ALVA. (_Suddenly with renewed life, deeply pleased._) Why, I should like to know? Looking on this picture I regain my self-respect. It makes my fate comprehensible to me. Everything we have endured gets clear as day. (_In a somewhat elegiac strain._) Let him who feels secure in his middle-class position when he sees these blossoming pouting lips, these child-eyes, big and innocent, this rose-white body abounding in life,--let him cast the first stone at us! SCHIGOLCH. We must nail it up. It will make an excellent impression on our patrons. ALVA. (_Energetic._) There's a nail sticking all ready for it in the wall. SCHIGOLCH. But how did you come upon this acquisition? GESCHWITZ. I secretly cut it out of the wall in your house, there, after you were gone. ALVA. Too bad the color's got rubbed off round the edges. You didn't roll it up carefully enough. (_Fastens it to a high nail in the wall._) SCHIGOLCH. It's got to have another one underneath if it's going to hold. It makes the whole flat look more elegant. ALVA. Let me alone; I know how I'll do it. (_He tears several nails out of the wall, pulls off his left boot, and with its heel nails the edges of the picture to the wall._) SCHIGOLCH. It's just got to hang a while again, to get its proper effect. Whoever looks at that'll imagine afterwards he's been in an Indian harem. ALVA. (_Putting on his boot again, standing up proudly._) Her body was at its highest point of development when that picture was painted. The lamp, kid dear! Seems to me it's got extraordinarily dark. GESCHWITZ. He must have been an eminently gifted artist who painted that! LULU. (_Perfectly composed again, stepping before the picture with the lamp._) Didn't you know him, then? GESCHWITZ. No. It must have been long before my time. I only occasionally heard chance remarks of yours, that he had cut his throat from persecution-mania. ALVA. (_Comparing the picture with Lulu._) The child-like expression in the eyes is still absolutely the same in spite of all she has lived thru since. (_In joyous excitement._) The dewy freshness that covered her skin, the sweet-smelling breath from her lips, the rays of light that beam from her white forehead, and this challenging splendor of young flesh in throat and arms-- SCHIGOLCH. All that's gone with the rubbish wagon. She can say with self-assurance: That was me once! The man she falls into the hands of to-day 'll have no conception of what we were when we were young. ALVA. (_Cheerfully._) God be thanked, we don't notice the continual decline when we see a person all the time. (_Lightly._) The woman blooms for us in the moment when she hurls the man to destruction for the rest of his life. That is her nature and her destiny.