Pandora's Box Part 9

RODRIGO. That's a shameless, perfidious lie!

CASTI-PIANI. She told me so herself. You threatened to denounce her if she didn't go with you.--Shall I shoot you on the spot?

RODRIGO. The shameless hussy! As if anything like that could occur to me!--Even if I should want to have her, G.o.d knows I don't first need to threaten her with prison!

CASTI-PIANI. Thank you. That's all I wanted to know. (_Exit, upper left._)

RODRIGO. Such a hound! A fellow I could throw up onto the roof so he'd stick like a Limburger cheese!--Come back here, so I can wind your guts round your neck. That would be even better!

LULU. (_Enters, lower left; merrily._) Where were you? I've been hunting for you like a pin.

RODRIGO. I've shown *him* what it means to start anything with me!

LULU. Whom?

RODRIGO. Your Casti-Piani! What made you tell him, you s.l.u.t, that I wanted to seduce you?!

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. I gave him one in the basket that made the tripes fly to heaven like Roman candles. If you've got no better subst.i.tute 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. She's at the point of jumping into the water if you let her wait any longer.

RODRIGO. What's the beast waiting for?

LULU. For you, to take her with you.

RODRIGO. Then give her my regards, and she can jump into the water.

LULU. She'll lend me twenty thousand marks to save me from destruction if you will preserve her from it herself. If you'll take her off to-night, I'll deposit twenty thousand marks to-morrow in your name at any bank you say.

RODRIGO. And if I don't take her off with me?

LULU. Denounce me! Alva and I are dead broke.

RODRIGO. Devil and d.a.m.nation!

LULU. You make four people happy if you don't take things too exactly and sacrifice yourself for a beneficent purpose.

RODRIGO. That won't go; I know that, beforehand. I've tried that out enough now. Who counts on an honorable soul like that in a bag o'

bones! What the person had for me was her being an aristocrat. My behavior was as gentleman-like, and more, as you could find among German circus-people. If I'd only just pinched her in the calves once!

LULU. (_Watchfully._) She is still a virgin.

RODRIGO. (_Sighing._) If there's a G.o.d in heaven, you'll get paid for your jokes some day! I prophesy that.

LULU. Geschwitz waits. What shall I tell her?

RODRIGO. My very best wishes, and I am perverse.

LULU. I will deliver that.

RODRIGO. Wait a sec. Is it certain sure I get twenty thousand marks from her?

LULU. Ask herself!

RODRIGO. Then tell her I'm ready. I await her in the dining-room. I must just first look after a barrel of caviare. (_Exit, left. Lulu opens the rear door and calls in a clear voice "Martha!" Countess Geschwitz enters, closing the door behind her._)

LULU. (_Pleased._) Dear heart, you can save me from death to-night.

GESCHWITZ. How?

LULU. By going to a certain house with the acrobat.

GESCHWITZ. What for, dear?

LULU. He says you must belong to him this very night or he'll denounce me to-morrow.

GESCHWITZ. You know I can't belong to any man. My fate has not permitted that.

LULU. If you don't please him, that's his own fix. Why has he fallen in love with you?

GESCHWITZ. But he'll get as brutal as a hangman. He'll revenge himself for his disappointment and beat my head in. I've been thru that already.... Can you not possibly spare me this hardest test?

LULU. What will you gain by his denouncing me?

GESCHWITZ. I have still enough of my fortune to take us to America together in the steerage. There you'd be safe from all your pursuers.

LULU. (_Pleased and gay._) I want to stay here. I can never be happy in any other city. You must tell him that you can't live without him.

Then he'll feel flattered and be gentle as a lamb. You must pay the coachman, too: give him this paper with the address on it. 376 is a sixth-cla.s.s hotel where they're expecting you with him this evening.

GESCHWITZ. (_Shuddering._) How can such a monstrosity save your life?

I don't understand that. You have conjured up to torture me the most terrible fate that can fall upon outlawed me!

LULU. (_Watchful._) Perhaps the encounter will cure you.

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 G.o.d 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?

LULU. You needn't complain. When you *are* happy you're a hundred thousand times happier than one of us ordinary mortals ever is!

GESCHWITZ. I know that too! I envy no one! But I am still waiting.

You have deceived me so often already.

LULU. I am yours, my darling, if you quiet Mr. Acrobat till to-morrow. He only wants his vanity placated. You must beseech him to take pity on you.

GESCHWITZ. And to-morrow?

LULU. I await you, my heart. I shall not open my eyes till you come: see no chambermaid, receive no hair-dresser, not open my eyes before you are with me.