Читать книгу The Melting-Pot (A Tale of Russian Jewish Immigrants) - Israel Zangwill - Страница 4
Act I
ОглавлениеThe scene is laid in the living-room of the small home of the Quixanos in the Richmond or non-Jewish borough of New York, about five o'clock of a February afternoon. At centre back is a double street-door giving on a columned veranda in the Colonial style. Nailed on the right-hand door-post gleams a Mezuzah, a tiny metal case, containing a Biblical passage. On the right of the door is a small hat-stand holding Mendel's overcoat, umbrella, etc. There are two windows, one on either side of the door, and three exits, one down-stage on the left leading to the stairs and family bedrooms, and two on the right, the upper leading to Kathleen's bedroom and the lower to the kitchen. Over the street door is pinned the Stars-and-Stripes. On the left wall, in the upper corner of which is a music-stand, are bookshelves of large mouldering Hebrew books, and over them is hung a Mizrach, or Hebrew picture, to show it is the East Wall. Other pictures round the room include Wagner, Columbus, Lincoln, and "Jews at the Wailing place." Down-stage, about a yard from the left wall, stands David's roll-desk, open and displaying a medley of music, a quill pen, etc. On the wall behind the desk hangs a book-rack with brightly bound English books. A grand piano stands at left centre back, holding a pile of music and one huge Hebrew tome. There is a table in the middle of the room covered with a red cloth and a litter of objects, music, and newspapers. The fireplace, in which a fire is burning, occupies the centre of the right wall, and by it stands an armchair on which lies another heavy mouldy Hebrew tome. The mantel holds a clock, two silver candlesticks, etc. A chiffonier stands against the back wall on the right. There are a few cheap chairs. The whole effect is a curious blend of shabbiness, Americanism, Jewishness, and music, all four being combined in the figure of Mendel Quixano, who, in a black skull-cap, a seedy velvet jacket, and red carpet-slippers, is discovered standing at the open street-door. He is an elderly music master with a fine Jewish face, pathetically furrowed by misfortunes, and a short grizzled beard.
MENDEL
Good-bye, Johnny! … And don't forget to practise your scales.
[Shutting door, shivers.]
Ugh! It'll snow again, I guess.
[He yawns, heaves a great sigh of relief, walks toward the table, and perceives a music-roll.]
The chump! He's forgotten his music!
[He picks it up and runs toward the window on the left, muttering furiously]
Brainless, earless, thumb-fingered Gentile!
[Throwing open the window]
Here, Johnny! You can't practise your scales if you leave 'em here!
[He throws out the music-roll and shivers again at the cold as he shuts the window.]
Ugh! And I must go out to that miserable dancing class to scrape the rent together.
[He goes to the fire and warms his hands.]
Ach Gott! What a life! What a life!
[He drops dejectedly into the armchair. Finding himself sitting uncomfortably on the big book, he half rises and pushes it to the side of the seat. After an instant an irate Irish voice is heard from behind the kitchen door.]
KATHLEEN [Without]
Divil take the butther! I wouldn't put up with ye, not for a hundred dollars a week.
MENDEL [Raising himself to listen, heaves great sigh]
Ach! Mother and Kathleen again!
KATHLEEN [Still louder]
Pots and pans and plates and knives! Sure 'tis enough to make a saint chrazy.
FRAU QUIXANO [Equally loudly from kitchen]
Wos schreist du? Gott in Himmel, dieses Amerika!
KATHLEEN [Opening door of kitchen toward the end of Frau Quixano's speech, but turning back, with her hand visible on the door]
What's that ye're afther jabberin' about America? If ye don't like God's own counthry, sure ye can go back to your own Jerusalem, so ye can.
MENDEL
One's very servants are anti-Semites.
KATHLEEN [Bangs her door as she enters excitedly, carrying a folded white table-cloth. She is a young and pretty Irish maid-of-all-work]
Bad luck to me, if iver I take sarvice again with haythen Jews.
[She perceives Mendel huddled up in the armchair, gives a little scream, and drops the cloth.]
Och, I thought ye was out!
MENDEL [Rising]
And so you dared to be rude to my mother.
KATHLEEN [Angrily, as she picks up the cloth]
She said I put mate on a butther-plate.
MENDEL
Well, you know that's against her religion.
KATHLEEN
But I didn't do nothing of the soort. I ounly put butther on a mate-plate.
MENDEL
That's just as bad. What the Bible forbids——
KATHLEEN [Lays the cloth on a chair and vigorously clears off the litter of things on the table.]
Sure, the Pope himself couldn't remimber it all. Why don't ye have a sinsible religion?
MENDEL
You are impertinent. Attend to your work.
[He seats himself at the piano.]
KATHLEEN
And isn't it laying the Sabbath cloth I am?
[She bangs down articles from the table into their right places.]
MENDEL
Don't answer me back.
[He begins to play softly.]
KATHLEEN
Faith, I must answer somebody back—and sorra a word of English she understands. I might as well talk to a tree.
MENDEL
You are not paid to talk, but to work.
[Playing on softly.]
KATHLEEN
And who can work wid an ould woman nagglin' and grizzlin' and faultin' me?
[She removes the red table-cloth.]
Mate-plates, butther-plates, kosher, trepha, sure I've smashed up folks' crockery and they makin' less fuss ouver it.
MENDEL [Stops playing.]
Breaking crockery is one thing, and breaking a religion another. Didn't you tell me when I engaged you that you had lived in other Jewish families?
KATHLEEN [Angrily]
And is it a liar ye'd make me out now? I've lived wid clothiers and pawnbrokers and Vaudeville actors, but I niver shtruck a house where mate and butther couldn't be as paceable on the same plate as eggs and bacon—the most was that some wouldn't ate the bacon onless 'twas killed kosher.
MENDEL [Tickled]
Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!
KATHLEEN [Furious, pauses with the white table-cloth half on.]
And who's ye laughin' at? I give ye a week's notice. I won't be the joke of Jews, no, begorra, that I won't.
[She pulls the cloth on viciously.]
MENDEL [Sobered, rising from the piano]
Don't talk nonsense, Kathleen. Nobody is making a joke of you. Have a little patience—you'll soon learn our ways.
KATHLEEN [More mildly]
Whose ways, yours or the ould lady's or Mr. David's? To-night being yer Sabbath, you'll be blowing out yer bedroom candle, though ye won't light it; Mr. David'll light his and blow it out too; and the misthress won't even touch the candleshtick. There's three religions in this house, not wan.
MENDEL [Coughs uneasily.]
Hem! Well, you learn the mistress's ways—that will be enough.
KATHLEEN [Going to mantelpiece]
But what way can I understand her jabberin' and jibberin'?—I'm not a monkey!
[She takes up a silver candlestick.]
Why doesn't she talk English like a Christian?
MENDEL [Irritated]
If you are going on like that, perhaps you had better not remain here.
KATHLEEN [Blazing up, forgetting to take the second candlestick]
And who's axin' ye to remain here? Faith, I'll quit off this blissid minit!
MENDEL [Taken aback]
No, you can't do that.
KATHLEEN
And why can't I? Ye can keep yer dirthy wages.
[She dumps down the candlestick violently on the table, and exit hysterically into her bedroom.]
MENDEL [Sighing heavily]
She might have put on the other candlestick.
[He goes to mantel and takes it. A rat-tat-tat at street-door.]
Who can that be?
[Running to Kathleen's door, holding candlestick forgetfully low.]
Kathleen! There's a visitor!
KATHLEEN [Angrily from within]
I'm not here!
MENDEL
So long as you're in this house, you must do your work.
[Kathleen's head emerges sulkily.]
KATHLEEN
I tould ye I was lavin' at wanst. Let you open the door yerself.
MENDEL
I'm not dressed to receive visitors—it may be a new pupil.
[He goes toward staircase, automatically carrying off the candlestick which Kathleen has not caught sight of. Exit on the left.]
KATHLEEN [Moving toward the street-door]
The divil fly away wid me if ivir from this 'our I set foot again among haythen furriners——
[She throws open the door angrily and then the outer door. Vera Revendal, a beautiful girl in furs and muff, with a touch of the exotic in her appearance, steps into the little vestibule.]
VERA
Is Mr. Quixano at home?
KATHLEEN [Sulkily]
Which Mr. Quixano?
VERA [Surprised]
Are there two Mr. Quixanos?
KATHLEEN [Tartly]
Didn't I say there was?
VERA
Then I want the one who plays.
KATHLEEN
There isn't a one who plays.
VERA
Oh, surely!
KATHLEEN
Ye're wrong entirely. They both plays.
VERA [Smiling]
Oh, dear! And I suppose they both play the violin.
KATHLEEN
Ye're wrong again. One plays the piano—ounly the young ginthleman plays the fiddle—Mr. David!
VERA [Eagerly]
Ah, Mr. David—that's the one I want to see.
KATHLEEN
He's out.
[She abruptly shuts the door.]
VERA [Stopping its closing]
Don't shut the door!
KATHLEEN [Snappily]
More chanst of seeing him out there than in here!
VERA
But I want to leave a message.
KATHLEEN
Then why don't ye come inside? It's freezin' me to the bone.
[She sneezes.]
Atchoo!
VERA
I'm sorry.
[She comes in and closes the door]
Will you please say Miss Revendal called from the Settlement, and we are anxiously awaiting his answer to the letter asking him to play for us on——
KATHLEEN
What way will I be tellin' him all that? I'm not here.
VERA
Eh?
KATHLEEN
I'm lavin'—just as soon as I've me thrunk packed.
VERA
Then I must write the message—can I write at this desk?
KATHLEEN
If the ould woman don't come in and shpy you.
VERA
What old woman?
KATHLEEN
Ould Mr. Quixano's mother—she wears a black wig, she's that houly.
VERA [Bewildered]
What? … But why should she mind my writing?
KATHLEEN
Look at the clock.
[Vera looks at the clock, more puzzled than ever.]
If ye're not quick, it'll be Shabbos.
VERA
Be what?
KATHLEEN [Holds up hands of horror]
Ye don't know what Shabbos is! A Jewess not know her own Sunday!
VERA [Outraged]
I, a Jewess! How dare you?
KATHLEEN [Flustered]
Axin' your pardon, miss, but ye looked a bit furrin and I——
VERA [Frozen]
I am a Russian.
[Slowly and dazedly]
Do I understand that Mr. Quixano is a Jew?
KATHLEEN
Two Jews, miss. Both of 'em.
VERA
Oh, but it is impossible.
[Dazedly to herself]
He had such charming manners.
[Aloud again]
You seem to think everybody Jewish. Are you sure Mr. Quixano is not Spanish?—the name sounds Spanish.
KATHLEEN
Shpanish!
[She picks up the old Hebrew book on the armchair.]
Look at the ould lady's book. Is that Shpanish?
[She points to the Mizrach.]
And that houly picture the ould lady says her pater-noster to! Is that Shpanish? And that houly table-cloth with the houly silver candle——
[Cry of sudden astonishment]
Why, I've ounly put——
[She looks toward mantel and utters a great cry of alarm as she drops the Hebrew book on the floor.]
Why, where's the other candleshtick! Mother in hivin, they'll say I shtole the candleshtick!
[Perceiving that Vera is dazedly moving toward door]
Beggin' your pardon, miss——
[She is about to move a chair toward the desk.]
VERA
Thank you, I've changed my mind.
KATHLEEN
That's more than I'll do.
VERA [Hand on door]
Don't say I called at all.
KATHLEEN
Plaze yerself. What name did ye say?
[Mendel enters hastily from his bedroom, completely transmogrified, minus the skull-cap, with a Prince Albert coat, and boots instead of slippers, so that his appearance is gentlemanly. Kathleen begins to search quietly and unostentatiously in the table-drawers, the chiffonier, etc., etc., for the candlestick.
MENDEL
I am sorry if I have kept you waiting——
[He rubs his hands importantly.]
You see I have so many pupils already. Won't you sit down?
[He indicates a chair.]
VERA [Flushing, embarrassed, releasing her hold of the door handle]
Thank you—I—I—I didn't come about pianoforte lessons.
MENDEL [Sighing in disappointment]
Ach!
VERA
In fact I—er—it wasn't you I wanted at all—I was just going.
MENDEL [Politely]
Perhaps I can direct you to the house you are looking for.
VERA
Thank you, I won't trouble you.
[She turns toward the door again.]
MENDEL
Allow me!
[He opens the door for her.]
VERA [Hesitating, struck by his manners, struggling with her anti-Jewish prejudice]
It—it—was your son I wanted.
MENDEL [His face lighting up]
You mean my nephew, David. Yes, he gives violin lessons.
[He closes the door.]
VERA
Oh, is he your nephew?
MENDEL
I am sorry he is out—he, too, has so many pupils, though at the moment he is only at the Crippled Children's Home—playing to them.
VERA
How lovely of him!
[Touched and deciding to conquer her prejudice]
But that's just what I came about—I mean we'd like him to play again at our Settlement. Please ask him why he hasn't answered Miss Andrews's letter.
MENDEL [Astonished]
He hasn't answered your letter?
VERA
Oh, I'm not Miss Andrews; I'm only her assistant.
MENDEL
I see—Kathleen, whatever are you doing under the table?
[Kathleen, in her hunting around for the candlestick, is now stooping and lifting up the table-cloth.]
KATHLEEN
Sure the fiend's after witching away the candleshtick.
MENDEL [Embarrassed]
The candlestick? Oh—I—I think you'll find it in my bedroom.
KATHLEEN
Wisha, now!
[She goes into his bedroom.]
MENDEL [Turning apologetically to Vera]
I beg your pardon, Miss Andrews, I mean Miss—er——
VERA
Revendal.
MENDEL [Slightly more interested]
Revendal? Then you must be the Miss Revendal David told me about!
VERA [Blushing]
Why, he has only seen me once—the time he played at our Roof-Garden Concert.
MENDEL
Yes, but he was so impressed by the way you handled those new immigrants—the Spirit of the Settlement, he called you.
VERA [Modestly]
Ah, no—Miss Andrews is that. And you will tell him to answer her letter at once, won't you, because there's only a week now to our Concert.
[A gust of wind shakes the windows. She smiles.]
Naturally it will not be on the Roof Garden.
MENDEL [Half to himself]
Fancy David not saying a word about it to me! Are you sure the letter was mailed?
VERA
I mailed it myself—a week ago. And even in New York——
[She smiles. Re-enter Kathleen with the recovered candlestick.]
KATHLEEN
Bedad, ye're as great a shleep-walker as Mr. David!
[She places the candlestick on the table and moves toward her bedroom.]
MENDEL
Kathleen!
KATHLEEN [Pursuing her walk without turning]
I'm not here!
MENDEL
Did you take in a letter for Mr. David about a week ago?
[Smiling at Miss Revendal]
He doesn't get many, you see.
KATHLEEN [Turning]
A letter? Sure, I took in ounly a postcard from Miss Johnson, an' that ounly sayin'——
VERA
And you don't remember a letter—a large letter—last Saturday—with the seal of our Settlement?
KATHLEEN
Last Saturday wid a seal, is it? Sure, how could I forgit it?
MENDEL
Then you did take it in?
KATHLEEN
Ye're wrong entirely. 'Twas the misthress took it in.
MENDEL [To Vera]
I am sorry the boy has been so rude.
KATHLEEN
But the misthress didn't give it him at wanst—she hid it away bekaz it was Shabbos.
MENDEL
Oh, dear—and she has forgotten to give it to him. Excuse me.
[He makes a hurried exit to the kitchen.]
KATHLEEN
And excuse me—I've me thrunk to pack.
[She goes toward her bedroom, pauses at the door.]
And ye'll witness I don't pack the candleshtick.
[Emphatic exit.]
VERA [Still dazed]
A Jew! That wonderful boy a Jew! … But then so was David the shepherd youth with his harp and his psalms, the sweet singer in Israel.
[She surveys the room and its contents with interest. The windows rattle once or twice in the rising wind. The light gets gradually less. She picks up the huge Hebrew tome on the piano and puts it down with a slight smile as if overwhelmed by the weight of alien antiquity. Then she goes over to the desk and picks up the printed music.]
Mendelssohn's Concerto, Tartini's Sonata in G Minor, Bach's Chaconne …
[She looks up at the book-rack.]
"History of the American Commonwealth," "Cyclopædia of History," "History of the Jews"—he seems very fond of history. Ah, there's Shelley and Tennyson.
[With surprise]
Nietzsche next to the Bible? No Russian books apparently——
[Re-enter Mendel triumphantly with a large sealed letter.]
MENDEL
Here it is! As it came on Saturday, my mother was afraid David would open it!
VERA [Smiling]
But what can you do with a letter except open it? Any more than with an oyster?
MENDEL [Smiling as he puts the letter on David's desk]
To a pious Jew letters and oysters are alike forbidden—at least letters may not be opened on our day of rest.
VERA
I'm sure I couldn't rest till I'd opened mine.
[Enter from the kitchen Frau Quixano, defending herself with excited gesticulation. She is an old lady with a black wig, but her appearance is dignified, venerable even, in no way comic. She speaks Yiddish exclusively, that being largely the language of the Russian Pale.]
FRAU QUIXANO
Obber ich hob gesogt zu Kathleen——
MENDEL [Turning and going to her]
Yes, yes, mother, that's all right now.
FRAU QUIXANO [In horror, perceiving her Hebrew book on the floor, where Kathleen has dropped it]
Mein Buch!
[She picks it up and kisses it piously.]
MENDEL [Presses her into her fireside chair]
Ruhig, ruhig, Mutter!
[To Vera]
She understands barely a word of English—she won't disturb us.
VERA
Oh, but I must be going—I was so long finding the house, and look! it has begun to snow!
[They both turn their heads and look at the falling snow.]
MENDEL
All the more reason to wait for David—it may leave off. He can't be long now. Do sit down.
[He offers a chair.]
FRAU QUIXANO [Looking round suspiciously]
Wos will die Shikseh?
VERA
What does your mother say?
MENDEL [Half-smiling]
Oh, only asking what your heathen ladyship desires.
VERA
Tell her I hope she is well.
MENDEL
Das Fräulein hofft dass es geht gut——
FRAU QUIXANO [Shrugging her shoulders in despairing astonishment]
Gut? Un' wie soll es gut gehen—in Amerika!
[She takes out her spectacles, and begins slowly polishing and adjusting them.]
VERA [Smiling]
I understood that last word.
MENDEL
She asks how can anything possibly go well in America!
VERA
Ah, she doesn't like America.
MENDEL [Half-smiling]
Her favourite exclamation is "A Klog zu Columbessen!"
VERA
What does that mean?
MENDEL
Cursed be Columbus!
VERA [Laughingly]
Poor Columbus! I suppose she's just come over.
MENDEL
Oh, no, it must be ten years since I sent for her.
VERA
Really! But your nephew was born here?
MENDEL
No, he's Russian too. But please sit down, you had better get his answer at once.
[Vera sits.]
VERA
I suppose you taught him music.
MENDEL
I? I can't play the violin. He is self-taught. In the Russian Pale he was a wonder-child. Poor David! He always looked forward to coming to America; he imagined I was a famous musician over here. He found me conductor in a cheap theatre—a converted beer-hall.
VERA
Was he very disappointed?
MENDEL
Disappointed? He was enchanted! He is crazy about America.
VERA [Smiling]
Ah, he doesn't curse Columbus.
MENDEL
My mother came with her life behind her: David with his life before him. Poor boy!
VERA
Why do you say poor boy?
MENDEL
What is there before him here but a terrible struggle for life? If he doesn't curse Columbus, he'll curse fate. Music-lessons and dance-halls, beer-halls and weddings—every hope and ambition will be ground out of him, and he will die obscure and unknown.
[His head sinks on his breast, Frau Quixano is heard faintly sobbing over her book. The sobbing continues throughout the scene.]
VERA [Half rising]
You have made your mother cry.
MENDEL
Oh, no—she understood nothing. She always cries on the eve of the Sabbath.
VERA [Mystified, sinking back into her chair]
Always cries? Why?
MENDEL [Embarrassed]
Oh, well, a Christian wouldn't understand——
VERA
Yes I could—do tell me!
MENDEL
She knows that in this great grinding America, David and I must go out to earn our bread on Sabbath as on week-days. She never says a word to us, but her heart is full of tears.
VERA
Poor old woman. It was wrong of us to ask your nephew to play at the Settlement for nothing.
MENDEL [Rising fiercely]
If you offer him a fee, he shall not play. Did you think I was begging of you?
VERA
I beg your pardon——
[She smiles.]
There, I am begging of you. Sit down, please.
MENDEL [Walking away to piano]
I ought not to have burdened you with our troubles—you are too young.
VERA [Pathetically]
I young? If you only knew how old I am!
MENDEL
You?
VERA
I left my youth in Russia—eternities ago.
MENDEL
You know our Russia!
[He goes over to her and sits down.]
VERA
Can't you see I'm a Russian, too?
[With a faint tremulous smile]
I might even have been a Siberian had I stayed. But I escaped from my gaolers.
MENDEL
You were a Revolutionist!
VERA
Who can live in Russia and not be? So you see trouble and I are not such strangers.
MENDEL
Who would have thought it to look at you? Siberia, gaolers, revolutions!
[Rising]
What terrible things life holds!
VERA
Yes, even in free America.
[Frau Quixano's sobbing grows slightly louder.]
MENDEL
That Settlement work must be full of tragedies.
VERA
Sometimes one sees nothing but the tragedy of things.
[Looking toward the window]
The snow is getting thicker. How pitilessly it falls—like fate.
MENDEL [Following her gaze]
Yes, icy and inexorable.
[The faint sobbing of Frau Quixano over her book, which has been heard throughout the scene as a sort of musical accompaniment, has combined to work it up to a mood of intense sadness, intensified by the growing dusk, so that as the two now gaze at the falling snow, the atmosphere seems overbrooded with melancholy. There is a moment or two without dialogue, given over to the sobbing of Frau Quixano, the roar of the wind shaking the windows, the quick falling of the snow. Suddenly a happy voice singing "My Country 'tis of Thee" is heard from without.]
FRAU QUIXANO [Pricking up her ears, joyously]
Do ist Dovidel!
MENDEL
That's David!
[He springs up.]
VERA [Murmurs in relief]
Ah!
[The whole atmosphere is changed to one of joyous expectation, David is seen and heard passing the left window, still singing the national hymn, but it breaks off abruptly as he throws open the door and appears on the threshold, a buoyant snow-covered figure in a cloak and a broad-brimmed hat, carrying a violin case. He is a sunny, handsome youth of the finest Russo-Jewish type. He speaks with a slight German accent.]
DAVID
Isn't it a beautiful world, uncle?
[He closes the inner door.]
Snow, the divine white snow——
[Perceiving the visitor with amaze]
Miss Revendal here!
[He removes his hat and looks at her with boyish reverence and wonder.]
VERA [Smiling]
Don't look so surprised—I haven't fallen from heaven like the snow. Take off your wet things.
DAVID
Oh, it's nothing; it's dry snow.
[He lays down his violin case and brushes off the snow from his cloak, which Mendel takes from him and hangs on the rack, all without interrupting the dialogue.]
If I had only known you were waiting——
VERA
I am glad you didn't—I wouldn't have had those poor little cripples cheated out of a moment of your music.
DAVID
Uncle has told you? Ah, it was bully! You should have seen the cripples waltzing with their crutches!
[He has moved toward the old woman, and while he holds one hand to the blaze now pats her cheek with the other in greeting, to which she responds with a loving smile ere she settles contentedly to slumber over her book.]
Es war grossartig, Granny. Even the paralysed danced.
MENDEL
Don't exaggerate, David.
DAVID
Exaggerate, uncle! Why, if they hadn't the use of their legs, their arms danced on the counterpane; if their arms couldn't dance, their hands danced from the wrist; and if their hands couldn't dance, they danced with their fingers; and if their fingers couldn't dance, their heads danced; and if their heads were paralysed, why, their eyes danced—God never curses so utterly but you've something left to dance with!
[He moves toward his desk.]
VERA [Infected with his gaiety]
You'll tell us next the beds danced.
DAVID
So they did—they shook their legs like mad!
VERA
Oh, why wasn't I there?
[His eyes meet hers at the thought of her presence.]
DAVID
Dear little cripples, I felt as if I could play them all straight again with the love and joy jumping out of this old fiddle.
[He lays his hand caressingly on the violin.]
MENDEL [Gloomily]
But in reality you left them as crooked as ever.
DAVID
No, I didn't.
[He caresses the back of his uncle's head in affectionate rebuke.]
I couldn't play their bones straight, but I played their brains straight. And hunch-brains are worse than hunch-backs. …
[Suddenly perceiving his letter on the desk]
A letter for me!
[He takes it with boyish eagerness, then hesitates to open it.]
VERA [Smiling]
Oh, you may open it!
DAVID [Wistfully]
May I?
VERA [Smiling]
Yes, and quick—or it'll be Shabbos!
[David looks up at her in wonder.]
MENDEL [Smiling]
You read your letter!
DAVID [Opens it eagerly, then smiles broadly with pleasure.]
Oh, Miss Revendal! Isn't that great! To play again at your Settlement. I am getting famous.
VERA
But we can't offer you a fee.
MENDEL [Quickly sotto voce to Vera]
Thank you!
DAVID
A fee! I'd pay a fee to see all those happy immigrants you gather together—Dutchmen and Greeks, Poles and Norwegians, Welsh and Armenians. If you only had Jews, it would be as good as going to Ellis Island.
VERA [Smiling]
What a strange taste! Who on earth wants to go to Ellis Island?
DAVID
Oh, I love going to Ellis Island to watch the ships coming in from Europe, and to think that all those weary, sea-tossed wanderers are feeling what I felt when America first stretched out her great mother-hand to me!
VERA [Softly]
Were you very happy?
DAVID
It was heaven. You must remember that all my life I had heard of America—everybody in our town had friends there or was going there or got money orders from there. The earliest game I played at was selling off my toy furniture and setting up in America. All my life America was waiting, beckoning, shining—the place where God would wipe away tears from off all faces.
[He ends in a half-sob.]
MENDEL [Rises, as in terror]
Now, now, David, don't get excited.
[Approaches him.]
DAVID
To think that the same great torch of liberty which threw its light across all the broad seas and lands into my little garret in Russia, is shining also for all those other weeping millions of Europe, shining wherever men hunger and are oppressed——
MENDEL [Soothingly]
Yes, yes, David.
[Laying hand on his shoulder]
Now sit down and——
DAVID [Unheeding]
Shining over the starving villages of Italy and Ireland, over the swarming stony cities of Poland and Galicia, over the ruined farms of Roumania, over the shambles of Russia——
MENDEL [Pleadingly]
David!
DAVID
Oh, Miss Revendal, when I look at our Statue of Liberty, I just seem to hear the voice of America crying: "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest—rest——"
[He is now almost sobbing.]
MENDEL
Don't talk any more—you know it is bad for you.
DAVID
But Miss Revendal asked—and I want to explain to her what America means to me.
MENDEL
You can explain it in your American symphony.
VERA [Eagerly—to David]
You compose?
DAVID [Embarrassed]
Oh, uncle, why did you talk of—? Uncle always—my music is so thin and tinkling. When I am writing my American symphony, it seems like thunder crashing through a forest full of bird songs. But next day—oh, next day!
[He laughs dolefully and turns away.]
VERA
So your music finds inspiration in America?
DAVID
Yes—in the seething of the Crucible.
VERA
The Crucible? I don't understand!
DAVID
Not understand! You, the Spirit of the Settlement!
[He rises and crosses to her and leans over the table, facing her.]
Not understand that America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand
[Graphically illustrating it on the table]
in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won't be long like that, brothers, for these are the fires of God you've come to—these are the fires of God. A fig for your feuds and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians—into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American.
MENDEL
I should have thought the American was made already—eighty millions of him.
DAVID
Eighty millions!
[He smiles toward Vera in good-humoured derision.]
Eighty millions! Over a continent! Why, that cockleshell of a Britain has forty millions! No, uncle, the real American has not yet arrived. He is only in the Crucible, I tell you—he will be the fusion of all races, perhaps the coming superman. Ah, what a glorious Finale for my symphony—if I can only write it.
VERA
But you have written some of it already! May I not see it?
DAVID [Relapsing into boyish shyness]
No, if you please, don't ask——
[He moves over to his desk and nervously shuts it down and turns the keys of drawers as though protecting his MS.]
VERA
Won't you give a bit of it at our Concert?
DAVID
Oh, it needs an orchestra.
VERA
But you at the violin and I at the piano——
MENDEL
You didn't tell me you played, Miss Revendal!
VERA
I told you less commonplace things.
DAVID
Miss Revendal plays quite like a professional.
VERA [Smiling]
I don't feel so complimented as you expect. You see I did have a professional training.
MENDEL [Smiling]
And I thought you came to me for lessons!
[David laughs.]
VERA [Smiling]
No, I went to Petersburg——
DAVID [Dazed]
To Petersburg——?
VERA [Smiling]
Naturally. To the Conservatoire. There wasn't much music to be had at Kishineff, a town where——
DAVID
Kishineff!
[He begins to tremble.]
VERA [Still smiling]
My birthplace.
MENDEL [Coming toward him, protectingly]
Calm yourself, David.
DAVID
Yes, yes—so you are a Russian!
[He shudders violently, staggers.]
VERA [Alarmed]
You are ill!
DAVID
It is nothing, I—not much music at Kishineff! No, only the Death-March! … Mother! Father! Ah—cowards, murderers! And you!
[He shakes his fist at the air.]
You, looking on with your cold butcher's face! O God! O God!
[He bursts into hysterical sobs and runs, shamefacedly, through the door to his room.]
VERA [Wildly]
What have I said? What have I done?
MENDEL
Oh, I was afraid of this, I was afraid of this.
FRAU QUIXANO [Who has fallen asleep over her book, wakes as if with a sense of the horror and gazes dazedly around, adding to the thrillingness of the moment]
Dovidel! Wu is' Dovidel! Mir dacht sach——
MENDEL [Pressing her back to her slumbers]
Du träumst, Mutter! Schlaf!
[She sinks back to sleep.]
VERA [In hoarse whisper]
His father and mother were massacred?
MENDEL [In same tense tone]
Before his eyes—father, mother, sisters, down to the youngest babe, whose skull was battered in by a hooligan's heel.
VERA
How did he escape?
MENDEL
He was shot in the shoulder, and fell unconscious. As he wasn't a girl, the hooligans left him for dead and hurried to fresh sport.
VERA
Terrible! Terrible!
[Almost in tears.]
MENDEL [Shrugging shoulders, hopelessly]
It is only Jewish history! … David belongs to the species of pogrom orphan—they arrive in the States by almost every ship.
VERA
Poor boy! Poor boy! And he looked so happy!
[She half sobs.]
MENDEL
So he is, most of the time—a sunbeam took human shape when he was born. But naturally that dreadful scene left a scar on his brain, as the bullet left a scar on his shoulder, and he is always liable to see red when Kishineff is mentioned.
