SCHÖN--[_Raging._] Do you imagine =you= stand in the way? LULU--[_From here to the end of the act triumphant._] If you knew how happy your rage is making me! How proud I am that you take every means to humble me! You push me down as low--as low as a woman can be debased to, for then, you hope, you can sooner get over me. But you have suffered unspeakably yourself from everything you said just now to me. I see it in your eyes. Already you are near the end of your composure. Go! For your innocent fiancée’s sake, leave me alone! One minute more and your mood will change, and then you’ll make a scene with me of another kind, that you can’t answer for now. SCHÖN--I fear you no longer. LULU--Me? Fear yourself! I do not need you. I beg you to go! Don’t give me the blame. You know that I don’t need to faint to destroy your future. You have unlimited confidence in my honorableness. You believe not only that I’m an ensnaring daughter of Eve; you believe, too, that I’m a very good-natured creature. I am neither the one nor the other. The bad thing for you is that you think I am. SCHÖN--[_Desperate._] Leave my thoughts alone! You have two husbands under the sod. Take the Prince, dance =him= into the ground. I am through with you. I know where the angel in you leaves off and the devil begins. If I take the world as it’s made, the Creator must bear the responsibility, not I! To me life is not an amusement! LULU--And, therefore, you make claims upon life greater than anyone can make.... Tell me, who of us two is more full of claims and demands, you or I? SCHÖN--Be silent! I don’t know how or what I think. When I hear you, I don’t think any more. In a week I’ll be married. I conjure you, by the angel that is in you, during that time come no more to my sight! LULU--I will lock my doors. SCHÖN--Go on and boast! God knows that since I began wrestling with the world and with life I have cursed no one like you! LULU--That comes from my lowly origin. SCHÖN--From your depravity! LULU--With a thousand pleasures I take the blame on myself! You must feel clean now; you must think yourself a model of austerity now, a paragon of unflinching principle--or else you can’t marry the child at all in her boundless inexperience---- SCHÖN--Do you want me to grab you and---- LULU--Yes! Yes! What must I say to make you? Not for the world now would I exchange with the innocent child! Besides, the girl loves you as no woman has ever loved you yet! SCHÖN--Silence, beast! Silence! LULU--Marry her--and then she’ll dance in her childish wretchedness before =my= eyes, instead of I before hers! SCHÖN--[_Raising his fists._] God forgive me---- LULU--Strike me! Where is your riding-whip? Strike me on the legs---- SCHÖN--[_Grasping his temples._] Away, away! [_Rushes to the door, recollects himself, turns around._] Can I go before the girl now, this way? Home!--If I could only slip out of the world!