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