his horse down the corridors, shoots out the windowpanes in his drunkenness. Teresa, the spoiled only daughter, screams at him in fury: "We live like pigs! Like pigs!"
Problems in the brothel! The pianist has run off with the prettiest of all the girls; they're heading south to start up their own place, she reckons her husband won't chase her down as far as Acapulco. They wait for the stagecoach to take them away, sitting on barrels in the general store with their bags piled around them; the coach drops one passenger, the driver goes off to water the horses. Any work here for a piano-player? Why, what a coincidence!
He's from the north, a gringo. And a city boy, too, in a velvet coat, with such long, white fingers! He winces when he hears gunfire -- a Mendoza employee boisterously shooting at chickens in the gutter. How pale he is. . .a handsome boy, nice, refined, educated voice. Is there even the trace of a foreign accent?
Like the Count, he is startlingly alien in this primitive, semi-desert environment.
Roxana melts maternally at the sight of him; he delights the Count by playing a little Brahms on the out-of-tune, honky-tonk piano. The Count's eyes mist over; he remembers. . . The conservatoire at Vienna? Can it be possible? How extraordinary. . . so you were studying at the conservatoire at Vienna? Although Roxana's delighted with her new employee, her lip curls, she is a natural sceptic. But he's the best piano-player she's ever heard.
And, anyway, nobody really asks questions in this town, or believes any answers, for that matter. He must have his reasons for holing up in this godforsaken place. The job's yours, Johnny; you get a little room over the porch to sleep in, with a lock on it to keep the girls out. They get bored. . . don't let them bother you.
But Johnny is in the grip of a singular passion; he is a grim and dedicated being. He ignores the girls completely.
In his bedroom, Johnny places photographs of a man and a woman -- his parents -- on the splintered pine dressing-table; pins up a poster for the San Francisco Opera House on the wall, Der Freischütz. He addresses the photographs. "I've found out where they live, I've tracked them to their lair. It won't be long now, Mother and Father. Not long."
Hoofbeats outside. Maria Mendoza is coming to visit her sister, riding astride, like a man, while her daughter rides side-saddle like a lady, even if her hair is an uncombed haystack. She looks the wild bandit-child she is. But -- now she's an engaged woman, her father forbids her to visit the brothel, even to pay a formal call on her good aunt! Ride back home, Teresa!
Sullen, she turns her horse round. Looking back at the brothel as she trots away, she sees Johnny gazing at her from his window; their eyes meet, Johnny's briefly veil.
Teresa is momentarily confused; then spurs her horse cruelly, gallops off, like a wild thing.
In the small hours, when the brothel has finally closed down for the night, Johnny plays Chopin for the Count. Tears of sentimental nostalgia roll down the old man's cheeks. And Vienna. . . is it still the same? Try not to remember. . . he pours himself another whisky. Then Johnny asks him softly, is it true what he's heard. . . stories circulating in the faraway Austro-Hungarian Empire; the Count starts.
The old legend, about the man who makes a pact with the devil to obtain a bullet that cannot miss its target. . .
An old legend, says the Count. In the superstitious villages, they believe such things still.
All kinds of shadows drift in through the open window.
The old legend, given a new lease of life by the exploits of a certain
Problems in the brothel! The pianist has run off with the prettiest of all the girls; they're heading south to start up their own place, she reckons her husband won't chase her down as far as Acapulco. They wait for the stagecoach to take them away, sitting on barrels in the general store with their bags piled around them; the coach drops one passenger, the driver goes off to water the horses. Any work here for a piano-player? Why, what a coincidence!
He's from the north, a gringo. And a city boy, too, in a velvet coat, with such long, white fingers! He winces when he hears gunfire -- a Mendoza employee boisterously shooting at chickens in the gutter. How pale he is. . .a handsome boy, nice, refined, educated voice. Is there even the trace of a foreign accent?
Like the Count, he is startlingly alien in this primitive, semi-desert environment.
Roxana melts maternally at the sight of him; he delights the Count by playing a little Brahms on the out-of-tune, honky-tonk piano. The Count's eyes mist over; he remembers. . . The conservatoire at Vienna? Can it be possible? How extraordinary. . . so you were studying at the conservatoire at Vienna? Although Roxana's delighted with her new employee, her lip curls, she is a natural sceptic. But he's the best piano-player she's ever heard.
And, anyway, nobody really asks questions in this town, or believes any answers, for that matter. He must have his reasons for holing up in this godforsaken place. The job's yours, Johnny; you get a little room over the porch to sleep in, with a lock on it to keep the girls out. They get bored. . . don't let them bother you.
But Johnny is in the grip of a singular passion; he is a grim and dedicated being. He ignores the girls completely.
In his bedroom, Johnny places photographs of a man and a woman -- his parents -- on the splintered pine dressing-table; pins up a poster for the San Francisco Opera House on the wall, Der Freischütz. He addresses the photographs. "I've found out where they live, I've tracked them to their lair. It won't be long now, Mother and Father. Not long."
Hoofbeats outside. Maria Mendoza is coming to visit her sister, riding astride, like a man, while her daughter rides side-saddle like a lady, even if her hair is an uncombed haystack. She looks the wild bandit-child she is. But -- now she's an engaged woman, her father forbids her to visit the brothel, even to pay a formal call on her good aunt! Ride back home, Teresa!
Sullen, she turns her horse round. Looking back at the brothel as she trots away, she sees Johnny gazing at her from his window; their eyes meet, Johnny's briefly veil.
Teresa is momentarily confused; then spurs her horse cruelly, gallops off, like a wild thing.
In the small hours, when the brothel has finally closed down for the night, Johnny plays Chopin for the Count. Tears of sentimental nostalgia roll down the old man's cheeks. And Vienna. . . is it still the same? Try not to remember. . . he pours himself another whisky. Then Johnny asks him softly, is it true what he's heard. . . stories circulating in the faraway Austro-Hungarian Empire; the Count starts.
The old legend, about the man who makes a pact with the devil to obtain a bullet that cannot miss its target. . .
An old legend, says the Count. In the superstitious villages, they believe such things still.
All kinds of shadows drift in through the open window.
The old legend, given a new lease of life by the exploits of a certain
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