Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) Part 18

Will he see me to-day?

ALVA. Father?

LULU. Yes.

ALVA. I don't know if he's in the theater.

LULU. Doesn't he want to see me at all?

ALVA. He has so little time.

LULU. His =bride= occupies him.

ALVA. Speculations. He gives himself no rest. (Schon enters.) You?

We're just speaking of you.

LULU. Is he there?

SCHoN. You're changing?

LULU. (Peeping over the Spanish screen, to Schon.) You write in all the papers that I'm the most gifted danseuse who ever trod the stage, a second Taglioni and I don't know what else--and you haven't once found me gifted enough to convince yourself of the fact.

SCHoN. I have so much to write. You see, I was right: there were hardly any seats left. You must keep rather more in the proscenium.

LULU. I must first accustom myself to the light.

ALVA. She has kept herself strictly to her part.

SCHoN. (To Alva.) You must get more out of your performers! You don't know enough yet about the technique. (To Lulu.) What do you come as now?

LULU. As a flower-girl.

SCHoN. (To Alva.) In tights?

ALVA. No. In a skirt to the ankles.

SCHoN. It would have been better if you hadn't ventured on symbolism.

ALVA. I look at a dancer's feet.

SCHoN. The point is, what the public looks at. An apparition like =her= has no need, thank heaven, of your symbolic mummery.

ALVA. The public doesn't look as if it was bored!

SCHoN. Of course not; because I have been working for her success in the press for six months. Has the prince been here?

ALVA. n.o.body's been here.

SCHoN. Who lets a dancer come on thru two acts in raincoats?

ALVA. Who is the prince?

SCHoN. Shall we see each other afterwards?

ALVA. Are you alone?

SCHoN. With acquaintances. At Peter's?

ALVA. At twelve?

SCHoN. At twelve. (Exit.)

LULU. I'd given up hoping he'd ever come.

ALVA. Don't let yourself be misled by his grumpy growls. If you'll only be careful not to spend your strength before the last number begins-- (Lulu steps out in a cla.s.sical, sleeveless dress, white with a red border, a bright wreath in her hair and a basket of flowers in her hands.)

LULU. He doesn't seem to have noticed at all how cleverly you have used your performers.

ALVA. I won't blow in sun, moon and stars in the first act!

LULU. (Sipping.) You disclose me by degrees.

ALVA. I knew, though, that you knew all about changing costumes.

LULU. If I'd wanted to sell my flowers this way before the Alhambra cafe, they'd have had me behind lock and key right off the very first night.

ALVA. Why? You were a child!

LULU. Do you remember me when I entered your room the first time?

ALVA. You wore a dark blue dress with black velvet.

LULU. They had to stick me somewhere and didn't know where.

ALVA. My mother had been lying sick two years then.

LULU. You were playing theater, and asked me if I wanted to play too.

ALVA. To be sure! We played theater!

LULU. I see you still--the way you shoved the figures back and forth.

ALVA. For a long time my most terrible memory was when all at once I saw clearly into your relations--

LULU. You got icy curt towards me then.

ALVA. Oh, G.o.d--I saw in you something so infinitely far above me. I had perhaps a higher devotion to you than to my mother. Think--when my mother died--I was seventeen--I went and stood before my father and demanded that he make you his wife on the spot or we'd have to fight a duel.

LULU. He told me that at the time.