The Melting-Pot Part 6

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 s.h.i.+ps 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, s.h.i.+ning--the place where G.o.d 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 s.h.i.+ning also for all those other weeping millions of Europe, s.h.i.+ning wherever men hunger and are oppressed----

MENDEL [_Soothingly_]

Yes, yes, David.

[_Laying hand on his shoulder_]

Now sit down and----

DAVID [_Unheeding_]

s.h.i.+ning 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 [_Embarra.s.sed_]

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 cras.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d'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 ill.u.s.trating 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 G.o.d you've come to--these are the fires of G.o.d. A fig for your feuds and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians--into the Crucible with you all! G.o.d 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 c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l 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_]