Part 12

SCHÖN--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 knew quite 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 your old age in sacrifice, you have had my whole youth in return. 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!

SCHÖN--[_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!”_ SCHÖN _whirls toward him, turning his back to_ LULU, _who instantly fires five shots into him and continues to pull the trigger_. SCHÖN, _tottering over, is caught by_ HUGENBERG _and let down in the chair_.]

SCHÖN--And--there--is--one--more----

LULU--[_Rushing to_ SCHÖN.] All merciful----!

SCHÖN--Out of my sight! Alva!

LULU--[_Kneeling._] The one man I loved!

SCHÖN--Harlot! Murderess!--Alva! Alva!--Water!

LULU--Water; he’s thirsty. [_Fills a glass with champagne and sets it to_ SCHÖN’S _lips_. ALVA _comes thru the gallery, down the stairs_.]

ALVA--Father! O God, my father!

LULU--I shot him.

HUGENBERG--She is innocent!

SCHÖN--[_To_ ALVA.] You! It miscarried.

ALVA--[_Tries to lift him._] You must get to bed; come.

SCHÖN--Don’t take hold of 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.

SCHÖN--No, no, please, no. Wine, murderess----

ALVA--[_To_ HUGENBERG.] Take hold of him on that side. [_Pointing right._] Into the bedroom. [_They lift_ SCHÖN _upright and lead him right_. LULU _stays near the table, the glass in her hand_.]

SCHÖN--[_Groaning._] O God! O God! O God! [ALVA _finds the door locked, turns the key and opens it_. COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _steps out_. SCHÖN _at the sight of her straightens 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 thru. [_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 be wholly yours, yours only! 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

FOOTNOTES:

[8] That is, since Act III Alva has won his Ph.D.

PANDORA’S BOX

(DIE BÜCHSE DER PANDORA)

A Tragedy in Three Acts

CHARACTERS

LULU DR. ALVA SCHÖN, PH.D., _a writer_ SCHIGOLCH RODRIGO QUAST, _acrobat_ ALFRED HUGENBERG, _escaped from a reform-school_ COUNTESS GESCHWITZ BIANETTA } LUDMILLA STEINHERZ } MAGELONE } KADIDIA, _her daughter_ } COUNT CASTI-PIANI } In Act II PUNTSCHU, _a banker_ } HEILMANN, _a journalist_ } BOB, _a groom, aged 15_ } A DETECTIVE } MR. HUNIDEI } KUNGU POTI, _imperial prince of Uahubee_ } In Act III DR. HILTI, _tutor_ } JACK }

The first act takes place in Germany, the second in France, the third in England.

ACT I

SCENE--_The hall of “Earth-Spirit,” Act IV, feebly lighted by an oil lamp on the centre table. Even this is dimmed by a heavy shade._ LULU’S _picture is gone from the easel, which still stands by the foot of the stairs. The fire-screen and the chair by the ottoman are gone too. Down left is a small tea-table, with a coffee-pot and a cup of black coffee on it, and an arm-chair next it._

_In this chair, deep in cushions, with a plaid shawl over her knees, sits_ COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _in a tight black dress_. RODRIGO, _clad as a servant, sits on the ottoman. At the rear_, ALVA SCHÖN _is walking up and down before the entrance door_.

RODRIGO--He lets people wait for him as if he were a concert conductor!

GESCHWITZ--I beg of you, don’t speak!

RODRIGO--Hold my tongue? with a head as full of thoughts as mine is!--I absolutely can’t believe she’s changed so awfully much to her advantage there!

GESCHWITZ--She is more glorious to look at than I have ever seen her!

RODRIGO--God preserve me from founding my life-happiness upon =your= taste and judgment! If the disease has hit her as it has you, I’m smashed and thru! You’re leaving the contagious ward like a rubber-lady who’s had an accident and taken to hunger-striking. You can scarcely blow your nose any more. First you need a quarter-hour to sort your fingers, and then you have to be mighty careful not to break off the tip.

GESCHWITZ--What puts =us= under the ground gives =her= health and strength again.

RODRIGO--That’s all right and fine enough. But I don’t think I’ll be travelling off with her this evening.

GESCHWITZ--You will let your bride journey all alone, after all?

RODRIGO--In the first place, the old fellow’s going with her to protect her in case anything serious----My escort could only be suspicious. And secondly, I must wait here till my costumes are ready. I’ll get across the frontier soon enough all right,--and I hope in the meantime she’ll put on a little embonpoint, too. Then we’ll get married, provided I can present her before a respectable public. I love the practical in a woman: what theories they make up for themselves are all the same to me. Aren’t they to you too, Doctor?

ALVA--I haven’t heard what you were saying.

RODRIGO--I’d never have got my person mixed up in this plot at all if she hadn’t kept tickling my bare pate, before her sentence. If only she doesn’t start exercising again too hard the moment she’s out of Germany! I’d like best to take her to London for six months, and let her fill up on plum-cakes. In London one expands just from the sea air. And then, too, in London one doesn’t feel with every swallow of beer as if the hand of fate were at one’s throat.

ALVA--I’ve been asking myself for a week now whether a person who’d been sentenced to prison could still be made to go as the chief figure in a modern drama.

GESCHWITZ--If the man would only come, now!

RODRIGO--I’ve still got to redeem my properties out of the pawn-shop here, too. Six hundred kilos of the best iron. The baggage-rate on ’em is always three times as much as my own ticket, so that the whole junket isn’t worth a trousers button. When I went into the pawn-shop with ’em, dripping with sweat, they asked me if the things were genuine!--I’d have really done better to have had the costumes made abroad. In Paris, for instance, they see at the first glance where one’s best points are, and bravely lay them bare. But you can’t learn that sitting cross-legged; it’s got to be studied on classically shaped people. In this country they’re as scared of naked skin as they are abroad of dynamite bombs. Two years ago at the Alhambra Theater I was stuck for a fifty-marks fine because people could see I had a few hairs on my chest, not enough to make a respectable toothbrush! But the Fine Arts Minister opined that the little schoolgirls might lose their joy in knitting stockings because of it; and since then I have myself shaved once a month.

ALVA--If I didn’t need every bit of my creative power now for the “World-Conqueror,” I might like to test the problem and see what could be done with it. That’s the curse of our young literature: we’re so much too literary. We know only such questions and problems as come up among writers and cultured people. We cannot see beyond the limits of our own professional interests. In order to get back on the trail of a great and powerful art we must live as much as possible among men who’ve never read a book in their lives, who are moved by the simplest animal instincts in all they do. I’ve tried already, with all my might, to work according to those principles--in my “Earth-Spirit.” The woman who was my model for the chief figure in that, breathes to-day--and has for a year--behind barred windows; and on that account for some incomprehensible reason the play was only brought to performance by the Society for Free Literature. As long as my father was alive, all the stages of Germany stood open to my creations. That has been vastly changed.

RODRIGO--I’ve had a pair of tights made of the tenderest blue-green. If =they= don’t make a success abroad, I’ll sell mouse-traps! The trunks are so delicate I can’t sit on the edge of a table in ’em. The only thing that will disturb the good impression is my awful bald head, which I owe to my active participation in this great conspiracy. To lie in the hospital in perfect health for three months would make a fat pig of the most run-down old hobo. Since coming out I’ve fed on nothing but Karlsbad pills. Day and night I have orchestra rehearsals in my intestines. I’ll be so washed out before I get across the frontier that I won’t be able to lift a bottle-cork.

GESCHWITZ--How the attendants in the hospital got out of her way yesterday! That was a refreshing sight. The garden was still as the grave: in the loveliest noon sunlight the convalescents didn’t venture out of doors. Away back by the contagious ward she stepped out under the mulberry trees and swayed on her ankles on the gravel. The doorkeeper had recognized me, and a young doctor who met me in the corridor shrunk up as tho a revolver shot had struck him. The Sisters vanished into the big rooms or stayed stuck against the walls. When I came back there was not a soul to be seen in the garden or at the gate. No better chance could have been found, if we had had the curséd passports. And now the fellow says he isn’t going with her!

RODRIGO--I understand the poor hospital-brothers. One has a bad foot and another has a swollen cheek, and there bobs up in the midst of them the incarnate death-insurance-agentess! In the Hall of the Knights, as the blessed division was called from which I organized my spying, when the news got around there that Sister Theophila had departed this life, not one of the fellows could be kept in bed. They scrambled up to the window-bars, if they had to drag their pains along with them by the hundredweight. I never heard such swearing in my life!

ALVA--Allow me, Fräulein von Geschwitz, to come back to my proposition once more. Tho she shot my father in this very room, still I can see in the murder, as in the punishment, nothing but a horrible misfortune that has befallen =her=; nor do I think that my father, if he had come through alive, would have withdrawn his support from her entirely. Whether your plan for freeing her will succeed still seems to me very doubtful, tho I wouldn’t like to discourage you; but I can find no words to express the admiration with which your self-sacrifice, your energy, your superhuman scorn of death, inspires me. I don’t believe any man ever risked so much for a woman, let alone for a friend. I am not aware, Fräulein von Geschwitz, how rich you are, but the outlay for what you have accomplished must have shattered your fortune. May I venture to offer you a loan of 20,000 marks--which I should have no trouble raising for you in cash?

GESCHWITZ--How we did rejoice when Sister Theophila was really dead! From that day on we were free from supervision. We changed our beds as we liked. I had done my hair like hers, and copied every tone of her voice. When the professor came he called =her= “gnädiges Fräulein” and said to me, “It’s better living here than in prison!”... When the Sister suddenly was missing, we looked at each other in suspense: we had both been sick five days: now was the deciding moment. Next morning came the assistant.--“How is Sister Theophila?”--“Dead!”--We communicated behind his back, and when he had gone we sank in each other’s arms: “God be thanked! God be thanked!”--What pains it cost me to keep my darling from betraying how well she already was! “You have nine years of prison before you,” I cried to her early and late. And now they probably wouldn’t let her stay in the contagious ward three days more!

RODRIGO--I lay in the hospital full three months to spy out the ground, after toilfully peddling together the qualities necessary for such a long stay. Now I act the valet here with you, Dr. Schön, so that no strange servants may come into the house. Where is the bridegroom who’s ever done so much for his bride? My fortune has also been shattered.

ALVA--When you succeed in developing her into a respectable artiste you will have put the world in debt to you. With the temperament and the beauty that she has to give out from the inmost depths of her nature she can make the most blasé public hold its breath. And then, too, she will be protected, by =acting= passion, from a second time becoming a criminal in reality.

RODRIGO--I’ll soon drive her kiddishness out of her!

GESCHWITZ--There he comes! [_Steps louden in the gallery. Then the curtains part at the head of the stairs and_ SCHIGOLCH _in a long black coat with a white sun-shade in his right hand comes down. Thruout the play his speech is interrupted with frequent yawns._]

SCHIGOLCH--Confound the darkness! Outdoors the sun burns your eyes out.

GESCHWITZ--[_Wearily unwrapping herself._] I’m coming!

RODRIGO--Her ladyship has seen no daylight for three days. We live here like in a snuff-box.

SCHIGOLCH--Since nine o’clock this morning I’ve been round to all the old-clothes-men. Three brand-new trunks stuffed full of old trousers I’ve expressed to Buenos Aires via Bremerhaven. My legs are dangling on me like the tongue of a bell. It’s going to be a different life for me from now on!

RODRIGO--Where are you going to get off to-morrow morning?

SCHIGOLCH--I hope not straight into Ox-butter Hotel again!

RODRIGO--I can tell you a fine hotel. I lived there with a lady lion-tamer. The people were born in Berlin.

GESCHWITZ--[_Upright in the arm-chair._] Come and help me!

RODRIGO--[_Hurries to her and supports her._] And you’ll be safer from the police there than on a high tight-rope!

GESCHWITZ--He means to let you go with her alone this afternoon.

SCHIGOLCH--Maybe he’s still suffering from his chilblains!

RODRIGO--Do you want me to start my new engagement in bath-robe and slippers?

SCHIGOLCH--Hm--Sister Theophila wouldn’t have gone to heaven so promptly either, if she hadn’t felt so affectionate towards our patient.

RODRIGO--When one has to serve thru a honeymoon with her, she’ll have a very different value. Anyway, it can’t hurt her if she gets a little fresh air beforehand.

ALVA--[_A pocketbook in his hand, to_ GESCHWITZ, _who is leaning on a chair-back by the centre table_.] This holds 10,000 marks.

GESCHWITZ--Thank you, no.

ALVA--Please take it.

GESCHWITZ--[_To_ SCHIGOLCH.] Come along, at last!

SCHIGOLCH--Patience, Fräulein. It’s only a stone’s throw across Hospital Street. I’ll be here with her in five minutes.

ALVA--You’re bringing her here?

SCHIGOLCH--I’m bringing her here. Or do you fear for your health?

ALVA--You see that I fear nothing.

RODRIGO--According to the latest wire, the doctor is on his way to Constantinople to have his “Earth-Spirit” produced before the Sultan by harem-ladies and eunuchs.

ALVA--[_Opening the centre door under the gallery._] It’s shorter for you thru here. [_Exeunt_ SCHIGOLCH _and_ COUNTESS GESCHWITZ. ALVA _locks the door_.]

RODRIGO--You were going to give more money to the crazy skyrocket!

ALVA--What has that to do with you?

RODRIGO--I get paid like a lamp-lighter, tho I had to demoralize all the Sisters in the hospital. Then came the assistants’ and the doctors’ turn, and then----

ALVA--Will you seriously inform me that the medical professors let themselves be influenced by you?

RODRIGO--With the money those gentlemen cost me I could become President of the United States!

ALVA--But Fräulein von Geschwitz has reimbursed you for every penny that you spent. So much I know, and you’re still getting five hundred marks a month from her besides. It is often pretty hard to believe in your love for the unhappy murderess. When I asked Fräulein von Geschwitz just now to accept my help, it certainly was not done to stir up =your= insatiable avarice. The admiration which I have learnt to have for Fräulein von Geschwitz in this affair, I am far from feeling towards you. It is not at all clear to me what claims of any kind you can make upon me. That you chanced to be present at the murder of my father has not yet created the slightest bond of relationship between you and me. On the contrary, I am firmly convinced that if the heroic undertaking of Countess Geschwitz had not come your way you would be lying somewhere to-day, without a penny, drunken in the gutter.

RODRIGO--And do you know what would have become of you if you hadn’t sold for two millions the tuppenny paper your father ran? You’d have hitched up with the stringiest sort of ballet-girl and been to-day a stable-boy in the Humpelmeier Circus. What work do you do? You’ve written a drama of horrors in which my bride’s calves are the two chief figures and which no high-class theater will produce. You walking pajamas! You fresh ragbag, you! Two years ago I balanced two saddled cavalry-horses on this chest. How that’ll go now, after this [_clasping his bald head_], is a question sure enough. The foreign girls will get a fine idea of German art when they see the sweat come beading thru my tights at every fresh kilo-weight! I shall make the whole auditorium stink with my exhalations!

ALVA--You’re weak as a dish-clout!

RODRIGO--Would to God you were right! or did you perhaps intend to insult me? If so, I’ll set the tip of my toe to your jaw so that your tongue’ll crawl along the carpet over there!

ALVA--Try it! [_Steps and voices outside._] Who is that...?

RODRIGO--You can thank God that I have no public here before me!

ALVA--Who can that be!

RODRIGO--That is my beloved. It’s a full year now since we’ve seen each other.

ALVA--But how should they be back already! Who can be coming there? I expect no one.

RODRIGO--Oh, the devil, unlock it!

ALVA--Hide yourself!

RODRIGO--I’ll get behind the portières. I’ve stood there once before, a year ago. [_Disappears, right._ ALVA _opens the rear door, whereupon_ ALFRED HUGENBERG _enters, hat in hand_.]

ALVA--With whom have I--.... You? Aren’t you----?

HUGENBERG--Alfred Hugenberg.

ALVA--What can I do for you?

HUGENBERG--I’ve come from Münsterburg. I ran away this morning.

ALVA--My eyes are bad. I am forced to keep the blinds closed.

HUGENBERG--I need your help. You will not refuse me. I’ve got a plan ready.--Can anyone hear us?

ALVA--What do you mean? What sort of a plan?

HUGENBERG--Are you alone?

ALVA--Yes. What do you want to impart to me?

HUGENBERG--I’ve had two plans already that I let drop. What I shall tell you now has been worked out to the last possible chance. If I had money I should not confide it to you; I thought about that a long time before coming.... Don’t you want to let me explain my scheme to you?

ALVA--Will you kindly tell me just what you are talking about?

HUGENBERG--She cannot possibly be so indifferent to you that I must tell you that. The evidence =you= gave the coroner helped her more than everything the defending counsel said.

ALVA--I beg to decline the supposition.

HUGENBERG--You would say that; I understand that, of course. But all the same you were her best witness.

ALVA--=You= were! You said my father was about to force her to shoot herself.

HUGENBERG--He was, too. But they didn’t believe me. I wasn’t put on my oath.

ALVA--Where have you come from now?

HUGENBERG--From a reform-school I broke out of this morning.

ALVA--And what do you have in view?

HUGENBERG--I’m trying to get into the confidence of a turnkey.

ALVA--What do you mean to live on?

HUGENBERG--I’m living with a girl who’s had a child by my father.

ALVA--Who is your father?

HUGENBERG--He’s a police captain. I know the prison without ever having been inside it; and nobody in it will recognize me as I am now. But I don’t count on that at all. I know an iron ladder by which one can get from the first court to the roof and thru an opening there into the attic. There’s no way up to it from inside. But in all five wings boards and laths and great heaps of shavings are lying under the roofs, and I’ll drag them all together in the middle and set fire to them. My pockets are full of matches and all the things used to make fires.

ALVA--But then you’ll burn up there!

HUGENBERG--Of course, if I’m not rescued. But to get into the first court I must have the turnkey in my power, and for that I need money. Not that I mean to bribe him; that wouldn’t go. I must lend him money to send his three children to the country, and then at four o’clock in the morning when the prisoners of respected families are discharged, I’ll slip in the door. He’ll lock-up behind me and ask me what I’m after, and I’ll ask him to let me out again in the evening. And before it gets light, I’m up in the attic.

ALVA--How did you escape from the reform-school?

HUGENBERG--Jumped out the window. I need two hundred marks for the rascal to send his family to the country.

RODRIGO--[_Stepping out of the portières, right._] Will the Herr Baron have coffee in the music-room or on the veranda?

HUGENBERG--How did that man come here? Out of the same door! He jumped out of the same door!

ALVA--I’ve taken him into my service. He is dependable.

HUGENBERG--[_Grasping his temples._] Fool that I am! Oh, fool!

RODRIGO--Oh, yah, we’ve seen each other here before! Cut away now to your vice-mama. Your kid brother might like to uncle his brothers and sisters. Make your sir-papa the grandfather of his children! You’re the only thing we’ve missed. If you once get into my sight in the next two weeks, I’ll beat your bean up for porridge.

ALVA--Be quiet, you!

HUGENBERG--I’m a fool!

RODRIGO--What do you want to do with your fire? Don’t you know the lady’s been dead three weeks?

HUGENBERG--Did they cut off her head?

RODRIGO--No, she’s got that still. She was mashed by the cholera.

HUGENBERG--That is not true!