ALVA--She ought to have been born Empress of Russia. Then she’d have been in the right place. A second Catherine the Second! [LULU _re-enters with a worn-out pair of boots, and sits on the floor to put them on_.] LULU--If only I don’t go headfirst down the stairs! Ugh, how cold! Is there anything in the world more dismal than a daughter of joy? SCHIGOLCH--Patience, patience! It’s just a question of getting the right push into the business. LULU--It’ll be all right with me! No one need pity me any more. [_Puts the bottle to her lips._] That fires one!--O accursed! [_Exit._] SCHIGOLCH--When we hear her coming, we must creep into my cubby-hole awhile. ALVA--I’m damned sorry for her! When I think back.... I grew up with her in a way, you know. SCHIGOLCH--She’ll hold out as long as I live, anyway. ALVA--We treated each other at first like brother and sister. Mama was still living then. I met her by chance one morning when she was dressing. Dr. Goll had been called for a consultation. Her hairdresser had read my first poem, that I’d had printed in “Society”: “Follow thy pack far over the mountains; it will return again, covered with sweat and dust----” SCHIGOLCH--Oh, ya! ALVA--And then she came, in rose-colored muslin, with nothing under it but a white satin slip--for the Spanish ambassador’s ball. Dr. Goll seemed to feel his death near. He asked me to dance with her, so she shouldn’t cause any mad acts. Papa meanwhile never turned his eyes from us, and all thru the waltz she was looking over my shoulder, only at him.... Afterwards she shot him. It is unbelievable. SCHIGOLCH--I’ve only got a strong doubt whether anyone will bite any more. ALVA--I shouldn’t like to advise anyone to! [SCHIGOLCH _grunts_.]--At that time, tho she was a fully developed woman, she had the expression of a five-year-old, joyous, utterly healthy child. And she was only three years younger than me then--but how long ago it is now! For all her immense superiority in matters of practical life, she let me explain “Tristan and Isolde” to her--and how entrancingly she could listen! Out of the little sister who even in her marriage still felt like a schoolgirl, came the unhappy, hysterical artist’s wife. Out of the artist’s wife came then the spouse of my murdered father, and out of =her= came, then, my mistress. Well, so that is the way of the world. Who will prevail against it? SCHIGOLCH--If only she doesn’t skid away from the gentlemen with honorable intentions and bring us up instead some vagabond she’s exchanged her heart’s secrets with.