u're in bad temper. (Schoen controls himself.)

GESCHWITZ. (Getting up.) I must go, Mrs. Schoen. I can't stay any
longer. This evening we have life-class, and I have still so much to
get ready for the ball. Good-bye, Dr. Schoen. (Exit, up-stage. Lulu
accompanies her. Schoen looks around him.)

SCHOEN. Pure Augean stable. That, the end of my life. They ought to show
me a corner that's still clean. The pest in the house. The poorest
day-laborer has his tidy nest. Thirty years' work, and this my family
circle, the circle of my people-- (Glancing round.) God knows who is
overhearing me again now! (Draws a revolver from his breast pocket.)
Man is, indeed, uncertain of his life! (The cocked revolver in his
right hand, he goes left and speaks at the closed window curtains.)
That, my family circle! The fellow still has courage! Shall I not
rather shoot =myself= in the head? Against deadly enemies one fights,
but the-- (Throws up the curtains, but finds no one hidden behind
them.) The dirt--the dirt.... (Shakes his head and crosses right.)
Insanity has already conquered my reason, or else--exceptions prove the
rule! (Hearing Lulu coming he puts the revolver back in his pocket.
Lulu comes down right.)

LULU. Couldn't you get away for this afternoon?

SCHOEN. Just what did that Countess want?

LULU. I don't know. She wants to paint me.

SCHOEN. Misfortune in human guise, that waits upon one.

LULU. Couldn't you get away, then? I would so like to drive thru the
grounds with you.

SCHOEN. Just the day when I must be at the exchange. You know that I'm
not free to-day. All my property is drifting on the waves.

LULU. I'd sooner be dead and buried than let my life be embittered so
by my property.

SCHOEN. Who takes life lightly does not take death hard.

LULU. As a child I always had the most horrible fear of death.

SCHOEN. That is just why I married you.

LULU. (With her arms round his neck.) You're in bad humor. You give
yourself too much work. For weeks and months I've seen nothing of you.

SCHOEN. (Stroking her hair.) Your light-heartedness should cheer up my
old days.

LULU. Indeed, you didn't marry me at all.

SCHOEN. Who else did I marry then?

LULU. I married you!

SCHOEN. How does that alter anything?

LULU. I was always afraid it would alter a great deal.

SCHOEN. It has, indeed, crushed a great deal underfoot.

LULU. But not one thing, praise God!

SCHOEN. Of that I should be covetous.

LULU. Y