JANNINGS
Psst!
(VON STROHEIM turns PORTEN around, so that she stands with her back to him and walks back a step. Pause. GEORGE coughs. Still sitting, JANNINGS gives him a kick. GEORGE, standing by the table, jerks forward a little; but PORTEN, as if she had been kicked, tumbles across the stage toward the sofa and remains lying in front of it. In fact, VON STROHEIM had already lifted his knee to administer a kick. Pause. Startled, they all look at each other. Pause.)
BERGNER
It’s nice to watch when something is beginning to function smoothly. It’s like watching a sale: move after move. Here the goods, there the money! Here the money, there the goods! Or like listening to two people talking: first the question, then the reply. Someone holds out his hand, the other shakes it. How are you, I’m fine! How do you like him, I think he’s okay! Someone gets up, you’re already leaving? Someone sighs, and you pat him. Oh, that’s beautiful!
(VON STROHEIM slowly lowers his leg, turns around slightly dazed. PORTEN pulls herself up on the sofa and sits down, her face half turned away.
GEORGE sits down bewildered in the fauteuil. JANNINGS looks at the boot with which he kicked him. He punches his leg and upper arm a few times. GEORGE, too, fiercely pinches his arm once. BERGNER sighs. She walks up to VON STROHEIM, then stops short. He comes toward her, then stops. She takes his hand, puts it on her breast. She caresses herself with his hand until he begins to caress her. PORTEN suddenly gets up and runs toward the table. GEORGE, who from her viewpoint is sitting behind the table, stands up unintentionally. BERGNER and VON STROHEIM let go of each other and watch.)
GEORGE
(Asks) What would you like? (The words slipped out.)
PORTEN
(Like a customer) Do you carry gas pistols?
GEORGE
Gas pistols? You mean “tear-gas pistols”?
PORTEN
Aren’t you the salesman? (GEORGE makes no reply.) You were sitting behind the table and got up when I came in; you’re the salesman, aren’t you?
GEORGE
(Looks at JANNINGS, who signifies to him to agree with her.) The salesman? You mean I am “the salesman”? Well, why shouldn’t I be the salesman? I asked you, didn’t I, “What would you like?” What would you like? A weapon perhaps, for the way home after dark?
PORTEN
A tear-gas pistol!
GEORGE
(To JANNINGS, who sits as if he were the boss in his fauteuil.) Do we carry tear-gas pistols?
(JANNINGS pulls a small riding crop out of his boot and hands it to GEORGE, who puts it on the table. PORTEN looks at it without touching it.)
JANNINGS
(Sits with his face turned away from her.) This riding crop will do the trick too.
GEORGE
A riding crop like this will do the trick too.
PORTEN
I want this one.
JANNINGS
Is she our first customer today?
GEORGE
(Translates.) A customer like you should be treated like the first customer of the day. It’s yours!
PORTEN
(Takes the crop.) Is it a good one?
GEORGE
First-rate.
PORTEN
Can I believe you?
GEORGE
What reason would I have to trick you? (She hands the crop back to him, and he slashes through the air with it. One can hear the sound. Then he slaps the crop on the table.) Just imagine the sound in the dark! (He hands her the crop.)
(PORTEN repeats what he did, producing the same sounds. The crop still in her hand, she pulls up her dress as far as the hip and pulls a large note of stage money out of her garter belt. She puts the note on the table and also places the crop next to it.
GEORGE, astonished, hands the crop back to her, then takes a few coins out of his pants pocket and puts them on the table. While he is looking for banknotes in his other pockets, PORTEN takes the coins; but when he continues to search, she puts the coins back on the table.
JANNINGS gets up and flashes a few notes, which he counts into her hand one by one. He closes her fingers one by one over the notes; the last finger — it is the index finger — she closes, very slowly, herself. It seems that she beckons him to come to her. At the same time they look into each other’s eyes. Everyone is holding his breath.
PORTEN pushes the bills into her bodice; then slowly withdraws her hand, making it evident that the hand is now empty; touches her upper lip with the tongue; and, gently flipping the crop back and forth, looks so long at the two salesmen that GEORGE shifts his weight from one leg to the other and shouts indecently loud at VON STROHEIM: “Do you belong together?” VON STROHEIM and PORTEN give each other a fleeting glance, then look away. A second glance: they look at each other as though for the first time.)
VON STROHEIM
Can’t one tell just by looking at us? crop.)
GEORGE
I guess so, now.
PORTEN
(To GEORGE and JANNINGS) And how is it with you two? Do you belong together?
(GEORGE and JANNINGS look at each other, look away. The second glance: they look at each other as though for the first time.)
GEORGE and JANNINGS
(Simultaneously) Yes, he belongs to me. (To one another, GEORGE softly, JANNINGS louder) You belong to me — you belong to me.
GEORGE
Why?
JANNINGS
Because it has always been like that.
GEORGE
Who says that?
JANNINGS
People in general.
GEORGE
And why do you tell me that only now?
JANNINGS
There was no need to tell you until now.
GEORGE
And now it has become necessary?
JANNINGS
(Looks at his cold cigar.) Yes. (He points with the cigar at the box of matches lying on the footstool. GEORGE bends down, then he hesitates and straightens up again.) There, you see how necessary it was. (GEORGE, confused, thereupon hands him the matches, and JANNINGS, content, lights his cigar. He drops the match.) You’ve lost something there.