DAVID
Please don't you congratulate me, too! That would be too ironical.
VERA [Agitated, coming nearer]
Irony, Mr. Quixano? Please, please, do not imagine there is any irony in my congratulations.
DAVID
The irony is in all the congratulations. How can I endure them when I know what a terrible failure I have made!
VERA
Failure! Because the critics are all divided? That is the surest proof of success. You have produced something real and new.
DAVID
I am not thinking of Pappelmeister's connoisseurs—I am the only connoisseur, the only one who knows. And every bar of my music cried "Failure! Failure!" It shrieked from the violins, blared from the trombones, thundered from the drums. It was written on all the faces——