SCHÖN. I cannot go to her. LULU. Out with you. Come back to me when you have regained your strength again. SCHÖN. Tell me in God's name what I must do. LULU. (Gets up; her cloak remains on the chair. Shoving aside the costumes on the centre table.) Here is writing-paper-- SCHÖN. I can't write.... LULU. (Upright behind him, her arm on the back of his chair.) Write! "My dear young lady...." SCHÖN. (Hesitating.) I call her Adelheid ... LULU. (With emphasis.) "My dear young lady ..." SCHÖN. My sentence of death! (He writes.) LULU. "Take back your promise. I cannot reconcile it with my conscience--" (Schön drops the pen and glances up at her entreatingly.) Write conscience!--"to fasten you to my unhappy lot...." SCHÖN. (Writing.) You are right. You are right. LULU. "I give you my word that I am unworthy of your love--" (Schön turns round again.) Write love! "These lines are the proof of it. For three years I have tried to tear myself loose; I have not the strength. I am writing you by the side of the woman that commands me. Forget me. Dr. Ludwig Schön." SCHÖN. (Groaning.) O God! LULU. (Half startled.) No, no O God! (With emphasis.) "Dr. Ludwig Schön." Postscript: "Do not attempt to save me." SCHÖN. (Having written to the end, quite collapses.) Now--comes the--execution. CURTAIN ACT IV _A splendid hall in German Renaissance style, with a thick floor of oak-blocks. The lower half of the walls of dark carved wood; the upper half on both sides hung with faded Gobelins. At rear, a curtained gallery from which a monumental stair-case leads, right, half-way down the stage. At centre, under the gallery, the entrance-door, with twisted posts and pediment. At left, a high and spacious fire-place with a Chinese folding screen before it. Further down, left, a French window onto a balcony, with heavy curtains, closed. Down right, door hung with Genoese velvet. Near it, a broad ottoman, with a chair on its left. Behind, near the foot of the stairs, Lulu's Pierrot-picture on a decorative stand and in a gold frame made to look antique. In the centre of the hall, a heavy square table, with three high-backed upholstered chairs round it and a vase of white flowers on it._ _Countess Geschwitz sits on the ottoman, in a soldier-like, fur-trimmed waist, high, upright collar, enormous cuff-links, a veil over her face and her hands clasped convulsively in her muff. Schön stands down right. Lulu, in a big-flowered morning-dress, her hair in a simple knot in a golden circlet, sits in the arm-chair left of the ottoman._ GESCHWITZ. You can't think how glad I shall be to see you at our artists' ball. (To Lulu.) SCHÖN. Is there no sort of possibility of a person like me smuggling in? GESCHWITZ. It would be high treason if any of us lent herself to such an intrigue. SCHÖN. (Crossing to the centre table, behind the ottoman.) The glorious flowers! LULU. Fräulein von Geschwitz brought me those.