to the key. The effect is harrowing, and he gives his audience a
swift glance of apprehension._)

TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY WOMEN

What new beauties he gets out of it!

A MAN

He can tickle the ivories, all right, all right!

A CRITIC

Well, at any rate, he doesn't try to imitate Paderewski.

THE GREAT PIANIST

(_Relieved by the non-appearance of the hisses he expected._) Well, it's
lucky for me that I'm not in Leipzig to-day! But in Leipzig an artist
runs no risks: the beer is pure. The authorities see to that. The worse
enemy of technic is biliousness, and biliousness is sure to follow bad
beer. (_He gets to the_ coda _at last and takes it at a somewhat
livelier pace._)

THE VIRGIN

How I envy the woman he loves! How it would thrill me to feel his arms
about me--to be drawn closer, closer, closer! I would give up the whole
world! What are conventions, prejudices, legal forms, morality, after
all? Vanities! Love is beyond and above them all--and art is love! I
think I must be a pagan.

THE GREAT PIANIST

And the herring! Good God, what herring! These barbarous Americans----

THE VIRGIN

Really, I am quite indecent! I should blush, I suppose. But love is
never ashamed--How people misunderstand me!

THE MARRIED WOMAN

I wonder if he's faithful. The chances are against it. I never heard of
a man who was. (_An agreeable melancholy overcomes her and she gives
herself up to the mood without thought._)

THE GREAT PIANIST

I wonder whatever became of that girl in Dresden. Every time I think of
her, she suggests pleasant thoughts--good beer, a fine band,
_Gemuetlichkeit_. I must have been in love with her--not much, of course,
but just enough to make things pleasant. And not a single letter from
her! I suppose she thinks I'm starving to death over here--or tuning
pianos. Well, when I get back with the money there'll be a shock for
her. A shock--but not a _Pfennig_!

THE MARRIED WOMAN

(_Her emotional coma ended._) Still, you can hardly blame him. There
must be a good deal of temptation for a great artist. All of these
frumps here would----

THE VIRGIN

Ah, how dolorous, how exquisite is love! How small the world would seem
if----

THE MARRIED WOMAN

Of course you could hardly call such old scarecrows temptations. But
still----

(THE GREAT PIANIST _comes to the last measure of the_ coda--_a passage
of almost Haydnesque clarity and spirit. As he strikes the broad chord
o