She nodded. “That little place of Zanin's.”
“I've never been there.”
“I know you haven't. None of the people that might be helped by it ever come. You see, we aren't professional, artificialized actors. We are just trying to deal naturally with bits of real life—from the Russian, and things that are written here in the Village. Jacob Zanin is a big man—a fine natural man—with a touch of genius, I think.”
Peter was silent. He knew this brilliant, hulking Russian Jew, and disliked him: even feared him in a way, as he feared others of his race with what he felt to be their hard clear minds, their vehement idealism, their insistent pushing upward. The play that had triumphantly displaced his last failure at the Astoria Theater was written by a Russian Jew.
She added: “In some ways it is the only interesting theater in New York.”
“There is so much to see.”
“I know,” she sighed. “And we don't play every night, of course. Only Friday and Saturday.”
He was regarding her now with kindling interest. “What do you do there?”
“Oh, nothing much. I'm playing a boy this month in Zanin's one-act piece, Any Street. And sometimes I dance. I was on my way there when I met you—was due at three o'clock.”
“For a rehearsal, I suppose.”