The Yiddish 'Hamlet' by Israel Zangwill

Sucking voluptuously at Radsikoff's cigar, Pinchas plunged from the steam-heated, cheerful cafe into the raw, unlovely street, still hummocked with an ancient, uncleared snowfall. He did not take the horse-car which runs in this quarter; he was reserving the five cents for a spirituous nightcap. His journey was slow, for a side street that he had to pass through was, like nearly all the side streets of the great city, an abomination of desolation, a tempestuous sea of frozen, dirty snow, impassable by all save pedestrians, and scarcely by them. Pinchas was glad of his cane; an alpenstock would not have been superfluous. But the theatre with its brilliantly-lighted lobby and flamboyant posters restored his spirits; the curtain was already up, and a packed mass filled the house from roof to floor. Rebuffed by the janitors, Pinchas haughtily asked for Goldwater. Goldwater was on the stage, and could not see him. But nothing could down the poet, whose head seemed to swell till it touched the gallery. This great theatre was his, this mighty audience his to melt and fire.

'I will await him in a box,' he said.