orture
the helpless victims sacrificed to you by their inscrutable destiny.
My own plight has not yet wrung from me the pity that I feel for you.
_I_ feel free as a god when I think to what creatures *you* are
enslaved.

LULU. Who do you mean?

GESCHWITZ. Casti-Piani, upon whose forehead the most degenerate
baseness is written in letters of fire!

LULU. Be silent! I'll kick you, if you speak ill of *him*. He loves
me with an uprightness against which your most venturous
self-sacrifices are poor as beggary! He gives me such proofs of
self-denial as reveal *you* for the first time in all your
loathsomeness! You didn't get finished in your mother's womb, neither
as woman nor as man. You have no human nature like the rest of us.
The stuff didn't go far enough for a man, and for a woman you got too
much brain into your skull. That's the reason you're crazy! Turn to
Miss Bianetta! She can be had for everything for pay! Press a
gold-piece into her hand and she'll belong to you. (_All the_
_company save Kadidia throng in out of the card-room._) For the
Lord's sake, what has happened?

PUNTSCHU. Nothing whatever! We're thirsty, that's all.

MAGELONE. Everybody has won. We can't believe it.

BIANETTA. It seems I have won a whole fortune!

LUDMILLA. Don't boast of it, my child. That isn't lucky.

MAGELONE. But the bank has won, too! How is that *possible*?

ALVA. It is colossal, where all the money comes from!

CASTI-PIANI. Let us not ask! Enough that we need not spare the
champagne.

HEILMANN. I can pay for a supper in a respectable restaurant
afterwards, anyway!

ALVA. To the buffet, ladies! Come to the buffet! (_All exeunt, lower
left._)

RODRIGO. (_Holding Lulu back._) Un momong, my heart. Have you read my
billet-doux?

LULU. Threaten me with discovery as much as you like! I have no more
twenty thousands to dispose of.

RODRIGO. Don't lie to me, you punk! You've still got forty thousand
in Jungfrau-stock. Your so-called spouse has just been bragging of it
himself!

LULU. Then turn to *him* with your blackmailing! It's all one to me
what he does with his money.

RODRIGO. Thank you! With that blockhead I'd need twice twenty-four
hours to make him grasp what I was talking about. And then come his
explanations, that make one deathly sick; and meanwhile my bride
writes me "It's all up!" and I can just hang a hurdy-gurdy over my
shoulder.

LULU. Have you got engaged here, then?

RODRIGO. Maybe I ought to