LULU. Bring it down here now. LULU. ALVA. Didn't you even lose your vanity in prison? ALVA. 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? LULU. ALVA. No, Heaven's sake! You must spare yourself! ALVA. 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! LULU. 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. ALVA. LULU. You didn't look at it all the time I was away? LULU. 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.) ALVA. LULU. (Merrily.) Now the poor monster is learning the joys of life in Hotel Ox-butter by her own experience. LULU. ALVA. Even now I don't understand how events hang together. ALVA.
Prev.
Back
Top