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._]