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?

LULU. (Tonelessly.) I'm going down again.

GESCHWITZ. Where are you going in this pomp?—However, I come not wholly empty-handed. I bring you 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 the moment 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 away somewhere. 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.

GESCHWITZ. How dark it is here!

SCHIGOLCH. It gets much darker than this.—The doctor's already gone to rest.

GESCHWITZ. She sent me ahead.

SCHIGOLCH. That was sensible.—If anyone asks for me, I'm sitting downstairs in the pub.

GESCHWITZ. (After he has gone.) I will sit behind the door. I will look on at everything and not quiver an eye-lash. (Sits on the broken chair.) Men and women don't know themselves—they know not what they are. Only one who is neither man nor woman knows them. Every word they say is untrue, a lie. And they do not know it, for they are to-day so and to-morrow so, according as they have eaten, drunk, and loved, or not. Only the body remains for a time what it is, and only the children have reason. The men and women are like the animals: none knows what it does. When they are happiest they bewail themselves and groan, and in their deepest misery they rejoice over every tiny morsel. It is strange how hunger takes from men and women the strength to withstand misfortune. But when they have fed full they make this world a torture-chamber, they throw away their lives to satisfy a whim, a mood. Have there ever once been men and women to whom love brought happiness? And what is their happiness, save that they sleep better and can forget it all? My God, I thank thee that thou hast not made me as these. I am not man nor woman. My body has nothing common with their bodies. Have I a human soul? Tortured humanity has a little narrow heart; but I know I deserve nothing when I resign all, sacrifice all.... (Lulu opens the door, and Dr. Hilti enters. Geschwitz, unnoticed, remains motionless by the door.)

LULU. (Gaily.) Come right in! Come!—you'll stay with me all night?

DR. HILTI. (His accent is very broad and flat.) But I have no more than five shillings on me. I never take more than that when I go out.

LULU. That's enough, because it's you! You have such faithful eyes! Come, give me a kiss! (Dr. Hilti begins to swear, in the broadest north-country vowels.) Please, don't say that.

DR. HILTI. By the de'il, 'tis the first time I've e'er gone with a girrl! You can believe me. Mass, I hadn't thought it would be like this!

LULU. Are you married?

DR. HILTI. Heaven and Hail, why do you think I am married?—No, I'm a tutor; I read philosophy at the University. The truth is, I come of a very old country family. As a student, I got just two shillings pocket-money, and I could make better use of that than for girrls!

LULU. So you have never been with a woman?

DR. HILTI. Just so, yes! But I want it now. I got engaged this evening to a country-woman of mine. She's a governess here.

LULU. Is she pretty?

DR. HILTI. Yaw, she's got a hundred thousand.—I am very eager, as it seems to me....

LULU. (Tossing back her hair.) I am in luck! (Takes the lamp.) Well, if you please, Mr. Tutor? (They go into her room. Geschwitz draws a small black revolver from her pocket and sets it to her forehead.)

GESCHWITZ.—Come, come,—beloved! (Dr. Hilti tears open the door again.—)

DR. HILTI. (Plunging in.) Insane seraphs! Some one's lying in there!

LULU. (Lamp in hand, holds him by the sleeve.) Stay with me!

DR. HILTI. A dead man! A corpse!

LULU. Stay with me! Stay with me!

DR. HILTI. (Tearing away.) A corpse is lying in there! Horrors! Hail! Heaven!

LULU. Stay with me!

DR. HILTI. Where d's it go out? (Sees Geschwitz.) And there is the devil!

LULU. Please, stop, stay!

DR. HILTI. Devil, devilled devilry!—Oh, thou eternal—(Exit.)

LULU. (Rushing after him.) Stop! Stop!

GESCHWITZ. (Alone, lets the revolver sink.) Better, hang! If she sees me lie in my blood to-day she'll not weep a tear for me! I have always been to her but the docile tool that could be used for the heaviest labor. From the first day she has abhorred me from the depths of her soul.—Shall I not rather jump from the bridge? Which could be colder, the water or her heart? I would dream till I was drowned.—Better, hang!— —Stab?—Hm, there would be no use in that— —How often have I dreamt that she kissed me! But a minute more; an owl knocks there at the window, and I wake up.— —Better, hang! Not water; water is too clean for me. (Starting up.) There!—There! There it is!—Quick now, before she comes! (Takes the plaid-straps from the wall, climbs on the chair, fastens them to a hook in the door-post, puts her head thru them, kicks the chair away, and falls to the ground.) Accursed life!—Accursed life!—Could it be before me still??—Let me speak just once to thy heart, my angel! But thou art cold!—I am not to go yet! Perhaps I am even to have been happy once.—Listen to him, Lulu! I am not to go yet! (She drags herself before Lulu's picture, sinks to her knees and folds her hands.) My adorÉd angel! My love! My star!—Have mercy upon me, pity me, pity me, pity me!

(Lulu opens the door, and Jack enters—a thick-set man of elastic movements, with a pale face, inflamed eyes, arched and heavy brows, a drooping mustache, thin imperial and shaggy whiskers, and fiery red hands with gnawed nails. His eyes are fixed on the ground. He wears a dark overcoat and a little round felt hat. Entering, he notices Geschwitz.)

JACK. Who is that?

LULU. That's my sister. She's crazy. I don't know how to get rid of her.

JACK. Your mouth looks beautiful.

LULU. It's my mother's.

JACK. Looks like it. How much do you want? I haven't got much money.

LULU. Won't you spend the night with me here?

JACK. No, haven't got the time. I must get home.

LULU. You can tell them at home to-morrow that you missed the last 'bus and spent the night with a friend.

JACK. How much do you want?

LULU. I'm not after lumps of gold, but, well, a little something.

JACK. (Turning.) Good night! Good night!

LULU. (Holds him back.) No, no! Stay, for God's sake!

JACK. (Goes past Geschwitz and opens the cubicle.) Why should I stay here till morning? Sounds suspicious! When I'm asleep they'll turn my pockets out.

LULU. No, I won't do that! No one will! Don't go away again for that! I beg you!

JACK. How much do you want?

LULU. Then give me the half of what I said!

JACK. No, that's too much. You don't seem to have been at this long?

LULU. To-day is the first time. (She jerks back Geschwitz, on her knees still, half turned toward Jack, by the straps around her neck.) Lie down and be quiet!

JACK. Let her alone! She isn't your sister. She is in love with you. (Strokes Geschwitz's head like a dog's.) Poor beast!

LULU. Why do you stare at me so all at once?

JACK. I got your measure by the way you walked. I said to myself: That girl must have a well-built body.

LULU. How can you see things like that?

JACK. I even saw that you had a pretty mouth. But I've only got a florin on me.

LULU. Well, what difference does that make! Just give that to me!

JACK. But you'll have to give me half back, so I can take the 'bus to-morrow morning.

LULU. I have nothing on me.

JACK. Just look, thoh. Hunt thru your pockets!—Well, what's that? Let's see it!

LULU. (Showing him.) That's all I have.

JACK. Give it to me!

LULU. I'll change it to-morrow, and then give you half.

JACK. No, give it all to me.

LULU. (Giving it.) In God's name! But now you come! (Takes up the lamp.)

JACK. We need no light. The moon's out.

LULU. (Puts the lamp down.) As you say. (She falls on his neck.) I won't harm you at all! I love you so! Don't let me beg you any longer!

JACK. Alright; I'm with you. (Follows her into the cubby-hole. The lamp goes out. On the floor under the two sky-lights appear two vivid squares of moonlight. Everything in the room is clearly seen.)

GESCHWITZ. (As in a dream.) This is the last evening I shall spend with these people. I'm going back to Germany. My mother'll send me the money. I'll go to a university. I must fight for woman's rights; study law.... (Lulu shrieks, and tears open the door.)

LULU. (Barefoot, in chemise and petticoat, holding the door shut behind her.) Help!

GESCHWITZ. (Rushes to the door, draws her revolver, and pushing Lulu aside, aims it at the door. As Lulu again cries “Help!”) Let go! (Jack, bent double, tears open the door from inside, and runs a knife into Geschwitz's body. She fires one shot, at the roof, and falls with suppressed crying, crumpling up. Jack tears her revolver from her and throws himself against the exit-door.)

JACK. God damn! I never saw a prettier mouth! (Sweat drips from his hairy face. His hands are bloody. He pants, gasping violently, and stares at the floor with eyes popping out of his head. Lulu, trembling in every limb, looks wildly round. Suddenly she seizes the bottle, smashes it on the table, and with the broken neck in her hand rushes upon Jack. He swings up his right foot and throws her onto her back. Then he lifts her up.)

LULU. No, no!—Mercy!—Murder!—Police! Police!

JACK. Be still. You'll never get away from me again. (Carries her in.)

LULU. (Within, right.) No!—No!—No!— —Ah!—Ah!...

(After a pause, Jack re-enters. He puts the bowl on the table.)

JACK. That was a piece of work! (Washing his hands.) I am a damned lucky chap! (Looks round for a towel.) Not even a towel, these folks here! Hell of a wretched hole! (He dries his hands on Geschwitz's petticoat.) This invert is safe enough from me! (To her.) It'll soon be all up with you, too. (Exit.)

GESCHWITZ. (Alone.) Lulu!—My angel!—Let me see thee once more! I am near thee—stay near thee—forever! (Her elbows give way.) O cursed—!! (Dies.)

CURTAIN.