Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) Part 23

LULU. (Gets up; her cloak remains on the chair. Shoving aside the costumes on the centre table.) Here is writing-paper--

SCHoN. I can't write....

LULU. (Upright behind him, her arm on the back of his chair.) Write!

"My dear young lady...."

SCHoN. (Hesitating.) I call her Adelheid ...

LULU. (With emphasis.) "My dear young lady ..."

SCHoN. My sentence of death! (He writes.)

LULU. "Take back your promise. I cannot reconcile it with my conscience--" (Schon drops the pen and glances up at her entreatingly.) Write conscience!--"to fasten you to my unhappy lot...."

SCHoN. (Writing.) You are right. You are right.

LULU. "I give you my word that I am unworthy of your love--" (Schon turns round again.) Write love! "These lines are the proof of it. For three years I have tried to tear myself loose; I have not the strength.

I am writing you by the side of the woman that commands me. Forget me.

Dr. Ludwig Schon."

SCHoN. (Groaning.) O G.o.d!

LULU. (Half startled.) No, no O G.o.d! (With emphasis.) "Dr. Ludwig Schon." Postscript: "Do not attempt to save me."

SCHoN. (Having written to the end, quite collapses.) Now--comes the--execution.

CURTAIN

ACT IV

_A splendid hall in German Renaissance style, with a thick floor of oak-blocks. 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 a monumental stair-case leads, right, half-way down the stage. At centre, under the gallery, the entrance-door, with twisted posts and pediment. At left, a high and s.p.a.cious fire-place 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 a 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, 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, upright collar, enormous cuff-links, a veil over her face and her hands clasped convulsively in her m.u.f.f. Schon 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. You can't think how glad I shall be to see you at our artists' ball. (To Lulu.)

SCHoN. 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.

SCHoN. (Crossing to the centre table, behind the ottoman.) The glorious flowers!

LULU. Fraulein 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?

SCHoN. (Down left, with a deep voice.) He had enough.

LULU. You're in bad temper. (Schon controls himself.)

GESCHWITZ. (Getting up.) I must go, Mrs. Schon. I can't stay any longer. This evening we have life-cla.s.s, and I have still so much to get ready for the ball. Good-bye, Dr. Schon. (Exit, up-stage. Lulu accompanies her. Schon looks around him.)

SCHoN. Pure Augean stable. That, the end of my life. They ought to show me a 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 circle of my people-- (Glancing round.) G.o.d knows who is overhearing me again now! (Draws a revolver from his breast pocket.) Man is, indeed, uncertain of his life! (The c.o.c.ked 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 right.)

LULU. Couldn't you get away for this afternoon?

SCHoN. Just what did that Countess want?

LULU. I don't know. She wants to paint me.

SCHoN. Misfortune in human guise, that waits upon one.

LULU. Couldn't you get away, then? I would so like to drive thru the grounds with you.

SCHoN. 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.

SCHoN. Who takes life lightly does not take death hard.

LULU. As a child I always had the most horrible fear of death.

SCHoN. That is just why I married you.

LULU. (With her arms round his neck.) You're in bad humor. You give yourself too much work. For weeks and months I've seen nothing of you.

SCHoN. (Stroking her hair.) Your light-heartedness should cheer up my old days.

LULU. Indeed, you didn't marry me at all.

SCHoN. Who else did I marry then?