Yes, you too.
VON STROHEIM
Give me your hand.
BERGNER
Why? (He takes her hand.) Are you a palm reader? (VON STROHEIM strokes her hair.) I know that my hair is a mess.
VON STROHEIM
You are beautiful.
BERGNER
Have you seen my handbag anywhere?
VON STROHEIM
(Puts a necklace around her neck.) What do I get for that?
BERGNER
Why do you have to spoil my necklace for me?
VON STROHEIM
What must I do to make you stop despising me? Is it the way I move that you dislike? Is it my hairline? Is it the way I hold my head that makes you look away? Do the hairs on my hands disgust you? Do you find it exaggerated the way I move my arms up and down when I walk? Do I talk too much? (PORTEN, watching from some distance away, laughs. Pause. VON STROHEIM as on the telephone) Are you still there? (BERGNER looks at him.) Where were you? Why don’t you say something? Do say something! Come back! You were so beautiful, it was painful to look at you; so beautiful that I was suddenly very much afraid for you. You were so painfully beautiful that you left me behind — me, who was suddenly so alive — left me behind — terribly alone. You said nothing, and I talked to you as one talks to those who have just died: Why don’t you say something? Do say something! Can you imagine it?
(Pause.)
BERGNER
Not any more. For a moment — (Pause.) No. It’s over.
VON STROHEIM
Don’t stop talking, I am afraid to break in when you stop talking. Right now my tenderness for you is so vehement that I want to hit you.
(Pause. He hits her. She stands up. He stares at her. She lets him stare at her.
Abandoning the long rigidity, she moves slowly and walks up and down in front of him. She interrupts her smooth movements now and then to turn jerkily, leans her hand on the hip, stretches herself loosely, lets her arms drop, while moving like this, grazes a number of objects, supports herself everywhere, once swings around to VON STROHEIM, stops in front of him, takes off her necklace. She is standing there as if she has just come through a door and has leaned against it. She strokes him with the necklace and lets it drop into his pocket.)
BERGNER
(Looks at him.) Don’t move! (He wants to touch her, she stands still, smiling; he hesitates briefly, now touches her neck and wants to pull her toward him; but he is a moment too late, her neck resists him, she shakes off his hand and steps back.) Why don’t you look at me as if you didn’t care?
VON STROHEIM
For that I would have to imagine that you were mine.
BERGNER
Then imagine it.
VON STROHEIM
Where should I begin?
BERGNER
(Points to the guitar.) Does that belong to you? (She shoves it away contemptuously.)
VON STROHEIM
The longer I look at you, the ghostlier you seem to me.
BERGNER
And with every one of your feelings you describe to me you take a possible feeling away from me.
VON STROHEIM
I’m not describing my feelings for you.
BERGNER
But you’re intimating them. And every time you intimate your love for me, my feelings for you grow duller and I shrivel up. Your feelings move me, but I can’t respond to them, that’s all. At first I loved you, you were so serious. It struck me that usually it can be said only of a child that it is “serious.” Besides (She laughs.), you had such beautiful eating habits. You really ate beautifully! And when I once said, “I got wet to the skin!” you said, “To your skin!” When I speak of it I almost love you again. (She embraces him suddenly, but immediately steps back again even farther away.) But I only have to mention that and I become insensitive right away. You talked all the time and I forgot you more and more. Then I was startled and you were still there … A complete stranger, you talked to me with shameless intimacy, as to someone at the end of a movie. Do you understand? I am taboo for you! Suddenly I was taboo for you. Two seconds! Two seconds of pain, that’s what having loved you will mean to me later on. (Pause.) I’m not disappointed, I’m not sad, I’m only tired of you. (She moves imperceptibly under her dress.) I have wronged you so much.
VON STROHEIM
Wronged in what way?
BERGNER
The wrong of loving you.
(PORTEN suddenly claps her hands vehemently, GEORGE laughs offensively, VON STROHEIM and BERGNER slowly move away from the spot and begin to walk around aimlessly in different directions. Pause.)
JANNINGS
(Begins telling a story.) A short time ago I saw a stewardess, but an ugly one …
VON STROHEIM
(Interrupts him.) Let’s talk about something else.
JANNINGS
(Begins another story.) Not long ago I saw a woman standing in the street, not a streetwalker, I must add …
GEORGE
(Interrupts him.) Something else!
JANNINGS
It is less than a week ago that I saw behind a bank counter someone who had a rather long nose. But when I talked to him, it turned out that despite …
PORTEN and BERGNER
(Interrupt him.) Let’s change the subject.
JANNINGS
All right. No more than five minutes had passed when a man in the park approached me. No, not a faggot …
(He is interrupted by a girl who comes onstage from the right, a suitcase in her hand: ALICE KESSLER. She is wearing an afternoon dress and looks as if she had come to this performance by mistake.)
ALICE
(Puts down the suitcase, begins to speak very matter-of-factly.) Is it you? Am I in the right place here? I heard you talking from a distance and came in. The sounds I heard were so inviting, voices and laughter, what is more beautiful than that? What are you showing to each other there, I’d like to see something too. What are you whispering about? I’d like to hear something too. (She tosses her hat to VON STROHEIM. He is so disconcerted that he turns aside instead of catching it.) How are you? (Pause. All of them seem petrified.) How are you?
BERGNER
(Suddenly loosens up and moves. She practices her reply.) Fine? Fine. Fine! We’re fine. Indeed! We’re fine! (Pause. She tries to talk normally again.) And how — and how are you?
ALICE
(Answers quite naturally.) I’m fine too. Though my hand is still trembling from carrying that heavy suitcase, and I’m still a little weak in the knees because I’m not used to wearing high-heeled shoes; but I can put up with all that because I’m so happy to see you. What are you doing here?