The rain beats on the roof. Schigolch in a long gray overcoat lies on the mattress; Alva on the couch, wrapped in a plaid whose straps still hang on the wall above him.
SCHIGOLCH. The rain's drumming for the parade.
ALVA. Cheerful weather for her first appearance! I dreamt just now we were dining together at Olympia. Bianetta was still with us. The table-cloth was dripping on all four sides with champagne.
SCHIGOLCH. Ya, ya. And I was dreaming of a Christmas pudding. (Lulu appears, back, barefoot, in a torn black dress, but with her hair falling to her shoulders.) Where have you been? Curling your hair first?
ALVA. She only does that to revive old memories.
LULU. If one could only get warmed, just a little, from one of you!
ALVA. Will you enter barefoot on your pilgrimage?
SCHIGOLCH. The first step always costs all kinds of moaning and groaning. Twenty years ago it was no whit better, and what she has learned since then! The coals only have to be blown. When she's been at it a week, not ten locomotives will hold her in our miserable attic.
ALVA. The bowl is running over.
LULU. What shall I do with the water?