IV. Abortion scene.
The variety dancer Lola Lalà: The clever woman said jokingly: When women break down, they remain standing for a long time.—Farewell, young lady. Lola Lalà, alias Lene Levi, runs as though insane.
V. Burglary scene at Lola's: —The professional burglar Benjamin, lying under the bed, didn't know what to think. His head shook and his skull hit a senseless bedpost, which gave off a fixed tone. Benjamin was frightened. The lamp fell over. The curtains ignited immediately.
Suddenly she (Lola Lalà) also became frightened. Everything slurped up by licking fire. Ran out. Shut the door. Locked it. Twice. Senseless. Suddenly, pitiful masculine shouts from behind the door: Help, help. She screamed: Murderer, murderer, murderer. Ran. Onto the street in the peace of the evening: People coming out of houses. Helpless. She ran by all of them. Murderer, murderer… A crazy woman came up behind her. A dog catcher was able to grasp her. Murderer, murderer. Took her in an open hackney cab and through the town. Murderer, murderer. Windows go up, cars stop. Running about. Into lunatic section of the hospital.
In the meantime, burning room. Burglar Benjamin thrashing at the window: Help. Forbidden action. Help. One shouldn’t become a social democrat that way. Wailing: a police trap, to let decent people burn in a fire. Help, help. Fire department comes. Help. Water sprays him. From the frying pan into the fire. He can even jump right now into the river. Drowns.
When the half-decayed corpse was pulled from the water, the doctor, still drunk, began to make bad jokes. Dr. Bryller vomited.
All talking, thinking, writing is useless; a corpse pulled from the water, lying dead in front of you, ruins everything written with its terrible distortion. See how the face and the hands are rigid as though clamped in iron! As though they are screaming to get out of themselves!
VI. Lunatic asylum scene: the insane red-haired sister of Martin
Müller (Maria).
"The earth is getting dark", said Maria, the insane red-haired sister of Martin Müller. (She loves her brother). She strokes little Kohn, but says: "I can love only saints". All around were the melodies of the evening, which conceal everything as with a silk veil: the green trees, the longing earth, the bench with the red-haired girl and the little humpback.
In the lunatic asylum: one inmate, a lady with hair already rather gray, said: "If one stops here too long, one stays."—A modern writer who imagines he is there only to study the milieu, but who has, in reality, a softening of the brain, etc.