Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) Part 27

LULU. (Guilelessly.) What do you find in it?...

ALVA. (Stirred up.) Mignon!

LULU. (Wholly ingenuously.) What do you find in it?...

ALVA. (Pa.s.sionately.) Mignon! Mignon!

LULU. (Throws herself on the ottoman.) Don't look at me so--for G.o.d'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 Schon sitting in the gallery and signs to him to watch Lulu and Alva. Schon points his revolver at Rodrigo; Rodrigo signs to him to point it at Alva. Schon c.o.c.ks the revolver and takes aim. Rodrigo draws back behind the curtains. Lulu sees him draw back, sees Schon sitting in the gallery, and gets up.) His father! (Schon rises, lets the hangings fall before him. Alva remains motionless on his knees. Pause.)

SCHoN. (Holding a paper 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--

SCHoN. In the editors' room they're beating their heads against the wall. No one knows what he ought to write. (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 table-cloth.)

HUGENBERG. No room!

RODRIGO. d.a.m.ned and done for! (Looks around and hides in the door-way, right.)

SCHoN. (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.

SCHoN. Down over the balcony?

LULU. He's an acrobat.

SCHoN. 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?

SCHoN. You destroying angel! You inexorable fate! To be a murderer without drowning in filth; to take me on board like a released convict, or hang me up over the mora.s.s! You joy of my old age! You hangman's noose!

LULU. (In cold blood.) Oh, shut up, and kill me!

SCHoN. 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 reckoning still for years. (Coming forward from the stairs.) How do you like my new gown?

SCHoN. Away with you, or my brains will give way to-morrow and my son swim in his own 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 the weaker? (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.

SCHoN. Do you still remember how I tore you out of the clutches of the police?

LULU. You have much confidence--

SCHoN. 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 portieres, up the stairs and away thru the gallery.) What was that?

LULU. (Innocently.) Nothing.

SCHoN. (Lifting the portieres.) What flew out of here?

LULU. You're suffering from persecution-mania.

SCHoN. 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!

SCHoN. (Shaking her.) Or are you, too, an acrobat?