The Melting-Pot Part 30

BARON Tus.h.!.+

[_Pocketing the pistol a little shamefacedly._]

VERA Justice on himself? For what?

DAVID For crimes beyond human penalty, for obscenities beyond human utterance, for----

VERA You are raving.

DAVID Would to heaven I were!

VERA But this is my father.

DAVID Your father!... G.o.d!

[_He staggers._]

BARON [_Drawing her to him_]

Come, Vera, I told you----

VERA [_Frantically, shrinking back_]

Don't touch me!

BARON [_Starting back in amaze_]

Vera!

VERA [_Hoa.r.s.ely_]

Say it's not true.

BARON What is not true?

VERA What David said. It was the mob that ma.s.sacred--_you_ had no hand in it.

BARON [_Sullenly_]

I was there with my soldiers.

DAVID [_Leaning, pale, against a chair, hisses_]

And you looked on with that cold face of hate--while my mother--my sister----

BARON [_Sullenly_]

I could not see everything.

DAVID Now and again you ordered your soldiers to fire----

VERA [_In joyous relief_]

Ah, he _did_ check the mob--he _did_ tell his soldiers to fire.

DAVID At any Jew who tried to defend himself.

VERA Great G.o.d!

[_She falls on the sofa and buries her head on the cus.h.i.+on, moaning_]

Is there no pity in heaven?

DAVID There was no pity on earth.

BARON It was the People avenging itself, Vera. The People rose like a flood.

It had centuries of spoliation to wipe out. The voice of the People is the voice of G.o.d.

VERA [_Moaning_]

But you could have stopped them.

BARON I had no orders to defend the foes of Christ and [_Crossing himself_]

the Tsar. The People----

VERA But you could have stopped them.

BARON Who can stop a flood? I did my duty. A soldier's duty is not so pretty as a musician's.

VERA But you could have stopped them.

BARON [_Losing all patience_]

Silence! You talk like an ignorant girl, blinded by pa.s.sion. The _pogrom_ is a holy crusade. Are we Russians the first people to crush down the Jew? No--from the dawn of history the nations have had to stamp upon him--the Egyptians, the a.s.syrians, the Persians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans----

DAVID Yes, it is true. Even Christianity did not invent hatred. But not till Holy Church arose were we burnt at the stake, and not till Holy Russia arose were our babes torn limb from limb. Oh, it is too much! Delivered from Egypt four thousand years ago, to be slaves to the Russian Pharaoh to-day.

[_He falls as if kneeling on a chair, and, leans his head on the rail._]

O G.o.d, shall we always be broken on the wheel of history? How long, O Lord, how long?

BARON [_Savagely_]

Till you are all stamped out, ground into your dirt.

[_Tenderly_]

Look up, little Vera! You saw how _papasha_ loves you--how he was ready to hold out his hand--and how this cur tried to bite it. Be calm--tell him a daughter of Russia cannot mate with dirt.

VERA Father, I will be calm. I will speak without pa.s.sion or blindness. I will tell David the truth. I was never absolutely sure of my love for him--perhaps that was why I doubted his love for me--often after our enchanted moments there would come a nameless uneasiness, some vague instinct, relic of the long centuries of Jew-loathing, some strange shrinking from his Christless creed----

BARON [_With an exultant cry_]

Ah! She is a Revendal.

VERA But now---- [_She rises and walks firmly toward DAVID_]

now, David, I come to you, and I say in the words of Ruth, thy people shall be my people and thy G.o.d my G.o.d!

[_She stretches out her hands to DAVID._]

BARON You shameless----!

[_He stops as he perceives DAVID remains impa.s.sive._]

VERA [_With agonised cry_]

David!

DAVID [_In low, icy tones_]

You cannot come to me. There is a river of blood between us.

VERA Were it seven seas, our love must cross them.