Frank Wedekind

“ GESCHWITZ. She is more glorious to look at than I have ever seen her!
RODRIGO. God preserve me from founding my life-happiness on your taste and judgment! If the sickness has hit her as it has you, I'm smashed and thru! You're leaving the contagious ward like an acrobat-lady who's had an accident after giving herself up to art. You can scarcely blow your nose any more. First you need a quarter-hour to sort your fingers, and then you have to be mighty careful not to break off the tip. ”

“ GESCHWITZ. (Sighing.) O Lulu, if an eternal retribution does exist, I hope I may not have to answer then for you. I cannot make myself believe that no God watches over us. Yet you are probably right that there is nothing there, for how can an insignificant worm like me have provoked his wrath so as to experience only horror there where all living creation swoons for bliss? ”

“ RODRIGO. I lay in the hospital full three months to spy out the ground, after toilfully peddling together the qualities necessary for such a long stay. Now I act the valet here with you, Dr. Schön, so that no strange servants may come into the house. Where is the bridegroom who's ever done so much for his bride? My fortune has also been destroyed.
ALVA. When you succeed in developing her into a respectable artiste you will have put the world in debt to you. ”

“ Have there ever once been men and women to whom love brought happiness? And what is their happiness, save that they sleep better and can forget it all? My God, I thank thee that thou hast not made me as these. I am not man nor woman. My body has nothing common with their bodies. Have I a human soul? Tortured humanity has a little narrow heart; but I know I deserve nothing when I resign all, sacrifice all.... (Lulu opens the door, and Dr. Hilti enters. Geschwitz, unnoticed, remains motionless by the door.) ”

“ LULU. (In a fairy-story tone.) I used to dream every other night that I'd fallen into the hands of a sadic.... Come, give me a kiss!
ALVA. It's shining in your eyes like the water in a deep well one has just thrown a stone into.
LULU. Come!
ALVA. (Kisses her.) Your lips have got pretty thin, anyway.
LULU. Come! (Pushes him into a chair and seats herself on his knee.) Do you shudder at me?—In Hotel Ox-butter we all got a luke-warm bath every four weeks. The wardresses took that opportunity to search our pockets as soon as we were in the water. (She kisses him passionately.) ”

“ 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.) ”

“ 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! ”

“ ALVA. I have no longer the moral courage to let my comfort be disturbed for a miserable sum of money! (He wraps himself up in his plaid.)
SCHIGOLCH. Noblesse oblige! A respectable man does what he owes his position. (He hides, left. Lulu opens the door, saying “Come right in, dearie,” and there enters Prince Kungu Poti, heir-apparent of Uahubee, in a light suit, white spats, tan button-boots, and a gray tall hat. His speech, interrupted with frequent hiccoughs, abounds with the peculiar African hiss-sounds.)
KUNGU POTI. God damn—it's dark on the stairs! ”

“ I know their kind. When they don't need a man, let him shine their shoes for them; but when they must have an artiste they cut her down from the very gallows with their own hands and with the most entangling compliments. [Pg 22]
ALVA. In my situation there's nothing more in the world to fear—but death. In the realm of sensation I am the poorest beggar. But I can no longer scrape up the moral courage to exchange my established position for the excitements of the wild, adventurous life!
RODRIGO. She had sent Papa Schigolch and me together in chase of some strong antidote for sleeplessness. ”

“ Quick, quick, Bob! We must get away this moment! You escort me! But we must change clothes!
BOB. (Curt and clear.) As the gracious lady bids.
LULU. Oh what, gracious lady! You give me your clothes and put on mine. Come! (Exeunt into the dining-room. Noise in the card-room, the doors are torn open, and Puntschu, Heilmann, Alva, Bianetta, Magelone, Kadidia and Ludmilla enter, Heilmann holding a piece of paper with a glowing Alpine peak at its top.)
HEILMANN. (To Puntschu.) Will you accept this share of Jungfrau-stock, sir? ”

“ ALVA. She ought to have been born Empress of Russia. Then she'd have been in the right place. A second Catherine the Second! (Lulu re-enters with a worn-out pair of boots, and sits on the floor to put them on.)
LULU. If only I don't go headfirst down the stairs! Ugh, how cold! Is there anything in the world more dismal than a daughter of joy?
SCHIGOLCH. Patience, patience! She's only got to take the right road into the business at the start.
LULU. It's all right with me! Nothing's wrong with me any more. (Puts the bottle to her lips.) That warms one! ”

“ ALVA. If I didn't need every bit of my creative power now for the “World-conqueror,” I might like to test the problem and see what could be done with it. That's the curse of our young literature: we're so much too literary. We know only such questions and problems as come up among writers and cultured people. We cannot see beyond the limits of our own professional interests. In order to get back on the trail of a great and powerful art we must move as much as possible among men who've never read a book in their lives, whom the simplest animal instincts direct in all they do. ”

“ 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. ”

“ GESCHWITZ. May I ask you to excuse me just a second. I must say a word to my friend.
CASTI-PIANI. (Offering his arm to Bianetta.) May I have the honor to be your partner? You always hold such a lucky hand!
LUDMILLA. Now just give me your other arm and then lead us into the gambling-hell. (The three go off so, rear.)
MAGELONE. Say, Mr. Puntschu, have you still got a few Jungfrau shares for me, maybe?
PUNTSCHU. Jungfrau-shares? (To Heilmann.) The lady means the stock of the funicular railway on the Jungfrau. ”

“ It is strange how hunger takes from men and women the strength to withstand misfortune. But when they have fed full they make this world a torture-chamber, they throw away their lives to satisfy a whim, a mood. ”

“ Be it love or be it whipping, female flesh never inquires. Only give it some amusement, and it stays firm and fresh. She is now in her twentieth year, has been married three times and has satisfied a gigantic horde of lovers, and her heart's desires are at last pretty plain. But the man's got to have the seven deadly sins on his forehead, or she honors him not. If he looks as if a dog-catcher had spat him out on the street, then, with such women-folks, he needn't be afraid of a prince! ”

“ 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 documents. 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. ”

“ 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 [Pg 41] 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? ”

“ The department of justice will pay anyone who delivers the murderess of Dr. Schön 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ ALVA. (Comparing the picture with Lulu.) The child-like expression in the eyes is still absolutely the same in spite of all she has lived thru since. (In joyous excitement.) The dewy freshness that covered her skin, the sweet-smelling breath from her lips, the rays of light that beam from her white forehead, and this challenging splendor of young flesh in throat and arms—
SCHIGOLCH. All that's gone with the rubbish wagon. She can say with self-assurance: That was me once! The man she falls into the hands of to-day 'll have no conception of what we were when we were young. ”

“ 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 [Pg 37] 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ ALVA. And what do you have in view?
HUGENBERG. I'm trying to get into the confidence of a turnkey.
ALVA. What do you mean to live on?
HUGENBERG. I'm living with a girl who's had a child by my father.
ALVA. Who is your father?
HUGENBERG. He's a police captain. I know the prison without ever having been inside it; and nobody in it will recognize me as I am now. But I don't count on that at all. I know an iron ladder by which one can get from the first court to the roof and thru an opening there into the attic. There's no way up to it from inside. ”

“ LULU. Did you not ask me to give myself to my deceased husband's son for twenty thousand in Jungfrau shares?
RODRIGO. Because it's your duty to take pity on the poor young fellow! You shot away his father before his nose in the very best years of life! But your Casti-Piani will think it over before he comes into my sight again. [Pg 51] I gave him one in the basket that made the tripes fly to heaven like Roman candles. If you've got no better substitute for me, then I'm sorry ever to have had your favor!
LULU. Lady Geschwitz is in the fearfullest case. She twists herself up in fits. ”