LULU. Put in the next number. No one will notice if I dance now or in five minutes. There's no strength in my feet.
ALVA. But you will dance then?
LULU. As well as I can.
ALVA. As badly as you like. (A knock at the door again.) I'm coming.
LULU. (When Alva is gone.) You are right to show me where my place is. You couldn't do it better than by letting me dance the skirt-dance before your fiancée.... You do me the greatest service when you point out where I belong.
SCHÖN. (Sardonically.) For you with your origin it's incomparable luck to still have the chance of entering before respectable people!
LULU. Even when my shamelessness makes them not know where to look.
SCHÖN. Nonsense!—Shamelessness?—Don't make a necessity of virtue! Your shamelessness is balanced with gold for you at every step. One cries "bravo," another "fie"—it's all the same to you! Can you wish for a more brilliant triumph than when a respectable girl can hardly be kept in the box? Has your life any other aim? As long as you still have a spark of self-respect, you are no perfect dancer. The more terribly you make people shudder, the higher you stand in your profession!
LULU. But it is absolutely indifferent to me what they think of me. I don't, in the least, want to be any better than I am. I'm content with myself.
SCHÖN. (In moral indignation.) That is your true nature. I call that straightforward! A corruption!!