SCHIGOLCH. _(Scanning Lulu's portrait.)_...

SCHIGOLCH. (Scanning Lulu's portrait.) Is that you?

LULU. (Winking.) Pretty fine?

SCHIGOLCH. If all that's genuine.

LULU. Have something sweet?

SCHIGOLCH. What?

LULU. (Getting up.) Elixir de Spaa.

SCHIGOLCH. That doesn't help me—Does he drink?

LULU. (Taking a decanter and glasses from a cupboard near the fireplace.) Not yet. (Coming down stage.) The cordial has such various effects!

SCHIGOLCH. He comes to blows?

LULU. He goes to sleep. (She fills the two glasses.)

SCHIGOLCH. When he's drunk, you can see right into his insides.

LULU. I'd rather not. (Sits opposite Schigolch.) Tell me about it.

SCHIGOLCH. The streets keep on getting longer, and my legs shorter.

LULU. And your harmonica?

SCHIGOLCH. Has bad air, like me with my asthma. I just keep a-thinking it isn't worth the trouble to make it better. (They clink glasses.)

LULU. (Emptying her glass.) I thought you'd come to an end a long time ago—

SCHIGOLCH. To an end—already up and away? I thought so, too. But no matter how early the sun goes down, still we aren't let lie quiet. I'm hoping for winter. Perhaps then my (coughing) —my—my asthma will invent some opportunity to carry me off.

LULU. (Filling the glasses.) Do you think they could have forgotten you on the other side?

SCHIGOLCH. Would be possible, for it certainly isn't going like it usually does. (Stroking her knee.) Now you tell—not seen you a long time—my little Lulu.

LULU. (Jerking back, smiling.) Life is beyond me!

SCHIGOLCH. What do you know about it? You're still so young!

LULU. That you call me Lulu.

SCHIGOLCH. Lulu, isn't it? Have I ever called you anything else?

LULU. In the memory of man my name has no longer been Lulu.

SCHIGOLCH. Another way of naming?

LULU. Lulu sounds to me quite ante-diluvian.

SCHIGOLCH. Children! Children!

LULU. My name now is—

SCHIGOLCH. As if the principle wasn't always the same!

LULU. You mean—?

SCHIGOLCH. What is it now?

LULU. Eve.

SCHIGOLCH. Lept, hopped, skipped, jumped....

LULU. I'm listening.

SCHIGOLCH. (Gazing round.) This is the way I dreamt of it for you. You've aimed straight for it. (Seeing Lulu sprinkling herself with perfume.) What's that?

LULU. Heliotrope.

SCHIGOLCH. Does that smell better than you?

LULU. (Sprinkling him.) That needn't bother you any more.

SCHIGOLCH. Who would have dreamt of this royal luxury before!

LULU. When I think back—Ugh!

SCHIGOLCH. (Stroking her knee.) How's it going with you, then? You still keep at the French?

LULU. I lie and sleep.

SCHIGOLCH. That's genteel. That always looks like something. And afterwards?

LULU. I stretch—till it cracks.

SCHIGOLCH. And when it has cracked?

LULU. What do you mind about that?

SCHIGOLCH. What do I mind about that? What do I mind? I'd rather live till the last trump and renounce all heavenly joys than leave my Lulu deprived of anything down here behind me. What do I mind about that? It's my sympathy. To be sure, my better self is already transfigured—but I still have some sense for this world.

LULU. I haven't.

SCHIGOLCH. You're too well off.

LULU. (Shuddering.) Idiot....

SCHIGOLCH. Better than with the old dancing-bear?

LULU. (Sadly.) I don't dance any more.

SCHIGOLCH. For him it was time, too.

LULU. Now I am— (Stops.)

SCHIGOLCH. Speak how it is with you, child! I believed in you when there was no more to be seen in you than your two big eyes. What are you now?

LULU. A beast....

SCHIGOLCH. That you—! And what kind of a beast? A fine beast! An elegant beast! A glorified beast! Then I'll let them bury me. We're through with prejudices—even with the one against the corpse-washer.

LULU. You needn't be afraid that you will be washed once more.

SCHIGOLCH. Doesn't matter, either. One gets dirty again.

LULU. (Sprinkling him.) It would call you back to life again!

SCHIGOLCH. We are mud.

LULU. I beg your pardon! I rub grease into myself every day and then powder on top of it.

SCHIGOLCH. Probably worth while, too, on the dressed-up mucker's account.

LULU. It makes the skin like satin.

SCHIGOLCH. As if it weren't just dirt all the same!

LULU. Thank you. I wish to be worth biting at!

SCHIGOLCH. We are. Give a big dinner down below there pretty soon. Keep open house.

LULU. Your guests will hardly over-eat themselves at it.

SCHIGOLCH. Patience, girl! Your worshippers won't put you in alcohol, either. It's "Schöne Melusine" as long as it keeps buoyant. Afterwards? They don't take it at the zoölogical garden. (Rising.) The gentle beasties might get stomach-cramps.

LULU. (Getting up.) Have you enough?

SCHIGOLCH. There's still enough left over to plant a juniper on my grave. I'll find my own way out.

Wedekind, Frank. Erdgeist. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29682/29682-h/29682-h.htm

Full-text of Erdgeist on Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/29682/29682-h/29682-h.htm