[Pg 51]

 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. 

LULU.

 RODRIGO. What's the beast waiting for? 

RODRIGO.

 LULU. For you, to take her with you. 

LULU.

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

RODRIGO.

 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. 

LULU.

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

RODRIGO.

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

LULU.

 RODRIGO. Devil and damnation! 

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

LULU.

 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! 

RODRIGO.

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