Part 18
CASTI-PIANI--That you lack the necessary delicacy and sense of shame! In this house of ill-fame I tell you that! Get it into your head, once and for all, with what =fine tact= these creatures apply themselves to their defamed calling! The girl most lately come into this house knows more about the soul of man than the most famous professor of psychology in the most renowned university. You, young lady, would assuredly experience the same disappointments here as you have always had. The woman who is created for the love-market can be recognized at the first glance. Her frank and regular features shine with =innocent rapture= and blissful =innocence=.--[_Regarding_ ELFRIEDE.] In =your= face, with all due respect, I can find no trace of either rapture or innocence.
ELFRIEDE--[_Hesitating._] Don’t you believe, my lord, that with my iron will, my energy, and my insuperable enthusiasm for the beautiful, I might yet acquire the delicacy and the fine tact of which you speak?
CASTI-PIANI--No, no, madam!--please, no! Get rid of those notions on the spot!
ELFRIEDE--I am so deeply convinced of the moral significance of everything you say that the =utmost sacrifice= by which I could overcome my bourgeois helplessness would not be too great for me!
CASTI-PIANI--No, no. I won’t agree to that! That would be horrible. Life is horrible enough. No, no, madam! Keep your fearful fingers off the one divine ray that pierces the shuddering night of our tortured earthly existence! What am I living for? Why do I take part in this civilization of ours? No, no! The one pure flower of heaven in life’s thorn-thicket, befouled with sweat and blood, shall not be trampled out under clumsy feet! Believe me, I beg you, that I would have shot a bullet through my head half a century ago if it had not been that above the wail shrieking to heaven from birth-pangs, woes of life and death-agonies, still gleamed this =one bright star=!
ELFRIEDE--The utmost mental exertion fails to give me even an inkling of your meaning! What is that ray that pierces the night of our existence? What is the =one pure flower of heaven= that must not be trampled into the dirt?
CASTI-PIANI--[_Taking_ ELFRIEDE’S _hand and whispering mysteriously_.] Sensual pleasure, gracious lady!--The laughing, sunny enjoyment of the senses! =Sensual joy is the ray=, the =flower of heaven=, because it is the one unclouded bliss, the one pure rapture undefiled, that earthly existence offers us. Believe me when I say that for half a century nothing has kept me in this world but selfless worship of this one full-throated laughing joy, this =sensual pleasure= that repays mankind for all the torments of existence!
ELFRIEDE--I think somebody’s coming.
CASTI-PIANI--Lisiska, probably!
ELFRIEDE--Lisiska? Who is Lisiska?
CASTI-PIANI--The girl who studied those books on the suppression of the white slave traffic in your house! In a moment you can convince yourself if I have said too much! We are prepared for such occasions, thank heaven. [_Takes her down right._] Sit down behind this screen. From here, even =you= can for once in your life watch the =clear, unsullied= bliss of two people whom the =joy of the senses= draws together! [ELFRIEDE _seats herself on the stool behind the screen, right_. CASTI-PIANI _goes to the centre door, glances out, and then retires behind the screen, left, and sits_. HERR KÖNIG _and_ LISISKA _enter, centre. He is a young man of twenty-five, in a gay sport-suit with knee-breeches._ LISISKA _is dressed in a simple white garment reaching to the calf, black stockings, patent-leather slippers, and a white bow in her loose black hair_.]
HERR KÖNIG--
I have not come to while my time away, A sensualist in the circle of your charms, And will with gratitude and friendship pay If quickly sober’d I can leave your arms.
LISISKA--
Speak not so friendly in my ear. Here you are lord, and command us here. Hesitate not to color my pallid And bloodless cheeks with buffets untallied! That for a whore like me Is an unheard-of fee! Helpless lamenting, sobbing and wailing Need not cause you the slightest quailing. Shallow’s the bliss from such abuse! Pile pitiless blow upon blow without truce! If your fist should smash in my face entire Even that would not slake my desire!
HERR KÖNIG--
I am not prepared for such words, such a test.... Is this a merry welcome for the guest? You speak as if in purgatory already Here, you atoned for lust enjoyed and gone.
LISISKA--
Oh, no! Untamed the Monster, Lust, doth eddy, Raging forever in flesh, blood and bone! Think you I, the devil’s spouse, Would ever have happened into this house If my heart’s horrible hammering stopped When Rapture seized me and shone? Rapture evaporates, dropped On a hot stone! And Lust, an unstilled throe, A hungering woe, Plunges, to find death, into this And every abyss! Are you not cruel, good sir, in your joys? I should be sorry! But what do you care for my noise? Strike me, your quarry!
HERR KÖNIG--
If that dark urge is really yours, to go From the last depths to something yet below,-- I could shed tears that from the spring-time crew Of amorous girls I picked and chose just you. Out of your eyes, so innocent, so gay, There gleamed on me a =bliss without alloy=....
LISISKA--
Do you wish that our time pass away-- And we have no joy? Down there, over our rules and tenets, Mother Adele sits, watch in hand: Counts and reckons, immovable, bland, My enjoyment’s minutes! [_Pause._]
HERR KÖNIG--
You have grown tired of ecstasy at length And hope for lassitude from tears and pain,-- For some deep calm to overcome the strength Of your hot craving day and night in vain.
LISISKA--
If I sleep, then please with a sudden hard Punch in the ribs wake me up, well-jarred!
HERR KÖNIG--
That note was false! A flaw is in the reed! --How can a human being understand that?! Whistle at happiness--at life--you can that,-- But =sleep=? No! that was blasphemy indeed!
LISISKA--
I am not your property, You need not protect me; Spare not then so anxiously The joys that still affect me; Seek no means to comfort me; Kindness knows not how to; Who beats me up most mercilessly,-- He’s the one I bow to. You ask me Whether or no I still can blush? Unmask me With a quick blow, And mark the flush!
HERR KÖNIG--
Cold sweat runs down me, chill’d in skull and spine, Shuddering!--Let me out!... Half in a dream I hoped to pluck the sweet fruits of love’s vine. You offer thorns to me instead!... You seem A young wild thing; how came it that you strayed-- Impossible!--from flower-paths to these briars?
LISISKA--
Leave not my sore desires All unallayed! Turn not heartless away from your slave! Before me I have my grave, And my only hope is to leave behind No more of this world than I needs must. Think you, we only come to such lust Because in this house we are kept confined? No, it is but the senses’ torturing thirst Holds us here accursed! But this, too, was reckoned without insight: Night by night I see it, blinding-clear:--that even In this house no heaven Of peace to the senses is given!
ELFRIEDE--[_In her hiding-place, to herself, with astonishment._] God Almighty! That is just the =exact contrary= of what I’ve imagined it for ten long years!
CASTI-PIANI--[_In his hiding-place, to himself, with horror._] Devil! Devil! Devil! That is the =exact contrary= of what I’ve imagined about sensual joy for fifty years!
LISISKA--
Don’t go away from me! Hear me, hard-hearted! I was an innocent child, and started Life earnestly, full of duty and zeal! I could never carelessly smile,--but =feel=--?!... From my teachers, even my brothers and sisters, I often heard awed admiring whispers, And my parents would both presage: “You’ll be the delight of our old age.” Then with a sudden blast That was past! And once-awakened lust Grew over all bounds, all “oughts,” Over all my thoughts, Over all my heart’s feeling of trust, So that I marvel’d, driven Infatuate, master’d, what it implied, That I saw no lightning strike at my side Nor heard any thunder from heaven. Then it came to me--hope, that our life had been given For joy to us, joy never glutted nor dried.
HERR KÖNIG--
And this high hope you found was not fulfilled? --I speak, I know, as a blind man of--of----
LISISKA--
No--it was only a hellish =drive= Whence no joy remained alive.
HERR KÖNIG--
But when so many girls have died of love-- Was it with all of them--Desire unstilled? --But then, how should such hordes of women press By thousands down =your= path of dire excess?
LISISKA--
Have you no will to glory In the stripes upon my body? For what was it made so soft,-- For what was it so tender created? Speechless looks have dilated O’er stroke upon stroke here, oft! Flagging desires anew to inflame Boasting I tell from whom they came.
HERR KÖNIG--
Be still, I tell you! One more word thereon And I’ll have stayed too long!... ’Tis plain to see In your pale features how tempestuously Youth fled from you!... Your innocence once gone, Did he who robbed you of it leave you in shame?
LISISKA--
No--but another came, Found glee and blame; For always I swore eternal troth To the young fools, and broke the oath. Always I hoped my curse Must disappear with another man. Each time it was bitterness or worse. No rest could be found for me, or can, For ’twas always only the hellish drive Out of which no joy came forth alive!
HERR KÖNIG--
So to this house you came at last, and lead A life of riot and revel here indeed! Music resounds, champagne drips from the tables, Laughter roars through the graying dawn full oft, Nought the long working-day knows but the soft Sound of hot tongues’ husht lisping of love’s fables.-- What a low, common beggar I must be To you--proud queen of joy and ecstasy! I came with what was mine from you to purchase A plain, straightforward interchange of pleasure. I could tear my hair with rage! For without measure Hideous is the lust that here besmirches Those libertines your friends and you their game! They set no stops to their inhuman glee! Hasten and wreathe =their= limbs! A purer aim And element upbuoys and quickens me! I sought refreshment, and have no desire To smear myself in the earth’s deepest mire!
LISISKA--
Oh, stay! If you desert me now, ’tis harder,-- ’Tis night around me again! Don’t go away! Like a lip-lash already each word you say Flicks me, and stings my craving with pricking whips: Would you might loathe and hate me with such ardor That it would be your fists and not your lips Whose blow on blow aches through my body’s smart! Once you’ve been pressed to my heart Then go back whence you came, Smilingly write my name In your notebook ... --while with me There will stay but the ghastly curse--to be Once more in the grip of the hellish drive Out of which no joy remained alive!
HERR KÖNIG--
I can’t believe my senses now!--It seems, You’ve fallen in =love= with me? Oh, cruel!--Spurned By women, I have wept aloud and yearned Thru many--how many--nights of tortured dreams! Is the first love in all my life now faltering Toward me upon bought lips?!--Are you not bound To give to every stranger, without paltering, His will,--and hopes of comfort would you found On me?--to me lay passionately bare Your soul, whose lurid charms shall hold me fast? If e’er my lot so close to yours were cast I should be seized with horror past compare!
LISISKA--
For God’s sake, don’t believe in my love! ’Tis my duty here to affect the dove! Think to yourself just once what it means When suddenly someone parts the screens!-- Rake up love’s coals, be alive and elated; There is a =man= by God created!-- --Do you want me to play that wretched game With =you= here? To feel but loathing when your high’st flame Burns thru here?! But if you thoroly with your Hunnish Fists my body and limbs will punish,-- That, if you find pleasure in it, Can unite us till my dying minute!
HERR KÖNIG--
White robe of innocence! Spirit unstained By even this house! Your purity makes blind My eyes; your beauty takes my heart and mind With infinite gazing.--Rioting unrestrained In fierce self-martyrdom without repose-- You fight the soul’s unfathomable woes,-- Death in your face, and in your heart hot hate For all earth’s vain delights turned desolate! [_He kneels._] Let me be friend, be brother to you! Whether You give your body up to me--lies deep Beneath us!--so have you exalted me! To your slim knees here solemnly I vow That only as soul cleaves to soul art thou My own--so only am I thine--together! Out of hell’s agony to heaven’s steep You soared, and now unconscious of the sweep, Of lusts that ebb and flow beneath your height Must bleed your life out in sublimity Thru me shall that be shown to all men’s sight! From my chaste poetry the world shall learn To weigh the wrong and misery of sold love! I swear it by the eternal stars above, The purest light that in our night can burn. Give me a pledge, avow to me openly:-- Have you by love been gladden’d? once? or ever?
LISISKA--[_Raising him._]
If you killed me now straight off, I could never Say it differently! It was always only the hellish drive Whence no joy remained alive. Thus, once for all, it is in this place: Here is the rendezvous Of all to whom love is a pang without grace And a hankering ever new! What other chance callers may appear Aren’t taken in earnest by us here! Men such as you Are few For they count for nothing where We house, whom men compare With beasts unheeded.-- But now have I yet succeeded In bringing you round to grant Comfort to my wild want?
HERR KÖNIG--
What wilderness of paths your hand may lead me, Still gleams a star above us that will speed me!
LISISKA--[_Hugs and kisses him._]
Then come, love! pliable at last, for trysts In ancient, ne’er-disturbed tranquillity, As uttermost lust’s calm bliss long known to me! Oh, if I only died under your fists! [_Both exeunt, right._]
CASTI-PIANI--[_Breaking out of his hiding-place, wildly._] What was that?
ELFRIEDE--[_Breaking out likewise, passionately._] What was that! Worthless parasite that I am! What did my withered brain ever think the joy of the senses was! Self-immolation, glowing martyrdom, that’s what the life in this house is! And I, in my lying arrogance, in my threadbare virtue, supposed this house a breeding-place of depravity!
CASTI-PIANI--I am smashed and shattered!!
ELFRIEDE--All my youth, that the good God gave me overflowing with the desire and the power to love,--I have wantonly dragged it through the gray, soul-smothering dirt of the streets! Coward that I was, the sacredness of sensual passion seemed to me the basest reprobacy!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Stunned._] That was the blinding-bright enlightenment that unforeseen breaks his neck who walks in his sleep on the ridge-pole!
ELFRIEDE--[_Passionately._] That was the blinding-bright enlightenment!
CASTI-PIANI--What am I still doing in the world, if even sensual pleasure is nothing but a hellish flaying of man, nothing but a satanic butchery of mankind, like all the rest of our earthly existence?! So =that’s= the true aspect of the =one divine ray= that pierces the horrible night of our tormented life! Oh, if only I had shot a bullet through my head half a century ago! Then I would have been spared this pitiful bankruptcy of my bilked and swindled spiritual wealth.
ELFRIEDE--What is there still for you to do in the world? I can tell you! You trade in girls. You boast you trade in girls. Anyway, you have the closest relations with all the places that count in the white slave trade. Sell me! I beseech you, sell me into a house like this! You can make a very lucrative bargain of me! I have never loved; and, surely, that doesn’t lower my value! I won’t bring you any disgrace! You shall add, by me, to the honor in which your customers hold you! I promise! I will guarantee myself to you with any oath you ask me!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Half-crazed._] What will keep me from breaking my neck? What will help me across the icy shudders of death?
ELFRIEDE--I will help you across! _I!_ Sell me! Then you’ll be saved!
CASTI-PIANI--Who are =you=?
ELFRIEDE--I want to find my death in the joy of the senses. I want to give myself up to be slaughtered on the altar of sensuous love!
CASTI-PIANI--Am I to sell you--=you=?
ELFRIEDE--I want to die the martyr’s death that this girl who was just here is dying! Have _I_ no natural human rights the same as others?
CASTI-PIANI--Heaven preserve me from it! [_With mounting emphasis._] This--this--this is the =derisive laughter of Hell=, that rings above my plunge into death!
ELFRIEDE--[_Sinking to his feet._] Sell me! Sell me!
CASTI-PIANI--The most terrible times of my life arise before me. Once before, I sold in the love-market a girl whom nature had not intended for it! For that crime against nature I spent six full years behind =prison bars=. Of course she, too, was one of those temperamentless creatures in whose =faces= one can see “big feet.”
ELFRIEDE--[_Clasping his knees._] On my soul I implore you, sell me! You were right. My activity in combating the white slave traffic was unsatisfied sensuality. But my sensuousness is =not= weak! Ask me for proofs. Shall I kiss you madly, insanely?
CASTI-PIANI--[_In utmost despair._] And this ear-piercing howl of suffering at my feet? What =is= that! This echoing shriek for help from birth-pangs, woes of life, and death-agonies I will no longer endure. I cannot stand this earth’s continuous crying any longer!
ELFRIEDE--[_Wringing her hands._] =To you yourself=, if you will, I will yield up my virginity! =To you yourself=, if you will, I will give my first love-night!
CASTI-PIANI--[_Shrieking._] The last straw! [_A shot._ ELFRIEDE _utters a piercing yell_. CASTI-PIANI, _the smoking revolver in his right hand, his left pressed convulsively to his breast, totters to one of the arm-chairs and breaks down in it_.]
CASTI-PIANI--I--I beg your pardon--Baroness. I’ve--I’ve hurt myself.--That was not--not gallant of me----
ELFRIEDE--[_Bending over him._] God have mercy, you haven’t hit yourself with it?!
CASTI-PIANI--Don’t--don’t hurt my ears--shrieking! Be loving--loving--loving--if you can----
ELFRIEDE--[_Stands up in horror, both hands in her hair, stares at him and screams._] No! No! No! I =can’t= be loving with this sight before me! I =can’t= be loving! [_Directly after the shot, three slim young girls, dressed exactly like_ LISISKA, _have curiously one after the other stepped out of the three doors. Hesitatingly they approach_ CASTI-PIANI, _and, with the minimum of action or emotion, gesturing silently among themselves, they essay to ease his death-struggles. He looks up and sees them._]
CASTI-PIANI--And that--and that--ve-vengeance? Spirits of vengeance?--No! No!--That--that is Marushka! I see you now. That is Euphemia!--That, Theophila!-- --Marushka! Kiss me, Marushka! [_The slenderest of the three girls bends over_ CASTI-PIANI _and kisses him on the mouth_.] No! [_In anguish._] No! No! That wasn’t anything!--Kiss--kiss me differently! [_She kisses him again._]--So!--So, so, so!--I have de-deceived you [_slowly raising himself, supported by_ MARUSHKA]--deceived you all! The joy of the senses--torture--bloody agony!-- --At last--at last--deliverance! [_He stands, straight and stiff, as though seized with catalepsy, his eyes very wide open._] We--we must receive--His Worship-- --standing.... [_He falls dead._]
ELFRIEDE--[_Drowned in tears, to the three girls._] Well?--Is none of you girls brave enough to do it? You were more to this man than I was permitted to be! [_The three girls shake their heads and withdraw shyly, frightened, but cold and impassive._ ELFRIEDE, _sobbing, turns to the corpse_:] Then forgive me miserable! While you were alive, you abhorred me with all your soul! Forgive me that I come near you now! [_Kisses him passionately on the mouth. Breaking into a flood of tears_.] This last disillusion, even in your fearfullest blackest pessimism you can never have conceived,--that a =virgin= was to close your eyes! [_She closes his eyes and sinks, weeping piteously, at his feet._]
CURTAIN
Transcriber’s Notes
• Italics represented by _underscores_.
• Small caps converted to ALL CAPS.
• Gespert text (words with intraletter spacing) represented with =equal signs=.
• Obvious typographic erros silently corrected.
• Variations in hyphenation and punctuation kept as in the original.
• Footnotes numbered consecutively and relocated to the end of each play.