus_. 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 Wedekind has been dead five years, and
the time for a fair and thoughtful, if very inexhaustive, judgment of
him has surely come.

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 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.

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.

Less than a twelvemonth after his decease, a desperate, 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: _Pandora’s Box_ 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.

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 _Four Years in
Germany_ he mentions shudderingly our author’s name, points to the
fact that Berlin still was going, over and over, to performances of
_Earth-Spirit_ 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 earnest
readers and (who knows?) it may be, for the stage.

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 _Geschlechtstragödien_ 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 _Spring’s Awakening_ we hear in
the scenes where Hugenberg, the schoolboy of _Earth-Spirit_, Act
IV, and _Pandora’s Box_, Act I, reveals his virginal, enthusiastic,
adventurous, devoted flush of life. How subtly is Lulu foreshadowed
in the vivid sketch of Ilse in _Spring’s Awakening_: 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 _Pandora’s Box_, Act II; how
satisfyingly his life is summed and closed in _Tod und Teufel_--verily
_Damnation!_ 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 _Spring’s Awakening_ (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 _Earth-Spirit_, and
then to the less contained, extravagant riot, repulsively cold or hotly
ugly, perverse, verbose, derisive of his audience and even of his
art, that he so rightly named _Pandora’s Box_; and lastly to the frank
self-revelation, unrealistic preaching, unmotivated, unartful, yet
superbly confident theatricality of his _Damnation!_

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.

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. In 1895-96
he was a public reader of Ibsen plays in Switzerland; in ’96-97,
political editor of _Simplicissimus_ 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 _Earth-Spirit_, 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 _The Marquis of Keith_.

Save for a term in prison as a result of the prosecution of the
editors of _Simplicissimus_ for lèse-majesté,--a term enriched by
the composition of his long story of Utopian education--physical
education--for young girls, named _Minne-haha_ (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 _Brettl-lieder_, 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 _Franziska_, his new
play in 1912-13, and marveled at the almost inarticulate strain, the
rigid body, popping eyes, 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.

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 _Schauspielkunst_, a collection of critical notes published
in 1910), played many parts by Sudermann, Hauptmann, Max Halbe, etc.,
and he is sure that 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.

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 _Earth-Spirit_, Wedekind specifically mocks the
pale and will-less heroes of Hauptmann’s _Lonely Lives_ and _Before
Sunrise_, 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 _Spring’s Awakening_,
with keenest sympathy. He had also a theory, expressed by Alva, his
self-portrait in _Pandora’s Box_, 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
_Pandora’s Box_ 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.

In ’90-91, when he wrote _Spring’s Awakening_, 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 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 _Earth-Spirit_ among his very first
independent productions, in 1902-03, gave a very notable interpretation
of _Spring’s Awakening_ 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.

His foreign experiences seem to have taken place between the writing
of this play and that of _Earth-Spirit_. The author is quite out of
sight in _Earth-Spirit_; 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 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.

To these powerful, objective ’90’s of Wedekind belong also the one-act
play _Der Kammersänger_ or _The Tenor_, acted in New York in 1916 and
published in _Fifty Contemporary One-Act Plays_; and _The Marquis of
Keith_, in which the struggle for success and money is as turbulently
dramatized as the sex-conflict was in _Earth-Spirit_. But there is a
moralizing character in _The Marquis_, 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 _Pandora’s
Box_, off and on, throughout this decade, and the impulse to expound
himself ever and again peeps through its three distorted pictures
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 _Lulu_ plays together under her name, omitting _Earth-Spirit_,
Act III (which seems to me indispensable, none the less), and
_Pandora’s Box_, 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
_Pandora’s Box_.

The pessimism of the last act is terrific and leads straight to the
mood of _Damnation!_--a sort of satyr-play, concluding the three
tragedies. In it, quite unrealistically, is passionately expressed
what _Pandora’s Box_ 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
various remedies that Wedekind proposed--which the world persistently,
unshakably condemned. Wedekind writhed. Between _Pandora’s Box_ and
_Damnation!_ (1905) appeared two scarcely disguised subjective plays,
_King Nicolo_, or _Such is Life_, which is very largely autobiography
transferred to fourteenth-century Italy, a swift, dramatic and pathetic
tale genuinely engaging our sympathies; and _Hidalla_, or _The Giant
Dwarf_, 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: _Music_, a quite objective study of the havoc artistic
education, seduction, abortion, the punishment of abortion, etc., etc.,
may cause; and _Censorship_, a wholly subjective one-act written after
the lawsuits over _Pandora’s Box_ 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.

It had little that was new to offer. _Schloss Wetterstein_ is an
engrossing, if extravagant, sex-tragedy in three semi-independent
acts, reminiscent of the _Lulu_ 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? _Franziska_ is a parody of _Faust_, 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. _Samson_, or _Shame and
Jealousy_, and _Herakles_, 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, _Bismarck_,
plainly forerunning Drinkwater’s _Lincoln_ 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, _The World of Youth_, 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
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 _Minne-haha_.

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 _him_, one had the sense of human passion and
struggle, of something personally experienced and sweated out, in
almost all his work. Hence, 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.

                                                SAMUEL A. ELIOT, JR.
 Smith College,
 January, 1923.




                           SPRING’S AWAKENING

                          (FRÜHLINGS ERWACHEN)

                          A Children’s Tragedy


                             _Dedicated to_

                         THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN




CHARACTERS


  MELCHIOR GABOR    }
  MORITZ STIEFEL    }
  HÄNSCHEN RILOW    }
  ERNEST ROEBEL     } _Schoolboys, aged 14 to 17_
  LÄMMERMEIER       }
  OTTO              }
  GEORGE            }
  ROBERT            }

  DIETHELM }
  REINHOLD }
  RUPRECHT } _Boys in a House of Correction_
  HELMUTH  }
  GASTON   }

  MR. GABOR, a Judge }
  MRS. FANNY GABOR   }  _Melchior’s Parents_

  MR. STIEFEL, _Moritz’s Father_
  MR. ZIEGENMELKER, _his Friend_
  MR. PROBST, _Moritz’s Uncle_
  REV. MR. KAHLBAUGH, _Pastor_

  DR. SONNENSTICH, Principal }
  DR. AFFENSCHMALZ           }
  DR. KNOCHENBRUCH           } _The Faculty of the
  DR. ZUNGENSCHLAG           }    Boys’ School_
  DR. KNÜPPELDICK            }
  DR. HUNGERGURT             }
  DR. FLIEGENTOD             }

  HABEBALD, _the School Beadle_
  DR. PROKRUSTES, _Head of the House of Correction_
  A LOCKSMITH
  DR. VON BRAUSEPULVER, M.D.
  THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN

  MRS. BERGMANN
  INA MÜLLER, _her married daughter_
  WENDLA BERGMANN, _her 14-year-old daughter_
  MARTHA BESSEL }
  THEA          } _Wendla’s Friends_
  ILSE, _an older girl, an artist’s model_


The Scene is laid in Southern Germany or in Switzerland. The Time is
from May to November, 1892.




A NOTE ON THE STAGING


SPRING’S AWAKENING is divided into Nineteen Scenes as follows:

  ACT I:    SCENE 1. In Mrs. Bergmann’s House.
            SCENE 2. A Park.
            SCENE 3. The Same.
            SCENE 4. The School Yard.
            SCENE 5. In the Woods.

  ACT II:   SCENE 1. Melchior’s Study.
            SCENE 2. Same as I, 1.
            SCENE 3. In the Rilow House.
            SCENE 4. A Hayloft.
            SCENE 5. Mrs. Gabor’s Room.
            SCENE 6. The Bergmann Garden.
            SCENE 7. A Path near the River.

  ACT III:  SCENE 1. The Faculty Room at the School.
            SCENE 2. By the Wall of the Graveyard.
            SCENE 3. In the Gabor House.
            SCENE 4. In the House of Correction.
            SCENE 5. Wendla’s Bedroom.
            SCENE 6. A Vineyard.
            SCENE 7. The Graveyard.

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.

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 _is_ omitted, III, 4, and III, 5,
might be played in reverse order.

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.




ACT I


 SCENE I.--_A pretty little room, with a window looking out on an
     early spring garden._ WENDLA’S _bed in one corner, wardrobe in
     the other, table and two chairs between. Doors just below bed and
     wardrobe._

     WENDLA _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._

WENDLA--Why did you make the dress so long for me, mother?

MRS. BERGMANN--You’re fourteen years old to-day!

WENDLA--If I had known you were going to make my dress so long, I’d
rather not have been fourteen.

MRS. BERGMANN--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!

WENDLA--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 =next= birthday! Now I’d only tread
on the braid.

MRS. BERGMANN--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?

WENDLA--Who knows? Perhaps I shan’t =be= at all.

MRS. BERGMANN--Child, child, what makes you think such things!

WENDLA--Don’t, mother dear; oh, don’t be sad.

MRS. BERGMANN--[_Kissing her._] My only darling!

WENDLA--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?

MRS. BERGMANN--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.

WENDLA--[_Hanging the dress in the wardrobe._] No! Then I might as well
be all of twenty right away!

MRS. BERGMANN--If only you don’t get too cold. In its time that little
dress was plenty long enough for you, but now----

WENDLA--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 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!


CURTAIN


 SCENE II.--_Sunday evening. A gravel walk in front of a park bench;
     shrubbery and tree-tops behind. MELCHIOR enters, followed by the
     other boys_.

MELCHIOR--I’m tired of that: I don’t want to any more.

OTTO--Then the rest of us can just as well stop, too. Have you done
your work, Melchior?

MELCHIOR--Go on playing, why don’t you!

MORITZ--Where are you going?

MELCHIOR--For a walk.

GEORGE--It’ll be dark soon.

ROBERT--Have you done your work already?

MELCHIOR--And why shouldn’t I go for a walk in the dark?

ERNEST--Central America!--Louis XV!--Sixty lines of Homer!--Seven
equations!

MELCHIOR--Damn the work!

GEORGE--Oh, if only Latin Comp. didn’t come to-morrow!

MORITZ--One can’t think of anything without some work coming in between!

OTTO--I’m going home.

GEORGE--I, too, home to work!

ERNEST--Me, too; me, too.

ROBERT--Good night, Melchior.

MELCHIOR--Sleep well!... [_All make off except_ MORITZ.] Gosh, I’d like
to know what we’re in the world for!

MORITZ--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!

MELCHIOR--Let’s talk about something else. [_They go for a walk._]

  [In practice, MELCHIOR can here fling himself down on the bench;
  MORITZ remain standing.]

MORITZ--Do you see the black cat there with its tail stuck up?

MELCHIOR--Do you believe in omens?

MORITZ--I don’t quite know.--It came from over there.--Means nothing!

MELCHIOR--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....

MORITZ--Unbutton your vest, Melchior.

MELCHIOR--Ah, how it blows through one’s clothes!

MORITZ--It’s getting so jolly dark you can’t see your hand before your
face. Where are you? [_He draws_ MELCHIOR _down beside him. Only their
voices, from here on, come out of the darkness._] Don’t you believe
too, Melchior, that modesty in people is just the effect of their
bringing-up?

MELCHIOR--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.

MORITZ--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....

MELCHIOR--Oh, I’m sure of that, Moritz!--The only question is, what if
the girls should have children?

MORITZ--How do you mean--have children?

MELCHIOR--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 neither she nor the male had
anyone to imitate or show them how.

MORITZ--With animals--yes--it must happen all by itself.

MELCHIOR--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....

MORITZ--Yes, you may be right there. But all the same----

MELCHIOR--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.

MORITZ--One question by the way----

MELCHIOR--Well?

MORITZ--You’ll answer?

MELCHIOR--Surely.

MORITZ--True?

MELCHIOR--There’s my hand. Well, Moritz?

MORITZ--Have you written your theme yet?

MELCHIOR--Oh, speak out what you want to say! No one can hear us or
see us.

MORITZ--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 are awfully softened! I don’t
believe people dream when they have hard beds!

MELCHIOR--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?

MORITZ--Have you felt them yet?

MELCHIOR--What?

MORITZ--How did you phrase it?

MELCHIOR--Masculine impulses?

MORITZ--M-hm.

MELCHIOR--Yes indeed!

MORITZ--I too.

MELCHIOR--In fact I’ve known that quite a while--nearly a year.

MORITZ--It struck me like a bolt of lightning!

MELCHIOR--You had dreamt?

MORITZ--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.

MELCHIOR--George Zirschnitz dreamt of his =mother=.

MORITZ--Did he tell you that?

MELCHIOR--Out there on the gallows-path.

MORITZ--If you only knew what I’ve gone through since that night!

MELCHIOR--Qualms of conscience?

MORITZ--Qualms of conscience?--Pangs of death!

MELCHIOR--Good God....

MORITZ--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.

MELCHIOR--I had been more or less prepared for it beforehand. I felt a
bit ashamed, but that was all.

MORITZ--And yet you’re almost a full year younger than me.

MELCHIOR--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.

MORITZ--I ask you, how can Hansy Rilow tell about that?

MELCHIOR--He’s asked him.

MORITZ--He’s asked him?--I’d never have dared to ask anybody!

MELCHIOR--You just asked me, didn’t you?

MORITZ--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 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?

MELCHIOR--Do you mean you don’t know that either, Moritz?

MORITZ--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 =what=!

MELCHIOR--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.

MORITZ--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?

MELCHIOR--Did you ever see two dogs running about the streets?

MORITZ--No!--Don’t tell me anything yet--not 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.

MELCHIOR--But come up to my room with me. In three-quarters of an hour
I’ll have the Homer, the algebra, and =two= 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.

MORITZ--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.

MELCHIOR--You’re like a girl.... But just as you like. It’ll be an
interesting job for me all right.--One question, Moritz.

MORITZ--Hm?

MELCHIOR--Have you ever =seen= a girl?

MORITZ--Yes!

MELCHIOR--All?

MORITZ--Every bit!

MELCHIOR--I, too.--Then no illustrations will be necessary.

MORITZ--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 =true=!

MELCHIOR--I was with Mama in Frankfort last summer-- Are you going
already, Moritz?

MORITZ--To get my work done.--Good night.

MELCHIOR--So long!


CURTAIN


 SCENE III.--_A stormy afternoon._ MARTHA, WENDLA _and_ THEA _are
     coming along the path_.

MARTHA--How the water gets into your shoes!

WENDLA--How the wind whistles past your cheeks!

THEA--How your heart pounds!

WENDLA--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.

THEA--Oh, =he= can swim!

MARTHA--You bet he can, kid!

WENDLA--If he hadn’t been able to swim, I guess he’d have been really
drowned.

THEA--Your braid’s coming out, Martha, your braid’s coming out!

MARTHA--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!

WENDLA--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!

MARTHA--For God’s sake, Wendla! Papa’ll beat me to pieces, and Mama’ll
lock me up three nights in the coal-hole!

WENDLA--What’ll he beat you with, Martha?

MARTHA--It often strikes me that they’d miss something, after all, if
they didn’t have such a horrid little brat as I am.

THEA--Oh, my dear!

MARTHA--Aren’t you allowed to have a sky-blue ribbon thru the top of
your chemise?

THEA--Pink satin! Mama thinks pink goes well with my pitch-black eyes.

MARTHA--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....

WENDLA--In your place I’d have run away from them long ago, out into
the world.

MARTHA--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 =mother= for later on!

THEA--Huh--huh--

MARTHA--Can you possibly think, Thea, what Mama meant by that?

THEA--Not I-- Can you, Wendla?

WENDLA--I would simply have asked her.

MARTHA--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?...

WENDLA--Oh, Martha, that just can’t be true!

MARTHA--I froze. I told all about it. Well, I must sleep in the sack
the whole night.

THEA--Never in my life could I sleep in a sack!

WENDLA--I really wish I could sleep in your sack =for= you sometime.

MARTHA--If only you’re not beaten----

THEA--But don’t you smother in it?

MARTHA--Your head stays out. It’s tied under your chin.

THEA--And then do they beat you?

MARTHA--No. Only when there’s something special.

WENDLA--What do they beat you =with=, Martha?

MARTHA--Oh, what--with anything handy.--Does your mother think it’s
“disreputable” to eat a piece of bread in bed?

WENDLA--No, no.

MARTHA--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 =them=, and they
stand so high, so thick!--while the roses in the beds are flowering
worse and worse each summer.

THEA--When _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?

WENDLA--How do you two know that you’ll have any?

THEA--Well, why shouldn’t we have some?

MARTHA--It’s true Aunt Euphemia hasn’t any.

THEA--Silly! That’s because she’s not married!

WENDLA--Aunty Bauer was married three times, and hasn’t got one.

MARTHA--If you have any, Wendla, which would you rather--boys or girls?

WENDLA--Boys! Boys!

THEA--Me too--boys!

MARTHA--Me too--better twenty boys than three girls.

THEA--Girls are tiresome.

MARTHA--If I weren’t a girl already, I surely wouldn’t want to be one
any more!

WENDLA--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.

THEA--But that’s nonsense, Wendla, rank nonsense!

WENDLA--But look here, child,--mustn’t it be a thousand times more
uplifting to be loved by a man than by a girl?

THEA--But you wouldn’t say that forest-inspector Pfälle loved Melitta
more than she loves him!

WENDLA--Yes, I would, too, Thea.--Pfälle is proud. Pfälle is proud of
being forest-inspector, for he has nothing else.--Melitta is =happy=,
because she gets ten thousand times more than she is.

MARTHA--Aren’t you proud of =yourself=, Wendla?

WENDLA--That would be silly.

MARTHA--How proud I wish I could be, in your place!

THEA--Only see how she puts her feet down, how straight ahead she
looks, how she holds herself, Martha! If that isn’t pride--

WENDLA--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.... [_Stops, seeing_ MELCHIOR. _He
crosses past them, greeting them, and goes, followed by their eyes._]

THEA--He’s got a wonderful head.

MARTHA--That’s how I think of the young Alexander, when he went to
school to Aristotle.

THEA--Oh, good gracious! Greek History!--I only remember how Socrates
lay in his tub when Alexander sold him the donkey’s shadow.

WENDLA--They say he’s the third best in his class.

THEA--Professor Knochenbruch says he could be first, if he wanted to.

MARTHA--He has a lovely forehead, but his friend has more soulful eyes.

THEA--Moritz Stiefel?--He’s a stupid!

MARTHA--I’ve always gotten on with him perfectly well.

THEA--He humiliates you, no matter where you are with him. At the
Rilows’ party he offered me 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!

WENDLA--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!


CURTAIN


 SCENE IV.--_Near the Boys’ School. All the boys but_ MELCHIOR _and_
     MORITZ _and_ ERNEST ROEBEL _are standing about expectantly_.

MELCHIOR--[_Entering._] Can any of you tell me where Moritz Stiefel is
keeping himself?

GEORGE--He’s going to catch it--Oh, he’s going to catch it!

OTTO--He’ll go too far once, and then he’ll get what’s coming to him
good and plenty.

LÄMMERMEIER--Lord knows _I_ wouldn’t like to be in his shoes at this
moment!

ROBERT--Some cheek! Some impudence!

MELCHIOR--But wha--wha--what do you mean?

GEORGE--What do we mean?--Well, listen....

LÄMMERMEIER--I wish I hadn’t said anything.

OTTO--Me too--=wish= I hadn’t!

MELCHIOR--If you don’t tell me this minute----

ROBERT--Well, here it is: Moritz Stiefel has broken into the
Faculty-Room!

MELCHIOR--The Faculty-Room!

OTTO--The Faculty-Room! Right after Latin.

GEORGE--He was the last out. He stayed behind on purpose.

LÄMMERMEIER--As I turned the hall corner I saw him opening the door.

MELCHIOR--You go to----

LÄMMERMEIER--Yeah, if only =he= doesn’t go to----

GEORGE--I guess someone had left the key in the lock.

ROBERT--Or else Moritz Stiefel has a pick-lock on him.

OTTO--I’d believe it of him!

LÄMMERMEIER--If he has luck he’ll only get a Sunday afternoon.

ROBERT--Along with a demerit in his report.

OTTO--If he doesn’t get a suspension on top of a reprimand.

HANSY RILOW--There he is!

MELCHIOR--Pale as a sheet. [MORITZ _appears, in the utmost excitement_.]

LÄMMERMEIER--Moritz, Moritz, what have you done?

MORITZ--Nothing--nothing----

ROBERT--You’re feverish.

MORITZ--With joy--with rapture--with jubilation----

OTTO--You were caught----?

MORITZ--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 =am=
promoted!--[_Smiling._] I don’t know--I feel so queer--the earth’s
going round.... Melchior, Melchior, if you only knew what I’ve gone
thru!

HANSY RILOW--Congratulations, Moritz!--Just be glad that you got away
safe!

MORITZ--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!----

MELCHIOR--During all that time----

MORITZ--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.

HANSY RILOW--Did Ernest Roebel pass, too?

MORITZ--Oh, yes, Hansy, sure! Ernest Roebel is promoted the same way.

ROBERT--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!

MORITZ--I read perfectly right. Ernest Roebel is moved up just as I
am--both of us, for the present, to be sure, only =provisionally=.
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!

OTTO--I bet you five marks it’ll be you that makes room.

MORITZ--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_ know, _I_ know how true it is:
if I had not been promoted, I’d have shot myself.

ROBERT--Brag!

GEORGE--The coward!

OTTO--I’d like to see you shoot anything!

LÄMMERMEIER--Punch his face!

MELCHIOR--[_Punches_ LÄMMERMEIER.] Come along, Moritz. Let’s go to the
forester’s house.

GEORGE--Do you really believe that rot?

MELCHIOR--Is that your business?--Let ’em talk, Moritz. Just let’s
get away, out o’ the city. [_He pulls him away. They meet_ PROFESSORS
KNOCHENBRUCH _and_ HUNGERGURT, _touch their caps, and exeunt. The other
boys vanish, to the other side._]

KNOCHENBRUCH--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.

HUNGERGURT--And beyond mine too, dear colleague.


CURTAIN


 SCENE V.--_A sunny afternoon in a wood of beech and oak trees. Thick
     undergrowth. A big oak-trunk with mossy roots. By it_, WENDLA
     _stands, looking about for the path_. MELCHIOR _breaks thru the
     brush_.

MELCHIOR--[_Seeing her, stops dead._] 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!

WENDLA--Yes, it’s I.

MELCHIOR--If I didn’t know you were Wendla Bergmann I’d think you were
a Dryad fallen out of the branches!

WENDLA--No, no, I’m Wendla Bergmann.--Where have you come from?

MELCHIOR--I’m following my thoughts.

WENDLA--I’m looking for woodruff.[1] 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.

MELCHIOR--Have you got your woodruff?

WENDLA--The whole basket full. Over there 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.

MELCHIOR--Just after ha’ past three.--When do they expect you back?

WENDLA--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.

MELCHIOR--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. [_He does as he says._] The ground is still warm from the
morning sun. [_She sits on a root._]--There’s something I’ve wanted to
ask you for weeks, Wendla.

WENDLA--But I must be at home before five.

MELCHIOR--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....

WENDLA--What was it you wanted to ask me, Melchior?

MELCHIOR--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?

WENDLA--Generally Mother sends me. There are 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?

MELCHIOR--Do you like to go, or not, when your mother sends you on such
errands?

WENDLA--Oh, I like to ever so much!--How can you ask?

MELCHIOR--But the children are dirty, the women are sick, the rooms are
alive with filth, the men hate you because you don’t work----

WENDLA--That isn’t true, Melchior,--and if it were true I’d go all the
more!

MELCHIOR--What do you mean, Wendla,--all the more?

WENDLA--I’d go all the more for that: it would give me so much more
pleasure to be able to help them!

MELCHIOR--Oh, so you go to the poor people for the pleasure you get out
of it!

WENDLA--I go because they’re poor!

MELCHIOR--But if it didn’t give you any pleasure, would you stop going?

WENDLA--Well, can I help it if it does give me pleasure?

MELCHIOR--[_Rolling over and staring straight up._] 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 help it if it
=doesn’t= give him any pleasure to go and visit sick and dirty children?

WENDLA--Oh, I’m =sure= it would give =you= the =greatest= pleasure!

MELCHIOR--And yet it’s for that that he’s condemned to everlasting
death. [_Sits up, his back against the tree._] 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.

WENDLA--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.

MELCHIOR--There =is= no self-sacrifice. There =is= 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?

WENDLA--Silly things--foolishness----

MELCHIOR--With your eyes open?

WENDLA--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, 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....

MELCHIOR--Oh, I know, Wendla. You get that out of silly kid-stories.
Believe me, such brutal people don’t exist any more!

WENDLA--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.

MELCHIOR--Her father should simply be reported to the police. Then
they’d take the child away from him.

WENDLA--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.

MELCHIOR--I don’t believe a child is ever made better by it.

WENDLA--Better by what?

MELCHIOR--Being struck.

WENDLA--[_Reaching over and plucking a young shoot._] With this switch,
for example.--Whew, but that’s strong and slender!

MELCHIOR--That would draw blood.

WENDLA--Wouldn’t you hit me with it once?

MELCHIOR--You?

WENDLA--Yes.

MELCHIOR--What’s got into you, Wendla?

WENDLA--[_Drawing back, a little alarmed._] Why shouldn’t you?

MELCHIOR--Oh, don’t shrink. I won’t hit you.

WENDLA--But even if I let you?

MELCHIOR--Never, girl!

WENDLA--Even if I ask you to, Melchior?

MELCHIOR--Have you lost your senses?

WENDLA--I have never in my life been beaten!

MELCHIOR--If you can beg for a thing like that!...

WENDLA--[_Thrusting it into his hands._] I do! Please!

MELCHIOR--I’ll teach you to say Please! [_Strikes her._]

WENDLA--Oh, what! I don’t feel the least thing!

MELCHIOR--No wonder--thru all your skirts like that....

WENDLA--Then hit me on the legs--here!

MELCHIOR--Wendla! [_Strikes her harder._]

WENDLA--Oh, you’re just stroking me!--You’re stroking me!

MELCHIOR--You wait, you witch--I’ll beat the devil out of you! [_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 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._]


CURTAIN




ACT II


 SCENE I.--MELCHIOR’S _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._ MORITZ _and_ MELCHIOR _sit on the two ends of
     the window-seat, in profile, facing each other_.

MORITZ--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....

MELCHIOR--Shall I roll you a cigarette?

MORITZ--No, thanks--I won’t smoke.--If only it can keep on like this! I
mean to work and work 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_
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.

MELCHIOR--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.

MORITZ--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 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?

MELCHIOR--Let’s wait till we’ve had some tea.

MORITZ--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. [MRS. GABOR
_enters with a tray of steaming tea, which she sets down on the table
after moving the lamp a little, and then shakes hands with_ MORITZ.]

MRS. GABOR--Here, children! Fall to!--Good evening, Moritz Stiefel. How
are you?

MORITZ--[_Standing._] Well, thank you, Mrs. Gabor.--I’m listening to
the roundelays down there.

MRS. GABOR--But you’re not looking a bit well.--Don’t you feel quite
right?

MORITZ--It’s nothing to speak of. I’ve been rather late getting to bed
the last few nights.

MELCHIOR--Think of it--he’s been studying all night!

MRS. GABOR--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!

MORITZ--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.

MELCHIOR--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
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.

MRS. GABOR--What is that book you have there, Melchior?

MELCHIOR--“Faust.”

MRS. GABOR--Have you read it all yet?

MELCHIOR--Not all thru.

MORITZ--We’re just at the Walpurgisnacht.

MRS. GABOR--I should have waited a year or two more, if I’d been you,
before reading that.

MELCHIOR--I don’t know any book, Mama, that I’ve found so much that was
beautiful in. Why shouldn’t I have read it?

MRS. GABOR--Because you can’t understand it.

MELCHIOR--How can you know that, Mama? I feel plainly enough that I’m
not able yet to grasp it in its full sublimity, but....

MORITZ--We always read it together. That makes understanding it vastly
easier.

MRS. GABOR--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 you want anything
else, children, come and call me, Melchior: I shall be in my bedroom.
[_Exit._]

MORITZ--Your Mama meant the story of Gretchen.

MELCHIOR--Have we lingered even a moment over that!

MORITZ--Faust himself can’t have been more cold-blooded getting thru it!

MELCHIOR--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.[2]

MORITZ--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 [a French grammar] 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 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.

MELCHIOR--I don’t want my bliss given me as a charity!

MORITZ--But why not?

MELCHIOR--I don’t want anything that I haven’t had to struggle and win
for myself.

MORITZ--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!

MELCHIOR--Let it seem what it will to you, but keep it to yourself. I
don’t like to think about it.


CURTAIN


 SCENE II.--WENDLA’S _room, empty_. MRS. BERGMANN, _her hat on, her
     shawl round her shoulders, a basket on her arm, enters with
     beaming face_.

MRS. BERGMANN--Wendla! Wendla!

WENDLA--[_Appearing, half dressed, at the other door._] What is it,
Mother?

MRS. BERGMANN--Up already, dear? Well! That’s nice of you.

WENDLA--Have you been out already?

MRS. BERGMANN--Hurry up now and get dressed! You must go straight down
to Ina’s and take this basket to her.

WENDLA--[_Finishing dressing during the following._] Have you been at
Ina’s? How is Ina feeling? Isn’t she ever going to get better?

MRS. BERGMANN--Just think, Wendla: the stork came to her last night and
brought her a new little boy!

WENDLA--A boy?--A boy?--Oh, that’s grand!--So it was for that she’s
been sick so long with influenza!

MRS. BERGMANN--A splendid boy!

WENDLA--I’ve got to see him, Mother!--So now I’m an aunt for the third
time--one niece and two nephews!

MRS. BERGMANN--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
[and a half?] years to-morrow since she went up those steps in her
wedding-dress!

WENDLA--Were you with her when he brought him, mother?

MRS. BERGMANN--He had just that minute flown away again!--Don’t you
want to pin a rose on here? [_At the front of her dress._]

WENDLA--Why didn’t you get there a little bit sooner, Mother?

MRS. BERGMANN--Why, I do believe, almost, that he brought you something
too--a brooch or something like that.

WENDLA--[_Losing patience._] Oh, it’s really too bad!

MRS. BERGMANN--But I tell you that he did bring you a brooch too!

WENDLA--I’ve got brooches enough....

MRS. BERGMANN--Why, then be happy, darling. What are you troubled about?

WENDLA--I’d like to have known, so much, whether he flew in by the
window or down the chimney.

MRS. BERGMANN--You must ask Ina about that. [_Laughing._] 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?

WENDLA--I’ll ask Ina as soon as I get down there.

MRS. BERGMANN--Be sure you don’t forget, you angel child! Really, I’m
interested myself in knowing if he came in by the window or the chimney!

WENDLA--Or how about asking the chimney-sweep, rather?--The
chimney-sweep must know better than anybody whether he flies down the
chimney or not.

MRS. BERGMANN--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?

WENDLA--A man, mother, three times as big as an ox!--with feet like
steamboats--!

MRS. BERGMANN--[_Plunging to the window._] Impossible! Impossible!

WENDLA--[_Right after her._] He’s holding a bedstead under his chin
and fiddling “The Watch on the Rhine” on it--now he’s just turned the
corner....

MRS. BERGMANN--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!

WENDLA--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 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!

MRS. BERGMANN--But, good Lord, child, how queer you are! What things do
occur to you! Really, I just can’t do that!

WENDLA--But why not, mother? Why not? It can’t be anything ugly,
surely, when everyone feels so glad about it!

MRS. BERGMANN--Oh, oh, God defend me!--Have I deserved to---- Go and
put your things on, girl,--put your things on.

WENDLA--I’m going ... and supposing your child goes out now and asks
the chimney-sweep?

MRS. BERGMANN--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!

WENDLA--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!

MRS. BERGMANN--I just can’t, Wendla.

WENDLA--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 keep perfectly still and listen, no
matter what may come!

MRS. BERGMANN--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....

WENDLA--[_Under her apron._] I’m listening.

MRS. BERGMANN--[_Incoherent._] 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....

WENDLA--[_Under her apron._] Pluck up heart, Mother!

MRS. BERGMANN--Well, then, listen....

WENDLA--[_Trembling._] O God, O God!

MRS. BERGMANN--To have a child--you understand me, Wendla?----

WENDLA--Quick, mother! I can’t bear it much longer!

MRS. BERGMANN--To have a child--one must love the man--to whom one is
married--=love= 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 =told=!
You must love him, Wendla, as you at your age can’t possibly love
anyone yet.... Now you know.

WENDLA--[_Getting up._] Great--God--in Heaven!

MRS. BERGMANN--Now you know what tests lie before you!

WENDLA--And that is all?

MRS. BERGMANN--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!

WENDLA--Have you got meat for dinner already, motherkin?

MRS. BERGMANN--God bless you and keep you!--I must find time to sew
another breadth of ruffles round your skirt.


CURTAIN


 SCENE III.--_A toilet--not to be thought of as equipped with modern
     plumbing._ HANSY RILOW _enters, a light in his hand; bolts the
     door and opens the lid_.

HANSY--Hast thou prayed to-night, Desdemona? [_He draws from his
bosom a reproduction of the Venus of Palma Vecchio._] 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!

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!

“It is the cause! It is the cause!”--That I am not lightly moved to
murder thee, thou may’st learn 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 =thee=?

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_ who have prevailed!

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!

Thou diest not for =thy= sins, but for =mine=! Need to defend myself
against myself drives me with bleeding heart to do this seventh murder
on a mate. There =is= something tragic in the rôle of Bluebeard. I
guess that all his murdered wives together suffered less than he did
in the strangling of each single one.

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!

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 =purity=, nothing more, begets my excesses?
Woe, woe to the unhuman!

Anyone can see that she’s had the advantage of a model
education!--Well, =so have _I_ too=.

Hast thou prayed to-night, Desdemona?

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....

It is the cause, it is the cause, my soul.

Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars!

It is the cause!----

[_The picture falls into the depths. He shuts the lid._]


CURTAIN


 SCENE IV.--_A hayloft. Murky light, the smell of fresh hay_, MELCHIOR
     _lying in it_. WENDLA _comes up the ladder_.

WENDLA--So =here’s= where you hid! Everybody’s looking for you. The
wagon’s gone out again. You must help. There’s a storm coming up.

MELCHIOR--Get away from me!--Get away from me!

WENDLA--What’s the matter with you?--Why do you hide your face?

MELCHIOR--Get out! Get out!--Or I’ll throw you down on the barn-floor!

WENDLA--Now I certainly won’t go. [_She kneels beside him._] Why won’t
you come out on the hayfield with us, Melchior? Here it’s so sultry and
dark! What if we =do= get wet to the skin--we don’t care!

MELCHIOR--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!----

WENDLA--Don’t kiss me, Melchior!--Don’t kiss me!

MELCHIOR--Your heart--I hear it beating----

WENDLA--People love each other--when they kiss---- Don’t! Don’t!----

MELCHIOR--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.----

WENDLA--Don’t!-------- Don’t, Melchior!----

MELCHIOR-- ... Wendla!

WENDLA--Oh, Melchior!----don’t--don’t----


CURTAIN


 SCENE V.--MRS. GABOR _sits and writes_.

     [_Or else she may be shown in a dark room, in silhouette against
     the window, reading her letter over by its failing light._]

MRS. GABOR--My dear Moritz Stiefel!

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 not only be unwarranted but, more seriously,
might have the gravest effect upon your mental and physical health.

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.

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 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.

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

                                           Your maternal friend,
                                                            FANNY G.


CURTAIN


 SCENE VI.--_The_ BERGMANN _Garden in the radiance of the morning sun_.

WENDLA--[_Discovered._] 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....

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.

Here’s where they used to be. [_Kneels._] 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!


CURTAIN


 SCENE VII.--_Twilight. The sky is lightly overcast. The path winds
     through low growth and sedgegrass. Not far away the river sounds._
     MORITZ _sits facing the audience, his back to some bushes and the
     path_.

MORITZ--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.

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!

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....

Yes, I just must have fallen on my head!

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!

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....

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 =pyramids=?!

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 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.

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.

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 should play
no mad games with the fraud! The mist dissolves: life is a matter of
taste. [_His shoulder is suddenly grabbed from behind by_ ILSE.]

ILSE--[_In torn clothes, a gay kerchief round her head._] What have you
lost?

MORITZ--[_Starting to his feet._] Ilse!

ILSE--What are you looking for here?

MORITZ--What d’you frighten me so for?

ILSE--What is it? What have you lost?

MORITZ--But why did you startle me so awfully?

ILSE--I’ve just come from the city.--I’m going home.

MORITZ--I don’t know, what I’ve lost.

ILSE--Then it’s no good your looking. [MORITZ _swears_.] It’s four days
since I was home.

MORITZ--Sneaking like a cat!

ILSE--That’s ’cause I’ve got my dancing-slippers on.--Mother =will=
make eyes!--Come along to the house with me!

MORITZ--Where have you been bumming around again?

ILSE--In =Priapia=!

MORITZ--Priapia?

ILSE--At Nohl’s, at Fehrendorf’s, at Padinsky’s,--with Lenz, Rank,
Spühler,--with everybody you can think of!--Kling, kling,--=she= will
jump!

MORITZ--Are they painting you?

ILSE--Fehrendorf’s painting me as St. Stylites, standing on a
Corinthian capital. Fehrendorf, I must tell you, is a mess.[3] Last
time I stepped on 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!

MORITZ--Where do you spend the night when you stay in town?

ILSE--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?

MORITZ--No, no--this term, I’m getting out.

ILSE--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.

MORITZ--He philosophizes.

ILSE--Wendla came to see us a while ago, and brought mother some
preserves. I was sitting that 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?

MORITZ--From last night. We swilled like hippopotamuses. It was five
o’clock when I staggered home.

ILSE--One only needs to look at you.--Were there girls there?

MORITZ--Arabella, the bar-maid,--a Spanish girl. The landlord left us
all, the whole night through, alone with her.

ILSE--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.

MORITZ--Had he been looking for you?

ILSE--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 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.

MORITZ--Is Henry still alive?

ILSE--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!

MORITZ--Is this Henry still alive?

ILSE--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 to tie
up to anyone else, though the world were full of archangels and
millionaires!

MORITZ--I must go back, Ilse.

ILSE--Come with me as far as our house.

MORITZ--What for?--What for?

ILSE--[_Kidding him._] 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.

MORITZ--I must get back. I still have the Sassanids, the Sermon on the
Mount and the parallelepipedon on my conscience.--Good night, Ilse.

ILSE--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! [_She hurries off._]

MORITZ--One word, it would have cost.--[_Calls._] Ilse!--Ilse!----
Praise God, she doesn’t hear!

--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!

... 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----

=scream!--I shall scream!--Oh to be you,
Ilse!--Priapia!--Unconsciousness!--That takes away my power!--This
favorite of fortune, this sunny creature, this daughter of joy upon my
dolorous path!--Oh!--Oh!=

[_He staggers across the path and falls under the high, dark, cavernous
bushes on the further side, crawling towards the river._]

       *       *       *       *       *

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.... [_He draws_ MRS. GABOR’S _letter from his pocket,
lights a match, and burns it_.]--How the sparks fly--back and forth--up
and down!--Souls!--Shooting stars!----

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.


CURTAIN




ACT III


 SCENE 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_, PRINCIPAL
     SONNENSTICH[4] _sits. Behind the table sit, quite close together,
     in a grotesque row_, PROFESSORS AFFENSCHMALZ (_nearest_
     SONNENSTICH), KNOCHENBRUCH, FLIEGENTOD, HUNGERGURT, ZUNGENSCHLAG,
     _and_ KNÜPPELDICK. HABEBALD, _the beadle or proctor of the school,
     cowers near the door_.

SONNENSTICH--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 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 =can= prevail,--because it is for us
to protect our institution from the ravages of a suicide-=epidemic=,
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?

KNÜPPELDICK--[_Furthest away; middle-aged._] I can no longer repel the
conviction that it may at last be about time to open a window somewhere.

ZUNGENSCHLAG--[_Next him, bearded, choleric._] 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!

SONNENSTICH--Habebald!

HABEBALD--Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?

SONNENSTICH--Open a window. We have, Heaven be praised, atmosphere
enough out-of-doors.--May one of the gentlemen have anything further to
remark?

FLIEGENTOD--[_The Secretary, with the minutebook; bearded, ponderous._]
If my worthy colleagues wish to have a window opened, I have nothing,
personally, to object against it; only might I ask that they will not
wish to have that window opened which is directly at my back?

SONNENSTICH--Habebald!

HABEBALD--Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?

SONNENSTICH--Open the other window!--May one of the gentlemen have
something still further to remark?

HUNGERGURT--[_Small, mild, spectacled; between_ FLIEGENTOD _and_
ZUNGENSCHLAG.] 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?

SONNENSTICH--Habebald!

HABEBALD--Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?

SONNENSTICH--Leave the other window closed!--I see myself compelled,
gentlemen, to bring the matter to a vote. I request those colleagues
who are =for= opening the only window that can enter into the question,
to indicate it by standing. [_The three furthest from him stand._] One,
two three. [_Counting the seated ones, too._] One, two, three. Habebald!

HABEBALD--Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?

SONNENSTICH--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. =We= will then
be held accountable, by the Ministry of Education, for the disaster
that has befallen us. Of 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 =closed= 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 =not= justifiable! We see ourselves reduced to
the necessity of passing judgment on the guilty lest we, the innocent,
be judged.--Habebald!

HABEBALD--Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?

SONNENSTICH--Bring him up. [HABEBALD _goes out_.]

ZUNGENSCHLAG--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!

FLIEGENTOD--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.

ZUNGENSCHLAG--Th-th-that is too much for me to put up
with!--Ru-rudenesses are more than I need to put up with!--I am in
possession of my five senses...!

SONNENSTICH--I must request our colleagues, Messrs. Fliegentod and
Zungenschlag, to preserve decorum. I think I hear our crime-laden pupil
already on the stairs. [HABEBALD _opens the door, whereupon_ MELCHIOR,
_pale but composed, steps before the assemblage_.] 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----

MELCHIOR--I have----

SONNENSTICH--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 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----

MELCHIOR--I have----

SONNENSTICH--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.

MELCHIOR--I have----

SONNENSTICH--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!

HABEBALD--Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?

SONNENSTICH--The documents!--I trust that our Secretary, Mr.
Fliegentod, will from now on record the proceedings as nearly verbatim
as possible. [_To_ MELCHIOR.] Do you recognize this manuscript?

MELCHIOR--Yes.

SONNENSTICH--Do you know what this manuscript contains?

MELCHIOR--Yes.

SONNENSTICH--Is the writing in this manuscript yours?

MELCHIOR--Yes.

SONNENSTICH--Does this obscene manuscript originate from you?

MELCHIOR--Yes.--I beg you, Mr. Sonnenstich, to show me one obscenity
in it.

SONNENSTICH--You are to answer the particular questions I put to you
with a simple, modest “Yes” or “No”!

MELCHIOR--I have written no more and no less than what is very well
known to you to be fact.

SONNENSTICH--Insolence.

MELCHIOR--I ask you to show me one offense against morals in that paper!

SONNENSTICH--Do you imagine I’d have a mind to act the clown for you?
Habebald!...

MELCHIOR--I have----

SONNENSTICH--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!

HABEBALD--Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?

SONNENSTICH--It’s in fact the Langenscheidt for the learning in three
hours of agglutinative Volapük![5]

MELCHIOR--I have----

SONNENSTICH--I instruct our Secretary, Mr. Fliegentod, to close the
minutes!

MELCHIOR--I have----

SONNENSTICH--You have to keep quiet!--Habebald.

HABEBALD--Yes, Mr. Sonnenstich?

SONNENSTICH--Take him down!


CURTAIN


 SCENE II.--_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_ PASTOR KAHLBAUCH, _umbrella in
     left hand and prayer-book in right, flanked by_ MORITZ’S _father,
     his friend_ ZIEGENMELKER, _and_ UNCLE PROBST, _on the right,
     and_ PRINCIPAL SONNENSTICH _and_ PROFESSOR KNOCHENBRUCH, _with
     a string of schoolboys, on the left. At a little distance, by a
     half-collapsed monument, are_ ILSE _and_ MARTHA.

PASTOR KAHLBAUCH-- ... 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!--[_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_ MR. STIEFEL.]--Let =us=,
however, faithful pilgrims upon the thorny way, praise the Lord, the
All-bountiful, and render him thanks for his inscrutable elections.
For as truly as =this= soul did die a threefold death, so truly
will God the Lord induct the righteous man into bliss and the Life
Everlasting.--Amen.

MR. STIEFEL--[_His voice thick with tears._] The boy was none of
mine!--The boy was none of mine!--The boy never pleased me from
childhood up! [_He throws a shovelful of mud into the grave, and gives
the shovel back._ PASTOR KAHLBAUCH _hands it to_ PROFESSOR SONNENSTICH.]

SONNENSTICH--[_Throws a shovelful of mud into the grave._] Self-murder
as the most serious conceivable offense against the moral order of the
world is the most perfect conceivable demonstration =of= 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.
[_He passes the shovel to_ PROFESSOR KNOCHENBRUCH.]

PROF. KNOCHENBRUCH--[_Throws a shovelful of mud into the grave._]
Defective--depraved--delinquent--decayed--and detrited! [_He walks
around the grave and hands the shovel to_ UNCLE PROBST.]

UNCLE PROBST--[_Throws a shovelful of mud into the grave._] Not from my
very mother would I have believed a child could act so basely toward
his parents! [_Hands the shovel to_ ZIEGENMELKER.]

ZIEGENMELKER--[_Throws a shovelful of mud into the grave._] Toward a
father who for twenty years now has had no thought, early or late, but
for his child’s welfare! [_Puts the shovel back against the wall._]

PASTOR KAHLBAUCH--[_Pressing_ MR. STIEFEL’S _hand_.] 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. [_He squeezes out past the Professors and
boys._]

SONNENSTICH--[_Pressing_ MR. STIEFEL’S _hand_.] We would probably not
have been able to promote him, anyway. [STIEFEL _passes him_.]

KNOCHENBRUCH--[_Pressing_ MR. STIEFEL’S _hand_.] And if we had promoted
him, next spring he would most assuredly have failed to pass.

UNCLE PROBST--[_Coming round in front and pressing_ STIEFEL’S _hand_.]
Now your first duty is to think of yourself. You’re the father of a
family!...

ZIEGENMELKER--[_Doing likewise._] 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!
[_Leads him toward_ PASTOR KAHLBAUCH.]

MR. STIEFEL--[_Blowing his nose._] The boy was none of mine.... The boy
was none of mine.... [KAHLBAUCH _takes his other arm. All the men pass
off.--The rain lets up._ HANSY RILOW _slips in behind the grave_.]

HANSY RILOW--[_Throwing in a shovelful of mud._] 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 grave here yet, in memory of
your angel simpleness....

GEORGE--Has the pistol been found?

ROBERT--No one need hunt for a pistol!

ERNEST--Did you see him, Robert?

ROBERT--A God-damned swindle, I call it.--Who did see him?--Who!

OTTO--Yeah, that’s the sore point!--They’d thrown a cloth over him.

GEORGE--Was his tongue hanging out?

ROBERT--His eyes!--That’s why they’d thrown the cloth over.

OTTO--[_Shuddering._] Grrr!

HANSY--Do you know for sure that he hanged himself?

ERNEST--I’ve heard that his whole head was gone.

OTTO--Nonsense! Rot!

ROBERT--Why, I’ve had the noose in my hands!--I never saw a hanged body
yet that you wouldn’t have covered up.

GEORGE--He couldn’t have taken his leave in a vulgarer way.

HANSY--What the devil,--hanging is said to be quite handsome!

OTTO--I’ve got five marks still owing me from him. We had a bet. He
swore he’d keep his place.

HANSY--It’s your fault that he’s lying there. You called him a boaster.

OTTO--Poppycock! _I_’ve got to grind thru the nights, too. If he’d
learned the history of ancient Greek literature, he wouldn’t have had
to hang himself! [_Turns to go._]

ERNEST--Have you done your composition, Otto?

OTTO--Just the introduction.

ERNEST--I haven’t the least idea what to write.

GEORGE--What, weren’t you there when Affenschmalz gave us the choice of
subject?

HANSY--I’m going to fake up something out of Democritus.

ERNEST--I want to see if Meyer’s Abridged has anything left I can use.

OTTO--[_As all disappear._] Have you done your Virgil for
to-morrow?--[_When they are gone_, MARTHA _and_ ILSE _come to the
grave_.]

ILSE--Quick! quick!--There come the grave-diggers off there.

MARTHA--Hadn’t we better wait, Ilse?

ILSE--What for?--We’ll bring new ones, and more, and more!--There are
enough growing.

MARTHA--You’re right, Ilse!--[_She throws an ivy-wreath into the
grave._ ILSE _opens her apron and lets a shower of fresh anemones rain
upon the coffin_.]--I’ll dig up our roses. What if I =am= beaten for
it?--Here they’ll bloom well.

ILSE--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.

MARTHA--It ought to be glorious!--glorious!

ILSE--I was just over the bridge up there when I heard the shot.

MARTHA--Poor heart!

ILSE--And I know the reason too, Martha.

MARTHA--Did he tell you something?

ILSE--Parallelepipedon!--But don’t tell anybody.

MARTHA--I won’t.--There’s my hand.

ILSE--Here is the pistol.

MARTHA--That’s why it couldn’t be found!

ILSE--I took it right out of his hand when I went past in the morning.

MARTHA--Give it to me, Ilse!--Please, give it to me!

ILSE--No, I’m going to keep it for remembrance.

MARTHA--Is it true, Ilse, that he’s lying in there without a head?

ILSE--He must have loaded it with water!--The mulleins were spattered
all over with blood. His brains hung round on the osiers.


CURTAIN


 SCENE III.--MR. _and_ MRS. GABOR _face each other, the window between
     them, lighting them_.

MRS. GABOR-- ... They were in need of a scapegoat. They couldn’t
disregard the accusations that were springing up on every side against
=them=. 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!

MR. GABOR--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.

MRS. GABOR--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 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 =were= 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!

MR. GABOR--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 =not= 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.
But what he has written represents a =principle=. What he has written
is no chance, casual slip, but documentary proof, of ghastly clarity,
of that frankly affected =purpose=, that natural propensity, that
bent toward the immoral because it =is= 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!

MRS. GABOR--God help me, how can I prevail against that!--One must
be a =man=, 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 =accident=? =You= 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! 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 =can=
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!

MR. GABOR--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.

MRS. GABOR--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 =me=
to account, if the wrong cries for reparation! Hold =me= to account!
Do what you will with me! _I_ bear the blame!--But keep your fearful
hands off the child!

MR. GABOR--It is =he= who has gone wrong.

MRS. GABOR--=He has not gone wrong!=

MR. GABOR--=He has= 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.[6] 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!

MRS. GABOR--Impossible!

MR. GABOR--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!

MRS. GABOR--An unheard-of, shameless piece of knavery!

MR. GABOR--[_With double meaning._] I fear so.

MRS. GABOR--No! No! Never in the world!

MR. GABOR--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 =parental= 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 =am= I to put the lad?

MRS. GABOR--In the House of Correction----

MR. GABOR--In the...?

MRS. GABOR-- ... House of Correction!

MR. GABOR--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 =good=, not what’s
=interesting=, 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 told me. Melchior
has confided in him and asked him for two hundred marks with which to
fly to England....

MRS. GABOR--[_Covers her face._] Merciful Heaven!


CURTAIN


 SCENE IV.--_The House of Correction. The setting may be the same as
     for the Faculty Room, without any pictures or furniture._

     MELCHIOR _is shown in company with_ DIETHELM, REINHOLD, RUPRECHT,
     HELMUTH, _and_ GASTON.

DIETHELM--Here’s a twenty-pfennig piece.

REINHOLD--What’s that for?

DIETHELM--I’ll put it on the floor. You get in a circle round it.
Whoever hits it, gets it.

RUPRECHT--Aren’t you in on this too, Melchior?

MELCHIOR--No, thank you.

HELMUTH--The Joseph!

GASTON--He can’t any more. He’s here to recover his health.

MELCHIOR--[_To himself._] 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 the Shunammite.--He’s got the sorriest face in the lot!

RUPRECHT--I’m getting it!

HELMUTH--It’ll come yet!

GASTON--Day after to-morrow, maybe!

HELMUTH--Now!--Look!--O God, O God!...

ALL--Summa--summa cum laude!!

RUPRECHT--[_Picking up the coin._] Many thanks.

HELMUTH--Come here with that, you!

RUPRECHT--Dirty beast!

HELMUTH--Jail-bird!

RUPRECHT--[_Strikes him in the face._] There! [_Runs away._]

HELMUTH--[_Running after him._] I’ll kill you!

THE REST--[_Rushing after them._] Get after him! Hustle! Hey! Hey! Hey!

MELCHIOR--[_Alone, looking at the window._] There’s where the
lightning-rod goes down. You must wind a handkerchief round
it.--When I think of =her= 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. 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. [_He goes
off._ DR. PROKRUSTES _and a_ LOCKSMITH _enter on the other side_.]

DR. PROKRUSTES-- ... 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....

THE LOCKSMITH--Do you want the grating of wrought iron?

DR. PROKRUSTES--Wrought iron--and since it can’t be set in, riveted.


CURTAIN


 SCENE V.--WENDLA’S _room_. WENDLA _in bed_. MRS. BERGMANN _at
     its foot_. INA _leaning at the window_. DR. VON BRAUSEPULVER
     _discoursing_.

DR. VON BRAUSEPULVER--How old are you exactly?

WENDLA--Fourteen and a half.

DR. VON BRAUSEPULVER--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 attacks. Baroness
Elfriede von Witzleben within a week of beginning the cure was enjoying
a whole broiled chicken with baked new potatoes for breakfast.

MRS. BERGMANN--May I offer you a glass of wine, Doctor?

DR. VON BRAUSEPULVER--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. [_He goes, accompanied by_ MRS. BERGMANN.]

INA--[_At the window._] 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.

WENDLA--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 =toothache=, 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 up I see mother crying. Oh, that hurts me so--I can’t tell
you, Ina!

INA--Hadn’t I better lift your pillow higher?

MRS. BERGMANN--[_Coming back._] 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.

INA--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. [_Kisses her._] Get better
very, very soon.

WENDLA--Good-bye, Ina.--Bring me some primroses when you come again.
Good-bye. Kiss your youngster for me.... [INA _goes_.]--What else did
he say, mother, when he was out there?

MRS. BERGMANN--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.

WENDLA--Did he say, mother, that I had chlorosis?

MRS. BERGMANN--You’re to drink milk and eat meat and vegetables when
your appetite has come back.

WENDLA--Oh, mother, mother, I don’t believe I have chlorosis!...

MRS. BERGMANN--You have chlorosis, child. Lie still, Wendla, lie still.
You have chlorosis.

WENDLA--No, mother, no! I know I haven’t! I feel it! I haven’t got
chlorosis--I’ve got the dropsy....

MRS. BERGMANN--You have chlorosis. Yes, he did say you had chlorosis.
Quiet down, girlie. It will get better.

WENDLA--It won’t get better. I have the dropsy. I must die,
mother.--Oh, mother, I must die!

MRS. BERGMANN--You must not die, child! You must not die!... Merciful
Heaven, you must not die!

WENDLA--But why do you cry, then, so miserably?

MRS. BERGMANN--You must not die--child! You haven’t got dropsy. You
have a =baby=, girl! You have a baby!--Oh, why, why did you do that to
me?

WENDLA--I didn’t do anything----

MRS. BERGMANN--Oh, don’t deny it now, Wendla!--I know, I know. See, I
couldn’t have said a word to you,--Wendla, my Wendla!...

WENDLA--But that is quite impossible, mother! I’m not married!

MRS. BERGMANN--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!

WENDLA--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.

MRS. BERGMANN--My darling----

WENDLA--Oh, mother, why didn’t you tell me everything?

MRS. BERGMANN--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 =yet=, child; and if we just don’t get cowardly now, the good
God won’t forsake us either.--Be brave, Wendla, be =brave=!--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?

WENDLA--Somebody knocked.

MRS. BERGMANN--I didn’t hear anything, dear heart. [_Goes to the door
and opens it._]

WENDLA--Oh, I heard it very clearly.--Who is outside?

MRS. BERGMANN--No one.--Schmidt’s mother from Garden Street.--You come
just right, Mother Schmidtin.


CURTAIN


 SCENE VI.--_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_, HANSY RILOW and ERNEST ROEBEL
     _sprawl in the drying grass_.

ERNEST--I have overworked.

HANSY--Let’s not be sad.--Too bad how the minutes fly.

ERNEST--You see them hanging and can no more--and to-morrow they’ll be
pressed.

HANSY--Being tired is as unbearable to me as being hungry.

ERNEST--Oh, I can no more!

HANSY--Just this one shining muscatel!

ERNEST--There’s a limit to my elasticity.

HANSY--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.

ERNEST--One no sooner resolves on something than lo! the strength that
had vanished is renewed in him again.

HANSY--And add the flaming firmament--and the evening bells,--my hopes
for the future rise scarcely higher than this.

ERNEST--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?

HANSY--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?

ERNEST--Let us skim!

HANSY--What’s left ’ll be chicken-feed.--I’ve pulled my head out of so
many nooses now already....

ERNEST--Let us skim, Hansy!--Why do you laugh?

HANSY--Are you beginning again already?

ERNEST--One of us has got to begin.

HANSY--When we think back thirty years hence to an evening such as
this, it may seem to us beautiful beyond words.

ERNEST--And how beautiful everything =is=, now, quite of itself!

HANSY--So why not?

ERNEST--If one happened to be alone, one might even weep.

HANSY--Don’t let us be sad. [_Kisses him on the mouth._]

ERNEST--[_Returning the kiss._] I left the house with the idea of just
merely speaking to you and going back again.

HANSY--I was expecting you.--Virtue isn’t a bad clothing, but it
belongs on imposing figures.

ERNEST--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....

HANSY--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-- ...


CURTAIN


 SCENE VII.--_The graveyard, in a clear November night. On bush and
     tree rustles the withered foliage. Jagged clouds speed by under
     the moon._--MELCHIOR _clambers over the wall above_ MORITZ’S
     _grave--set much farther up-stage than in Scene II--and jumps
     down, knocking over_ MORITZ’S _cross_.

MELCHIOR--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....

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....

I have kicked down a cross.--The little flowers would have been frozen
to-night!--All around the earth is bare....

In the realm of the dead!

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....

I hang above the abyss--everything swallowed up and gone!--Oh, that I
had stayed back there!

Why she thru my fault?--Why not the guilty one!--Inscrutable
Providence!--I would have broken stones and gone hungry...!

What is left now to keep me straight?--Crime will follow on crime. I
am abandoned to the mire. Not even the strength left to wind things
up....

I was not bad!--I was not bad!--I was not bad!...

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!

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!...

A praying cherub--a bare slab----

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!----

Evergreen round the plot?--Evergreen?--a girl?...

[Illustration:

                        · _Here Rests in God_ ·

                            WENDLA BERGMANN

                         BORN · MAY · 5 · 1878
                          DIED _of_ CHLOROSIS
                          OCTOBER · 27 · 1892

                  · _Blessed are the Pure in Heart_ ·

]

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! [MORITZ STIEFEL,
_with his head under his arm, comes stumping over the graves_.]

MORITZ--One moment, Melchior. It may be long before the chance recurs.
You’ve no idea how everything depends on the time and place....

MELCHIOR--Where did =you= come from?

MORITZ--From over there--from the wall. You knocked down my cross. I
lie by the wall.--Give me your hand, Melchior....

MELCHIOR--You are =not= Moritz Stiefel!

MORITZ--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----

MELCHIOR--Don’t you sleep?

MORITZ--Not what you call sleeping.--We sit on church steeples, on
lofty gables,--wherever we want....

MELCHIOR--Ever restless?

MORITZ--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 that everything is folly
that men strive for and achieve,--and laugh at it.

MELCHIOR--What good does that do?

MORITZ--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....

MELCHIOR--Doesn’t that disgust you?

MORITZ--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!

MELCHIOR--I have no desire to laugh at myself.

MORITZ-- ... The living as such are truly not to be pitied.--I admit
I should never have thought 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....

MELCHIOR--Can you dead forget?

MORITZ--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 to be snow-white before such a favorable moment
appears to you again.

MELCHIOR--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....

MORITZ--What are you waiting for? [A MUFFLED GENTLEMAN _enters, and
addresses_ MELCHIOR.]

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--The fact is, you’re shivering with hunger.
You’re in no sort of condition to decide.--[_To_ MORITZ.] Go.

MELCHIOR--Who are you?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--That will come out.--[_To_ MORITZ.]
Vanish!--What have you here to do?--Why haven’t you got your head on?

MORITZ--I shot myself.

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--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!

MORITZ--Don’t send me away, please!...

MELCHIOR--Who are you, good sir?

MORITZ--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!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Then why do you brag about =sublimity=?--You
know well enough that that’s humbug--sour grapes! Why do you wilfully
=lie=, 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!

MELCHIOR--Are you going to tell me who you are, or not?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--No.--I propose that you entrust yourself to me.
First, I should see to your getting away.

MELCHIOR--You are--my father?!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Would you not recognize your worthy father by
his voice?

MELCHIOR--No.

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--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.

MELCHIOR--[_To himself._] They can’t both be the devil!--[_Aloud._]
After what I have been guilty of, no hot supper can give my peace of
mind back to me!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--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 beyond your wildest dreams. I will make you
acquainted with everything interesting, without exception, that the
world has to offer.

MELCHIOR--Who are you? Who are you?--I can’t consign myself to a person
I don’t know!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--You’ll never learn to know me unless you entrust
yourself to me.

MELCHIOR--Do you think so?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Fact!--And anyway you have no choice.

MELCHIOR--I can at any moment give my friend here my hand.

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--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!

MELCHIOR--Let the humorist be what he will. Tell me who =you= are, or
I’ll give the humorist my hand!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Well?!

MORITZ--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!

MELCHIOR--Do you believe in God?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--That depends.

MELCHIOR--Do you want to tell me who discovered gunpowder?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Berthold Schwarz--alias Constantine
Anklitzen--round 1330, a Franciscan monk at Freiburg-im-Breisgau.

MORITZ--What would I give to have had him let it alone!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--You would merely have hanged yourself!

MELCHIOR--What do you think about morality?

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Look here!--am I your schoolboy?

MELCHIOR--Ask me what you are!

MORITZ--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.

MELCHIOR--You’re still the same old runaway!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--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.[7]
The product is called morality, and its reality is unquestionable.

MORITZ--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!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--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.

MELCHIOR--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.

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--But that’s just the reason you’re =not= Moritz!

MORITZ--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.

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--And don’t you remember me? Why, even at the
final moment, you still were standing between =Death= and =Life=.--But
here, in my opinion, is not exactly the place to prolong so deeply
probing a debate.

MORITZ--It is indeed growing cold, gentlemen!--Though they did dress me
in my Sunday suit, I have on under it neither shirt nor drawers.

MELCHIOR--Good-bye, dear Moritz. Where this person is taking me, I
don’t know; but he is somebody----

MORITZ--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 all my life if I could now accompany you out of here once more!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--In the end, each has his share--=you= the
consoling consciousness of having nothing--=thou= the enervating doubt
of everything.--[_To_ MORITZ.] Farewell.

MELCHIOR--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----

MORITZ--Thanks, thanks, dear friend.

MELCHIOR--And when some day I am an old man, grizzle-haired, then
perhaps it will be =you= that once again stand closer to me than all
those living with me.

MORITZ--I thank you.--Luck to your journey, gentlemen.--Lose no more
time!

THE MUFFLED GENTLEMAN--Come, child! [_He links arms with_ MELCHIOR,
_and makes off with him over the graves_.]

MORITZ--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....


CURTAIN


FOOTNOTES:

[1] _Asperula odorata._

[2] In the original, P.... and V...., with four dots, not five, after
the V.

[3] Literally, a cut-up noodle.

[4] Sonnenstich means sunstroke: one pictures a round, red face
enringed with bristling gray hair, and an explosive manner.

[5] 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?

[6] 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.

[7] In German, _sollen_ and _wollen_, verbs representing =duty= and
=desire=.




                              EARTH-SPIRIT

                               (ERDGEIST)

                         A Tragedy in Four Acts

          “I was created out of ranker stuff
           By Nature, and to the earth by Lust am drawn.
           Unto the spirit of evil, not of good,
           The earth belongs. What deities send to us
           From heaven are only universal goods;
           Their light gives gladness, but makes no man rich;
           In their domain no pelf is seized and held.
           The stone of price, all-treasured gold, from false
           And evil-natured powers must be won,
           Who riot underneath the light of day.
           Not without sacrifice their favor is gained,
           And no man liveth who from serving them
           Hath extricated undefiled his soul.”

                             [Spoken by Wallenstein in Schiller’s
                              _Wallenstein’s Death_, Act II.]




CHARACTERS


  DR. SCHÖN, _newspaper owner and editor_
  ALVA, _his son, a writer_
  DR. GOLL, M.D.
  SCHWARZ, _an artist_
  PRINCE ESCERNY, _an African explorer_
  ESCHERICH, _a reporter_
  SCHIGOLCH, _a beggar_
  RODRIGO, _an acrobat_
  HUGENBERG, _a schoolboy_
  FERDINAND, _a coachman_
  LULU
  COUNTESS GESCHWITZ
  HENRIETTE, _a servant_




PROLOGUE


[_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._]

  Walk in! Walk in to the menagerie,
  Proud gentlemen and ladies lively and merry.
  With avid lust or cold disgust, the very
  Beast without Soul bound and made secondary
  To human genius, to stay and see!
  Walk in, the show’ll begin!--As customary,
  One child to each two persons comes in free.

  Here battle man and brute in narrow cages,
  Where one in mockery his long whip lashes,
  The other, growling as when thunder rages,
  Against the man’s throat murderously dashes,--
  Where now the crafty, now the strong prevails,
  Now man, now beast, against the flooring quails.
  The animal rears,--the human on all fours!
  One ice-cold look of dominance--The
  beast submissive bows before that glance,
  And the proud heel upon his neck adores.

  Bad are the times! Ladies and gentlemen
  Who once before my cage in thronging crescents
  Crowded, now honor operas, and then
  Ibsen, with their so highly valued presence.
  My boarders here are so in want of fodder
  That they reciprocally devour each other.
  How well off at the theater is a player,
  Sure of the meat upon his ribs, no matter
  How terrible the hunger round his platter,
  And colleagues’ inner cupboards yawning bare!--
  But if to heights of art we would aspire,
  We may not reckon merit by its hire.

  What see you, whether in light or sombre plays?
  =House-animals=, whose morals all must praise,
  Who vent pale spites in vegetarian ways,
  And revel in a singsong to-and-fro
  Just like those others--in the seats below.
  This hero has a head by one dram swirled;
  That, is in doubt whether his love be right;
  A third you hear despairing of the world,--
  Full five acts long you hear him wail his plight,
  And no man ends him with a merciful sleight!
  But the =real= beast, the =beautiful=, =wild= beast,
  Your eyes on =that=, _I_, ladies, only, feast!

  You see the Tiger, that habitually
  Devours whatever falls before his bound;
  The Bear, who, gluttonous from the first sally,
  Sinks at his late night-meal dead to the ground;
  You see the Monkey, little and amusing,
  From sheer ennui his petty powers abusing,--
  He has some talent, of all greatness scant,
  So, impudently, coquettes with his own want!
  Upon my soul, within my tent and trammel--
  See, right behind the curtain, here--’s a Camel!
  And all my creatures fawn about my feet
  When my revolver cracks--
      [_He shoots into the audience._]
                                        Behold!
  Brutes tremble all around me. I am cold:
  The =man= stays cold,--you, with respect, to greet.

  Walk in!--You hardly trust yourselves in here?--
  Then very well, judge for yourselves! Each sphere
  Has sent its crawling creatures to your telling:
  Chameleons and serpents, crocodiles,
  Dragons, and salamanders chasm-dwelling,--
  I know, of course, you’re full of quiet smiles
  And don’t believe a syllable I say.--

      [_He lifts the entrance-flap and calls into the tent._]

  Hi, Charlie!--bring our =Serpent= just this way!

      [_A stage-hand with a big paunch carries out the actress of_
        =LULU= _in her Pierrot costume, and sets her down before the
        animal-tamer_.]

  She was created to incite to sin,
  To lure, seduce, corrupt, drop poison in,--
  To murder, without being once suspected.
      [_Tickling_ LULU’S _chin_.]
  My pretty beast, only be =unaffected=,
  Not vain, not artificial, not perverse,
  Even if the critics therefore turn adverse.
  Thou hast no right to spoil the shape most fitting,
  Most =true=, of =woman=, with meows and spitting!
  Nor with buffoonery and wry device
  To foul the =childish simpleness= of =Vice=
  Thou shouldst--to-day I speak emphatically--
  Speak =naturally= and not unnaturally,
  For the first principle, of earliest force
  In every art, has been Be matter-of-course!

      [_To the public._]
  There’s nothing special now to see in her,
  But wait and watch what later will occur!
  She coils about the Tiger stricter--stricter--
  He roars and groans!--Who’ll be the final victor?--
  Hop, Charlie, march! Carry her to her cage,

      [_The stage-hand picks up_ LULU _slantwise in his arms; the
        animal-tamer pats her on the hips_.]

  Sweet innocence--my dearest appanage!

      [_The stage-hand carries_ LULU _back into the tent_.]

  And now the best thing yet remains to say:
  My poll between the teeth of a beast of prey!
  Walk in! The show’s not new, yet every heart
  Takes pleasure in it still! I’ll wrench apart
  This wild beast’s jaws--I dare--and he’ll not dare
  To close and bite! Let him be ne’er so fair,
  So wild and brightly flecked, he feels respect
  For my poor poll! I offer it him direct:
  One =joke=, and my two temples crack!--but, lo,
  The lightning of my eyes I will forego,
  Staking my =life= against a =joke=! and throw
  My whip, my weapons, down. I am in my skin!
  I yield me to this beast!--His name do ye know?
  --The honored public! that has just walked in!

      [_The animal-tamer steps back into the tent, accompanied by
        cymbals and kettledrums._]




ACT I


 SCENE--_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._

     SCHÖN _sits on the foot of the ottoman, inspecting critically the
     picture on the further easel_. SCHWARZ _stands behind the ottoman,
     his palette and brushes in his hands_.

SCHÖN--Do you know, I’m getting acquainted with a brand-new side of the
lady.

SCHWARZ--I have never painted anyone whose expression changed so
continuously. I could hardly keep a single feature the same two days
running.

SCHÖN--[_Pointing to the picture and observing him._] Do you find that
in it?

SCHWARZ--I have done everything I could think of to induce at least
some repose in her mood by my conversation during the sittings.

SCHÖN--Then I understand the difference. [SCHWARZ _dips his brush in
the oil and draws it over the features of the face_.] Do you think that
makes it look more like her?

SCHWARZ--We can do no more than take our art as scientifically as
possible.

SCHÖN--Tell me----

SCHWARZ--[_Stepping back._] The color had sunk in pretty well, too.

SCHÖN--[_Looking at him._] Have you ever in your life loved a woman?

SCHWARZ--[_Goes to the easel, puts a color on it, and steps back on the
other side._] The dress hasn’t been given relief enough yet. We don’t
rightly perceive yet that a living body is under it.

SCHÖN--I make no doubt that the workmanship is good.

SCHWARZ--If you’ll step this way....

SCHÖN--[_Rising._] You must have told her regular ghost-stories.

SCHWARZ--As far back as you can.

SCHÖN--[_Stepping back, knocks down the canvas that was leaning against
the lower easel._] Excuse me----

SCHWARZ--[_Picking it up._] That’s all right.

SCHÖN--[_Surprised._] What is that?

SCHWARZ--Do you know her?

SCHÖN--No. [SCHWARZ _sets the picture on the easel. It is of a lady
dressed as Pierrot with a long shepherd’s crook in her hand._]

SCHWARZ--A costume-picture.

SCHÖN--But, really, you’ve succeeded with =her=.

SCHWARZ--You know her?

SCHÖN--No. And in that costume----

SCHWARZ--It isn’t nearly finished yet. [SCHÖN _nods_.] What would you
have? While she is posing for me I have the pleasure of entertaining
her husband.

SCHÖN--What?

SCHWARZ--We talk about art, of course,--to complete my good fortune!

SCHÖN--But how did you come to make such a charming acquaintance?

SCHWARZ--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.
[_Pointing left._] 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. [_Shaking his
head._] I never saw anything like it. [_He goes left and stares in at
the bedroom._]

SCHÖN--[_Who has followed him with his eyes._] And the fat-belly stands
guard?

SCHWARZ--[_Turning round._] The whole body in harmony with that
impossible costume as if it had come into the world in it! Her way of
burying her elbows in her pockets, of lifting her little feet from the
rug,--the blood often shoots to my head....

SCHÖN--One can see that in the picture.

SCHWARZ--[_Shaking his head._] People like us, you know----

SCHÖN--Here the model is mistress of the conversation.

SCHWARZ--She has never yet opened her mouth.

SCHÖN--Is it possible?

SCHWARZ--Allow me to show you the costume. [_Goes out left._]

SCHÖN--[_Before the Pierrot._] A devilish beauty. [_Before the other
picture._] There’s more depth here. [_Coming down-stage._] He is still
rather young for his age. [SCHWARZ _comes back with a white satin
costume_.]

SCHWARZ--What sort of material is that?

SCHÖN--[_Feeling it._] Satin.

SCHWARZ--And all in one piece.

SCHÖN--How does one get into it then?

SCHWARZ--That I can’t tell you.

SCHÖN--[_Taking the costume by the legs._] What enormous trouser-legs!

SCHWARZ--The left one she pulls up.

SCHÖN--[_Looking at the picture._] Above the knee!

SCHWARZ--She does that entrancingly!

SCHÖN--And transparent stockings?

SCHWARZ--Those have got to be painted, specially.

SCHÖN--Oh, you can do that.

SCHWARZ--And with it all a coquetry!

SCHÖN--What brought you to that horrible suspicion?

SCHWARZ--There are things never dreamt of in our school-philosophy.
[_He takes the costume back into his bedroom._]

SCHÖN--[_Alone._] When one is asleep....

SCHWARZ--[_Comes back; looks at his watch._] If you’d like to make her
acquaintance, moreover,----

SCHÖN--No.

SCHWARZ--They must be here in a moment.

SCHÖN--How much longer will the lady have to sit?

SCHWARZ--I shall probably have to bear the pains of Tantalus three
months longer.

SCHÖN--I mean the other one.

SCHWARZ--I beg your pardon. Three times more at most. [_Going to the
door with him._] If the lady will just leave me the upper part of the
dress then....

SCHÖN--With pleasure. Let us see you at my house again soon. [_He
collides in the doorway with_ DR. GOLL _and_ LULU.] For Heaven’s sake!

SCHWARZ--May I introduce....

DR. GOLL--[_To_ SCHÖN.] What are you doing here?

SCHÖN--[_Kissing_ LULU’S _hand_.] Mrs. Goll....

LULU--You’re not going already?

DR. GOLL--But what wind blows you here?

SCHÖN--I’ve been looking at the picture of my intended----

LULU--[_Coming forward._] Your--intended--is here?

DR. GOLL--So you’re having work done here, too?

LULU--[_Before the upper picture._] Look at it! Enchanting! Entrancing!

DR. GOLL--[_Looking round him._] Have you got her hidden somewhere
round here?

LULU--So that is the sweet young prodigy who’s made a new person out of
you....

SCHÖN--She sits in the afternoon mostly.

DR. GOLL--And you don’t tell anyone about it?

LULU--[_Turning round._] Is she really so solemn?

SCHÖN--Probably the after-effects of the seminary still, dear lady.

DR. GOLL--[_Before the picture._] One can see that you have been
transformed profoundly.

LULU--But now you mustn’t let her wait any longer.

SCHÖN--In a fortnight I think our engagement will come out.

DR. GOLL--[_To_ LULU.] Let’s lose no time. Hop!

LULU--[_To_ SCHÖN.] Just think, we came at a trot over the new bridge.
I was driving, myself.

DR. GOLL--[_As_ SCHÖN _prepares to leave_.] No, no. We two have more to
talk about. Get along, Nellie. Hop!

LULU--Now it’s going to be about me!

DR. GOLL--Our Apelles is already wiping his brushes.

LULU--I had imagined this would be much more amusing.

SCHÖN--But you have always the satisfaction of preparing for us the
greatest and rarest pleasure.

LULU--[_Going left._] Oh, just wait!

SCHWARZ--[_Before the bedroom door._] If madame will be so kind....
[_Shuts the door after her and stands in front of it._]

DR. GOLL--I christened her Nellie, you know, in our marriage-contract.

SCHÖN--Did you?--Yes.

DR. GOLL--What do you think of it?

SCHÖN--Why not call her rather Mignon?

DR. GOLL--That would have been good, too. I didn’t think of that.

SCHÖN--Do you consider the name so important?

DR. GOLL--Hm.... You know, I have no children.

SCHÖN--But you’ve only been married a couple of months.

DR. GOLL--Thanks, I don’t want any.

SCHÖN--[_Having taken out his cigarette-case._] Have a cigarette?

DR. GOLL--[_Helps himself._] I’ve plenty to do with this one. [_To_
SCHWARZ.] Say, what’s your little danseuse doing now?

SCHÖN--[_Turning round on_ SCHWARZ.] You and a danseuse?

SCHWARZ--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.

DR. GOLL--[_To_ SCHÖN.] Hm.... I think we’re getting a change of
weather.

SCHÖN--The toilet isn’t going so quickly, is it?

DR. GOLL--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. [_Calls._] Hop, Nellie!

LULU--[_Inside._] Just a second!

DR. GOLL--[_To_ SCHÖN.] I can’t get onto these blockheads. [_Referring
to_ SCHWARZ.]

SCHÖN--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.

LULU--[_As_ PIERROT, _steps out of the bedroom_.] Here I am!

SCHÖN--[_Turns; after a pause._] Superb!

LULU--[_Nearer._] Well?

SCHÖN--You shame the boldest fancy.

LULU--How do you like me?

SCHÖN--A picture before which art must despair.

DR. GOLL--Ah, you think so, too?

Schön--[_To_ LULU.] Have you any notion what you’re doing?

LULU--I’m perfectly aware of myself!

SCHÖN--Then you might be a little more discreet.

LULU--But I’m only doing what’s my duty.

SCHÖN--You are powdered?

LULU--What do you take me for!

DR. GOLL--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.

SCHWARZ--[_By the easels, preparing his paints._] At any rate, it’s
thanks to impressionism that present-day art can stand up beside the
old masters without blushing.

DR. GOLL--Oh, it may be quite the thing for a brute being led to
slaughter.

SCHÖN--For Heaven’s sake don’t get excited! [LULU _falls on_ GOLL’S
_neck and kisses him_.]

DR. GOLL--They can see your undershirt. You must pull it lower.

LULU--I would soonest have left it off. It only bothers me.

DR. GOLL--He should be able to paint it out.

LULU--[_Taking the shepherd’s crook that leans against the Spanish
screen, and mounting the platform, to_ SCHÖN.] What would you say now,
if you had to stand at attention for two hours?

SCHÖN--I’d sell my soul to the devil for the chance to exchange with
you.

DR. GOLL--[_Sitting, left._] Come over here. Here is my post of
observation.

LULU--[_Plucking her left trouser-leg up to the knee, to_ SCHWARZ.] So?

SCHWARZ--Yes....

LULU--[_Plucking it a thought higher._] So?

SCHWARZ--Yes, yes....

DR. GOLL--[_To_ SCHÖN, _who has seated himself on the chair next him,
with a gesture_.] I find that she shows up even better from here.

LULU--[_Without stirring._] I beg pardon! I show up equally well from
every side.

SCHWARZ--[_To_ LULU.] The right knee further forward, please.

SCHÖN--[_With a gesture._] The body does show finer lines perhaps.

SCHWARZ--The lighting is at least half-way bearable to-day.

DR. GOLL--Oh, you must throw on lots of it! Hold your brush a bit
longer.

SCHWARZ--Certainly, Dr. Goll.

DR. GOLL--Treat her as a piece of still-life.

SCHWARZ--Certainly, Doctor. [_To_ LULU.] You used to hold your head a
wee mite higher, Mrs. Goll.

LULU--[_Raising her head._] Paint my lips a little open.

SCHÖN--Paint snow on ice. If you get warm doing that, then instantly
your art gets inartistic!

SCHWARZ--Certainly, Doctor.

DR. GOLL--Art, you know, must so reproduce nature that one can get at
least some =spiritual= enjoyment from it!

LULU--[_Opening her mouth a little, to_ SCHWARZ.] So--look. I’ll hold
it half opened, so.

SCHWARZ--Every time the sun comes out, the wall opposite throws warm
reflections in here.

DR. GOLL--[_To_ LULU.] You must keep your pose and behave as if our
Velasquez here were nonexistent.

LULU--Well, a painter =isn’t= a man, anyway.

SCHÖN--I don’t think you ought to judge the whole craft from nothing
more than one notable exception.

SCHWARZ--[_Stepping back from the easel._] However, I rather wish I had
had to hire a different studio last fall.

SCHÖN--[_To_ GOLL.] What I wanted to ask you--have you seen the little
Murphy girl yet as a Peruvian pearl-fisher?

DR. GOLL--I see her to-morrow for the fourth time. Prince Polossov took
me. His hair has already got dark yellow again with delight.

SCHÖN--So you find her quite fabulous, too.

DR. GOLL--Who ever wants to judge of that beforehand?

LULU--I think someone knocked.

SCHWARZ--Pardon me a moment. [_Goes and opens the door._]

DR. GOLL--[_To_ LULU.] You can safely smile at him less bashfully!

SCHÖN--To him it means nothing at all.

DR. GOLL--And if it did!--What are we two sitting here for?

ALVA SCHÖN--[_Entering, still behind the Spanish screen._] May one come
in?

SCHÖN--My son!

LULU--Oh! It’s Mr. Alva!

DR. GOLL--Don’t mind. Just come along in.

ALVA--[_Stepping forward, shakes hands with_ SCHÖN _and_ GOLL.] Glad to
see you. [_Turning toward_ LULU.] Do I see aright? Oh, if only I could
engage you for my title part!

LULU--I don’t think I could dance nearly well enough for your show!

ALVA--Ah, but you have a dancing-master whose like cannot be found on
any stage in Europe.

SCHÖN--But what brings you here?

DR. GOLL--Maybe you’re having somebody or other painted here, too, in
secret!

ALVA--[_To_ SCHÖN.] I wanted to take you to the dress rehearsal.

DR. GOLL--[_As_ SCHÖN _rises_.] Oho, do you have ’em dance to-day in
full costume already?

ALVA--Of course. Come along, too. In five minutes I must be on the
stage. [_To_ LULU.] Poor me!

DR. GOLL--I’ve forgotten--what’s the name of your ballet?

ALVA--Dalailama.

DR. GOLL--I thought =he= was in a madhouse.

SCHÖN--You’re thinking of Nietzsche, Doctor.

DR. GOLL--You’re right; I got ’em mixed up.

ALVA--I have helped Buddhism to its legs.

DR. GOLL--By his legs is the stage-poet known.

ALVA--Corticelli dances the youthful Buddha as tho she had seen the
light of the world by the Ganges.

SCHÖN--So long as her mother lived, she danced with her legs.

ALVA--Then when she got free she danced with her intelligence.

DR. GOLL--Now she dances with her heart.

ALVA--If you’d like to see her----

DR. GOLL--Thank you.

ALVA--Come along with us!

DR. GOLL--Impossible.

SCHÖN--Anyway, we have no time to lose.

ALVA--Come with us, Doctor. In the third act you see Dalailama in his
cloister, with his monks----

DR. GOLL--The only thing I care about is the young Buddha.

ALVA--Well, what’s hindering you?

DR. GOLL--I can’t. I can’t do it.

ALVA--We’re going to Peter’s, after it. There you can express your
admiration.

DR. GOLL--Don’t press me any further, please.

ALVA--You’ll see the tame monkey, the two Brahmans, the little girls....

DR. GOLL--For heaven’s sake, keep away from me with your little girls!

LULU--Reserve us a proscenium box for Monday, Mr. Alva.

ALVA--How could you doubt that I would, dear lady!

DR. GOLL--When I come back this Hellebreugel will have messed up the
whole picture on me.

ALVA--Well, it could be painted over.

DR. GOLL--If I don’t explain to this Caravacci every stroke of his
brush----

SCHÖN--Your fears are unfounded, I think....

DR. GOLL--Next time, gentlemen!

ALVA--The Brahmans are getting impatient. The daughters of Nirvana are
shivering in their tights.

DR. GOLL--Damned splotchiness!

SCHÖN--We’ll get jumped on if we don’t bring you with us.

DR. GOLL--In five minutes I’ll be back. [_Stands down right, behind_
SCHWARZ _and compares the picture with_ LULU.]

ALVA--[_To_ LULU, _regretfully_.] Duty calls me, gracious lady!

DR. GOLL--[_To_ SCHWARZ.] You must model it a bit more here. The hair
is bad. You aren’t paying enough attention to your business!

ALVA--Come on.

DR. GOLL--Now, just hop it! Ten horses will not drag me to Peter’s.

SCHÖN--[_Following_ ALVA _and_ GOLL.] We’ll take my carriage. It’s
waiting downstairs. [_Exeunt._]

SCHWARZ--[_Leans over to the right, and spits._] Pack!--If only life
could end!--The bread-basket!--paunch and mug!--my artist’s pride has
got its back up. [_After a look at_ LULU.] This company!--[_Gets up,
goes up left, observes_ LULU _from all sides, and sits again at his
easel_.] The choice would be a hard one to make. If I may request Mrs.
Goll to raise the right hand a little higher.

LULU--[_Grasps the crook as high as she can reach; to herself._] Who
would have thought that was possible!

SCHWARZ--I am quite ridiculous, you think?

LULU--He’s coming right back.

SCHWARZ--I can do no more than paint.

LULU--There he is!

SCHWARZ--[_Rising._] Well?

LULU--Don’t you hear?

SCHWARZ--Someone is coming....

LULU--I knew it.

SCHWARZ--It’s the janitor. He’s sweeping the stairs.

LULU--Thank Heaven!

SCHWARZ--Do you perhaps accompany the doctor to his patients?

LULU--Everything =but= that.

SCHWARZ--Because, you are not accustomed to being alone.

LULU--We have a housekeeper at home.

SCHWARZ--She keeps you company?

LULU--She has a lot of taste.

SCHWARZ--What for?

LULU--She dresses me.

SCHWARZ--Do you go much to balls?

LULU--Never.

SCHWARZ--Then what do you need the dresses for?

LULU--For dancing.

SCHWARZ--You really dance?

LULU--Czardas ... Samaqueca ... Skirt-dance.

SCHWARZ--Doesn’t--that--disgust you?

LULU--You find me ugly?

SCHWARZ--You don’t understand me. But who gives you lessons then?

LULU--Him.

SCHWARZ--Who?

LULU--Him.

SCHWARZ--He?

LULU--He plays the violin----

SCHWARZ--Every day one learns something new.

LULU--I learned in Paris. I took lessons from Eugénie Fougère. She let
me copy her costumes, too.

SCHWARZ--What are =they= like?

LULU--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....

SCHWARZ--I can no longer----

LULU--Then paint!

SCHWARZ--[_Scraping the canvas._] Aren’t you cold at all?

LULU--God forbid! No. What made you ask? Are you so cold?

SCHWARZ--Not to-day. No.

LULU--Praise God, one can breathe!

SCHWARZ--How so?... [LULU _takes a deep breath_.] Don’t do that,
please! [_Springs up, throws away his palette and brushes, walks up and
down._] The bootblack has only her feet to attend to, at least! And
his color doesn’t eat into his money, either. If I go without supper
to-morrow, no little society lady will be asking me if I know anything
about oyster-patties!

LULU--Is he going out of his head?

SCHWARZ--[_Takes up his work again._] What ever drove the fellow to
this test?

LULU--I’d like it better, too, if he had stayed here.

SCHWARZ--We are truly the martyrs of our calling!

LULU--I didn’t wish to cause you pain.

SCHWARZ--[_Hesitating, to_ LULU.] If you--the left trouser-leg--a
little higher----

LULU--Here?

SCHWARZ--[_Steps to the platform._] Permit me....

LULU--What do you want?

SCHWARZ--I’ll show you.

LULU--You mustn’t.

SCHWARZ--You are nervous.... [_Tries to seize her hand._]

LULU--[_Throws the crook in his face._] Let me alone! [_Hurries to the
entrance door._] You’re a long way yet from getting me.

SCHWARZ--You can’t understand a joke.

LULU--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. [_Flees behind the ottoman._] Sit down behind
your easel!

SCHWARZ--[_Trying to get around the ottoman._] As soon as I’ve punished
you--you wayward, capricious----

LULU--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!

SCHWARZ--[_Throwing himself across the ottoman._] I’ve got you!

LULU--[_Hurls the tiger-skin over his head._] Good night! [_Jumps over
the platform and climbs up the step-ladder._] I can see away over all
the cities of the earth.

SCHWARZ--[_Unrolling himself from the rug._] This old skin!

LULU--I reach up into heaven, and stick the stars in my hair.

SCHWARZ--[_Clambering after her._] I’ll shake it till you fall off!

LULU--If you don’t stop, I’ll throw the ladder down. [_Climbing
higher._] Will you let go of my legs? God save the Poles! [_Makes the
ladder fall over, jumps onto the platform, and as_ SCHWARZ _picks
himself up from the floor, throws the Spanish screen down on his head.
Hastening down-stage, by the easels._] I told you that you weren’t
going to get me.

SCHWARZ--[_Coming forward._] Let us make peace. [_Tries to embrace
her._]

LULU--Keep away from me, or---- [_She throws the easel with the
finished picture at him, so that both fall crashing to the floor._]

SCHWARZ--[_Screams._] Merciful Heaven!

LULU--[_Up-stage, right._] You knocked the hole in it yourself!

SCHWARZ--I am ruined! Ten weeks’ work, my journey, my exhibition! Now
there is nothing more to lose! [_Plunges after her._]

LULU--[_Springs over the ottoman, over the fallen step-ladder, and over
the platform, down-stage._] A grave! Don’t fall into it! [_She stamps
thru the picture on the floor._] She made a new man out of him! [_Falls
forward._]

SCHWARZ--[_Stumbling over the Spanish screen._] I am merciless now!

LULU--[_Up-stage._] Leave me in peace now. I’m getting dizzy. O Gott! O
Gott!... [_Comes forward and sinks down on the ottoman._ SCHWARZ _locks
the door; then seats himself next to her, grasps her hand, and covers
it with kisses--then pauses, struggling with himself._ LULU _opens her
eyes wide_.]

LULU--He may come back.

SCHWARZ--How d’you feel?

LULU--As if I had fallen into the water....

SCHWARZ--I love you.

LULU--One time, I loved a student.

SCHWARZ--Nellie----

LULU--With four-and-twenty scars----

SCHWARZ--I love you, Nellie.

LULU--My name isn’t Nellie. [SCHWARZ _kisses her_.] It’s Lulu.

SCHWARZ--I would call you Eve.

LULU--Do you know what time it is?

SCHWARZ--[_Looking at his watch._] Half past ten. [LULU _takes the
watch and opens the case_.] You don’t love me.

LULU--Yes, I do.... It’s five minutes after half past ten.

SCHWARZ--Give me a kiss, Eve!

LULU--[_Takes him by the chin and kisses him. Throws the watch in the
air and catches it._] You smell of tobacco.

SCHWARZ--Call me Walter.

LULU--It would be uncomfortable to----

SCHWARZ--You’re just making believe!

LULU--You’re making believe yourself, it seems to me. _I_ make believe?
What makes you think that? I’ve =never needed to do that=.

SCHWARZ--[_Rises, disconcerted, passing his hand over his forehead._]
God in Heaven! The world is strange to me----

LULU--[_Screams._] Only don’t kill me!

SCHWARZ--[_Instantly whirling round._] =Thou hast never yet loved!=

LULU--[_Half raising herself._] =You have never yet loved=...!

DR. GOLL--[_Outside._] Open the door!

LULU--[_Already sprung to her feet._] Hide me! O God, hide me!

DR. GOLL--[_Pounding on the door._] Open the door!

LULU--[_Holding back_ SCHWARZ _as he goes toward the door_.] He will
strike me dead!

DR. GOLL--[_Hammering._] Open the door!

LULU--[_Sunk down before_ SCHWARZ, _gripping his knees._] He’ll beat
me to death! He’ll beat me to death!

SCHWARZ--Stand up.... [_The door falls crashing into the studio._ DR.
GOLL _with bloodshot eyes rushes upon_ SCHWARZ _and_ LULU, _brandishing
his stick_.]

DR. GOLL--You dogs! You.... [_Pants, struggles for breath a few
seconds, and falls headlong to the ground._ SCHWARZ’S _knees tremble_.
LULU _has fled to the door. Pause._]

SCHWARZ--Mister--Doctor--Doc--Doctor Goll----

LULU--[_In the door._] Please, tho, first put the studio in order.

SCHWARZ--Dr. Goll! [_Leans over._] Doc--[_Steps back._] He’s cut his
forehead. Help me to lay him on the ottoman.

LULU--[_Shudders backward in terror._] No. No....

SCHWARZ--[_Trying to turn him over._] Dr. Goll.

LULU--He doesn’t hear.

SCHWARZ--But you, help me, please.

LULU--The two of us together couldn’t lift him.

SCHWARZ--[_Straightening up._] We must send for a doctor.

LULU--He is fearfully heavy.

SCHWARZ--[_Getting his hat._] Please, tho, be so good as to put the
place a little to rights while I’m away. [_He goes out._]

LULU--He’ll spring up all at once. [_Intensely._] Bussi!--He just won’t
notice anything. [_Comes down-stage in a wide circle._] He sees my
feet, and watches every step I take. He has his eye on me everywhere.
[_Touches him with her toe._] Bussi! [_Flinching, backward._] It’s
serious with him. The dance is over. He’ll send me to prison. What
shall I do? [_Leans down to the floor._] A strange, wild face!
[_Getting up._] And no one to do him the last services--isn’t that sad!
[SCHWARZ _returns_.]

SCHWARZ--Still not come to himself?

LULU--[_Down right._] What shall I do?

SCHWARZ--[_Bending over_ GOLL.] Doctor Goll.

LULU--I almost think it’s serious.

SCHWARZ--Talk decently!

LULU--He wouldn’t say that to me. He makes me dance for him when he
doesn’t feel well.

SCHWARZ--The doctor will be here in a moment.

LULU--Doctoring won’t help =him=.

SCHWARZ--But people do what they can, in such cases!

LULU--He doesn’t believe in it.

SCHWARZ--Don’t you want to--at any rate--put something on?

LULU--Yes,--right off.

SCHWARZ--What are you waiting for?

LULU--Please....

SCHWARZ--What is it?

LULU--Shut =his= eyes.

SCHWARZ--You make me shiver.

LULU--Not nearly so much as you make =me=!

SCHWARZ--I?

LULU--You’re a born criminal.

SCHWARZ--Aren’t you the least bit touched by this moment?

LULU--It hits me, too, some.

SCHWARZ--Please, just you keep still now!

LULU--It hits you some, too.

SCHWARZ--You really didn’t need to add that, at such a moment!

LULU--=Please=...!

SCHWARZ--Do what you think necessary. I don’t know how.

LULU--[_Left of_ GOLL.] He’s looking at me.

SCHWARZ--[_Right of_ GOLL.] And at me, too.

LULU--You’re a coward!

SCHWARZ--[_Shuts_ GOLL’S _eyes with his handkerchief_.] It’s the first
time in my life I’ve ever been condemned to that.

LULU--Didn’t you do it to your mother?

SCHWARZ--[Nervously.] No.

LULU--You were away, perhaps.

SCHWARZ--No!

LULU--Or else you were afraid?

SCHWARZ--[_Violently._] No!

LULU--[_Shivering, backward._] I didn’t mean to insult you.

SCHWARZ--She’s still alive.

LULU--Then you still have somebody.

SCHWARZ--She’s as poor as a beggar.

LULU--I know what that is.

SCHWARZ--Don’t laugh at me!

LULU--Now I am rich----

SCHWARZ--It gives me cold shudders---- [_Goes right._] She can’t help
it!

LULU--[_To herself._] What’ll I do?

SCHWARZ--[_To himself._] Absolutely uncivilized! [_They look at each
other mistrustfully._ SCHWARZ _goes over to her and grips her hand_.]
Look me in the eyes!

LULU--[_Apprehensively._] What do you want?

SCHWARZ--[_Takes her to the ottoman and makes her sit next to him._]
Look me in the eyes.

LULU--I see myself in them as Pierrot.

SCHWARZ--[_Shoves her from him._] Confounded dancer-ing!

LULU--I must change my clothes----

SCHWARZ--[_Holds her back._] One question----

LULU--I can’t answer it.

SCHWARZ--Can you speak the truth?

LULU--I don’t know.

SCHWARZ--Do you believe in a Creator?

LULU--I don’t know.

SCHWARZ--Can you swear by anything?

LULU--I don’t know. Leave me alone. You’re mad.

SCHWARZ--What do you believe in, then?

LULU--I don’t know.

SCHWARZ--Have you no soul, then?

LULU--I don’t know.

SCHWARZ--Have you ever once loved----?

LULU--I don’t know.

SCHWARZ--[_Gets up, goes right, to himself._] She doesn’t know!

LULU--[_Without moving._] I don’t know.

SCHWARZ--[_Glancing at_ GOLL.] He knows.

LULU--[_Nearer him._] What do you want to know?

SCHWARZ--[_Angrily._] Go, get dressed! [LULU _goes into the bedroom_.
_To_ GOLL.] 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! [_Kneels down and binds his handkerchief round the dead man’s
head._] Here I beseech Heaven to make me =able= to be happy--to give
me the strength and the freedom of soul to be just a weeny mite happy!
For =her= sake, =only for her sake=. [LULU _comes out of the bedroom,
completely dressed, her hat on, and her right hand under her left arm_.]

LULU--[_Raising her left arm, to_ SCHWARZ.] Would you hook me up here?
My hand trembles.


CURTAIN




ACT II


 SCENE--_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_, LULU’S _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._

     LULU _stands motionless before the mirror, in a green silk
     morning-dress. She frowns, passes a hand over her forehead, feels
     her cheeks, and draws back from the mirror with a discouraged,
     almost angry, look. Frequently turning round, she goes left, opens
     a 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._ SCHWARZ _enters,
     left, palette and brushes in hand, and bends over_ LULU, _kisses
     her on the forehead, and goes up the steps, right_.

SCHWARZ--[_Turning in the doorway._] Eve!

LULU--[_Smiling._] At your orders?

SCHWARZ--Seems to me you look extra charming to-day.

LULU--[_With a glance at the mirror._] Depends on what you expect.

SCHWARZ--Your hair breathes out a morning freshness....

LULU--I’ve just come out of the water.

SCHWARZ--[_Approaching her._] I’ve an awful lot to do to-day.

LULU--You tell yourself you have.

SCHWARZ--[_Lays his palette and brushes down on the carpet, and sits on
the edge of the couch._] What are you reading?

LULU--[_Reads._] “Suddenly she heard an anchor of refuge come nodding
up the stairs.”

SCHWARZ--Who under the sun writes so absorbingly?

LULU--[_Reading._] “It was the postman with a money-order.” [HENRIETTE,
_the servant, comes in, upper left, with a hat-box on her arm and a
little tray of letters which she puts on the table_.]

HENRIETTE--The mail. I’m going to take your hat to the milliner, madam.
Anything else?

LULU--No. [SCHWARZ _signs to her to go out, which she does, slyly
smiling_.]

SCHWARZ--What were all the things you dreamt about last night?

LULU--You’ve asked me that twice already this morning.

SCHWARZ--[_Rises, takes up the letters._] News makes me tremble. Every
day I fear the world may go to pieces. [_Giving_ LULU _a letter_.] For
you.

LULU--[_Sniffs at the paper._] Madame Corticelli. [_Hides it in her
bosom._]

SCHWARZ--[_Skimming a letter._] My Sama-queca-dancer sold--for fifty
thousand marks!

LULU--Who’s that from?

SCHWARZ--Sedelmeier in Paris. That’s the third picture since our
marriage. I hardly know how to escape my good fortune!

LULU--[_Pointing to the letters._] There are more there.

SCHWARZ--[_Opening an engagement announcement._] See. [_Gives it to_
LULU.]

LULU--[_Reads._] “Sir Henry von Zarnikow has the honor to announce the
engagement of his daughter, Charlotte Marie Adelaide, to Doctor Ludwig
Schön.”

SCHWARZ--[_As he opens another letter._] 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?

LULU--What is that that you’re reading?

SCHWARZ--An invitation to take part in the international exhibition at
St. Petersburg. I have no idea what to paint for it.

LULU--Some entrancing girl or other, of course.

SCHWARZ--Will you be willing to pose for it?

LULU--God knows there are other pretty girls enough in existence!

SCHWARZ--But with no other model--tho she be as racy as hell--can I so
fully show the depth and range of my powers.

LULU--Then I must, I suppose. Mightn’t it go as well, perhaps, lying
down?

SCHWARZ--Really, I’d like best to leave the composition to your
taste. [_Folding up the letters._] Don’t let’s forget to congratulate
Schön to-day, anyway. [_Goes left and shuts the letters in the
writing-table._]

LULU--But we did that a long time ago.

SCHWARZ--For his bride’s sake.

LULU--You can write to him again if you want.

SCHWARZ--And now to work! [_Takes up his brushes and palette, kisses_
LULU, _goes up the steps, right, and turns around in the doorway_.] Eve!

LULU--[_Lets her book sink, smiling._] Your pleasure?

SCHWARZ--[_Approaching her._] I feel every day as if I were seeing you
for the very first time.

LULU--You’re a terror.

SCHWARZ--You make me one. [_He sinks on his knees by the couch and
caresses her hand._]

LULU--[_Stroking his hair._] You’re using me up fast.

SCHWARZ--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.

LULU--Don’t be so passionate! [_Bell rings in the corridor._]

SCHWARZ--[_Pulling himself together._] Confound it!

LULU--No one at home!

SCHWARZ--Perhaps it’s the art-dealer----

LULU--And if it’s the Chinese Emperor!

SCHWARZ--One moment. [_Exit._]

LULU--[_Visionary._] Thou? Thou? [_Closes her eyes._]

SCHWARZ--[_Coming back._] A beggar, who says he was in the war. I have
no small change on me. [_Taking up his palette and brushes._] It’s high
time, too, that I should finally go to work. [_Goes out, right._ LULU
_touches herself up before the glass, strokes back her hair, and goes
out, returning leading in_ SCHIGOLCH.]

SCHIGOLCH--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 =me= in front of him.

LULU--[_Shoving a chair round for him._] How can you beg from him, too?

SCHIGOLCH--I’ve dragged my seventy-seven spring-times here just for
that. You told me he kept at his painting in the mornings.

LULU--He hadn’t got quite awake yet. How much do you need?

SCHIGOLCH--Two hundred, if you have that much handy. Personally, I’d
like three hundred. Some of my clients have evaporated.

LULU--[_Goes to the writing-table and rummages in the drawers._] Whew,
I’m tired!

SCHIGOLCH--[_Looking round him._] This helped bring me, too. I’ve been
wanting a long time to see how things were looking with you now.

LULU--Well?

SCHIGOLCH--It gives one cold shivers. [_Looking up._] 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! [_Scuffing._]
Carpets....

LULU--[_Giving him two bills._] I like best to walk on them bare-footed.

SCHIGOLCH--[_Scanning_ LULU’S _portrait_.] Is that you?

LULU--[_Winking._] Pretty fine?

SCHIGOLCH--If that’s the sort of thing.

LULU--Have something sweet?

SCHIGOLCH--What?

LULU--[_Getting up._] Elixir de Spaa.

SCHIGOLCH--That doesn’t help me---- Does he drink?

LULU--[_Taking a decanter and glasses from a cupboard near the
fireplace._] Not yet. [_Coming down-stage._] The cordial has such
various effects!

SCHIGOLCH--He comes to blows?

LULU--He goes to sleep. [_She fills the two glasses._]

SCHIGOLCH--When he’s drunk, you can see right into his insides.

LULU--I’d rather not. [_Sits opposite_ SCHIGOLCH.] Talk to me.

SCHIGOLCH--The streets keep on getting longer, and my legs shorter.

LULU--And your harmonica?

SCHIGOLCH--Wheezes, like me with my asthma. I just keep a-thinking it
isn’t worth the trouble to make it better. [_They clink glasses._]

LULU--[_Emptying her glass._] I’d been thinking that at last you
were----

SCHIGOLCH--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 [_coughing_]--my--my asthma will invent
some opportunity to carry me off.

LULU--[_Filling the glasses._] Do you think they could have forgotten
you up there?

SCHIGOLCH--Would be possible, for it certainly isn’t going like it
usually does. [_Stroking her knee._] Now you tell--not seen you a long
time--my little Lulu.

LULU--[_Jerking back, smiling._] Life is beyond me!

SCHIGOLCH--What do you know about it? You’re still so young!

LULU--That you call me Lulu.

SCHIGOLCH--Lulu, isn’t it? Have I ever called you anything else?

LULU--I haven’t been called Lulu since man can remember.

SCHIGOLCH--Some other kind of name?

LULU--Lulu sounds to me quite antediluvian.

SCHIGOLCH--Children! Children!

LULU--My name now is----

SCHIGOLCH--As if the principle wasn’t always the same!

LULU--You mean----

SCHIGOLCH--What is it now?

LULU--=Eve=.

SCHIGOLCH--Leapt, hopped, skipped, jumped....

LULU--That’s what I answer to.

SCHIGOLCH--[_Gazing round._] This is the way I dreamt it for you. It’s
your natural bent. [_Seeing_ LULU _sprinkling herself with perfume_.]
What’s that?

LULU--Heliotrope.

SCHIGOLCH--Does that smell better than you?

LULU--[_Sprinkling him._] That needn’t bother you any more.

SCHIGOLCH--Who would have dreamt of this royal luxury before!

LULU--When I think back--Ugh!

SCHIGOLCH--[_Stroking her knee._] How’s it going with you, then? You
still keep at the French?

LULU--I lie and sleep.

SCHIGOLCH--That’s genteel. That always looks like something. And
afterwards?

LULU--I stretch--till it cracks.

SCHIGOLCH--And when it has cracked?

LULU--What do you mind about that?

SCHIGOLCH--What do I mind about that? What do I mind? I’d rather
live till the last trump and renounce all heavenly joys than leave
my Lulu deprived of anything down here behind me. What do I mind
about that? It’s my sympathy. To be sure, my better self =is= already
transfigured--but I still have some understanding of this world.

LULU--I haven’t.

SCHIGOLCH--You’re too well off.

LULU--[_Shuddering._] Idiot....

SCHIGOLCH--Better than with the old dancing-bear?

LULU--[_Sadly._] I don’t dance any more.

SCHIGOLCH--He got his call all right.

LULU--Now I am---- [_Stops._]

SCHIGOLCH--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?

LULU--A beast....

SCHIGOLCH--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.

LULU--You needn’t be afraid that you will be washed once more.

SCHIGOLCH--Doesn’t matter, either. One gets dirty again.

LULU--[_Sprinkling him._] It would call you back to life again!

SCHIGOLCH--We are mud.

LULU--I beg your pardon! I rub grease into myself every day and then
powder on top of it.

SCHIGOLCH--Probably worth while, too, on the dressed-up mucker’s
account.

LULU--It makes the skin like satin.

SCHIGOLCH--As if it weren’t just dirt all the same!

LULU--Thank you. I wish to be worth nibbling at!

SCHIGOLCH--We are. Give a big dinner down below there pretty soon. Keep
open house.

LULU--Your guests will hardly overeat themselves at it.

SCHIGOLCH--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. [_Rising._]
The gentle beasties might get stomach-cramps.

LULU--[_Getting up._] Have you enough?

SCHIGOLCH--Enough and some to spare for planting a juniper on my
grave.--I’ll find my own way out. [_Exit._ LULU _follows him, and
presently returns with_ DR. SCHÖN.]

SCHÖN--What’s your father doing here?

LULU--What’s the matter?

SCHÖN--If I were your husband that man would never cross my threshold.

LULU--You can be intimate with me. He’s not here. [_Referring to_
SCHWARZ.]

SCHÖN--Thank you, I’d rather not.

LULU--I don’t understand.

SCHÖN--I know you don’t. [_Offering her a seat._] That is just the
point I’d like to speak to you about.

LULU--[_Sitting down uncertainly._] Then why didn’t you yesterday?

SCHÖN--Please, nothing now about yesterday. I did tell you two years
ago.

LULU--[_Nervously._] Oh, yes,--hm!

SCHÖN--Please be kind enough to cease your visits to my house.

LULU--May I offer you an elixir----

SCHÖN--Thanks. No elixir. Have you understood me? [LULU _shakes her
head_.] Good. You have the choice. You force me to the most extreme
measures:--either act in accordance with your station----

LULU--Or?

SCHÖN--Or--you compel me--I may have to turn to that person who is
responsible for your behavior.

LULU--How can you imagine that----?

SCHÖN--I shall request your husband, himself to keep watch over your
doings. [LULU _rises, goes up the steps, right_.] Where are you going?

LULU--[_Calls thru the curtains._] Walter!

SCHÖN--[_Springing up._] Are you mad?

LULU--[_Turning round._] Aha!

SCHÖN--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.

LULU--[_Comes down the steps and puts her arm around_ SCHÖN’S _neck_.]
Why are you still afraid, now that you’re at the zenith of your hopes?

SCHÖN--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.

LULU--[_Sitting._] She has developed delightfully in the two years!

SCHÖN--She no longer looks thru one so earnestly.

LULU--She is now, for the first time, a woman. We can meet each other
wherever seems suitable to you.

SCHÖN--We shall meet each other nowhere but in the presence of your
husband!

LULU--You don’t believe yourself what you say.

SCHÖN--Then =he= 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.

LULU--[_Rising._] Mine, too.

SCHÖN--And that way I’ll cut down the sword over my head.

LULU--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.

SCHÖN--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.

LULU--I only wish he would! Then, at last he’d get out of his
swaddling-clothes. He puts his trust in the marriage contract he has in
his pocket. Trouble is past and gone. One can now give oneself and let
oneself go as if one were at home. That isn’t the sense of a =child=!
It’s banal! He has no education; he sees nothing; he sees neither me
nor himself; he is blind, blind, blind....

SCHÖN--[_Half to himself._] When =his= eyes open!

LULU--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.

SCHÖN--If that’s true!

LULU--He admits it perfectly openly.

SCHÖN--A man who has painted them, rags and tags and velvet gowns,
since he was fourteen.

LULU--Women make him anxious. He trembles for his health and comfort.
But he isn’t afraid of =me=!

SCHÖN--How many girls would deem themselves God knows how blessed in
your situation.

LULU--[_Softly pleading._] Seduce him. Corrupt him. You know how. Take
him into bad company--you know the people. I am nothing to him but a
woman, just woman. He makes me feel so ridiculous. He will be prouder
of me. He doesn’t know any differences. I’m thinking my head off, day
and night, how to shake him up. In my despair I dance the can-can. He
yawns; and drivels something about obscenity.

SCHÖN--Nonsense. He is an artist, though.

LULU--At least he believes he is.

SCHÖN--That’s the chief thing!

LULU--When _I_ pose for him.... He believes, too, that he’s a famous
man.

SCHÖN--We =have= made him one.

LULU--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--[SCHÖN
_falls into an easy-chair_.] Otherwise he would really have taken me
for some sort of reprobate!

SCHÖN--You make God knows what exorbitant demands on =legitimate=
relations!

LULU--I make no exorbitant demands. Often I even dream still of Goll.

SCHÖN--He was, at any rate, not banal!

LULU--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----

SCHÖN--You yearn for the whip once more?

LULU--Maybe. I don’t dance any more.

SCHÖN--Teach him to do it.

LULU--A waste of trouble.

SCHÖN--Out of a hundred women, ninety educate their husbands to suit
themselves.

LULU--He loves me.

SCHÖN--That’s fatal, of course.

LULU--He loves me----

SCHÖN--That is an unbridgeable abyss.

LULU--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.

SCHÖN--Let’s finish this. [_He gets up._]

LULU--As you say.

SCHÖN--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!

LULU--[_Resolutely._] 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 =love= at command, I can’t!

SCHÖN--[_Raising his voice._] Leave =me= out! Do what you will. I
haven’t come to raise a row; 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!

LULU--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!

SCHÖN--Contempt?--I shall soon give the child the right idea. If
anything is contemptible, it’s your intrigues!

LULU--[_Laughing._] Am I jealous of the child? That never once entered
my head.

SCHÖN--Then why talk about the child? The child is not even a whole
year younger than you are. Leave me my freedom to live what life I
still have. No matter how the child’s been brought up, she’s got her
five senses just like you.... [SCHWARZ _appears, right, brush in hand_.]

SCHWARZ--What’s the matter here?

LULU--[_To_ SCHÖN.] Well? Go on. Talk.

SCHWARZ--What’s the matter with you two?

LULU--Nothing that touches you----

SCHÖN--[_Sharply._] Quiet!

LULU--He’s had enough of me. [SCHWARZ _leads her off, to the right_.]

SCHÖN--[_Turning over the leaves in one of the books on the table._] It
had to come out--I must have my hands free at last!

SCHWARZ--[_Coming back._] Is that any way to jest?

SCHÖN--[_Pointing to a chair._] Please.

SCHWARZ--What is it?

SCHÖN--Please.

SCHWARZ--[_Seating himself._] Well?

SCHÖN--[_Seating himself._] You have married half a million....

SCHWARZ--Is it gone?

SCHÖN--Not a penny.

SCHWARZ--Explain to me the peculiar scene....

SCHÖN--You have married half a million----

SCHWARZ--No one can make a crime of that.

SCHÖN--You have created a name for yourself. You can work unmolested.
You need to deny yourself no wish----

SCHWARZ--What have you two got against me?

SCHÖN--For six months you’ve been revelling in all the heavens. You
have a wife whom the world envies you, and she deserves a man whom she
can respect----

SCHWARZ--Doesn’t she respect me?

SCHÖN--No.

SCHWARZ--[_Depressed._] I come from the dark depths of society. She
is above me. I cherish no more ardent wish than to become her equal.
[_Offers_ SCHÖN _his hand_.] Thank you.

SCHÖN--[_Pressing it, half embarrassed._] Don’t mention it.

SCHWARZ--[_With determination._] Speak!

SCHÖN--Keep a little more watch on her.

SCHWARZ--I--on her?

SCHÖN--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.

SCHWARZ--What does she do, then?

SCHÖN--You have married half a million!

SCHWARZ--[_Rises; beside himself._] She----?

SCHÖN--[_Takes him by the shoulder._] No, that’s not the way! [_Forces
him to sit._] We have a very grave matter here to discuss.

SCHWARZ--What does she do?

SCHÖN--First count over on your fingers all you have to thank her for,
and then----

SCHWARZ--What does she do--man!

SCHÖN--And then make yourself responsible for your failings,--no one
else.

SCHWARZ--With whom? With whom?

SCHÖN--If we should shoot each other----

SCHWARZ--Since when, then?

SCHÖN--[_Evasive._] --I have not come here to make a scandal, but to
rescue you =from= scandal.

SCHWARZ--[_Shaking his head._] You have misunderstood her.

SCHÖN--[_Embarrassed._] 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.

SCHWARZ--Since you have known her? Since when have you known her then?

SCHÖN--Since about her twelfth year.

SCHWARZ--[_Bewildered._] She never told me that.

SCHÖN--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.

SCHWARZ--She told me nothing of that.

SCHÖN--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.

SCHWARZ--She said she had grown up with an aunt.

SCHÖN--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.

SCHWARZ--[_Sobbing._] O God!----

SCHÖN--[_With emphasis._] No O God! Of the 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!

SCHWARZ--[_From now on more and more broken up._] When I first knew
her, she told me she had never loved before.

SCHÖN--When a widow says =that=---- It does her credit that she chose
you for a husband. Make the same claims on yourself and your happiness
is without a blot.

SCHWARZ--She says he had her wear short dresses.

SCHÖN--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.

SCHWARZ--Where did Dr. Goll get to know her? How?

SCHÖN--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.

SCHWARZ--[_As if seized with a horrible suspicion._] And then when her
husband died?

SCHÖN--You married half a million!

SCHWARZ--[_Wailing._] Oh, to have stayed where I was! To have died of
hunger!

SCHÖN--[_Superior._] Do you think, then, that _I_ 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.

SCHWARZ--[_Quite distraught._] Whom are you speaking of?

SCHÖN--Of her father! You’re an artist, I say: your ideals are on a
different plane from those of a wage-worker.

SCHWARZ--I don’t understand a word of all that.

SCHÖN--I am speaking of the inhuman conditions out of which, thanks to
her good management, the girl has developed into what she is!

SCHWARZ--Who?

SCHÖN--Who? Your wife.

SCHWARZ--=Eve=?

SCHÖN--I called her Mignon.

SCHWARZ--I thought her name was Nellie?

SCHÖN--Dr. Goll called her so.

SCHWARZ--I called her Eve----

SCHÖN--What her real name is I don’t know.

SCHWARZ--[_Absently._] Perhaps she knows.

SCHÖN--With a father like hers, she is, with all her faults, an utter
miracle. I don’t understand you----

SCHWARZ--He died in a madhouse----

SCHÖN--He was here just now!

SCHWARZ--Who was here?

SCHÖN--Her father.

SCHWARZ--Here--in my home?

SCHÖN--He squeezed by me as I came in. And there are the two glasses
still.

SCHWARZ--She says he died in the madhouse.

SCHÖN--[_Encouragingly._] 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.

SCHWARZ--[_Shaking his head._] She said she had never loved----

SCHÖN--But start with yourself. Pull yourself together!

SCHWARZ--She has sworn----

SCHÖN--You can’t expect a sense of duty in her before you know your own
task.

SCHWARZ--By her mother’s grave!

SCHÖN--She never knew her mother, let alone the grave. Her mother
hasn’t got a grave.

SCHWARZ--I don’t fit in society. [_He is in desperation._]

SCHÖN--What’s the matter?

SCHWARZ--Pain--horrible pain!

SCHÖN--[_Gets up, steps back; after a pause._] Guard her for yourself,
because she’s yours.--The moment is decisive. To-morrow she may be lost
to you.

SCHWARZ--[_Pointing to his breast._] Here, here.

SCHÖN--You have married half----[_Reflecting._] She is lost to you if
you let this moment slip!

SCHWARZ--If I could weep! Oh, if I could cry out!

SCHÖN--[_With a hand on his shoulder._] You’re suffering----

SCHWARZ--[_Getting up, apparently quiet._] You are right, quite right.

SCHÖN--[_Gripping his hand._] Where are you going?

SCHWARZ--To speak with her.

SCHÖN--Right! [_Accompanies him to the door, left. Coming back._] That
was tough work. [_After a pause, looking right._] He had taken her into
the studio before, tho...? [_A fearful groan, left. He hurries to the
door and finds it locked._] Open! Open the door!

LULU--[_Stepping thru the hangings, right._] What’s----

SCHÖN--Open it!

LULU--[_Comes down the steps._] That is horrible.

SCHÖN--Have you an ax in the kitchen?

LULU--He’ll open it right off----

SCHÖN--I can’t kick it in.

LULU--When he’s had his cry out.

SCHÖN--[_Kicking the door._] Open! [_To_ LULU.] Bring me an ax.

LULU--Send for the doctor----

SCHÖN--You are not yourself.

LULU--It serves you right. [_Bell rings in the corridor._ SCHÖN _and_
LULU _stare at each other. Then_ SCHÖN _slips up-stage and stands in
the doorway_.]

SCHÖN--I mustn’t let myself be seen here now.

LULU--Perhaps it’s the art-dealer. [_The bell rings again._]

SCHÖN--But if we don’t answer it---- [LULU _steals toward the door;
but_ SCHÖN _holds her_.] Stop. It sometimes happens that one is not
just at hand--[_He goes out on tiptoe._ LULU _turns back to the locked
door and listens_. SCHÖN _returns with_ ALVA.] Please be quiet.

ALVA--[_Very excited._] A revolution has broken out in Paris!

SCHÖN--Be quiet.

ALVA--[_To_ LULU.] You’re as pale as death.

SCHÖN--[_Rattling at the door._] Walter! Walter! [_A death-rattle is
heard behind the door._]

LULU--God pity you.

SCHÖN--Haven’t you brought an ax?

LULU--If there’s one there---- [_Goes slowly out, upper left._]

ALVA--He’s just keeping us in suspense.

SCHÖN--A revolution has broken out in Paris?

ALVA--Up in the office the editors are tearing their hair. Not one of
them knows what to write about it. [_The bell rings in the corridor._]

SCHÖN--[_Kicking against the door._] Walter!

ALVA--Shall I run against it?

SCHÖN--I can do that. Who may be coming now? [_Standing up._] That’s
what it is to enjoy life and let others take the consequences!

LULU--[_Coming back with a kitchen-ax._] Henriette has come home.

SCHÖN--Shut the door behind you.

ALVA--Give it here. [_Takes the ax and pounds with it between the jamb
and the lock._]

SCHÖN--You must hold it nearer the end.

ALVA--It’s cracking-- [_The lock gives_; ALVA _lets the ax fall and
staggers back. Pause._]

LULU--[_To_ SCHÖN, _pointing to the door_.] After you. [SCHÖN
_flinches, drops back_.] Are you getting--dizzy? [SCHÖN _wipes the
sweat from his forehead and goes in_.]

ALVA--[_From the couch._] Ghastly!

LULU--[_Stopping in the doorway, finger on lips, cries out sharply._]
Oh! Oh! [_Hurries to_ ALVA.] I can’t stay here.

ALVA--Horrible!

LULU--[_Taking his hand._] Come.

ALVA--Where to?

LULU--I can’t be alone. [_Goes out with_ ALVA, _right_. SCHÖN _comes
back, a bunch of keys in his hand, which shows blood. He pulls the door
to, behind him, goes to the writing-table, opens it, and writes two
notes._]

ALVA--[_Coming back, right._] She’s changing her clothes.

SCHÖN--She has gone?

ALVA--To her room. She’s changing her clothes. [SCHÖN _rings_.
HENRIETTE _comes in_.]

SCHÖN--You know where Dr. Bernstein lives?

HENRIETTE--Of course, Doctor. Right next door.

SCHÖN--[_Giving her one note._] Take that over to him, please.

HENRIETTE--In case the doctor is not at home?

SCHÖN--He is at home. [_Giving her the other note._] And take this to
police headquarters. Take a cab. [HENRIETTE _goes out_.] I am judged!

ALVA--My blood has congealed.

SCHÖN--[_Toward the left._] The fool!

ALVA--He waked up to something, perhaps?

SCHÖN--He has been too much absorbed in himself. [LULU _appears on the
steps, right, in dustcoat and hat_.]

ALVA--Where are you going now?

LULU--Out. I see it on all the walls.

SCHÖN--Where are his papers?

LULU--In the desk.

SCHÖN--[_At the desk._] Where?

LULU--Lower right-hand drawer. [_She kneels and opens the drawer,
emptying the papers on the floor._] Here. There is nothing to fear. He
had no secrets.

SCHÖN--Now I can just withdraw from the world.

LULU--[_Still kneeling._] Write a pamphlet about him. Call him
Michelangelo.

SCHÖN--What good’ll that do? [_Pointing left._] There lies my
engagement.

ALVA--That’s the curse of your game!

SCHÖN--Shout it through the streets!

ALVA--[_Pointing to_ LULU.] If you had treated that girl fairly and
justly when my mother died----

SCHÖN--My engagement is bleeding to death there!

LULU--[_Getting up._] I shan’t stay here any longer.

SCHÖN--In an hour they’ll be selling extras. I dare not go across the
street!

LULU--Why, what can you do to help it?

SCHÖN--That’s just it! They’ll stone me for it!

ALVA--You must get away--travel.

SCHÖN--To leave the scandal a free field!

LULU--[_By the couch._] Ten minutes ago he was lying here.

SCHÖN--This is the reward for all I’ve done for him! In one second he
wrecks my whole life for me!

ALVA--Control yourself, please!

LULU--[_On the couch._] There’s no one here but us!

ALVA--But look at =us=!

SCHÖN--[_To_ LULU.] What do you want to tell the police?

LULU--Nothing.

ALVA--He didn’t want to remain a debtor to his destiny.

LULU--He always had thoughts of death immediately.

SCHÖN--He had thoughts that an ordinary human can only dream of.

LULU--He had paid dearly for it.

ALVA--He had what we don’t have!

SCHÖN--[_Suddenly violent._] I know your motives! I have no cause to
consider you! If you try every means to prevent having any brothers and
sisters, that’s all the more reason why I should get more children.

ALVA--You’ve a poor knowledge of men.

LULU--You get out an extra yourself!

SCHÖN--[_With passionate indignation._] He had no moral sense!
[_Suddenly controlling himself again._] Paris in revolution----?

ALVA--Our editors act as though they’d been struck. Everything has
stopped dead.

SCHÖN--That’s got to help me over this!--Now if only the police would
come. The minutes are worth more than gold. [_The bell rings in the
corridor._]

ALVA--There they are---- [SCHÖN _starts to the door_. LULU _jumps up_.]

LULU--Wait, you’ve got blood----

SCHÖN--Where?

LULU--Wait, I’ll wipe it. [_Sprinkles her handkerchief with heliotrope
and wipes the blood from_ SCHÖN’S _hand_.]

SCHÖN--It’s your husband’s blood.

LULU--It leaves no trace.

SCHÖN--Monster!

LULU--You will marry me, all the same. [_The bell rings in the
corridor._] Only have patience, children. [SCHÖN _goes out and returns
with_ ESCHERICH, _a reporter_.]

ESCHERICH--[_Breathless._] Allow me to--to introduce myself----

SCHÖN--You’ve run?

ESCHERICH--[_Giving him his card._] From police headquarters. A
suicide, I understand.

SCHÖN--[_Reads._] “Fritz Escherich, correspondent of the ‘News and
Novelties.’” Come along.

ESCHERICH--One moment. [_Takes out his notebook and pencil, looks
around the parlor, writes a few words, bows to_ LULU, _writes, turns to
the broken door, writes_.] A kitchen-ax. [_Starts to lift it._]

SCHÖN--[_Holding him back._] Excuse me.

ESCHERICH--[_Writing._] Door broken open with a kitchen-ax. [_Examines
the lock._]

SCHÖN--[_His hand on the door._] Look before you, my dear sir.

ESCHERICH--Now if you will have the kindness to open the door----
[SCHÖN _opens it_. ESCHERICH _lets book and pencil fall, clutches at
his hair_.] Merciful Heaven! God!

SCHÖN--Look it all over carefully.

ESCHERICH--I can’t look at it!

SCHÖN--[_Snorting scornfully._] Then what did you come here for?

ESCHERICH--To--to cut up--to cut up his throat with a razor!

SCHÖN--Have you seen it all?

ESCHERICH--That must feel----

SCHÖN--[_Draws the door to, steps to the writing-table._] Sit down.
Here is paper and pen. Write.

ESCHERICH--[_Mechanically taking his seat._] I can’t write----

SCHÖN--[_Behind his chair._] Write! Persecution--mania....

ESCHERICH--[_Writes._] Per-secu-tion--mania. [_The bell rings in the
corridor._]


CURTAIN




ACT III


 SCENE--_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._

     ALVA _is at lower right, filling two glasses with red wine and
     champagne_.

ALVA--Never since I began to work for the stage have I seen the public
so wildly enthusiastic.

LULU--[_Voice from behind the screen._] Don’t give me too much red
wine. Will he see me to-day?

ALVA--Father?

LULU--Yes.

ALVA--I don’t know if he’s in the theater.

LULU--Doesn’t he want to see me at all?

ALVA--He has so little time.

LULU--His =bride= occupies him.

ALVA--Speculations. He gives himself no rest. [SCHÖN _enters_.] You?
We’re just speaking of you.

LULU--Is he there?

SCHÖN--You’re changing?

LULU--[_Peeping over the Spanish screen, to_ SCHÖN.] 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.

SCHÖN--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.

LULU--I must first accustom myself to the light.

ALVA--She has kept strictly to her part.

SCHÖN--[_To_ ALVA.] You must get more out of your performers! You don’t
know enough yet about the technique. [_To_ LULU.] What do you come as
now?

LULU--As a flower-girl.

SCHÖN--[_To_ ALVA.] In tights?

ALVA--No. In a skirt to the ankles.

SCHÖN--It would have been better if you hadn’t bothered with symbolism.

ALVA--I look at a dancer’s feet.

SCHÖN--The point is, what the public looks at. A vision like =her= has
no need, praise God, of your symbolic mummery.

ALVA--The public doesn’t look as if it were being bored!

SCHÖN--Of course not; because I have been working the press in her
favor for the last six months. Has the Prince been here?

ALVA--Nobody’s been here.

SCHÖN--Well, that’s what you get for letting a dancer come on thru two
acts in raincoats.

ALVA--Who is the Prince?

SCHÖN--Shall we see each other afterwards?

ALVA--Are you alone?

SCHÖN--With acquaintances. At Peter’s?

ALVA--At twelve?

SCHÖN--At twelve. [_Exit._]

LULU--I’d given up hoping that he’d ever come.

ALVA--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--[LULU _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_.]

LULU--He doesn’t seem to have noticed at all how cleverly you have
deployed your performers.

ALVA--I won’t blow in sun, moon and stars in the first act!

LULU--[_Sipping._] You disclose me by degrees.

ALVA--And I was well aware that you knew all about changing costumes.

LULU--If I’d tried to sell my flowers =so= before the Alhambra café,
they’d have had me behind lock and key right off the very first night.

ALVA--Why? You were a child!

LULU--Do you remember how I looked the first time I came into your room?

ALVA--You wore a dark blue dress with black velvet.

LULU--They had to stick me somewhere and didn’t know where.

ALVA--My mother had been lying sick for two years already then.

LULU--You were playing theater, and asked me if I wanted to play, too.

ALVA--To be sure! We played theater!

LULU--I see you still--the way you shoved the figures back and forth.

ALVA--For a long time my most terrible memory was when all at once I
saw clearly into your relations----

LULU--You got icy curt towards me then.

ALVA--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.

LULU--He told me that at the time.

ALVA--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.

LULU--Does she still look out upon the world as innocently as ever?

ALVA--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.

LULU--[_Holds out her glass to him._] A little more, please.

ALVA--[_Giving it to her._] You’re drinking too much.

LULU--He shall learn to believe in my success! He doesn’t believe in
art at all. He only believes in newspapers.

ALVA--He believes in nothing.

LULU--He brought me into the theater so that eventually someone might
be found rich enough to marry me.

ALVA--Well, all right. Why need that trouble us?

LULU--I am to feel pleased if I can dance myself into a millionaire’s
heart.

ALVA--God forbid that anyone should snatch you from us!

LULU--You’ve composed the music for it, tho.

ALVA--You know that it was always my desire to write a piece for you.

LULU--I am not at all suited to the stage, however.

ALVA--You came into the world a dancer!

LULU--Then why don’t you make your pieces as interesting as life is, at
least?

ALVA--Because if we did no man would believe us.

LULU--If I hadn’t known more about acting than people on the stage
pretend to, what might not have happened to me?

ALVA--I provided your part with all the impossibilities imaginable,
though.

LULU--Nobody in the real world is taken in by hocus-pocus like that.

ALVA--It’s enough for me that the public finds itself most tremendously
stirred up.

LULU--But _I_’d like to find myself most tremendously stirred up.
[_Drinks._]

ALVA--You don’t seem to be in need of much more for that.

LULU--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.

ALVA--What does it feel like?

LULU--No one of them has any notion of the others. Each thinks that he
alone is the unhappy victim.

ALVA--But how can you feel that?

LULU--One gets such an icy thrill running up one’s body.

ALVA--You are incredible. [_An electric bell rings over the door._]

LULU--My cape.... I shall keep in the proscenium!

ALVA--[_Putting a wide shawl round her shoulders._] Here is your cape.

LULU--He shall have nothing more to fear for his shameless boosting.

ALVA--Keep yourself under control!

LULU--God grant that I dance the last sparks of intelligence out of
their heads. [_Exit._]

ALVA--Yes, a more interesting piece could be written about her.
[_Sits, right, and takes out his notebook. Writes. Looks up._] 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_’ll be made
to answer for his sins. [_Long-continued but much deadened applause
and bravos outside._] 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? [_The attendant opens the door from outside and lets_ ESCERNY
_enter. He acts as tho he were at home, and without greeting_ ALVA
_takes the chair near the mirror._ ALVA _continues, not heeding him._]
It can not go on this way in the third act!

ESCERNY--Up to the middle of the third act it didn’t seem to be going
so well to-day as sometimes.

ALVA--I was not on the stage.

ESCERNY--Now she’s in full career again.

ALVA--She’s lengthening each number.

ESCERNY--I once had the pleasure of meeting the artiste at Dr. Schön’s
house.

ALVA--My father introduced her to the public through certain critiques
in his paper.

ESCERNY--[_Bowing slightly._] I was conferring with Dr. Schön about the
publication of my discoveries at Lake Tanganyika.

ALVA--[_Bowing slightly._] From what he has let drop there can be no
doubt that he takes the liveliest interest in your book.

ESCERNY--One very good thing about the artiste is that the audience
seems not to exist for her at all.

ALVA--As a child she learned the quick changing of clothes; but I was
surprised to discover in her so important a danseuse.

ESCERNY--When she dances her solo she grows intoxicated with her own
beauty,--she seems to be mortally love-sick of it herself.

ALVA--Here she comes. [_Gets up and opens the door. Enter_ LULU.]

LULU--[_Without wreath or basket, to_ ALVA.] You’re called for. I was
three times before the curtain. [_To_ ESCERNY.] Dr. Schön is not in
your box?

ESCERNY--Not in mine.

ALVA--[_To_ LULU.] Didn’t you see him?

LULU--He is probably away again.

ESCERNY--He has the furthest lower box on the left.

LULU--It seems he is ashamed of me!

ALVA--There wasn’t a good seat left for him.

LULU--[_To_ ALVA.] Ask him, though, if he likes me better now.

ALVA--I’ll send him up.

ESCERNY--He applauded.

LULU--Did he really?

ALVA--Give yourself some rest. [_Exit._]

LULU--I’ve got to change again now.

ESCERNY--But your dresser isn’t here?

LULU--I can do it quicker alone. Where did you say Dr. Schön was
sitting?

ESCERNY--I saw him in the left parquet-box farthest back.

LULU--I’ve still five costumes now before me; dancing-girl, ballerina,
queen of the night, Ariel, and Lascaris.... [_She goes behind the
Spanish screen._]

ESCERNY--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?... [_He sits at the left of the centre table,
and remains there to the end of the scene._] 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? [LULU _makes no answer_.] That
you would gladly exchange the shimmer of publicity at every moment for
a quiet, sunny happiness in distinguished seclusion? [LULU _makes no
answer_.] That you feel you possess enough dignity and rank to fetter
a man to your feet--in order to enjoy his utter helplessness?... [LULU
_makes no answer_.] 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 =own mistress=? [LULU _steps forth in a short,
bright, pleated petticoat and white satin bodice, black shoes and
stockings, and spurs with bells at her heels_.]

LULU--[_Busy with the lacing of her bodice._] 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.

ESCERNY--But what difference could it make to you to see before you
instead of this mob =one= spectator, specially elect?

LULU--That would make no difference. I don’t see anybody anyway.

ESCERNY--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----

LULU--[_Putting on a pearl necklace before the mirror._] A good school!

ESCERNY--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?

LULU--[_Jingling her heels._] Oh, yes!

ESCERNY--[_Disconcerted._] Among men of culture you will not find one
who can help losing his head over you.

LULU--Your wishes, however, no one can quite fulfil without deceiving
you.

ESCERNY--To be deceived by a girl like you must be ten times more
enrapturing than to be uprightly loved by anybody else.

LULU--You have not known what it was to be uprightly loved by any girl
yet in all your life! [_Turning her back to him and pointing._] Would
you undo this knot for me? I’ve laced myself too tight. I am always so
excited getting dressed.

ESCERNY--[_After repeated efforts._] I’m sorry; I can’t.

LULU--Then leave it. Perhaps I can. [_Goes left._]

ESCERNY--I confess that I am lacking in deftness. Maybe I was a poor
student in my relations with women.

LULU--And probably you don’t have much opportunity in Africa, either?

ESCERNY--[_Seriously._] Let me confess to you frankly that my isolation
in the world embitters many an hour.

LULU--The knot is almost done....

ESCERNY--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. [_The bell rings again._]

LULU--[_Having somewhat loosened her laces, takes a deep breath and
jingles her spurs._] Now I can breathe again. The curtain is going up.
[_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 must
dance.

ESCERNY--[_Rises and kisses her hand._] Allow me to remain here a
little while longer.

LULU--Please stay.

ESCERNY--I need a little solitude. [LULU _goes out_.] What is to be
aristocratic? To be eccentric, like me? Or to be perfect in body and
mind, like this girl? [_Applause and bravos outside._] 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?
[_Sitting, right; ecstatically._] The dance has ennobled her body....
[ALVA _enters_.]

ALVA--One is never sure a moment that some miserable chance won’t throw
the whole performance out for good. [_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._]

ESCERNY--But the audience has never shown itself so responsive before.

ALVA--She’s finished the skirt-dance.

ESCERNY--I hear her coming....

ALVA--She isn’t coming. She has no time. She changes her costume in the
wings.

ESCERNY--She has two ballet-costumes, if I’m not mistaken?

ALVA--I find the white one more becoming to her than the rose-color.

ESCERNY--Do you?

ALVA--Don’t you?

ESCERNY--I find she looks too bodiless in the white tulle.

ALVA--I find she looks too animal in the rose tulle.

ESCERNY--I don’t find that.

ALVA--The white tulle brings out the child-like side of her nature more.

ESCERNY--The rose tulle brings out the womanly side of her nature more.
[_The electric bell rings over the door._ ALVA _jumps up_.]

ALVA--For heaven’s sake, what is wrong?

ESCERNY--[_Getting up too._] What’s the matter? [_The electric bell
continues ringing till after they go out._]

ALVA--Something’s gone wrong there----

ESCERNY--How can you get so frightened all of a sudden?

ALVA--That must be a hellish confusion! [_He runs out._ ESCERNY
_follows him. The door remains open. Faint dance-music heard. Pause._
LULU _enters in a long cloak, and shuts the door to behind her. She
wears a rose-colored ballet costume with flower-garlands. She walks
across the stage and sits down in the big arm-chair near the mirror.
After a pause_ ALVA _returns_.]

ALVA--You had a faint?

LULU--Please lock the door.

ALVA--At least come down to the stage.

LULU--Did you see him?

ALVA--See whom?

LULU--With his fiancée?

ALVA--With his---- [_To_ SCHÖN, _who enters_.] You might have spared
yourself that jest!

SCHÖN--What’s the matter with her? [_To_ LULU.] How can you play the
scene straight at me!

LULU--I feel as if I’d been whipped.

SCHÖN--[_After bolting the door._] You will dance--as sure as I’ve
taken the responsibility for you!

LULU--Before your fiancée?

SCHÖN--Have you a right to trouble yourself before whom? You’ve been
engaged here. You receive your salary....

LULU--Is that your affair?

SCHÖN--You dance for anyone who buys a ticket. Whom I sit with in my
box has nothing to do with your business!

ALVA--I wish you’d stayed sitting in your box! [_To_ LULU.] Tell me,
please, what I am to do. [_A knock at the door._] There is the manager.
[_Calls._] Yes, in a moment! [_To_ LULU.] You won’t compel us to break
off the performance?

SCHÖN--[_To_ LULU.] Onto the stage with you!

LULU--Let me have just a moment! I can’t now. I’m utterly miserable.

ALVA--The devil take the whole theater crowd!

LULU--Put in the next number. No one will notice if I dance now or in
five minutes. There’s no strength in my feet.

ALVA--But you will dance then?

LULU--As well as I can.

ALVA--As badly as you like. [_A knock at the door again._] I’m coming.

LULU--[_When_ ALVA _is gone_.] 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.

SCHÖN--[_Sardonically._] For you with your origin it’s incomparable
luck to still have the chance of appearing before respectable people!

LULU--Even when my shamelessness makes them not know where to look.

SCHÖN--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!

LULU--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.

SCHÖN--[_In moral indignation._] That is your true nature. That’s
straight!--Corruption!

LULU--I wouldn’t have known that I had had a spark of self-respect----

SCHÖN--[_Suddenly distrustful._] No harlequinading----

LULU--O Lord--I know very well what I’d have become if you hadn’t saved
me from it.

SCHÖN--Are you anything different then to-day?--heh?

LULU--God be thanked, no!

SCHÖN--Just so!

LULU--[_Laughs._] And how awfully glad of it I am!

SCHÖN--[_Spits._] Will you dance now?

LULU--In anything, before anyone!

SCHÖN--Then down to the stage!

LULU--[_Begging like a child._] Just a minute more! Please! I can’t
stand up straight yet. They’ll ring.

SCHÖN--You have become what you are in spite of everything I sacrificed
for your education and your welfare.

LULU--Had you overrated your ennobling influence?

SCHÖN--Spare me your witticisms.

LULU--The Prince was here.

SCHÖN--Well?

LULU--He takes me with him to Africa.

SCHÖN--Africa?

LULU--Why not? Didn’t you make me a dancer just so that someone might
come and take me away with him?

SCHÖN--But not to Africa, though!

LULU--Then why didn’t you calmly let me fall in a faint, and mutely
thank the Lord for it?

SCHÖN--Because, more’s the pity, I had no reason for believing in your
faint!

LULU--[_Making fun of him._] You couldn’t bear it any longer out front
there?

SCHÖN--Because I had to bring home to you what you are and to whom you
are not to look up.

LULU--You were afraid, though, that my legs might possibly have been
really injured?

SCHÖN--I know too well you are indestructible.

LULU--So you know that?

SCHÖN--[_Bursting out._] Don’t look at me so impudently!

LULU--No one is keeping you here.

SCHÖN--I’m going as soon as the bell rings.

LULU--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?

SCHÖN--[_Raging._] Do you imagine =you= stand in the way?

LULU--[_From here to the end of the act triumphant._] If you knew
how happy your rage is making me! How proud I am that you take every
means to 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.

SCHÖN--I fear you no longer.

LULU--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.

SCHÖN--[_Desperate._] Leave my thoughts alone! You have two husbands
under the sod. Take the Prince, dance =him= 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!

LULU--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?

SCHÖN--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!

LULU--I will lock my doors.

SCHÖN--Go on and boast! God knows that since I began wrestling with the
world and with life I have cursed no one like you!

LULU--That comes from my lowly origin.

SCHÖN--From your depravity!

LULU--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----

SCHÖN--Do you want me to grab you and----

LULU--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!

SCHÖN--Silence, beast! Silence!

LULU--Marry her--and then she’ll dance in her childish wretchedness
before =my= eyes, instead of I before hers!

SCHÖN--[_Raising his fists._] God forgive me----

LULU--Strike me! Where is your riding-whip? Strike me on the legs----

SCHÖN--[_Grasping his temples._] Away, away! [_Rushes to the door,
recollects himself, turns around._] Can I go before the girl now, this
way? Home!--If I could only slip out of the world!

LULU--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----

SCHÖN--[_Sunk in the chair, right centre, utterly exhausted._] Stop.

LULU--That you are too weak--to tear yourself away from me.

SCHÖN--[_Groaning._] Oh! Oh! You make me weep.

LULU--This moment makes =me= I cannot tell you how glad.

SCHÖN--My age! My position!

LULU--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!

SCHÖN--[_Sobbing._] The child! The innocent child!

LULU--How can the incarnate devil get so weak all of a sudden!----But
now go, please. You are nothing more now to me.

SCHÖN--I cannot go to her.

LULU--Out with you. Come to me again when you have got back your
strength.

SCHÖN--Tell me in God’s name what I must do.

LULU--[_Gets up; her cloak remains on the chair. Shoving aside the
costumes on the centre table._] Here is writing-paper----

SCHÖN--I can’t write....

LULU--[_Upright behind him, her arm on the back of his chair._] Write!
“My dear Countess....”

SCHÖN--[_Hesitating._] I call her Adelheid....

LULU--[_With emphasis._] “My dear Countess....”

SCHÖN--My sentence of death! [_He writes._]

LULU--“Take back your promise. I cannot reconcile it with my
conscience----” [SCHÖN _drops the pen and glances up at her
entreatingly_.] Write “conscience”! “--to fetter you to my unhappy
lot....”

SCHÖN--[_Writing._] You are right. You are right.

LULU--“I give you my word that I am unworthy of your love----” [SCHÖN
_turns round again_.] 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.”

SCHÖN--[_Groaning._] O God!

LULU--[_Half startled._] No, no O God! [_With emphasis._] “Dr. Ludwig
Schön.” Postscript: “Do not attempt to save me.”

SCHÖN--[_Having written to the end, quite collapses._] Now--comes
the--execution.


CURTAIN




ACT IV


 SCENE--_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_, LULU’S _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._

     COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _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_. SCHÖN _stands down right_. LULU, _in a big-flowered
     morning-dress, her hair in a simple knot in a golden circlet,
     sits in the arm-chair left of the ottoman_.

GESCHWITZ--[_To_ LULU.] You can’t think how glad I shall be to see you
at our lady artists’ ball.

SCHÖN--Is there no sort of possibility of a person like me smuggling in?

GESCHWITZ--It would be high treason if any of us lent herself to such
an intrigue.

SCHÖN--[_Crossing to the centre table, behind the ottoman._] The
glorious flowers!

LULU--Fräulein von Geschwitz brought me those.

GESCHWITZ--Don’t mention it.--Oh, you’ll be in man’s costume, won’t you?

LULU--Do you think that becomes me?

GESCHWITZ--You’re a dream here. [_Signifying the picture._]

LULU--My husband doesn’t like it.

GESCHWITZ--Is it by a local man?

LULU--You will hardly have known him.

GESCHWITZ--No longer living?

SCHÖN--[_Down left, with a deep voice._] He had enough.

LULU--You’re in bad temper. [SCHÖN _controls himself_.]

GESCHWITZ--[_Getting up._] 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. [_Exit, up-stage._ LULU
_accompanies her_. SCHÖN _looks around him_.]

SCHÖN--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---- [_Glancing round._] God knows who is overhearing me again
now! [_Draws a revolver from his breast pocket._] Man is, indeed,
uncertain of his life! [_The cocked revolver in his right hand, he
goes left and speaks at the closed window-curtains._] That, my family
circle! The fellow still has courage! Shall I not rather shoot =myself=
in the head? Against deadly enemies one fights, but the---- [_Throws
up the curtains, but finds no one hidden behind them._] The dirt--the
dirt.... [_Shakes his head and crosses right._] Insanity has already
conquered my reason, or else--exceptions prove the rule! [_Hearing_
LULU _coming he puts the revolver back in his pocket_. LULU _comes down
to him_.]

LULU--Couldn’t you get away for this afternoon?

SCHÖN--Just what did that Countess want?

LULU--I don’t know. She wants to paint me.

SCHÖN--Misfortune in human guise, paying her respects!

LULU--Couldn’t you get away, then? I would so like to drive through the
grounds with you.

SCHÖN--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.

LULU--I’d sooner be dead and buried than let my life be embittered so
by my property.

SCHÖN--Who takes life lightly does not take death hard.

LULU--As a child I always had the most horrible fear of death.

SCHÖN--That is just why I married you.

LULU--[_With her arms round his neck._] You’re in bad humor. You invent
too many worries. For weeks and months I’ve seen nothing of you.

SCHÖN--[_Stroking her hair._] Your light-heartedness should cheer up my
old days.

LULU--Indeed, you didn’t marry me at all.

SCHÖN--Whom else did I marry then?

LULU--I married you!

SCHÖN--How does that alter anything?

LULU--I was always afraid it would alter a great deal.

SCHÖN--It has, indeed, crushed a great deal underfoot.

LULU--But not one thing, praise God!

SCHÖN--Of that I should be covetous.

LULU--Your love for me. [SCHÖN’S _face twitches, he signs to her to
go out in front of him. Both exeunt lower right_. COUNTESS GESCHWITZ
_cautiously opens the rear door, ventures forth, and listens. Hearing
voices approaching in the gallery above her, she starts suddenly._]

GESCHWITZ--Oh, dear, there’s somebody----[_Hides behind the
fire-screen._]

SCHIGOLCH--[_Steps out from the curtains onto the stairs, turns back._]
Has the youngster left his heart behind him in the Nightlight Café?

RODRIGO--[_Between the curtains._] He is still too small for the great
world, and can’t walk so far on foot yet. [_He disappears._]

SCHIGOLCH--[_Coming down the stairs._] 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!

RODRIGO--[_Comes down the stairs, carrying_ HUGENBERG _in his arms_.]
This thing has a royal police-captain for a father and not as much
spunk in his body as the raggedest hobo!

HUGENBERG--If there was nothing more to it than life and death, then
you’d soon learn to know me!

RODRIGO--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.

SCHIGOLCH--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.

HUGENBERG--[_Kicking his legs._] Hooray, hooray, I shall be expelled
from school!

RODRIGO--[_Setting him down at the foot of the stairs._] You’ve never
been to any sensible school yet.

SCHIGOLCH--Here many a man has won his spurs before you. Only, no
timidity! First, I’ll set before you a drop of what can’t be had
anywhere for money. [_Opens a cupboard under the stairs._]

HUGENBERG--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.

RODRIGO--[_Seated left of the table._] The strongest man in the world
little brother will wallop! Let mama put long trousers on you first.
[HUGENBERG _sits opposite him_.]

HUGENBERG--I’d rather you lent me your mustache.

RODRIGO--Maybe you want her to throw you out of the door straight off?

HUGENBERG--If I only knew now what the devil I was going to say to her!

RODRIGO--That she knows best herself.

SCHIGOLCH--[_Putting two bottles and three glasses on the table._] I
started in on one of them yesterday. [_Fills the glasses._]

RODRIGO--[_Guarding_ HUGENBERG’S.] Don’t give him too much, or we’ll
both have to pay for it.

SCHIGOLCH--[_Supporting himself with both hands on the table-top._]
Will the gentlemen smoke?

HUGENBERG--[_Opening his cigar-case._] Havana-imported!

RODRIGO--[_Helping himself._] From papa police-captain?

SCHIGOLCH--[_Sitting._] Everything in the house is mine. You only need
to ask.

HUGENBERG--I made a poem to her yesterday.

RODRIGO--What did you make to her?

SCHIGOLCH--What did he make to her?

HUGENBERG--A poem.

RODRIGO--[_To_ SCHIGOLCH.] A poem.

SCHIGOLCH--He’s promised me a dollar if I can spy out where he can meet
her alone.

HUGENBERG--Just who does live here?

RODRIGO--Here =we= live!

SCHIGOLCH--Jour fix--every stock-market day! Our health. [_They clink._]

HUGENBERG--Should I read it to her first, maybe?

SCHIGOLCH--[_To_ RODRIGO.] What’s he mean?

RODRIGO--His poem. He’d like to stretch her out and torture her a
little first.

SCHIGOLCH--[_Staring at_ HUGENBERG.] His eyes! His eyes!

RODRIGO--His eyes, yes. They’ve robbed her of sleep for a week.

SCHIGOLCH--[_To_ RODRIGO.] You can have yourself pickled.

RODRIGO--We can both have ourselves pickled! Our health, gossip Death!

SCHIGOLCH--[_Clinking with him._] Health, jack-in-the-box! If it’s
still better later on, I’m ready for departure at any moment;
but--but---- [LULU _enters right, in an elegant Parisian ball-dress,
much décolleté, with flowers in breast and hair_.]

LULU--But children, children, I expect company!

SCHIGOLCH--But I can tell you what, those things must cost something
over there! [HUGENBERG _has risen_. LULU _sits on the arm of his
chair_.]

LULU--You’ve fallen into pretty company.--I expect visitors, children!

SCHIGOLCH--I guess I’ve got to stick something in there myself, too.
[_He searches among the flowers on the table._]

LULU--Do I look well?

SCHIGOLCH--What are those you’ve got there?

LULU--Orchids. [_Bending over_ HUGENBERG.] Smell.

RODRIGO--Do you expect Prince Escerny?

LULU--[_Shaking her head._] God forbid!

RODRIGO--So somebody else again----!

LULU--The Prince has gone traveling.

RODRIGO--To put his kingdom up for auction?

LULU--He’s exploring a fresh string of tribes in the neighborhood of
Africa. [_Rises, hurries up the stairs, and steps into the gallery._]

RODRIGO--[_To_ SCHIGOLCH.] He really wanted to marry her originally.

SCHIGOLCH--[_Sticking a lily in his buttonhole._] I, too, wanted to
marry her originally.

RODRIGO--You wanted to marry her originally?

SCHIGOLCH--Didn’t you, too, want to marry her originally?

RODRIGO--You bet I wanted to marry her originally!

SCHIGOLCH--Who has not wanted to marry her originally!

RODRIGO--I could never have done better!

SCHIGOLCH--She hasn’t let anybody be sorry that he didn’t marry her.

RODRIGO-- ... Then she’s not your child?

SCHIGOLCH--Never occurs to her.

HUGENBERG--What is her father’s name then?

SCHIGOLCH--She’s just boasted of me!

HUGENBERG--What is her father’s name then?

SCHIGOLCH--What’s he say?

RODRIGO--What her father’s name is.

SCHIGOLCH--She never had one.

LULU--[_Comes down from the gallery and sits again on_ HUGENBERG’S
_chair-arm_.] What have I never had?

ALL THREE--A father.

LULU--Yes, sure--I’m a wonder-child. [_To_ HUGENBERG.] How are you
getting along with =your= father? Contented?

RODRIGO--He smokes a respectable cigar, anyway, the police-captain.

SCHIGOLCH--Have you locked up upstairs?

LULU--There is the key.

SCHIGOLCH--Better have left it in the lock.

LULU--Why?

SCHIGOLCH--So no one can unlock it from outside.

RODRIGO--Isn’t he at the stock-exchange?

LULU--Oh, yes, but he suffers from persecution-mania.

RODRIGO--I take him by the feet, and yup!--there he stays sticking to
the roof.

LULU--He hunts you into a mouse-hole with the corner of his eye.

RODRIGO--What does he hunt? Who does he hunt? [_Baring his arm._] Just
look at this biceps!

LULU--Show me. [_Goes left._]

RODRIGO--[_Hitting himself on the muscle._] Granite. Wrought-iron!

LULU--[_Feeling by turns_ RODRIGO’S _arm and her own_.] If you only
didn’t have such long ears----

FERDINAND--[_Entering, rear centre._] Doctor[8] Schön!

RODRIGO--The rogue! [_Jumps up, starts behind the fire-screen,
recoils._] God preserve me! [_Hides, lower left, behind the curtains._]

SCHIGOLCH--Give me the key! [_Takes it and drags himself up the
stairs._]

LULU--[HUGENBERG _having slid under the table_.] Show him in!

HUGENBERG--[_Under the front edge of the tablecloth, listening; to
himself._] If he doesn’t stay--we’ll be alone.

LULU--[_Poking him with her toe._] Sh! [HUGENBERG _disappears_. ALVA
_is shown in by_ FERDINAND.]

ALVA--[_In evening dress._] Methinks the matinée will take place by
burning lamplight. I’ve---- [_Notices_ SCHIGOLCH _painfully climbing
the stairs_.] What the ---- is that?

LULU--An old friend of your father’s.

ALVA--Quite unknown to me.

LULU--They were in the campaign together. He’s awfully badly----

ALVA--Is my father here then?

LULU--He drank a glass with him. He had to go to the stock market.
We’ll have lunch before we go, won’t we?

ALVA--When does it begin?

LULU--After two. [ALVA _still follows_ SCHIGOLCH _with his eyes_.] How
do you like me? [SCHIGOLCH _disappears thru the gallery_.]

ALVA--Had I not better be silent to you on that point?

LULU--I only mean my appearance.

ALVA--Your dressmaker manifestly knows you better than I--may permit
myself to know you.

LULU--When I saw myself in the glass I could have wished to be a
man--my man!...

ALVA--You seem to envy your man the delight you offer to him. [LULU _is
at the right_, ALVA _at the left, of the centre table. He regards her
with shy satisfaction._ FERDINAND _enters, rear, covers the table and
lays two plates, etc., a bottle of Pommery, and hors d’œuvres._] Have
you a toothache?

LULU--[_Across to_ ALVA.] Don’t.

FERDINAND--Doctor Schön...?

ALVA--He seems so puckered-up and tearful to-day.

FERDINAND--[_Thru his teeth._] One is only a man after all. [_Exit._]

LULU--[_When both are seated._] 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.

ALVA--Let’s drop that. It’s just my fate--[_Moves to lift up the
tablecloth in front._]

LULU--[_Quickly._] That was me.

ALVA--Impossible!--It’s just my fate, with the most trivial thoughts
always to attain the best.

LULU--You deceive yourself if you make yourself out worse than you are.

ALVA--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.

LULU--In any case you’re the only man in the world who’s protected me
without lowering me in my own eyes!

ALVA--Do you think that so easy? [SCHÖN _appears in the gallery
cautiously parting the hangings between the middle pillars. He starts,
and whispers, “My own son!”_] 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----

LULU--And that’s why I only give myself to you alone quite without
reserve. From you I have nothing to fear.

ALVA--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----[_Stops to look under the table._]

LULU--[_Quickly._] What are you looking for?

ALVA--I conjure you, let me keep my confession of faith to myself! As
an inviolable sanctity you were more to me than with all your gifts you
could be to anyone else in your life!

LULU--How extraordinarily different your mind is, on that, from your
father’s! [FERDINAND _enters, rear, changes the plates and serves
broiled chicken with salad_.]

ALVA--[_To him._] Are you sick?

LULU--[_To_ ALVA.] Let him be!

ALVA--He’s trembling as if he had fever.

FERDINAND--I am not yet so used to waiting....

ALVA--You must have something prescribed for you.

FERDINAND--[_Thru his teeth._] I’m a coachman usually----[_Exit._]

SCHÖN--[_Whispering from the gallery._] So, he too. [_Seats himself
behind the rail, able to cover himself with the hangings._]

LULU--What sort of moments are those of which you spoke, where one
expects to see his whole inner self tumble in?

ALVA--I =didn’t want= 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.

LULU--I have hurt you. I don’t want to begin on that again.

ALVA--Do you promise me that for always?

LULU--My hand on it. [_Gives him her hand across the table._ ALVA
_takes it hesitatingly, grips it in his, and presses it long and
ardently to his lips_.] What are you doing? [RODRIGO _sticks his head
out from the curtains, left_. LULU _darts an angry look at him across_
ALVA, _and he draws back_.]

SCHÖN--[_Whispering from the gallery._] And there is still another!

ALVA--[_Holding the hand._] A soul--that in the hereafter will rub the
sleep out of its eyes.... Oh, this hand....

LULU--[_Innocently._] What do you find in it?...

ALVA--An arm....

LULU--What do you find in it?...

ALVA--A body....

LULU--[_Guilelessly._] What do you find in it?...

ALVA--[_Stirred up._] Mignon!

LULU--[_Wholly ingenuously._] What do you find in it?...

ALVA--[_Passionately._] Mignon! Mignon!

LULU--[_Throws herself on the ottoman._] Don’t look at me so--for God’s
sake! Let us go before it is too late. You’re an infamous wretch!

ALVA--I told you, didn’t I, I was the basest villain....

LULU--I see that!

ALVA--I have no sense of honor, no pride....

LULU--You think I am your equal!

ALVA--You?--you are as heavenly high above me as--as the sun is over
the abyss! [_Kneeling._] Destroy me! I beg you, put an end to me! Put
an end to me!

LULU--Do you =love= me then?

ALVA--I will pay you with everything that was mine!

LULU--Do you love me?

ALVA--Do you love me--Mignon?

LULU--I? Not a soul.

ALVA--I love you. [_Hides his face in her lap._]

LULU--[_Both hands in his hair._] I poisoned your mother---- [RODRIGO
_sticks his head out from the curtains, left, sees_ SCHÖN _sitting in
the gallery and signs to him to watch_ LULU _and_ ALVA. SCHÖN _points
his revolver at_ RODRIGO; RODRIGO _signs to him to point it at_ ALVA.
SCHÖN _cocks the revolver and takes aim_. RODRIGO _draws back behind
the curtains_. LULU _sees him draw back, sees_ SCHÖN _sitting in the
gallery, and gets up_.] His father! [SCHÖN _rises, lets the hangings
fall before him_. ALVA _remains motionless on his knees. Pause._]

SCHÖN--[_A newspaper in his hand, takes_ ALVA _by the shoulder_.] Alva!
[ALVA _gets up as though drunk with sleep_.] A revolution has broken
out in Paris.

ALVA--To Paris ... let me go to Paris----

SCHÖN--Up in the office the editors are tearing their hair. Not one
of them knows what to write about it. [_He unfolds the paper and
accompanies_ ALVA _out, rear_. RODRIGO _rushes out from the curtains
toward the stairs_.]

LULU--[_Barring his way._] You can’t get out here.

RODRIGO--Let me through!

LULU--You’ll run into his arms.

RODRIGO--He’ll shoot me thru the head!

LULU--He’s coming.

RODRIGO--[_Stumbling back._] Devil, death and demons! [_Lifts the
tablecloth._]

HUGENBERG--No room!

RODRIGO--Damned and done for! [_Looks around and hides in the doorway,
right._]

SCHÖN--[_Comes in, centre; locks the door; and goes, revolver in hand,
to the window down left, of which he throws up the curtains._] Where is
=he= gone?

LULU--[_On the lowest step._] Out.

SCHÖN--Down over the balcony?

LULU--He’s an acrobat.

SCHÖN--That could not be foreseen. [_Turning against_ LULU.] You who
drag me thru the muck of the streets to a tortured death!

LULU--Why did you not bring me up better?

SCHÖN--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!

LULU--[_In cold blood._] Oh, shut up, and kill me!

SCHÖN--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!

LULU--I can answer for my account for years to come. [_Coming forward
from the stairs._] How do you like my new gown?

SCHÖN--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 =will= cure myself! Do you
understand? [_Pressing the revolver on her._] This is your physic.
Don’t break down; don’t kneel! You yourself shall apply it. You or
I--which is it to be? [LULU, _her strength threatening to desert her,
has sunk down on the couch, turning the revolver this way and that_.]

LULU--It doesn’t go off.

SCHÖN--Do you still recall how I snatched you out of the clutches of
the police?

LULU--You have great confidence----

SCHÖN--Because I’m not afraid of a street-girl? Shall I guide your hand
for you? Have you no mercy towards yourself? [LULU _points the revolver
at him_.] No false alarms! [LULU _fires a shot into the ceiling_.
RODRIGO _springs out of the portières, up the stairs and away thru the
gallery_.] What was that?

LULU--[_Innocently._] Nothing.

SCHÖN--[_Lifting the portières._] What flew out of here?

LULU--You’re suffering from persecution-mania.

SCHÖN--Have you got still more men hidden here? [_Tearing the revolver
from her._] Is yet another man calling on you? [_Going left._]
I’ll regale your men! [_Throws up the window-curtains, flings the
fire-screen back, grabs_ COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _by the collar and drags
her forward_.] Did you come down the chimney?

GESCHWITZ--[_In deadly terror, to_ LULU.] Save me from him!

SCHÖN--[_Shaking her._] Or are you, too, an acrobat?

GESCHWITZ--[_Whimpering._] You hurt me.

SCHÖN--[_Shaking her._] Now you will =have= to stay to dinner. [_Drags
her right, shoves her into the next room and locks the door after
her._] We want no town-criers. [_Sits next to_ LULU _and makes her take
the revolver again._] 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?

LULU--Have the carriage got ready! Please! We’re going to the opera.

SCHÖN--We’re going to the devil! Now I am coachman. [_Turning the
revolver in her hand from himself to_ LULU’S _breast_.] 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
=you=? [_Holds her down by the arm._] Come, get through. It shall be
the happiest remembrance of my life. Pull the trigger!

LULU--You can get a divorce.

SCHÖN--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 =you= before me! You dare suggest that? That part of my
life I have poured into you, am I 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? =Can= one be divorced when two people have
grown into one another and half the man must go too? [_Reaching for the
revolver._] Give it here!

LULU--Don’t!

SCHÖN--I’ll spare you the trouble.

LULU--[_Tears herself loose, holding the revolver down; in a
determined, self-possessed tone._] 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!

SCHÖN--[_Pursuing her._] Down, murderess! Down with you! To your
knees, murderess! [_Crowding her to the foot of the stairs._] Down,
and never dare to stand again! [_Raising his hand._ LULU _has sunk
to her knees_.] Pray to God, murderess, that he give you strength.
Sue to heaven that strength for it may be lent you! [HUGENBERG _jumps
up from under the table, knocking a chair aside, and screams “Help!”_
SCHÖN _whirls toward him, turning his back to_ LULU, _who instantly
fires five shots into him and continues to pull the trigger_. SCHÖN,
_tottering over, is caught by_ HUGENBERG _and let down in the chair_.]

SCHÖN--And--there--is--one--more----

LULU--[_Rushing to_ SCHÖN.] All merciful----!

SCHÖN--Out of my sight! Alva!

LULU--[_Kneeling._] The one man I loved!

SCHÖN--Harlot! Murderess!--Alva! Alva!--Water!

LULU--Water; he’s thirsty. [_Fills a glass with champagne and sets it
to_ SCHÖN’S _lips_. ALVA _comes thru the gallery, down the stairs_.]

ALVA--Father! O God, my father!

LULU--I shot him.

HUGENBERG--She is innocent!

SCHÖN--[_To_ ALVA.] You! It miscarried.

ALVA--[_Tries to lift him._] You must get to bed; come.

SCHÖN--Don’t take hold of me so! I’m drying up. [LULU _comes with
the champagne-cup; to her_.] You are still like yourself. [_After
drinking._] Don’t let her escape. [_To_ ALVA.] You are the next.

ALVA--[_To_ HUGENBERG.] Help me carry him to bed.

SCHÖN--No, no, please, no. Wine, murderess----

ALVA--[_To_ HUGENBERG.] Take hold of him on that side. [_Pointing
right._] Into the bedroom. [_They lift_ SCHÖN _upright and lead him
right_. LULU _stays near the table, the glass in her hand_.]

SCHÖN--[_Groaning._] O God! O God! O God! [ALVA _finds the door locked,
turns the key and opens it_. COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _steps out_. SCHÖN
_at the sight of her straightens up, stiffly_.] The Devil. [_He falls
backward onto the carpet._ LULU _throws herself down, takes his head in
her lap, and kisses him_.]

LULU--He has got thru. [_Gets up and starts toward the stairs._]

ALVA--Don’t stir!

GESCHWITZ--I thought it was you.

LULU--[_Throwing herself before_ ALVA.] You can’t give me up to the
law! It is =my= 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! [_Knocking on the door outside._]

ALVA--The police. [_Goes to open it._]

HUGENBERG--I shall be expelled from school.


CURTAIN


FOOTNOTES:

[8] That is, since Act III Alva has won his Ph.D.




                             PANDORA’S BOX

                        (DIE BÜCHSE DER PANDORA)

                        A Tragedy in Three Acts




CHARACTERS


  LULU
  DR. ALVA SCHÖN, PH.D., _a writer_
  SCHIGOLCH
  RODRIGO QUAST, _acrobat_
  ALFRED HUGENBERG, _escaped from a reform-school_
  COUNTESS GESCHWITZ
  BIANETTA                 }
  LUDMILLA STEINHERZ       }
  MAGELONE                 }
  KADIDIA, _her daughter_  }
  COUNT CASTI-PIANI        } In Act II
  PUNTSCHU, _a banker_     }
  HEILMANN, _a journalist_ }
  BOB, _a groom, aged 15_  }
  A DETECTIVE              }
  MR. HUNIDEI                              }
  KUNGU POTI, _imperial prince of Uahubee_ } In Act III
  DR. HILTI, _tutor_                       }
  JACK                                     }

The first act takes place in Germany, the second in France, the third
in England.




ACT I


 SCENE--_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._
     LULU’S _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._

     _In this chair, deep in cushions, with a plaid shawl over her
     knees, sits_ COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _in a tight black dress_. RODRIGO,
     _clad as a servant, sits on the ottoman. At the rear_, ALVA SCHÖN
     _is walking up and down before the entrance door_.

RODRIGO--He lets people wait for him as if he were a concert conductor!

GESCHWITZ--I beg of you, don’t speak!

RODRIGO--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!

GESCHWITZ--She is more glorious to look at than I have ever seen her!

RODRIGO--God preserve me from founding my life-happiness upon =your=
taste and judgment! If the 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.

GESCHWITZ--What puts =us= under the ground gives =her= health and
strength again.

RODRIGO--That’s all right and fine enough. But I don’t think I’ll be
travelling off with her this evening.

GESCHWITZ--You will let your bride journey all alone, after all?

RODRIGO--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?

ALVA--I haven’t heard what you were saying.

RODRIGO--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 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.

ALVA--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.

GESCHWITZ--If the man would only come, now!

RODRIGO--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.

ALVA--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.

RODRIGO--I’ve had a pair of tights made of the tenderest blue-green. If
=they= 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. 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.

GESCHWITZ--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!

RODRIGO--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!

ALVA--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 =her=; 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?

GESCHWITZ--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 =her= “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 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!

RODRIGO--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.

ALVA--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 =acting= passion, from a second time becoming a
criminal in reality.

RODRIGO--I’ll soon drive her kiddishness out of her!

GESCHWITZ--There he comes! [_Steps louden in the gallery. Then the
curtains part at the head of the stairs and_ SCHIGOLCH _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._]

SCHIGOLCH--Confound the darkness! Outdoors the sun burns your eyes out.

GESCHWITZ--[_Wearily unwrapping herself._] I’m coming!

RODRIGO--Her ladyship has seen no daylight for three days. We live here
like in a snuff-box.

SCHIGOLCH--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!

RODRIGO--Where are you going to get off to-morrow morning?

SCHIGOLCH--I hope not straight into Ox-butter Hotel again!

RODRIGO--I can tell you a fine hotel. I lived there with a lady
lion-tamer. The people were born in Berlin.

GESCHWITZ--[_Upright in the arm-chair._] Come and help me!

RODRIGO--[_Hurries to her and supports her._] And you’ll be safer from
the police there than on a high tight-rope!

GESCHWITZ--He means to let you go with her alone this afternoon.

SCHIGOLCH--Maybe he’s still suffering from his chilblains!

RODRIGO--Do you want me to start my new engagement in bath-robe and
slippers?

SCHIGOLCH--Hm--Sister Theophila wouldn’t have gone to heaven so
promptly either, if she hadn’t felt so affectionate towards our patient.

RODRIGO--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.

ALVA--[_A pocketbook in his hand, to_ GESCHWITZ, _who is leaning on a
chair-back by the centre table_.] This holds 10,000 marks.

GESCHWITZ--Thank you, no.

ALVA--Please take it.

GESCHWITZ--[_To_ SCHIGOLCH.] Come along, at last!

SCHIGOLCH--Patience, Fräulein. It’s only a stone’s throw across
Hospital Street. I’ll be here with her in five minutes.

ALVA--You’re bringing her here?

SCHIGOLCH--I’m bringing her here. Or do you fear for your health?

ALVA--You see that I fear nothing.

RODRIGO--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.

ALVA--[_Opening the centre door under the gallery._] It’s shorter for
you thru here. [_Exeunt_ SCHIGOLCH _and_ COUNTESS GESCHWITZ. ALVA
_locks the door_.]

RODRIGO--You were going to give more money to the crazy skyrocket!

ALVA--What has that to do with you?

RODRIGO--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----

ALVA--Will you seriously inform me that the medical professors let
themselves be influenced by you?

RODRIGO--With the money those gentlemen cost me I could become
President of the United States!

ALVA--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 =your= 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.

RODRIGO--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 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 [_clasping
his bald head_], 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!

ALVA--You’re weak as a dish-clout!

RODRIGO--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!

ALVA--Try it! [_Steps and voices outside._] Who is that...?

RODRIGO--You can thank God that I have no public here before me!

ALVA--Who can that be!

RODRIGO--That is my beloved. It’s a full year now since we’ve seen each
other.

ALVA--But how should they be back already! Who can be coming there? I
expect no one.

RODRIGO--Oh, the devil, unlock it!

ALVA--Hide yourself!

RODRIGO--I’ll get behind the portières. I’ve stood there once before, a
year ago. [_Disappears, right._ ALVA _opens the rear door, whereupon_
ALFRED HUGENBERG _enters, hat in hand_.]

ALVA--With whom have I--.... You? Aren’t you----?

HUGENBERG--Alfred Hugenberg.

ALVA--What can I do for you?

HUGENBERG--I’ve come from Münsterburg. I ran away this morning.

ALVA--My eyes are bad. I am forced to keep the blinds closed.

HUGENBERG--I need your help. You will not refuse me. I’ve got a plan
ready.--Can anyone hear us?

ALVA--What do you mean? What sort of a plan?

HUGENBERG--Are you alone?

ALVA--Yes. What do you want to impart to me?

HUGENBERG--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?

ALVA--Will you kindly tell me just what you are talking about?

HUGENBERG--She cannot possibly be so indifferent to you that I must
tell you that. The evidence =you= gave the coroner helped her more than
everything the defending counsel said.

ALVA--I beg to decline the supposition.

HUGENBERG--You would say that; I understand that, of course. But all
the same you were her best witness.

ALVA--=You= were! You said my father was about to force her to shoot
herself.

HUGENBERG--He was, too. But they didn’t believe me. I wasn’t put on my
oath.

ALVA--Where have you come from now?

HUGENBERG--From a reform-school I broke out of this morning.

ALVA--And what do you have in view?

HUGENBERG--I’m trying to get into the confidence of a turnkey.

ALVA--What do you mean to live on?

HUGENBERG--I’m living with a girl who’s had a child by my father.

ALVA--Who is your father?

HUGENBERG--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.

ALVA--But then you’ll burn up there!

HUGENBERG--Of course, if I’m not rescued. But to get into the first
court I must have the turnkey 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.

ALVA--How did you escape from the reform-school?

HUGENBERG--Jumped out the window. I need two hundred marks for the
rascal to send his family to the country.

RODRIGO--[_Stepping out of the portières, right._] Will the Herr Baron
have coffee in the music-room or on the veranda?

HUGENBERG--How did that man come here? Out of the same door! He jumped
out of the same door!

ALVA--I’ve taken him into my service. He is dependable.

HUGENBERG--[_Grasping his temples._] Fool that I am! Oh, fool!

RODRIGO--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.

ALVA--Be quiet, you!

HUGENBERG--I’m a fool!

RODRIGO--What do you want to do with your fire? Don’t you know the
lady’s been dead three weeks?

HUGENBERG--Did they cut off her head?

RODRIGO--No, she’s got that still. She was mashed by the cholera.

HUGENBERG--That is not true!

RODRIGO--What do you know about it! There, read it: here! [_Taking out
a paper and pointing to the place._] “The murderess of Dr. Schön....”
[_Gives_ HUGENBERG _the paper. He reads_:]

HUGENBERG--“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.

RODRIGO--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!

HUGENBERG--[_To_ ALVA.] Is it true that she’s dead?

ALVA--Thank God, yes!--Please, do not keep me here any longer. My
doctor has forbidden me to receive visitors.

HUGENBERG--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!

RODRIGO--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!

HUGENBERG--Fool!

RODRIGO--Get out! [_Throws him out the door. Coming down._] I wonder
you didn’t put your purse at that rogue’s disposal, too!

ALVA--I won’t stand your damned jabbering! The boy’s little finger is
worth more than all you!

RODRIGO--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!

ALVA--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 =you= if you’d had to run around
the cafés barefoot every night when you were ten years old?”

RODRIGO--If I could only have given him one in the jaw for that right
away! Thank God, there are jails where scum like that gets some
respect for the law pounded into them.

ALVA--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.”

RODRIGO--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.

ALVA--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, I can still take private lessons in the scorn of the
world from that schoolboy!

RODRIGO--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.

ALVA--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!

RODRIGO--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.” [_Up
in the gallery, dragging steps are heard._] There she is! The future
magnificent trapeze-artiste of the present age! [_The curtains part at
the stair-head, and_ LULU _appears, supported by_ SCHIGOLCH _and in_
COUNTESS GESCHWITZ’S _black dress, slowly and wearily descending_.]

SCHIGOLCH--Hui, old moldy! We’ve still to get over the frontier to-day.

RODRIGO--[_Glaring stupidly at_ LULU.] Thunder of heaven! Death!

LULU--[_Speaks, to the end of the act, in the gayest tones._] Slowly!
You’re pinching my arm!

RODRIGO--How did you ever get the shamelessness to break out of prison
with such a wolf’s face?

SCHIGOLCH--Stop your snout!

RODRIGO--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!

ALVA--Kindly refrain from insulting the lady!

RODRIGO--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! [_Exit._]

SCHIGOLCH--Run, run.

LULU--He’ll take good care of himself!

SCHIGOLCH--We’re rid of =him=!--And now some black coffee for the lady!

ALVA--[_At the table left._] Here is coffee, ready to pour.

SCHIGOLCH--I must look after the sleeping-car tickets.

LULU--[_Brightly._] Oh, freedom! Thank God for freedom!

SCHIGOLCH--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.

ALVA--Good evening.

SCHIGOLCH--Pleasant rest!--Thanks, I know every door-handle here. So
long! Have a good time! [_Exit, centre._]

LULU--I haven’t seen a room for a year and a half. Curtains, chairs,
pictures....

ALVA--Won’t you drink it?

LULU--I’ve swallowed enough black coffee these five days. Have you any
brandy?

ALVA--I’ve got some elixir de Spaa.

LULU--That reminds one of old times. [_Looks round the hall while_ ALVA
_fills two glasses_.] Where’s my picture gone?

ALVA--I’ve got it in my room, so no one shall see it here.

LULU--Bring it here, do!

ALVA--Haven’t you got over your vanity even in prison?

LULU--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?

ALVA--No, Heaven’s sake! You must spare yourself!

LULU--I’ve been sparing myself long enough now! [ALVA _goes out, right,
to get the picture_.] 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!

ALVA--[_Returns with the picture of_ LULU _in the Pierrot-dress_.] It’s
covered with dust. I had leant it against the fireplace, face to the
wall.

LULU--You didn’t look at it all the time I was away?

ALVA--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. [_He puts
the picture on the easel._]

LULU--[_Merrily._] Now the poor monster is getting personally
acquainted with the life of joy in Hotel Ox-butter!

ALVA--Even now I don’t understand how events hang together.

LULU--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 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.

ALVA--So that was the reason why the Countess and you fell sick of the
cholera the same day!

LULU--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. [_With
pleasure._] Now she’s lying over there as the murderess of Dr. Schön.

ALVA--So far as outward appearance goes you can hold your own with the
picture as well as ever.

LULU--I’m a little peaked in the face, but otherwise I’ve lost nothing.
Only one gets incredibly nervous in prison.

ALVA--You looked horribly sick when you came in.

LULU--I had to, to get our necks out of the noose.--And you? What have
you done in this year and a half?

ALVA--I’ve had a succès d’estime in literary circles with a play I
wrote about you.

LULU--Who’s your sweetheart now?

ALVA--An actress I’ve rented a house for in Karl Street.

LULU--Does she love you?

ALVA--How should I know that? I haven’t seen the woman for six weeks.

LULU--Can you stand that?

ALVA--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.

LULU--[_In a fairy-story tone._] I used to dream, once, every other
night, that I’d fallen into the hands of a sadist.... Come, give me a
kiss!

ALVA--It’s shining in your eyes like the water in a deep well one has
just thrown a stone into.

LULU--Come!

ALVA--[_Kisses her._] Your lips have got pretty thin, sure enough.

LULU--Come! [_Pushes him into a chair and seats herself on his knee._]
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. [_She kisses him
passionately._]

ALVA--Oh, oh!

LULU--You’re afraid that when I’m away you couldn’t write any more
poems about me?

ALVA--On the contrary, I shall write a dithyramb upon your glory.

LULU--I’m only sore about the hideous shoes I’m wearing.

ALVA--They do not encroach upon your charms. Let us be thankful for the
favor of this moment.

LULU--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.

ALVA--Come, dear heart!

LULU--[_In the tone with which one quiets a restless child._] Quietly!
I shot your father.

ALVA--I do not love you less for that. One kiss!

LULU--Bend your head back. [_She kisses him with deliberation._]

ALVA--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.

LULU--[_In high spirits._] 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.

ALVA--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 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!

LULU--[_Merrily._] Meanwhile I’ll bury my hands in your hair. [_She
does so._] But here we’ll be disturbed.

ALVA--You have robbed me of my reason!

LULU--Aren’t you coming with me to-day?

ALVA--But the old fellow’s going with you!

LULU--He won’t turn up again.--Is not that the divan on which your
father bled to death?

ALVA--Be still. Be still....


CURTAIN




ACT II


 SCENE--_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_ LULU’S _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)._

     _A large company is moving about the salon in lively conversation.
     The men_--ALVA, RODRIGO, MARQUIS CASTI-PIANI, BANKER PUNTSCHU,
     _and_ JOURNALIST HEILMANN--_are in evening dress_. LULU _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._ GESCHWITZ
     _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_. MAGELONE _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._ KADIDIA, _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_. BIANETTA
     _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_. LUDMILLA
     STEINHERZ _is in a glaring summer frock striped red and blue_.

     RODRIGO _stands, centre, a full glass in his hand_.

RODRIGO--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--[_taking_ LULU’S _arm_] of Countess Adelaide
d’Oubra--damned and done for!--I drink therefore -- -- and so forth,
go to it, ladies! [_All surround_ LULU _and clink with her_. ALVA
_presses_ RODRIGO’S _hand_.]

ALVA--I congratulate you.

RODRIGO--I’m sweating like a roast pig.

ALVA--[_To_ LULU.] Let’s see if everything’s in order in the card-room.
[ALVA _and_ LULU _exeunt, rear_. BIANETTA _speaks to_ RODRIGO.]

BIANETTA--They were telling me just now you were the strongest man in
the world.

RODRIGO--That I am. May I put my strength at your disposal?

MAGELONE--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. [_She wriggles her hips._]

CASTI-PIANI--[_Who speaks thruout the act in a bored and weary tone,
to_ MAGELONE.] Say, dearie, how does it happen we see your nice little
princess here for the first time to-night? [_Meaning_ KADIDIA.]

MAGELONE--Do you really find her so delightful?--She is still in the
convent. She must be back in school again on Monday.

KADIDIA--What did you say, Mama?

MAGELONE--I was just telling the gentlemen that you got the highest
mark in geometry last week.

HEILMANN--Some pretty hair she’s got!

CASTI-PIANI--Just look at her feet: the way she walks.

PUNTSCHU--By God, she’s a thoroughbred!

MAGELONE--[_Smiling._] But, my dear sirs, take pity on her! She’s
nothing but a child still!

PUNTSCHU--That’d trouble me damned little! [_To_ HEILMANN.] I’d give
ten years of my life if I could initiate the young lady into the
ceremonies of our secret society!

MAGELONE--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!

CASTI-PIANI--Confessions of a lovely soul! [_To_ MAGELONE.] Would you
not grant your permission even for a set of real diamonds?

MAGELONE--Don’t brag! You’ll give as few real diamonds to me as to my
child. You know that best yourself. [KADIDIA _goes into the rear room_.]

GESCHWITZ--But is nobody at all going to play, this evening?

LUDMILLA--Why, of course, Comtesse. I’m counting on it very much, for
one!

BIANETTA--Then let’s take our places right away. The gentlemen will
soon come then.

GESCHWITZ--May I ask you to excuse me just a second more? I must say a
word to my friend.

CASTI-PIANI--[_Offering his arm to_ BIANETTA.] May I have the honor to
be your partner? You always hold such a lucky hand!

LUDMILLA--Now just give me your other arm and then lead us into the
gambling-hell. [_The three go off so, rear._]

MAGELONE--Say, Mr. Puntschu, have you still got a few Jungfrau-shares
for me, maybe?

PUNTSCHU--Jungfrau-shares? [_To_ HEILMANN.] 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 railway
up it. [_To_ MAGELONE.] 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.

HEILMANN--I’ve only one lone share of this Jungfrau-stock so far. I
should like to have more, too.

PUNTSCHU--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!

MAGELONE--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!

PUNTSCHU--I am perfectly sure of my affairs, my dearie!

ALVA--[_Who has come back from the card-room, to_ MAGELONE.] 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.

MAGELONE--All the better, if you’re right. [_Taking_ PUNTSCHU’S _arm_.]
Come, my friend, let’s try our luck now at baccarat. [_All go out,
rear, except_ GESCHWITZ _and_ RODRIGO, _who scribbles something on a
piece of paper and folds it up, then notices_ GESCHWITZ.]

RODRIGO--Hm, madam Countess---- [GESCHWITZ _starts and shrinks_.] Do
I look as dangerous as that? [_To himself._] I must make a bon mot.
[_Aloud._] May I perhaps make so bold----

GESCHWITZ--You can go to the devil!

CASTI-PIANI--[_As he leads_ LULU _in_.] You will allow me a word or two.

LULU--[_Not noticing_ RODRIGO, _who presses his note into her hand_.]
Oh, as many as you like.

RODRIGO--[_As he bows and goes out, rear._] I beg you will excuse me....

CASTI-PIANI--[_To_ GESCHWITZ.] Leave us alone!

LULU--[_To_ CASTI-PIANI.] Have I vexed you again somehow?

CASTI-PIANI--[_Since_ GESCHWITZ _does not stir_.] Are you deaf?
[GESCHWITZ, _sighing deeply, goes out, rear_.]

LULU--Just say straight out how much you want.

CASTI-PIANI--With money you can no longer serve me.

LULU--What makes you think that we have no more money?

CASTI-PIANI--You handed out the last bit of it to me yesterday.

LULU--If you’re sure of that then I suppose it’s so.

CASTI-PIANI--You’re down to bedrock, you and your writer.

LULU--Then why all these words?--If you want to have me for yourself
you need not first threaten me with execution.

CASTI-PIANI--I know that. But I’ve told you 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.

LULU--You’re crazy! Have I commissioned you to find a position for me?

CASTI-PIANI--I told you, though, that I was an employment-agent.

LULU--You told me you were a police spy.

CASTI-PIANI--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
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.

LULU--[_Decisively._] I’m no good for that business.

CASTI-PIANI--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.

LULU--[_As before._] 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 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!

CASTI-PIANI--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----[_Shrugs, and snaps
his fingers._] 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.

LULU--[_Her voice shaking._] I do believe that since yesterday you’ve
got a screw loose somewhere. Am I to understand that the Egyptian will
pay fifteen hundred francs for a person whom he’s never seen?

CASTI-PIANI--I took the liberty of sending him your pictures.

LULU--Those pictures that I gave you, you’ve sent to him?

CASTI-PIANI--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.

LULU--[_Proudly, in a clear voice._] 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!

CASTI-PIANI--Then will you permit me to whistle up the policeman?

LULU--[_In wonder._] Why don’t you simply ask me for twelve hundred
marks, if you want the money?

CASTI-PIANI--I want for no money! And I also don’t ask for it because
you’re dead broke.

LULU--We still have thirty thousand marks.

CASTI-PIANI--In Jungfrau-stock! I never have anything to do with stock.
The Attorney General 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_
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.

LULU--But is it possible you can be serious in all this?

CASTI-PIANI--Don’t you understand that your bodily rescue is the only
thing left me to do?

LULU--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!

CASTI-PIANI--[_Drawing a letter from his pocket._] 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 have envied her,
a former comrade of mine. He travels now for some Hamburg colonial
company....

LULU--[_Merrily._] Then perhaps he =visits= his wife occasionally?

CASTI-PIANI--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. [_Reads._] “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----

LULU--[_Goaded._] I cannot sell the only thing that ever was my own!

CASTI-PIANI--Let me read some more.

LULU--[_As before._] This very evening, I’ll hand over to you our
entire wealth.

CASTI-PIANI--Believe me, for God’s sake, I’ve =got= 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.

LULU--You =can’t= give me up!

CASTI-PIANI--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. [_He goes into the card-room, leaving the door
open behind him._ LULU _stares before her, mechanically crumpling up
the note that_ RODRIGO _stuck into her hand, which she has held in her
fingers thruout the dialogue_. ALVA, _behind the card-table, gets up, a
bill in his hand, and comes into the salon_.]

ALVA--[_To_ LULU.] 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.
[_Exit, lower right._]

LULU--I in a bordel? [_She reads the paper she holds, and laughs
madly._]

ALVA--[_Coming back with a cash-box in his hand._] Aren’t you going to
play, too?

LULU--Oh, yes, surely--why not?

ALVA--By the way, it’s in the “Berliner Tageblatt” to-day that Alfred
Hugenberg has hurled himself over the stairs in prison.

LULU--Is he too in prison?

ALVA--Only in a sort of house of detention. [_Exit, rear._ LULU _is
about to follow, but_ COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _meets her in the doorway_.]

GESCHWITZ--You are going because I come?

LULU--[_Resolutely._] No, God knows. But when you come then I go.

GESCHWITZ--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.

LULU--[_As before._] I am as polite to you as to any other woman. I
only beg you to be equally so to me.

GESCHWITZ--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?

LULU--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!

GESCHWITZ--Then you cheated me consciously, deliberately!

LULU--[_Gaily._] 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 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.

GESCHWITZ--Of whom are you speaking? I don’t understand a word.

LULU--[_As before._] 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.

GESCHWITZ--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_ feel free as a god when I think to what creatures
=you= are enslaved.

LULU--Whom do you mean?

GESCHWITZ--Casti-Piani, upon whose forehead the most degenerate
baseness is written in letters of fire!

LULU--Be silent! I’ll kick you, if you speak ill of =him=. 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
=you= 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 for pay! Press a gold-piece into her hand and
she’ll be yours. [_All the company save_ KADIDIA _throng in out of the
card-room_.] For the Lord’s sake, what has happened?

PUNTSCHU--Nothing whatever! We’re thirsty, that’s all.

MAGELONE--Everybody has won. We can’t believe it.

BIANETTA--Seems to me I have won quite a fortune!

LUDMILLA--Don’t boast of it, my child. That isn’t lucky.

MAGELONE--But the bank has won, too! How is that =possible=?

ALVA--It is colossal, where all the money comes from!

CASTI-PIANI--Let us not ask! Enough that we need not spare the
champagne.

HEILMANN--I can pay for a supper in a respectable restaurant
afterwards, anyway!

ALVA--To the buffet, ladies! Come to the buffet! [_All exeunt, lower
left._]

RODRIGO--[_Holding_ LULU _back_.] Un momong, my heart. Have you read my
billet-doux?

LULU--Threaten me with discovery as much as you like! I have no more
twenty thousands to dispose of.

RODRIGO--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!

LULU--Then turn to =him= with your blackmailing! It’s all one to me
what he does with his money.

RODRIGO--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.

LULU--What, have you got engaged here?

RODRIGO--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.

LULU--You have my blessing.

RODRIGO--Your blessing can be stolen from me. I’ve told my bride I had
twenty thousand in stock at the bank.

LULU--[_Amused._] And after that he boasts the woman loves him for
himself!

RODRIGO--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!

LULU--Then why the devil do you especially pursue poor Geschwitz with
your proposals?

RODRIGO--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
[_with a gesture_] my talk is hanging out of my mouth! Will you get me
the money before to-morrow evening, or won’t you?

LULU--I have no money.

RODRIGO--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.

LULU--What is it to you if he wastes his money with women or at cards?

RODRIGO--Do you absolutely =want=, 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
=forever=?

LULU--[_Lightly._] Shall I ask him perhaps to light you down the stairs?

RODRIGO--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! [HEILMANN _enters, breathless,
upper right_.]

LULU--You’re looking for Miss Magelone? She’s not here.

HEILMANN--No, I’m looking for something else----

RODRIGO--[_Taking him to the entry-door, opposite him._] Second door on
the left.

LULU--[_To_ RODRIGO.] Did you learn that from your bride?

HEILMANN--[_Bumping into_ PUNTSCHU _in the doorway_.] Excuse me, my
angel!

PUNTSCHU--Ah, it’s you. Miss Magelone’s waiting for you in the lift.

HEILMANN--You go up with her, please. I’ll be right back. [_He hurries
out, left._ LULU _goes out at lower left_. RODRIGO _follows her_.]

PUNTSCHU--Some heat, that! If I don’t cut off =your= ears, you’ll
cut ’em off me! If I can’t hire out my Jehoshaphat,[9] 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!
[BOB, _a groom in a red jacket, tight leather breeches, and twinkling
riding-boots, fifteen years old, brings in a telegram_.]

BOB--Mr. Puntschu, the banker!

PUNTSCHU--[_Breaks open the telegram and murmurs_:] “Jungfrau Funicular
Stock fallen to----” Ay, ay, so goes the world! [_To_ BOB.] Wait!
[_Gives him a tip._] Tell me--what’s your name?

BOB--Well, my name is Freddy, but they call me Bob, because that’s the
fashion now.

PUNTSCHU--How old are you?

BOB--Fifteen.

KADIDIA--[_Enters hesitatingly from lower left._] I beg your pardon,
can you tell me if Mama is here?

PUNTSCHU--No, my dear. [_Aside._] Devil, she’s got breeding!

KADIDIA--I’m hunting all over for her; I can’t find her anywhere.

PUNTSCHU--Your mama will turn up again soon, as true as my name’s
Puntschu! [_Looking at_ BOB.] And that pair of breeches! God of
Justice! It gets uncanny! [_He goes out, upper right._]

KADIDIA--Haven’t =you= seen my mama, perhaps?

BOB--No, but you only need to come with me.

KADIDIA--Where is she then?

BOB--She’s gone up in the lift. Come along.

KADIDIA--No, no, I can’t go up with you.

BOB--We can hide up there in the corridor.

KADIDIA--No, no, I can’t come, or I’ll be scolded. [MAGELONE, _terribly
excited, rushes in, upper left, and possesses herself of_ KADIDIA.]

MAGELONE--Ha, there you are at last, you common creature!

KADIDIA--[_Crying._] O Mama, Mama, I was hunting for you!

MAGELONE--Hunting for me? Did I tell you to hunt for me? What have
you had to do with this fellow? [HEILMANN, ALVA, LUDMILLA, PUNTSCHU,
GESCHWITZ, _and_ LULU _enter, lower left_. BOB _has slipped away_.] Now
don’t bawl before all the people on me; look out, I tell you!

LULU--[_As they all surround_ KADIDIA.] But you’re crying, sweetheart!
Why are you crying?

PUNTSCHU--By God, she’s really been crying! Who’s done anything to hurt
you, little goddess?

LUDMILLA--[_Kneels before her and folds her in her arms._] Tell me,
cherub, what bad thing has happened. Do you want a cookie? Do you want
some chocolate?

MAGELONE--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!

PUNTSCHU--That sounds like you! You’re a pretty mother! The courts’ll
take the child away from you yet and appoint me her guardian!
[_Stroking_ KADIDIA’S _cheeks_.] Isn’t that so, my little goddess?

GESCHWITZ--I should be glad if we could start the baccarat again at
last! [_All go into the dining-room again._ LULU _is held back at the
door by_ BOB, _who comes from the upper entrance_.]

LULU--[_When_ BOB _has whispered to her_.] Certainly! Let him come in!
[BOB _opens the hall door and lets_ SCHIGOLCH _enter, in evening dress,
his patent-leather shoes much worn, and keeping on his shabby opera
hat_.]

SCHIGOLCH--[_With a look at_ BOB.] Where did you get him from?

LULU--The circus.

SCHIGOLCH--How much does he get?

LULU--Ask him if it interests you. [_To_ BOB.] Shut the doors. [BOB
_goes out lower left, shutting the door behind him_.]

SCHIGOLCH--[_Sitting down._] The truth is, I’m in need of money. I’ve
hired a flat for my mistress.

LULU--Have you taken another mistress here, too?

SCHIGOLCH--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.

LULU--[_Outwardly with complete composure._] Does she need the money
very badly?

SCHIGOLCH--She wants to fit up her own apartments. Such sums are of no
account to =you=. [LULU _is suddenly overcome with a fit of weeping_.]

LULU--[_Flinging herself at_ SCHIGOLCH.] O God Almighty!

SCHIGOLCH--[_Patting her._] Well? What is it now?

LULU--[_Sobbing violently._] It’s too horrible!

SCHIGOLCH--[_Draws her onto his knee and holds her in his arms like a
little child._] 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
on your head then, nor any transparent stockings on your legs: you had
neither shoes nor stockings then.

LULU--[_Crying._] Take me home with you! Take me home with you
to-night! Please! We’ll find carriages enough downstairs!

SCHIGOLCH--I’ll take you with me; I’ll take you with me.--What is it?

LULU--It’s going round my neck! I’m to be shown up!

SCHIGOLCH--By whom? Who’s showing you up?

LULU--The acrobat.

SCHIGOLCH--[_With the utmost composure._] I’ll look after him.

LULU--Look after him! =Please=, look after him! Then do with me what
you will!

SCHIGOLCH--If he comes to me, he’s done for. My window is over the
water. But [_shaking his head_] he won’t come; he won’t come.

LULU--What number do you live at?

SCHIGOLCH--376, the last house before the hippodrome.

LULU--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.

SCHIGOLCH--Just let them come.

LULU--To-morrow bring me the gold rings he wears in his ears.

SCHIGOLCH--Has he got rings in his ears?

LULU--You can take them out before you let him down. He doesn’t notice
anything when he’s drunk.

SCHIGOLCH--And then, child--what then?

LULU--Then I’ll give you the money for your mistress.

SCHIGOLCH--I call that pretty stingy.

LULU--And whatever else you want! Whatever I have.

SCHIGOLCH--It’ll soon be ten years since we knew each other.

LULU--Is that all?--But you’ve got a mistress.

SCHIGOLCH--My Frankforter is no longer of to-day.

LULU--But then swear!

SCHIGOLCH--Haven’t I always kept my word to you?

LULU--Swear that you’ll look after him.

SCHIGOLCH--I’ll look after him.

LULU--Swear it to me! Swear it to me!

SCHIGOLCH--[_Puts his hand on her ankle._] By everything that’s holy!
To-night, if he comes----

LULU--By everything that’s holy!--How that cools me!

SCHIGOLCH--How this heats me!

LULU--Oh, do drive straight home. They’ll come in half an hour! Take a
carriage!

SCHIGOLCH--I’m going.

LULU--Quick! Please!-- --All-powerful----

SCHIGOLCH--Why do you stare at me so again already?

LULU--Nothing-- ...

SCHIGOLCH--Well? Is your tongue frozen on you?

LULU--My garter’s broken.

SCHIGOLCH--What if it is? Is that all?

LULU--What does that augur?

SCHIGOLCH--What does it? I’ll fasten it for you if you’ll keep still.

LULU--That augurs misfortune!

SCHIGOLCH--[_Yawning._] Not for you, child. Cheer up, I’ll look after
him! [_Exit._ LULU _puts her left foot on a foot-stool, fastens her
garter, and goes out into the card-room. Then_ RODRIGO _is cuffed in
from the dining-room, lower left, by_ CASTI-PIANI.]

RODRIGO--You can treat me decently anyway!

CASTI-PIANI--[_Still perfectly unemotional._] Whatever would induce me
to do that? I wish to know what you said to her here a little while ago.

RODRIGO--Then you can be very fond of me!

CASTI-PIANI--Will you bandy words with me, dog? You demanded that she
go up in the lift with you!

RODRIGO--That’s a shameless, perfidious lie!

CASTI-PIANI--She told me so herself. You threatened to denounce her if
she didn’t go with you.--Shall I shoot you on the spot?

RODRIGO--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!

CASTI-PIANI--Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know. [_Exit, upper
left._]

RODRIGO--Such a hound! A fellow I could throw 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!

LULU--[_Enters, lower left; merrily._] Where were you? I’ve been
hunting for you like a pin.

RODRIGO--I’ve shown =him= what it means to start anything with me!

LULU--Whom?

RODRIGO--Your Casti-Piani! What made you tell him, you slut, that I
wanted to seduce you?!

LULU--Did you not demand that I give myself to my late husband’s son
for twenty thousand in Jungfrau-shares?

RODRIGO--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 =my= 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!

LULU--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.

RODRIGO--What’s the beast waiting for?

LULU--For you to take her with you.

RODRIGO--Then give her my regards, and she can jump into the water.

LULU--She’ll lend me twenty thousand marks to save me from destruction
if you will preserve her 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.

RODRIGO--And if I don’t take her off with me?

LULU--Denounce me! Alva and I are dead broke.

RODRIGO--Devil and damnation!

LULU--You make four people happy if you strain a point and sacrifice
yourself for a worthy end.

RODRIGO--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!

LULU--[_Watchfully._] She is still a virgin.

RODRIGO--[_Sighing._] If there’s a God in heaven, you’ll get paid for
your jokes some day! I prophesy that.

LULU--Geschwitz waits. What shall I tell her?

RODRIGO--My very best wishes, and I am perverse.

LULU--I will deliver that.

RODRIGO--Wait a second. Is it certain sure I get twenty thousand marks
from her?

LULU--Ask herself!

RODRIGO--Then tell her I’m ready. I await her in the dining-room. I
must just first look after a barrel of caviare. [_Exit, left._ LULU
_opens the rear door and calls in a clear voice “Martha!”_ COUNTESS
GESCHWITZ _enters, closing the door behind her_.]

LULU--[_Pleased._] Dear heart, you can save me from death to-night.

GESCHWITZ--How?

LULU--By going to a certain house with the acrobat.

GESCHWITZ--What for, dear?

LULU--He says you must belong to him this very night or he’ll denounce
me to-morrow.

GESCHWITZ--You know I can’t belong to any man. My fate has not
permitted that.

LULU--If you don’t please him, that’s his own fix. Why has he fallen in
love with you?

GESCHWITZ--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?

LULU--What will you gain by his denouncing me?

GESCHWITZ--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.

LULU--[_Pleased and gay._] 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.

GESCHWITZ--[_Shuddering._] 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!

LULU--[_Watchful._] Perhaps the encounter will cure you.

GESCHWITZ--[_Sighing._] 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?

LULU--You needn’t complain. When you =are= happy you’re a hundred
thousand times happier than one of us ordinary mortals ever is!

GESCHWITZ--I know that too! I envy no one! But I am still waiting. You
have deceived me so often already.

LULU--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.

GESCHWITZ--And to-morrow?

LULU--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.

GESCHWITZ--Then let him come.

LULU--But you must throw yourself at his head, dear! Have you got the
house-number?

GESCHWITZ--Three-seventy-six. But quick now!

LULU--[_Calls into the dining-room._] Ready, my darling?

RODRIGO--[_Entering._] The ladies will pardon my mouth’s being full.

GESCHWITZ--[_Seizing his hand._] I implore you, have mercy on my need!

RODRIGO--A la bonne heure! Let us mount the scaffold! [_Offers her his
arm._]

LULU--Good night, children! [_Accompanies them into the corridor ...
then quickly returns with_ BOB.] Quick, quick, Bob! We must get away
this moment! You escort me! But we must change clothes!

BOB--[_Curt and clear._] As the gracious lady bids.

LULU--Oh what, gracious lady! You give me your clothes and put on mine.
Come! [_Exeunt into the dining-room. Noise in the card-room, the doors
are torn open, and_ PUNTSCHU, HEILMANN, ALVA, BIANETTA, MAGELONE,
KADIDIA _and_ LUDMILLA _enter_, HEILMANN _holding a piece of paper with
a glowing Alpine peak at its top_.]

HEILMANN--[_To_ PUNTSCHU.] Will you accept this share of
Jungfrau-stock, sir?

PUNTSCHU--But that paper has no exchange, my friend.

HEILMANN--You rascal! You just don’t want to give me my revenge!

MAGELONE--[_To_ BIANETTA.] Have you any idea what it’s all about?

LUDMILLA--Puntschu has taken all his money from him, and now gives up
the game.

HEILMANN--Now he’s got cold feet, the filthy Jew!

PUNTSCHU--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!

HEILMANN--Trash you call that? The stock to my knowledge is at 210!

PUNTSCHU--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.

ALVA--But how is that possible? Then we =would= be down and out!

PUNTSCHU---Well, what am _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!

MAGELONE--[_Pressing forward._] Am I dreaming or do I really understand
the Jungfrau-stock has fallen?

PUNTSCHU--Fallen even lower than you! Tho you can use ’em for
curl-paper.

MAGELONE--O God in Heaven! Ten years’ work! [_Falls in a faint._]

KADIDIA--Wake up, Mama! Wake up!

BIANETTA--Say, Mr. Puntschu, where will you eat this evening, since
you’ve lost your whole fortune?

PUNTSCHU--Wherever you like, young lady! Take me where you will, but
quickly! Here it’s getting quite alarming. [_Exeunt_ PUNTSCHU _and_
BIANETTA.]

HEILMANN--[_Squeezing up his stock and flinging it to the ground._]
That is what one gets from this pack!

LUDMILLA--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.

HEILMANN--I’ve never tried that yet, but if you want to help me----?

LUDMILLA--Let’s go to an all-night restaurant. Do you know the
Five-footed Calf?

HEILMANN--I’m very sorry----

LUDMILLA--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.

HEILMANN--Don’t you sleep?

LUDMILLA--Oh, of course; but not at night. [_Exeunt_ HEILMANN _and_
LUDMILLA.]

ALVA--[_Who has been trying to resuscitate_ MAGELONE.] 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.

KADIDIA--[_Without stirring._] I’m afraid. [LULU _enters lower left in
a jockey-cap, red jacket, white leather breeches and riding boots, a
riding cape over her shoulders_.]

LULU--Have you any cash, Alva?

ALVA--[_Looking up._] Have you gone crazy?

LULU--In two minutes the police’ll be here. We are denounced. You can
stay, of course, if you’re eager to!

ALVA--[_Springing up._] Merciful Heaven! [_Exeunt_ ALVA _and_ LULU.]

KADIDIA--[_Shaking her mother, in tears._] Mama, Mama! Wake up! They’ve
all run away!

MAGELONE--[_Coming to herself._] And youth gone! And my best days
behind me! Oh, this life!

KADIDIA--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!

MAGELONE--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.

KADIDIA--But you’ve got no voice, Mama!

MAGELONE--Ah, yes, that’s true!

KADIDIA--Take me with you into vaudeville!

MAGELONE--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!

KADIDIA--O Mama, how glad that makes me feel! [_A plain-clothes
detective enters, upper left._]

DETECTIVE--In the name of the law--I arrest you!

CASTI-PIANI--[_Following him, bored._] What sort of nonsense is that?
=That= isn’t the right one!


CURTAIN




ACT III


 SCENE--_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._

     _The rain beats on the roof_. SCHIGOLCH _in a long gray overcoat
     lies on the mattress_; ALVA _on the couch, wrapped in a plaid
     whose straps still hang on the wall above him_.

SCHIGOLCH--The rain’s drumming for the parade.

ALVA--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.

SCHIGOLCH--Ya, ya. And I was dreaming of a Christmas pudding. [LULU
_appears with her rather short hair falling to her shoulders, barefoot,
in a torn black dress_.] Where have you been, child? Curling your hair
first?

ALVA--She only does that to revive old memories.

LULU--If one could only get warmed up a little, from one of you!

ALVA--Are you going to enter barefoot on your pilgrimage?

SCHIGOLCH--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.

ALVA--The bowl is running over.

LULU--What shall I do with the water?

ALVA--Pour it out the window. [LULU _gets up on the chair and empties
the bowl thru the skylight_.]

LULU--It looks as if the rain were going to let up at last.

SCHIGOLCH--You’re wasting the time when the clerks go home after supper.

LULU--Would to God I were lying somewhere where no step would wake me
any more!

ALVA--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?

LULU--Why don’t =you= go out and get us something to eat? You’ve never
earned a penny in your whole life!

ALVA--In this weather, when no one would kick a dog from his door?

LULU--But me! I, with the little blood I have left in my limbs, I am to
stop your mouths!

ALVA--I don’t touch a farthing of the money!

SCHIGOLCH--Let her go, just! I long for one more Christmas pudding;
then I’ve had enough.

ALVA--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!

SCHIGOLCH--She’ll rather see us finished before her eyes, than go and
do herself a little pleasure.

LULU--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!

ALVA--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.

SCHIGOLCH--Ya, ya.

ALVA--I spared myself no disillusionments; but when I made jokes, they
laughed at =me=, 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.

SCHIGOLCH--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.

LULU--In the name of the three devils, I’ll go down! [_She puts to her
mouth the bottle on the flower-table._]

SCHIGOLCH--So they can smell your stink a half-hour off!

LULU--I shan’t drink it all.

ALVA--You won’t go down. You’re my woman. You shan’t go down. I forbid
it!

LULU--What would you forbid your woman when you can’t support yourself?

ALVA--Whose fault is that? Who but my woman has laid me on the sick-bed?

LULU--Am _I_ sick?

ALVA--Who has trailed me thru the dung? Who has made me my father’s
murderer?

LULU--Did =you= 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! [_She goes out, into her room._]

ALVA--She infected me from her Casti-Piani. It’s a long time since she
was susceptible to it herself!

SCHIGOLCH--Little devils like her can’t begin putting up with it too
soon, if angels are ever going to come out of them.

ALVA--She ought to have been born Empress of Russia. Then she’d
have been in the right place. A second Catherine the Second! [LULU
_re-enters with a worn-out pair of boots, and sits on the floor to put
them on_.]

LULU--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?

SCHIGOLCH--Patience, patience! It’s just a question of getting the
right push into the business.

LULU--It’ll be all right with me! No one need pity me any more. [_Puts
the bottle to her lips._] That fires one!--O accursed! [_Exit._]

SCHIGOLCH--When we hear her coming, we must creep into my cubby-hole
awhile.

ALVA--I’m damned sorry for her! When I think back.... I grew up with
her in a way, you know.

SCHIGOLCH--She’ll hold out as long as I live, anyway.

ALVA--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----”

SCHIGOLCH--Oh, ya!

ALVA--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 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.

SCHIGOLCH--I’ve only got a strong doubt whether anyone will bite any
more.

ALVA--I shouldn’t like to advise anyone to! [SCHIGOLCH _grunts_.]--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 =her= came, then, my mistress. Well, so that is the way of the
world. Who will prevail against it?

SCHIGOLCH--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.

ALVA--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 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_
stood before her soul. That was the way, without my realizing it, that
she acquired this dreadful power over me.

SCHIGOLCH--There they are! [_Heavy steps are heard mounting the
stairs._]

ALVA--[_Starting up._] I will not endure it! I’ll throw the fellow out!

SCHIGOLCH--[_Wearily picks himself up, takes_ ALVA _by the collar and
cuffs him toward the left_.] Forward, forward! How is the young man to
confess his trouble to her with us two sprawling round here?

ALVA--But if he demands other things--low things--of her?

SCHIGOLCH--If, well, if! What more will he demand of her? He’s only a
man like the rest of us!

ALVA--We must leave the door open.

SCHIGOLCH--[_Pushing_ ALVA _in, right_.] Nonsense! Lie down!

ALVA--I’ll hear it soon enough. Heaven spare him!

SCHIGOLCH--[_Closing the door, from inside._] Shut up!

ALVA--[_Faintly._] He’d better look out! [LULU _enters, followed by_
HUNIDEI, _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._]

LULU--Here’s where I live. [HUNIDEI _puts his finger to his lips and
looks at_ LULU _significantly. Then he opens his umbrella and puts
it on the floor, rear, to dry._] Of course, I know it isn’t very
comfortable here. [HUNIDEI _comes forward and puts his hand over her
mouth_.] What do you mean me to understand by that? [HUNIDEI _puts his
hand over her mouth, and his finger to his lips_.] I don’t know what
that means. [HUNIDEI _quickly stops her mouth_. LULU _frees herself_.]
We’re quite alone here. No one will hear us. [HUNIDEI _lays his finger
on his lips, shakes his head, points at_ LULU, _opens his mouth as if
to speak, points at himself and then at the door_.] Good Lord, he’s
a monster! [HUNIDEI _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_ LULU’s _head in both his hands and kisses her on
the forehead. The door, right, half opens._]

SCHIGOLCH--[_Behind the door._] He’s got a screw loose.

ALVA--He’d better look out!

SCHIGOLCH--She couldn’t have brought up anything drearier!

LULU--[_Stepping back._] I hope you’re going to give me something!
[HUNIDEI _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_.] All right, it’s good. [_Puts it in
her pocket._ HUNIDEI _quickly stops her mouth, gives her a few silver
coins, and glances at her commandingly_.] Oh, that’s nice of you!
[HUNIDEI _leaps madly about the room, brandishing his arms and staring
upward in despair_. LULU _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._
ALVA _and_ SCHIGOLCH _creep out on all fours_.]

ALVA--They’re gone.

SCHIGOLCH--[_Behind him._] Wait.

ALVA--One can hear nothing here.

SCHIGOLCH--You’ve heard that often enough!

ALVA--I will kneel before her door.

SCHIGOLCH--Little mother’s sonny! [_Presses past_ ALVA, _gropes across
the stage to_ HUNIDEI’s _coat, and searches the pockets_. ALVA _crawls
to_ LULU’s _door_.] Gloves, nothing more! [_Turns the coat round,
searches the inside pockets, pulls a book out that he gives to_ ALVA.]
Just see what that is. [ALVA _holds the book to the light_.]

ALVA--[_Wearily deciphering the title-page._] Warnings to pious
pilgrims and such as wish to be so. Very helpful. Price, 2s. 6d.

SCHIGOLCH--It looks to me as if God had left =him= pretty completely.
[_Lays the coat over the chair again and makes for the cubby-hole._]
There’s nothing =to= these people. The country’s best time’s behind it!

ALVA--Life is never as bad as it’s painted. [_He, too, creeps back._]

SCHIGOLCH--Not even a silk muffler he’s got and yet in Germany we creep
on our bellies before this rabble.

ALVA--Come, let’s vanish again.

SCHIGOLCH--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! [_They disappear, left, shutting the door behind them._ LULU
_re-enters, setting the lamp on the table_. HUNIDEI _follows_.]

LULU--Will you come to see me again? [HUNIDEI _stops her mouth. She
looks upward in a sort of despair and shakes her head_. HUNIDEI,
_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._ SCHIGOLCH _and_ ALVA
_re-enter_.]

LULU--[_Tonelessly._] How he has stirred me up!

ALVA--How much did he give you?

LULU--[_As before._] Here it is! All! Take it! I’m going down again.

SCHIGOLCH--We can still live like princes up here.

ALVA--He’s coming back.

SCHIGOLCH--Then let’s just retire again, quick.

ALVA--He’s after his prayer-book. Here it is. It must have fallen out
of his coat.

LULU--[_Listening._] No, that isn’t he. That’s someone else.

ALVA--Someone’s coming up. I hear it quite plainly.

LULU--Now there’s someone tapping at the door. Who can it be?

SCHIGOLCH--Probably a good friend he’s recommended us to. Come in!
[COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _enters, in poor clothes, with a canvas roll in her
hand_.]

GESCHWITZ--[_To_ LULU.] 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.

SCHIGOLCH--And now your ladyship would like to stretch her feet out
under =our= table?

LULU--[_Tonelessly._] I’m going down again.

GESCHWITZ--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.

SCHIGOLCH--What is it?

ALVA--Let us see it. [_Takes the canvas and unrolls it. Visibly
rejoiced._] Oh, by God, it’s Lulu’s portrait!

LULU--[_Screaming._] Monster, you brought that here? Get it out of my
sight! Throw it out of the window!

ALVA--[_Suddenly with renewed life, deeply pleased._] 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. [_In a somewhat elegiac strain._] 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!

SCHIGOLCH--We must nail it up. It will make an excellent impression on
our patrons.

ALVA--[_Energetic._] There’s a nail sticking all ready for it in the
wall.

SCHIGOLCH--But how did you come upon this acquisition?

GESCHWITZ--I secretly cut it out of the wall in your house, there,
after you were gone.

ALVA--Too bad the color’s got rubbed off round the edges. You didn’t
roll it up carefully enough. [_Fastens it to a high nail in the wall._]

SCHIGOLCH--It’s got to have another one underneath if it’s going to
hold. It makes the whole flat look more elegant.

ALVA--Let me alone; I know how I’ll do it. [_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._]

SCHIGOLCH--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.

ALVA--[_Putting on his boot again, standing up proudly._] 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.

GESCHWITZ---He must have been an eminently gifted artist who painted
that!

LULU--[_Perfectly composed again, stepping before the picture with the
lamp._] Didn’t you know him, then?

GESCHWITZ--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.

ALVA--[_Comparing the picture with_ LULU.] The child-like expression
in the eyes is still absolutely the same in spite of all she has lived
thru since. [_In joyous excitement._] 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----

SCHIGOLCH--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.

ALVA--[_Cheerfully._] God be thanked, we don’t notice the gradual
decline when we see a person all the time. [_Lightly._] The woman
blooms for us in the moment when she hurls the man to destruction for
the rest of his life. That is, so to say, her nature and her destiny.

SCHIGOLCH--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.

LULU--[_Now as pleased as_ ALVA.] I shall see if you’re right. Adieu.

ALVA--[_In sudden anger._] You shall not go down again, as I live!

GESCHWITZ--Where do you want to go?

ALVA--Down to fetch up a man.

GESCHWITZ--Lulu!

ALVA--She’s done it once to-day already.

GESCHWITZ--Lulu, Lulu, where you go I go, too.

SCHIGOLCH--If you want to put your bones up for sale, kindly hunt up a
district of your own!

GESCHWITZ--Lulu, I shall not stir from your side! I have weapons upon
me.

SCHIGOLCH--Confound it all, her ladyship means to fish with our bait!

LULU--You’re killing me. I can’t stand it here any more. [_Exit._]

GESCHWITZ--You need fear nothing. I am with you. [_Follows her._]

ALVA--[_Whimpering, throws himself on his couch._ SCHIGOLCH _swears,
loudly and grumbling_.] I guess there’s not much more good to expect on
this side!

SCHIGOLCH--We ought to have held the creature back by the throat.
She’ll scare away everything that breathes with her aristocratic
death’s head.

ALVA--She’s flung me onto a sick-bed and larded me with thorns outside
and in!

SCHIGOLCH--[_On_ GESCHWITZ _still_.] All the same, she’s got enough
spirit in her for ten men, she has!

ALVA--No mortally wounded man’ll ever be more thankful for his
coup-de-grâce than I!

SCHIGOLCH--If she hadn’t enticed the acrobat into my place that time,
we’d still have had =him= round our necks to-day.

ALVA--I see it trembling above my head as Tantalus saw the branch with
the golden apples!

SCHIGOLCH--[_On his mattress._] Won’t you turn up the lamp a little?

ALVA--I wonder, can a simple, natural man in the wilderness suffer so
unspeakably, too?--God, God, what have I made of my life!

SCHIGOLCH--What’s the beastly weather made of my ulster!--When _I_ was
five-and-twenty, I knew how to help myself!

ALVA--Not everyone has had the joy of my sunny, glorious youth!

SCHIGOLCH--I guess it’s going right out. When they come back it’ll be
as dark in here again as in the womb.

ALVA--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, 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!

SCHIGOLCH--If only they haven’t stayed together! Nobody but a silly boy
will go with two, no matter what.

ALVA--They’ve not stayed together!

SCHIGOLCH--That’s what I hope. If need be, she’ll keep the creature off
from her with kicks.

ALVA--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!

SCHIGOLCH--Here they come!

ALVA--And what blessed hours of mutual joy in creation they had lived
thru with each other!

SCHIGOLCH--That they can rightly do for the first time now!--We must
hide again.

ALVA--I stay here.

SCHIGOLCH--Just what do you pity them for?--He who spends his money has
his good reasons for it!

ALVA--I have no longer the moral courage to let my comfort be disturbed
for a miserable sum of money! [_He wraps himself up in his plaid._]

SCHIGOLCH--Noblesse oblige! A respectable man does what he owes his
position. [_He hides, left._ LULU _opens the door, saying “Come right
in, dearie,” and there enters_ PRINCE KUNGU POTI, _heir-apparent of
Uahubee, in a light suit, white spats, tan button-boots, and a gray
tall hat. His speech, interrupted with frequent hiccoughs, abounds
with the peculiar African hiss-sounds._]

KUNGU POTI--God damn--it’s dark on the stairs!

LULU--It’s lighter here, sweetheart. [_Pulling him forward by the
hand._] Come on!

KUNGU POTI--But it’s cold here, awful cold!

LULU--Have some brandy?

KUNGU POTI--Brandy? You bet--always! Brandy’s good!

LULU--[_Giving him the bottle._] I don’t know where the glass is.

KUNGU POTI--Doesn’t matter. [_Drinks._] Brandy! Lots of it!

LULU--You’re a nice-looking young man.

KUNGU POTI--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....

LULU--How much will you give me?

KUNGU POTI--Gold! You trust me, you’ll have gold! One gold-piece. I
always give gold-pieces.

LULU--You can give it to me later, but show it to me.

KUNGU POTI--I never pay beforehand.

LULU--But you can show it to me, tho!

KUNGU POTI--Don’t understand, don’t understand! Come, Ragapsishimulara!
[_Seizing_ LULU _round the waist_.] Come on!

LULU--[_Defending herself with all her strength._] Let me be! Let me
be! [ALVA, _who has risen painfully from his couch, sneaks up to_
KUNGU POTI _from behind and pulls him back by the collar_.]

KUNGU POTI--[_Whirling round._] Oh! Oh! This is a murder-hole!
Come, my friend. I’ll put you to sleep! [_Strikes him over the head
with a loaded cane._ ALVA _groans and falls in a heap_.] Here’s a
sleeping-draught! Here’s opium for you! Sweet dreams to you! Sweet
dreams! [_Then he gives_ LULU _a kiss; pointing to_ ALVA.] He dreams of
you, Ragapsishimulara! Sweet dreams! [_Rushing to the door._] Here’s
the door! [_Exit._]

LULU--But I’ll not stay here?!--Who can stand it here now!--Rather down
onto the street! [_Exit._ SCHIGOLCH _comes out_.]

SCHIGOLCH--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! [_Strikes a match and sticks it into_ ALVA’S
_collar_....] He will have his rest. But no one sleeps here.--[_Drags
him by the head into_ LULU’S _room. Returning, he tries to turn up the
light._] 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! [_Fixing an eye on_ LULU’S
_picture_.] 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---- [COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _enters_.] ... If you want to lodge
with us to-night, kindly take a little care that nothing is stolen here.

GESCHWITZ--How dark it is here!

SCHIGOLCH--It gets much darker than this.--The doctor’s already gone to
rest.

GESCHWITZ--She sent me ahead.

SCHIGOLCH--That was sensible.--If anyone asks for me, I’m sitting
downstairs in the pub.

GESCHWITZ--[_After he has gone._] I will sit behind the door. I will
look on at everything and not quiver an eyelash. [_Sits on the broken
chair._] 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 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.... [LULU _opens
the door, and_ DR. HILTI _enters_. GESCHWITZ, _unnoticed, remains
motionless by the door_.]

LULU--[_Gaily._] Come right in! Come!--you’ll stay with me all night?

DR. HILTI--[_His accent is very broad and flat._[10]] But I have no
more than five shillings on me. I never take more than that when I go
out.

LULU--That’s enough, seeing it’s you! You have such faithful eyes!
Come, give me a kiss! [_She flings herself down on the couch._ DR.
HILTI _begins to swear in his native tongue_.[11]] Please, don’t say
that.

DR. HILTI--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!

LULU--Are you married?

DR. HILTI--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!

LULU--So you have never been with a woman?

DR. HILTI--Just so, yeah! But I want it now. I got engaged this evening
to a country-woman of mine. She’s a governess here.

LULU--Is she pretty?

DR. HILTI--Yeah, she’s got a hundred thousand.--I am very much excited,
as it seems to me.

LULU--[_Tossing back her hair and getting up._] I =am= in luck! [_Takes
the lamp._] Well, if you please, Mr. Tutor? [_They go into her room._
GESCHWITZ _draws a small black revolver from her pocket and sets it to
her forehead_.]

GESCHWITZ--Come, come,--beloved! [DR. HILTI _tears open the door
again_.]

DR. HILTI--[_Plunging in._] Insane seraphs! Someone’s lying in there!

LULU--[_Lamp in hand, holds him by the sleeve._] Stay with me!

DR. HILTI--A dead man! A corpse!

LULU--Stay with me! Stay with me!

DR. HILTI--[_Tearing away._] A corpse is lying in there! Horrors! Hail!
Heaven!

LULU--Stay with me!

DR. HILTI--Where d’s it go out? [_Sees_ GESCHWITZ.] And there is the
devil!

LULU--Please, stop, stay!

DR. HILTI--Devil, devilled devilry.--Oh, thou eternal----[_Exit._]

LULU--[_Rushing after him._] Stop! Stop!

GESCHWITZ--[_Alone, lets the revolver sink._] Better, hang! If now
she sees me lying in my blood, 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. [_Starting up._] There!--There! There
it is!--Quick now, before she comes! [_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._]
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! [_She drags herself before_ LULU’S _picture,
sinks on her knees and folds her hands_.] My adoréd angel! My love! My
star!--Have mercy upon me, pity me, pity me, pity me! [LULU _opens the
door, and_ JACK _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 a dark overcoat and
a little round felt hat. Entering, he notices_ GESCHWITZ.]

JACK--Who is that?

LULU--That’s my sister, sir. She’s crazy. I don’t know how to get rid
of her.

JACK--Your mouth looks beautiful.

LULU--It’s my mother’s.

JACK--Looks like it. How much do you want? I haven’t got much money.

LULU--Won’t you spend the night with me here?

JACK--No, haven’t got the time. I must get home.

LULU--You can tell them at home to-morrow that you missed the last ’bus
and spent the night with a friend.

JACK--How much do you want?

LULU--I’m not after lumps of gold, but, well, a little something.

JACK--[_Turning._] Good night! Good night!

LULU--[_Holds him back._] No, no! Stay, for God’s sake!

JACK--[_Goes past_ GESCHWITZ _and opens the cubicle_.] Why should I
stay here till morning? Sounds suspicious! When I’m asleep they’ll turn
my pockets out.

LULU--No, I won’t do that! No one will! Don’t go away again for that! I
beg you!

JACK--How much do you want?

LULU--Then give me the half of what I said!

JACK--No, that’s too much. You don’t seem to have been at this long?

LULU--To-day is the first time. [GESCHWITZ, _still on her knees, has
half risen toward_ JACK; LULU _yanks her back by the straps around her
neck_.] Lie down and be quiet!

JACK--Let her alone! She isn’t your sister. She is in love with you.
[_Strokes_ GESCHWITZ’S _head like a dog’s_.] Poor beast!

LULU--Why do you stare at me so all at once?

JACK--I got your measure by the way you walked. I said to myself: That
girl must have a well-built body.

LULU--But how can you tell a thing like that?

JACK--I even saw that you had a pretty mouth. But I’ve only got a
florin on me.

LULU--Well, what difference does that make! Just give that to me!

JACK--But you’ll have to give me half back, so I can take the ’bus
to-morrow morning.

LULU--I have nothing on me.

JACK--Just look, though. Hunt thru your pockets!--Well, what’s that?
Let’s see it!

LULU--[_Showing him._] That’s all I have.

JACK--Give it to me!

LULU--I’ll change it to-morrow, and then give you half.

JACK--No, give it all to me.

LULU--[_Giving it._] In God’s name! But now you come! [_Takes up the
lamp._]

JACK--We need no light. The moon’s out.

LULU--[_Puts the lamp down._] As you say. [_She falls on his neck._] I
won’t harm you at all! I love you so! Don’t let me beg you any longer!

JACK--All right; I’m with you. [_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._]

GESCHWITZ--[_As in a dream._] 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.... [LULU _shrieks, and tears open the door_.]

LULU--[_Barefoot, in chemise and petticoat, holding the door shut
behind her._] Help! Help! [GESCHWITZ _rushes to the door, draws her
revolver, and crying “Let go!” pushes_ LULU _aside. As she aims at the
door_, JACK, _bent double, tears it open from inside, and runs a knife
into_ GESCHWITZ’S _body. She fires one shot, at the roof, and falls
with suppressed crying, crumpling up._ JACK _tears her revolver from
her and throws himself against the exit-door_.]

JACK--God damn! I never saw a prettier mouth! [_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._ LULU,
_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_ JACK. _He swings up his right foot and throws her onto her
back. Then he lifts her up._]

LULU--No, no!--Mercy!--Murder!--Police! Police!

JACK--Be still. You’ll never get away from me again. [_Carries her in._]

LULU--[_Within, right._] No.--No!--No!--Ah!--Ah!... [_After a pause_,
JACK _re-enters. He puts the bowl on the table._]

JACK--That =was= a piece of work! [_Washing his hands._] I =am= a
damned lucky chap! [_Looks round for a towel._] Not even a towel,
these folks here! Hell of a wretched hole! [_He dries his hands on_
GESCHWITZ’S _petticoat_.] This invert is safe enough from me! [_To
her._] It’ll soon be all up with you, too. [_Exit._]

GESCHWITZ--[_Alone._] Lulu!--My angel!--Let me see thee once more!
I am near thee--stay near thee--forever! [_Her elbows give way._] O
cursed--!! [_Dies._]


CURTAIN


FOOTNOTES:

[9] For the meaning of this see page 51.

[10] In the original he comes from Basle, Switzerland. English with a
Dutch accent might offer the best equivalent.

[11] “Hiemäl, Härgoht, Töüfäl, Kräuzpataliohn,” such is the weird
appearance of all his German.




                               DAMNATION!

                            (TOD UND TEUFEL)

                     A Death-Dance in Three Scenes


                                             “Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν
                                             ὅτι οἱ πόρναι
                                             προάγουσιν ὑμᾶς
                                             εἰς τῆν βασιλείαν
                                             τοῦ Θεοῦ.”
                                                     ὁ Ἰησοῦς.
                                                 (_Matth._ 21. 31.)




CHARACTERS


  MARQUIS CASTI-PIANI
  FRÄULEIN ELFRIEDE VON MALCHUS
  HERR KÖNIG
  LISISKA
  THREE GIRLS


 SCENE--_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._

     ELFRIEDE VON MALCHUS _sits in one of the arm-chairs. She is
     evidently uneasy. She wears a modern “reformed” dress with hat,
     cloak, and gloves._

ELFRIEDE--How much longer are they going to keep me waiting? [_Long
pause. She remains sitting motionless._] How much longer are they going
to keep me waiting! [_Long pause as before._] How much longer are
they going to keep me waiting here!! [_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_:] How much longer will they
keep me waiting here??!! [_On her last word, the_ MARQUIS CASTI-PIANI
_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 coat, a dark, fancy
waistcoat, dark gray trousers, patent-leather shoes and a black cravat
with a diamond pin._]

CASTI-PIANI--[_Bowing._] What can I do for you, madam?

ELFRIEDE--I have already explained it to the--lady, as clearly as I can
possibly explain it, =why= I am here.

CASTI-PIANI--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.

ELFRIEDE--=That= I =am=! I =am= a member of the International Union for
the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic. But even if I did =not=
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.

CASTI-PIANI--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 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.

ELFRIEDE--[_Walking up and down._] 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.

CASTI-PIANI--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.

ELFRIEDE--I have been a member of our Union for nearly three years now.
My name is--Fräulein von Malchus.

CASTI-PIANI--Elfriede von Malchus?

ELFRIEDE--Yes, Elfriede von Malchus.--How do you know my first name?

CASTI-PIANI--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?

ELFRIEDE--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!

CASTI-PIANI--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?

ELFRIEDE--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 how my papers could have got into such atrocious confusion!

CASTI-PIANI--If I mistake not, my dear young lady, the girl had been
engaged by your parents to do the lighter housework?

ELFRIEDE--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.

CASTI-PIANI--The girl is the illegitimate child of a wash-woman?--Do
you perhaps know who her father was?

ELFRIEDE--No, I never asked her about that.--But pray who are you? How
do you come to know all this?

CASTI-PIANI--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.

ELFRIEDE--And you dare tell me that--with such cynicism!

CASTI-PIANI--I dare tell you that, my dear young lady, with just such
objectivity.

ELFRIEDE--[_In the utmost excitement, with fists clenched._] So the
monster who delivered up this girl to a life of shame was you!

CASTI-PIANI--[_With a disconsolate smile._] 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_ seem to you to be.

ELFRIEDE--[_Curt._] I don’t understand that. I don’t know what you mean!

CASTI-PIANI--You--are--still--a virgin?

ELFRIEDE--[_Gasping._] How dare you put such a question to me!

CASTI-PIANI--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.

ELFRIEDE--You may be right in that.

CASTI-PIANI--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 sensuous cravings that you
have?--to be sure, as you admit, extremely weak?

ELFRIEDE--Well?

CASTI-PIANI--By joining the International Union for the Suppression of
the White Slave Traffic.

ELFRIEDE--[_Restraining her anger._] 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.

CASTI-PIANI--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 =you= nature has
conferred but an extremely scant sensuous susceptibility. The storms of
life have long since made a horribly chilly desert of =me=. But what
fighting the white slave traffic is to =your= sensual life, that, to
mine, if you will still grant me something of the kind,--is the white
slave traffic itself!

ELFRIEDE--[_Aroused._] Don’t dissemble so shamelessly, you vile
creature! Do you think you can lull me to sleep with your fantastic
=sense=-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. 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!

CASTI-PIANI--Good business! Naturally! But good business is based on
profits for both parties. I may say that I do no business which is
=not= good. Every business that is not good is immoral!--Or do you
believe perhaps that the love-business is a =bad= business for the
woman?

ELFRIEDE--How do you mean?

CASTI-PIANI--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?

ELFRIEDE--Save your introduction, for God’s sake!

CASTI-PIANI--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----

ELFRIEDE--That’s the screaming incongruity exactly! That’s what I’m
always saying. To =bear= children is pain and care, but to =beget=
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!

CASTI-PIANI--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!

ELFRIEDE--[_Almost in tears._] That possibility of selling ourselves
weighs on our oppressed sex as an unspeakable misfortune, an
everlasting curse!

CASTI-PIANI--But--God in heaven knows--it isn’t =our= 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!

ELFRIEDE--[_Boiling over._] I won’t let you humbug me here any
longer! I am firmly convinced that 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! [_Takes
hat._]

CASTI-PIANI--[_Smiling._] If you guessed, dear lady, how your outburst
of rage beautified your bourgeois appearance, you would not be in such
a hurry to depart.

ELFRIEDE--Let me out! It’s high time!

CASTI-PIANI--Where are you thinking of going now?

ELFRIEDE--You know quite as well as I do where I am going now!

CASTI-PIANI--[_Takes her by the throat, chokes her, and forces her into
one of the chairs._] 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!--[_Letting her go._]
I shall be surprised if I don’t bring you to reason before you run
straight from this house to the police!

ELFRIEDE--[_Gasping, toneless._] It’s the first time in my life
violence like that has been offered me!

CASTI-PIANI--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 =joy=! Then you needn’t feel sorry for the
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!

ELFRIEDE--[_Still as though stunned._] 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.

CASTI-PIANI--Have you calmed down at last?

ELFRIEDE--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?

CASTI-PIANI--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, 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! =Whore= here and =whore= 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 =morality= 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!

ELFRIEDE--[_Stands up and lays her cloak over the chair. Walking up
and down._] 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 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.

CASTI-PIANI--[_In a singsong._] 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.

ELFRIEDE--[_Staring at him._] What do you mean by =that=?--There’s
something monstrous in your mind?!

CASTI-PIANI--[_Very quietly._] I said it only in regard to your
views, which so far have let you feel so innocently safe in throwing
round epithets like =respectable= and =vile= as if you were specially
commissioned of God to sit in judgment on your fellow-mortals.

ELFRIEDE--[_Staring at him._] You’re a great man.--You’re a high-minded
man!

CASTI-PIANI--Your words probe the mortal wound that I brought with me
into the world and that I shall probably die of, some day. [_Throws
himself into a chair._] I am--a moralist!

ELFRIEDE--And would you bewail your fate on that account?! Because
the power of making other men happy was given you? [_After a short
inner struggle, she throws herself at his feet._] Marry me, marry me,
for mercy’s sake! Before I saw =you= 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 =love= 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!

CASTI-PIANI--[_Stroking her head, without looking at her._] 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.

ELFRIEDE--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 life what superhuman
sacrifices a woman is capable of in her boundless love!

CASTI-PIANI--[_Still without looking at her, stroking her hair._] 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 =free love-market=, where the tigress triumphs, is founded
on a =primordial law= of =unalterable nature=. 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 mind
and soul. The growing girl must not know what it means =to be a woman=.
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 =immorality=
which cries to Heaven ravage this world with the sword and ax of
morality!

ELFRIEDE--[_Voicelessly whimpering._] Marry me! You stand above and
beyond the world! For the first time, to-day I offer my hand to a man!

CASTI-PIANI--[_Stroking her hair without looking at her._] Materialism!
Commercialism!--What would the world know about morality at all, if man
could commandeer love as he bosses politics!

ELFRIEDE--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!

CASTI-PIANI--Have you ever asked yourself what marriage means?

ELFRIEDE--Till this moment I’ve had no occasion to do so. [_Rising._]
Tell me! I shall do everything to come up to your requirements.

CASTI-PIANI--[_Draws her onto his knee._] Come here, my child. I’ll
explain it to you. [ELFRIEDE _is prudish for a moment_.] Please keep
still.

ELFRIEDE--I have never sat on a man’s knee.

CASTI-PIANI--Give me a kiss. [_She kisses him._] Thanks. [_Holding
her off._] You’d like to know what marriage is?--Tell me, which is
stronger: a man who has =one= dog or a man who has =none=?

ELFRIEDE--The man who has the dog is stronger.

CASTI-PIANI--And now tell me again, which is stronger: a man who has
one dog or a man who has =two= dogs?

ELFRIEDE--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.

CASTI-PIANI--That would be the least consideration. But he would have
to feed =two= dogs or else they’d run away, while =one= dog takes care
of himself and also if there is need protects his master from robbers.

ELFRIEDE--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!

CASTI-PIANI--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!

ELFRIEDE--You poor pitiable man! Did you ever know a home and family?
Did you ever have a 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?

CASTI-PIANI--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 =soul=.

ELFRIEDE--[_Kisses him._] If you could guess how much I love you for
all those frightful experiences!

CASTI-PIANI--The life of man is tenfold death =before= death. Not
merely for me. For you! For everything that breathes! For the ordinary
man, life consists of pains, aches and tortures which his =body=
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 =horrible= 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!

ELFRIEDE--[_Caressing him._] 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?

CASTI-PIANI--[_Pushing her off nervously._] 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 =effect= of your caresses, a feeling that every
thoroughbred child is born with.

ELFRIEDE--[_Springing up._] And you dare to tell me that in this house?

CASTI-PIANI--[_Rising simultaneously._] That I dare tell you in this
house!

ELFRIEDE--In this house? That I lack the necessary delicacy, the
necessary =shame=?!

CASTI-PIANI--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 =fine tact= 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 =innocent rapture=
and blissful =innocence=.--[_Regarding_ ELFRIEDE.] In =your= face, with
all due respect, I can find no trace of either rapture or innocence.

ELFRIEDE--[_Hesitating._] 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?

CASTI-PIANI--No, no, madam!--please, no! Get rid of those notions on
the spot!

ELFRIEDE--I am so deeply convinced of the moral significance of
everything you say that the =utmost sacrifice= by which I could
overcome my bourgeois helplessness would not be too great for me!

CASTI-PIANI--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 =one bright star=!

ELFRIEDE--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 =one pure flower of heaven= that must not be
trampled into the dirt?

CASTI-PIANI--[_Taking_ ELFRIEDE’S _hand and whispering mysteriously_.]
Sensual pleasure, gracious lady!--The laughing, sunny enjoyment of
the senses! =Sensual joy is the ray=, the =flower of heaven=, 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 =sensual pleasure= that repays
mankind for all the torments of existence!

ELFRIEDE--I think somebody’s coming.

CASTI-PIANI--Lisiska, probably!

ELFRIEDE--Lisiska? Who is Lisiska?

CASTI-PIANI--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. [_Takes her down right._] Sit down behind this screen.
From here, even =you= can for once in your life watch the =clear,
unsullied= bliss of two people whom the =joy of the senses= draws
together! [ELFRIEDE _seats herself on the stool behind the screen,
right_. CASTI-PIANI _goes to the centre door, glances out, and then
retires behind the screen, left, and sits_. HERR KÖNIG _and_ LISISKA
_enter, centre. He is a young man of twenty-five, in a gay sport-suit
with knee-breeches._ LISISKA _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_.]

HERR KÖNIG--

  I have not come to while my time away,
  A sensualist in the circle of your charms,
  And will with gratitude and friendship pay
  If quickly sober’d I can leave your arms.

LISISKA--

  Speak not so friendly in my ear.
  Here you are lord, and command us here.
  Hesitate not to color my pallid
  And bloodless cheeks with buffets untallied!
  That for a whore like me
  Is an unheard-of fee!
  Helpless lamenting, sobbing and wailing
  Need not cause you the slightest quailing.
  Shallow’s the bliss from such abuse!
  Pile pitiless blow upon blow without truce!
  If your fist should smash in my face entire
  Even that would not slake my desire!

HERR KÖNIG--

  I am not prepared for such words, such a test....
  Is this a merry welcome for the guest?
  You speak as if in purgatory already
  Here, you atoned for lust enjoyed and gone.

LISISKA--

  Oh, no! Untamed the Monster, Lust, doth eddy,
  Raging forever in flesh, blood and bone!
  Think you I, the devil’s spouse,
  Would ever have happened into this house
  If my heart’s horrible hammering stopped
  When Rapture seized me and shone?
  Rapture evaporates, dropped
  On a hot stone!
  And Lust, an unstilled throe,
  A hungering woe,
  Plunges, to find death, into this
  And every abyss!
  Are you not cruel, good sir, in your joys?
  I should be sorry!
  But what do you care for my noise?
  Strike me, your quarry!

HERR KÖNIG--

  If that dark urge is really yours, to go
  From the last depths to something yet below,--
  I could shed tears that from the spring-time crew
  Of amorous girls I picked and chose just you.
  Out of your eyes, so innocent, so gay,
  There gleamed on me a =bliss without alloy=....

LISISKA--

  Do you wish that our time pass away--
  And we have no joy?
  Down there, over our rules and tenets,
  Mother Adele sits, watch in hand:
  Counts and reckons, immovable, bland,
  My enjoyment’s minutes!
      [_Pause._]

HERR KÖNIG--

  You have grown tired of ecstasy at length
  And hope for lassitude from tears and pain,--
  For some deep calm to overcome the strength
  Of your hot craving day and night in vain.

LISISKA--

  If I sleep, then please with a sudden hard
  Punch in the ribs wake me up, well-jarred!

HERR KÖNIG--

  That note was false! A flaw is in the reed!
  --How can a human being understand that?!
  Whistle at happiness--at life--you can that,--
  But =sleep=? No! that was blasphemy indeed!

LISISKA--

  I am not your property,
  You need not protect me;
  Spare not then so anxiously
  The joys that still affect me;
  Seek no means to comfort me;
  Kindness knows not how to;
  Who beats me up most mercilessly,--
  He’s the one I bow to.
            You ask me
            Whether or no
            I still can blush?
            Unmask me
            With a quick blow,
            And mark the flush!

HERR KÖNIG--

  Cold sweat runs down me, chill’d in skull and spine,
  Shuddering!--Let me out!... Half in a dream
  I hoped to pluck the sweet fruits of love’s vine.
  You offer thorns to me instead!... You seem
  A young wild thing; how came it that you strayed--
  Impossible!--from flower-paths to these briars?

LISISKA--

  Leave not my sore desires
  All unallayed!
  Turn not heartless away from your slave!
  Before me I have my grave,
  And my only hope is to leave behind
  No more of this world than I needs must.
  Think you, we only come to such lust
  Because in this house we are kept confined?
  No, it is but the senses’ torturing thirst
  Holds us here accursed!
  But this, too, was reckoned without insight:
  Night by night
  I see it, blinding-clear:--that even
  In this house no heaven
  Of peace to the senses is given!

ELFRIEDE--[_In her hiding-place, to herself, with astonishment._] God
Almighty! That is just the =exact contrary= of what I’ve imagined it
for ten long years!

CASTI-PIANI--[_In his hiding-place, to himself, with horror._] Devil!
Devil! Devil! That is the =exact contrary= of what I’ve imagined about
sensual joy for fifty years!

LISISKA--

  Don’t go away from me! Hear me, hard-hearted!
  I was an innocent child, and started
  Life earnestly, full of duty and zeal!
  I could never carelessly smile,--but =feel=--?!...
  From my teachers, even my brothers and sisters,
  I often heard awed admiring whispers,
  And my parents would both presage:
  “You’ll be the delight of our old age.”
  Then with a sudden blast
  That was past!
  And once-awakened lust
  Grew over all bounds, all “oughts,”
  Over all my thoughts,
  Over all my heart’s feeling of trust,
  So that I marvel’d, driven
  Infatuate, master’d, what it implied,
  That I saw no lightning strike at my side
  Nor heard any thunder from heaven.
  Then it came to me--hope, that our life had been given
  For joy to us, joy never glutted nor dried.

HERR KÖNIG--

  And this high hope you found was not fulfilled?
  --I speak, I know, as a blind man of--of----

LISISKA--

  No--it was only a hellish =drive=
  Whence no joy remained alive.

HERR KÖNIG--

  But when so many girls have died of love--
  Was it with all of them--Desire unstilled?
  --But then, how should such hordes of women press
  By thousands down =your= path of dire excess?

LISISKA--

  Have you no will to glory
  In the stripes upon my body?
  For what was it made so soft,--
  For what was it so tender created?
  Speechless looks have dilated
  O’er stroke upon stroke here, oft!
  Flagging desires anew to inflame
  Boasting I tell from whom they came.

HERR KÖNIG--

  Be still, I tell you! One more word thereon
  And I’ll have stayed too long!... ’Tis plain to see
  In your pale features how tempestuously
  Youth fled from you!... Your innocence once gone,
  Did he who robbed you of it leave you in shame?

LISISKA--

  No--but another came,
  Found glee and blame;
  For always I swore eternal troth
  To the young fools, and broke the oath.
  Always I hoped my curse
  Must disappear with another man.
  Each time it was bitterness or worse.
  No rest could be found for me, or can,
  For ’twas always only the hellish drive
  Out of which no joy came forth alive!

HERR KÖNIG--

  So to this house you came at last, and lead
  A life of riot and revel here indeed!
  Music resounds, champagne drips from the tables,
  Laughter roars through the graying dawn full oft,
  Nought the long working-day knows but the soft
  Sound of hot tongues’ husht lisping of love’s fables.--
  What a low, common beggar I must be
  To you--proud queen of joy and ecstasy!
  I came with what was mine from you to purchase
  A plain, straightforward interchange of pleasure.
  I could tear my hair with rage! For without measure
  Hideous is the lust that here besmirches
  Those libertines your friends and you their game!
  They set no stops to their inhuman glee!
  Hasten and wreathe =their= limbs! A purer aim
  And element upbuoys and quickens me!
  I sought refreshment, and have no desire
  To smear myself in the earth’s deepest mire!

LISISKA--

  Oh, stay! If you desert me now, ’tis harder,--
  ’Tis night around me again! Don’t go away!
  Like a lip-lash already each word you say
  Flicks me, and stings my craving with pricking whips:
  Would you might loathe and hate me with such ardor
  That it would be your fists and not your lips
  Whose blow on blow aches through my body’s smart!
  Once you’ve been pressed to my heart
  Then go back whence you came,
  Smilingly write my name
  In your notebook ... --while with me
  There will stay but the ghastly curse--to be
  Once more in the grip of the hellish drive
  Out of which no joy remained alive!

HERR KÖNIG--

  I can’t believe my senses now!--It seems,
  You’ve fallen in =love= with me? Oh, cruel!--Spurned
  By women, I have wept aloud and yearned
  Thru many--how many--nights of tortured dreams!
  Is the first love in all my life now faltering
  Toward me upon bought lips?!--Are you not bound
  To give to every stranger, without paltering,
  His will,--and hopes of comfort would you found
  On me?--to me lay passionately bare
  Your soul, whose lurid charms shall hold me fast?
  If e’er my lot so close to yours were cast
  I should be seized with horror past compare!

LISISKA--

  For God’s sake, don’t believe in my love!
  ’Tis my duty here to affect the dove!
  Think to yourself just once what it means
  When suddenly someone parts the screens!--
  Rake up love’s coals, be alive and elated;
  There is a =man= by God created!--
  --Do you want me to play that wretched game
  With =you= here?
  To feel but loathing when your high’st flame
  Burns thru here?!
  But if you thoroly with your Hunnish
  Fists my body and limbs will punish,--
  That, if you find pleasure in it,
  Can unite us till my dying minute!

HERR KÖNIG--

  White robe of innocence! Spirit unstained
  By even this house! Your purity makes blind
  My eyes; your beauty takes my heart and mind
  With infinite gazing.--Rioting unrestrained
  In fierce self-martyrdom without repose--
  You fight the soul’s unfathomable woes,--
  Death in your face, and in your heart hot hate
  For all earth’s vain delights turned desolate!
      [_He kneels._]
  Let me be friend, be brother to you! Whether
  You give your body up to me--lies deep
  Beneath us!--so have you exalted me!
  To your slim knees here solemnly I vow
  That only as soul cleaves to soul art thou
  My own--so only am I thine--together!
  Out of hell’s agony to heaven’s steep
  You soared, and now unconscious of the sweep,
  Of lusts that ebb and flow beneath your height
  Must bleed your life out in sublimity
  Thru me shall that be shown to all men’s sight!
  From my chaste poetry the world shall learn
  To weigh the wrong and misery of sold love!
  I swear it by the eternal stars above,
  The purest light that in our night can burn.
  Give me a pledge, avow to me openly:--
  Have you by love been gladden’d? once? or ever?

LISISKA--[_Raising him._]

  If you killed me now straight off, I could never
  Say it differently!
  It was always only the hellish drive
  Whence no joy remained alive.
  Thus, once for all, it is in this place:
  Here is the rendezvous
  Of all to whom love is a pang without grace
  And a hankering ever new!
  What other chance callers may appear
  Aren’t taken in earnest by us here!
  Men such as you
  Are few
  For they count for nothing where
  We house, whom men compare
  With beasts unheeded.--
  But now have I yet succeeded
  In bringing you round to grant
  Comfort to my wild want?

HERR KÖNIG--

  What wilderness of paths your hand may lead me,
  Still gleams a star above us that will speed me!

LISISKA--[_Hugs and kisses him._]

  Then come, love! pliable at last, for trysts
  In ancient, ne’er-disturbed tranquillity,
  As uttermost lust’s calm bliss long known to me!
  Oh, if I only died under your fists!
      [_Both exeunt, right._]

CASTI-PIANI--[_Breaking out of his hiding-place, wildly._] What was
that?

ELFRIEDE--[_Breaking out likewise, passionately._] 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 my lying arrogance, in my
threadbare virtue, supposed this house a breeding-place of depravity!

CASTI-PIANI--I am smashed and shattered!!

ELFRIEDE--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!

CASTI-PIANI--[_Stunned._] That was the blinding-bright enlightenment
that unforeseen breaks his neck who walks in his sleep on the
ridge-pole!

ELFRIEDE--[_Passionately._] That was the blinding-bright enlightenment!

CASTI-PIANI--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
=that’s= the true aspect of the =one divine ray= 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.

ELFRIEDE--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,
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!

CASTI-PIANI--[_Half-crazed._] What will keep me from breaking my neck?
What will help me across the icy shudders of death?

ELFRIEDE--I will help you across! _I!_ Sell me! Then you’ll be saved!

CASTI-PIANI--Who are =you=?

ELFRIEDE--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!

CASTI-PIANI--Am I to sell you--=you=?

ELFRIEDE--I want to die the martyr’s death that this girl who was just
here is dying! Have _I_ no natural human rights the same as others?

CASTI-PIANI--Heaven preserve me from it! [_With mounting emphasis._]
This--this--this is the =derisive laughter of Hell=, that rings above
my plunge into death!

ELFRIEDE--[_Sinking to his feet._] Sell me! Sell me!

CASTI-PIANI--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
=prison bars=. Of course she, too, was one of those temperamentless
creatures in whose =faces= one can see “big feet.”

ELFRIEDE--[_Clasping his knees._] On my soul I implore you, sell me!
You were right. My activity in combating the white slave traffic was
unsatisfied sensuality. But my sensuousness is =not= weak! Ask me for
proofs. Shall I kiss you madly, insanely?

CASTI-PIANI--[_In utmost despair._] And this ear-piercing howl of
suffering at my feet? What =is= 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!

ELFRIEDE--[_Wringing her hands._] =To you yourself=, if you will, I
will yield up my virginity! =To you yourself=, if you will, I will give
my first love-night!

CASTI-PIANI--[_Shrieking._] The last straw! [_A shot._ ELFRIEDE _utters
a piercing yell_. CASTI-PIANI, _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_.]

CASTI-PIANI--I--I beg your pardon--Baroness. I’ve--I’ve hurt
myself.--That was not--not gallant of me----

ELFRIEDE--[_Bending over him._] God have mercy, you haven’t hit
yourself with it?!

CASTI-PIANI--Don’t--don’t hurt my ears--shrieking! Be
loving--loving--loving--if you can----

ELFRIEDE--[_Stands up in horror, both hands in her hair, stares at him
and screams._] No! No! No! I =can’t= be loving with this sight before
me! I =can’t= be loving! [_Directly after the shot, three slim young
girls, dressed exactly like_ LISISKA, _have curiously one after the
other stepped out of the three doors. Hesitatingly they approach_
CASTI-PIANI, _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._]

CASTI-PIANI--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!
[_The slenderest of the three girls bends over_ CASTI-PIANI _and
kisses him on the mouth_.] No! [_In anguish._] No! No! That
wasn’t anything!--Kiss--kiss me differently! [_She kisses him
again._]--So!--So, so, so!--I have de-deceived you [_slowly raising
himself, supported by_ MARUSHKA]--deceived you all! The joy of the
senses--torture--bloody agony!-- --At last--at last--deliverance! [_He
stands, straight and stiff, as though seized with catalepsy, his eyes
very wide open._] We--we must receive--His Worship-- --standing....
[_He falls dead._]

ELFRIEDE--[_Drowned in tears, to the three girls._] Well?--Is none
of you girls brave enough to do it? You were more to this man than I
was permitted to be! [_The three girls shake their heads and withdraw
shyly, frightened, but cold and impassive._ ELFRIEDE, _sobbing, turns
to the corpse_:] Then forgive me miserable! While you were alive,
you abhorred me with all your soul! Forgive me that I come near you
now! [_Kisses him passionately on the mouth. Breaking into a flood
of tears_.] This last disillusion, even in your fearfullest blackest
pessimism you can never have conceived,--that a =virgin= was to close
your eyes! [_She closes his eyes and sinks, weeping piteously, at his
feet._]


CURTAIN




Transcriber’s Notes


 • Italics represented by _underscores_.

 • Small caps converted to ALL CAPS.

 • Gespert text (words with intraletter spacing) represented with
   =equal signs=.

 • Obvious typographic erros silently corrected.

 • Variations in hyphenation and punctuation kept as in the original.

 • Footnotes numbered consecutively and relocated to the end of each
   play.


*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 76872 ***