_A very ornamental parlor. Entrance-door rear, left. Curtained
entrances right and left, steps leading up to the right one. On the
back wall over the fire-place, Lulu's picture as Pierrot in a
magnificent frame. Right, a tall mirror; a couch in front of it. Left,
an ebony writing-table. Centre, a few chairs around a little Chinese
table._
_Lulu stands motionless before the mirror, in a green silk
morning-dress. She frowns, passes a hand over her forehead, feels her
cheeks, and draws back from the mirror with a discouraged, almost
angry, look. Frequently turning round, she goes left, opens a casket on
the writing-table, lights herself a cigarette, looks for a book among
those that are lying on the table, takes one, and lies down on the
couch opposite the mirror. After reading a moment, she lets the book
sink, and nods seriously to herself in the glass; then resumes reading.
Schwarz enters, left, palette and brushes in hand, and bends over Lulu,
kisses her on the forehead, and goes up the steps, right._
SCHWARZ. (Turning in the door-way.) Eve!
LULU. (Smiling.) At your orders?
SCHWARZ. Seems to me you look extra charming to-day.
LULU. (With a glance at the mirror.) Depends on what you expect.
SCHWARZ. Your hair breathes out a morning freshness....
LULU. I've just come out of the water.
SCHWARZ. (Approaching her.) I've an awful lot to do to-day.
LULU. That's what you say to yourself.
SCHWARZ. (Lays his palette and brushes down on the carpet, and sits on
the edge of the couch.) What are you reading?
LULU. (Reads.) "Suddenly she heard an anchor of refuge come nodding up
the stairs."
SCHWARZ. Who under the sun writes so absorbingly?
LULU. (Reading.) "It was the postman with a money-order." (Henriette,
the servant, comes in, upper left, with a hat-box on her arm and a
little tray of letters which she puts on the table.)
HENRIETTE. The mail. I'm going to take your hat to the milliner, madam.
Anything else?
LULU. No. (Schwarz signs to her to go out, which she does, slyly
smiling.)
SCHWARZ. What was it you dreamt all last night?
LULU. You've asked me that twice already, to-day.
SCHWARZ. (Rises, takes up the letters.) I tremble for news. Every day I
fear the world may go to pieces. (Giving Lulu a letter.) For you.
LULU. (Sniffs at the paper.) Madame Corticelli. (Hides it in her
bosom.)
SCHWARZ. (Skimming a letter.) My Samaqueca-dancer sold--for fifty
thousand marks!
LULU. Who says that?
SCHWARZ. Sedelmeier in Paris. That's the third picture since our
marriage. I hardly know how to save myself from my luck!
LULU. (Pointing to the letters.) There are more there.
SCHWARZ. (Opening an engagement announcement.) See. (Gives it to Lulu.)
LULU. (Reads.) Sir Henry von Zarnikow has the honor to announce the
engagement of his daughter, Charlotte Marie Adelaide, to Doctor Ludwig
Schoen.
SCHWARZ. (As he opens another letter.) At last! He's been an eternal
while evading a public engagement. I can't understand it--a man of his
standing and influence. What can be in the way of his marriage?
LULU. What is that that you're reading?
SCHWARZ. An invitation to take part in the international exhibition at
St. Petersburg. I have no idea what to paint for it.
LULU. Some entrancing girl or other, of course.
SCHWARZ. Will you be willing to pose for it?
LULU. God knows there are other pretty girls enough in existence!
SCHWARZ. But with any other model--tho she be as racy as hell--I can't
get such a full display of my powers.
LULU. Then I must, I suppose. Wouldn't it go as well lying down?
SCHWARZ. Really, I'd liefest have your taste arrange it for me.
(Folding up the letters.) Don't let's forget to congratulate Schoen
to-day, anyway. (Goes left and shuts the letters in the writing-table.)
LULU. But we did that a long time ago.
SCHWARZ. For his bride's sake.
LULU. You can write to him again if you want.
SCHWARZ. And now to work! (Takes up his brushes and palette, kisses
Lulu, goes up the steps, right, and turns around in the door-way.) Eve!
LULU. (Lets her book sink, smiling.) Your pleasure?
SCHWARZ. (Approaching her.) I feel every day as if I were seeing you
for the very first time.
LULU. You're a terror.
SCHWARZ. The fault is yours. (He sinks on his knees by the couch and
caresses her hand.)
LULU. (Stroking his hair.) You're =wasting= me.
SCHWARZ. You =are mine=. But you are never more ensnaring than when you
ought for God's sake to be, just once, real ugly for a couple of hours!
Since I've had you, I have had nothing more. I'm entirely lost to
myself.
LULU. Not so excited! (Bell rings in the corridor.)
SCHWARZ. (Pulling himself together.) Confound it!
LULU. No one at home!
SCHWARZ. Perhaps it's the art-dealer--
LULU. And if it's the Chinese Emperor!
SCHWARZ. One moment. (Exit.)
LULU. (Visionary.) Thou? Thou? (Closes her eyes.)
SCHWARZ. (Coming back.) A beggar, who says he was in the war. I have no
small change on me. (Taking up his palette and brushes.) It's high
time, too, that I should finally go to work. (Goes out, right.) (Lulu
touches herself up before the glass, strokes back her hair, and goes
out, returning leading in Schigolch.)
SCHIGOLCH. I'd thought he was more of a swell--a little more glory to
him. He's sort of embarrassed. He quaked a little in the knees when he
saw =me= in front of him.
LULU. (Shoving a chair round for him.) How can you beg from him, too?
SCHIGOLCH. That's why I've dragged my seventy-seven summers just here.
You told me he kept at his painting in the mornings.
LULU. He hadn't got quite awake yet. How much do you need?
SCHIGOLCH. Two hundred, if you have that much handy. Personally, I'd
like three hundred. Some of my clients have evaporated.
LULU. (Goes to the writing-table and rummages in the drawer.) Whew, I'm
tired!
SCHIGOLCH. (Looking round him.) That's just what brought me, too. I've
been wanting a long time to see how things were looking now with you.
LULU. Well?
SCHIGOLCH. It just sweeps over you. (Looking up.) Like with me fifty
years ago. Instead of the loafing chairs we still had rusty old sabres
then. Devil, but you've brought it pretty far! (Scuffing.) Carpets....
LULU. (Giving him two bills.) I like best to walk on them bare-footed.
SCHIGOLCH. (Scanning Lulu's portrait.) Is that you?
LULU. (Winking.) Pretty fine?
SCHIGOLCH. If all that's genuine.
LULU. Have something sweet?
SCHIGOLCH. What?
LULU. (Getting up.) Elixir de Spaa.
SCHIGOLCH. That doesn't help me--Does he drink?
LULU. (Taking a decanter and glasses from a cupboard near the
fireplace.) Not yet. (Coming down stage.) The cordial has such various
effects!
SCHIGOLCH. He comes to blows?
LULU. He goes to sleep. (She fills the two glasses.)
SCHIGOLCH. When he's drunk, you can see right into his insides.
LULU. I'd rather =not=. (Sits opposite Schigolch.) Tell me about it.
SCHIGOLCH. The streets keep on getting longer, and my legs shorter.
LULU. And your harmonica?
SCHIGOLCH. Has bad air, like me with my asthma. I just keep a-thinking
it isn't worth the trouble to make it better. (They clink glasses.)
LULU. (Emptying her glass.) I thought you'd come to an end a long time
ago--
SCHIGOLCH. To an end--already up and away? I thought so, too. But no
matter how early the sun goes down, still we aren't let lie quiet. I'm
hoping for winter. Perhaps then my (coughing) --my--my asthma will
invent some opportunity to carry me off.
LULU. (Filling the glasses.) Do you think they could have forgotten you
on the other side?
SCHIGOLCH. Would be possible, for it certainly isn't going like it
usually does. (Stroking her knee.) Now you tell--not seen you a long
time--my little Lulu.
LULU. (Jerking back, smiling.) Life is beyond me!
SCHIGOLCH. What do you know about it? You're still so young!
LULU. That you call me Lulu.
SCHIGOLCH. Lulu, isn't it? Have I ever called you anything else?
LULU. In the memory of man my name has no longer been Lulu.
SCHIGOLCH. Another way of naming?
LULU. Lulu sounds to me quite ante-diluvian.
SCHIGOLCH. Children! Children!
LULU. My name now is--
SCHIGOLCH. As if the principle wasn't always the same!
LULU. You mean--?
SCHIGOLCH. What is it now?
LULU. =Eve.=
SCHIGOLCH. Lept, hopped, skipped, jumped....
LULU. I'm listening.
SCHIGOLCH. (Gazing round.) This is the way I dreamt of it for you.
You've aimed straight for it. (Seeing Lulu sprinkling herself with
perfume.) What's that?
LULU. Heliotrope.
SCHIGOLCH. Does that smell better than you?
LULU. (Sprinkling him.) That needn't bother you any more.
SCHIGOLCH. Who would have dreamt of this royal luxury before!
LULU. When I think back--Ugh!
SCHIGOLCH. (Stroking her knee.) How's it going with you, then? You
still keep at the French?
LULU. I lie and sleep.
SCHIGOLCH. That's genteel. That always looks like something. And
afterwards?
LULU. I stretch--till it cracks.
SCHIGOLCH. And when it has cracked?
LULU. What do you mind about that?
SCHIGOLCH. What do I mind about that? What do I mind? I'd rather live
till the last trump and renounce all heavenly joys than leave my Lulu
deprived of anything down here behind me. What do I mind about that?
It's my sympathy. To be sure, my better self =is= already
transfigured--but I still have some sense for this world.
LULU. I haven't.
SCHIGOLCH. You're too well off.
LULU. (Shuddering.) Idiot....
SCHIGOLCH. Better than with the old dancing-bear?
LULU. (Sadly.) I don't dance any more.
SCHIGOLCH. For him it was time, too.
LULU. Now I am-- (Stops.)
SCHIGOLCH. Speak how it is with you, child! I believed in you when
there was no more to be seen in you than your two big eyes. What are
you now?
LULU. A beast....
SCHIGOLCH. That you--! And what kind of a beast? A fine beast! An
elegant beast! A glorified beast! Then I'll let them bury me. We're
through with prejudices--even with the one against the corpse-washer.
LULU. You needn't be afraid that you will be washed once more.
SCHIGOLCH. Doesn't matter, either. One gets dirty again.
LULU. (Sprinkling him.) It would call you back to life again!
SCHIGOLCH. We are mud.
LULU. I beg your pardon! I rub grease into myself every day and then
powder on top of it.
SCHIGOLCH. Probably worth while, too, on the dressed-up mucker's
account.
LULU. It makes the skin like satin.
SCHIGOLCH. As if it weren't just dirt all the same!
LULU. Thank you. I wish to be worth biting at!
SCHIGOLCH. We are. Give a big dinner down below there pretty soon. Keep
open house.
LULU. Your guests will hardly over-eat themselves at it.
SCHIGOLCH. Patience, girl! Your worshippers won't put you in alcohol,
either. It's "schoene Melusine" as long as it keeps buoyant. Afterwards?
They don't take it at the zoological garden. (Rising.) The gentle
beasties might get stomach-cramps.
LULU. (Getting up.) Have you enough?
SCHIGOLCH. There's still enough left over to plant a juniper on my
grave. I'll find my own way out. (Exit. Lulu follows him, and presently
returns with Dr. Schoen.)
SCHOEN. What's your father doing here?
LULU. What's the matter?
SCHOEN. If I were your husband that man would never come over my
threshold.
LULU. You can speak intimately. He's not here. (Referring to Schwarz.)
SCHOEN. Thank you, I'd rather not.
LULU. I don't understand.
SCHOEN. I know that. (Offering her a seat.) I should like to speak with
you just on that subject.
LULU. (Sitting down uncertainly.) Why didn't you tell me so yesterday,
then?
SCHOEN. Please, nothing now about yesterday. I did tell you two years
ago.
LULU. (Nervously.) Oh, yes,--Hm!
SCHOEN. Please be kind enough to cease your visits to my house.
LULU. May I offer you an elixir--
SCHOEN. Thanks. No elixir. Have you understood me? (Lulu shakes her
head.) Good. You have the choice. You force me to the most extreme
measures:--either act in accordance with your station--
LULU. Or?
SCHOEN. Or--you compel me--I should have to turn to that person who is
responsible for your behavior.
LULU. What makes you imagine that?
SCHOEN. I shall request your husband, himself to watch over your ways.
(Lulu rises, goes up the steps, right.) Where are you going?
LULU. (Calls thru the curtains.) Walter!
SCHOEN. (Springing up.) Are you mad?
LULU. (Turning round.) Aha!
SCHOEN. I have made the most superhuman efforts to raise you in society.
You can be ten times as proud of your name as of your intimacy with me.
LULU. (Comes down the steps and puts her arm around Schoen's neck.) Why
are you still afraid, now that you're at the zenith of your hopes?
SCHOEN. No comedy! The zenith of my hopes? I am at last engaged: I have
now the hope of bringing my bride into a clean house.
LULU. (Sitting.) She has developed delightfully in the two years!
SCHOEN. She no longer looks thru one so earnestly.
LULU. She is now, for the first time, a woman. We can meet each other
wherever it seems suitable to you.
SCHOEN. We shall meet each other nowhere but in the presence of your
husband!
LULU. You don't believe yourself what you say.
SCHOEN. Then =he= must believe it. Go on and call him! Thru his marriage
to you, thru all that I've done for him, he has become my friend.
LULU. (Rising.) Mine, too.
SCHOEN. Then I'll cut down the sword over my head.
LULU. You have, indeed, chained me up. But I owe my happiness to you.
You will get friends by the crowd as soon as you have a pretty young
wife again.
SCHOEN. You judge women by yourself! He's got the sense of a child or he
would have tracked out your doublings and windings long ago.
LULU. I only wish he would! Then, at last he'd get out of his
swaddling-clothes. He puts his trust in the marriage contract he has in
his pocket. Trouble is past and gone. One can now give oneself and let
oneself go as if one were at home. That isn't the sense of a =child=!
It's banal! He has no education; he sees nothing; he sees neither me
nor himself; he is blind, blind, blind....
SCHOEN. (Half to himself.) When =his= eyes open!!
LULU. Open his eyes for him! I'm going to ruin. I'm neglecting myself.
He doesn't know me at all. What am I to him? He calls me darling and
little devil. He would say the same to any piano-teacher. He makes no
pretensions. Everything is alright, to him. That comes from his never
in his life having felt the need of intercourse with women.
SCHOEN. If that's true!
LULU. He admits it perfectly openly.
SCHOEN. A man who has painted them, rags and tags and velvet gowns,
since he was fourteen.
LULU. Women make him anxious. He trembles for his health and comfort.
But he isn't afraid of =me=!
SCHOEN. How many girls would deem themselves God knows how blessed in
your situation.
LULU. (Softly pleading.) Seduce him. Corrupt him. You know how. Take
him into bad company--you know the people. I am nothing to him but a
woman, just woman. He makes me feel so ridiculous. He will be prouder
of me. He doesn't know any differences. I'm thinking my head off, day
and night, how to shake him up. In my despair I dance the can-can. He
yawns; and drivels something about obscenity.
SCHOEN. Nonsense. He is an artist, though.
LULU. At least he believes he is.
SCHOEN. That's the chief thing!
LULU. When _I_ pose for him.... He believes, too, that he's a famous
man.
SCHOEN. We =have= made him one.
LULU. He believes everything. He's as mistrustful as a thief, and lets
himself be lied to, till one loses all respect! When we first knew each
other I informed him I had never yet loved-- (Schoen falls into an
easy-chair.) Otherwise he would really have taken me for a fallen
woman!
SCHOEN. You make God knows what exorbitant demands on =legitimate=
relations!
LULU. I make no exorbitant demands. Often I even dream still of Goll.
SCHOEN. He was, at any rate, not banal!
LULU. He is there, as if he had never been away. Only he walks as tho
in his socks. He isn't angry with me; he's awfully sad. And then he is
fearful, as tho he were there without the permission of the police.
Otherwise, he feels at ease with us. Only he can't quite get over my
having thrown away so much money since--
SCHOEN. You yearn for the whip once more?
LULU. Maybe. I don't dance any more.
SCHOEN. Teach him to do it.
LULU. A waste of trouble.
SCHOEN. Out of a hundred women, ninety educate their husbands to suit
themselves.
LULU. He loves me.
SCHOEN. That's fatal, of course.
LULU. He loves me--
SCHOEN. That is an unbridgeable abyss.
LULU. He doesn't know me, but he loves me! If he had anything like a
correct idea of me, he'd tie a stone around my neck and sink me in the
sea where it's deepest.
SCHOEN. Let's finish this? (He gets up.)
LULU. As you say.
SCHOEN. I've married you off. Twice I have married you off. You live in
luxury. I've created a position for your husband. If that doesn't
satisfy you, and he laughs in his sleeve at it, I don't pretend to meet
ideal claims; but--leave me out of the game, out of it!
LULU. (Resolutely.) If I belong to any person on this earth, I belong
to you. Without you I'd be--I won't say where. You took me by the hand,
gave me food to eat, had me dressed,--when I was going to steal your
watch. Do you think that can be forgotten? Anybody else would have
called the police. You sent me to school, and had me learn manners. Who
but you in the whole world has ever thought anything of me? I've danced
and posed, and was glad to be able to earn my living that way. But
=love= at command, I can't!
SCHOEN. (Raising his voice.) Leave =me= out! Do what you will. I'm not
coming to make scandal; I'm coming to shake the scandal from my neck.
My engagement is costing me sacrifices enough! I had imagined that with
a healthy young man, than whom a woman of your years can wish herself
no better, you would, at last, have been contented. If you are under
obligations to me, don't throw yourself a third time in my way! Am I to
wait yet longer before putting my pile in security? Am I to risk the
whole success of my patents falling into the water again after two
years? What good is it to me to be your married-man, when =you= can be
seen going in and out of my house at every hour of the day? Why the
devil didn't Dr. Goll stay alive just one year more! With him you were
in safe keeping. Then I'd have had my wife long since under my roof!
LULU. And what would you have had then? The kid gets on your nerves.
The child is too uncorrupted for you. She's been much too carefully
brought up. What should I have against your marriage? But you are
deceived about yourself if you think that on account of your impending
marriage you may express your contempt to me.
SCHOEN. Contempt? I shall soon give the child the right idea. If
anything is contemptible, it's your intrigues!
LULU. (Laughing.) Am I jealous of the child? That never once entered my
head.
SCHOEN. Then why talk about the child? The child is not even a whole
year younger than you are. Leave me my freedom to live what life I
still have. No matter how the child's been brought up, she's got her
five senses just like you.... (Schwarz appears, right, brush in hand.)
SCHWARZ. What's the matter here?
LULU. (To Schoen.) Well? Go on. Talk.
SCHWARZ. What's the matter with you two?
LULU. Nothing that touches you--
SCHOEN. (Sharply.) Quiet!
LULU. He's had enough of me. (Schwarz leads her off, to the right.)
SCHOEN. (Turning over the leaves in one of the books on the table.) It
had to come out--I must have my hands free at last!
SCHWARZ. (Coming back.) Is that a way to jest?
SCHOEN. (Pointing to a chair.) Please.
SCHWARZ. What is it?
SCHOEN. Please.
SCHWARZ. (Seating himself.) Well?
SCHOEN. (Seating himself.) You have married half a million....
SCHWARZ. Is it gone?
SCHOEN. Not a penny.
SCHWARZ. Explain to me the peculiar scene....
SCHOEN. You have married half a million--
SCHWARZ. No one can make a crime of that.
SCHOEN. You have created a name for yourself. You can work unmolested.
You need to deny yourself no wish--
SCHWARZ. What have you two got against me?
SCHOEN. For six months you've been revelling in all the heavens. You
have a wife whom the world envies you, and she deserves a man whom she
can respect--
SCHWARZ. Doesn't she respect me?
SCHOEN. No.
SCHWARZ. (Depressed.) I come from the dark depths of society. She is
above me. I cherish no more ardent wish than to become her equal.
(Offers Schoen his hand.) Thank you.
SCHOEN. (Pressing it, half embarrassed.) Don't mention it.
SCHWARZ. (With determination.) Speak!
SCHOEN. Keep a little more watch on her.
SCHWARZ. I--on her?
SCHOEN. We are not children! We don't trifle! She demands that she be
taken seriously. Her value gives her a perfect right to be.
SCHWARZ. What does she do, then?
SCHOEN. You have married half a million!
SCHWARZ. (Rises; beside himself.) She--?
SCHOEN. (Takes him by the shoulder.) No, that's not the way! (Forces
him to sit.) We must speak with each other very seriously here.
SCHWARZ. What does she do?
SCHOEN. First count on your fingers what you have to thank her for, and
then--
SCHWARZ. What does she do--man!!
SCHOEN. And then make yourself responsible for your faults, and no one
else.
SCHWARZ. With whom? With whom?
SCHOEN. If we should shoot each other--
SCHWARZ. Since when, then?
SCHOEN. (Evasive.) --I don't come here to make scandal, I come to save
you from the scandal.
SCHWARZ. You have misunderstood her.
SCHOEN. (Embarrassed.) That will not do for me. I can't see you go on
living in blindness. The girl deserves to be a respectable woman. Since
I have known her she has improved as she developed.
SCHWARZ. Since you have known her? Since when have you known her then?
SCHOEN. Since about her twelfth year.
SCHWARZ. (Bewildered.) She told me nothing about that.
SCHOEN. She sold flowers in front of the Alhambra Cafe. Every evening
between twelve and two she pressed in among the guests, bare-footed.
SCHWARZ. She told me nothing of that.
SCHOEN. She did right there. I'm telling you, so you may see that you
have not to do with moral degeneracy. The girl is, on the contrary, of
extraordinarily good disposition.
SCHWARZ. She said she had grown up with an aunt.
SCHOEN. That was the woman I gave her to. She was her best pupil. The
mothers used to make her an example to their children. She has the
feeling for duty. It is simply and solely your mistake if you have till
now neglected to take her on her best sides.
SCHWARZ. (Sobbing.) O God!--
SCHOEN. (With emphasis.) No O God!! Nothing of the happiness you have
cost can be changed. Done is done. You over-rate yourself against your
better knowledge if you persuade yourself you will lose. You stand to
gain. But with "O God" nothing is gained. A greater friendliness I have
not yet shown you: I speak plainly and offer you my help. Don't show
yourself unworthy of it!
SCHWARZ. (From now on more and more broken up.) When I first knew her,
she told me she had never loved.
SCHOEN. When a widow says that--! It does her credit that she chose you
for a husband. Make the same claims on yourself and your happiness is
without a blot.
SCHWARZ. She says he made her wear short dresses.
SCHOEN. But he married her! That was her master-stroke. How she brought
the man to it is beyond me. You really must know it now: you are
enjoying the fruits of her diplomacy.
SCHWARZ. How did she get to know Dr. Goll then?
SCHOEN. Through me! It was after my wife's death, when I was making the
first advances to my present fiancee. She stuck herself in between. She
had fixed her mind on becoming my wife.
SCHWARZ. (As if seized with a horrible suspicion.) And then when her
husband died?
SCHOEN. You married half a million!!
SCHWARZ. (Wailing.) O, to have stayed where I was! To have died of
hunger!
SCHOEN. (Superior.) Do you think, then, that _I_ make no compromises?
Who is there that does not compromise? You have married half a million.
You are to-day one of the foremost artists. That can't be done without
money. You are not the man to sit in judgment on her. You can't
possibly treat an origin like Mignon's according to the notions of
bourgeois society.
SCHWARZ. (Quite distraught.) Who are you speaking of?
SCHOEN. Of her father! You're an artist, I say: your ideals are on a
different plane from those of a wage-worker.
SCHWARZ. I don't understand a word of all that.
SCHOEN. I am speaking of the inhuman conditions out of which, thanks to
her good management, the girl has developed into what she is!
SCHWARZ. Who?
SCHOEN. Who? Your wife.
SCHWARZ. =Eve?=
SCHOEN. I called her Mignon.
SCHWARZ. I thought her name was Nellie?
SCHOEN. Dr. Goll called her so.
SCHWARZ. I called her Eve--
SCHOEN. What her real name is I don't know.
SCHWARZ. (Absently.) Perhaps she knows.
SCHOEN. With a father like hers, she is, with all her faults, a miracle.
I don't understand you--
SCHWARZ. He died in a madhouse--?
SCHOEN. He was here just now!
SCHWARZ. Who was here?
SCHOEN. Her father.
SCHWARZ. Here--in my house?
SCHOEN. He squeezed by me as I came in. And there are the two glasses
still.
SCHWARZ. She says he died in the madhouse.
SCHOEN. Let her feel she's in authority--! She craves nothing but the
compulsion to unconditional obedience. With Dr. Goll she was in heaven,
and with him there was no joking.
SCHWARZ. (Shaking his head.) She said she had never loved--
SCHOEN. But you, make a beginning with yourself. Pull yourself together!
SCHWARZ. She has sworn--!
SCHOEN. You can't demand a sense of duty in her before you know your own
task.
SCHWARZ. By her mother's grave!
SCHOEN. She never knew her mother, let alone the grave. Her mother
hasn't got a grave.
SCHWARZ. I don't fit in society. (He is in desperation.)
SCHOEN. What's the matter?
SCHWARZ. Pain--horrible pain!
SCHOEN. (Gets up, steps back; after a pause.) Guard her for yourself:
she's yours. The moment is decisive. To-morrow she may be lost to you.
SCHWARZ. (Pointing to his breast.) Here, here.
SCHOEN. You have married half-- (Reflecting.) She is lost to you if you
let this moment slip!
SCHWARZ. If I could weep! Oh, if I could cry out!
SCHOEN. (With a hand on his shoulder.) You're suffering--
SCHWARZ. (Getting up, apparently quiet.) You are right, quite right.
SCHOEN. (Gripping his hand.) Where are you going?
SCHWARZ. To speak with her.
SCHOEN. Right! (Accompanies him to the door, left. Coming back.) That
was tough work. (After a pause, looking right.) He had taken her into
the studio before though? (A fearful groan, left. He hurries to the
door and finds it locked.) Open! Open the door!
LULU. (Stepping thru the hangings, right.) What's--
SCHOEN. Open it!
LULU. (Comes down the steps.) That is horrible.
SCHOEN. Have you an ax in the kitchen?
LULU. He'll open it right off--
SCHOEN. I can't kick it down.
LULU. When he's had his cry out.
SCHOEN. (Kicking the door.) Open! (To Lulu.) Bring me an ax.
LULU. Send for the doctor--
SCHOEN. You are not yourself.
LULU. It serves you right. (Bell rings in the corridor. Schoen and Lulu
stare at each other. Then Schoen slips up-stage and stands in the
doorway.)
SCHOEN. I mustn't let myself be seen here.
LULU. Perhaps it's the art-dealer. (The bell rings again.)
SCHOEN. But if we don't answer it--
LULU. (Steals toward the door; but Schoen holds her.) --
SCHOEN. Stop. It sometimes happens that one is not just at hand-- (He
goes out on tip-toes. Lulu turns back to the locked door and listens.
Schoen returns with Alva.) Please be quiet.
ALVA. (Very excited.) A revolution has broken out in Paris!
SCHOEN. Be quiet.
ALVA. (To Lulu.) You're as pale as death.
SCHOEN. (Rattling at the door.) Walter! Walter! (A death-rattle heard
behind the door.)
LULU. God pity you.
SCHOEN. Haven't you brought an ax?
LULU. If there's one there-- (Goes slowly out, upper left.)
ALVA. He's just keeping us in suspense.
SCHOEN. A revolution has broken out in Paris?
ALVA. In the editors' room they're beating their heads against the
wall. No one knows what he ought to write. (The bell rings in the
corridor.)
SCHOEN. (Kicking against the door.) Walter!
ALVA. Shall I force it in?
SCHOEN. I can do that. Who is it coming now? (Standing up.) To enjoy
life and let others be responsible for it--
LULU. (Coming back with a kitchen ax.) Henriette has come home.
SCHOEN. Shut the door behind you.
ALVA. Give it here. (Takes the ax and pounds with it between the jamb
and the lock.)
SCHOEN. You must hold it nearer the end.
ALVA. It's cracking-- (The lock gives; Alva lets the ax fall and
staggers back.) (Pause.)
LULU. (To Schoen, pointing to the door.) After you. (Schoen flinches,
drops back.) Are you getting--dizzy? (Schoen wipes the sweat from his
forehead and goes in.)
ALVA. (From the couch.) Ghastly!
LULU. (Stopping in the door-way, finger on lips, cries out sharply.)
Oh! Oh! (Hurries to Alva.) I can't stay here.
ALVA. Horrible!
LULU. (Taking his hand.) Come.
ALVA. Where to?
LULU. I can't be alone. (Goes out with Alva, right.)
(Schoen comes back, a bunch of keys in his hand, which shows blood. He
pulls the door to, behind him, goes to the writing-table, opens it, and
writes two notes.)
ALVA. (Coming back, right.) She's changing her clothes.
SCHOEN. She has gone?
ALVA. To her room. She's changing her clothes. (Schoen rings. Henriette
comes in.)
SCHOEN. You know where Dr. Bernstein lives?
HENRIETTE. Of course, Doctor. Right next door.
SCHOEN. (Giving her one note.) Take that over to him, please.
HENRIETTE. In case the doctor is not at home?
SCHOEN. He is at home. (Giving her the other note.) And take this to
police headquarters. Take a cab. (Henriette goes out.) I am judged!
ALVA. My blood is cold.
SCHOEN. (Toward the left.) The fool!
ALVA. He waked up to something, perhaps?
SCHOEN. He has been too absorbed with himself. (Lulu appears on the
steps, right, in dust-coat and hat.)
ALVA. Where are you going now?
LULU. Out. I see it on all the walls.
SCHOEN. Where are his papers?
LULU. In the desk.
SCHOEN. (At the desk.) Where?
LULU. Lower right-hand drawer. (She kneels and opens the drawer,
emptying the papers on the floor.) Here. There is nothing to fear. He
had no secrets.
SCHOEN. Now I can just withdraw from the world.
LULU. (Still kneeling.) Write a pamphlet about him. Call him
Michelangelo.
SCHOEN. What good'll that do? (Pointing left.) There lies my engagement.
ALVA. That's the curse of your game!
SCHOEN. Shout it thru the streets!!
ALVA. (Pointing to Lulu.) If you had treated that girl fairly and
justly when my mother died--
SCHOEN. My engagement is bleeding to death there!
LULU. (Getting up.) I sha'n't stay here any longer.
SCHOEN. In an hour they'll be selling extras. I dare not go across the
street!
LULU. Why, what can you do to help it?
SCHOEN. That's just it! They'll stone me for it!
ALVA. You must get away--travel.
SCHOEN. To leave the scandal a free field!
LULU. (By the couch.) Ten minutes ago he was lying here.
SCHOEN. This is the reward for all I've done for him! In one second he
wrecks my whole life for me!
ALVA. Control yourself, please!
LULU. (On the couch.) There's no one but ourselves here.
ALVA. But =our= position?
SCHOEN. (To Lulu.) What will you say to the police?
LULU. Nothing.
ALVA. He didn't want to remain a debtor to his destiny.
LULU. He always thought of death immediately.
SCHOEN. He thought what a human being can only dream of.
LULU. He has paid dearly for it.
ALVA. He had what =we= don't have!
SCHOEN. (Suddenly violent.) I know your reasons! I have no cause to
consider you! If you try every means to prevent having any brothers and
sisters, that's all the more reason why I should get more children.
ALVA. You've a poor knowledge of men.
LULU. You get out an extra yourself!
SCHOEN. (With passionate indignation.) He had no moral sense! (Suddenly
controlling himself again.) Paris in revolution--?
ALVA. Our editors act as though they'd been struck. Everything has
stopped dead.
SCHOEN. That's got to help me over this! Now if only the police would
come. The minutes are worth more than gold. (The bell rings in the
corridor.)
ALVA. There they are-- (Schoen starts to the door. Lulu jumps up.)
LULU. Wait, you've got blood--
SCHOEN. Where?
LULU. Wait, I'll wipe it. (Sprinkles her handkerchief with heliotrope
and wipes the blood from Schoen's hand.)
SCHOEN. It's your husband's blood.
LULU. It leaves no trace.
SCHOEN. Monster!
LULU. You will marry me, though. (The bell rings in the corridor.) Only
have patience, children. (Schoen goes out and returns with Escherich, a
reporter.)
ESCHERICH. (Breathless.) Allow me to--to introduce myself--
SCHOEN. You've run?
ESCHERICH. (Giving him his card.) From police headquarters. A suicide,
I understand.
SCHOEN. (Reads.) Fritz Escherich, correspondent of the "News and
Novelties." Come along.
ESCHERICH. One moment. (Takes out his note-book and pencil, looks
around the parlor, writes a few words, bows to Lulu, writes, turns to
the broken door, writes.) A kitchen-ax. (Starts to lift it.)
SCHOEN. (Holding him back.) Excuse me.
ESCHERICH. (Writing.) Door broken open with a kitchen-ax. (Examines the
lock.)
SCHOEN. (His hand on the door.) Look before you, my dear sir.
ESCHERICH. Now if you will have the kindness to open the door-- (Schoen
opens it. Escherich lets book and pencil fall, clutches at his hair.)
Merciful Heaven! God!!
SCHOEN. Look it all over carefully.
ESCHERICH. I can't look at it!
SCHOEN. (Snorting scornfully.) Then what did you come here for?
ESCHERICH. To--to cut up--to cut up his throat with a razor!
SCHOEN. Have you seen it all?
ESCHERICH. That must feel--
SCHOEN. (Draws the door to, steps to the writing-table.) Sit down. Here
is paper and pen. Write.
ESCHERICH. (Mechanically taking his seat.) I can't write--
SCHOEN. (Behind his chair.) Write! Persecution--mania....
ESCHERICH. (Writes.) Per-secu-tion--mania. (The bell rings in the
corridor.)
CURTAIN