The Melting-Pot Part 7

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 Kis.h.i.+neff, a town where----

DAVID Kis.h.i.+neff!

[_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 Kis.h.i.+neff! 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 G.o.d! O G.o.d!

[_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 traumst, Mutter! Schlaf!_ [_She sinks back to sleep._]

VERA [_In hoa.r.s.e whisper_]

His father and mother were ma.s.sacred?

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 s.h.i.+p.

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 Kis.h.i.+neff is mentioned.

VERA I will never mention my miserable birthplace to him again.

MENDEL But you see every few months the newspapers tell us of another _pogrom_, and then he screams out against what he calls that butcher's face, so that I tremble for his reason. I tremble even when I see him writing that crazy music about America, for it only means he is brooding over the difference between America and Russia.

VERA But perhaps--perhaps--all the terrible memory will pa.s.s peacefully away in his music.

MENDEL There will always be the scar on his shoulder to remind him--whenever the wound twinges, it brings up these terrible faces and visions.

VERA Is it on his right shoulder?

MENDEL No--on his left. For a violinist that is even worse.

VERA Ah, of course--the weight and the fingering.

[_Subconsciously placing and fingering an imaginary violin._]

MENDEL That is why I fear so for his future--he will never be strong enough for the feats of bravura that the public demands.

VERA The wild beasts! I feel more ashamed of my country than ever. But there's his symphony.

MENDEL And who will look at that amateurish stuff? He knows so little of harmony and counterpoint--he breaks all the rules. I've tried to give him a few pointers--but he ought to have gone to Germany.

VERA Perhaps it's not too late.

MENDEL [_Pa.s.sionately_]

Ah, if you and your friends could help him! See--I'm begging after all.

But it's not for myself.

VERA My father loves music. Perhaps _he_--but no! he lives in Kis.h.i.+neff. But I will think--there are people here--I will write to you.

MENDEL [_Fervently_]

Thank you! Thank you!