LULU--Why don’t =you= go out and get us something to eat? You’ve never earned a penny in your whole life! ALVA--In this weather, when no one would kick a dog from his door? LULU--But me! I, with the little blood I have left in my limbs, I am to stop your mouths! ALVA--I don’t touch a farthing of the money! SCHIGOLCH--Let her go, just! I long for one more Christmas pudding; then I’ve had enough. ALVA--And I long for one more beefsteak and a cigarette; then die! I was just dreaming of a cigarette, such as has never yet been smoked! SCHIGOLCH--She’ll rather see us finished before her eyes, than go and do herself a little pleasure. LULU--The people on the street will sooner leave cloak and coat in my hands than go with me for nothing! If you hadn’t sold my clothes, I at least wouldn’t need to be afraid of the lamp-light. I’d like to see the woman who could earn anything in the rags I’m wearing on my body! ALVA--I have left nothing human untried. As long as I had money I spent whole nights making up tables with which one couldn’t help winning against the cleverest card-sharps. And yet evening after evening I lost more than if I had shaken out gold by the pailful. Then I offered my services to the courtesans; but they don’t take anyone that the courts haven’t first branded, and they see at the first glance if one’s related to the guillotine or not. SCHIGOLCH--Ya, ya. ALVA--I spared myself no disillusionments; but when I made jokes, they laughed at =me=, and when I behaved as respectable as I am, they boxed my ears, and when I tried being smutty, they got so chaste and maidenly that my hair stood up on my head for horror. Him who has not prevailed over society, they have no confidence in. SCHIGOLCH--Won’t you kindly put on your boots now, child? I don’t think I shall grow much older in this lodging. It’s months since I had any feeling in the ends of my toes. Toward midnight, I’ll drink a bit more down in the pub. The lady that keeps it told me yesterday I still had a serious chance of becoming her lover. LULU--In the name of the three devils, I’ll go down! [_She puts to her mouth the bottle on the flower-table._] SCHIGOLCH--So they can smell your stink a half-hour off! LULU--I shan’t drink it all. ALVA--You won’t go down. You’re my woman. You shan’t go down. I forbid it! LULU--What would you forbid your woman when you can’t support yourself? ALVA--Whose fault is that? Who but my woman has laid me on the sick-bed? LULU--Am _I_ sick? ALVA--Who has trailed me thru the dung? Who has made me my father’s murderer? LULU--Did =you= shoot him? He didn’t lose much, but when I see you lying there I could hack off both my hands for having sinned against my judgment! [_She goes out, into her room._] ALVA--She infected me from her Casti-Piani. It’s a long time since she was susceptible to it herself! SCHIGOLCH--Little devils like her can’t begin putting up with it too soon, if angels are ever going to come out of them.