ESCERNY. To be deceived by a girl like you must be ten times more enrapturing than to be uprightly loved by anybody else.
LULU. You have never in your life been uprightly loved by a girl! (Turning her back to him and pointing.) Would you undo this knot for me? I've laced myself too tight. I am always so excited getting dressed.
ESCERNY. (After repeated efforts.) I'm sorry; I can't.
LULU. Then leave it. Perhaps I can. (Goes left.)
ESCERNY. I confess that I am lacking in deftness. Maybe I was not docile enough with women.
LULU. And probably you don't have much opportunity to be so in Africa, either?
ESCERNY. (Seriously.) Let me openly admit to you that my loneliness in the world embitters many hours.
LULU. The knot is almost done....
ESCERNY. What draws me to you is not your dancing. It's your physical and mental refinement, as it is revealed in every one of your movements. Anyone who is so much interested in art as I am could not be deceived in that. For ten evenings I've been studying your spiritual life in your dance, until to-day when you entered as the flower-girl I became perfectly clear. Yours is a grand nature—unselfish; you can see no one suffer; you embody the joy of life. As a wife you will make a man happy above all things.... You are all open-heartedness. You would be a poor actor. (The bell rings again.)
LULU. (Having somewhat loosened her laces, takes a deep breath and jingles her spurs.) Now I can breathe again. The curtain is going up. (She takes from the centre table a skirt-dance costume—of bright yellow silk, without a waist, closed at the neck, reaching to the ankles, with wide, loose sleeves—and throws it over her.) I must dance.