isillusionments; but when I made jokes,
they laughed at *me*, and when I behaved as respectable as I am, they
boxed my ears, and when I tried being smutty, they got so chaste and
maidenly that my hair stood up on my head for horror. He who has not
prevailed over society, they have no confidence in.

SCHIGOLCH. Won't you kindly put on your boots now, child? I don't
think I shall grow much older in this lodging. It's months since I
had any feeling in the ends of my toes. Toward midnight, I'll drink a
bit more down in the pub. The lady that keeps it told me yesterday I
seemed to really want to be her lover.

LULU. In the name of the three devils, I'll go down! (_She puts to
her mouth the bottle on the flower-table._)

SCHIGOLCH. So they can smell your stink a half-hour off!

LULU. I shan't drink it all.

ALVA. You won't go down. You're my woman. You shan't go down. I
forbid it!

LULU. What would you forbid your woman when you can't support
yourself?

ALVA. Whose fault is that? Who but my woman has laid me on the
sick-bed?

LULU. Am I sick?

ALVA. Who has trailed me thru the dung? Who has made me my father's
murderer?

LULU. Did *you* shoot him? He didn't lose much, but when I see you
lying there I could hack off both my hands for having sinned so
against my judgment! (_She goes out, into her room._)

ALVA. She infected me from her Casti-Piani. It's a long time since
she was susceptible to it herself!

SCHIGOLCH. Little devils like her can't begin putting up with it too
soon, if angels are ever going to come out of them.

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! She's only got to take the right road
into the business at the start.

LULU. It's all right with me! Nothing's wrong with me any more.
(_Puts the bottle to her lips._) That warms 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 stil