play, too?
LULU--Oh, yes, surely--why not?
ALVA--By the way, it’s in the “Berliner Tageblatt” to-day that Alfred
Hugenberg has hurled himself over the stairs in prison.
LULU--Is he too in prison?
ALVA--Only in a sort of house of detention. [_Exit, rear._ LULU _is
about to follow, but_ COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _meets her in the doorway_.]
GESCHWITZ--You are going because I come?
LULU--[_Resolutely._] No, God knows. But when you come then I go.
GESCHWITZ--You have defrauded me of all the good things of this world
that I still possessed. You might at the very least preserve the
outward forms of politeness in your intercourse with me.
LULU--[_As before._] I am as polite to you as to any other woman. I
only beg you to be equally so to me.
GESCHWITZ--Have you forgotten the passionate endearments you used,
while we lay together in the hospital, to seduce me into letting myself
be locked into prison for you?
LULU--Well, why else did you bring me down with the cholera beforehand?
I swore very different things to myself, even while it was going on,
from what I had to promise you! I am shaken with horror at the thought
that that should ever become reality!
GESCHWITZ--Then you cheated me consciously, deliberately!
LULU--[_Gaily._] And what have you been cheated of, eh? Your physical
advantages have found so enthusiastic an admirer here, that I ask
myself if I won’t have to give piano lessons once more, to keep alive!
No seventeen-year-old child could make a man madder with love than you,
a pervert, are making him, poor fellow, by your shrewishness.
GESCHWITZ--Of whom are you speaking? I don’t understand a word.
LULU--[_As before._] I’m speaking of your acrobat, of Rodrigo Quast.
He’s an athlete: he balances two saddled cavalry horses on his chest.
Can a woman desire anything more glorious? He told me just now that
he’d jump into the water to-night if you did not take pity on him.
GESCHWITZ--I do not envy you your cleverness at torturing the helpless
victims sacrificed to you by their inscrutable destiny. I cannot envy
you at all. My own misery has not yet wrung from me the pity that I
feel for you. _I_ feel free as a god when I think to what creatures
=you= are enslaved.
LULU--Whom do you mean?
GESCHWITZ--Casti-Piani, upon whose forehead the most degenerate
baseness is written in letters of fire!
LULU--Be silent! I’ll kick you, if you speak ill of =him=. He loves
me so uprightly that your most venturous self-sacrifices are beggary
in comparison! He gives me such proofs of self-denial as reveal
=you= for the first time in all your loathsomeness! You didn’t get
finished in your mother’s womb, neither as woman nor as man. You have
no human nature like the rest of us. The stuff didn’t go far enough
for a man, and for a woman you got too much brain in your noddle.
That’s the reason you’re crazy! Turn to Miss Bianetta! She can be
had for everything for pay! Press a gold-piece into her hand and
she’ll be yours. [_All the company save_ KADIDIA _throng in out of the
card-room_.] For the Lord’s sake, what has happened?
PUNTSCHU--Nothing whatever! We’re thirsty, that’s all.
MAGELONE--Everybody has won. We can’t believe it.
BIANETTA--Seems to me I have won quite a fortune!
LUDMILLA--Don’t boast of it, my child. That isn’t lucky.
MAGELONE--But the bank has won, too! How is that =possible=?
ALVA--It is colossal, where all the money comes from!
CASTI-PIANI--Let us not ask! Enough that we need not spare the
champagne.
HEILMANN--I can pay for a supper in a respectable restaurant
afterwards, anyway!
ALVA--To the buffet, ladies! Come to the buffet! [_All exeunt, lower
left._]
RODRIGO--[_Holding_ LULU _back_.] Un momong, my heart. Have you read my
billet-doux?
LULU--Threaten me with discovery as much as you like! I have no more
twenty thousands to dispose of.
RODRIGO--Don’t lie to me, you punk! You’ve still got forty thousand
in Jungfrau-stock. Your so-called spouse has just been bragging of it
himself!
LULU--Then turn to =him= with your blackmailing! It’s all one to me
what he does with his money.
RODRIGO--Thank you! With that blockhead I’d need twice twenty-four
hours to make him grasp what I was talking about. And then come his
explanations, that make one deathly sick; and meanwhile my bride-to-be
writes me to call it off, and I can just hang a hurdy-gurdy over my
shoulder.
LULU--What, have you got engaged here?
RODRIGO--Maybe I ought to have asked your permission first? What were
my thanks here for having freed you from prison at the cost of my
health? You abandoned me! I might have had to turn porter if this girl
hadn’t taken me up! At my entrance, the very first evening, somebody
threw a velvet-covered arm-chair at my head! This country is too
decadent to value genuine shows of strength any more. If I’d been a
boxing kangaroo they’d have interviewed me and put my picture in all
the papers. Thank Heaven, I’d already made the acquaintance of my
Celestine. She’s got the savings of twenty years deposited with the
government; and she loves me just for myself. She doesn’t aim at vile
vulgarities and nothing else like you. She’s had three children by an
American bishop--all of the greatest promise. Early day after to-morrow
we’re going to get married at the registrar’s.
LULU--You have my blessing.
RODRIGO--Your blessing can be stolen from me. I’ve told my bride I had
twenty thousand in stock at the bank.
LULU--[_Amused._] And after that he boasts the woman loves him for
himself!
RODRIGO--She honors in me the man of feeling, not the man of force
as you and all the others have done. That’s well over now. First
they’d tear the clothes from one’s body and then waltz around with the
chambermaid. I’ll be a skeleton before I’ll let myself in again for
such diversions!
LULU--Then why the devil do you especially pursue poor Geschwitz with
your proposals?
RODRIGO--Because the thing is of noble blood. I’m a man of the world,
and can do distinguished conversation better than any of you. But now
[_with a gesture_] my talk is hanging out of my mouth! Will you get me
the money before to-morrow evening, or won’t you?
LULU--I have no money.
RODRIGO--I’ll have hen-droppings in my head before I’ll let myself
be put off with that! He’ll give you his last cent if you’ll only do
your damned debt and duty by him once! You lured the poor lad here,
and now he can see where to scare up a suitable engagement for his
accomplishments.
LULU--What is it to you if he wastes his money with women or at cards?
RODRIGO--Do you absolutely =want=, then, to throw the last penny that
his father earned by his paper into the jaws of this rapacious pack?
You’ll make four people happy if you’ll strain a point and sacrifice
yourself for a philanthropic purpose! Has it got to be only Casti-Piani
=forever=?
LULU--[_Lightly._] Shall I ask him perhaps to light you down the stairs?
RODRIGO--As you wish, Countess! If I don’t get the twenty thousand
marks by to-morrow evening, I make a statement to the police and your
salon comes to an end. Auf Wiedersehen! [HEILMANN _enters, breathless,
upper right_.]
LULU--You’re looking for Miss Magelone? She’s not here.
HEILMANN--No, I’m looking for something else----
RODRIGO--[_Taking him to the entry-door, opposite him._] Second door on
the left.
LULU--[_To_ RODRIGO.] Did you learn that from your bride?
HEILMANN--[_Bumping into_ PUNTSCHU _in the doorway_.] Excuse me, my
angel!
PUNTSCHU--Ah, it’s you. Miss Magelone’s waiting for you in the lift.
HEILMANN--You go up with her, please. I’ll be right back. [_He hurries
out, left._ LULU _goes out at lower left_. RODRIGO _follows her_.]
PUNTSCHU--Some heat, that! If I don’t cut off =your= ears, you’ll
cut ’em off me! If I can’t hire out my Jehoshaphat,[9] I’ve just got
to help myself with my brains! Won’t they get wrinkled, my brains!
Won’t they get indisposed! Won’t they need to bathe in Eau de Cologne!
[BOB, _a groom in a red jacket, tight leather breeches, and twinkling
riding-boots, fifteen years old, brings in a telegram_.]
BOB--Mr. Puntschu, the banker!
PUNTSCHU--[_Breaks open the telegram and murmurs_:] “Jungfrau Funicular
Stock fallen to----” Ay, ay, so goes the world! [_To_ BOB.] Wait!
[_Gives him a tip._] Tell me--what’s your name?
BOB--Well, my name is Freddy, but they call me Bob, because that’s the
fashion now.
PUNTSCHU--How old are you?
BOB--Fifteen.
KADIDIA--[_Enters hesitatingly from lower left._] I beg your pardon,
can you tell me if Mama is here?
PUNTSCHU--No, my dear. [_Aside._] Devil, she’s got breeding!
KADIDIA--I’m hunting all over for her; I can’t find her anywhere.
PUNTSCHU--Your mama will turn up again soon, as true as my name’s
Puntschu! [_Looking at_ BOB.] And that pair of breeches! God of
Justice! It gets uncanny! [_He goes out, upper right._]
KADIDIA--Haven’t =you= seen my mama, perhaps?
BOB--No, but you only need to come with me.
KADIDIA--Where is she then?
BOB--She’s gone up in the lift. Come along.
KADIDIA--No, no, I can’t go up with you.
BOB--We can hide up there in the corridor.
KADIDIA--No, no, I can’t come, or I’ll be scolded. [MAGELONE, _terribly
excited, rushes in, upper left, and possesses herself of_ KADIDIA.]
MAGELONE--Ha, there you are at last, you common creature!
KADIDIA--[_Crying._] O Mama, Mama, I was hunting for you!
MAGELONE--Hunting for me? Did I tell you to hunt for me? What have
you had to do with this fellow? [HEILMANN, ALVA, LUDMILLA, PUNTSCHU,
GESCHWITZ, _and_ LULU _enter, lower left_. BOB _has slipped away_.] Now
don’t bawl before all the people on me; look out, I tell you!
LULU--[_As they all surround_ KADIDIA.] But you’re crying, sweetheart!
Why are you crying?
PUNTSCHU--By God, she’s really been crying! Who’s done anything to hurt
you, little goddess?
LUDMILLA--[_Kneels before her and folds her in her arms._] Tell me,
cherub, what bad thing has happened. Do you want a cookie? Do you want
some chocolate?
MAGELONE--It’s just nerves. The child’s getting them much too soon. It
would be best, anyway, if no one paid any attention to her!
PUNTSCHU--That sounds like you! You’re a pretty mother! The courts’ll
take the child away from you yet and appoint me her guardian!
[_Stroking_ KADIDIA’S _cheeks_.] Isn’t that so, my little goddess?
GESCHWITZ--I should be glad if we could start the baccarat again at
last! [_All go into the dining-room again._ LULU _is held back at the
door by_ BOB, _who comes from the upper entrance_.]
LULU--[_When_ BOB _has whispered to her_.] Certainly! Let him come in!
[BOB _opens the hall door and lets_ SCHIGOLCH _enter, in evening dress,
his patent-leather shoes much worn, and keeping on his shabby opera
hat_.]
SCHIGOLCH--[_With a look at_ BOB.] Where did you get him from?
LULU--The circus.
SCHIGOLCH--How much does he get?
LULU--Ask him if it interests you. [_To_ BOB.] Shut the doors. [BOB
_goes out lower left, shutting the door behind him_.]
SCHIGOLCH--[_Sitting down._] The truth is, I’m in need of money. I’ve
hired a flat for my mistress.
LULU--Have you taken another mistress here, too?
SCHIGOLCH--She’s from Frankfort. In her youth she was mistress to the
King of Naples. She tells me every day she was once very bewitching.
LULU--[_Outwardly with complete composure._] Does she need the money
very badly?
SCHIGOLCH--She wants to fit up her own apartments. Such sums are of no
account to =you=. [LULU _is suddenly overcome with a fit of weeping_.]
LULU--[_Flinging herself at_ SCHIGOLCH.] O God Almighty!
SCHIGOLCH--[_Patting her._] Well? What is it now?
LULU--[_Sobbing violently._] It’s too horrible!
SCHIGOLCH--[_Draws her onto his knee and holds her in his arms like a
little child._] Hm--You’re trying to do too much, child. You must go to
bed, now and then, with a story.--Cry, that’s right, cry it all out.
It used to shake you just so fifteen years ago. Nobody has screamed
since then, the way you could scream! You didn’t wear any white tufts
on your head then, nor any transparent stockings on your legs: you had
neither shoes nor stockings then.
LULU--[_Crying._] Take me home with you! Take me home with you
to-night! Please! We’ll find carriages enough downstairs!
SCHIGOLCH--I’ll take you with me; I’ll take you with me.--What is it?
LULU--It’s going round my neck! I’m to be shown up!
SCHIGOLCH--By whom? Who’s showing you up?
LULU--The acrobat.
SCHIGOLCH--[_With the utmost composure._] I’ll look after him.
LULU--Look after him! =Please=, look after him! Then do with me what
you will!
SCHIGOLCH--If he comes to me, he’s done for. My window is over the
water. But [_shaking his head_] he won’t come; he won’t come.
LULU--What number do you live at?
SCHIGOLCH--376, the last house before the hippodrome.
LULU--I’ll send him there. He’ll come with the crazy woman that creeps
about my feet. He’ll come this very evening. Go home and let them find
it comfortable.
SCHIGOLCH--Just let them come.
LULU--To-morrow bring me the gold rings he wears in his ears.
SCHIGOLCH--Has he got rings in his ears?
LULU--You can take them out before you let him down. He doesn’t notice
anything when he’s drunk.
SCHIGOLCH--And then, child--what then?
LULU--Then I’ll give you the money for your mistress.
SCHIGOLCH--I call that pretty stingy.
LULU--And whatever else you want! Whatever I have.
SCHIGOLCH--It’ll soon be ten years since we knew each other.
LULU--Is that all?--But you’ve got a mistress.
SCHIGOLCH--My Frankforter is no longer of to-day.
LULU--But then swear!
SCHIGOLCH--Haven’t I always kept my word to you?
LULU--Swear that you’ll look after him.
SCHIGOLCH--I’ll look after him.
LULU--Swear it to me! Swear it to me!
SCHIGOLCH--[_Puts his hand on her ankle._] By everything that’s holy!
To-night, if he comes----
LULU--By everything that’s holy!--How that cools me!
SCHIGOLCH--How this heats me!
LULU--Oh, do drive straight home. They’ll come in half an hour! Take a
carriage!
SCHIGOLCH--I’m going.
LULU--Quick! Please!-- --All-powerful----
SCHIGOLCH--Why do you stare at me so again already?
LULU--Nothing-- ...
SCHIGOLCH--Well? Is your tongue frozen on you?
LULU--My garter’s broken.
SCHIGOLCH--What if it is? Is that all?
LULU--What does that augur?
SCHIGOLCH--What does it? I’ll fasten it for you if you’ll keep still.
LULU--That augurs misfortune!
SCHIGOLCH--[_Yawning._] Not for you, child. Cheer up, I’ll look after
him! [_Exit._ LULU _puts her left foot on a foot-stool, fastens her
garter, and goes out into the card-room. Then_ RODRIGO _is cuffed in
from the dining-room, lower left, by_ CASTI-PIANI.]
RODRIGO--You can treat me decently anyway!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Still perfectly unemotional._] Whatever would induce me
to do that? I wish to know what you said to her here a little while ago.
RODRIGO--Then you can be very fond of me!
CASTI-PIANI--Will you bandy words with me, dog? You demanded that she
go up in the lift with you!
RODRIGO--That’s a shameless, perfidious lie!
CASTI-PIANI--She told me so herself. You threatened to denounce her if
she didn’t go with you.--Shall I shoot you on the spot?
RODRIGO--The shameless hussy! As if anything like that could occur to
me!--Even if I should want to have her, God knows I don’t first need to
threaten her with prison!
CASTI-PIANI--Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know. [_Exit, upper
left._]
RODRIGO--Such a hound! A fellow I could throw up onto the roof so he’d
stick like a Limburger cheese!--Come back here, so I can wind your guts
round your neck. That would be even better!
LULU--[_Enters, lower left; merrily._] Where were you? I’ve been
hunting for you like a pin.
RODRIGO--I’ve shown =him= what it means to start anything with me!
LULU--Whom?
RODRIGO--Your Casti-Piani! What made you tell him, you slut, that I
wanted to seduce you?!
LULU--Did you not demand that I give myself to my late husband’s son
for twenty thousand in Jungfrau-shares?
RODRIGO--Because it’s your duty to take pity on the poor young fellow!
You shot away his father before his nose in the prime of his life! But
your Casti-Piani will think it over before he comes into =my= sight
again. I gave him one in the basket that made his tripe fly to heaven
like Roman candles. If that’s the best substitute you have for me, then
I’m sorry I ever enjoyed your favor!
LULU--Lady Geschwitz is in the fearfullest case. She twists herself up
in fits. She’s at the point of jumping into the water if you let her
wait any longer.
RODRIGO--What’s the beast waiting for?
LULU--For you to take her with you.
RODRIGO--Then give her my regards, and she can jump into the water.
LULU--She’ll lend me twenty thousand marks to save me from destruction
if you will preserve her from it herself. If you’ll take her off
to-night, I’ll deposit twenty thousand marks to-morrow in your name at
any bank you say.
RODRIGO--And if I don’t take her off with me?
LULU--Denounce me! Alva and I are dead broke.
RODRIGO--Devil and damnation!
LULU--You make four people happy if you strain a point and sacrifice
yourself for a worthy end.
RODRIGO--It won’t go; I know that, beforehand. I’ve tried the thing
out thoroughly. Who’d have expected such a creditable feeling in that
bag o’ bones! What interested me in her was her being an aristocrat.
My behavior was as gentleman-like, and more, as you could find among
German circus-people. If I’d only just pinched her in the calves once!
LULU--[_Watchfully._] She is still a virgin.
RODRIGO--[_Sighing._] If there’s a God in heaven, you’ll get paid for
your jokes some day! I prophesy that.
LULU--Geschwitz waits. What shall I tell her?
RODRIGO--My very best wishes, and I am perverse.
LULU--I will deliver that.
RODRIGO--Wait a second. Is it certain sure I get twenty thousand marks
from her?
LULU--Ask herself!
RODRIGO--Then tell her I’m ready. I await her in the dining-room. I
must just first look after a barrel of caviare. [_Exit, left._ LULU
_opens the rear door and calls in a clear voice “Martha!”_ COUNTESS
GESCHWITZ _enters, closing the door behind her_.]
LULU--[_Pleased._] Dear heart, you can save me from death to-night.
GESCHWITZ--How?
LULU--By going to a certain house with the acrobat.
GESCHWITZ--What for, dear?
LULU--He says you must belong to him this very night or he’ll denounce
me to-morrow.
GESCHWITZ--You know I can’t belong to any man. My fate has not
permitted that.
LULU--If you don’t please him, that’s his own fix. Why has he fallen in
love with you?
GESCHWITZ--But he’ll get as brutal as a hangman. He’ll revenge himself
for his disappointment and beat my head in. I’ve been through that
already.... Can you not possibly spare me this ultimate test?
LULU--What will you gain by his denouncing me?
GESCHWITZ--I have still enough left of my fortune to take us to America
together in the steerage. There you’d be safe from all your pursuers.
LULU--[_Pleased and gay._] I want to stay here. I can never be happy
in any other city. You must tell him that you can’t live without him.
Then he’ll feel flattered and be gentle as a lamb. You must pay the
coachman, too: give him this paper with the address on it. 376 is a
fourth-class hotel where they’re expecting you with him this evening.
GESCHWITZ--[_Shuddering._] How can such a monstrosity save your life?
I don’t understand that. You have conjured up to torture me the most
terrible fate that can fall upon outlawed me!
LULU--[_Watchful._] Perhaps the encounter will cure you.
GESCHWITZ--[_Sighing._] O Lulu, if an eternal retribution does exist,
I hope I may not have to answer then for you. I cannot make myself
believe that no God watches over us. Yet you are probably right that
there is nothing there, for how can an insignificant worm like me have
provoked his wrath so as to experience only horror there where all
living creation swoons for bliss?
LULU--You needn’t complain. When you =are= happy you’re a hundred
thousand times happier than one of us ordinary mortals ever is!
GESCHWITZ--I know that too! I envy no one! But I am still waiting. You
have deceived me so often already.
LULU--I am yours, my darling, if you quiet Mr. Acrobat till to-morrow.
He only wants his vanity placated. You must beseech him to take pity on
you.
GESCHWITZ--And to-morrow?
LULU--I await you, my heart. I shall not open my eyes till you come:
see no chambermaid, receive no hairdresser, not open my eyes before you
are with me.
GESCHWITZ--Then let him come.
LULU--But you must throw yourself at his head, dear! Have you got the
house-number?
GESCHWITZ--Three-seventy-six. But quick now!
LULU--[_Calls into the dining-room._] Ready, my darling?
RODRIGO--[_Entering._] The ladies will pardon my mouth’s being full.
GESCHWITZ--[_Seizing his hand._] I implore you, have mercy on my need!
RODRIGO--A la bonne heure! Let us mount the scaffold! [_Offers her his
arm._]
LULU--Good night, children! [_Accompanies them into the corridor ...
then quickly returns with_ BOB.] Quick, quick, Bob! We must get away
this moment! You escort me! But we must change clothes!
BOB--[_Curt and clear._] As the gracious lady bids.
LULU--Oh what, gracious lady! You give me your clothes and put on mine.
Come! [_Exeunt into the dining-room. Noise in the card-room, the doors
are torn open, and_ PUNTSCHU, HEILMANN, ALVA, BIANETTA, MAGELONE,
KADIDIA _and_ LUDMILLA _enter_, HEILMANN _holding a piece of paper with
a glowing Alpine peak at its top_.]
HEILMANN--[_To_ PUNTSCHU.] Will you accept this share of
Jungfrau-stock, sir?
PUNTSCHU--But that paper has no exchange, my friend.
HEILMANN--You rascal! You just don’t want to give me my revenge!
MAGELONE--[_To_ BIANETTA.] Have you any idea what it’s all about?
LUDMILLA--Puntschu has taken all his money from him, and now gives up
the game.
HEILMANN--Now he’s got cold feet, the filthy Jew!
PUNTSCHU--How have I given up the game? How have I got cold feet? The
gentleman has merely to lay plain cash! Is this my banking-office I’m
in? He can proffer me his trash to-morrow morning!
HEILMANN--Trash you call that? The stock to my knowledge is at 210!
PUNTSCHU--Yesterday it was at 210, you’re right. To-day, it’s just
nowhere. And to-morrow you’ll find nothing cheaper or more tasteful to
paper your stairs with.
ALVA--But how is that possible? Then we =would= be down and out!
PUNTSCHU---Well, what am _I_ to say, who have lost my whole fortune
in it! To-morrow morning I shall have the pleasure of taking up the
struggle for an assured existence for the thirty-sixth time!
MAGELONE--[_Pressing forward._] Am I dreaming or do I really understand
the Jungfrau-stock has fallen?
PUNTSCHU--Fallen even lower than you! Tho you can use ’em for
curl-paper.
MAGELONE--O God in Heaven! Ten years’ work! [_Falls in a faint._]
KADIDIA--Wake up, Mama! Wake up!
BIANETTA--Say, Mr. Puntschu, where will you eat this evening, since
you’ve lost your whole fortune?
PUNTSCHU--Wherever you like, young lady! Take me where you will, but
quickly! Here it’s getting quite alarming. [_Exeunt_ PUNTSCHU _and_
BIANETTA.]
HEILMANN--[_Squeezing up his stock and flinging it to the ground._]
That is what one gets from this pack!
LUDMILLA--Why did you speculate on the Jungfrau too? But just send a
few little notes on the company here to the German police, and you may
still win something in the end.
HEILMANN--I’ve never tried that yet, but if you want to help me----?
LUDMILLA--Let’s go to an all-night restaurant. Do you know the
Five-footed Calf?
HEILMANN--I’m very sorry----
LUDMILLA--Or the Sucking Lamb, or the Smoking Dog? They’re all right
near here. We’ll be all by ourselves there, and before dawn we’ll have
a little article ready.
HEILMANN--Don’t you sleep?
LUDMILLA--Oh, of course; but not at night. [_Exeunt_ HEILMANN _and_
LUDMILLA.]
ALVA--[_Who has been trying to resuscitate_ MAGELONE.] Ice-cold hands!
Ah, what a splendid woman! We must undo her waist. Come, Kadidia, undo
your mother’s waist! She’s so fearfully tight-laced.
KADIDIA--[_Without stirring._] I’m afraid. [LULU _enters lower left in
a jockey-cap, red jacket, white leather breeches and riding boots, a
riding cape over her shoulders_.]
LULU--Have you any cash, Alva?
ALVA--[_Looking up._] Have you gone crazy?
LULU--In two minutes the police’ll be here. We are denounced. You can
stay, of course, if you’re eager to!
ALVA--[_Springing up._] Merciful Heaven! [_Exeunt_ ALVA _and_ LULU.]
KADIDIA--[_Shaking her mother, in tears._] Mama, Mama! Wake up! They’ve
all run away!
MAGELONE--[_Coming to herself._] And youth gone! And my best days
behind me! Oh, this life!
KADIDIA--But I’m young, Mama! Why shouldn’t I earn any money? I don’t
want to go back to the convent! Please, Mama, keep me with you!
MAGELONE--God bless you, sweetheart! You don’t know what you say----Oh,
no, I shall look around for a vaudeville engagement, and sing the
people my misfortunes with the Jungfrau-stock. Things like that are
always applauded.
KADIDIA--But you’ve got no voice, Mama!
MAGELONE--Ah, yes, that’s true!
KADIDIA--Take me with you into vaudeville!
MAGELONE--No, it would break my heart!--But, well, if it can’t be
otherwise, and you’re so made for it,--I can’t change things!--Yes, we
can go to the Olympia together to-morrow!
KADIDIA--O Mama, how glad that makes me feel! [_A plain-clothes
detective enters, upper left._]
DETECTIVE--In the name of the law--I arrest you!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Following him, bored._] What sort of nonsense is that?
=That= isn’t the right one!
CURTAIN
ACT III
SCENE--_An attic room, without windows, but with two skylights, under
one of which stands a bowl filled with rain-water. Down right,
a door thru a board partition into a sort of cubicle under the
slanting roof. Near it, a wobbly flower-table with a bottle and
a smoking oil-lamp on it. Upper right, a worn-out couch. Door
centre; near it, a chair without a seat. Down left, below the
entrance door, a torn gray mattress. None of the doors can shut
tight._
_The rain beats on the roof_. SCHIGOLCH _in a long gray overcoat
lies on the mattress_; ALVA _on the couch, wrapped in a plaid
whose straps still hang on the wall above him_.
SCHIGOLCH--The rain’s drumming for the parade.
ALVA--Cheerful weather for her first appearance! I dreamt just now we
were dining together at the Olympia. Bianetta was with us there again.
The tablecloth was dripping on all four sides with champagne.
SCHIGOLCH--Ya, ya. And I was dreaming of a Christmas pudding. [LULU
_appears with her rather short hair falling to her shoulders, barefoot,
in a torn black dress_.] Where have you been, child? Curling your hair
first?
ALVA--She only does that to revive old memories.
LULU--If one could only get warmed up a little, from one of you!
ALVA--Are you going to enter barefoot on your pilgrimage?
SCHIGOLCH--The first step always costs all kinds of moaning and
groaning. Twenty years ago it was no whit better, and what she has
learned since then! The coals only have to be blown. When she’s been at
it a week, not ten locomotives will hold her in our miserable attic.
ALVA--The bowl is running over.
LULU--What shall I do with the water?
ALVA--Pour it out the window. [LULU _gets up on the chair and empties
the bowl thru the skylight_.]
LULU--It looks as if the rain were going to let up at last.
SCHIGOLCH--You’re wasting the time when the clerks go home after supper.
LULU--Would to God I were lying somewhere where no step would wake me
any more!
ALVA--Would that I were, too! Why prolong this life? Let’s rather
starve to death together this very evening in peace and concord! Aren’t
we at the last stage now?
LULU--Why don’t =you= go out and get us something to eat? You’ve never
earned a penny in your whole life!
ALVA--In this weather, when no one would kick a dog from his door?
LULU--But me! I, with the little blood I have left in my limbs, I am to
stop your mouths!
ALVA--I don’t touch a farthing of the money!
SCHIGOLCH--Let her go, just! I long for one more Christmas pudding;
then I’ve had enough.
ALVA--And I long for one more beefsteak and a cigarette; then die! I
was just dreaming of a cigarette, such as has never yet been smoked!
SCHIGOLCH--She’ll rather see us finished before her eyes, than go and
do herself a little pleasure.
LULU--The people on the street will sooner leave cloak and coat in my
hands than go with me for nothing! If you hadn’t sold my clothes, I at
least wouldn’t need to be afraid of the lamp-light. I’d like to see the
woman who could earn anything in the rags I’m wearing on my body!
ALVA--I have left nothing human untried. As long as I had money I spent
whole nights making up tables with which one couldn’t help winning
against the cleverest card-sharps. And yet evening after evening I
lost more than if I had shaken out gold by the pailful. Then I offered
my services to the courtesans; but they don’t take anyone that the
courts haven’t first branded, and they see at the first glance if one’s
related to the guillotine or not.
SCHIGOLCH--Ya, ya.
ALVA--I spared myself no disillusionments; but when I made jokes, they
laughed at =me=, and when I behaved as respectable as I am, they boxed
my ears, and when I tried being smutty, they got so chaste and maidenly
that my hair stood up on my head for horror. Him who has not prevailed
over society, they have no confidence in.
SCHIGOLCH--Won’t you kindly put on your boots now, child? I don’t think
I shall grow much older in this lodging. It’s months since I had any
feeling in the ends of my toes. Toward midnight, I’ll drink a bit more
down in the pub. The lady that keeps it told me yesterday I still had a
serious chance of becoming her lover.
LULU--In the name of the three devils, I’ll go down! [_She puts to her
mouth the bottle on the flower-table._]
SCHIGOLCH--So they can smell your stink a half-hour off!
LULU--I shan’t drink it all.
ALVA--You won’t go down. You’re my woman. You shan’t go down. I forbid
it!
LULU--What would you forbid your woman when you can’t support yourself?
ALVA--Whose fault is that? Who but my woman has laid me on the sick-bed?
LULU--Am _I_ sick?
ALVA--Who has trailed me thru the dung? Who has made me my father’s
murderer?
LULU--Did =you= shoot him? He didn’t lose much, but when I see you
lying there I could hack off both my hands for having sinned against my
judgment! [_She goes out, into her room._]
ALVA--She infected me from her Casti-Piani. It’s a long time since she
was susceptible to it herself!
SCHIGOLCH--Little devils like her can’t begin putting up with it too
soon, if angels are ever going to come out of them.
ALVA--She ought to have been born Empress of Russia. Then she’d
have been in the right place. A second Catherine the Second! [LULU
_re-enters with a worn-out pair of boots, and sits on the floor to put
them on_.]
LULU--If only I don’t go headfirst down the stairs! Ugh, how cold! Is
there anything in the world more dismal than a daughter of joy?
SCHIGOLCH--Patience, patience! It’s just a question of getting the
right push into the business.
LULU--It’ll be all right with me! No one need pity me any more. [_Puts
the bottle to her lips._] That fires one!--O accursed! [_Exit._]
SCHIGOLCH--When we hear her coming, we must creep into my cubby-hole
awhile.
ALVA--I’m damned sorry for her! When I think back.... I grew up with
her in a way, you know.
SCHIGOLCH--She’ll hold out as long as I live, anyway.
ALVA--We treated each other at first like brother and sister. Mama
was still living then. I met her by chance one morning when she was
dressing. Dr. Goll had been called for a consultation. Her hairdresser
had read my first poem, that I’d had printed in “Society”: “Follow thy
pack far over the mountains; it will return again, covered with sweat
and dust----”
SCHIGOLCH--Oh, ya!
ALVA--And then she came, in rose-colored muslin, with nothing under it
but a white satin slip--for the Spanish ambassador’s ball. Dr. Goll
seemed to feel his death near. He asked me to dance with her, so she
shouldn’t cause any mad acts. Papa meanwhile never turned his eyes from
us, and all thru the waltz she was looking over my shoulder, only at
him.... Afterwards she shot him. It is unbelievable.
SCHIGOLCH--I’ve only got a strong doubt whether anyone will bite any
more.
ALVA--I shouldn’t like to advise anyone to! [SCHIGOLCH _grunts_.]--At
that time, tho she was a fully developed woman, she had the expression
of a five-year-old, joyous, utterly healthy child. And she was only
three years younger than me then--but how long ago it is now! For
all her immense superiority in matters of practical life, she let me
explain “Tristan and Isolde” to her--and how entrancingly she could
listen! Out of the little sister who even in her marriage still felt
like a schoolgirl, came the unhappy, hysterical artist’s wife. Out
of the artist’s wife came then the spouse of my murdered father, and
out of =her= came, then, my mistress. Well, so that is the way of the
world. Who will prevail against it?
SCHIGOLCH--If only she doesn’t skid away from the gentlemen with
honorable intentions and bring us up instead some vagabond she’s
exchanged her heart’s secrets with.
ALVA--I kissed her for the first time in her rustling bridal dress.
But afterwards she didn’t remember it.... All the same, I believe she
had thought of me even in my father’s arms. It can’t have been often
with him: he had his best time behind him, and she deceived him with
coachman and bootblack; but when she did give herself to him, then _I_
stood before her soul. That was the way, without my realizing it, that
she acquired this dreadful power over me.
SCHIGOLCH--There they are! [_Heavy steps are heard mounting the
stairs._]
ALVA--[_Starting up._] I will not endure it! I’ll throw the fellow out!
SCHIGOLCH--[_Wearily picks himself up, takes_ ALVA _by the collar and
cuffs him toward the left_.] Forward, forward! How is the young man to
confess his trouble to her with us two sprawling round here?
ALVA--But if he demands other things--low things--of her?
SCHIGOLCH--If, well, if! What more will he demand of her? He’s only a
man like the rest of us!
ALVA--We must leave the door open.
SCHIGOLCH--[_Pushing_ ALVA _in, right_.] Nonsense! Lie down!
ALVA--I’ll hear it soon enough. Heaven spare him!
SCHIGOLCH--[_Closing the door, from inside._] Shut up!
ALVA--[_Faintly._] He’d better look out! [LULU _enters, followed by_
HUNIDEI, _a gigantic figure with a smooth-shaven, rosy face, sky-blue
eyes, and a friendly smile. He wears a tall hat and overcoat and
carries a dripping umbrella._]
LULU--Here’s where I live. [HUNIDEI _puts his finger to his lips and
looks at_ LULU _significantly. Then he opens his umbrella and puts
it on the floor, rear, to dry._] Of course, I know it isn’t very
comfortable here. [HUNIDEI _comes forward and puts his hand over her
mouth_.] What do you mean me to understand by that? [HUNIDEI _puts his
hand over her mouth, and his finger to his lips_.] I don’t know what
that means. [HUNIDEI _quickly stops her mouth_. LULU _frees herself_.]
We’re quite alone here. No one will hear us. [HUNIDEI _lays his finger
on his lips, shakes his head, points at_ LULU, _opens his mouth as if
to speak, points at himself and then at the door_.] Good Lord, he’s
a monster! [HUNIDEI _stops her mouth; then goes rear, folds up his
overcoat and lays it over the chair near the door; then comes down with
a broad smile, takes_ LULU’s _head in both his hands and kisses her on
the forehead. The door, right, half opens._]
SCHIGOLCH--[_Behind the door._] He’s got a screw loose.
ALVA--He’d better look out!
SCHIGOLCH--She couldn’t have brought up anything drearier!
LULU--[_Stepping back._] I hope you’re going to give me something!
[HUNIDEI _stops her mouth and presses a gold-piece in her hand, then
looks at her uncertain, questioningly, as she examines it and throws
it from one hand to the other_.] All right, it’s good. [_Puts it in
her pocket._ HUNIDEI _quickly stops her mouth, gives her a few silver
coins, and glances at her commandingly_.] Oh, that’s nice of you!
[HUNIDEI _leaps madly about the room, brandishing his arms and staring
upward in despair_. LULU _cautiously nears him, throws an arm round him
and kisses him on the mouth. Laughing soundlessly, he frees himself
from her and looks questioningly around. She takes up the lamp and
opens the door to her room. He goes in smiling, taking off his hat. The
stage is dark save for what light comes thru the cracks of the door._
ALVA _and_ SCHIGOLCH _creep out on all fours_.]
ALVA--They’re gone.
SCHIGOLCH--[_Behind him._] Wait.
ALVA--One can hear nothing here.
SCHIGOLCH--You’ve heard that often enough!
ALVA--I will kneel before her door.
SCHIGOLCH--Little mother’s sonny! [_Presses past_ ALVA, _gropes across
the stage to_ HUNIDEI’s _coat, and searches the pockets_. ALVA _crawls
to_ LULU’s _door_.] Gloves, nothing more! [_Turns the coat round,
searches the inside pockets, pulls a book out that he gives to_ ALVA.]
Just see what that is. [ALVA _holds the book to the light_.]
ALVA--[_Wearily deciphering the title-page._] Warnings to pious
pilgrims and such as wish to be so. Very helpful. Price, 2s. 6d.
SCHIGOLCH--It looks to me as if God had left =him= pretty completely.
[_Lays the coat over the chair again and makes for the cubby-hole._]
There’s nothing =to= these people. The country’s best time’s behind it!
ALVA--Life is never as bad as it’s painted. [_He, too, creeps back._]
SCHIGOLCH--Not even a silk muffler he’s got and yet in Germany we creep
on our bellies before this rabble.
ALVA--Come, let’s vanish again.
SCHIGOLCH--She only thinks of herself, and takes the first man that
runs across her path. Hope the dog remembers her the rest of his
life! [_They disappear, left, shutting the door behind them._ LULU
_re-enters, setting the lamp on the table_. HUNIDEI _follows_.]
LULU--Will you come to see me again? [HUNIDEI _stops her mouth. She
looks upward in a sort of despair and shakes her head_. HUNIDEI,
_putting his coat on, approaches her grinning; she throws her arms
around his neck; he gently frees himself, kisses her hand, and turns
to the door. She starts to accompany him, but he signs to her to
stay behind and noiselessly leaves the room._ SCHIGOLCH _and_ ALVA
_re-enter_.]
LULU--[_Tonelessly._] How he has stirred me up!
ALVA--How much did he give you?
LULU--[_As before._] Here it is! All! Take it! I’m going down again.
SCHIGOLCH--We can still live like princes up here.
ALVA--He’s coming back.
SCHIGOLCH--Then let’s just retire again, quick.
ALVA--He’s after his prayer-book. Here it is. It must have fallen out
of his coat.
LULU--[_Listening._] No, that isn’t he. That’s someone else.
ALVA--Someone’s coming up. I hear it quite plainly.
LULU--Now there’s someone tapping at the door. Who can it be?
SCHIGOLCH--Probably a good friend he’s recommended us to. Come in!
[COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _enters, in poor clothes, with a canvas roll in her
hand_.]
GESCHWITZ--[_To_ LULU.] If I’ve come at a bad time, I’ll turn around
again. The truth is, I haven’t spoken to a living soul for ten days. I
must just tell you right off, I haven’t received any money. My brother
never answered me at all.
SCHIGOLCH--And now your ladyship would like to stretch her feet out
under =our= table?
LULU--[_Tonelessly._] I’m going down again.
GESCHWITZ--Where are you going, in this finery?--Tho penniless, I have
come not wholly empty-handed. I bring you something else. On my way
here an old-clothes-man offered me twelve shillings for it, yes--but I
could not force myself to part from it. You can sell it if you want to,
tho.
SCHIGOLCH--What is it?
ALVA--Let us see it. [_Takes the canvas and unrolls it. Visibly
rejoiced._] Oh, by God, it’s Lulu’s portrait!
LULU--[_Screaming._] Monster, you brought that here? Get it out of my
sight! Throw it out of the window!
ALVA--[_Suddenly with renewed life, deeply pleased._] Why, I should
like to know? Looking on this picture I regain my self-respect. It
makes my fate comprehensible to me. Everything we have endured gets
clear as day. [_In a somewhat elegiac strain._] Let him who feels
secure in his respectable citizenship when he sees these blossoming
pouting lips, these child-eyes, big and innocent, this rose-white body
abounding in life,--let him cast the first stone at us!
SCHIGOLCH--We must nail it up. It will make an excellent impression on
our patrons.
ALVA--[_Energetic._] There’s a nail sticking all ready for it in the
wall.
SCHIGOLCH--But how did you come upon this acquisition?
GESCHWITZ--I secretly cut it out of the wall in your house, there,
after you were gone.
ALVA--Too bad the color’s got rubbed off round the edges. You didn’t
roll it up carefully enough. [_Fastens it to a high nail in the wall._]
SCHIGOLCH--It’s got to have another one underneath if it’s going to
hold. It makes the whole flat look more elegant.
ALVA--Let me alone; I know how I’ll do it. [_He tears several nails out
of the wall, pulls off his left boot, and with its heel nails the edges
of the picture to the wall._]
SCHIGOLCH--It’s just got to hang awhile again, to get its proper
effect. Whoever looks at that’ll imagine afterwards he’s been in an
Indian harem.
ALVA--[_Putting on his boot again, standing up proudly._] Her body was
at its highest point of development when that picture was painted. The
lamp, dear child! Seems to me it’s got extraordinarily dark.
GESCHWITZ---He must have been an eminently gifted artist who painted
that!
LULU--[_Perfectly composed again, stepping before the picture with the
lamp._] Didn’t you know him, then?
GESCHWITZ--No. It must have been long before my time. I only
occasionally heard chance remarks of yours, that he had cut his throat
from persecution-mania.
ALVA--[_Comparing the picture with_ LULU.] The child-like expression
in the eyes is still absolutely the same in spite of all she has lived
thru since. [_In joyous excitement._] But the dewy freshness that
covers her skin, the sweet-smelling breath from her lips, the rays of
light that beam from her white forehead, and this challenging splendor
of young flesh in throat and arms----
SCHIGOLCH--All that’s gone with the rubbish wagon. She can say with
self-assurance: That was me once! The man she falls into the hands of
to-day’ll have no conception of what we were when we were young.
ALVA--[_Cheerfully._] God be thanked, we don’t notice the gradual
decline when we see a person all the time. [_Lightly._] The woman
blooms for us in the moment when she hurls the man to destruction for
the rest of his life. That is, so to say, her nature and her destiny.
SCHIGOLCH--Down in the street-lamp’s shimmer she’s still a match for a
dozen walking spectres. The man who still wants to make connections at
this hour looks out more for heart-qualities than mere physical good
points. He decides for the pair of eyes from which the least thievery
sparkles.
LULU--[_Now as pleased as_ ALVA.] I shall see if you’re right. Adieu.
ALVA--[_In sudden anger._] You shall not go down again, as I live!
GESCHWITZ--Where do you want to go?
ALVA--Down to fetch up a man.
GESCHWITZ--Lulu!
ALVA--She’s done it once to-day already.
GESCHWITZ--Lulu, Lulu, where you go I go, too.
SCHIGOLCH--If you want to put your bones up for sale, kindly hunt up a
district of your own!
GESCHWITZ--Lulu, I shall not stir from your side! I have weapons upon
me.
SCHIGOLCH--Confound it all, her ladyship means to fish with our bait!
LULU--You’re killing me. I can’t stand it here any more. [_Exit._]
GESCHWITZ--You need fear nothing. I am with you. [_Follows her._]
ALVA--[_Whimpering, throws himself on his couch._ SCHIGOLCH _swears,
loudly and grumbling_.] I guess there’s not much more good to expect on
this side!
SCHIGOLCH--We ought to have held the creature back by the throat.
She’ll scare away everything that breathes with her aristocratic
death’s head.
ALVA--She’s flung me onto a sick-bed and larded me with thorns outside
and in!
SCHIGOLCH--[_On_ GESCHWITZ _still_.] All the same, she’s got enough
spirit in her for ten men, she has!
ALVA--No mortally wounded man’ll ever be more thankful for his
coup-de-grâce than I!
SCHIGOLCH--If she hadn’t enticed the acrobat into my place that time,
we’d still have had =him= round our necks to-day.
ALVA--I see it trembling above my head as Tantalus saw the branch with
the golden apples!
SCHIGOLCH--[_On his mattress._] Won’t you turn up the lamp a little?
ALVA--I wonder, can a simple, natural man in the wilderness suffer so
unspeakably, too?--God, God, what have I made of my life!
SCHIGOLCH--What’s the beastly weather made of my ulster!--When _I_ was
five-and-twenty, I knew how to help myself!
ALVA--Not everyone has had the joy of my sunny, glorious youth!
SCHIGOLCH--I guess it’s going right out. When they come back it’ll be
as dark in here again as in the womb.
ALVA--With the clearest consciousness of my purpose I sought the
companionship of people who’d never read a book in their lives. With
self-denial, with exaltation, I clung to the elements, that I might
be carried to the loftiest heights of poetic fame. The reckoning was
false. I am the martyr of my calling. Since the death of my father I
have not written a single verse!
SCHIGOLCH--If only they haven’t stayed together! Nobody but a silly boy
will go with two, no matter what.
ALVA--They’ve not stayed together!
SCHIGOLCH--That’s what I hope. If need be, she’ll keep the creature off
from her with kicks.
ALVA--One, risen from the dregs, is the most celebrated man of his
nation; another, born in the purple, lies in the mud and cannot die!
SCHIGOLCH--Here they come!
ALVA--And what blessed hours of mutual joy in creation they had lived
thru with each other!
SCHIGOLCH--That they can rightly do for the first time now!--We must
hide again.
ALVA--I stay here.
SCHIGOLCH--Just what do you pity them for?--He who spends his money has
his good reasons for it!
ALVA--I have no longer the moral courage to let my comfort be disturbed
for a miserable sum of money! [_He wraps himself up in his plaid._]
SCHIGOLCH--Noblesse oblige! A respectable man does what he owes his
position. [_He hides, left._ LULU _opens the door, saying “Come right
in, dearie,” and there enters_ PRINCE KUNGU POTI, _heir-apparent of
Uahubee, in a light suit, white spats, tan button-boots, and a gray
tall hat. His speech, interrupted with frequent hiccoughs, abounds
with the peculiar African hiss-sounds._]
KUNGU POTI--God damn--it’s dark on the stairs!
LULU--It’s lighter here, sweetheart. [_Pulling him forward by the
hand._] Come on!
KUNGU POTI--But it’s cold here, awful cold!
LULU--Have some brandy?
KUNGU POTI--Brandy? You bet--always! Brandy’s good!
LULU--[_Giving him the bottle._] I don’t know where the glass is.
KUNGU POTI--Doesn’t matter. [_Drinks._] Brandy! Lots of it!
LULU--You’re a nice-looking young man.
KUNGU POTI--My father’s the emperor of Uahubee. I’ve got six wives
here, two Spanish, two English, two French. Well--I don’t like my
wives. Always I must take a bath, take a bath, take a bath....
LULU--How much will you give me?
KUNGU POTI--Gold! You trust me, you’ll have gold! One gold-piece. I
always give gold-pieces.
LULU--You can give it to me later, but show it to me.
KUNGU POTI--I never pay beforehand.
LULU--But you can show it to me, tho!
KUNGU POTI--Don’t understand, don’t understand! Come, Ragapsishimulara!
[_Seizing_ LULU _round the waist_.] Come on!
LULU--[_Defending herself with all her strength._] Let me be! Let me
be! [ALVA, _who has risen painfully from his couch, sneaks up to_
KUNGU POTI _from behind and pulls him back by the collar_.]
KUNGU POTI--[_Whirling round._] Oh! Oh! This is a murder-hole!
Come, my friend. I’ll put you to sleep! [_Strikes him over the head
with a loaded cane._ ALVA _groans and falls in a heap_.] Here’s a
sleeping-draught! Here’s opium for you! Sweet dreams to you! Sweet
dreams! [_Then he gives_ LULU _a kiss; pointing to_ ALVA.] He dreams of
you, Ragapsishimulara! Sweet dreams! [_Rushing to the door._] Here’s
the door! [_Exit._]
LULU--But I’ll not stay here?!--Who can stand it here now!--Rather down
onto the street! [_Exit._ SCHIGOLCH _comes out_.]
SCHIGOLCH--Blood!--Alva!--He’s got to be put away somewhere. Hop!--Or
else our friends’ll get a shock from him--Alva! Alva!--He that isn’t
quite clear about it---- One thing or t’other; or it’ll soon be too
late! I’ll give him legs! [_Strikes a match and sticks it into_ ALVA’S
_collar_....] He will have his rest. But no one sleeps here.--[_Drags
him by the head into_ LULU’S _room. Returning, he tries to turn up the
light._] It’ll be time for me, too, right soon now, or they’ll get no
more Christmas puddings down there in the tavern. God knows when she’ll
be coming back from her pleasure tour! [_Fixing an eye on_ LULU’S
_picture_.] She doesn’t understand business! She can’t live off love,
because her life is love.--There she comes. I’ll just talk straight to
her once---- [COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _enters_.] ... If you want to lodge
with us to-night, kindly take a little care that nothing is stolen here.
GESCHWITZ--How dark it is here!
SCHIGOLCH--It gets much darker than this.--The doctor’s already gone to
rest.
GESCHWITZ--She sent me ahead.
SCHIGOLCH--That was sensible.--If anyone asks for me, I’m sitting
downstairs in the pub.
GESCHWITZ--[_After he has gone._] I will sit behind the door. I will
look on at everything and not quiver an eyelash. [_Sits on the broken
chair._] Men and women don’t know themselves--they know not what they
are. Only one who is neither man nor woman knows them. Every word they
say is untrue, a lie. And they do not know it, for they are to-day so
and to-morrow so, according as they have eaten, drunk, and loved, or
not. Only the body remains for a time what it is, and only the children
have reason. The men and women are like the animals: none knows what
it does. When they are happiest they bewail themselves and groan, and
in their deepest misery they rejoice over every tiny morsel. It is
strange how hunger takes from men and women the strength to withstand
misfortune. But when they have fed full they make this world a
torture-chamber, they throw away their lives to satisfy a whim, a mood.
Have there ever once been men and women to whom love brought happiness?
And what is their happiness, save that they sleep better and can forget
it all? My God, I thank thee that thou hast not made me as these. I am
not man nor woman. My body has nothing common with their bodies. Have
I a human soul? Tortured humanity has a little narrow heart; but I know
it’s no virtue of mine if I resign all, sacrifice all.... [LULU _opens
the door, and_ DR. HILTI _enters_. GESCHWITZ, _unnoticed, remains
motionless by the door_.]
LULU--[_Gaily._] Come right in! Come!--you’ll stay with me all night?
DR. HILTI--[_His accent is very broad and flat._[10]] But I have no
more than five shillings on me. I never take more than that when I go
out.
LULU--That’s enough, seeing it’s you! You have such faithful eyes!
Come, give me a kiss! [_She flings herself down on the couch._ DR.
HILTI _begins to swear in his native tongue_.[11]] Please, don’t say
that.
DR. HILTI--By the devil, this is really the first time I’ve ever gone
with a girl! You can believe me. Mass, I hadn’t thought it would be
like this!
LULU--Are you married?
DR. HILTI--Heaven and Hail, why do you think I am married?--No, I’m a
tutor; I read philosophy at the University. The truth is, I come of a
very old country family. When I was a student, I only got two gulden
a week for pocket-money, and I could make better use of that than for
girls!
LULU--So you have never been with a woman?
DR. HILTI--Just so, yeah! But I want it now. I got engaged this evening
to a country-woman of mine. She’s a governess here.
LULU--Is she pretty?
DR. HILTI--Yeah, she’s got a hundred thousand.--I am very much excited,
as it seems to me.
LULU--[_Tossing back her hair and getting up._] I =am= in luck! [_Takes
the lamp._] Well, if you please, Mr. Tutor? [_They go into her room._
GESCHWITZ _draws a small black revolver from her pocket and sets it to
her forehead_.]
GESCHWITZ--Come, come,--beloved! [DR. HILTI _tears open the door
again_.]
DR. HILTI--[_Plunging in._] Insane seraphs! Someone’s lying in there!
LULU--[_Lamp in hand, holds him by the sleeve._] Stay with me!
DR. HILTI--A dead man! A corpse!
LULU--Stay with me! Stay with me!
DR. HILTI--[_Tearing away._] A corpse is lying in there! Horrors! Hail!
Heaven!
LULU--Stay with me!
DR. HILTI--Where d’s it go out? [_Sees_ GESCHWITZ.] And there is the
devil!
LULU--Please, stop, stay!
DR. HILTI--Devil, devilled devilry.--Oh, thou eternal----[_Exit._]
LULU--[_Rushing after him._] Stop! Stop!
GESCHWITZ--[_Alone, lets the revolver sink._] Better, hang! If now
she sees me lying in my blood, she’ll not weep a tear for me! I have
always been to her but the docile tool that she could use for the
most difficult tasks. From the first day she has abhorred me from
the depths of her soul.--Shall I not rather jump from the bridge?
Which could be colder, the water or her heart? I would dream till I
was drowned.----Better, hang!----Stab?--Hm, there would be no use in
that---- How often have I dreamt that she kissed me! But a minute more;
an owl knocks there at the window, and I wake up----Better, hang! Not
water; water is too clean for me. [_Starting up._] There!--There! There
it is!--Quick now, before she comes! [_Takes the plaid-straps from the
wall, climbs on the chair, fastens them to a hook in the doorpost, puts
her head thru them, kicks the chair away, and falls to the ground._]
Accursed life!--Accursed life!--Could it be before me still?--Let me
speak to your heart just once, my angel! But you are cold!--I am not
to go yet! Perhaps I am even to have been happy once.--Listen to him,
Lulu! I am not to go yet! [_She drags herself before_ LULU’S _picture,
sinks on her knees and folds her hands_.] My adoréd angel! My love! My
star!--Have mercy upon me, pity me, pity me, pity me! [LULU _opens the
door, and_ JACK _enters--a thick-set man of elastic movements, with a
pale face, inflamed eyes, arched and heavy brows, a drooping mustache,
thin imperial and shaggy whiskers, and fiery red hands with gnawed
nails. His eyes are fixed on the ground. He wears a dark overcoat and
a little round felt hat. Entering, he notices_ GESCHWITZ.]
JACK--Who is that?
LULU--That’s my sister, sir. She’s crazy. I don’t know how to get rid
of her.
JACK--Your mouth looks beautiful.
LULU--It’s my mother’s.
JACK--Looks like it. How much do you want? I haven’t got much money.
LULU--Won’t you spend the night with me here?
JACK--No, haven’t got the time. I must get home.
LULU--You can tell them at home to-morrow that you missed the last ’bus
and spent the night with a friend.
JACK--How much do you want?
LULU--I’m not after lumps of gold, but, well, a little something.
JACK--[_Turning._] Good night! Good night!
LULU--[_Holds him back._] No, no! Stay, for God’s sake!
JACK--[_Goes past_ GESCHWITZ _and opens the cubicle_.] Why should I
stay here till morning? Sounds suspicious! When I’m asleep they’ll turn
my pockets out.
LULU--No, I won’t do that! No one will! Don’t go away again for that! I
beg you!
JACK--How much do you want?
LULU--Then give me the half of what I said!
JACK--No, that’s too much. You don’t seem to have been at this long?
LULU--To-day is the first time. [GESCHWITZ, _still on her knees, has
half risen toward_ JACK; LULU _yanks her back by the straps around her
neck_.] Lie down and be quiet!
JACK--Let her alone! She isn’t your sister. She is in love with you.
[_Strokes_ GESCHWITZ’S _head like a dog’s_.] Poor beast!
LULU--Why do you stare at me so all at once?
JACK--I got your measure by the way you walked. I said to myself: That
girl must have a well-built body.
LULU--But how can you tell a thing like that?
JACK--I even saw that you had a pretty mouth. But I’ve only got a
florin on me.
LULU--Well, what difference does that make! Just give that to me!
JACK--But you’ll have to give me half back, so I can take the ’bus
to-morrow morning.
LULU--I have nothing on me.
JACK--Just look, though. Hunt thru your pockets!--Well, what’s that?
Let’s see it!
LULU--[_Showing him._] That’s all I have.
JACK--Give it to me!
LULU--I’ll change it to-morrow, and then give you half.
JACK--No, give it all to me.
LULU--[_Giving it._] In God’s name! But now you come! [_Takes up the
lamp._]
JACK--We need no light. The moon’s out.
LULU--[_Puts the lamp down._] As you say. [_She falls on his neck._] I
won’t harm you at all! I love you so! Don’t let me beg you any longer!
JACK--All right; I’m with you. [_Follows her into the cubby-hole. The
lamp goes out. On the floor under the two skylights appear two vivid
squares of moonlight. Everything in the room is clearly seen._]
GESCHWITZ--[_As in a dream._] This is the last evening I shall spend
with these people. I’m going back to Germany. My mother’ll send me the
money. I’ll go to a university. I must fight for woman’s rights; study
law.... [LULU _shrieks, and tears open the door_.]
LULU--[_Barefoot, in chemise and petticoat, holding the door shut
behind her._] Help! Help! [GESCHWITZ _rushes to the door, draws her
revolver, and crying “Let go!” pushes_ LULU _aside. As she aims at the
door_, JACK, _bent double, tears it open from inside, and runs a knife
into_ GESCHWITZ’S _body. She fires one shot, at the roof, and falls
with suppressed crying, crumpling up._ JACK _tears her revolver from
her and throws himself against the exit-door_.]
JACK--God damn! I never saw a prettier mouth! [_Sweat drips from
his hairy face. His hands are bloody. He pants, gasping violently,
and stares at the floor with eyes popping out of his head._ LULU,
_trembling in every limb, looks wildly round. Suddenly she seizes the
bottle, smashes it on the table, and with the broken neck in her hand
rushes upon_ JACK. _He swings up his right foot and throws her onto her
back. Then he lifts her up._]
LULU--No, no!--Mercy!--Murder!--Police! Police!
JACK--Be still. You’ll never get away from me again. [_Carries her in._]
LULU--[_Within, right._] No.--No!--No!--Ah!--Ah!... [_After a pause_,
JACK _re-enters. He puts the bowl on the table._]
JACK--That =was= a piece of work! [_Washing his hands._] I =am= a
damned lucky chap! [_Looks round for a towel._] Not even a towel,
these folks here! Hell of a wretched hole! [_He dries his hands on_
GESCHWITZ’S _petticoat_.] This invert is safe enough from me! [_To
her._] It’ll soon be all up with you, too. [_Exit._]
GESCHWITZ--[_Alone._] Lulu!--My angel!--Let me see thee once more!
I am near thee--stay near thee--forever! [_Her elbows give way._] O
cursed--!! [_Dies._]
CURTAIN
FOOTNOTES:
[9] For the meaning of this see page 51.
[10] In the original he comes from Basle, Switzerland. English with a
Dutch accent might offer the best equivalent.
[11] “Hiemäl, Härgoht, Töüfäl, Kräuzpataliohn,” such is the weird
appearance of all his German.
DAMNATION!
(TOD UND TEUFEL)
A Death-Dance in Three Scenes
“Ἀμὴν λέγω ὑμῖν
ὅτι οἱ πόρναι
προάγουσιν ὑμᾶς
εἰς τῆν βασιλείαν
τοῦ Θεοῦ.”
ὁ Ἰησοῦς.
(_Matth._ 21. 31.)
CHARACTERS
MARQUIS CASTI-PIANI
FRÄULEIN ELFRIEDE VON MALCHUS
HERR KÖNIG
LISISKA
THREE GIRLS
SCENE--_A room with three doors, and windows with the blinds drawn. On
each side, facing each other, two arm-chairs upholstered in red.
In both down-stage corners are little trellis screens behind which
the actor is hidden from the stage tho not from the audience. Red
upholstered stools in both these corners._
ELFRIEDE VON MALCHUS _sits in one of the arm-chairs. She is
evidently uneasy. She wears a modern “reformed” dress with hat,
cloak, and gloves._
ELFRIEDE--How much longer are they going to keep me waiting? [_Long
pause. She remains sitting motionless._] How much longer are they going
to keep me waiting! [_Long pause as before._] How much longer are
they going to keep me waiting here!! [_After a moment, she gets up,
takes off her cloak and lays it on the chair, takes off her hat and
puts it on the cloak, and then walks up and down twice with manifest
excitement. Stopping, she cries again_:] How much longer will they
keep me waiting here??!! [_On her last word, the_ MARQUIS CASTI-PIANI
_enters thru the centre door. He is a tall, bald-headed man, with a
high forehead, great black, melancholy eyes, strong, hooked nose, and
thick, drooping black mustache. He wears a black coat, a dark, fancy
waistcoat, dark gray trousers, patent-leather shoes and a black cravat
with a diamond pin._]
CASTI-PIANI--[_Bowing._] What can I do for you, madam?
ELFRIEDE--I have already explained it to the--lady, as clearly as I can
possibly explain it, =why= I am here.
CASTI-PIANI--The--lady told me why you were here. The lady told me also
that you were a member of the International Union for the Suppression
of the White Slave Traffic.
ELFRIEDE--=That= I =am=! I =am= a member of the International Union for
the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic. But even if I did =not=
belong to it I could not possibly have spared myself this search! For
nine months I’ve been on the track of this unfortunate, and everywhere
I’ve been so far she’d just been carried off to another city. But
she is in this house! She’s here at this moment! The--lady who was
here just now admitted that, without any beating round the bush. She
promised me she would send the girl here to this room, so that I could
speak with her in private and undisturbed. I am waiting here now for
the girl, and for no one else. I have no desire and no need to go
through a second cross-examination.
CASTI-PIANI--I beg you, madam, not to excite yourself further. The
girl felt she should present herself to you--respectably dressed. The
lady asked me to tell you that, for she feared that in your agitation
you might be tempted to take some needlessly violent measure. And she
asked me to do what I could to help you through the embarrassment which
waiting in these surroundings would naturally cause you.
ELFRIEDE--[_Walking up and down._] Pray keep your amiable conversation
to yourself! There is nothing new for me now in the atmosphere of this
place. The first time I entered such a house, I had to fight physical
nausea. Only then did I realize what tremendous self-suppression my
entrance into the Union for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic
had involved me in. Till then I had taken part in our activities as an
idle pastime, solely to avoid growing old and gray in uselessness.
CASTI-PIANI--This confession awakens in me so much sympathy that I feel
tempted to ask you for your credentials as an active member of the
International Union for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic.
We know from experience that a lot of people crowd into that calling
who have quite other ends in view than the rescue of fallen girls. If
you are earnestly bent on attaining your high purposes, the strict
precautions we are compelled to use will assuredly meet your approval.
ELFRIEDE--I have been a member of our Union for nearly three years now.
My name is--Fräulein von Malchus.
CASTI-PIANI--Elfriede von Malchus?
ELFRIEDE--Yes, Elfriede von Malchus.--How do you know my first name?
CASTI-PIANI--Why, we read the annual reports of the Union. If I
remember right, you were a distinguished speaker at last year’s annual
meeting in Cologne?
ELFRIEDE--I am sorry to say that for two whole years I did nothing but
write and speak and speak and write, without ever working up courage to
attack the white slave traffic directly, until finally the white slave
traffic found a victim under my own roof, in my own family!
CASTI-PIANI--If I am rightly advised, however, only your own papers,
books, and magazines were to blame for this misfortune. Apparently you
did not keep them carefully enough away from the young person for whose
rescue you are here at this moment?
ELFRIEDE--There you are absolutely right! I grieve to confess I cannot
contradict you there! Night after night, when I had stretched under
the bed-clothes, content with myself and the world, for a ten-hour
sleep undisturbed by any earthly emotion, that seventeen-year-old girl
crept into my study without my ever dreaming of it and glutted her
love-starved imagination with the most seductive pictures of sensual
pleasure, and the fearfullest vice, from my piles of books on the
suppression of the white slave traffic. Silly goose that I was, in
spite of my twenty-eight years, I never saw the next morning that the
girl had sat up all night! I had never in my life known a sleepless
night! When I went to work again in the morning I never once asked
myself how my papers could have got into such atrocious confusion!
CASTI-PIANI--If I mistake not, my dear young lady, the girl had been
engaged by your parents to do the lighter housework?
ELFRIEDE--To her destruction! Yes! Mama as well as Papa was enchanted
with her propriety and modesty. To Papa, who is a ministerial official
and a bureaucrat of the purest water, her presence in our house was
like a sunbeam. At her sudden disappearance, Papa as well as Mama
stopped calling my activities for the Union an old maid’s eccentricity.
They called it an outright crime.
CASTI-PIANI--The girl is the illegitimate child of a wash-woman?--Do
you perhaps know who her father was?
ELFRIEDE--No, I never asked her about that.--But pray who are you? How
do you come to know all this?
CASTI-PIANI--Hm--the girl had read in one of your Union’s publications
that certain advertisements were published in the daily papers by
which, under certain well-known false pretenses, the white-slavers
decoyed young girls into their clutches in order to introduce them to
the love-market. Accordingly, the girl looked up an insertion of that
kind in the first paper that came to hand, and on finding one, wrote a
very correct letter of application for the position falsely advertised
in the insertion. In this way I made her acquaintance.
ELFRIEDE--And you dare tell me that--with such cynicism!
CASTI-PIANI--I dare tell you that, my dear young lady, with just such
objectivity.
ELFRIEDE--[_In the utmost excitement, with fists clenched._] So the
monster who delivered up this girl to a life of shame was you!
CASTI-PIANI--[_With a disconsolate smile._] If you guessed, my dear
young lady, the hidden springs of your diabolical excitement, you would
be wise enough, perhaps, to keep perfectly calm in the presence of such
a monster as _I_ seem to you to be.
ELFRIEDE--[_Curt._] I don’t understand that. I don’t know what you mean!
CASTI-PIANI--You--are--still--a virgin?
ELFRIEDE--[_Gasping._] How dare you put such a question to me!
CASTI-PIANI--Who in God’s wide world will forbid me!--But we’ll leave
that. In any case, you have not married. You are, as you just informed
me yourself, twenty-eight years old. These facts may be sufficient to
prove to you that in comparison with other women, not to speak of that
child of nature for whose rescue you have come here,--you are only to a
very slight degree open to sensuous influences.
ELFRIEDE--You may be right in that.
CASTI-PIANI--I speak, of course, only with the understanding that I
shall not annoy you with this discussion. I am very far from thinking
you unhealthily or unnaturally constituted. But do you know, my
young lady, how you have satisfied those sensuous cravings that you
have?--to be sure, as you admit, extremely weak?
ELFRIEDE--Well?
CASTI-PIANI--By joining the International Union for the Suppression of
the White Slave Traffic.
ELFRIEDE--[_Restraining her anger._] Who are you, my dear sir!--I came
here to free an unfortunate girl from the claws of vice! I did not come
here to listen to lectures, in very bad taste, from you.
CASTI-PIANI--Nor did I suppose you did. But you see, when viewed
from this standpoint, we are more allied to one another than you in
your proud little bourgeois virtue ever dreamt. On =you= nature has
conferred but an extremely scant sensuous susceptibility. The storms of
life have long since made a horribly chilly desert of =me=. But what
fighting the white slave traffic is to =your= sensual life, that, to
mine, if you will still grant me something of the kind,--is the white
slave traffic itself!
ELFRIEDE--[_Aroused._] Don’t dissemble so shamelessly, you vile
creature! Do you think you can lull me to sleep with your fantastic
=sense=-hocus-pocus?--me, who’ve run after that girl from one den of
vice to another like a hunted brute?! I’m not here now as a member of
the Union for the Suppression of the White Slave Traffic. I’m here as
an unhappy criminal who has unintentionally plunged an innocent young
life into suffering and despair. I shall never be happy again as long
as I live if I can’t snatch this child from her ruin now. You would
have me believe an impure curiosity drives me into this house. You’re
a liar! You don’t believe your own words! And it was not unsatisfied
sensuality that made you barter this girl away, but money-greed! You
lured and sold this girl because it was good business!
CASTI-PIANI--Good business! Naturally! But good business is based on
profits for both parties. I may say that I do no business which is
=not= good. Every business that is not good is immoral!--Or do you
believe perhaps that the love-business is a =bad= business for the
woman?
ELFRIEDE--How do you mean?
CASTI-PIANI--I mean simply this--I don’t know whether you’re just in
the mood at this moment to listen to me with some attentiveness?
ELFRIEDE--Save your introduction, for God’s sake!
CASTI-PIANI--Well then, I mean this: When a man finds himself in dire
need there is often no choice left him but stealing or starving. But
when a woman is in need, she has a third choice: the possibility of
selling her love. This way out remains for the woman only because in
granting her body she need not experience any emotion. Now since the
world was created, woman has made use of this advantage. To speak of
nothing else, man is by nature vastly superior to woman from the sheer
fact that the woman suffers in childbirth----
ELFRIEDE--That’s the screaming incongruity exactly! That’s what I’m
always saying. To =bear= children is pain and care, but to =beget=
them passes as an amusement. And nevertheless benevolent Creation
(which suffers from crazy fits in many other respects, too) has laid
the burden of pain and care on the weaker sex!
CASTI-PIANI--On that, young lady, we’re quite of the same opinion. And
now you want to rob your unfortunate sisters of the little advantage
over the male which--“crazy Creation” did confer on them: the advantage
of being able, in extreme need, to sell their sexual favors,--by
representing this sale as an inexpiable shame! I’ll say you’re a fine
champion of woman’s rights!
ELFRIEDE--[_Almost in tears._] That possibility of selling ourselves
weighs on our oppressed sex as an unspeakable misfortune, an
everlasting curse!
CASTI-PIANI--But--God in heaven knows--it isn’t =our= fault that the
buying and selling of love weighs on the female sex as an everlasting
curse! We traders have no dearer aim than that this love-business
should be as open and unmolested as any other honest trade! We have
no loftier ideal than that prices in the love-business should be as
high as they can possibly be made to be. Hurl your accusations, if you
would fight the oppression of your unfortunate sex, in the face of
conventional society! If you would defend your sisters’ natural rights,
attack first of all the International Union for the Suppression of the
White Slave Traffic!
ELFRIEDE--[_Boiling over._] I won’t let you humbug me here any
longer! I am firmly convinced that you have no serious intention of
setting the girl free. While I play the fool here listening to your
sociological lectures, the poor thing’ll be hustled into a cab somehow,
packed off to the station and transported to some place where she’ll
be safe all her life from members of the Union for the Suppression of
the White Slave Traffic.--Very well, I know what I have to do! [_Takes
hat._]
CASTI-PIANI--[_Smiling._] If you guessed, dear lady, how your outburst
of rage beautified your bourgeois appearance, you would not be in such
a hurry to depart.
ELFRIEDE--Let me out! It’s high time!
CASTI-PIANI--Where are you thinking of going now?
ELFRIEDE--You know quite as well as I do where I am going now!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Takes her by the throat, chokes her, and forces her into
one of the chairs._] You’ll stay here. I’ve still got a word to say to
you! Try to scream, go ahead, try it! We are accustomed here to every
possible outcry. Shriek as loud as you can shriek!--[_Letting her go._]
I shall be surprised if I don’t bring you to reason before you run
straight from this house to the police!
ELFRIEDE--[_Gasping, toneless._] It’s the first time in my life
violence like that has been offered me!
CASTI-PIANI--You have done so awfully much in your useless life
for the uplift of the daughters of joy! Now for once do something
useful for the uplift of =joy=! Then you needn’t feel sorry for the
poor creatures any more. Because the joy-business is branded as the
vulgarest, shamefullest of all professions, girls and women of good
society give themselves to a man for nothing rather than let their
favors be paid for! Thereby these girls and women degrade their sex in
the same way as a tailor degrades his craft if he gives clothes to his
customers for nothing!
ELFRIEDE--[_Still as though stunned._] I don’t understand one word of
all that! I went to school when I was five and stayed there till I was
fourteen. Then I had to sit on a school-bench three more years before
taking my teacher’s examinations. As long as I was young, our house was
frequented by gentlemen of the best society. I had a proposal from one
man who had inherited an estate of twenty square miles and who would
have followed me to the ends of the world if I had wanted him to. But
I felt I couldn’t love him. Perhaps it wasn’t right of me. Perhaps I
was only lacking that minimum of passion which is essential to marriage
under any circumstances.
CASTI-PIANI--Have you calmed down at last?
ELFRIEDE--Just explain one more thing to me. If the girl in the course
of the life she’s living here, brings a child into the world, who will
take care of that child?
CASTI-PIANI--You take care of it! Or as a feminist, have you perhaps
something on earth more important to do? So long as any woman under
God’s sun must still be afraid of becoming a mother, all the
“emancipation” in the world is nothing but empty gabble! Motherhood
is a necessity of nature for a woman, like breathing and sleeping.
And this innate right has been most barbarously restricted by
conventional society. A natural child is almost as big a disgrace as
the love-business itself! =Whore= here and =whore= there! The mother
of an illegitimate child is no more spared the name of whore than is a
girl in this house. If ever anything in your woman’s movement inspired
me with loathing, it was the =morality= that you inject into your
disciples on life’s way. Do you imagine the love-business would ever
in the world’s history have been described as a disgrace if the man
could have competed with the woman in the love-market? Envy! Nothing
but commercial envy! Nature accorded to the woman the monopoly of being
able to trade in her love. Therefore conventional society, which is
governed by man, would like nothing better than over and over again to
represent that trade as the most shameful of crimes!
ELFRIEDE--[_Stands up and lays her cloak over the chair. Walking up
and down._] I confess I am at this moment quite unable to tell whether
your opinions on that point are right or not. But how in the world is
it possible for a man of your culture, of your social views, of your
intellectual eminence, to throw his life away among the vilest elements
of society! God knows it may have been only your beastly brutality
that has made me take your assertions seriously. But I feel very sure
you’ve given me things to think about for a long time to come, things
I’d never in my life have thought of myself. Every winter for years
I’ve heard from twelve to twenty lectures by all the male and female
authorities on the woman movement; but I can’t remember ever having
heard a word that went to the bottom of the business the way your
statements do.
CASTI-PIANI--[_In a singsong._] Let us always realize quite clearly,
my dear lady, that we all are as though walking in our sleep on a
ridge-pole, and that any unexpected enlightenment can be the breaking
of our necks.
ELFRIEDE--[_Staring at him._] What do you mean by =that=?--There’s
something monstrous in your mind?!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Very quietly._] I said it only in regard to your
views, which so far have let you feel so innocently safe in throwing
round epithets like =respectable= and =vile= as if you were specially
commissioned of God to sit in judgment on your fellow-mortals.
ELFRIEDE--[_Staring at him._] You’re a great man.--You’re a high-minded
man!
CASTI-PIANI--Your words probe the mortal wound that I brought with me
into the world and that I shall probably die of, some day. [_Throws
himself into a chair._] I am--a moralist!
ELFRIEDE--And would you bewail your fate on that account?! Because
the power of making other men happy was given you? [_After a short
inner struggle, she throws herself at his feet._] Marry me, marry me,
for mercy’s sake! Before I saw =you= I was never able to imagine the
possibility of giving myself to a man! I am absolutely inexperienced;
that I can swear to you by the sacredest oaths. Till this moment I
never guessed what the word =love= meant. With you, here, I feel it
for the first time. Love lifts the lover up above his miserable self.
I’m an everyday average woman, but my love for you makes me so free
and fearless that nothing is impossible to me. Continue, in God’s
name, from crime to crime! I will go before you! Go to prison! I will
go before you! Go from prison to the scaffold! I will go before you.
Don’t, I beseech you, don’t let this fortunate opportunity escape!
Marry me, marry me, marry me! So shall help come to us two poor
children of men!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Stroking her head, without looking at her._] Whether
you love me or don’t love me, you dear animal, is all one to me. Of
course, you cannot know how many thousand times I have already had to
undergo just such outbursts of emotion. Far be it from me to undervalue
love. But alas, love must also serve as the vindication of all those
innumerable women who merely satisfy their sensual wants, without
asking the least return, and by their unrecompensed abandon only ruin
the market.
ELFRIEDE--Marry me! There is still time for you to begin a new life!
Marriage will reconcile you with society. You can be editor of a
socialist paper, you can be a representative in the Reichstag! Marry
me, and then even you will learn for once in your life what superhuman
sacrifices a woman is capable of in her boundless love!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Still without looking at her, stroking her hair._] The
best your superhuman sacrifices could do would be to turn my stomach.
All my life I have loved tigresses. With bitches I was never anything
but a stick of wood. My only consolation is that marriage, which you
glorify so rapturously and for which bitches are bred, is a civilized
institution. Civilized institutions arise only that they may be
surmounted. The race will win beyond marriage just as it has surmounted
slavery. The =free love-market=, where the tigress triumphs, is founded
on a =primordial law= of =unalterable nature=. And how proud and high
will woman stand in the world, so soon as she has conquered the right
to sell herself, unbranded, at the highest price a man will bid for
her! Illegitimate children will be better cared for then by the mother,
than legitimate ones are now by the father. Then the pride and ambition
of woman will no longer lie in the man who allots her her place, but
in the world, where she struggles up to the highest position that her
value can give her. Then what a glorious fresh vital sound the words
“daughter of joy” will have! In the story of paradise it is written
that Heaven endowed woman with the power to seduce. Woman seduces whom
she will. Woman seduces when she will. She does not wait for love.
And conventional society combats this hellish danger to our sacred
civilization, by bringing woman up in an artificial darkness of mind
and soul. The growing girl must not know what it means =to be a woman=.
All our institutions might go to smash if she did! No hangman’s dodge
is too base for the defense of conventional society! With every advance
of civilization the love-business expands. The cleverer the world gets,
the bigger is the love-market. And our celebrated civilization, in
the name of morality, condemns these millions of daughters of joy to
starvation, or robs them in the name of morality of their self-respect
and life-vindication, yea, hurls them down to the level of beasts, all
in the name of morality! How many centuries more will an =immorality=
which cries to Heaven ravage this world with the sword and ax of
morality!
ELFRIEDE--[_Voicelessly whimpering._] Marry me! You stand above and
beyond the world! For the first time, to-day I offer my hand to a man!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Stroking her hair without looking at her._] Materialism!
Commercialism!--What would the world know about morality at all, if man
could commandeer love as he bosses politics!
ELFRIEDE--I hope for no higher happiness from our marriage than the
privilege of kneeling so before you all my life and listening to your
words!
CASTI-PIANI--Have you ever asked yourself what marriage means?
ELFRIEDE--Till this moment I’ve had no occasion to do so. [_Rising._]
Tell me! I shall do everything to come up to your requirements.
CASTI-PIANI--[_Draws her onto his knee._] Come here, my child. I’ll
explain it to you. [ELFRIEDE _is prudish for a moment_.] Please keep
still.
ELFRIEDE--I have never sat on a man’s knee.
CASTI-PIANI--Give me a kiss. [_She kisses him._] Thanks. [_Holding
her off._] You’d like to know what marriage is?--Tell me, which is
stronger: a man who has =one= dog or a man who has =none=?
ELFRIEDE--The man who has the dog is stronger.
CASTI-PIANI--And now tell me again, which is stronger: a man who has
one dog or a man who has =two= dogs?
ELFRIEDE--I guess the man who has one dog is stronger, for of course,
two dogs couldn’t very well help getting jealous of each other.
CASTI-PIANI--That would be the least consideration. But he would have
to feed =two= dogs or else they’d run away, while =one= dog takes care
of himself and also if there is need protects his master from robbers.
ELFRIEDE--And by this abominable comparison you would explain the
unselfish inseparable union of man and wife? Merciful God, what a life
you must have had!
CASTI-PIANI--The man with one wife is economically stronger than if he
had none; but he is also economically stronger than if he had to take
care of two or more wives. That is the cornerstone of marriage. Woman
would never have dreamt of this ingenious device!
ELFRIEDE--You poor pitiable man! Did you ever know a home and family?
Did you ever have a mother to nurse you when you were sick, to read
you stories when you were convalescing, for you to confide in when
there was something in your heart, and who helped you always and
always, even when you had thought for the longest time that there was
no more help for you on God’s earth?
CASTI-PIANI--What I lived through as a child no human creature could
live through without having his will and energy broken and ruined. Can
you imagine yourself a young man of sixteen and still whipped because
the logarithm of Pi won’t go into his head? And the man who whipped me
was my father! And I whipped back! I beat my father to death! He died
after I’d beaten him once.--But these are trifles. You see what sort of
creatures I live with here. I have never heard among these creatures
the insults that were my mother’s share all through my childhood and
which her spitefulness earned afresh for her each day. But those are
trifles. The slaps, blows and kicks with which father, mother and a
dozen teachers vied with one another to demean my defenseless body,
were trifling in comparison with the slaps, blows and kicks with which
the vicissitudes of life have vied with one another to degrade my
defenseless =soul=.
ELFRIEDE--[_Kisses him._] If you could guess how much I love you for
all those frightful experiences!
CASTI-PIANI--The life of man is tenfold death =before= death. Not
merely for me. For you! For everything that breathes! For the ordinary
man, life consists of pains, aches and tortures which his =body=
suffers. And if a man struggles up to a higher plane, in the hope of
escaping the sufferings of the body, then for him life consists of
pains, aches and tortures which the soul endures and beside which the
torments of the body were a kindness. How =horrible= this life is is
shown by mankind’s having had to think out a Being that consisted of
nothing but goodness, but love, but kindness,--and by all humanity’s
having to pray daily, hourly to this Being, in order to endure its life
at all!
ELFRIEDE--[_Caressing him._] When you marry me, pains of the body
and soul-pains alike will have an end! You need not plague yourself
any longer with all these frightful questions. My mama has a private
fortune of sixty thousand marks, and after all their twenty-five years
of happy married life, Papa hasn’t an inkling of it. Doesn’t the
prospect lure you, of marrying me and having sixty thousand marks cash
suddenly at your disposal?
CASTI-PIANI--[_Pushing her off nervously._] You don’t understand how to
caress, young lady! You act like an ass that’s trying to be a setter.
Your hands irritate me! That’s not because you haven’t learnt anything.
It’s because of your having sprung from the enslaved love-life of
conventional society. There’s nothing thoroughbred in your body.
You lack the necessary delicacy! Delicacy, modesty, shame! You lack
the feeling for the =effect= of your caresses, a feeling that every
thoroughbred child is born with.
ELFRIEDE--[_Springing up._] And you dare to tell me that in this house?
CASTI-PIANI--[_Rising simultaneously._] That I dare tell you in this
house!
ELFRIEDE--In this house? That I lack the necessary delicacy, the
necessary =shame=?!
CASTI-PIANI--That you lack the necessary delicacy and sense of shame!
In this house of ill-fame I tell you that! Get it into your head, once
and for all, with what =fine tact= these creatures apply themselves to
their defamed calling! The girl most lately come into this house knows
more about the soul of man than the most famous professor of psychology
in the most renowned university. You, young lady, would assuredly
experience the same disappointments here as you have always had. The
woman who is created for the love-market can be recognized at the first
glance. Her frank and regular features shine with =innocent rapture=
and blissful =innocence=.--[_Regarding_ ELFRIEDE.] In =your= face, with
all due respect, I can find no trace of either rapture or innocence.
ELFRIEDE--[_Hesitating._] Don’t you believe, my lord, that with my iron
will, my energy, and my insuperable enthusiasm for the beautiful, I
might yet acquire the delicacy and the fine tact of which you speak?
CASTI-PIANI--No, no, madam!--please, no! Get rid of those notions on
the spot!
ELFRIEDE--I am so deeply convinced of the moral significance of
everything you say that the =utmost sacrifice= by which I could
overcome my bourgeois helplessness would not be too great for me!
CASTI-PIANI--No, no. I won’t agree to that! That would be horrible.
Life is horrible enough. No, no, madam! Keep your fearful fingers off
the one divine ray that pierces the shuddering night of our tortured
earthly existence! What am I living for? Why do I take part in this
civilization of ours? No, no! The one pure flower of heaven in life’s
thorn-thicket, befouled with sweat and blood, shall not be trampled
out under clumsy feet! Believe me, I beg you, that I would have shot
a bullet through my head half a century ago if it had not been that
above the wail shrieking to heaven from birth-pangs, woes of life and
death-agonies, still gleamed this =one bright star=!
ELFRIEDE--The utmost mental exertion fails to give me even an inkling
of your meaning! What is that ray that pierces the night of our
existence? What is the =one pure flower of heaven= that must not be
trampled into the dirt?
CASTI-PIANI--[_Taking_ ELFRIEDE’S _hand and whispering mysteriously_.]
Sensual pleasure, gracious lady!--The laughing, sunny enjoyment of
the senses! =Sensual joy is the ray=, the =flower of heaven=, because
it is the one unclouded bliss, the one pure rapture undefiled, that
earthly existence offers us. Believe me when I say that for half a
century nothing has kept me in this world but selfless worship of this
one full-throated laughing joy, this =sensual pleasure= that repays
mankind for all the torments of existence!
ELFRIEDE--I think somebody’s coming.
CASTI-PIANI--Lisiska, probably!
ELFRIEDE--Lisiska? Who is Lisiska?
CASTI-PIANI--The girl who studied those books on the suppression of
the white slave traffic in your house! In a moment you can convince
yourself if I have said too much! We are prepared for such occasions,
thank heaven. [_Takes her down right._] Sit down behind this screen.
From here, even =you= can for once in your life watch the =clear,
unsullied= bliss of two people whom the =joy of the senses= draws
together! [ELFRIEDE _seats herself on the stool behind the screen,
right_. CASTI-PIANI _goes to the centre door, glances out, and then
retires behind the screen, left, and sits_. HERR KÖNIG _and_ LISISKA
_enter, centre. He is a young man of twenty-five, in a gay sport-suit
with knee-breeches._ LISISKA _is dressed in a simple white garment
reaching to the calf, black stockings, patent-leather slippers, and a
white bow in her loose black hair_.]
HERR KÖNIG--
I have not come to while my time away,
A sensualist in the circle of your charms,
And will with gratitude and friendship pay
If quickly sober’d I can leave your arms.
LISISKA--
Speak not so friendly in my ear.
Here you are lord, and command us here.
Hesitate not to color my pallid
And bloodless cheeks with buffets untallied!
That for a whore like me
Is an unheard-of fee!
Helpless lamenting, sobbing and wailing
Need not cause you the slightest quailing.
Shallow’s the bliss from such abuse!
Pile pitiless blow upon blow without truce!
If your fist should smash in my face entire
Even that would not slake my desire!
HERR KÖNIG--
I am not prepared for such words, such a test....
Is this a merry welcome for the guest?
You speak as if in purgatory already
Here, you atoned for lust enjoyed and gone.
LISISKA--
Oh, no! Untamed the Monster, Lust, doth eddy,
Raging forever in flesh, blood and bone!
Think you I, the devil’s spouse,
Would ever have happened into this house
If my heart’s horrible hammering stopped
When Rapture seized me and shone?
Rapture evaporates, dropped
On a hot stone!
And Lust, an unstilled throe,
A hungering woe,
Plunges, to find death, into this
And every abyss!
Are you not cruel, good sir, in your joys?
I should be sorry!
But what do you care for my noise?
Strike me, your quarry!
HERR KÖNIG--
If that dark urge is really yours, to go
From the last depths to something yet below,--
I could shed tears that from the spring-time crew
Of amorous girls I picked and chose just you.
Out of your eyes, so innocent, so gay,
There gleamed on me a =bliss without alloy=....
LISISKA--
Do you wish that our time pass away--
And we have no joy?
Down there, over our rules and tenets,
Mother Adele sits, watch in hand:
Counts and reckons, immovable, bland,
My enjoyment’s minutes!
[_Pause._]
HERR KÖNIG--
You have grown tired of ecstasy at length
And hope for lassitude from tears and pain,--
For some deep calm to overcome the strength
Of your hot craving day and night in vain.
LISISKA--
If I sleep, then please with a sudden hard
Punch in the ribs wake me up, well-jarred!
HERR KÖNIG--
That note was false! A flaw is in the reed!
--How can a human being understand that?!
Whistle at happiness--at life--you can that,--
But =sleep=? No! that was blasphemy indeed!
LISISKA--
I am not your property,
You need not protect me;
Spare not then so anxiously
The joys that still affect me;
Seek no means to comfort me;
Kindness knows not how to;
Who beats me up most mercilessly,--
He’s the one I bow to.
You ask me
Whether or no
I still can blush?
Unmask me
With a quick blow,
And mark the flush!
HERR KÖNIG--
Cold sweat runs down me, chill’d in skull and spine,
Shuddering!--Let me out!... Half in a dream
I hoped to pluck the sweet fruits of love’s vine.
You offer thorns to me instead!... You seem
A young wild thing; how came it that you strayed--
Impossible!--from flower-paths to these briars?
LISISKA--
Leave not my sore desires
All unallayed!
Turn not heartless away from your slave!
Before me I have my grave,
And my only hope is to leave behind
No more of this world than I needs must.
Think you, we only come to such lust
Because in this house we are kept confined?
No, it is but the senses’ torturing thirst
Holds us here accursed!
But this, too, was reckoned without insight:
Night by night
I see it, blinding-clear:--that even
In this house no heaven
Of peace to the senses is given!
ELFRIEDE--[_In her hiding-place, to herself, with astonishment._] God
Almighty! That is just the =exact contrary= of what I’ve imagined it
for ten long years!
CASTI-PIANI--[_In his hiding-place, to himself, with horror._] Devil!
Devil! Devil! That is the =exact contrary= of what I’ve imagined about
sensual joy for fifty years!
LISISKA--
Don’t go away from me! Hear me, hard-hearted!
I was an innocent child, and started
Life earnestly, full of duty and zeal!
I could never carelessly smile,--but =feel=--?!...
From my teachers, even my brothers and sisters,
I often heard awed admiring whispers,
And my parents would both presage:
“You’ll be the delight of our old age.”
Then with a sudden blast
That was past!
And once-awakened lust
Grew over all bounds, all “oughts,”
Over all my thoughts,
Over all my heart’s feeling of trust,
So that I marvel’d, driven
Infatuate, master’d, what it implied,
That I saw no lightning strike at my side
Nor heard any thunder from heaven.
Then it came to me--hope, that our life had been given
For joy to us, joy never glutted nor dried.
HERR KÖNIG--
And this high hope you found was not fulfilled?
--I speak, I know, as a blind man of--of----
LISISKA--
No--it was only a hellish =drive=
Whence no joy remained alive.
HERR KÖNIG--
But when so many girls have died of love--
Was it with all of them--Desire unstilled?
--But then, how should such hordes of women press
By thousands down =your= path of dire excess?
LISISKA--
Have you no will to glory
In the stripes upon my body?
For what was it made so soft,--
For what was it so tender created?
Speechless looks have dilated
O’er stroke upon stroke here, oft!
Flagging desires anew to inflame
Boasting I tell from whom they came.
HERR KÖNIG--
Be still, I tell you! One more word thereon
And I’ll have stayed too long!... ’Tis plain to see
In your pale features how tempestuously
Youth fled from you!... Your innocence once gone,
Did he who robbed you of it leave you in shame?
LISISKA--
No--but another came,
Found glee and blame;
For always I swore eternal troth
To the young fools, and broke the oath.
Always I hoped my curse
Must disappear with another man.
Each time it was bitterness or worse.
No rest could be found for me, or can,
For ’twas always only the hellish drive
Out of which no joy came forth alive!
HERR KÖNIG--
So to this house you came at last, and lead
A life of riot and revel here indeed!
Music resounds, champagne drips from the tables,
Laughter roars through the graying dawn full oft,
Nought the long working-day knows but the soft
Sound of hot tongues’ husht lisping of love’s fables.--
What a low, common beggar I must be
To you--proud queen of joy and ecstasy!
I came with what was mine from you to purchase
A plain, straightforward interchange of pleasure.
I could tear my hair with rage! For without measure
Hideous is the lust that here besmirches
Those libertines your friends and you their game!
They set no stops to their inhuman glee!
Hasten and wreathe =their= limbs! A purer aim
And element upbuoys and quickens me!
I sought refreshment, and have no desire
To smear myself in the earth’s deepest mire!
LISISKA--
Oh, stay! If you desert me now, ’tis harder,--
’Tis night around me again! Don’t go away!
Like a lip-lash already each word you say
Flicks me, and stings my craving with pricking whips:
Would you might loathe and hate me with such ardor
That it would be your fists and not your lips
Whose blow on blow aches through my body’s smart!
Once you’ve been pressed to my heart
Then go back whence you came,
Smilingly write my name
In your notebook ... --while with me
There will stay but the ghastly curse--to be
Once more in the grip of the hellish drive
Out of which no joy remained alive!
HERR KÖNIG--
I can’t believe my senses now!--It seems,
You’ve fallen in =love= with me? Oh, cruel!--Spurned
By women, I have wept aloud and yearned
Thru many--how many--nights of tortured dreams!
Is the first love in all my life now faltering
Toward me upon bought lips?!--Are you not bound
To give to every stranger, without paltering,
His will,--and hopes of comfort would you found
On me?--to me lay passionately bare
Your soul, whose lurid charms shall hold me fast?
If e’er my lot so close to yours were cast
I should be seized with horror past compare!
LISISKA--
For God’s sake, don’t believe in my love!
’Tis my duty here to affect the dove!
Think to yourself just once what it means
When suddenly someone parts the screens!--
Rake up love’s coals, be alive and elated;
There is a =man= by God created!--
--Do you want me to play that wretched game
With =you= here?
To feel but loathing when your high’st flame
Burns thru here?!
But if you thoroly with your Hunnish
Fists my body and limbs will punish,--
That, if you find pleasure in it,
Can unite us till my dying minute!
HERR KÖNIG--
White robe of innocence! Spirit unstained
By even this house! Your purity makes blind
My eyes; your beauty takes my heart and mind
With infinite gazing.--Rioting unrestrained
In fierce self-martyrdom without repose--
You fight the soul’s unfathomable woes,--
Death in your face, and in your heart hot hate
For all earth’s vain delights turned desolate!
[_He kneels._]
Let me be friend, be brother to you! Whether
You give your body up to me--lies deep
Beneath us!--so have you exalted me!
To your slim knees here solemnly I vow
That only as soul cleaves to soul art thou
My own--so only am I thine--together!
Out of hell’s agony to heaven’s steep
You soared, and now unconscious of the sweep,
Of lusts that ebb and flow beneath your height
Must bleed your life out in sublimity
Thru me shall that be shown to all men’s sight!
From my chaste poetry the world shall learn
To weigh the wrong and misery of sold love!
I swear it by the eternal stars above,
The purest light that in our night can burn.
Give me a pledge, avow to me openly:--
Have you by love been gladden’d? once? or ever?
LISISKA--[_Raising him._]
If you killed me now straight off, I could never
Say it differently!
It was always only the hellish drive
Whence no joy remained alive.
Thus, once for all, it is in this place:
Here is the rendezvous
Of all to whom love is a pang without grace
And a hankering ever new!
What other chance callers may appear
Aren’t taken in earnest by us here!
Men such as you
Are few
For they count for nothing where
We house, whom men compare
With beasts unheeded.--
But now have I yet succeeded
In bringing you round to grant
Comfort to my wild want?
HERR KÖNIG--
What wilderness of paths your hand may lead me,
Still gleams a star above us that will speed me!
LISISKA--[_Hugs and kisses him._]
Then come, love! pliable at last, for trysts
In ancient, ne’er-disturbed tranquillity,
As uttermost lust’s calm bliss long known to me!
Oh, if I only died under your fists!
[_Both exeunt, right._]
CASTI-PIANI--[_Breaking out of his hiding-place, wildly._] What was
that?
ELFRIEDE--[_Breaking out likewise, passionately._] What was that!
Worthless parasite that I am! What did my withered brain ever think
the joy of the senses was! Self-immolation, glowing martyrdom, that’s
what the life in this house is! And I, in my lying arrogance, in my
threadbare virtue, supposed this house a breeding-place of depravity!
CASTI-PIANI--I am smashed and shattered!!
ELFRIEDE--All my youth, that the good God gave me overflowing with
the desire and the power to love,--I have wantonly dragged it through
the gray, soul-smothering dirt of the streets! Coward that I was, the
sacredness of sensual passion seemed to me the basest reprobacy!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Stunned._] That was the blinding-bright enlightenment
that unforeseen breaks his neck who walks in his sleep on the
ridge-pole!
ELFRIEDE--[_Passionately._] That was the blinding-bright enlightenment!
CASTI-PIANI--What am I still doing in the world, if even sensual
pleasure is nothing but a hellish flaying of man, nothing but a satanic
butchery of mankind, like all the rest of our earthly existence?! So
=that’s= the true aspect of the =one divine ray= that pierces the
horrible night of our tormented life! Oh, if only I had shot a bullet
through my head half a century ago! Then I would have been spared this
pitiful bankruptcy of my bilked and swindled spiritual wealth.
ELFRIEDE--What is there still for you to do in the world? I can tell
you! You trade in girls. You boast you trade in girls. Anyway, you have
the closest relations with all the places that count in the white slave
trade. Sell me! I beseech you, sell me into a house like this! You can
make a very lucrative bargain of me! I have never loved; and, surely,
that doesn’t lower my value! I won’t bring you any disgrace! You shall
add, by me, to the honor in which your customers hold you! I promise! I
will guarantee myself to you with any oath you ask me!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Half-crazed._] What will keep me from breaking my neck?
What will help me across the icy shudders of death?
ELFRIEDE--I will help you across! _I!_ Sell me! Then you’ll be saved!
CASTI-PIANI--Who are =you=?
ELFRIEDE--I want to find my death in the joy of the senses. I want to
give myself up to be slaughtered on the altar of sensuous love!
CASTI-PIANI--Am I to sell you--=you=?
ELFRIEDE--I want to die the martyr’s death that this girl who was just
here is dying! Have _I_ no natural human rights the same as others?
CASTI-PIANI--Heaven preserve me from it! [_With mounting emphasis._]
This--this--this is the =derisive laughter of Hell=, that rings above
my plunge into death!
ELFRIEDE--[_Sinking to his feet._] Sell me! Sell me!
CASTI-PIANI--The most terrible times of my life arise before me. Once
before, I sold in the love-market a girl whom nature had not intended
for it! For that crime against nature I spent six full years behind
=prison bars=. Of course she, too, was one of those temperamentless
creatures in whose =faces= one can see “big feet.”
ELFRIEDE--[_Clasping his knees._] On my soul I implore you, sell me!
You were right. My activity in combating the white slave traffic was
unsatisfied sensuality. But my sensuousness is =not= weak! Ask me for
proofs. Shall I kiss you madly, insanely?
CASTI-PIANI--[_In utmost despair._] And this ear-piercing howl of
suffering at my feet? What =is= that! This echoing shriek for help from
birth-pangs, woes of life, and death-agonies I will no longer endure. I
cannot stand this earth’s continuous crying any longer!
ELFRIEDE--[_Wringing her hands._] =To you yourself=, if you will, I
will yield up my virginity! =To you yourself=, if you will, I will give
my first love-night!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Shrieking._] The last straw! [_A shot._ ELFRIEDE _utters
a piercing yell_. CASTI-PIANI, _the smoking revolver in his right hand,
his left pressed convulsively to his breast, totters to one of the
arm-chairs and breaks down in it_.]
CASTI-PIANI--I--I beg your pardon--Baroness. I’ve--I’ve hurt
myself.--That was not--not gallant of me----
ELFRIEDE--[_Bending over him._] God have mercy, you haven’t hit
yourself with it?!
CASTI-PIANI--Don’t--don’t hurt my ears--shrieking! Be
loving--loving--loving--if you can----
ELFRIEDE--[_Stands up in horror, both hands in her hair, stares at him
and screams._] No! No! No! I =can’t= be loving with this sight before
me! I =can’t= be loving! [_Directly after the shot, three slim young
girls, dressed exactly like_ LISISKA, _have curiously one after the
other stepped out of the three doors. Hesitatingly they approach_
CASTI-PIANI, _and, with the minimum of action or emotion, gesturing
silently among themselves, they essay to ease his death-struggles. He
looks up and sees them._]
CASTI-PIANI--And that--and that--ve-vengeance? Spirits of
vengeance?--No! No!--That--that is Marushka! I see you now. That
is Euphemia!--That, Theophila!-- --Marushka! Kiss me, Marushka!
[_The slenderest of the three girls bends over_ CASTI-PIANI _and
kisses him on the mouth_.] No! [_In anguish._] No! No! That
wasn’t anything!--Kiss--kiss me differently! [_She kisses him
again._]--So!--So, so, so!--I have de-deceived you [_slowly raising
himself, supported by_ MARUSHKA]--deceived you all! The joy of the
senses--torture--bloody agony!-- --At last--at last--deliverance! [_He
stands, straight and stiff, as though seized with catalepsy, his eyes
very wide open._] We--we must receive--His Worship-- --standing....
[_He falls dead._]
ELFRIEDE--[_Drowned in tears, to the three girls._] Well?--Is none
of you girls brave enough to do it? You were more to this man than I
was permitted to be! [_The three girls shake their heads and withdraw
shyly, frightened, but cold and impassive._ ELFRIEDE, _sobbing, turns
to the corpse_:] Then forgive me miserable! While you were alive,
you abhorred me with all your soul! Forgive me that I come near you
now! [_Kisses him passionately on the mouth. Breaking into a flood
of tears_.] This last disillusion, even in your fearfullest blackest
pessimism you can never have conceived,--that a =virgin= was to close
your eyes! [_She closes his eyes and sinks, weeping piteously, at his
feet._]
CURTAIN
Transcriber’s Notes
• Italics represented by _underscores_.
• Small caps converted to ALL CAPS.
• Gespert text (words with intraletter spacing) represented with
=equal signs=.
• Obvious typographic erros silently corrected.
• Variations in hyphenation and punctuation kept as in the original.
• Footnotes numbered consecutively and relocated to the end of each
play.