HIS LUCK



JEAN
   He said it was written in an old-fashioned style. It
   was curious-in his playing he appreciated the most
   advanced technic, but when be came to compose he
   found himself imitating the things he had admired
   when he was eighteen. It had to be worked out of
   his mind. Well, he did it all through again. This
   time he said he was only about two years behind.
   Tore it up again. But now he was convinced he
   could succeed. And he was magnificent! I would
   have shared him with the world gladly, but I knew
   it was best for him to do this work. The hours this
   room has seen! Well, he made a few notes, stopped
   a few days to take breath, and then caught the cold
   that wore him out. Over there, in that drawer, are
   the notes, a few scraps of paper. The rest of it-
   the experience of a strong life, a visioning life, are
   with the mind that is dumb. Sometimes when I sit
   here I hear it all played, an orchestra . . . new har-
   monies, pure emotion.... The wonder and then the
   pain of it are almost unbearable.
VERA
  Ah, Jean, I begin to understand.
JEAN
  Over in London there are half a dozen men and
  women who caught a glimpse of Paul as he really
  was. In Munich there are half a dozen more. He
  was at his best in a studio among friends with a con-
  genial atmosphere.  They knew . . . but what is
  that
  I tell you, Vera, the only way I can explain it all is
  by seeing two forces, two moralities; the morality



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