The Melting-Pot Part 31

DAVID Easy words to you. You never saw that red flood bearing the mangled b.r.e.a.s.t.s of women and the spattered brains of babes and sucklings. Oh!

[_He covers his eyes with his hands. The BARON turns away in gloomy impotence. At last DAVID begins to speak quietly, almost dreamily._]

It was your Easter, and the air was full of holy bells and the streets of holy processions--priests in black and girls in white and waving palms and crucifixes, and everybody exchanging Easter eggs and kissing one another three times on the mouth in token of peace and goodwill, and even the Jew-boy felt the spirit of love brooding over the earth, though he did not then know that this Christ, whom holy chants proclaimed re-risen, was born in the form of a brother Jew. And what added to the peace and holy joy was that our own Pa.s.sover was s.h.i.+ning before us. My mother had already made the raisin wine, and my greedy little brother Solomon had sipped it on the sly that very morning. We were all at home--all except my father--he was away in the little Synagogue at which he was cantor. Ah, such a voice he had--a voice of tears and thunder--when he prayed it was like a wounded soul beating at the gates of Heaven--but he sang even more beautifully in the ritual of home, and how we were looking forward to his hymns at the Pa.s.sover table---- [_He breaks down. The BARON has gradually turned round under the spell of DAVID'S story and now listens hypnotised._]

I was playing my cracked little fiddle. Little Miriam was making her doll dance to it. Ah, that decrepit old china doll--the only one the poor child had ever had--I can see it now--one eye, no nose, half an arm. We were all laughing to see it caper to my music.... My father flies in through the door, desperately clasping to his breast the Holy Scroll. We cry out to him to explain, and then we see that in that beloved mouth of song there is no longer a tongue--only blood. He tries to bar the door--a mob breaks in--we dash out through the back into the street. There are the soldiers--and the Face---- [_VERA'S eyes involuntarily seek the face of her father, who shrinks away as their eyes meet._]

VERA [_In a low sob_]

O G.o.d!

DAVID When I came to myself, with a curious aching in my left shoulder, I saw lying beside me a strange shapeless Something....

[_DAVID points weirdly to the floor, and VERA, hunched forwards, gazes stonily at it, as if seeing the horror._]

By the crimson doll in what seemed a hand I knew it must be little Miriam. The doll was a dream of beauty and perfection beside the mutilated ma.s.s which was all that remained of my sister, of my mother, of greedy little Solomon-- Oh! You Christians can only see that rosy splendour on the horizon of happiness. And the Jew didn't see rosily enough for you, ha! ha! ha! the Jew who gropes in one great crimson mist.

[_He breaks down in spasmodic, ironic, long-drawn, terrible laughter._]

VERA [_Trying vainly to tranquillise him_]

Hush, David! Your laughter hurts more than tears. Let Vera comfort you.

[_She kneels by his chair, tries to put her arms round him._]

DAVID [_Shuddering_]

Take them away! Don't you feel the cold dead pus.h.i.+ng between us?

VERA [_Unfaltering, moving his face toward her lips_]

Kiss me!

DAVID I should feel the blood on my lips.

VERA My love shall wipe it out.

DAVID Love! Christian love!

[_He unwinds her clinging arms; she sinks prostrate on the floor as he rises._]

For this I gave up my people--darkened the home that sheltered me--there was always a still, small voice at my heart calling me back, but I heeded nothing--only the voice of the butcher's daughter.

[_Brokenly_]

Let me go home, let me go home.

[_He looks lingeringly at VERA'S prostrate form, but overcoming the instinct to touch and comfort her, begins tottering with uncertain pauses toward the door leading to the hall._]

BARON [_Extending his arms in relief and longing_]

And here is _your_ home, Vera!

[_He raises her gradually from the floor; she is dazed, but suddenly she becomes conscious of whose arms she is in, and utters a cry of repulsion._]

VERA Those arms reeking from that crimson river!

[_She falls back._]

BARON [_Sullenly_]

Don't echo that babble. You came to these arms often enough when they were fresh from the battlefield.

VERA But not from the shambles! You heard what he called you. Not soldier--butcher! Oh, I dared to dream of happiness after my nightmare of Siberia, but you--you---- [_She breaks down for the first time in hysterical sobs._]

BARON [_Brokenly_]

Vera! Little Vera! Don't cry! You stab me!

VERA You thought you were ordering your soldiers to fire at the Jews, but it was my heart they pierced.

[_She sobs on._]

BARON ... And my own.... But we will comfort each other. I will go to the Tsar myself--with my forehead to the earth--to beg for your pardon!... Come, put your wet face to little father's....

VERA [_Violently pus.h.i.+ng his face away_]

I hate you! I curse the day I was born your daughter!

[_She staggers toward the door leading to the interior. At the same moment DAVID, who has reached the door leading to the hall, now feeling subconsciously that VERA is going and that his last reason for lingering on is removed, turns the door-handle. The click attracts the BARON'S attention, he veers round._]

BARON [_To DAVID_]

Halt!

[_DAVID turns mechanically. VERA drifts out through her door, leaving the two men face to face. The BARON beckons to DAVID, who as if hypnotised moves nearer. The BARON whips out his pistol, slowly crosses to DAVID, who stands as if awaiting his fate. The BARON hands the pistol to DAVID._]

You were right!

[_He steps back swiftly with a touch of stern heroism into the att.i.tude of the culprit at a military execution, awaiting the bullet._]

Shoot me!

DAVID [_Takes the pistol mechanically, looks long and pensively at it as with a sense of its irrelevance. Gradually his arm droops and lets the pistol fall on the table, and there his hand touches a string of his violin, which yields a little note. Thus reminded of it, he picks up the violin, and as his fingers draw out the broken string he murmurs_]

I must get a new string.

[_He resumes his dragging march toward the door, repeating maunderingly_]

I must get a new string.

[_The curtain falls._]

Act IV

_Sat.u.r.day, July 4, evening. The Roof-Garden of the Settlement House, showing a beautiful, far-stretching panorama of New York, with its irregular sky-buildings on the left, and the harbour with its Statue of Liberty on the right. Everything is wet and gleaming after rain. Parapet at the back. Elevator on the right.

Entrance from the stairs on the left. In the sky hang heavy clouds through which thin, golden lines of sunset are just beginning to labour. DAVID is discovered on a bench, hugging his violin-case to his breast, gazing moodily at the sky. A m.u.f.fled sound of applause comes up from below and continues with varying intensity through the early part of the scene. Through it comes the noise of the elevator ascending. MENDEL steps out and hurries forward_.

MENDEL Come down, David! Don't you hear them shouting for you?

[_He pa.s.ses his hand over the wet bench._]

Good heavens! You will get rheumatic fever!

DAVID Why have you followed me?

MENDEL Get up--everything is still damp.

DAVID [_Rising, gloomily_]

Yes, there's a damper over everything.

MENDEL Nonsense--the rain hasn't damped your triumph in the least. In fact, the more delicate effects wouldn't have gone so well in the open air.

Listen!

DAVID Let them shout. Who told you I was up here?

MENDEL Miss Revendal, of course.

DAVID [_Agitated_]