The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1932-09-08
The Mild Madness
X
A Story of ambition
Realized
X
By FANNIE HURST
By FANNIE HURST
e by Mcclure Newspaper Syndicate.l
(WNU Service)

was right, and yet, throughout
1.-the years of the early childhood
of his children, he held out stub
bOrnly against the often angry i'm
portunings of his wife Anna, her rela-
tives, and his.
For man who had been trained to
the lucrative trade of master-plumb-
er, suddenly to turn waiter was not
only matter of supreme humiliation
to the Dagmar family, one and all, but,
as Anna and his own sisters expressed
it, sometimes they actually feared for
the sanity of Leopold.
1t was not as If he had been lazy.
Even his sisters said of him that as a
boy he had never given symptoms Of
lazy bone in his body. And dear
knows the servile work of waiting Ia
BILE in the small Russian restaurant
where Leopold took up his new la
bors was no easier than that Of
plumber who hired men to work under
him. On the contrary, the hours were
practically as long, and certainly more
arduous. On his feet, carrying hoist
ed trays, polishing crockery, even
sweeping out, and doing servile chores
for patrons, from five in the evening
until two and three in the morning,
was work of an exacting. if less skill
full nature than the plumbing.
Wringing her hands, deploring the
lack of dignity his work as waiter i'm
piled for his young children, over and
over again Anna sought to wrest from
Leopold the secret Of his sudden de-
cision to abandon his skilled work for
| the less remunerative, less ambitious
vocation of waiter.
| Not for worlds, after his five years
Of life with her, could Leopold have
been brought to reveal to her the Sc
cret reason for this amazing abandon
ment of his well-paying trade, for the
lesser vocation of waiting table in a
small Russian restaurant. Like his
sisters, she would have cried and
screamed her derision of his selfish,
wastrel ways.
| The secret motive was neither so
profound nor so complicated as that
imputed to him by those who felt
themselves to be the victims Of his
vagaries. HE is after women" shout
ed Anna, knowing in her heart that
women were not the cause Of Leo
pold's detection.
HE is crazy after the low-life Of
the cabarets," accused his sisters,
knowing that nothing of the kind was
characteristic of Leopold.
The reason, meanwhile, lay snugly
imbedded in the silence of Leopold.
A simple reason; so simple that it
shamed him.
The great advantage Of waiting ia
BILE in restaurant, over the more dig
nified, more remunerative work as
master plumber, was the music! AS a
waiter, you worked to music! Your
work was servile, yes, often in a way
that was hateful and revolving, but as
a waiter you worked to music!
A ive-piece orchestra played at
Kosta's from Z p. m. until a. m.
Russian music for the most part, with
a balalaika or Russian banjo accom-.
paniment that was as melancholy as
wind in autumn trees, and yet at the
same time sweet and plaintive and
filed with q certain wild lust for life.
Music that was as real as the beauti-
full black hair on the head Of Leo.
pold's two-months-dd baby daughter.
You worked to music at Kosta's.
At Z, the patrons began to come. At
7:15, in trooped the five-piece orches-
ira. The dinner went something like
this. Zakuska, a hors d'oeuvre, which
consisted of chopped liver served usu-
ally to the accompaniment Of a song
that wrung the very heart out Of Leo
pold; piece called "Ochee," which
clumsily translated into dangerous
Eyes," Then the borsch course; thick
soup clotted with sour cream, to
strains that to Leopold were almost
the most beautiful in the world: "The
Volga Boat Song" filed with the dirge
and the urge of those who sweat and
toll. Pojarsky, outlets of chopped
chicken, served to the aria from ECU.
gene Onegin." And SO on through an
evening repetitfously crammed with
melodies that never seemed to pail.
You could not very well go home
and say to the most practical wife
in the world, and to sisters to whom
life was a serious day-by-day bust
ness: II cannot play a note, I do not
know one note from another, but one
day, while fixing radiators in the home
Of famous vioiinist, and hearing him
practice as l worked, realized that
music can lift life from the hum-dru
affair it has always been, into some
thing that makes it worth living.
will work twice as hard as waiter.
I will dump every cent of my earn
ings into your lap. Let me live in
my trancew
OF course the wife and sisters of
| ToopoId did NOT Iat hin, Iix.o q, I,fe