sleeplessness. We each got a twenty-mark piece for expenses. There we see the youngster sitting in the Night-light Café. He was sitting like a criminal on the prisoner's bench. Schigolch sniffed at him from all sides, and remarked, “He is still virgin.” (Up in the gallery, dragging steps are heard.) There she is! The future magnificent trapeze-artiste of the present age!

(The curtains part at the stair-head, and Lulu, supported by Schigolch, and in a black dress, slowly and wearily descends.)

SCHIGOLCH. Hui, old mold! We've still to get over the frontier to-day.

RODRIGO. (Glaring stupidly at Lulu.) Thunder of heaven! Death!

LULU. (Speaks, to the end of the act, in the gayest tones.) Slowly! You're pinching my arm!

RODRIGO. How did you ever get the shamelessness to break out of prison with such a wolf's face?!

SCHIGOLCH. Stop your snout!

RODRIGO. I'll run for the police! I'll give information! This scarecrow let herself be seen in tights?! The padding alone would cost two months' salary!—You're the most perfidious swindler that ever had lodging in Ox-butter Hotel!

ALVA. Kindly refrain from insulting the lady!

RODRIGO. Insulting you call that?! For this gnawed bone's sake I've worn myself away! I can't earn my own living! I'll be a clown if I can still stand firm under a broom-stick! But let the lightning strike me on the spot if I don't worm ten thousand marks a year for life out of your tricks and frauds! I can tell you that! A pleasant trip! I'm going for the police! (Exit.)

SCHIGOLCH. Run, run!

LULU. He'll take good care of himself!

SCHIGOLCH. We're rid of him!—And now some black coffee for the lady!

ALVA. (At the table left.) Here is coffee, ready to pour.

SCHIGOLCH. I must look after the sleeping-car tickets.

LULU. (Brightly.) Oh, freedom! Thank God for freedom!

SCHIGOLCH. I'll be back for you in half an hour. We'll celebrate our departure in the station-restaurant. I'll order a supper that'll keep us going till to-morrow.—Good morning, doctor.

ALVA. Good evening.

SCHIGOLCH. Pleasant rest!—Thanks, I know every door-handle here. So long! Have a good time! (Exit.)

LULU. I haven't seen a room for a year and a half. Curtains, chairs, pictures....

ALVA. Won't you drink it?

LULU. I've swallowed enough black coffee these five days. Have you any brandy?

ALVA. I've got some elixir de Spaa.

LULU. That reminds one of old times. (Looks round the hall while Alva fills two glasses.) Where's my picture gone?

ALVA. I've got it in my room, so no one shall see it here.

LULU. Bring it down here now.

ALVA. Didn't you even lose your vanity in prison?

LULU. How anxious at heart one gets when one hasn't seen herself for months! One day I got a brand-new dust-pan. When I swept up at seven in the morning I held the back of it up before my face. Tin doesn't flatter, but I took pleasure in it all the same.—Bring the picture down from your room. Shall I come too?

ALVA. No, Heaven's sake! You must spare yourself!

LULU. I've been sparing myself long enough now! (Alva goes out, right, to get the picture.) He has heart-trouble; but to have to plague one's self with imagination fourteen months!... He kisses with the fear of death on him, and his two knees shake like a frozen vagabond's. In God's name.... In this room—if only I had not shot his father in the back!

ALVA. (Returns with the picture of Lulu in the Pierrot-dress.) It's covered with dust. I had leant it against the fire-place, face to the wall.

LULU. You didn't look at it all the time I was away?

ALVA. I had so much business to attend to, with the sale of our paper and everything. Countess Geschwitz would have liked to have hung it up in her house, but she had to be prepared for search-warrants. (He puts the picture on the easel.)

LULU. (Merrily.) Now the poor monster is learning the joys of life in Hotel Ox-butter by her own experience.

ALVA. Even now I don't understand how events hang together.

LULU. Oh, Geschwitz arranged it all very cleverly. I must admire her inventiveness. But the cholera must have raged fearfully in Hamburg this summer; and on that she founded her plan for freeing me. She took a course in hospital nursing here, and when she had the necessary documents she journeyed to Hamburg with them and nursed the cholera patients. At the first opportunity that offered she put on the underclothes in which a sick woman had just died and which really ought to have been burnt. The same morning she traveled back here and came to see me in prison. In my cell, while the wardress was outside, we, as quick as we could, exchanged underclothes.

ALVA. So that was the reason why the Countess and you fell sick of the cholera the same day!

LULU. Exactly, that was it! Geschwitz of course was instantly brought from her house to the contagious ward in the hospital. But with me, too, they couldn't think of any other place to take me. So there we lay in one room in the contagious ward behind the hospital, and from the first day Geschwitz put forth all her art to make our two faces as like each other as possible. Day before yesterday she was let out as cured. Just now she came back and said she'd forgotten her watch. I put on her clothes, she slipped into my prison frock, and then I came away. (With pleasure.) Now she's lying over there as the murderess of Dr. Schön.

ALVA. So far as outward appearance goes you can still agree with the picture as much as ever.

LULU. I'm a little peaked in the face, but otherwise I've lost nothing. Only one gets incredibly nervous in prison.

ALVA. You looked horribly sick when you came in.

LULU. I had to, to get our necks out of the noose.—And you? What have you done in this year and a half?

ALVA. I've had a succès d'estime in literary circles with a play I wrote about you.

LULU. Who's your sweetheart now?

ALVA. An actress I've rented a house for in Karl Street.

LULU. Does she love you?

ALVA. How should I know that? I haven't seen the woman for six weeks.

LULU. Can you stand that?

ALVA. You will