GESCHWITZ.Then you cheated me consciously, deliberately?
LULU.(Gaily.) What have you been cheated of, then? Your physical advantages have found so enthusiastic an admirer here, that I ask myself if I won't haveto 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 this cleverness with which you torture the helpless victims sacrificed to you by their inscrutable destiny. My own plight has not yet wrung from me the pity that I feel for you.Ifeel free as a god when I think to what creaturesyouare enslaved.
LULU.Who 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 ofhim. He loves me with an uprightness against which your most venturous self-sacrifices are poor as beggary! He gives me such proofs of self-denial as revealyoufor 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 into your skull. 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 belong to you. (All thecompany 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.It seems I have won a whole fortune!
LUDMILLA.Don't boast of it, my child. That isn't lucky.
MAGELONE.But the bank has won, too! How is thatpossible?
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 tohimwith 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 writes me “It's all up!” and I can just hang a hurdy-gurdy over my shoulder.
LULU.Have you got engaged here, then?
RODRIGO.Maybe I ought to have asked your permission first? What were my thanks here that I freed you from prison at the cost of my health? You abandoned me! I might have had to be a baggage-man if this girl hadn't taken me up! At my very first entrance, right away, they 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 only at vulgar things, like you. She's had three children by an American bishop—all of the greatest promise. Day after to-morrow we'll get married by the registrar.
LULU.You have my blessing.
RODRIGO.Your blessingcanbe 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 person loves him for himself!
RODRIGO.She honors in me the man of mind, not the man of might as you and all the others have done. That's over now. First they tore the clothes from one's body and then they waltzed 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 pursue the unfortunate Geschwitz with your attentions?
RODRIGO.Because the creature 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 duty once! You lured the poor lad here, and now he can see where to scare up a suitable engagement for his accomplishments.
LULU.What has it to do with you if he wastes his money with women or at cards?
RODRIGO.Do you absolutelywant, 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 not take things too exactly and sacrifice yourself for a beneficent purpose! Has it got to be only Casti-Pianiforever?
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 court has 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 offyourears, you'll cut 'em off me! If I can't hire out my Jehoshaphat, 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, 15 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, it's really 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'tyouseen 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 withdrawn.) 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 the best thing if no one paid any attention to her!
PUNTSCHU.That sounds like you! You're a pretty mother! The courts'll yet take the child away from you and appoint me her guardian! (Stroking Kadidia's cheeks.) Isn't that so, my little goddess?
GESCHWITZ.I should be glad if we started the baccarat again at last? (All go into the card-room. Lulu is held back at the door by Bob.)
LULU.(When Bob has whispered to her.) Certainly! Let him come in! (Bob opens the 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 d'd 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 toyou. (Lulu is suddenly overcome with a fit of weeping.)
LULU.(Flinging herself at Schigolch.) O God Omnipotent!
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 anytransparent 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 who? 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 person 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 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! What I have!
SCHIGOLCH.It's pretty near 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 cool that is!
SCHIGOLCH.How hot this is!
LULU.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.) Whateverwould induce me to do that? I will 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 shownhimwhat 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 ask me to give myself to my deceased 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 very best years of 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 the tripes fly to heaven like Roman candles. If you've got no better substitute for me, then I'm sorry ever to have had 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 don't take things too exactly and sacrifice yourself for a beneficent purpose.
RODRIGO.That won't go; I know that, beforehand. I've tried that out enough now. Who counts on an honorable soul like that in a bag o' bones! What the person had for me 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 sec. 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 thru that already.... Can you not possibly spare me this hardest test?
LULU.What will you gain by his denouncing me?
GESCHWITZ.I have still enough 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 addresson it. 376 is a sixth-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 youarehappy 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 hair-dresser, 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 in 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 wewouldbe down and out!
PUNTSCHU.Well, what amIto 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.(Passing forward.) Am I dreaming or do I really hear 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 frightful. (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 do you speculate on the Jungfrau too? Send a few little notices on the company to the German police here, and then you'll still win something in the end.
HEILMANN.I've never tried that in my life, 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 gone! 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 an engagement in a Varieté, and sing the people my misfortuneswith 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 to the Varieté!
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?Thatisn't the right one!
CURTAIN.
An attic room, without windows, but with two sky-lights, 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 Olympia. Bianetta was still with us. The table-cloth was dripping on all four sides with champagne.
SCHIGOLCH.Ya, ya. And I was dreaming of a Christmas pudding. (Lulu appears, back, barefoot, in a torn black dress, but with her hair falling to her shoulders.) Where have you been? Curling your hair first?
ALVA.She only does that to revive old memories.
LULU.If one could only get warmed, just a little, from one of you!
ALVA.Will you 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 coalsonly 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 sky-light.)
LULU.It looks as if the rain would let up at last.
SCHIGOLCH.Your 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 I were, too! Why prolong this life? Let's rather starve to death together this very evening in peace and concord! Is it not the last stage now?
LULU.Why don'tyougo 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 see us put an end to before her eyes, before doing 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 without the stamps of the courts, 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 atme, 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. He 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 seemed to really want to be 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.Didyoushoot him? He didn't lose much, but when I see you lying there I could hack off both my hands for having sinned so 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! She's only got to take the right road into the business at the start.
LULU.It's all right with me! Nothing's wrong with me any more. (Puts the bottle to her lips.) That warms 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 hair-dresser had read myfirst 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 very strong doubt whether anyone will bite any more.
ALVA.I shouldn't like to advise it to anybody! (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 at her marriage still felt like a school-girl, came the unhappy, hysterical artist's wife. Out of the artist's wife came then the spouse of my blessed father, and out ofhercame, 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 rustlingbridal 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 boot-black; but when she did give herself to him, thenIstood before her soul. Thru that, too, without my realizing it, she attained 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.) Ofcourse, 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.) Herr Gott, 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.)
LULU.All right, it's good. (Puts it into 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. She takes up the lamp and opens the door to her room. He goes in smiling, takingoff 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, 2 s. 6 d.
SCHIGOLCH.It looks to me as if God had lefthimpretty completely. (Lays the coat over the chair again and makes for the cubby-hole.) There's nothing doing with 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 despairand 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 some one else.
ALVA.Some one's coming up. I hear it quite plainly.
LULU.Now there's some one tapping at the door. Who may that 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 got any money. My brother never answered me at all.
SCHIGOLCH.Your ladyship would now like to stretch her feet out under our table?
LULU.(Tonelessly.) I'm going down again.
GESCHWITZ.Where are you going in this pomp?—However, I come not wholly empty-handed. I bringyou something else. On my way here an old-clothes man offered me twelve shillings for it, but I could not force myself to part from it. You can sell it, though, if you want to.
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 middle-class position 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 a while 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, kid dear! 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.) The dewy freshness that covered 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 continual decline when we see a person all the time. (Lightly.) The woman blooms for us in themoment when she hurls the man to destruction for the rest of his life. That is 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 get 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 plots 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.And she's still got enough strength in her body to do the same for ten men alright.
ALVA.No mortally wounded man'll ever find the stab of mercy welcomer than I!
SCHIGOLCH.If she hadn't enticed the acrobat to my place that time, we'd have him round our necks to-day too.
ALVA.I see it swinging 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.Can a simple, natural man in the wilderness suffer so unspeakably?!—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.It has not cost everyone my sunny, glorious youth!
SCHIGOLCH.I guess it'll go out in a minute. Till they come back it'll be as dark in here again as in mother's womb.
ALVA.With the clearest consciousness of my purpose I sought intercourse with 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 line!
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.They can do that now, for the first time rightly.—We must hide again.
ALVA.I stay here.
SCHIGOLCH.Just what do you pity them for?—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 there's a glass.
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! Trust me, you shall 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, thoh!
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 awaysomewhere. 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.