it twenty thousand marks to-morrow in
your name at any bank you say.

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

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

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.

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!

LULU. (_Watchfully._) She is still a virgin.

RODRIGO. (_Sighing._) If there's a God in heaven, you'll get paid for
your jokes some day! I prophesy that.

LULU. Geschwitz waits. What shall I tell her?

RODRIGO. My very best wishes, and I am perverse.

LULU. I will deliver that.

RODRIGO. Wait a sec. Is it certain sure I get twenty thousand marks
from her?

LULU. Ask herself!

RODRIGO. Then tell her I'm ready. I await her in the dining-room. I
must just first look after a barrel of caviare. (_Exit, left. Lulu
opens the rear door and calls in a clear voice "Martha!" Countess
Geschwitz enters, closing the door behind her._)

LULU. (_Pleased._) Dear heart, you can save me from death to-night.

GESCHWITZ. How?

LULU. By going to a certain house with the acrobat.

GESCHWITZ. What for, dear?

LULU. He says you must belong to him this very night or he'll
denounce me to-morrow.

GESCHWITZ. You know I can't belong to any man. My fate has not
permitted that.

LULU. If you don't please him, that's his own fix. Why has he fallen
in love with you?

GESCHWITZ. But he'll get as brutal as a hangman. He'll revenge
himself for his disappointment and beat my head in. I've been thru
that already.... Can you not possibly spare me this hardest test?

LULU. What will you gain by his denouncing me?

GESCHWITZ. I have still enough of my fortune to take us to America
together in the steerage. There you'd be safe from all your pursuers.

LULU. (_Pleased and gay._) I want to stay here. I can never be happy
in any other city. You must tell him that you can't live without him.
Then he'll feel flattered and be gentle as a lamb. You must pay the
coachman, too: give him this paper with the address on it. 376 is a
sixth-class hotel where they're expecting you with him this evening