dea for the concerto, and the psalms. Jewish music. As Jewish as
the Kol Nidre. I wanted to express the passion, and fire, and history of
a people. My people. Why was that? Tell me. Selbst, weiss ich nicht.
I felt that if I could put into it just a millionth part of their
humiliation, and their glory; their tragedy and their triumph; their
sorrow, and their grandeur; their persecution, their weldtschmerz.
Volkschmerz. That was it. And through it all, weaving in and out, one
great underlying motif. Indestructibility. The great cry which says, `We
cannot be destroyed!'"

He stood up, uncertainly. His eyes were blazing. He began to walk up
and down the luxurious little room. Fanny's eyes matched his. She was
staring at him, fascinated, trembling.

She moistened her lips a little with her tongue. "And you've done it?
Teddy! You've done--that!"

Theodore Brandeis stood up, very straight and tall. "Yes," he said,
simply. "Yes, I've done that."

She came over to him then, and put her two hands on his shoulders.
"Ted--dear--will you ever forgive me? I'll try to make up for it now.
I didn't know. I've been blind. Worse than blind. Criminal." She was
weeping now, broken-heartedly, and he was patting her with little
comforting love pats, and whispering words of tenderness.

"Forgive you? Forgive you what?"

"The years of suffering. The years you've had to spend with her. With
that horrible woman--"

"Don't--" He sucked his breath between his teeth. His face had gone
haggard again. Fanny, direct as always, made up her mind that she would
have it all. And now.

"There's something you haven't told me. Tell me all of it. You're my
brother and I'm your sister. We're all we have in the world." And at
that, as though timed by some miraculous and supernatural stage manager,
there came a cry from the next room; a sleepy, comfortable, imperious
little cry. Mizzi had awakened. Fanny made a step in the direction of
the door. Then she turned back. "Tell me why Olga didn't come. Why isn't
she here with her husband and baby?"

"Because she's with another man."

"Another--"

"It had been going on for a long time. I was the last to know about it.
It's that way, always, isn't it? He's an officer. A fool. He'll have
to take off his silly corsets now, and his velvet collar, and his shiny
boots, and go to war. Damn him! I hope they'll kill him with a hundred
bayonets, one by one, and leave him to rot on the field. She had been
fooling m