Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) Part 28

GESCHWITZ. (Whimpering.) You hurt me.

SCHoN. (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 Lulu and makes her take the revolver again.) There's still enough for you in it. Look at me! I cannot a.s.sist 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 when I can't stand the stable-stench?

LULU. Have the carriage got ready! Please! We're going to the opera.

SCHoN. We're going to the devil! Now I am coachman. (Turning the revolver in her hand from himself to Lulu's breast.) Think you we let ourselves be mistreated as you mistreat me, and hesitate between a galley-slave's shame at the end of life and the merit of freeing the world of =you=? (Holds her down by the arm.) Come, get through. It will be the gladdest remembrance of my life. Pull the trigger!

LULU. You can get a divorce.

SCHoN. Only that was left! In order that to-morrow the next man may find his pastime where I have shuddered from cleft to chasm, suicide upon me and =thou= before me! You dare suggest that? That part of my life I have poured into you I am to see thrown before wild beasts? Do you see your bed with the sacrifice--the victim--on it? The boy 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 each other and half the man must go, too? (Reaching for the revolver.) Give it here!

LULU. Don't!

SCHoN. 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 know 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 the close of your life as a sacrifice, still you have had my whole youth for it. 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!

SCHoN. (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 G.o.d, 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!" Schon whirls toward him, turning his back to Lulu who instantly fires five shots into him and continues to pull the trigger. Schon, tottering over, is caught by Hugenberg and let down in the chair.)

SCHoN. And--there--is--one--more--

LULU. (Rushing to Schon.) All merciful--!

SCHoN. Out of my sight! Alva!

LULU. (Kneeling.) The one man I loved!

SCHoN. Harlot! Murderess! Alva! Alva! Water!

LULU. Water; he's thirsty. (Fills a gla.s.s with champagne and sets it to Schon's lips. Alva comes thru the gallery, down the stairs.)

ALVA. Father! O G.o.d, my father!

LULU. I shot him.

HUGENBERG. She is innocent!

SCHoN. (To Alva.) You! It miscarried.

ALVA. (Tries to lift him.) You must go to bed; come.

SCHoN. Don't take 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.

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

ALVA. (To Hugenberg.) Take him up that side. (Pointing right.) Into the bed-room. (They lift Schon upright and lead him right. Lulu stays near the table, the gla.s.s in her hand.)

SCHoN. (Groaning.) O G.o.d! O G.o.d! O G.o.d! (Alva finds the door locked, turns the key and opens it. Countess Geschwitz steps out. Schon at the sight of her straighten 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 over it. (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 n.o.body 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 belong only to you. 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