_A splendid hall in German Renaissance style, with a thick floor of
oak-blocks. The lower half of the walls of dark carved wood; the upper
half on both sides hung with faded Gobelins. At rear, a curtained
gallery from which a monumental stair-case leads, right, half-way down
the stage. At centre, under the gallery, the entrance-door, with
twisted posts and pediment. At left, a high and spacious fire-place
with a Chinese folding screen before it. Further down, left, a French
window onto a balcony, with heavy curtains, closed. Down right, door
hung with Genoese velvet. Near it, a broad ottoman, with a chair on its
left. Behind, near the foot of the stairs, Lulu's Pierrot-picture on a
decorative stand and in a gold frame made to look antique. In the
centre of the hall, a heavy square table, with three high-backed
upholstered chairs round it and a vase of white flowers on it._
_Countess Geschwitz sits on the ottoman, in a soldier-like, fur-trimmed
waist, high, upright collar, enormous cuff-links, a veil over her face
and her hands clasped convulsively in her muff. Schoen stands down
right. Lulu, in a big-flowered morning-dress, her hair in a simple knot
in a golden circlet, sits in the arm-chair left of the ottoman._
GESCHWITZ. You can't think how glad I shall be to see you at our
artists' ball. (To Lulu.)
SCHOEN. Is there no sort of possibility of a person like me smuggling
in?
GESCHWITZ. It would be high treason if any of us lent herself to such
an intrigue.
SCHOEN. (Crossing to the centre table, behind the ottoman.) The glorious
flowers!
LULU. Fraeulein von Geschwitz brought me those.
GESCHWITZ. Don't mention it. Oh, you'll be in man's costume, won't you?
LULU. Do you think that becomes me?
GESCHWITZ. You're a dream here. (Signifying the picture.)
LULU. My husband doesn't like it.
GESCHWITZ. Is it by a local man?
LULU. You will hardly have known him.
GESCHWITZ. No longer living?
SCHOEN. (Down left, with a deep voice.) He had enough.
LULU. You're in bad temper. (Schoen controls himself.)
GESCHWITZ. (Getting up.) I must go, Mrs. Schoen. I can't stay any
longer. This evening we have life-class, and I have still so much to
get ready for the ball. Good-bye, Dr. Schoen. (Exit, up-stage. Lulu
accompanies her. Schoen looks around him.)
SCHOEN. Pure Augean stable. That, the end of my life. They ought to show
me a corner that's still clean. The pest in the house. The poorest
day-laborer has his tidy nest. Thirty years' work, and this my family
circle, the circle of my people-- (Glancing round.) God knows who is
overhearing me again now! (Draws a revolver from his breast pocket.)
Man is, indeed, uncertain of his life! (The cocked revolver in his
right hand, he goes left and speaks at the closed window curtains.)
That, my family circle! The fellow still has courage! Shall I not
rather shoot =myself= in the head? Against deadly enemies one fights,
but the-- (Throws up the curtains, but finds no one hidden behind
them.) The dirt--the dirt.... (Shakes his head and crosses right.)
Insanity has already conquered my reason, or else--exceptions prove the
rule! (Hearing Lulu coming he puts the revolver back in his pocket.
Lulu comes down right.)
LULU. Couldn't you get away for this afternoon?
SCHOEN. Just what did that Countess want?
LULU. I don't know. She wants to paint me.
SCHOEN. Misfortune in human guise, that waits upon one.
LULU. Couldn't you get away, then? I would so like to drive thru the
grounds with you.
SCHOEN. Just the day when I must be at the exchange. You know that I'm
not free to-day. All my property is drifting on the waves.
LULU. I'd sooner be dead and buried than let my life be embittered so
by my property.
SCHOEN. Who takes life lightly does not take death hard.
LULU. As a child I always had the most horrible fear of death.
SCHOEN. That is just why I married you.
LULU. (With her arms round his neck.) You're in bad humor. You give
yourself too much work. For weeks and months I've seen nothing of you.
SCHOEN. (Stroking her hair.) Your light-heartedness should cheer up my
old days.
LULU. Indeed, you didn't marry me at all.
SCHOEN. Who else did I marry then?
LULU. I married you!
SCHOEN. How does that alter anything?
LULU. I was always afraid it would alter a great deal.
SCHOEN. It has, indeed, crushed a great deal underfoot.
LULU. But not one thing, praise God!
SCHOEN. Of that I should be covetous.
LULU. Your love for me. (Schoen's face twitches, he signs to her to go
out in front of him. Both exeunt lower right. Countess Geschwitz
cautiously opens the rear door, ventures forth, and listens. Hearing
voices approaching in the gallery above her, she starts suddenly.)
GESCHWITZ. Oh dear, there's somebody-- (Hides behind the fire-screen.)
SCHIGOLCH. (Steps out from the curtains onto the stairs, turns back.)
Has the youngster left his heart behind him in the "Nightlight" cafe?
RODRIGO. (Between the curtains.) He is still too small for the great
world, and can't walk so far on foot yet. (He disappears.)
SCHIGOLCH. (Coming down the stairs.) God be thanked we're home again at
last! What damned skunk has waxed the stairs again? If I have to have
my joints set in plaster again before being called home, she can just
present me between the palms here to her relations as the Venus de'
Medici. Nothing but steep rocks and stumbling blocks!
RODRIGO. (Comes down the stairs, carrying Hugenberg in his arms.) This
thing has a royal police-captain for a father and not as much courage
in his body as the raggedest hobo!
HUGENBERG. If there was nothing more to it than life and death, then
you'd soon learn to know me!
RODRIGO. Even with his lover's woe, little brother don't weigh more
than sixty kilos. I'll let myself be hung on that statement any time.
SCHIGOLCH. Throw him up to the ceiling and catch him by the feet.
That'll whip his young blood into the proper rhythm right from the
start.
HUGENBERG. (Kicking his legs.) Hooray, hooray, I shall be expelled from
school!
RODRIGO. (Setting him down at the foot of the stairs.) You've never
been to any sensible school at all yet.
SCHIGOLCH. Here many a man has already won his spurs. Only, no
timidity! First, I'll set before you a drop of what can't be had
anywhere for money. (Opens a cupboard under the stairs.)
HUGENBERG. Now if she doesn't come dancing in on the instant, I'll
wallop you two so you'll still rub your tails in the hereafter.
RODRIGO. (Seated left of the table.) The strongest man in the world
little brother will wallop! Let mamma put long trowsers on you first.
(Hugenberg sits opposite him.)
HUGENBERG. I'd rather you lent me your mustache.
RODRIGO. Maybe you want her to throw you out of the door straight off?
HUGENBERG. If I only knew now what the devil I was going to say to her!
RODRIGO. That she knows best herself.
SCHIGOLCH. (Putting two bottles and three glasses on the table.) I
started in on one of them yesterday. (Fills the glasses.)
RODRIGO. (Guarding Hugenberg's.) Don't give him too much, or we'll both
have to pay for it.
SCHIGOLCH. (Supporting himself with both hands on the table-top.) Will
the gentlemen smoke?
HUGENBERG. (Opening his cigarette case.) Havana-imported!
RODRIGO. (Helping himself.) From papa police-captain?
SCHIGOLCH. (Sitting.) Everything in the house is mine. You only need to
ask.
HUGENBERG. I made a poem to her yesterday.
RODRIGO. What did you make to her?
SCHIGOLCH. What did he make to her?
HUGENBERG. A poem.
RODRIGO. (To Schigolch.) A poem.
SCHIGOLCH. He's promised me a dollar if I can spy out where he can meet
her alone.
HUGENBERG. Just who does live here?
RODRIGO. Here =we= live!
SCHIGOLCH. Jour fix--every stock-market day! Our health. (They clink.)
HUGENBERG. Should I read it to her first, maybe?
SCHIGOLCH. (To Rodrigo.) What's he mean?
RODRIGO. His poem. He'd like to stretch her out and torture her a
little first.
SCHIGOLCH. (Staring at Hugenberg.) His eyes! His eyes!
RODRIGO. His eyes, yes. They've robbed her of sleep for a week.
SCHIGOLCH. (To Rodrigo.) You can have yourself pickled.
RODRIGO. We can both have ourselves pickled! Our health, gossip Death!
SCHIGOLCH. (Clinking with him.) Health, jack-in-the-box! If it's still
better later on, I'm ready for departure at any moment; but--but--
(Lulu enters right, in an elegant Parisian ball-dress, much decollete,
with flowers in breast and hair.)
LULU. But children, children, I expect company!
SCHIGOLCH. But I can tell you what, those things must cost something
over there! (Hugenberg has risen. Lulu sits on the arm of his chair.)
LULU. You've fallen into pretty company! I expect visitors, children!
SCHIGOLCH. I guess I've got to stick something in there, too. (He
searches among the flowers on the table.)
LULU. Do I look well?
SCHIGOLCH. What are those you've got there?
LULU. Orchids. (Bending over Hugenberg.) Smell.
RODRIGO. Do you expect Prince Escerny?
LULU. (Shaking her head.) God forbid!
RODRIGO. So somebody else again--!
LULU. The prince has gone traveling.
RODRIGO. To put his kingdom up for auction?
LULU. He's spying out a fresh tribe in the neighborhood of Africa.
(Rises, hurries up the stairs, and steps into the gallery.)
RODRIGO. (To Schigolch.) He wanted to marry her originally.
SCHIGOLCH. (Sticking a lily in his button-hole.) I, too, wanted to
marry her originally.
RODRIGO. You wanted to marry her originally?
SCHIGOLCH. Didn't you, too, want to marry her originally?
RODRIGO. You bet I wanted to marry her originally!
SCHIGOLCH. Who has not wanted to marry her originally!!
RODRIGO. I would never have got a better!
SCHIGOLCH. She has let no one regret that he didn't marry her.
RODRIGO. Then she's not your child?
SCHIGOLCH. Never occurs to her.
HUGENBERG. What is her father's name then?
SCHIGOLCH. She has boasted of me!
HUGENBERG. What is her father's name then?
SCHIGOLCH. What's he say?
RODRIGO. What her father's name is.
SCHIGOLCH. She never had one.
LULU. (Comes down from the gallery and sits again on Hugenberg's
chair-arm.) What have I never had?
ALL THREE. A father.
LULU. Yes, sure--I'm a wonder-child. (To Hugenberg.) How are you
getting along with your father?
RODRIGO. He smokes a respectable cigar, anyway, the police-captain.
SCHIGOLCH. Have you locked up upstairs?
LULU. There is the key.
SCHIGOLCH. Better have left it in the lock.
LULU. Why?
SCHIGOLCH. So no one can unlock it from outside.
RODRIGO. Isn't he at the stock-exchange?
LULU. Oh, yes, but he suffers from persecution-mania.
RODRIGO. I take him by the feet, and yup!--there he stays sticking to
the roof.
LULU. He hunts you into a mouse-hole with the corner of his eye.
RODRIGO. What does he hunt? Who does he hunt? (Baring his arm.) Just
look at this biceps!
LULU. Show me. (Goes left.)
RODRIGO. (Hitting himself on the muscle.) Granite. Wrought-iron!
LULU. (Feeling by turns Rodrigo's arm and her own.) If you only didn't
have such long ears--
FERDINAND. (Entering, rear-centre.) Doctor Schoen!
RODRIGO. The rogue! (Jumps up, starts behind the fire-screen,
recoils.) God preserve me! (Hides, lower left, behind the curtains.)
SCHIGOLCH. Give me the key! (Takes it and drags himself up the stairs.)
LULU. (Hugenberg having slid under the table.) Show him in!
HUGENBERG. (Under the front edge of the table-cloth, listening; to
himself.) If he doesn't stay--we'll be alone.
LULU. (Poking him with her toe.) Sh! (Hugenberg disappears. Alva is
shown in by Ferdinand.)
ALVA. (In evening dress.) Methinks the matinee will take place with
burning lamps. I've-- (Notices Schigolch painfully climbing the
stairs.) What the ---- is that?
LULU. An old friend of your father's.
ALVA. Wholly unknown to me.
LULU. They were in the campaign together. He's awfully badly--
ALVA. Is my father here then?
LULU. He drank a glass with him. He had to go to the stock market.
We'll have lunch before we go, won't we?
ALVA. When does it begin?
LULU. After two. (Alva still follows Schigolch with his eyes.) How do
you like me? (Schigolch disappears thru the gallery.)
ALVA. Had I not better be silent to you on that point?
LULU. I only mean my appearance.
ALVA. Your dressmaker manifestly knows you better than I may permit
myself to know you.
LULU. When I saw myself in the glass I could have wished to be a
man--my man!--
ALVA. You seem to envy your man the joy you offer to him. (Lulu is at
the right, Alva at the left, of the centre table. He regards her with
shy satisfaction. Ferdinand enters, rear, covers the table and lays two
plates, etc., a bottle of Pommery, and hors d' oeuvres.) Have you a
toothache?
LULU. (Across to Alva.) Don't.
FERDINAND. Doctor Schoen ...?
ALVA. He seems so puckered-up and tearful to-day.
FERDINAND. (Thru his teeth.) One is only a man after all. (Exit.)
LULU. (When both are seated.) What I always think most highly of in you
is your firmness of character. You're so perfectly sure of yourself.
Even when you must have been afraid of quarreling with your father
about it, you always stood up for me like a brother just the same.
ALVA. Let's drop that. It's just my fate-- (Moves to lift up the
table-cloth in front.)
LULU. (Quickly.) That was me.
ALVA. Impossible! It's just my fate, with the most frivolous ideas
always to seize on the best.
LULU. You deceive yourself if you make yourself out worse than you are.
ALVA. Why do you flatter me so? It is true that perhaps there is no man
living, so bad as I--who has brought about so much good.
LULU. In any case you're the only man in the world who's protected me
without lowering me in my own eyes!
ALVA. Do you think that so easy? (Schoen appears in the gallery
cautiously parting the hangings between the middle pillars. He starts,
and whispers, "My own son!") With gifts from God like yours, one turns
those around one to criminals without ever dreaming of it. I, too, am
only flesh and blood, and if we hadn't grown up with each other like
brother and sister--
LULU. That's why, too, I give myself to you alone quite without
reserve. From you I have nothing to fear.
ALVA. I assure you there are moments when one expects to see one's
whole inner self cave in. The more self-restraint a man loads onto
himself, the easier he breaks down. Nothing will save him from that
except-- (Stops to look under the table.)
LULU. (Quickly.) What are you looking for?
ALVA. I conjure you, let me keep my confession of faith to myself! As
an inviolable sanctity you were more to me than with all your gifts you
could be to anyone else in your life!
LULU. How do you come to think on that so entirely differently from
your father? (Ferdinand enters, rear, changes the plates and serves
broiled chicken with salad.)
ALVA. (To him.) Are you sick?
LULU. (To Alva.) Let him be!
ALVA. He's trembling as if he had fever.
FERDINAND. I am not yet so used to waiting ...
ALVA. You must have something prescribed for you.
FERDINAND. (Thru his teeth.) I'm a coachman usually-- (Exit.)
SCHOEN. (Whispering from the gallery.) So, he too. (Seats himself behind
the rail, able to cover himself with the hangings.)
LULU. What sort of moments are those of which you spoke, where one
expects to see his whole inner self tumble in?
ALVA. I =didn't want= to speak of them. I should not like to lose, in
joking over a glass of champagne, what has been my highest happiness
for ten years.
LULU. I have hurt you. I won't begin on that again.
ALVA. Do you promise me that for always?
LULU. My hand on it. (Gives him her hand across the table. Alva takes
it hesitatingly, grips it in his, and presses it long and ardently to
his lips.) What are you doing. (Rodrigo sticks his head out from the
curtains, left. Lulu darts an angry look at him across Alva, and he
draws back.)
SCHOEN. (Whispering from the gallery.) And there is still another!
ALVA. (Holding the hand.) A soul--that in the hereafter rubs the sleep
out of its eyes.... Oh, this hand....
LULU. (Innocently.) What do you find in it?...
ALVA. An arm....
LULU. What do you find in it?...
ALVA. A body.....
LULU. (Guilelessly.) What do you find in it?...
ALVA. (Stirred up.) Mignon!
LULU. (Wholly ingenuously.) What do you find in it?...
ALVA. (Passionately.) Mignon! Mignon!
LULU. (Throws herself on the ottoman.) Don't look at me so--for God's
sake! Let us go before it is too late. You're an infamous wretch!
ALVA. I told you, didn't I, I was the basest villain.
LULU. I see that!
ALVA. I have no sense of honor, no pride....
LULU. You think I am your equal!
ALVA. You?--you are as heavenly high above me as--as the sun is over
the abyss! (Kneeling.) Destroy me! I beg you, put an end to me! Put an
end to me!
LULU. Do you =love= me then?
ALVA. I will pay you with everything that was mine!
LULU. Do you love me?
ALVA. Do you love me--Mignon?
LULU. I? Not a soul.
ALVA. I love you. (Hides his face in her lap.)
LULU. (Both hands in his hair.) I poisoned your mother-- (Rodrigo
sticks his head out from the curtains, left, sees Schoen sitting in the
gallery and signs to him to watch Lulu and Alva. Schoen points his
revolver at Rodrigo; Rodrigo signs to him to point it at Alva. Schoen
cocks the revolver and takes aim. Rodrigo draws back behind the
curtains. Lulu sees him draw back, sees Schoen sitting in the gallery,
and gets up.) His father! (Schoen rises, lets the hangings fall before
him. Alva remains motionless on his knees. Pause.)
SCHOEN. (Holding a paper in his hand, takes Alva by the shoulder.) Alva!
(Alva gets up as though drunk with sleep.) A revolution has broken out
in Paris.
ALVA. To Paris ... let me go to Paris--
SCHOEN. In the editors' room they're beating their heads against the
wall. No one knows what he ought to write. (He unfolds the paper and
accompanies Alva out, rear. Rodrigo rushes out from the curtains toward
the stairs.)
LULU. (Barring his way.) You can't get out here.
RODRIGO. Let me through!
LULU. You'll run into his arms.
RODRIGO. He'll shoot me thru the head!
LULU. He's coming.
RODRIGO. (Stumbling back.) Devil, death and demons! (Lifts the
table-cloth.)
HUGENBERG. No room!
RODRIGO. Damned and done for! (Looks around and hides in the door-way,
right.)
SCHOEN. (Comes in, centre; locks the door; and goes, revolver in hand,
to the window down left, of which he throws up the curtains.) Where is
=he= gone?
LULU. (On the lowest step.) Out.
SCHOEN. Down over the balcony?
LULU. He's an acrobat.
SCHOEN. That could not be foreseen. (Turning against Lulu.) You who drag
me thru the muck of the streets to a tortured death!
LULU. Why did you not bring me up better?
SCHOEN. You destroying angel! You inexorable fate! To be a murderer
without drowning in filth; to take me on board like a released convict,
or hang me up over the morass! You joy of my old age! You hangman's
noose!
LULU. (In cold blood.) Oh, shut up, and kill me!
SCHOEN. Everything I possess I have made over to you, and asked nothing
but the respect that every servant pays to my house. Your credit is
exhausted!
LULU. I can answer for my reckoning still for years. (Coming forward
from the stairs.) How do you like my new gown?
SCHOEN. Away with you, or my brains will give way to-morrow and my son
swim in his own blood! You infect me like an incurable pest in which I
shall groan away the rest of my life. I =will= cure myself! Do you
understand? (Pressing the revolver on her.) This is your physic. Don't
break down; don't kneel! You yourself shall apply it. You or I--which
is the weaker? (Lulu, her strength threatening to desert her, has sunk
down on the couch. Turning the revolver this way and that.)
LULU. It doesn't go off.
SCHOEN. Do you still remember how I tore you out of the clutches of the
police?
LULU. You have much confidence--
SCHOEN. Because I'm not afraid of a street-girl? Shall I guide your hand
for you? Have you no mercy towards yourself? (Lulu points the revolver
at him.) No false alarms! (Lulu fires a shot into the ceiling. Rodrigo
springs out of the portieres, up the stairs and away thru the gallery.)
What was that?
LULU. (Innocently.) Nothing.
SCHOEN. (Lifting the portieres.) What flew out of here?
LULU. You're suffering from persecution-mania.
SCHOEN. Have you got still more men hidden here? (Tearing the revolver
from her.) Is yet another man calling on you? (Going left.) I'll regale
your men! (Throws up the window curtains, flings the fire-screen back,
grabs Countess Geschwitz by the collar and drags her forward.) Did you
come down the chimney?
GESCHWITZ. (In deadly terror, to Lulu.) Save me from him!
SCHOEN. (Shaking her.) Or are you, too, an acrobat?
GESCHWITZ. (Whimpering.) You hurt me.
SCHOEN. (Shaking her.) Now you will =have= to stay to dinner. (Drags her
right, shoves her into the next room and locks the door after her.) We
want no town-criers. (Sits next Lulu and makes her take the revolver
again.) There's still enough for you in it. Look at me! I cannot assist
the coachman in my house to decorate my forehead for me. Look at me! I
pay my coachman. Look at me! Am I doing the coachman a favor when I
can't stand the stable-stench?
LULU. Have the carriage got ready! Please! We're going to the opera.
SCHOEN. We're going to the devil! Now I am coachman. (Turning the
revolver in her hand from himself to Lulu's breast.) Think you we let
ourselves be mistreated as you mistreat me, and hesitate between a
galley-slave's shame at the end of life and the merit of freeing the
world of =you=? (Holds her down by the arm.) Come, get through. It will
be the gladdest remembrance of my life. Pull the trigger!
LULU. You can get a divorce.
SCHOEN. Only that was left! In order that to-morrow the next man may
find his pastime where I have shuddered from cleft to chasm, suicide
upon me and =thou= before me! You dare suggest that? That part of my
life I have poured into you I am to see thrown before wild beasts? Do
you see your bed with the sacrifice--the victim--on it? The boy is
homesick for you. Did you let yourself be divorced? You trod him under
your feet, knocked out his brains, caught up his blood in gold-pieces.
I let myself be divorced? =Can= one be divorced when two people have
grown into each other and half the man must go, too? (Reaching for the
revolver.) Give it here!
LULU. Don't!
SCHOEN. I'll spare you the trouble.
LULU. (Tears herself loose, holding the revolver down; in a determined,
self-possessed tone.) If men have killed themselves for my sake, that
doesn't lower my value. You know as well why you made me your wife as I
knew why I took you for husband. You had deceived your best friends
with me; you could not well go on deceiving yourself with me. If you
bring me the close of your life as a sacrifice, still you have had my
whole youth for it. You understand ten times better than I do which is
the more valuable. I have never in the world wished to seem to be
anything different from what I am taken for, and I have never in the
world been taken for anything different from what I am. You want to
force me to fire a bullet into my heart. I'm not sixteen any more, but
to fire a bullet in my heart I am still much too young!
SCHOEN. (Pursuing her.) Down, murderess! Down with you! To your knees,
murderess! (Crowding her to the foot of the stairs.) Down, and never
dare to stand again! (Raising his hand. Lulu has sunk to her knees.)
Pray to God, murderess, that he give you strength. Sue to heaven that
strength for it may be lent you! (Hugenberg jumps up from under the
table, knocking a chair aside, and screams "Help!" Schoen whirls toward
him, turning his back to Lulu who instantly fires five shots into him
and continues to pull the trigger. Schoen, tottering over, is caught by
Hugenberg and let down in the chair.)
SCHOEN. And--there--is--one--more--
LULU. (Rushing to Schoen.) All merciful--!
SCHOEN. Out of my sight! Alva!
LULU. (Kneeling.) The one man I loved!
SCHOEN. Harlot! Murderess! Alva! Alva! Water!
LULU. Water; he's thirsty. (Fills a glass with champagne and sets it to
Schoen's lips. Alva comes thru the gallery, down the stairs.)
ALVA. Father! O God, my father!
LULU. I shot him.
HUGENBERG. She is innocent!
SCHOEN. (To Alva.) You! It miscarried.
ALVA. (Tries to lift him.) You must go to bed; come.
SCHOEN. Don't take me so! I'm drying up. (Lulu comes with the
champagne-cup; to her.) You are still like yourself. (After drinking.)
Don't let her escape. (To Alva.) You are the next.
ALVA. (To Hugenberg.) Help me carry him to bed.
SCHOEN. No, no, please, no. Wine, murderess--
ALVA. (To Hugenberg.) Take him up that side. (Pointing right.) Into the
bed-room. (They lift Schoen upright and lead him right. Lulu stays near
the table, the glass in her hand.)
SCHOEN. (Groaning.) O God! O God! O God! (Alva finds the door locked,
turns the key and opens it. Countess Geschwitz steps out. Schoen at the
sight of her straighten up, stiffly.) The Devil. (He falls backward
onto the carpet. Lulu throws herself down, takes his head in her lap,
and kisses him.)
LULU. He has got over it. (Gets up and starts toward the stairs.)
ALVA. Don't stir!
GESCHWITZ. I thought it was you.
LULU. (Throwing herself before Alva.) You can't give me up to the law!
It is =my= head that is struck off. I shot him because he was about to
shoot me. I have loved nobody in the world but him! Alva, demand what
you will, only don't let me fall into the hands of justice. Take pity
on me. I am still young. I will be true to you as long as I live. I
will belong only to you. Look at me, Alva. Man, look at me! Look at
me!! (Knocking on the door outside.)
ALVA. The police. (Goes to open it.)
HUGENBERG. I shall be expelled from school.
CURTAIN
[ Transcriber's Note:
The following is a list of corrections made to the original. The first
line is the original line, the second the corrected one.
forhead.) God in Heaven! The world is strange to me--!
forehead.) God in Heaven! The world is strange to me--!
SCHIGOLCH. That doesn't help me-- Does he drink?
SCHIGOLCH. That doesn't help me--Does he drink?
hoping for winter. Perhaps then my (coughing)--my--my asthma will
hoping for winter. Perhaps then my (coughing) --my--my asthma will
LULU. (Steals toward the door; but Schoen holds her.)--
LULU. (Steals toward the door; but Schoen holds her.) --
ALVA. Oh, God-- I saw in you something so infinitely far above me. I had
ALVA. Oh, God--I saw in you something so infinitely far above me. I had
ESCERNY. (Getting up too). What's the matter? (The electric bell goes
ESCERNY. (Getting up too.) What's the matter? (The electric bell goes
"My dear young lady.. .."
"My dear young lady...."
]
End of Project Gutenberg's Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit), by Frank Wedekind