SCHÖN. Then I'll cut down the sword over my head.

LULU. You have, indeed, chained me up. But I owe my happiness to you. You will get friends by the crowd as soon as you have a pretty young wife again.

SCHÖN. You judge women by yourself! He's got the sense of a child or he would have tracked out your doublings and windings long ago.

LULU. I only wish he would! Then, at last he'd get out of his swaddling-clothes. He puts his trust in the marriage contract he has in his pocket. Trouble is past and gone. One can now give oneself and let oneself go as if one were at home. That isn't the sense of a child! It's banal! He has no education; he sees nothing; he sees neither me nor himself; he is blind, blind, blind....

SCHÖN. (Half to himself.) When his eyes open!!

LULU. Open his eyes for him! I'm going to ruin. I'm neglecting myself. He doesn't know me at all. What am I to him? He calls me darling and little devil. He would say the same to any piano-teacher. He makes no pretensions. Everything is alright, to him. That comes from his never in his life having felt the need of intercourse with women.

SCHÖN. If that's true!

LULU. He admits it perfectly openly.

SCHÖN. A man who has painted them, rags and tags and velvet gowns, since he was fourteen.

LULU. Women make him anxious. He trembles for his health and comfort. But he isn't afraid of me!