show's not new,
Yet everyone takes pleasure in its view!
Wrench open this wild animal's jaws I dare,
And he to bite dares not! My pate's so fair,
So wild, so gaily decked, it wins respect!
I offer it him with confidence unchecked.
One joke, and my two temples crack!—but, lo,
The lightning of my eyes I will forego,
Staking my life against a joke! and throw
My whip, my weapons, down. I am in my skin!
I yield me to this beast!—His name do ye know?
—The honored public! that has just walked in!

(The animal-tamer steps back into the tent, accompanied by cymbals and kettledrums.)

ACT I

A roomy studio. Entrance door at the rear, left. Another door at lower left to the bed-room. At centre, a platform for the model, with a Spanish screen behind it and a Smyrna rug in front. Two easels at lower right. On the upper one is the picture of a young girl's head and shoulders. Against the other leans a reversed canvas. Below these, toward centre, an ottoman, with a tiger-skin on it. Two chairs along the left wall. In the back-ground, right, a step-ladder.

Schön sits on the foot of the ottoman, inspecting critically the picture on the further easel. Schwarz stands behind the ottoman, his palette and brushes in his hands.

SCHÖN. Do you know, I'm getting acquainted with a brand new side of the lady.

SCHWARZ. I have never painted anyone whose expression changed so continuously. I could hardly keep a single feature the same two days running.

SCHÖN. (Pointing to the picture and observing him.) Do you find that in it?

SCHWARZ. I have done everything imaginable to call forth some sort of quiet in her mood by my conversation during the sittings.

SCHÖN. Then I understand the difference. (Schwarz dips his brush in the oil and draws it over the features of the face.) Do you think that makes it look more like her?

SCHWARZ. We can only work with art as scientifically as possible.

SCHÖN. Tell me—

SCHWARZ. (Stepping back.) The color had sunk in pretty well, too.

SCHÖN. (Looking at him.) Have you ever loved a woman in your life?

SCHWARZ. (Goes to the easel, puts a color on it, and steps back on the other side.) The dress isn't made to stand out enough yet. We don't see the living body under it.

SCHÖN. I make no doubt that the workmanship is good.

SCHWARZ. If you'll step this way....

SCHÖN. (Rising.) You must have told her regular ghost-stories.

SCHWARZ. As far back as you can.

SCHÖN. (Stepping back, knocks down the canvas that was leaning against the lower easel.) Excuse me—

SCHWARZ. (Picking it up.) That's all right.

SCHÖN. (Surprised.) What is that?

SCHWARZ. Do you know her?

SCHÖN. No. (Schwarz sets the picture on the easel. It is of a lady dressed as Pierrot with a long shepherd's crook in her hand.)

SCHWARZ. A costume-picture.

SCHÖN. But, really, you've succeeded with her.

SCHWARZ. You know her?

SCHÖN. No. And in that costume—?

SCHWARZ. It isn't nearly finished yet. (Schön nods.) What would you have? While she is posing for me I have the pleasure of entertaining her husband.

SCHÖN. What?

SCHWARZ. We talk about art, of course,—to complete my good fortune!

SCHÖN. But how did you make such a charming acquaintance?

SCHWARZ. As they're generally made. An ancient, tottering little man drops in on me here to know if I can paint his wife. Why, of course, were she as wrinkled as Mother Earth! Next day at ten prompt the doors fly open, and the fat-belly drives this little beauty in before him. I can feel even now how my knees shook. Then comes a sap-green lackey, stiff as a ramrod, with a package under his arm. Where is the dressing-room? Imagine my plight. I open the door there (pointing left). Just luck that everything was in order. The sweet thing vanishes into it, and the old fellow posts himself outside as a bastion. Two minutes later out she steps in this Pierrot. (Shaking his head.) I never saw anything like it. (He goes left and stares in at the bedroom.)

SCHÖN. (Who has followed him with his eyes.) And the fat-belly stands guard?

SCHWARZ. (Turning round.) The whole body in harmony with that impossible costume as if it had come into the world in it! Her way of burying her elbows in her pockets, of lifting her little feet from the rug,—the blood often shoots to my head....

SCHÖN. One can see that in the picture.

SCHWARZ. (Shaking his head.) People like us, you know—

SCHÖN. Here the model is mistress of the conversation.

SCHWARZ. She has never yet opened her mouth.

SCHÖN. Is it possible?

SCHWARZ. Allow me to show the costume to you. (Goes out left.)

SCHÖN. (Before the Pierrot.) A devilish beauty. (Before the other picture.) There's more depth here. (Coming down stage.) He is still rather young for his age. (Schwarz comes back with a white satin costume.)

SCHWARZ. What sort of material is that?

SCHÖN. (Feeling it.) Satin.

SCHWARZ. And all in one piece.

SCHÖN. How does one get into it then?

SCHWARZ. That I can't tell you.

SCHÖN. (Taking the costume by the legs.) What enormous trowser-legs!

SCHWARZ. The left one she pulls up.

SCHÖN. (Looking at the picture.) Above the knee!

SCHWARZ. She does that entrancingly!

SCHÖN. And transparent stockings?

SCHWARZ. Those have got to be painted, specially.

SCHÖN. Oh, you can do that.

SCHWARZ. And with it all a coquetry!

SCHÖN. What brought you to that horrible suspicion?

SCHWARZ. There are things that our school-philosophy lets itself never dream of. (He takes the costume back into his bedroom.)

SCHÖN. (Alone.) When we sleep....

SCHWARZ. (Comes back; looks at his watch.) If you wish to make her acquaintance too—

SCHÖN. No.