SCHÖN--Away with you, or my brains will crack to-morrow and my son swim in his blood! You infect me like an incurable pest in which I shall groan away the rest of my life. I =will= cure myself! Do you understand? [_Pressing the revolver on her._] This is your physic. Don’t break down; don’t kneel! You yourself shall apply it. You or I--which is it to be? [LULU, _her strength threatening to desert her, has sunk down on the couch, turning the revolver this way and that_.] LULU--It doesn’t go off. SCHÖN--Do you still recall how I snatched you out of the clutches of the police? LULU--You have great confidence---- SCHÖN--Because I’m not afraid of a street-girl? Shall I guide your hand for you? Have you no mercy towards yourself? [LULU _points the revolver at him_.] No false alarms! [LULU _fires a shot into the ceiling_. RODRIGO _springs out of the portières, up the stairs and away thru the gallery_.] What was that? LULU--[_Innocently._] Nothing. SCHÖN--[_Lifting the portières._] What flew out of here? LULU--You’re suffering from persecution-mania. SCHÖN--Have you got still more men hidden here? [_Tearing the revolver from her._] Is yet another man calling on you? [_Going left._] I’ll regale your men! [_Throws up the window-curtains, flings the fire-screen back, grabs_ COUNTESS GESCHWITZ _by the collar and drags her forward_.] Did you come down the chimney? GESCHWITZ--[_In deadly terror, to_ LULU.] Save me from him! SCHÖN--[_Shaking her._] Or are you, too, an acrobat? GESCHWITZ--[_Whimpering._] You hurt me. SCHÖN--[_Shaking her._] Now you will =have= to stay to dinner. [_Drags her right, shoves her into the next room and locks the door after her._] We want no town-criers. [_Sits next to_ LULU _and makes her take the revolver again._] There’s still enough for you in it. Look at me! I cannot assist the coachman in my house to decorate my forehead for me. Look at me! I pay my coachman. Look at me! Am I doing the coachman a favor if I can’t bear the vile stable-stench? LULU--Have the carriage got ready! Please! We’re going to the opera. SCHÖN--We’re going to the devil! Now I am coachman. [_Turning the revolver in her hand from himself to_ LULU’S _breast_.] Do you believe that anyone, abused as you have abused me, would hesitate between an old age of slavish infamy and the merit of freeing the world from =you=? [_Holds her down by the arm._] Come, get through. It shall be the happiest remembrance of my life. Pull the trigger! LULU--You can get a divorce.