RODRIGO--I’ve ordered a hippopotamus-whip two inches thick. If that has no success with her, you can fill my cranium with potato-soup. Be it love or be it whipping, female flesh never inquires. Only give it some amusement, and it stays firm and fresh. She is now in her twentieth year, has been married three times and has satisfied a gigantic horde of lovers, and her heart’s desires are at last pretty plain. But the man’s got to have the seven deadly sins on his forehead, or she honors him not. If he looks as if a dog-catcher had spat him out on the street, then, with such women-folks, he needn’t be afraid of a prince! I’ll rent a garage fifty feet high and break her in there; and when she’s learnt the first diving-leap without breaking her neck I’ll pull on a black coat and not stir a finger the rest of my life. With her practical equipment it costs a woman not half the trouble to support her husband as the other way round, if only the man looks after the mental work for her, and doesn’t let the sense of the family go to wreck. ALVA--I have learnt how to master humanity and drive it in harness before me like a well-broken four-in-hand,--but that boy sticks in my head. Really, I can still take private lessons in the scorn of the world from that schoolboy! RODRIGO--She’ll just comfortably let her hide be papered with thousand-mark bills! I’ll extract salaries out of the directors with a centrifugal pump. I know their kind. When they don’t need a man, let him shine their shoes for them; but when they must have an artiste they’ll cut her down from the very gallows with their own hands and with the most binding compliments. ALVA--In my circumstances there’s nothing left in the world that I should fear--but death. Yet in feelings and sensations I am the poorest beggar.--However, I can no longer scrape up the moral courage to exchange my established position for the excitements of the wild, adventurous life! RODRIGO--She had sicked Papa Schigolch and me out on a hunt together to rout her out some strong antidote for insomnia. We each got a twenty-mark piece for expenses. There in the Nightlight Café we see the youngster sitting like a criminal on the prisoner’s bench. Schigolch sniffed at him from all sides, and remarked, “He is still virgin.” [_Up in the gallery, dragging steps are heard._] There she is! The future magnificent trapeze-artiste of the present age! [_The curtains part at the stair-head, and_ LULU _appears, supported by_ SCHIGOLCH _and in_ COUNTESS GESCHWITZ’S _black dress, slowly and wearily descending_.] SCHIGOLCH--Hui, old moldy! We’ve still to get over the frontier to-day. RODRIGO--[_Glaring stupidly at_ LULU.] Thunder of heaven! Death! LULU--[_Speaks, to the end of the act, in the gayest tones._] Slowly! You’re pinching my arm! RODRIGO--How did you ever get the shamelessness to break out of prison with such a wolf’s face? SCHIGOLCH--Stop your snout!