n live in Russia and not be? So you see trouble and I are not such
strangers.

MENDEL
Who would have thought it to look at you? Siberia, gaolers, revolutions!
[_Rising_]
What terrible things life holds!

VERA
Yes, even in free America.
[_FRAU QUIXANO'S sobbing grows slightly louder._]

MENDEL
That Settlement work must be full of tragedies.

VERA
Sometimes one sees nothing but the tragedy of things.
[_Looking toward the window_]
The snow is getting thicker. How pitilessly it falls--like fate.

MENDEL [_Following her gaze_]
Yes, icy and inexorable.
[_The faint sobbing of FRAU QUIXANO over her book, which has been
heard throughout the scene as a sort of musical accompaniment,
has combined to work it up to a mood of intense sadness,
intensified by the growing dusk, so that as the two now gaze at
the falling snow, the atmosphere seems overbrooded with
melancholy. There is a moment or two without dialogue, given over
to the sobbing of FRAU QUIXANO, the roar of the wind shaking the
windows, the quick falling of the snow. Suddenly a happy voice
singing "My Country 'tis of Thee" is heard from without._]

FRAU QUIXANO [_Pricking up her ears, joyously_]
_Do ist Dovidel!_

MENDEL
That's David!
[_He springs up._]

VERA [_Murmurs in relief_]
Ah!
[_The whole atmosphere is changed to one of joyous expectation,
DAVID is seen and heard passing the left window, still singing
the national hymn, but it breaks off abruptly as he throws open
the door and appears on the threshold, a buoyant snow-covered
figure in a cloak and a broad-brimmed hat, carrying a violin
case. He is a sunny, handsome youth of the finest Russo-Jewish
type. He speaks with a slight German accent._]

DAVID
Isn't it a beautiful world, uncle?
[_He closes the inner door._]
Snow, the divine white snow----
[_Perceiving the visitor with amaze_]
Miss Revendal here!
[_He removes his hat and looks at her with boyish reverence and
wonder._]

VERA [_Smiling_]
Don't look so surprised--I haven't fallen from heaven like the snow.
Take off your wet things.

DAVID
Oh, it's nothing; it's dry snow.
[_He lays down his violin case and brushes off the snow from his
cloak, which MENDEL takes from him and hangs on the rack, all
without interrupting the dialogue._]
If I had only known you were waiting----

VERA
I am glad you didn'