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't--I wouldn't have had those poor little cripples cheated out of a moment of your music. DAVID Uncle has told you? Ah, it was bully! You should have seen the cripples waltzing with their crutches! [_He has moved toward the old woman, and while he holds one hand to the blaze now pats her cheek with the other in greeting, to which she responds with a loving smile ere she settles contentedly to slumber over her book._] _Es war grossartig_, Granny. Even the paralysed danced. MENDEL Don't exaggerate, David.