ELFRIEDE--[_Passionately._] That was the blinding-bright enlightenment! CASTI-PIANI--What am I still doing in the world, if even sensual pleasure is nothing but a hellish flaying of man, nothing but a satanic butchery of mankind, like all the rest of our earthly existence?! So =that’s= the true aspect of the =one divine ray= that pierces the horrible night of our tormented life! Oh, if only I had shot a bullet through my head half a century ago! Then I would have been spared this pitiful bankruptcy of my bilked and swindled spiritual wealth. ELFRIEDE--What is there still for you to do in the world? I can tell you! You trade in girls. You boast you trade in girls. Anyway, you have the closest relations with all the places that count in the white slave trade. Sell me! I beseech you, sell me into a house like this! You can make a very lucrative bargain of me! I have never loved; and, surely, that doesn’t lower my value! I won’t bring you any disgrace! You shall add, by me, to the honor in which your customers hold you! I promise! I will guarantee myself to you with any oath you ask me! CASTI-PIANI--[_Half-crazed._] What will keep me from breaking my neck? What will help me across the icy shudders of death? ELFRIEDE--I will help you across! _I!_ Sell me! Then you’ll be saved! CASTI-PIANI--Who are =you=? ELFRIEDE--I want to find my death in the joy of the senses. I want to give myself up to be slaughtered on the altar of sensuous love! CASTI-PIANI--Am I to sell you--=you=? ELFRIEDE--I want to die the martyr’s death that this girl who was just here is dying! Have _I_ no natural human rights the same as others? CASTI-PIANI--Heaven preserve me from it! [_With mounting emphasis._] This--this--this is the =derisive laughter of Hell=, that rings above my plunge into death! ELFRIEDE--[_Sinking to his feet._] Sell me! Sell me! CASTI-PIANI--The most terrible times of my life arise before me. Once before, I sold in the love-market a girl whom nature had not intended for it! For that crime against nature I spent six full years behind =prison bars=. Of course she, too, was one of those temperamentless creatures in whose =faces= one can see “big feet.” ELFRIEDE--[_Clasping his knees._] On my soul I implore you, sell me! You were right. My activity in combating the white slave traffic was unsatisfied sensuality. But my sensuousness is =not= weak! Ask me for proofs. Shall I kiss you madly, insanely? CASTI-PIANI--[_In utmost despair._] And this ear-piercing howl of suffering at my feet? What =is= that! This echoing shriek for help from birth-pangs, woes of life, and death-agonies I will no longer endure. I cannot stand this earth’s continuous crying any longer! ELFRIEDE--[_Wringing her hands._] =To you yourself=, if you will, I will yield up my virginity! =To you yourself=, if you will, I will give my first love-night!