Part 4
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 address on 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 you *are* happy you're a hundred thousand times happier than one of us ordinary mortals ever is!
GESCHWITZ. I know that too! I envy no one! But I am still waiting. You have deceived me so often already.
LULU. I am yours, my darling, if you quiet Mr. Acrobat till to-morrow. He only wants his vanity placated. You must beseech him to take pity on you.
GESCHWITZ. And to-morrow?
LULU. I await you, my heart. I shall not open my eyes till you come: see no chambermaid, receive no 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 we *would* be down and out!
PUNTSCHU. Well, what am _I_ to say, who have lost my whole fortune in it! To-morrow morning I shall have the pleasure of taking up the struggle for an assured existence for the thirty-sixth time!
MAGELONE. (_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 Variete, and sing the people my misfortunes with the Jungfrau-stock. Things like that are always applauded.
KADIDIA. But you've got no voice, mama!
MAGELONE. Ah, yes, that's true!
KADIDIA. Take me with you to the Variete!
MAGELONE. No, it would break my heart!--But, well, if it can't be otherwise, and you're so made for it,--I can't change things!--Yes, we can go to the Olympia together to-morrow!
KADIDIA. O mama, how glad that makes me feel! (_A plain-clothes detective enters, upper left._)
DETECTIVE. In the name of the law--I arrest you!
CASTI-PIANI. (_Following him, bored._) What sort of nonsense is that? *That* isn't the right one!
CURTAIN.
ACT III
_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 coals only have to be blown. When she's been at it a week, not ten locomotives will hold her in our miserable attic.
ALVA. The bowl is running over.
LULU. What shall I do with the water?
ALVA. Pour it out the window. (_Lulu gets up on the chair and empties the bowl thru the 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't *you* go out and get us something to eat? You've never earned a penny in your whole life!
ALVA. In this weather, when no one would kick a dog from his door?
LULU. But me! I, with the little blood I have left in my limbs, I am to stop your mouths!
ALVA. I don't touch a farthing of the money!
SCHIGOLCH. Let her go, just! I long for one more Christmas pudding; then I've had enough.
ALVA. And I long for one more beefsteak and a cigarette; then die! I was just dreaming of a cigarette, such as has never yet been smoked!
SCHIGOLCH. She'll 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 at *me*, and when I behaved as respectable as I am, they boxed my ears, and when I tried being smutty, they got so chaste and maidenly that my hair stood up on my head for horror. 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. Did *you* shoot him? He didn't lose much, but when I see you lying there I could hack off both my hands for having sinned 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 my first poem, that I'd had printed in "Society": "Follow thy pack far over the mountains; it will return again, covered with sweat and dust--"
SCHIGOLCH. Oh, ya!
ALVA. And then she came, in rose-colored muslin, with nothing under it but a white satin slip--for the Spanish ambassador's ball. Dr. Goll seemed to feel his death near. He asked me to dance with her, so she shouldn't cause any mad acts. Papa meanwhile never turned his eyes from us, and all thru the waltz she was looking over my shoulder, only at him.... Afterwards she shot him. It is unbelievable.
SCHIGOLCH. I've only got a 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 of *her* came, then, my mistress. Well, so that is the way of the world. Who will prevail against it?
SCHIGOLCH. If only she doesn't skid away from the gentlemen with honorable intentions and bring us up instead some vagabond she's exchanged her heart's secrets with.
ALVA. I kissed her for the first time in her rustling bridal dress. But afterwards she didn't remember it.... All the same, I believe she had thought of me even in my father's arms. It can't have been often with him: he had his best time behind him, and she deceived him with coachman and boot-black; but when she did give herself to him, then _I_ stood 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._) Of course, I know it isn't very comfortable here. (_Hunidei comes forward and puts his hand over her mouth._) What do you mean me to understand by that? (_Hunidei puts his hand over her mouth, and his finger to his lips._) I don't know what that means. (_Hunidei quickly stops her mouth. Lulu frees herself._) We're quite alone here. No one will hear us. (_Hunidei lays his finger on his lips, shakes his head, points at Lulu, opens his mouth as if to speak, points at himself and then at the door._) 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, taking off his hat. The stage is dark save for what light comes thru the cracks of the door. Alva and Schigolch creep out on all fours._)
ALVA. They're gone.
SCHIGOLCH. (_Behind him._) Wait.
ALVA. One can hear nothing here.
SCHIGOLCH. You've heard that often enough!
ALVA. I will kneel before her door.
SCHIGOLCH. Little mother's sonny! (_Presses past Alva, gropes across the stage to Hunidei's coat, and searches the pockets. Alva crawls to Lulu's door._) Gloves, nothing more! (_Turns the coat round, searches the inside pockets, pulls a book out that he gives to Alva._) Just see what that is. (_Alva holds the book to the light._)
ALVA. (_Wearily deciphering the title-page._) Warnings to pious pilgrims and such as wish to be so. Very helpful. Price, 2 s. 6 d.
SCHIGOLCH. It looks to me as if God had left *him* pretty completely. (_Lays the coat over the chair again and makes for the cubby-hole._) There's nothing 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 despair and shakes her head. Hunidei, putting his coat on, approaches her grinning; she throws her arms around his neck; he gently frees himself, kisses her hand, and turns to the door. She starts to accompany him, but he signs to her to stay behind and noiselessly leaves the room. Schigolch and Alva re-enter._)
LULU. (_Tonelessly._) How he has stirred me up!
ALVA. How much did he give you?
LULU. (_As before._) Here it is! All! Take it! I'm going down again.
SCHIGOLCH. We can still live like princes up here.
ALVA. He's coming back.
SCHIGOLCH. Then let's just retire again, quick.
ALVA. He's after his prayer-book. Here it is. It must have fallen out of his coat.
LULU. (_Listening._) No, that isn't he. That's 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?