Pandora's Box Part 6

CASTI-PIANI. Do you think that would be the worst thing I can have done in my life?... I must, in case we go to-night, have just a brief word with Bianetta. (_He goes into the card-room, leaving the door open behind him. Lulu stares before her, mechanically crumpling up the note that Rodrigo stuck into her hand, which she has held in her fingers thruout the dialog. Alva, behind the card-table, gets up, a bill in his hand, and comes into the salon._)

ALVA. (_To Lulu._) Brilliantly! It's going brilliantly! Geschwitz is wagering her last s.h.i.+rt. Puntschu has promised me ten more Jungfrau-shares. Steinherz is making her little gains and profits.

(_Exit, lower right._)

LULU. I in a bordell?--(_She reads the paper she holds, and laughs madly._)

ALVA. (_Coming back with a cash-box in his hand._) Aren't you going to play, too?

LULU. Oh, yes, surely--why not?

ALVA. By the way, it's in the Berliner Tageblatt to-day that Alfred Hugenberg has hurled himself over the stairs in prison.

LULU. Is he too in prison?

ALVA. Only in a sort of house of detention. (_Exit, rear. Lulu is about to follow, but Countess Geschwitz meets her in the door-way._)

GESCHWITZ. You are going because I come?

LULU. (_Resolutely._) No, G.o.d knows. But when you come then I go.

GESCHWITZ. You have defrauded me of all the good things of this world that I still possessed. You might at the very least preserve the outward forms of politeness in your intercourse with me.

LULU. (_As before._) I am as polite to you as to any other woman. I only beg you to be equally so to me.

GESCHWITZ. Have you forgotten the pa.s.sionate endearments by which, while we lay together in the hospital, you seduced me into letting myself be locked into prison for you?

LULU. Well, why else did you bring me down with the cholera beforehand? I swore very different things to myself, even while it was going on, from what I had to promise you! I am shaken with horror at the thought that that should ever become reality!

GESCHWITZ. Then you cheated me consciously, deliberately?

LULU. (_Gaily._) What have you been cheated of, then? Your physical advantages have found so enthusiastic an admirer here, that I ask myself if I won't have to give piano lessons once more, to keep alive! No seventeen-year-old child could make a man madder with love than you, a pervert, are making him, poor fellow, by your shrewishness.

GESCHWITZ. Of whom are you speaking? I don't understand a word.

LULU. (_As before._) I'm speaking of your acrobat, of Rodrigo Quast.

He's an athlete: he balances two saddled cavalry horses on his chest.

Can a woman desire anything more glorious? He told me just now that he'd jump into the water to-night if you did not take pity on him.

GESCHWITZ. I do not envy you this cleverness with which you torture the helpless victims sacrificed to you by their inscrutable destiny.

My own plight has not yet wrung from me the pity that I feel for you.

_I_ feel free as a G.o.d when I think to what creatures *you* are enslaved.

LULU. Who do you mean?

GESCHWITZ. Casti-Piani, upon whose forehead the most degenerate baseness is written in letters of fire!

LULU. Be silent! I'll kick you, if you speak ill of *him*. He loves me with an uprightness against which your most venturous self-sacrifices are poor as beggary! He gives me such proofs of self-denial as reveal *you* for the first time in all your loathsomeness! You didn't get finished in your mother's womb, neither as woman nor as man. You have no human nature like the rest of us.

The stuff didn't go far enough for a man, and for a woman you got too much brain into your skull. That's the reason you're crazy! Turn to Miss Bianetta! She can be had for everything for pay! Press a gold-piece into her hand and she'll belong to you. (_All the_ _company save Kadidia throng in out of the card-room._) For the Lord's sake, what has happened?

PUNTSCHU. Nothing whatever! We're thirsty, that's all.

MAGELONE. Everybody has won. We can't believe it.

BIANETTA. It seems I have won a whole fortune!

LUDMILLA. Don't boast of it, my child. That isn't lucky.

MAGELONE. But the bank has won, too! How is that *possible*?

ALVA. It is colossal, where all the money comes from!

CASTI-PIANI. Let us not ask! Enough that we need not spare the champagne.

HEILMANN. I can pay for a supper in a respectable restaurant afterwards, anyway!

ALVA. To the buffet, ladies! Come to the buffet! (_All exeunt, lower left._)

RODRIGO. (_Holding Lulu back._) Un momong, my heart. Have you read my billet-doux?

LULU. Threaten me with discovery as much as you like! I have no more twenty thousands to dispose of.

RODRIGO. Don't lie to me, you punk! You've still got forty thousand in Jungfrau-stock. Your so-called spouse has just been bragging of it himself!

LULU. Then turn to *him* with your blackmailing! It's all one to me what he does with his money.

RODRIGO. Thank you! With that blockhead I'd need twice twenty-four hours to make him grasp what I was talking about. And then come his explanations, that make one deathly sick; and meanwhile my bride writes me "It's all up!" and I can just hang a hurdy-gurdy over my shoulder.

LULU. Have you got engaged here, then?

RODRIGO. Maybe I ought to have asked your permission first? What were my thanks here that I freed you from prison at the cost of my health?

You abandoned me! I might have had to be a baggage-man if this girl hadn't taken me up! At my very first entrance, right away, they threw a velvet-covered arm-chair at my head! This country is too decadent to value genuine shows of strength any more. If I'd been a boxing kangaroo they'd have interviewed me and put my picture in all the papers. Thank heaven, I'd already made the acquaintance of my Celestine. She's got the savings of twenty years deposited with the government; and she loves me just for myself. She doesn't aim only at vulgar things, like you. She's had three children by an American bishop--all of the greatest promise. Day after to-morrow we'll get married by the registrar.

LULU. You have my blessing.

RODRIGO. Your blessing *can* be stolen from me. I've told my bride I had twenty thousand in stock at the bank.

LULU. (_Amused._) And after that he boasts the person loves him for himself!

RODRIGO. She honors in me the man of mind, not the man of might as you and all the others have done. That's over now. First they tore the clothes from one's body and then they waltzed around with the chambermaid. I'll be a skeleton before I'll let myself in again for such diversions!

LULU. Then why the devil do you pursue the unfortunate Geschwitz with your attentions?

RODRIGO. Because the creature is of n.o.ble blood. I'm a man of the world, and can do distinguished conversation better than any of you.

But now (_with a gesture_) my talk is hanging out of my mouth! Will you get me the money before to-morrow evening or won't you?

LULU. I have no money.

RODRIGO. I'll have hen-droppings in my head before I'll let myself be put off with that! He'll give you his last cent if you'll only do your d.a.m.ned duty once! You lured the poor lad here, and now he can see where to scare up a suitable engagement for his accomplishments.