LULU--[_Merrily._] Now the poor monster is getting personally acquainted with the life of joy in Hotel Ox-butter! ALVA--Even now I don’t understand how events hang together. LULU--Oh, Geschwitz arranged it all very cleverly. I do admire her inventiveness. But the cholera must have raged fearfully in Hamburg this summer; and on that she based her plan for freeing me. She took a course in hospital nursing here, and when she had the necessary documents she journeyed to Hamburg with them and nursed the cholera patients. At the first opportunity that offered she put on the underclothes that a sick woman had just died in and which really ought to have been burnt. The same morning she traveled back here and came to see me in prison. In my cell, while the wardress was outside, we two, as quick as we could, exchanged underclothes. ALVA--So that was the reason why the Countess and you fell sick of the cholera the same day! LULU--Exactly, that was it! Geschwitz of course was instantly brought from her house to the contagious ward in the hospital. But with me, too, they couldn’t think of any other place to take me. So there we lay in one room in the contagious ward behind the hospital, and from the first day Geschwitz put forth all her art to make our two faces as like each other as possible. Day before yesterday she was let out as cured. Just now she came back and said she’d forgotten her watch. I put on her clothes, she slipped into my prison frock, and then I came away. [_With pleasure._] Now she’s lying over there as the murderess of Dr. Schön. ALVA--So far as outward appearance goes you can hold your own with the picture as well as ever. LULU--I’m a little peaked in the face, but otherwise I’ve lost nothing. Only one gets incredibly nervous in prison. ALVA--You looked horribly sick when you came in. LULU--I had to, to get our necks out of the noose.--And you? What have you done in this year and a half? ALVA--I’ve had a succès d’estime in literary circles with a play I wrote about you. LULU--Who’s your sweetheart now? ALVA--An actress I’ve rented a house for in Karl Street. LULU--Does she love you? ALVA--How should I know that? I haven’t seen the woman for six weeks. LULU--Can you stand that? ALVA--You will never grasp it--but with me there’s the closest alternation between my sensuality and my creative powers. So, as regards you, for example, I have to make the choice of either setting you forth artistically or of loving you. LULU--[_In a fairy-story tone._] I used to dream, once, every other night, that I’d fallen into the hands of a sadist.... Come, give me a kiss! ALVA--It’s shining in your eyes like the water in a deep well one has just thrown a stone into. LULU--Come! ALVA--[_Kisses her._] Your lips have got pretty thin, sure enough.