ould take you from us!

LULU. You've composed the music for it, though.

ALVA. You know that it was always my wish to write a piece for you.

LULU. I am not at all made for the stage, however.

ALVA. You came into the world a dancer!

LULU. Why don't you write your things at least as interesting as life
is?

ALVA. Because if we did no man would believe us.

LULU. If I didn't know more about acting than the people on the stage
do, what might not have happened to me?

ALVA. I've provided your part with all the impossibilities imaginable,
though.

LULU. With hocus-pocus like that no dog is lured from the stove in the
real world.

ALVA. It's enough for me that the public finds itself most tremendously
stirred up.

LULU. But _I_'d like to find myself most tremendously stirred up.
(Drinks.)

ALVA. You don't seem to be in need of much more for that.

LULU. No one of them realizes anything about the others. Each thinks
that he alone is the unhappy victim.

ALVA. But how can you feel that?

LULU. There runs up one's body such an icy shudder.

ALVA. You are incredible. (An electric bell rings over the door.)

LULU. My cape.... I shall keep in the proscenium!

ALVA. (Putting a wide shawl round her shoulders.) Here is your cape.

LULU. He shall have nothing more to fear for his shameless boosting.

ALVA. Keep yourself under control!

LULU. God grant that I dance the last sparks of intelligence out of
their heads. (Exit.)

ALVA. Yes, a more interesting piece could be written about her. (Sits,
right, and takes out his note-book. Writes. Looks up.) First act:
Dr. Goll. Rotten already! I can call up Dr. Goll from purgatory or
wherever else he's doing penance for his orgies, but I'll be made
responsible for his sins. (Long-continued but much deadened applause
and bravos outside.) They rage there as in a menagery when the meat
appears at the cage. Second act: Walter Schwarz. Still more impossible!
How our souls do strip off their last coverings in the light of such
lightning-strokes! Third act? Is it really to go on this way? (The
attendant opens the door from outside and lets Escerny enter. He acts
as though he were at home, and without greeting Alva takes the chair
near the mirror. Alva continues, not heeding him.) It can not go on
this way in the third act!

ESCERNY. Up to the middle of the third act it didn't seem to go so well
to-day as usual.

ALVA. I was not on the stage.

ESCERNY. Now she's in fu