NDEL
No, he's Russian too. But please sit down, you had better get his answer
at once.
[_VERA sits._]

VERA
I suppose _you_ taught him music.

MENDEL
I? I can't play the violin. He is self-taught. In the Russian Pale he
was a wonder-child. Poor David! He always looked forward to coming to
America; he imagined I was a famous musician over here. He found me
conductor in a cheap theatre--a converted beer-hall.

VERA
Was he very disappointed?

MENDEL
Disappointed? He was enchanted! He is crazy about America.

VERA [_Smiling_]
Ah, _he_ doesn't curse Columbus.

MENDEL
My mother came with her life behind her: David with his life before him.
Poor boy!

VERA
Why do you say poor boy?

MENDEL
What is there before him here but a terrible struggle for life? If he
doesn't curse Columbus, he'll curse fate. Music-lessons and dance-halls,
beer-halls and weddings--every hope and ambition will be ground out of
him, and he will die obscure and unknown.
[_His head sinks on his breast, FRAU QUIXANO is heard faintly
sobbing over her book. The sobbing continues throughout the
scene._]

VERA [_Half rising_]
You have made your mother cry.

MENDEL
Oh, no--she understood nothing. She always cries on the eve of the
Sabbath.

VERA [_Mystified, sinking back into her chair_]
Always cries? Why?

MENDEL [_Embarrassed_]
Oh, well, a Christian wouldn't understand----

VERA
Yes I could--do tell me!

MENDEL
She knows that in this great grinding America, David and I must go out
to earn our bread on Sabbath as on week-days. She never says a word to
us, but her heart is full of tears.

VERA
Poor old woman. It was wrong of us to ask your nephew to play at the
Settlement for nothing.

MENDEL [_Rising fiercely_]
If you offer him a fee, he shall not play. Did you think I was begging
of you?

VERA
I beg your pardon----
[_She smiles._]
There, _I_ am begging of _you_. Sit down, please.

MENDEL [_Walking away to piano_]
I ought not to have burdened you with our troubles--you are too young.

VERA [_Pathetically_]
I young? If you only knew how old I am!

MENDEL
You?

VERA
I left my youth in Russia--eternities ago.

MENDEL
You know our Russia!
[_He goes over to her and sits down._]

VERA
Can't you see I'm a Russian, too?
[_With a faint tremulous smile_]
I might even have been a Siberian had I stayed. But I escaped from my
gaolers.

MENDEL
You were a Revolutionist!

VERA
Who ca