Pandora's Box Part 5

PUNTSCHU. I am perfectly sure of my affairs, my dearie!

ALVA. (_Who has come back from the card-room, to Magelone._) I can guarantee your fears are absolutely unfounded. I paid very dear for my Jungfrau-stock and haven't regretted it a minute. They're going up steadily from day to day. There never was such a thing before.

MAGELONE. All the better, if you're right. (_Taking Puntschu's arm._) Come, my friend, let's try our luck now at baccarat. (_All go out, rear, except Geschwitz and Rodrigo who scribbles something on a piece of paper and folds it up, then notices Geschwitz._)

RODRIGO. Hm, madam countess--(_Geschwitz starts and shrinks._) Do I look as dangerous as that? (_To himself._) I must make a bon mot.

(_Aloud._) May I perhaps make so bold--

GESCHWITZ. You can go to the devil!

CASTI-PIANI. (_As he leads Lulu in._) Permit me a word or two.

LULU. (_Not noticing Rodrigo who presses his note into her hand._) Oh, as many as you like. (_Rodrigo bows and goes out, rear._)

CASTI-PIANI. (_To Geschwitz._) Leave us alone!

LULU. (_To Casti-Piani._) Have I hurt you again in any way?

CASTI-PIANI. (_Since Geschwitz does not stir._) Are you deaf?

(_Geschwitz, sighing deeply, goes out, rear._)

LULU. Just say straight out how much you want.

CASTI-PIANI. With money you can no longer serve me.

LULU. What makes you think that we have no more money?

CASTI-PIANI. You handed out the last bit of it to me yesterday.

LULU. If you're sure of that then I suppose it's so.

CASTI-PIANI. You're down on the bare ground, you and your writer.

LULU. Then why all the words?--If you want to have me for yourself you need not first threaten me with execution.

CASTI-PIANI. I know that. But I've told you more than once that you won't be my downfall. I haven't sucked you dry because you loved me, but loved you in order to suck you. Bianetta is more to my taste from top to bottom than you. You set out the choicest sweetmeats, and after one has frittered his time away at them he finds he's hungrier than before. You've loved too long, even for our present relations.

With a healthy young man, you only ruin his nervous system. But you'll fit all the more perfectly in the position I have sought out for you.

LULU. You're crazy! Have I commissioned you to find a position for me?

CASTI-PIANI. I told you, though, that I was an appointments-agent.

LULU. You told me you were a police spy.

CASTI-PIANI. One can't live on that alone. I was an appointments-agent originally, till I blundered over a minister's daughter I'd got a position for in Valparaiso. The little darling in her childhood's dreams imagined the life even more intoxicating than it is, and complained of it to Mama. On that, they nabbed me; but by reliable demeanor I soon enough won the confidence of the criminal police and they sent me here on a hundred and fifty marks a month, because they were tripling our contingent here on account of these everlasting bomb-explosions. But who can get along on a hundred and fifty marks a month? My colleagues get women to support them; but, of course, I found it more convenient to take up my former calling again; and of the numberless adventuresses of the best families of the entire world, whom chance brings together here, I have already forwarded many a young creature hungry for life to the place of her natural vocation.

LULU. (_Decisively._) I wouldn't do in that business.

CASTI-PIANI. Your views on that question make no difference whatever to me. The department of justice will pay anyone who delivers the murderess of Dr. Schon into the hands of the police a thousand marks.

I only need to whistle for the constable who's standing down at the corner to have earned a thousand marks. Against that, the House of Oikonomopulos in Cairo bids sixty pounds for you--twelve hundred marks--two hundred more than the Attorney General. And, besides, I am still so far a friend of mankind that I prefer to help my loves to happiness, not plunge them into misfortune.

LULU. (_As before._) The life in such a house can never make a woman of my stamp happy. When I was fifteen, that might have happened to me. I was desperate then--thought I should never be happy. I bought a revolver, and ran one night bare-foot thru the deep snow over the bridge to the park to shoot myself there. But then by good luck I lay three months in the hospital without setting eyes on a man, and in that time my eyes opened and I got to know myself. Night after night in my dreams I saw the man for whom I was created and who was created for me, and then when I was let out on the men again I was no longer a silly goose. Since then I can see on a man, in a pitch-dark night and a hundred feet away, whether we're suited to each other; and if I sin against that insight I feel the next day dirtied, body and soul, and need weeks to get over the loathing I have for myself. And now you imagine I'll give myself to every and any Tom and Harry!

CASTI-PIANI. Toms and Harries don't patronize Oikonomopulos of Cairo.

His custom consists of Scottish lords, Russian dignitaries, Indian governors, and our jolly Rhineland captains of industry. I must only guarantee that you speak French. With your gift for languages you'll quickly enough learn as much English, besides, as you'll need to get on with. And you'll reside in a royally furnished apartment with an outlook on the minarets of the El Azhar Mosque, and walk around all day on Persian carpets as thick as your fist, and dress every evening in a fabulous Paris gown and drink as much champagne as your customers can pay for, and, finally, you'll even remain, up to a certain point, your own mistress. If the man doesn't please you, you needn't bring him any reciprocal feelings. Just let him give in his card, and then--(_Shrugs, and snaps his fingers._) If the ladies didn't get used to that the whole business would be simply impossible, because every one after the first four weeks would go headlong to the devil.

LULU. (_Her voice shaking._) I do believe that since yesterday you've got a screw loose somewhere. Am I to understand that the Egyptian will pay fifteen hundred francs for a person whom he's never seen?

CASTI-PIANI. I took the liberty of sending him your pictures.

LULU. Those pictures that I gave you, you've sent to him?

CASTI-PIANI. You see he can value them better than I. The picture in which you stand before the mirror as Eve he'll probably hang up at the house-door, after you've got there.... And then there's one thing more for you to notice: with Oikonomopulos in Cairo you'll be safer from your blood-hounds than if you crept into a Canadian wilderness.

It isn't so easy to transport an Egyptian courtesan to a German prison,--first, on account of the mere expense, and second, from fear of coming too close to eternal Justice.

LULU. (_Proudly, in a clear voice._) What's your eternal Justice to do with me! You can see as plain as your five fingers I shan't let myself be locked up in any such amus.e.m.e.nt-place!

CASTI-PIANI. Then do you want me to whistle for the policeman?

LULU. (_In wonder._) Why don't you simply ask me for twelve hundred marks, if you want the money?

CASTI-PIANI. I want for no money! And I also don't ask for it because you're dead broke.

LULU. We still have thirty thousand marks.

CASTI-PIANI. In Jungfrau-stock! I never have anything to do with stock. The Attorney-General pays in the national currency, and Oikonomopulos pays in English gold. You can be on board early to-morrow. The pa.s.sage doesn't last much more than five days. In two weeks at most you're in safety. Here you are nearer to prison than anywhere. It's a wonder which I, as one of the secret police, cannot understand, that you two have been able to live for a full year unmolested. But just as I came on the track of your antecedents, so any day, with your mighty consumption of men, one of my colleagues may make the happy discovery. Then I may just wipe my mouth, and you spend in prison the most enjoyable years of your life. If you will kindly decide quickly. The train goes at 12.30. If we haven't struck a bargain before eleven, I whistle up the policeman. If we have, I pack you, just as you stand, into a carriage, drive you to the station, and to-morrow escort you on board s.h.i.+p.

LULU. But is it possible you can be serious in all this?

CASTI-PIANI. Don't you understand that I can act now only for your bodily rescue?

LULU. I'll go with you to America or to China, but I can't let myself be sold of my own accord! That is worse than prison!

CASTI-PIANI. (_Drawing a letter from his pocket._) Just read this effusion! I'll read it to you. Here's the postmark "Cairo," so you won't believe I work with forged doc.u.ments. The girl is a Berliner, was married two years and to a man whom you would have envied her, a former comrade of mine. He travels now for the Hamburg Colonial Company....

LULU. (_Merrily._) Then perhaps he *visits* his wife occasionally?

CASTI-PIANI. That is not incredible. But hear this impulsive expression of her feelings. My white-slave traffic seems to me absolutely no more honorable than the very best judge would tax it with being, but a cry of joy like this lets me feel a certain moral satisfaction for a moment. I am proud to earn my money by scattering happiness with full hands. (_Reads._) "Dear Mr. Meyer"--that's my name as a white-slave trader--"when you go to Berlin, please go right away to the conservatory on the Potsdamer Stra.s.se and ask for Gusti von Rosenkron--the most beautiful woman that I've ever seen in nature--delightful hands and feet, naturally small waist, straight back, full body, big eyes and short nose--just the sort you like best. I have written to her already. She has no prospects with her singing. Her mother hasn't a penny. Sorry she's already twenty-two, but she's pining for love. Can't marry, because absolutely without means. I have spoken with Madame. They'd like to take another German, if she's well educated and musical. Italians and Frenchwomen can't compete with us, 'cause of too little culture. If you should see Fritz"--Fritz is the husband; he's getting a divorce, of course,--"tell him it was all a bore. He didn't know any better, nor did I either." Now come the exact details--

LULU. (_Goaded._) I can not sell the only thing that ever was my own!

CASTI-PIANI. Let me read some more.

LULU. (_As before._) This very evening, I'll hand over to you our entire wealth.

CASTI-PIANI. Believe me, for G.o.d's sake, I've *got* your last red cent! If we haven't left this house before eleven, you and your lot will be transported to-morrow in a police-car to Germany.

LULU. You *can't* give me up!