DR. HILTI. A dead man! A corpse!
LULU. Stay with me! Stay with me!
DR. HILTI. (Tearing away.) A corpse is lying in there! Horrors! Hail! Heaven!
LULU. Stay with me!
DR. HILTI. Where d's it go out? (Sees Geschwitz.) And there is the devil!
LULU. Please, stop, stay!
DR. HILTI. Devil, devilled devilry!—Oh, thou eternal—(Exit.)
LULU. (Rushing after him.) Stop! Stop!
GESCHWITZ. (Alone, lets the revolver sink.) Better, hang! If she sees me lie in my blood to-day she'll not weep a tear for me! I have always been to her but the docile tool that could be used for the heaviest labor. From the first day she has abhorred me from the depths of her soul.—Shall I not rather jump from the bridge? Which could be colder, the water or her heart? I would dream till I was drowned.—Better, hang!— —Stab?—Hm, there would be no use in that— —How often have I dreamt that she kissed me! But a minute more; an owl knocks there at the window, and I wake up.— —Better, hang! Not water; water is too clean for me. (Starting up.) There!—There! There it is!—Quick now, before she comes! (Takes the plaid-straps from the wall, climbs on the chair, fastens them to a hook in the door-post, puts her head thru them, kicks the chair away, and falls to the ground.) Accursed life!—Accursed life!—Could it be before me still??—Let me speak just once to thy heart, my angel! But thou art cold!—I am not to go yet! Perhaps I am even to have been happy once.—Listen to him, Lulu! I am not to go yet! (She drags herself before Lulu's picture, sinks to her knees and folds her hands.) My adoréd angel! My love! My star!—Have mercy upon me, pity me, pity me, pity me!
(Lulu opens the door, and Jack enters—a thick-set man of elastic movements, with a pale face, inflamed eyes, arched and heavy brows, a drooping mustache, thin imperial and shaggy whiskers, and fiery red hands with gnawed nails. His eyes are fixed on the ground. He wears a dark overcoat and a little round felt hat. Entering, he notices Geschwitz.)