ACT IV
Scene—A splendid hall in German Renaissance style, with a heavy ceiling of carved oak. The lower half of the walls of dark carved wood; the upper half on both sides hung with faded Gobelins. At rear, a curtained gallery from which, at right, a monumental staircase descends to halfway down stage. At centre, under the gallery, the entrance-door, with twisted posts and pediment. At left, a high and spacious fireplace with a Chinese folding screen before it. Further down, left, a French window onto a balcony with heavy curtains, closed. Down right, door hung with Genoese velvet. Near it, a broad ottoman, with an arm-chair on its left. Behind, near the foot of the stairs, Lulu’s Pierrot-picture on a decorative stand and in a gold frame made to look antique. In the centre of the hall, down-stage, a heavy square table, with three high-backed upholstered chairs round it and a vase of white flowers on it.
Countess Geschwitz sits on the ottoman, in a soldier-like, fur-trimmed waist, high, upstanding collar, enormous cufflinks, a veil over her face, and her hands clasped convulsively in her muff. Schön stands down right. Lulu, in a big-flowered morning-dress, her hair in a simple knot in a golden circlet, sits in the arm-chair left of the ottoman.
Geschwitz—[To Lulu.] You can’t think how glad I shall be to see you at our lady artists’ ball.
Schön—Is there no sort of possibility of a person like me smuggling in?
Geschwitz—It would be high treason if any of us lent herself to such an intrigue.
Schön—[Crossing to the centre table, behind the ottoman.] The glorious flowers!
Lulu—Fräulein von Geschwitz brought me those.
Geschwitz—Don’t mention it.—Oh, you’ll be in man’s costume, won’t you?
Lulu—Do you think that becomes me?
Geschwitz—You’re a dream here. [Signifying the picture.]
Lulu—My husband doesn’t like it.
Geschwitz—Is it by a local man?
Lulu—You will hardly have known him.
Geschwitz—No longer living?
Schön—[Down left, with a deep voice.] He had enough.
Lulu—You’re in bad temper. [Schön controls himself.]
Geschwitz—[Getting up.] I must go, Mrs. Schön. I can’t stay any longer. This evening we have life-class, and I have still so much to get ready for the ball. Good-bye, Dr. Schön. [Exit, up-stage. Lulu accompanies her. Schön looks around him.]
Schön—Pure Augean stable. That, the end of my life. Show me one corner that’s still clean! The pest in the house. The poorest day-laborer has his tidy nest. Thirty years’ work, and this my family circle, the home of my—— [Glancing round.] God knows who is overhearing me again now! [Draws a revolver from his breast pocket.] Man is, indeed, uncertain of his life! [The cocked revolver in his right hand, he goes left and speaks at the closed window-curtains.] That, my family circle! The fellow still has courage! Shall I not rather shoot myself in the head? Against deadly enemies one fights, but the—— [Throws up the curtains, but finds no one hidden behind them.] The dirt—the dirt.... [Shakes his head and crosses right.] Insanity has already conquered my reason, or else—exceptions prove the rule! [Hearing Lulu coming he puts the revolver back in his pocket. Lulu comes down to him.]
Lulu—Couldn’t you get away for this afternoon?
Schön—Just what did that Countess want?
Lulu—I don’t know. She wants to paint me.
Schön—Misfortune in human guise, paying her respects!
Lulu—Couldn’t you get away, then? I would so like to drive through the grounds with you.
Schön—Just the day when I must be at the Exchange. You know that I’m not free to-day. All my property is drifting on the waves.
Lulu—I’d sooner be dead and buried than let my life be embittered so by my property.
Schön—Who takes life lightly does not take death hard.
Lulu—As a child I always had the most horrible fear of death.
Schön—That is just why I married you.
Lulu—[With her arms round his neck.] You’re in bad humor. You invent too many worries. For weeks and months I’ve seen nothing of you.
Schön—[Stroking her hair.] Your light-heartedness should cheer up my old days.
Lulu—Indeed, you didn’t marry me at all.
Schön—Whom else did I marry then?
Lulu—I married you!
Schön—How does that alter anything?
Lulu—I was always afraid it would alter a great deal.
Schön—It has, indeed, crushed a great deal underfoot.
Lulu—But not one thing, praise God!
Schön—Of that I should be covetous.
Lulu—Your love for me. [Schön’s face twitches, he signs to her to go out in front of him. Both exeunt lower right. Countess Geschwitz cautiously opens the rear door, ventures forth, and listens. Hearing voices approaching in the gallery above her, she starts suddenly.]
Geschwitz—Oh, dear, there’s somebody——[Hides behind the fire-screen.]
Schigolch—[Steps out from the curtains onto the stairs, turns back.] Has the youngster left his heart behind him in the Nightlight Café?
Rodrigo—[Between the curtains.] He is still too small for the great world, and can’t walk so far on foot yet. [He disappears.]
Schigolch—[Coming down the stairs.] God be thanked we’re home again at last! What damned skunk has waxed the stairs again? If I have to have my joints set in plaster again before being called home, she can just stick me up between the palms here and present me to her relations as the Venus de’ Medici. Nothing but steep rocks and stumbling blocks!
Rodrigo—[Comes down the stairs, carrying Hugenberg in his arms.] This thing has a royal police-captain for a father and not as much spunk in his body as the raggedest hobo!
Hugenberg—If there was nothing more to it than life and death, then you’d soon learn to know me!
Rodrigo—Even with his lover’s woe, little brother don’t weigh more than sixty kilos. On the truth o’ that I’ll let ’em hang me any time.
Schigolch—Throw him up to the ceiling and catch him by the feet. That’ll snap his young blood into the proper fizz right from the start.
Hugenberg—[Kicking his legs.] Hooray, hooray, I shall be expelled from school!
Rodrigo—[Setting him down at the foot of the stairs.] You’ve never been to any sensible school yet.
Schigolch—Here many a man has won his spurs before you. Only, no timidity! First, I’ll set before you a drop of what can’t be had anywhere for money. [Opens a cupboard under the stairs.]
Hugenberg—Now if she doesn’t come dancing in on the instant, I’ll wallop you two so you’ll still rub your tails in the hereafter.
Rodrigo—[Seated left of the table.] The strongest man in the world little brother will wallop! Let mama put long trousers on you first. [Hugenberg sits opposite him.]
Hugenberg—I’d rather you lent me your mustache.
Rodrigo—Maybe you want her to throw you out of the door straight off?
Hugenberg—If I only knew now what the devil I was going to say to her!
Rodrigo—That she knows best herself.
Schigolch—[Putting two bottles and three glasses on the table.] I started in on one of them yesterday. [Fills the glasses.]
Rodrigo—[Guarding Hugenberg’s.] Don’t give him too much, or we’ll both have to pay for it.
Schigolch—[Supporting himself with both hands on the table-top.] Will the gentlemen smoke?
Hugenberg—[Opening his cigar-case.] Havana-imported!
Rodrigo—[Helping himself.] From papa police-captain?
Schigolch—[Sitting.] Everything in the house is mine. You only need to ask.
Hugenberg—I made a poem to her yesterday.
Rodrigo—What did you make to her?
Schigolch—What did he make to her?
Hugenberg—A poem.
Rodrigo—[To Schigolch.] A poem.
Schigolch—He’s promised me a dollar if I can spy out where he can meet her alone.
Hugenberg—Just who does live here?
Rodrigo—Here we live!
Schigolch—Jour fix—every stock-market day! Our health. [They clink.]
Hugenberg—Should I read it to her first, maybe?
Schigolch—[To Rodrigo.] What’s he mean?
Rodrigo—His poem. He’d like to stretch her out and torture her a little first.
Schigolch—[Staring at Hugenberg.] His eyes! His eyes!
Rodrigo—His eyes, yes. They’ve robbed her of sleep for a week.
Schigolch—[To Rodrigo.] You can have yourself pickled.
Rodrigo—We can both have ourselves pickled! Our health, gossip Death!
Schigolch—[Clinking with him.] Health, jack-in-the-box! If it’s still better later on, I’m ready for departure at any moment; but—but—— [Lulu enters right, in an elegant Parisian ball-dress, much décolleté, with flowers in breast and hair.]
Lulu—But children, children, I expect company!
Schigolch—But I can tell you what, those things must cost something over there! [Hugenberg has risen. Lulu sits on the arm of his chair.]
Lulu—You’ve fallen into pretty company.—I expect visitors, children!
Schigolch—I guess I’ve got to stick something in there myself, too. [He searches among the flowers on the table.]
Lulu—Do I look well?
Schigolch—What are those you’ve got there?
Lulu—Orchids. [Bending over Hugenberg.] Smell.
Rodrigo—Do you expect Prince Escerny?
Lulu—[Shaking her head.] God forbid!
Rodrigo—So somebody else again——!
Lulu—The Prince has gone traveling.
Rodrigo—To put his kingdom up for auction?
Lulu—He’s exploring a fresh string of tribes in the neighborhood of Africa. [Rises, hurries up the stairs, and steps into the gallery.]
Rodrigo—[To Schigolch.] He really wanted to marry her originally.
Schigolch—[Sticking a lily in his buttonhole.] I, too, wanted to marry her originally.
Rodrigo—You wanted to marry her originally?
Schigolch—Didn’t you, too, want to marry her originally?
Rodrigo—You bet I wanted to marry her originally!
Schigolch—Who has not wanted to marry her originally!
Rodrigo—I could never have done better!
Schigolch—She hasn’t let anybody be sorry that he didn’t marry her.
Rodrigo— ... Then she’s not your child?
Schigolch—Never occurs to her.
Hugenberg—What is her father’s name then?
Schigolch—She’s just boasted of me!
Hugenberg—What is her father’s name then?
Schigolch—What’s he say?
Rodrigo—What her father’s name is.
Schigolch—She never had one.
Lulu—[Comes down from the gallery and sits again on Hugenberg’s chair-arm.] What have I never had?
All Three—A father.
Lulu—Yes, sure—I’m a wonder-child. [To Hugenberg.] How are you getting along with your father? Contented?
Rodrigo—He smokes a respectable cigar, anyway, the police-captain.
Schigolch—Have you locked up upstairs?
Lulu—There is the key.
Schigolch—Better have left it in the lock.
Lulu—Why?
Schigolch—So no one can unlock it from outside.
Rodrigo—Isn’t he at the stock-exchange?
Lulu—Oh, yes, but he suffers from persecution-mania.
Rodrigo—I take him by the feet, and yup!—there he stays sticking to the roof.
Lulu—He hunts you into a mouse-hole with the corner of his eye.
Rodrigo—What does he hunt? Who does he hunt? [Baring his arm.] Just look at this biceps!
Lulu—Show me. [Goes left.]
Rodrigo—[Hitting himself on the muscle.] Granite. Wrought-iron!
Lulu—[Feeling by turns Rodrigo’s arm and her own.] If you only didn’t have such long ears——
Ferdinand—[Entering, rear centre.] Doctor[8] Schön!
Rodrigo—The rogue! [Jumps up, starts behind the fire-screen, recoils.] God preserve me! [Hides, lower left, behind the curtains.]
Schigolch—Give me the key! [Takes it and drags himself up the stairs.]
Lulu—[Hugenberg having slid under the table.] Show him in!
Hugenberg—[Under the front edge of the tablecloth, listening; to himself.] If he doesn’t stay—we’ll be alone.
Lulu—[Poking him with her toe.] Sh! [Hugenberg disappears. Alva is shown in by Ferdinand.]
Alva—[In evening dress.] Methinks the matinée will take place by burning lamplight. I’ve—— [Notices Schigolch painfully climbing the stairs.] What the —— is that?
Lulu—An old friend of your father’s.
Alva—Quite unknown to me.
Lulu—They were in the campaign together. He’s awfully badly——
Alva—Is my father here then?
Lulu—He drank a glass with him. He had to go to the stock market. We’ll have lunch before we go, won’t we?
Alva—When does it begin?
Lulu—After two. [Alva still follows Schigolch with his eyes.] How do you like me? [Schigolch disappears thru the gallery.]
Alva—Had I not better be silent to you on that point?
Lulu—I only mean my appearance.
Alva—Your dressmaker manifestly knows you better than I—may permit myself to know you.
Lulu—When I saw myself in the glass I could have wished to be a man—my man!...
Alva—You seem to envy your man the delight you offer to him. [Lulu is at the right, Alva at the left, of the centre table. He regards her with shy satisfaction. Ferdinand enters, rear, covers the table and lays two plates, etc., a bottle of Pommery, and hors d’œuvres.] Have you a toothache?
Lulu—[Across to Alva.] Don’t.
Ferdinand—Doctor Schön...?
Alva—He seems so puckered-up and tearful to-day.
Ferdinand—[Thru his teeth.] One is only a man after all. [Exit.]
Lulu—[When both are seated.] What I always think most highly of in you is your firmness of character. You’re so perfectly sure of yourself. Even when you must have been afraid of falling out with your father on my account, you always stood up for me like a brother just the same.
Alva—Let’s drop that. It’s just my fate—[Moves to lift up the tablecloth in front.]
Lulu—[Quickly.] That was me.
Alva—Impossible!—It’s just my fate, with the most trivial thoughts always to attain the best.
Lulu—You deceive yourself if you make yourself out worse than you are.
Alva—Why do you flatter me so? It is true that perhaps there is no man living, so bad as I—who has brought about so much good.
Lulu—In any case you’re the only man in the world who’s protected me without lowering me in my own eyes!
Alva—Do you think that so easy? [Schön appears in the gallery cautiously parting the hangings between the middle pillars. He starts, and whispers, “My own son!”] With gifts from God like yours, one turns those around one to criminals without ever dreaming of it. I, too, am only flesh and blood, and if we hadn’t grown up with each other like brother and sister——
Lulu—And that’s why I only give myself to you alone quite without reserve. From you I have nothing to fear.
Alva—I assure you there are moments when one expects to see one’s whole inner self cave in. The more self-suppression a man loads onto himself, the easier he breaks down. Nothing will save him from it except——[Stops to look under the table.]
Lulu—[Quickly.] What are you looking for?
Alva—I conjure you, let me keep my confession of faith to myself! As an inviolable sanctity you were more to me than with all your gifts you could be to anyone else in your life!
Lulu—How extraordinarily different your mind is, on that, from your father’s! [Ferdinand enters, rear, changes the plates and serves broiled chicken with salad.]
Alva—[To him.] Are you sick?
Lulu—[To Alva.] Let him be!
Alva—He’s trembling as if he had fever.
Ferdinand—I am not yet so used to waiting....
Alva—You must have something prescribed for you.
Ferdinand—[Thru his teeth.] I’m a coachman usually——[Exit.]
Schön—[Whispering from the gallery.] So, he too. [Seats himself behind the rail, able to cover himself with the hangings.]
Lulu—What sort of moments are those of which you spoke, where one expects to see his whole inner self tumble in?
Alva—I didn’t want to speak of them. I should not like to lose, in joking over a glass of champagne, what has been my highest happiness for ten years.
Lulu—I have hurt you. I don’t want to begin on that again.
Alva—Do you promise me that for always?
Lulu—My hand on it. [Gives him her hand across the table. Alva takes it hesitatingly, grips it in his, and presses it long and ardently to his lips.] What are you doing? [Rodrigo sticks his head out from the curtains, left. Lulu darts an angry look at him across Alva, and he draws back.]
Schön—[Whispering from the gallery.] And there is still another!
Alva—[Holding the hand.] A soul—that in the hereafter will rub the sleep out of its eyes.... Oh, this hand....
Lulu—[Innocently.] What do you find in it?...
Alva—An arm....
Lulu—What do you find in it?...
Alva—A body....
Lulu—[Guilelessly.] What do you find in it?...
Alva—[Stirred up.] Mignon!
Lulu—[Wholly ingenuously.] What do you find in it?...
Alva—[Passionately.] Mignon! Mignon!
Lulu—[Throws herself on the ottoman.] Don’t look at me so—for God’s sake! Let us go before it is too late. You’re an infamous wretch!
Alva—I told you, didn’t I, I was the basest villain....
Lulu—I see that!
Alva—I have no sense of honor, no pride....
Lulu—You think I am your equal!
Alva—You?—you are as heavenly high above me as—as the sun is over the abyss! [Kneeling.] Destroy me! I beg you, put an end to me! Put an end to me!
Lulu—Do you love me then?
Alva—I will pay you with everything that was mine!
Lulu—Do you love me?
Alva—Do you love me—Mignon?
Lulu—I? Not a soul.
Alva—I love you. [Hides his face in her lap.]
Lulu—[Both hands in his hair.] I poisoned your mother—— [Rodrigo sticks his head out from the curtains, left, sees Schön sitting in the gallery and signs to him to watch Lulu and Alva. Schön points his revolver at Rodrigo; Rodrigo signs to him to point it at Alva. Schön cocks the revolver and takes aim. Rodrigo draws back behind the curtains. Lulu sees him draw back, sees Schön sitting in the gallery, and gets up.] His father! [Schön rises, lets the hangings fall before him. Alva remains motionless on his knees. Pause.]
Schön—[A newspaper in his hand, takes Alva by the shoulder.] Alva! [Alva gets up as though drunk with sleep.] A revolution has broken out in Paris.
Alva—To Paris ... let me go to Paris——
Schön—Up in the office the editors are tearing their hair. Not one of them knows what to write about it. [He unfolds the paper and accompanies Alva out, rear. Rodrigo rushes out from the curtains toward the stairs.]
Lulu—[Barring his way.] You can’t get out here.
Rodrigo—Let me through!
Lulu—You’ll run into his arms.
Rodrigo—He’ll shoot me thru the head!
Lulu—He’s coming.
Rodrigo—[Stumbling back.] Devil, death and demons! [Lifts the tablecloth.]
Hugenberg—No room!
Rodrigo—Damned and done for! [Looks around and hides in the doorway, right.]
Schön—[Comes in, centre; locks the door; and goes, revolver in hand, to the window down left, of which he throws up the curtains.] Where is he gone?
Lulu—[On the lowest step.] Out.
Schön—Down over the balcony?
Lulu—He’s an acrobat.
Schön—That could not be foreseen. [Turning against Lulu.] You who drag me thru the muck of the streets to a tortured death!
Lulu—Why did you not bring me up better?
Schön—You destroying angel! You inexorable fate!—To turn murderer or else to drown in filth; to take ship like a fleeing convict, or hang myself over the mire!—You joy of my old age! You hangman’s noose!
Lulu—[In cold blood.] Oh, shut up, and kill me!
Schön—Everything I possess I have made over to you, and asked nothing but the respect that every servant pays to my house. Your credit is exhausted!
Lulu—I can answer for my account for years to come. [Coming forward from the stairs.] How do you like my new gown?
Schön—Away with you, or my brains will crack to-morrow and my son swim in his blood! You infect me like an incurable pest in which I shall groan away the rest of my life. I will cure myself! Do you understand? [Pressing the revolver on her.] This is your physic. Don’t break down; don’t kneel! You yourself shall apply it. You or I—which is it to be? [Lulu, her strength threatening to desert her, has sunk down on the couch, turning the revolver this way and that.]
Lulu—It doesn’t go off.
Schön—Do you still recall how I snatched you out of the clutches of the police?
Lulu—You have great confidence——
Schön—Because I’m not afraid of a street-girl? Shall I guide your hand for you? Have you no mercy towards yourself? [Lulu points the revolver at him.] No false alarms! [Lulu fires a shot into the ceiling. Rodrigo springs out of the portières, up the stairs and away thru the gallery.] What was that?
Lulu—[Innocently.] Nothing.
Schön—[Lifting the portières.] What flew out of here?
Lulu—You’re suffering from persecution-mania.
Schön—Have you got still more men hidden here? [Tearing the revolver from her.] Is yet another man calling on you? [Going left.] I’ll regale your men! [Throws up the window-curtains, flings the fire-screen back, grabs Countess Geschwitz by the collar and drags her forward.] Did you come down the chimney?
Geschwitz—[In deadly terror, to Lulu.] Save me from him!
Schön—[Shaking her.] Or are you, too, an acrobat?
Geschwitz—[Whimpering.] You hurt me.
Schön—[Shaking her.] Now you will have to stay to dinner. [Drags her right, shoves her into the next room and locks the door after her.] We want no town-criers. [Sits next to Lulu and makes her take the revolver again.] There’s still enough for you in it. Look at me! I cannot assist the coachman in my house to decorate my forehead for me. Look at me! I pay my coachman. Look at me! Am I doing the coachman a favor if I can’t bear the vile stable-stench?
Lulu—Have the carriage got ready! Please! We’re going to the opera.
Schön—We’re going to the devil! Now I am coachman. [Turning the revolver in her hand from himself to Lulu’s breast.] Do you believe that anyone, abused as you have abused me, would hesitate between an old age of slavish infamy and the merit of freeing the world from you? [Holds her down by the arm.] Come, get through. It shall be the happiest remembrance of my life. Pull the trigger!
Lulu—You can get a divorce.
Schön—Only that was left! In order that to-morrow the next man may find his pastime where I have shuddered from pit to pit, suicide upon my neck and you before me! You dare suggest that? That part of my life I have poured into you, am I to see it tossed before wild beasts? Do you see your bed with the sacrifice—the victim—on it? The lad is homesick for you. Did you let yourself be divorced? You trod him under your feet, knocked out his brains, caught up his blood in gold-pieces. I let myself be divorced? Can one be divorced when two people have grown into one another and half the man must go too? [Reaching for the revolver.] Give it here!
Lulu—Don’t!
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