Part 2
RODRIGO. If I could only have given him one in the jaw for that right away! Thank God, there are jails where scum like that gets some respect for the law pounded into them.
ALVA. One like him might have been my model for my "World-conqueror." For twenty years literature has presented nothing but demi-men: men who can beget no children and women who can bear none. That's called "The Modern Problem."
RODRIGO. I've ordered a hippopotamus-whip two inches thick. If that has no success with her, you can fill my cranium with potato-soup. Be it love or be it whipping, female flesh never inquires. Only give it some amusement, and it stays firm and fresh. She is now in her twentieth year, has been married three times and has satisfied a gigantic horde of lovers, and her heart's desires are at last pretty plain. But the man's got to have the seven deadly sins on his forehead, or she honors him not. If he looks as if a dog-catcher had spat him out on the street, then, with such women-folks, he needn't be afraid of a prince! I'll rent a garage fifty feet high and break her in there; and when she's learnt the first diving-leap without breaking her neck I'll pull on a black coat and not stir a finger the rest of my life. When she's educated practically it doesn't cost a woman half as much trouble to support her husband as the other way round, if only the man takes care of the mental labor for her, and doesn't let the sense of the family go to wreck.
ALVA. I have learnt to rule humanity and drive it in harness before me like a well-broken four-in-hand,--but that boy sticks in my head. Really, I can still take private lessons in the scorn of the world from that school-boy!
RODRIGO. She'll just comfortably let her hide be papered with thousand-mark bills! I'll extract salaries out of the directors with a centrifugal pump. I know their kind. When they don't need a man, let him shine their shoes for them; but when they must have an artiste they cut her down from the very gallows with their own hands and with the most entangling compliments.
ALVA. In my situation there's nothing more in the world to fear--but death. In the realm of sensation I am the poorest beggar. But I can no longer scrape up the moral courage to exchange my established position for the excitements of the wild, adventurous life!
RODRIGO. She had sent Papa Schigolch and me together in chase of some strong antidote for sleeplessness. We each got a twenty-mark piece for expenses. There we see the youngster sitting in the Night-light Cafe. He was sitting like a criminal on the prisoner's bench. Schigolch sniffed at him from all sides, and remarked, "He is still virgin." (_Up in the gallery, dragging steps are heard._) There she is! The future magnificent trapeze-artiste of the present age!
(_The curtains part at the stair-head, and Lulu, supported by Schigolch, and in a black dress, slowly and wearily descends._)
SCHIGOLCH. Hui, old mold! We've still to get over the frontier to-day.
RODRIGO. (_Glaring stupidly at Lulu._) Thunder of heaven! Death!
LULU. (_Speaks, to the end of the act, in the gayest tones._) Slowly! You're pinching my arm!
RODRIGO. How did you ever get the shamelessness to break out of prison with such a wolf's face?!
SCHIGOLCH. Stop your snout!
RODRIGO. I'll run for the police! I'll give information! This scarecrow let herself be seen in tights?! The padding alone would cost two months' salary!--You're the most perfidious swindler that ever had lodging in Ox-butter Hotel!
ALVA. Kindly refrain from insulting the lady!
RODRIGO. Insulting you call that?! For this gnawed bone's sake I've worn myself away! I can't earn my own living! I'll be a clown if I can still stand firm under a broom-stick! But let the lightning strike me on the spot if I don't worm ten thousand marks a year for life out of your tricks and frauds! I can tell you that! A pleasant trip! I'm going for the police! (_Exit._)
SCHIGOLCH. Run, run!
LULU. He'll take good care of himself!
SCHIGOLCH. We're rid of *him*!--And now some black coffee for the lady!
ALVA. (_At the table left._) Here is coffee, ready to pour.
SCHIGOLCH. I must look after the sleeping-car tickets.
LULU. (_Brightly._) Oh, freedom! Thank God for freedom!
SCHIGOLCH. I'll be back for you in half an hour. We'll celebrate our departure in the station-restaurant. I'll order a supper that'll keep us going till to-morrow.--Good morning, doctor.
ALVA. Good evening.
SCHIGOLCH. Pleasant rest!--Thanks, I know every door-handle here. So long! Have a good time! (_Exit._)
LULU. I haven't seen a room for a year and a half. Curtains, chairs, pictures....
ALVA. Won't you drink it?
LULU. I've swallowed enough black coffee these five days. Have you any brandy?
ALVA. I've got some elixir de Spaa.
LULU. That reminds one of old times. (_Looks round the hall while Alva fills two glasses._) Where's my picture gone?
ALVA. I've got it in my room, so no one shall see it here.
LULU. Bring it down here now.
ALVA. Didn't you even lose your vanity in prison?
LULU. How anxious at heart one gets when one hasn't seen herself for months! One day I got a brand-new dust-pan. When I swept up at seven in the morning I held the back of it up before my face. Tin doesn't flatter, but I took pleasure in it all the same.--Bring the picture down from your room. Shall I come too?
ALVA. No, Heaven's sake! You must spare yourself!
LULU. I've been sparing myself long enough now! (_Alva goes out, right, to get the picture._) He has heart-trouble; but to have to plague one's self with imagination fourteen months!... He kisses with the fear of death on him, and his two knees shake like a frozen vagabond's. In God's name.... In this room--if only I had not shot his father in the back!
ALVA. (_Returns with the picture of Lulu in the Pierrot-dress._) It's covered with dust. I had leant it against the fire-place, face to the wall.
LULU. You didn't look at it all the time I was away?
ALVA. I had so much business to attend to, with the sale of our paper and everything. Countess Geschwitz would have liked to have hung it up in her house, but she had to be prepared for search-warrants. (_He puts the picture on the easel._)
LULU. (_Merrily._) Now the poor monster is learning the joys of life in Hotel Ox-butter by her own experience.
ALVA. Even now I don't understand how events hang together.
LULU. Oh, Geschwitz arranged it all very cleverly. I must admire her inventiveness. But the cholera must have raged fearfully in Hamburg this summer; and on that she founded her plan for freeing me. She took a course in hospital nursing here, and when she had the necessary documents she journeyed to Hamburg with them and nursed the cholera patients. At the first opportunity that offered she put on the underclothes in which a sick woman had just died and which really ought to have been burnt. The same morning she traveled back here and came to see me in prison. In my cell, while the wardress was outside, we, as quick as we could, exchanged underclothes.
ALVA. So that was the reason why the Countess and you fell sick of the cholera the same day!
LULU. Exactly, that was it! Geschwitz of course was instantly brought from her house to the contagious ward in the hospital. But with me, too, they couldn't think of any other place to take me. So there we lay in one room in the contagious ward behind the hospital, and from the first day Geschwitz put forth all her art to make our two faces as like each other as possible. Day before yesterday she was let out as cured. Just now she came back and said she'd forgotten her watch. I put on her clothes, she slipped into my prison frock, and then I came away. (_With pleasure._) Now she's lying over there as the murderess of Dr. Schoen.
ALVA. So far as outward appearance goes you can still agree with the picture as much as ever.
LULU. I'm a little peaked in the face, but otherwise I've lost nothing. Only one gets incredibly nervous in prison.
ALVA. You looked horribly sick when you came in.
LULU. I had to, to get our necks out of the noose.--And you? What have you done in this year and a half?
ALVA. I've had a succes d'estime in literary circles with a play I wrote about you.
LULU. Who's your sweetheart now?
ALVA. An actress I've rented a house for in Karl Street.
LULU. Does she love you?
ALVA. How should I know that? I haven't seen the woman for six weeks.
LULU. Can you stand that?
ALVA. You will never understand that. With me there's the closest alternation between my sensuality and mental creativeness. So towards you, for example, I have only the choice of regarding you artistically or of loving you.
LULU. (_In a fairy-story tone._) I used to dream every other night that I'd fallen into the hands of a sadic.... Come, give me a kiss!
ALVA. It's shining in your eyes like the water in a deep well one has just thrown a stone into.
LULU. Come!
ALVA. (_Kisses her._) Your lips have got pretty thin, anyway.
LULU. Come! (_Pushes him into a chair and seats herself on his knee._) Do you shudder at me?--In Hotel Ox-butter we all got a luke-warm bath every four weeks. The wardresses took that opportunity to search our pockets as soon as we were in the water. (_She kisses him passionately._)
ALVA. Oh, oh!
LULU. You're afraid that when I'm away you couldn't write any more poems about me?
ALVA. On the contrary, I shall write a dithyramb upon thy glory.
LULU. I'm only sore about the hideous shoes I'm wearing.
ALVA. They do not encroach upon your charms. Let us be thankful for the favor of this moment.
LULU. I don't feel at all like that to-day.--Do you remember the costume ball where I was dressed like a knight's squire? How those wine-full women ran after me that time? Geschwitz crawled round, round my feet, and begged me to step on her face with my cloth shoes.
ALVA. Come, dear heart!
LULU. (_In the tone with which one quiets a restless child._) Quietly! I shot your father.
ALVA. I do not love thee less for that. One kiss!
LULU. Bend your head back. (_She kisses him with deliberation._)
ALVA. You hold back the fire of my soul with the most dexterous art. And your breast breathes so virginly too. Yet if it weren't for your two great, dark, childish eyes, I must needs have thought you the cunningest whore that ever hurled a man to destruction.
LULU. (_In high spirits._) Would God I were! Come over the border with us to-day! Then we can see each other as often as we will, and we'll get more pleasure from each other than now.
ALVA. Through this dress I feel your body like a symphony. These slender ankles, this cantabile. This rapturous crescendo. And these knees, this capriccio. And the powerful andante of lust!--How peacefully these two slim rivals press against each other in the consciousness that neither equals the other in beauty--till their capricious mistress wakes up and the rival lovers separate like the two hostile poles. I shall sing your praises so that your senses shall whirl!
LULU. (_Merrily._) Meanwhile I'll bury my hands in your hair. (_She does so._) But here we'll be disturbed.
ALVA. You have robbed me of my reason!
LULU. Aren't you coming with me to-day?
ALVA. But the old fellow's going with you!
LULU. He won't turn up again.--Is not that the divan on which your father bled to death?
ALVA. Be still. Be still....
CURTAIN.
ACT II
_A spacious salon in white stucco. In the rear-wall, between two high mirrors, a wide folding doorway showing in the rear room a big card-table surrounded by Turkish upholstered chairs. In the left wall two doors, the upper one to the entrance-hall, the lower to the dining-room. Between them a rococo-console with a white marble top, and above it Lulu's Pierrot-picture in a narrow gold frame let into the wall. Two other doors, right; near the lower one a small table. Wide and brightly-covered chairs stand about, with thin legs and fragile arms; and in the middle is a sofa of the same style (Louis XV.)._
_A large company is moving about the salon in lively conversation. The men--*Alva*, *Rodrigo*, Marquis *Casti-Piani*, Banker *Puntschu*, and Journalist *Heilmann*--are in evening dress. *Lulu* wears a white Directoire dress with huge sleeves and white lace falling freely from belt to feet. Her arms are in white kid gloves, her hair done high with a little tuft of white feathers. *Geschwitz* is in a bright blue hussar-waist trimmed with white fur and laced with silver braid, a tall tight collar with a white bow and stiff cuffs with huge ivory links. *Magelone* is in bright rainbow-colored shot silk with very wide sleeves, long narrow waist, and three ruffles of spiral rose-colored ribbons and violet bouquets. Her hair is parted in the middle and drawn low over her temples. On her forehead is a mother-of-pearl ornament, held by a fine chain under her hair. *Kadidia*, her daughter, twelve years old, has bright-green satin gaiters which yet leave visible the tops of her white silk socks, and a white-lace-covered dress with bright-green narrow sleeves, pearl-gray gloves, and free black hair under a big bright-green hat with white feathers. *Bianetta* is in dark-green velvet, the collar sewn with pearls, and a full skirt, its hem embroidered with great false topazes set in silver. *Ludmilla Steinherz* is in a glaring summer frock striped red and blue._
_Rodrigo stands, centre, a full glass in his hand._
RODRIGO. Ladies and gentlemen--I beg your pardon--please be quiet--I drink--permit me to drink--for this is the birthday party of our amiable hostess--(_taking Lulu's arm_) of Countess Adelaide d'Oubra--damned and done for!--I drink therefore----and so forth, go to it, ladies! (_All surround Lulu and clink with her. Alva presses Rodrigo's hand._)
ALVA. I congratulate you.
RODRIGO. I'm sweating like a roast pig.
ALVA. (_To Lulu._) Let's see if everything's in order in the card-room. (_Alva and Lulu exeunt, rear. Bianetta speaks to Rodrigo._)
BIANETTA. They were telling me just now you were the strongest man in the world.
RODRIGO. That I am. May I put my strength at your disposal?
MAGELONE. I love sharp-shooters better. Three months ago a sharp-shooter stepped into the casino and every time he went "bang!" I felt like this. (_She wriggles her hips._)
CASTI-PIANI. (_Who speaks thruout the act in a bored and weary tone, to Magelone._) Say, dearie, how does it happen we see your nice little princess here for the first time to-night? (_Meaning Kadidia._)
MAGELONE. Do you really find her so delightful?--She is still in the convent. She must be back in school again on Monday.
KADIDIA. What did you say, mama?
MAGELONE. I was just telling the gentleman that you got the highest mark in geometry last week.
HEILMANN. Some pretty hair she's got!
CASTI-PIANI. Just look at her feet: the way she walks!
PUNTSCHU. By god, she's got breeding!
MAGELONE. (_Smiling._) But my dear sirs, take pity on her! She's nothing but a child still!
PUNTSCHU. That'd trouble me damned little! (_To Heilmann._) I'd give ten years of my life if I could initiate the young lady into the ceremonies of our secret society!
MAGELONE. But you won't get me to consent to that for a million. I won't have the child's youth ruined, the way mine was!
CASTI-PIANI. Confessions of a lovely soul! (_To Magelone._) Would you not agree, either, for a set of real diamonds?
MAGELONE. Don't brag! You'll give as few real diamonds to me as to my child. You know that quite the best yourself. (_Kadidia goes into the rear room._)
GESCHWITZ. But is nobody at all going to play, this evening?
LUDMILLA. Why, of course, comtesse. I'm counting on it very much, for one!
BIANETTA. Then let's take our places right away. The gentlemen will soon come then.
GESCHWITZ. May I ask you to excuse me just a second. I must say a word to my friend.
CASTI-PIANI. (_Offering his arm to Bianetta._) May I have the honor to be your partner? You always hold such a lucky hand!
LUDMILLA. Now just give me your other arm and then lead us into the gambling-hell. (_The three go off so, rear._)
MAGELONE. Say, Mr. Puntschu, have you still got a few Jungfrau shares for me, maybe?
PUNTSCHU. Jungfrau-shares? (_To Heilmann._) The lady means the stock of the funicular railway on the Jungfrau. The Jungfrau, you know,--the Virgin--is a mountain up which they want to build a wire railway. (_To Magelone._) You know, just so there may be no confusion;--and how easy that would be in this select circle!--Yes, I still have some four thousand Jungfrau-shares, but I should like to keep those for myself. There won't be such another chance soon of making a little fortune out of hand.
HEILMANN. I've only one lone share of this Jungfrau-stock so far. I should like to have more, too.
PUNTSCHU. I'll try, Mr. Heilmann, to look after some for you. But I'll tell you beforehand you'll have to pay drug-store prices for them!
MAGELONE. My fortune-teller advised me to look about me in time. All my savings are in Jungfrau-shares now. If it doesn't turn out well, Mr. Puntschu, I'll scratch your eyes out!
PUNTSCHU. I am perfectly sure of my affairs, my dearie!
ALVA. (_Who has come back from the card-room, to Magelone._) I can guarantee your fears are absolutely unfounded. I paid very dear for my Jungfrau-stock and haven't regretted it a minute. They're going up steadily from day to day. There never was such a thing before.
MAGELONE. All the better, if you're right. (_Taking Puntschu's arm._) Come, my friend, let's try our luck now at baccarat. (_All go out, rear, except Geschwitz and Rodrigo who scribbles something on a piece of paper and folds it up, then notices Geschwitz._)
RODRIGO. Hm, madam countess--(_Geschwitz starts and shrinks._) Do I look as dangerous as that? (_To himself._) I must make a bon mot. (_Aloud._) May I perhaps make so bold--
GESCHWITZ. You can go to the devil!
CASTI-PIANI. (_As he leads Lulu in._) Permit me a word or two.
LULU. (_Not noticing Rodrigo who presses his note into her hand._) Oh, as many as you like. (_Rodrigo bows and goes out, rear._)
CASTI-PIANI. (_To Geschwitz._) Leave us alone!
LULU. (_To Casti-Piani._) Have I hurt you again in any way?
CASTI-PIANI. (_Since Geschwitz does not stir._) Are you deaf? (_Geschwitz, sighing deeply, goes out, rear._)
LULU. Just say straight out how much you want.
CASTI-PIANI. With money you can no longer serve me.
LULU. What makes you think that we have no more money?
CASTI-PIANI. You handed out the last bit of it to me yesterday.
LULU. If you're sure of that then I suppose it's so.
CASTI-PIANI. You're down on the bare ground, you and your writer.
LULU. Then why all the words?--If you want to have me for yourself you need not first threaten me with execution.
CASTI-PIANI. I know that. But I've told you more than once that you won't be my downfall. I haven't sucked you dry because you loved me, but loved you in order to suck you. Bianetta is more to my taste from top to bottom than you. You set out the choicest sweetmeats, and after one has frittered his time away at them he finds he's hungrier than before. You've loved too long, even for our present relations. With a healthy young man, you only ruin his nervous system. But you'll fit all the more perfectly in the position I have sought out for you.
LULU. You're crazy! Have I commissioned you to find a position for me?
CASTI-PIANI. I told you, though, that I was an appointments-agent.
LULU. You told me you were a police spy.
CASTI-PIANI. One can't live on that alone. I was an appointments-agent originally, till I blundered over a minister's daughter I'd got a position for in Valparaiso. The little darling in her childhood's dreams imagined the life even more intoxicating than it is, and complained of it to Mama. On that, they nabbed me; but by reliable demeanor I soon enough won the confidence of the criminal police and they sent me here on a hundred and fifty marks a month, because they were tripling our contingent here on account of these everlasting bomb-explosions. But who can get along on a hundred and fifty marks a month? My colleagues get women to support them; but, of course, I found it more convenient to take up my former calling again; and of the numberless adventuresses of the best families of the entire world, whom chance brings together here, I have already forwarded many a young creature hungry for life to the place of her natural vocation.
LULU. (_Decisively._) I wouldn't do in that business.
CASTI-PIANI. Your views on that question make no difference whatever to me. The department of justice will pay anyone who delivers the murderess of Dr. Schoen into the hands of the police a thousand marks. I only need to whistle for the constable who's standing down at the corner to have earned a thousand marks. Against that, the House of Oikonomopulos in Cairo bids sixty pounds for you--twelve hundred marks--two hundred more than the Attorney General. And, besides, I am still so far a friend of mankind that I prefer to help my loves to happiness, not plunge them into misfortune.
LULU. (_As before._) The life in such a house can never make a woman of my stamp happy. When I was fifteen, that might have happened to me. I was desperate then--thought I should never be happy. I bought a revolver, and ran one night bare-foot thru the deep snow over the bridge to the park to shoot myself there. But then by good luck I lay three months in the hospital without setting eyes on a man, and in that time my eyes opened and I got to know myself. Night after night in my dreams I saw the man for whom I was created and who was created for me, and then when I was let out on the men again I was no longer a silly goose. Since then I can see on a man, in a pitch-dark night and a hundred feet away, whether we're suited to each other; and if I sin against that insight I feel the next day dirtied, body and soul, and need weeks to get over the loathing I have for myself. And now you imagine I'll give myself to every and any Tom and Harry!