WORKS OF ISRAEL ZANGWILL THE MELTING-POT THE AMERICAN JEWISH BOOK COMPANYNEW YORK1921 THE MELTING-POTCOPYRIGHT, 1909, 1914, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Printed byTHE LORD BALTIMORE PRESSBaltimore, Md. TO THEODORE ROOSEVELT IN RESPECTFUL RECOGNITION OF HIS STRENUOUS STRUGGLE AGAINST THEFORCES THAT THREATEN TO SHIPWRECK THE GREAT REPUBLIC WHICHCARRIES MANKIND AND ITS FORTUNES, THIS PLAY IS, BY HIS KINDPERMISSION, CORDIALLY DEDICATED _The rights of performing or publishing this play in any countryor language are strictly reserved by the author. _ THE CAST [As first produced at the Columbia Theatre, Washington, on the fifth ofOctober 1908] David Quixano WALKER WHITESIDEMendel Quixano HENRY BERGMANBaron Revendal JOHN BLAIRQuincy Davenport, Jr. GRANT STEWARTHerr Pappelmeister HENRY VOGELVera Revendal CHRYSTAL HERNEBaroness Revendal LEONORA VON OTTINGERFrau Quixano LOUISE MULDENERKathleen O'Reilly MOLLIE REVELSettlement Servant ANNIE HARRIS Produced by HUGH FORD [As first produced by the Play Actors at the Court Theatre, London onthe twenty-fifth of January 1914] David Quixano HAROLD CHAPINMendel Quixano HUGH TABBERERBaron Revendal H. LAWRENCE LEYTONQuincy Davenport, Jr. P. PERCEVAL CLARKHerr Pappelmeister CLIFTON ALDERSONVera Revendal PHYLLIS RELPHBaroness Revendal GILLIAN SCAIFEFrau Quixano INEZ BENSUSANKathleen O'Reilly E. NOLAN O'CONNORSettlement Servant RUTH PARROTT Produced by NORMAN PAGE Act I _The 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. _ MENDELGood-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 therent 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 hundreddollars 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 saintchrazy. 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'sown counthry, sure ye can go back to your own Jerusalem, so ye can. MENDELOne'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. MENDELWell, you know that's against her religion. KATHLEENBut I didn't do nothing of the soort. I ounly put butther on amate-plate. MENDELThat'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 asinsible religion? MENDELYou are impertinent. Attend to your work. [_He seats himself at the piano. _] KATHLEENAnd isn't it laying the Sabbath cloth I am? [_She bangs down articles from the table into their right places. _] MENDELDon't answer me back. [_He begins to play softly. _] KATHLEENFaith, I must answer _somebody_ back--and sorra a word of English _she_understands. I might as well talk to a tree. MENDELYou are not paid to talk, but to work. [_Playing on softly. _] KATHLEENAnd 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 upfolks' crockery and they makin' less fuss ouver it. MENDEL [_Stops playing. _]Breaking crockery is one thing, and breaking a religion another. Didn'tyou tell me when I engaged you that you had lived in other Jewishfamilies? KATHLEEN [_Angrily_]And is it a liar ye'd make me out now? I've lived wid clothiers andpawnbrokers and Vaudeville actors, but I niver shtruck a house wheremate and butther couldn't be as paceable on the same plate as eggs andbacon--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 jokeof 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 alittle 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 yerSabbath, _you'll_ be blowing out yer bedroom candle, though ye won'tlight it; Mr. David'll light his and blow it out too; and the misthresswon't even touch the candleshtick. There's three religions in thishouse, 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 amonkey! [_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 blissidminit! MENDEL [_Taken aback_]No, you can't do that. KATHLEENAnd 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! MENDELSo long as you're in this house, you must do your work. [_KATHLEEN'S head emerges sulkily. _] KATHLEENI tould ye I was lavin' at wanst. Let you open the door yerself. MENDELI'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 amonghaythen 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. _] VERAIs Mr. Quixano at home? KATHLEEN [_Sulkily_]Which Mr. Quixano? VERA [_Surprised_]Are there two Mr. Quixanos? KATHLEEN [_Tartly_]Didn't I say there was? VERAThen I want the one who plays. KATHLEENThere isn't a one who plays. VERAOh, surely! KATHLEENYe're wrong entirely. They both plays. VERA [_Smiling_]Oh, dear! And I suppose they both play the violin. KATHLEENYe're wrong again. One plays the piano--ounly the young ginthleman playsthe fiddle--Mr. David! VERA [_Eagerly_]Ah, Mr. David--that's the one I want to see. KATHLEENHe'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! VERABut I want to leave a message. KATHLEENThen why don't ye come inside? It's freezin' me to the bone. [_She sneezes. _]Atchoo! VERAI'm sorry. [_She comes in and closes the door_]Will you please say Miss Revendal called from the Settlement, and we areanxiously awaiting his answer to the letter asking him to play for uson---- KATHLEENWhat way will I be tellin' him all that? I'm not here. VERAEh? KATHLEENI'm lavin'--just as soon as I've me thrunk packed. VERAThen I must _write_ the message--can I write at this desk? KATHLEENIf the ould woman don't come in and shpy you. VERAWhat old woman? KATHLEENOuld Mr. Quixano's mother--she wears a black wig, she's that houly. VERA [_Bewildered_]What?. . . But why should she mind my writing? KATHLEENLook at the clock. [_VERA looks at the clock, more puzzled than ever. _]If ye're not quick, it'll be _Shabbos_. VERABe 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? KATHLEENTwo Jews, miss. Both of 'em. VERAOh, 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 notSpanish?--the name sounds Spanish. KATHLEENShpanish! [_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 thatShpanish? 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 Ishtole the candleshtick! [_Perceiving that VERA is dazedly moving toward door_]Beggin' your pardon, miss---- [_She is about to move a chair toward the desk. _] VERAThank you, I've changed my mind. KATHLEENThat's more than I'll do. VERA [_Hand on door_]Don't say I called at all. KATHLEENPlaze 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. _ MENDELI 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!_ VERAIn 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. VERAThank you, I won't trouble you. [_She turns toward the door again. _] MENDELAllow 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. _] VERAOh, is he your nephew? MENDELI am sorry he is out--he, too, has so many pupils, though at the momenthe is only at the Crippled Children's Home--playing to them. VERAHow 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 againat our Settlement. Please ask him why he hasn't answered Miss Andrews'sletter. MENDEL [_Astonished_]He hasn't answered your letter? VERAOh, I'm not Miss Andrews; I'm only her assistant. MENDELI 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. _] KATHLEENSure the fiend's after witching away the candleshtick. MENDEL [_Embarrassed_]The candlestick? Oh--I--I think you'll find it in my bedroom. KATHLEENWisha, now! [_She goes into his bedroom. _] MENDEL [_Turning apologetically to VERA_]I beg your pardon, Miss Andrews, I mean Miss--er---- VERARevendal. 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-GardenConcert. MENDELYes, but he was so impressed by the way you handled those newimmigrants--the Spirit of the Settlement, he called you. VERA [_Modestly_]Ah, no--Miss Andrews is that. And you will tell him to answer her letterat 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 letterwas mailed? VERAI mailed it myself--a week ago. And even in New York---- [_She smiles. Re-enter KATHLEEN with the recovered candlestick. _] KATHLEENBedad, ye're as great a shleep-walker as Mr. David! [_She places the candlestick on the table and moves toward her bedroom. _] MENDELKathleen! KATHLEEN [_Pursuing her walk without turning_]I'm not here! MENDELDid 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' thatounly sayin'---- VERAAnd you don't remember a letter--a large letter--last Saturday--with theseal of our Settlement? KATHLEENLast Saturday wid a seal, is it? Sure, how could I forgit it? MENDELThen you _did_ take it in? KATHLEENYe're wrong entirely. 'Twas the misthress took it in. MENDEL [_To VERA_]I am sorry the boy has been so rude. KATHLEENBut the misthress didn't give it him at wanst--she hid it away bekaz itwas _Shabbos_. MENDELOh, dear--and she has forgotten to give it to him. Excuse me. [_He makes a hurried exit to the kitchen. _] KATHLEENAnd 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 shepherdyouth 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'sShelley and Tennyson. [_With surprise_]Nietzsche next to the Bible? No Russian books apparently---- [_Re-enter MENDEL triumphantly with a large sealed letter. _] MENDELHere it is! As it came on Saturday, my mother was afraid David wouldopen it! VERA [_Smiling_]But what _can_ you do with a letter except open it? Any more than withan oyster? MENDEL [_Smiling as he puts the letter on DAVID'S desk_]To a pious Jew letters and oysters are alike forbidden--at least lettersmay not be opened on our day of rest. VERAI'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. VERAOh, but I must be going--I was so long finding the house, and look! ithas begun to snow! [_They both turn their heads and look at the falling snow. _] MENDELAll the more reason to wait for David--it may leave off. He can't belong now. Do sit down. [_He offers a chair. _] FRAU QUIXANO [_Looking round suspiciously_]_Wos will die Shikseh?_ VERAWhat does your mother say? MENDEL [_Half-smiling_]Oh, only asking what your heathen ladyship desires. VERATell 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. MENDELShe asks how can anything possibly go well in America! VERAAh, she doesn't like America. MENDEL [_Half-smiling_]Her favourite exclamation is "_A Klog zu Columbessen!_" VERAWhat does that mean? MENDELCursed be Columbus! VERA [_Laughingly_]Poor Columbus! I suppose she's just come over. MENDELOh, no, it must be ten years since I sent for her. VERAReally! But your nephew was born here? MENDELNo, he's Russian too. But please sit down, you had better get his answerat once. [_VERA sits. _] VERAI suppose _you_ taught him music. MENDELI? I can't play the violin. He is self-taught. In the Russian Pale hewas a wonder-child. Poor David! He always looked forward to coming toAmerica; he imagined I was a famous musician over here. He found meconductor in a cheap theatre--a converted beer-hall. VERAWas he very disappointed? MENDELDisappointed? He was enchanted! He is crazy about America. VERA [_Smiling_]Ah, _he_ doesn't curse Columbus. MENDELMy mother came with her life behind her: David with his life before him. Poor boy! VERAWhy do you say poor boy? MENDELWhat is there before him here but a terrible struggle for life? If hedoesn't curse Columbus, he'll curse fate. Music-lessons and dance-halls, beer-halls and weddings--every hope and ambition will be ground out ofhim, 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. MENDELOh, no--she understood nothing. She always cries on the eve of theSabbath. VERA [_Mystified, sinking back into her chair_]Always cries? Why? MENDEL [_Embarrassed_]Oh, well, a Christian wouldn't understand---- VERAYes I could--do tell me! MENDELShe knows that in this great grinding America, David and I must go outto earn our bread on Sabbath as on week-days. She never says a word tous, but her heart is full of tears. VERAPoor old woman. It was wrong of us to ask your nephew to play at theSettlement for nothing. MENDEL [_Rising fiercely_]If you offer him a fee, he shall not play. Did you think I was beggingof you? VERAI 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! MENDELYou? VERAI left my youth in Russia--eternities ago. MENDELYou know our Russia! [_He goes over to her and sits down. _] VERACan'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 mygaolers. MENDELYou were a Revolutionist! VERAWho can live in Russia and not be? So you see trouble and I are not suchstrangers. MENDELWho would have thought it to look at you? Siberia, gaolers, revolutions! [_Rising_]What terrible things life holds! VERAYes, even in free America. [_FRAU QUIXANO'S sobbing grows slightly louder. _] MENDELThat Settlement work must be full of tragedies. VERASometimes 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!_ MENDELThat'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. _] DAVIDIsn'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. DAVIDOh, 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---- VERAI am glad you didn't--I wouldn't have had those poor little cripplescheated out of a moment of your music. DAVIDUncle has told you? Ah, it was bully! You should have seen the crippleswaltzing 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. MENDELDon't exaggerate, David. DAVIDExaggerate, uncle! Why, if they hadn't the use of their legs, their armsdanced on the counterpane; if their arms couldn't dance, their handsdanced from the wrist; and if their hands couldn't dance, they dancedwith their fingers; and if their fingers couldn't dance, their headsdanced; and if their heads were paralysed, why, their eyes danced--Godnever 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. DAVIDSo they did--they shook their legs like mad! VERAOh, why wasn't I there? [_His eyes meet hers at the thought of her presence. _] DAVIDDear little cripples, I felt as if I could play them all straight againwith 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. DAVIDNo, 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 brainsstraight. 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. VERABut we can't offer you a fee. MENDEL [_Quickly sotto voce to VERA_]Thank you! DAVIDA fee! I'd pay a fee to see all those happy immigrants you gathertogether--Dutchmen and Greeks, Poles and Norwegians, Welsh andArmenians. If you only had Jews, it would be as good as going to EllisIsland. VERA [_Smiling_]What a strange taste! Who on earth wants to go to Ellis Island? DAVIDOh, I love going to Ellis Island to watch the ships coming in fromEurope, and to think that all those weary, sea-tossed wanderers arefeeling what _I_ felt when America first stretched out her greatmother-hand to _me_! VERA [_Softly_]Were you very happy? DAVIDIt was heaven. You must remember that all my life I had heard ofAmerica--everybody in our town had friends there or was going there orgot money orders from there. The earliest game I played at was sellingoff my toy furniture and setting up in America. All my life America waswaiting, beckoning, shining--the place where God would wipe away tearsfrom off all faces. [_He ends in a half-sob. _] MENDEL [_Rises, as in terror_]Now, now, David, don't get excited. [_Approaches him. _] DAVIDTo think that the same great torch of liberty which threw its lightacross all the broad seas and lands into my little garret in Russia, isshining also for all those other weeping millions of Europe, shiningwherever 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 theswarming stony cities of Poland and Galicia, over the ruined farms ofRoumania, over the shambles of Russia---- MENDEL [_Pleadingly_]David! DAVIDOh, Miss Revendal, when I look at our Statue of Liberty, I just seem tohear the voice of America crying: "Come unto me all ye that labour andare heavy laden and I will give you rest--rest----" [_He is now almost sobbing. _] MENDELDon't talk any more--you know it is bad for you. DAVIDBut Miss Revendal asked--and I want to explain to her what America meansto me. MENDELYou 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 andtinkling. When I am _writing_ my American symphony, it seems likethunder crashing through a forest full of bird songs. But next day--oh, next day! [_He laughs dolefully and turns away. _] VERASo your music finds inspiration in America? DAVIDYes--in the seething of the Crucible. VERAThe Crucible? I don't understand! DAVIDNot 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-Potwhere all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here youstand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here youstand [_Graphically illustrating it on the table_]in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and yourfifty 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 thefires of God. A fig for your feuds and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians--into the Crucible with youall! God is making the American. MENDELI should have thought the American was made already--eighty millions ofhim. DAVIDEighty millions! [_He smiles toward VERA in good-humoured derision. _]Eighty millions! Over a continent! Why, that cockleshell of a Britainhas forty millions! No, uncle, the real American has not yet arrived. Heis 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 mysymphony--if I can only write it. VERABut 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. _] VERAWon't you give a bit of it at our Concert? DAVIDOh, it needs an orchestra. VERABut you at the violin and I at the piano---- MENDELYou didn't tell me you played, Miss Revendal! VERAI told you less commonplace things. DAVIDMiss Revendal plays quite like a professional. VERA [_Smiling_]I don't feel so complimented as you expect. You see I did have aprofessional 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 atKishineff, a town where---- DAVIDKishineff! [_He begins to tremble. _] VERA [_Still smiling_]My birthplace. MENDEL [_Coming toward him, protectingly_]Calm yourself, David. DAVIDYes, yes--so you are a Russian! [_He shudders violently, staggers. _] VERA [_Alarmed_]You are ill! DAVIDIt is nothing, I--not much music at Kishineff! No, only theDeath-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? MENDELOh, 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. VERAHow did _he_ escape? MENDELHe 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. VERATerrible! 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. VERAPoor boy! Poor boy! And he looked so happy! [_She half sobs. _] MENDELSo 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 thebullet left a scar on his shoulder, and he is always liable to see redwhen Kishineff is mentioned. VERAI will never mention my miserable birthplace to him again. MENDELBut 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, sothat I tremble for his reason. I tremble even when I see him writingthat crazy music about America, for it only means he is brooding overthe difference between America and Russia. VERABut perhaps--perhaps--all the terrible memory will pass peacefully awayin his music. MENDELThere will always be the scar on his shoulder to remind him--wheneverthe wound twinges, it brings up these terrible faces and visions. VERAIs it on his right shoulder? MENDELNo--on his left. For a violinist that is even worse. VERAAh, of course--the weight and the fingering. [_Subconsciously placing and fingering an imaginary violin. _] MENDELThat is why I fear so for his future--he will never be strong enough forthe feats of bravura that the public demands. VERAThe wild beasts! I feel more ashamed of my country than ever. Butthere's his symphony. MENDELAnd who will look at that amateurish stuff? He knows so little ofharmony and counterpoint--he breaks all the rules. I've tried to givehim a few pointers--but he ought to have gone to Germany. VERAPerhaps it's not too late. MENDEL [_Passionately_]Ah, if you and your friends could help him! See--I'm begging after all. But it's not for myself. VERAMy father loves music. Perhaps _he_--but no! he lives in Kishineff. ButI will think--there are people here--I will write to you. MENDEL [_Fervently_]Thank you! Thank you! VERANow you must go to him. Good-bye. Tell him I count upon him for theConcert. MENDELHow good you are! [_He follows her to the street-door. _] VERA [_At door_]Say good-bye for me to your mother--she seems asleep. MENDEL [_Opening outer door_]I am sorry it is snowing so. VERAWe Russians are used to it. [_Smiling, at exit_]Good-bye--let us hope your David will turn out a Rubinstein. MENDEL [_Closing the doors softly_]I never thought a Russian Christian could be so human. [_He looks at the clock. _]_Gott in Himmel_--my dancing class! [_He hurries into the overcoat hanging on the hat-rack. Re-enter DAVID, having composed himself, but still somewhat dazed. _] DAVIDShe is gone? Oh, but I have driven her away by my craziness. Is she veryangry? MENDELQuite the contrary--she expects you at the Concert, and what is more---- DAVID [_Ecstatically_]And she understood! She understood my Crucible of God! Oh, uncle, youdon't know what it means to me to have somebody who understands me. Evenyou have never understood---- MENDEL [_Wounded_]Nonsense! How can Miss Revendal understand you better than your ownuncle? DAVID [_Mystically exalted_]I can't explain--I feel it. MENDELOf course she's interested in your music, thank Heaven. But what trueunderstanding can there be between a Russian Jew and a RussianChristian? DAVIDWhat understanding? Aren't we both Americans? MENDELWell, I haven't time to discuss it now. [_He winds his muffler round his throat. _] DAVIDWhy, where are you going? MENDEL [_Ironically_]Where _should_ I be going--in the snow--on the eve of the Sabbath?Suppose we say to synagogue! DAVIDOh, uncle--how you always seem to hanker after those old things! MENDEL [_Tartly_]Nonsense! [_He takes his umbrella from the stand. _]I don't like to see our people going to pieces, that's all. DAVIDThen why did you come to America? Why didn't you work for a Jewish land?You're not even a Zionist. MENDELI can't argue now. There's a pack of giggling schoolgirls waiting towaltz. DAVIDThe fresh romping young things! Think of their happiness! I should loveto play for them. MENDEL [_Sarcastically_]I can see you are yourself again. [_He opens the street-door--turns back. _]What about your own lesson? Can't we go together? DAVIDI must first write down what is singing in my soul--oh, uncle, it seemsas if I knew suddenly what was wanting in my music! MENDEL [_Drily_]Well, don't forget what is wanting in the house! The rent isn't paidyet. [_Exit through street-door. As he goes out, he touches and kisses the_ Mezuzah _on the door-post, with a subconsciously antagonistic revival of religious impulse. DAVID opens his desk, takes out a pile of musical manuscript, sprawls over his chair and, humming to himself, scribbles feverishly with the quill. After a few moments FRAU QUIXANO yawns, wakes, and stretches herself. Then she looks at the clock. _] FRAU QUIXANO_Shabbos!_ [_She rises and goes to the table and sees there are no candles, walks to the chiffonier and gets them and places them in the candlesticks, then lights the candles, muttering a ceremonial Hebrew benediction. _]_Boruch atto haddoshem ellôheinu melech hoôlam assher kiddishonubemitzvôsov vettzivonu lehadlik neir shel shabbos. _ [_She pulls down the blinds of the two windows, then she goes to the rapt composer and touches him, remindingly, on the shoulder. He does not move, but continues writing. _]_Dovidel!_ [_He looks up dazedly. She points to the candles. _]_Shabbos!_ [_A sweet smile comes over his face, he throws the quill resignedly away and submits his head to her hands and her muttered Hebrew blessing. _]_Yesimcho elôhim ke-efrayim vechimnasseh--yevorechecho haddoshemveyishmerecho, yoer hadoshem ponov eilecho vechunecho, yisso hadoshemponov eilecho veyosem lecho sholôm. _ [_Then she goes toward the kitchen. As she turns at the door, he is again writing. She shakes her finger at him, repeating_]_Gut Shabbos!_ DAVID_Gut Shabbos!_ [_Puts down the pen and smiles after her till the door closes, then with a deep sigh takes his cape from the peg and his violin-case, pauses, still humming, to take up his pen and write down a fresh phrase, finally puts on his hat and is just about to open the street-door when KATHLEEN enters from her bedroom fully dressed to go, and laden with a large brown paper parcel and an umbrella. He turns at the sound of her footsteps and remains at the door, holding his violin-case during the ensuing dialogue. _] DAVIDYou're not going out this bitter weather? KATHLEEN [_Sharply fending him off with her umbrella_]And who's to shtay me? DAVIDOh, but you mustn't--_I'll_ do your errand--what is it? KATHLEEN [_Indignantly_]Errand, is it, indeed! I'm not here! DAVIDNot here? KATHLEENI'm lavin', they'll come for me thrunk--and ye'll witness I don't takethe candleshtick. DAVIDBut who's sending you away? KATHLEENIt's sending meself away I am--yer houly grandmother has me disthroyedintirely. DAVIDWhy, what has the poor old la----? KATHLEENI don't be saltin' the mate and I do be mixin' the crockery and----! DAVID [_Gently_]I know, I know--but, Kathleen, remember she was brought up to thesethings from childhood. And her father was a Rabbi. KATHLEENWhat's that? A priest? DAVIDA sort of priest. In Russia he was a great man. Her husband, too, was amighty scholar, and to give him time to study the holy books she had todo chores all day for him and the children. KATHLEENOh, those priests! DAVID [_Smiling_]No, _he_ wasn't a priest. But he took sick and died and the childrenleft her--went to America or heaven or other far-off places--and she wasleft all penniless and alone. KATHLEENPoor ould lady. DAVIDNot so old yet, for she was married at fifteen. KATHLEENPoor young crathur! DAVIDBut she was still the good angel of the congregation--sat up with thesick and watched over the dead. KATHLEENSaints alive! And not scared? DAVIDNo, nothing scared her--except me. I got a broken-down fiddle and usedto play it even on _Shabbos_--I was very naughty. But she was so lovelyto me. I still remember the heavenly taste of a piece of _Motso_ shegave me dipped in raisin wine! Passover cake, you know. KATHLEEN [_Proudly_]Oh, I know _Motso_. DAVID [_Smacks his lips, repeats_]Heavenly! KATHLEENSure, I must tashte it. DAVID [_Shaking his head, mysteriously_]Only little boys get that tashte. KATHLEENThat's quare. DAVID [_Smiling_]Very quare. And then one day my uncle sent the old lady a ticket to cometo America. But it is not so happy for her here because you see my unclehas to be near his theatre and can't live in the Jewish quarter, and sonobody understands her, and she sits all the livelong day alone--alonewith her book and her religion and her memories---- KATHLEEN [_Breaking down_]Oh, Mr. David! DAVIDAnd now all this long, cold, snowy evening she'll sit by the fire alone, thinking of her dead, and the fire will sink lower and lower, and shewon't be able to touch it, because it's the holy Sabbath, and there'llbe no kind Kathleen to brighten up the grey ashes, and then at last, sadand shivering, she'll creep up to her room without a candlestick, andthere in the dark and the cold---- KATHLEEN [_Hysterically bursting into tears, dropping her parcel, and untying her bonnet-strings_]Oh, Mr. David, I won't mix the crockery, I won't---- DAVID [_Heartily_]Of course you won't. Good night. [_He slips out hurriedly through the street-door as KATHLEEN throws off her bonnet, and the curtain falls quickly. As it rises again, she is seen strenuously poking the fire, illumined by its red glow. _] Act II _The same scene on an afternoon a month later. DAVID is discovered at his desk, scribbling music in a fever of enthusiasm. MENDEL, dressed in his best, is playing softly on the piano, watching DAVID. After an instant or two of indecision, he puts down the piano-lid with a bang and rises decisively. _ MENDELDavid! DAVID [_Putting up his left hand_]Please, please---- [_He writes feverishly. _] MENDELBut I want to talk to you seriously--at once. DAVIDI'm just re-writing the Finale. Oh, such a splendid inspiration! [_He writes on. _] MENDEL [_Shrugs his shoulders and reseats himself at piano. He plays a bar or two. Looks at watch impatiently. Resolutely_]David, I've got wonderful news for you. Miss Revendal is bringingsomebody to see you, and we have hopes of getting you sent to Germany tostudy composition. [_DAVID does not reply, but writes rapidly on. _]Why, he hasn't heard a word! [_He shouts. _]David! DAVID [_Writing on_]I can't, uncle. I _must_ put it down while that glorious impression isfresh. MENDELWhat impression? You only went to the People's Alliance. DAVIDYes, and there I saw the Jewish children--a thousand of 'em--salutingthe Flag. [_He writes on. _] MENDELWell, what of that? DAVIDWhat of that? [_He throws down his quill and jumps up. _]But just fancy it, uncle. The Stars and Stripes unfurled, and a thousandchildish voices, piping and foreign, fresh from the lands of oppression, hailing its fluttering folds. I cried like a baby. MENDELI'm afraid you _are_ one. DAVIDAh, but if you had heard them--"Flag of our Great Republic"--the wordshave gone singing at my heart ever since-- [_He turns to the flag over the door. _]"Flag of our Great Republic, guardian of our homes, whose stars andstripes stand for Bravery, Purity, Truth, and Union, we salute thee. We, the natives of distant lands, who find [_Half-sobbing_]rest under thy folds, do pledge our hearts, our lives, our sacred honourto love and protect thee, our Country, and the liberty of the Americanpeople for ever. " [_He ends almost hysterically. _] MENDEL [_Soothingly_]Quite right. But you needn't get so excited over it. DAVIDNot when one hears the roaring of the fires of God? Not when one seesthe souls melting in the Crucible? Uncle, all those little Jews willgrow up Americans! MENDEL [_Putting a pacifying hand on his shoulder and forcing him into a chair_]Sit down. I want to talk to you about your affairs. DAVID [_Sitting_]_My_ affairs! But I've been talking about them all the time! MENDELNonsense, David. [_He sits beside him. _]Don't you think it's time you got into a wider world? DAVIDEh? This planet's wide enough for me. MENDELDo be serious. You don't want to live all your life in this room. DAVID [_Looks round_]What's the matter with this room? It's princely. MENDEL [_Raising his hands in horror_]Princely! DAVIDImperial. Remember when I first saw it--after pigging a week in therocking steerage, swinging in a berth as wide as my fiddle-case, hungnear the cooking-engines; imagine the hot rancid smell of the food, theoil of the machinery, the odours of all that close-packed, sea-sick---- MENDEL [_Putting his hand over DAVID'S mouth_]Don't! You make me ill! How could you ever bear it? DAVID [_Smiling_]I was quite happy--I only had to fancy I'd been shipwrecked, and thatafter clinging to a plank five days without food or water on the greatlonely Atlantic, my frozen, sodden form had been picked up by this greatsafe steamer and given this delightful dry berth, regular meals, and thespectacle of all these friendly faces. . . . Do you know who was on boardthat boat? Quincy Davenport. MENDELThe lord of corn and oil? DAVID [_Smiling_]Yes, even we wretches in the steerage felt safe to think the lord was upabove, we believed the company would never dare drown _him_. But couldeven Quincy Davenport command a cabin like this? [_Waving his arm round the room. _]Why, uncle, we have a cabin worth a thousand dollars--a thousand dollarsa _week_--and what's more, it doesn't wobble! [_He plants his feet voluptuously upon the floor. _] MENDELCome, come, David, I asked you to be serious. Surely, some day you'dlike your music produced? DAVID [_Jumps up_]Wouldn't it be glorious? To hear it all actually coming out of violinsand 'cellos, drums and trumpets. MENDELAnd you'd like it to go all over the world? DAVIDAll over the world and all down the ages. MENDELBut don't you see that unless you go and study seriously in Germany----? [_Enter KATHLEEN from kitchen, carrying a furnished tea-tray with ear-shaped cakes, bread and butter, etc. , and wearing a grotesque false nose. MENDEL cries out in amaze. _]Kathleen! DAVID [_Roaring with boyish laughter_]Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! KATHLEEN [_Standing still with her tray_]Sure, what's the matter? DAVIDLook in the glass! KATHLEEN [_Going to the mantel_]Houly Moses! [_She drops the tray, which MENDEL catches, and snatches off the nose. _]Och, I forgot to take it off--'twas the misthress gave it me--I put iton to cheer her up. DAVIDIs she so miserable, then? KATHLEENTerrible low, Mr. David, to-day being _Purim_. MENDEL_Purim!_ Is to-day _Purim_? [_Gives her the tea-tray back. KATHLEEN, to take it, drops her nose and forgets to pick it up. _] DAVIDBut _Purim_ is a merry time, Kathleen, like your Carnival. Haven't youread the book of Esther--how the Jews of Persia escaped massacre? KATHLEENThat's what the misthress is so miserable about. Ye don't _keep_ theCarnival. There's noses for both of ye in the kitchen--didn't I go withher to Hester Street to buy 'em?--but ye don't be axin' for 'em. And tosee your noses layin' around so solemn and neglected, faith, it nearlymakes me chry meself. MENDEL [_Bitterly to himself_]Who can remember about _Purim_ in America? DAVID [_Half-smiling_]Poor granny, tell her to come in and I'll play her _Purim_ jig. MENDEL [_Hastily_]No, no, David, not here--the visitors! DAVIDVisitors? What visitors? MENDEL [_Impatiently_]That's just what I've been trying to explain. DAVIDWell, I can play in the kitchen. [_He takes his violin. Exit to kitchen. MENDEL sighs and shrugs his shoulders hopelessly at the boy's perversity, then fingers the cups and saucers. _] MENDEL [_Anxiously_]Is that the _best_ tea-set? KATHLEENCan't you see it's the Passover set! [_Ruefully_]And shpiled intirely it'll be now for our Passover. . . . And the misthressthought the visitors might like to thry some of her _Purim_ cakes. [_Indicates ear-shaped cakes on tray. _] MENDEL [_Bitterly_]_Purim_ cakes! [_He turns his back on her and stares moodily out of the window. _] KATHLEEN [_Mutters contemptuously_]Call yerself a Jew and you forgettin' to keep _Purim_! [_She is going back to the kitchen when a merry Slavic dance breaks out, softened by the door; her feet unconsciously get more and more into dance step, and at last she jigs out. As she opens and passes through the door, the music sounds louder. _] FRAU QUIXANO [_Heard from kitchen_]Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Kathleen!! [_MENDEL'S feet, too, begin to take the swing of the music, and his feet dance as he stares out of the window. Suddenly the hoot of an automobile is heard, followed by the rattling up of the car. _] MENDELAh, she has brought somebody swell! [_He throws open the doors and goes out eagerly to meet the visitors. The dance music goes on softly throughout the scene. _] QUINCY DAVENPORT [_Outside_]Oh, thank you--I leave the coats in the car. [_Enter an instant later QUINCY DAVENPORT and VERA REVENDAL, MENDEL in the rear. VERA is dressed much as before, but with a motor veil, which she takes off during the scene. DAVENPORT is a dude, aping the air of a European sporting clubman. Aged about thirty-five and well set-up, he wears an orchid and an intermittent eyeglass, and gives the impression of a coarse-fibred and patronisingly facetious but not bad-hearted man, spoiled by prosperity. _] MENDELWon't you be seated? VERAFirst let me introduce my friend, who is good enough to interest himselfin your nephew--Mr. Quincy Davenport. MENDEL [_Struck of a heap_]Mr. Quincy Davenport! How strange! VERAWhat is strange? MENDELDavid just mentioned Mr. Davenport's name--said they travelled to NewYork on the same boat. QUINCYImpossible! Always travel on my own yacht. Slow but select. Must havebeen another man of the same name--my dad. Ha! Ha! Ha! MENDELAh, of course. I thought you were too young. QUINCYMy dad, Miss Revendal, is one of those antiquated Americans who arealways in a hurry! VERAHe burns coal and you burn time. QUINCYPrecisely! Ha! Ha! Ha! MENDELWon't you sit down--I'll go and prepare David. VERA [_Sitting_]You've not prepared him yet? MENDELI've tried to more than once--but I never really got to---- [_He smiles_]to Germany. [_QUINCY sits. _] VERAThen prepare him for _three_ visitors. MENDELThree? VERAYou see Mr. Davenport himself is no judge of music. QUINCY [_Jumps up_]I beg your pardon. VERAIn manuscript. QUINCYAh, of course not. Music should be heard, not seen--like that jolly jig. Is that your David? MENDELOh, you mustn't judge him by that. He's just fooling. QUINCYOh, he'd better not fool with Poppy. Poppy's awful severe. MENDELPoppy? QUINCYPappelmeister--my private orchestra conductor. MENDELIs it _your_ orchestra Pappelmeister conducts? QUINCYWell, I pay the piper--and the drummer too! [_He chuckles. _] MENDEL [_Sadly_]_I_ wanted to play in it, but he turned me down. QUINCYI told you he was awful severe. [_To VERA_]He only allows me comic opera once a week. My wife calls him theBismarck of the baton. MENDEL [_Reverently_]A great conductor! QUINCYWould he have a twenty-thousand-dollar job with me if he wasn't? Notthat he'd get half that in the open market--only I have to stick it onto keep him for my guests exclusively. [_Looks at watch. _]But he ought to be here, confound him. A conductor should keep time, eh, Miss Revendal? [_He sniggers. _] MENDELI'll bring David. Won't you help yourselves to tea? [_To VERA_]You see there's lemon for you--as in Russia. [_Exit to kitchen--a moment afterwards the merry music stops in the middle of a bar. _] VERAThank you. [_Taking a cup. _]Do _you_ like lemon, Mr. Davenport? QUINCY [_Flirtatiously_]That depends. The last I had was in Russia itself--from the fair handsof your mother, the Baroness. VERA [_Pained_]Please don't say my mother, my mother is dead. QUINCY [_Fatuously misunderstanding_]Oh, you have no call to be ashamed of your step-mother--she's a stunningcreature; all the points of a tip-top Russian aristocrat, or QuincyDavenport's no judge of breed! Doesn't speak English like yourfather--but then the Baron is a wonder. VERA [_Takes up teapot_]Father once hoped to be British Ambassador--that's why _I_ had anEnglish governess. But you never told me you met him in _Russia_. QUINCYSurely! When I gave you all those love messages---- VERA [_Pouring tea quickly_]You said you met him at Wiesbaden. QUINCYYes, but we grew such pals I motored him and the Baroness back to St. Petersburg. Jolly country, Russia--they know how to live. VERA [_Coldly_]I saw more of those who know how to die. . . . Milk and sugar? QUINCY [_Sentimentally_]Oh, Miss Revendal! Have you forgotten? VERA [_Politely snubbing_]How should I remember? QUINCYYou don't remember our first meeting? At the Settlement Bazaar? When Ipaid you a hundred dollars for every piece of sugar you put in? VERADid you? Then I hope you drank syrup. QUINCYUgh! I hate sugar--I sacrificed myself. VERATo the Settlement? How heroic of you! QUINCYNo, not to the Settlement. To you! VERAThen I'll only put milk in. QUINCYI hate milk. But from you---- VERAThen we _must_ fall back on the lemon. QUINCYI loathe lemon. But from---- VERAThen you shall have your tea neat. QUINCYI detest tea, and here it would be particularly cheap and nasty. But---- VERAThen you shall have a cake! [_She offers plate. _] QUINCY [_Taking one_]Would they be eatable? [_Tasting it. _]Humph! Not bad. [_Sentimentally_]A little cake was all you would eat the only time you came to one of myprivate concerts. Don't you remember? We went down to supper together. VERA [_Taking his tea for herself and putting in lemon_]I shall always remember the delicious music Herr Pappelmeister gave us. QUINCYHow unkind of you! VERAUnkind? [_She sips the tea and puts down the cup. _]To be grateful for the music? QUINCYYou know what I mean--to forget _me_! [_He tries to take her hand. _] VERA [_Rising_]Aren't you forgetting yourself? QUINCYYou mean because I'm married to that patched-and-painted creature? She'shankering for the stage again, the old witch. VERAHush! Marriages with comic opera stars are not usually domestic idylls. QUINCYI fell a victim to my love of music. VERA [_Murmurs, smiling_]Music! QUINCYAnd I hadn't yet met the right breed--the true blue blood of Europe. I'll get a divorce. [_Approaching her_]Vera! VERA [_Retreating_]You will make me sorry I came to you. QUINCYNo, don't say that--promised the Baron I'd always do all I could for---- VERAYou promised? You dared discuss my affairs? QUINCYIt was your father began it. When he found I knew you, he almost weptwith emotion. He asked a hundred questions about your life in America. VERAHis life and mine are for ever separate. He is a Reactionary, I aRadical. QUINCYBut he loves you dreadfully--he can't understand why you should goslaving away summer and winter in a Settlement--you a member of theRussian nobility! VERA [_With faint smile_]I might say, _noblesse oblige_. But the truth is, I earn my living thatway. It would do _you_ good to slave there too! QUINCY [_Eagerly_]Would they chain us together? I'd come to-morrow. [_He moves nearer her. There is a double knock at the door. _] VERA [_Relieved_]Here's Pappelmeister! QUINCYBother Poppy--why is he so darned punctual? [_Enter KATHLEEN from the kitchen. _] VERA [_Smiling_]Ah, you're still here. KATHLEENAnd why would I not be here? [_She goes to open the door. _] PAPPELMEISTERMr. Quixano? KATHLEENYes, come in. [_Enter HERR PAPPELMEISTER, a burly German figure with a leonine head, spectacles, and a mane of white hair--a figure that makes his employer look even coarser. He carries an umbrella, which he never lets go. He is at first grave and silent, which makes any burst of emotion the more striking. He and QUINCY DAVENPORT suggest a picture of "Dignity and Impudence. " His English, as roughly indicated in the text, is extremely Teutonic. _] QUINCYYou're late, Poppy! [_PAPPELMEISTER silently bows to VERA. _] VERA [_Smilingly goes and offers her hand. _]Proud to meet you, Herr Pappelmeister! QUINCYExcuse me---- [_Introducing_]Miss Revendal!--I forgot you and Poppy hadn't been introduced--curiouslyenough it was at Wiesbaden I picked him up too--he was conducting theopera--your folks were in my box. I don't think I ever met anyone so madon music as the Baron. And the Baroness told me he had retired fromactive service in the Army because of the torture of listening to theaverage military band. Ha! Ha! Ha! VERAYes, my father once hoped _my_ music would comfort him. [_She smiles sadly. _]Poor father! But a soldier must bear defeat. Herr Pappelmeister, may Inot give you some tea? [_She sits again at the table. _] QUINCYTea! Lager's more in Poppy's line. [_He chuckles. _] PAPPELMEISTER [_Gravely_]_Bitte. _ Tea. [_She pours out, he sits. _]Lemon. Four lumps. . . . _Nun_, five!. . . Or six! [_She hands him the cup. _]_Danke. _ [_As he receives the cup, he utters an exclamation, for KATHLEEN after opening the door has lingered on, hunting around everywhere, and having finally crawled under the table has now brushed against his leg. _] VERAWhat are you looking for? KATHLEEN [_Her head emerging_]My nose! [_They are all startled and amused. _] VERAYour nose? KATHLEENI forgot me nose! QUINCYWell, follow your nose--and you'll find it. Ha! Ha! Ha! KATHLEEN [_Pouncing on it_]Here it is! [_Picks it up near the armchair. _] OMNESOh! KATHLEENSure, it's gotten all dirthy. [_She takes out a handkerchief and wipes the nose carefully. _] QUINCYBut why do you want a nose like that? KATHLEEN [_Proudly_]Bekaz we're Hebrews! QUINCYWhat! VERAWhat _do_ you mean? KATHLEENIt's our Carnival to-day! _Purim. _ [_She carries her nose carefully and piously toward the kitchen. _] VERAOh! I see. [_Exit KATHLEEN. _] QUINCY [_In horror_]Miss Revendal, you don't mean to say you've brought me to a Jew! VERAI'm afraid I have. I was thinking only of his genius, not his race. Andyou see, so many musicians are Jews. QUINCYNot _my_ musicians. No Jew's harp in my orchestra, eh? [_He sniggers. _]I wouldn't have a Jew if he paid _me_. VERAI daresay you have some, all the same. QUINCYImpossible. Poppy! Are there any Jews in my orchestra? PAPPELMEISTER [_Removing the cup from his mouth and speaking with sepulchral solemnity_]Do you mean are dere any Christians? QUINCY [_In horror_]Gee-rusalem! Perhaps _you're_ a Jew! PAPPELMEISTER [_Gravely_]I haf not de honour. But, if you brefer, I will gut out from mybrogrammes all de Chewish composers. _Was?_ QUINCYWhy, of course. Fire 'em out, every mother's son of 'em. PAPPELMEISTER [_Unsmiling_]_Also_--no more comic operas! QUINCYWhat!!! PAPPELMEISTERDey write all de comic operas! QUINCYBrute! [_PAPPELMEISTER'S chuckle is heard gurgling in his cup. Re-enter MENDEL from kitchen. _] MENDEL [_To VERA_]I'm so sorry--I can't get him to come in--he's terrible shy. QUINCYWon't face the music, eh? [_He sniggers. _] VERADid you tell him _I_ was here? MENDELOf course. VERA [_Disappointed_]Oh! MENDELBut I've persuaded him to let me show his MS. VERA [_With forced satisfaction_]Oh, well, that's all we want. [_MENDEL goes to the desk, opens it, and gets the MS. And offers it to QUINCY DAVENPORT. _] QUINCYNot for me--Poppy! [_MENDEL offers it to PAPPELMEISTER, who takes it solemnly. _] MENDEL [_Anxiously to PAPPELMEISTER_]Of course you must remember his youth and his lack of musicaleducation---- PAPPELMEISTER_Bitte, das Pult!_ [_MENDEL moves DAVID'S music-stand from the corner to the centre of the room. PAPPELMEISTER puts MS. On it. _]_So!_ [_All eyes centre on him eagerly, MENDEL standing uneasily, the others sitting. PAPPELMEISTER polishes his glasses with irritating elaborateness and weary "achs, " then reads in absolute silence. A pause. _] QUINCY [_Bored by the silence_]But won't you play it to us? PAPPELMEISTERBlay it? Am I an orchestra? I blay it in my brain. [_He goes on reading, his brow gets wrinkled. He ruffles his hair unconsciously. All watch him anxiously--he turns the page. _]_So!_ VERA [_Anxiously_]You don't seem to like it! PAPPELMEISTERI do not comprehend it. MENDELI knew it was crazy--it is supposed to be about America or a Crucible orsomething. And of course there are heaps of mistakes. VERAThat is why I am suggesting to Mr. Davenport to send him to Germany. QUINCYI'll send as many Jews as you like to Germany. Ha! Ha! Ha! PAPPELMEISTER [_Absorbed, turning pages_]_Ach!--ach!--So!_ QUINCYI'd even lend my own yacht to take 'em back. Ha! Ha! Ha! VERASh! We're disturbing Herr Pappelmeister. QUINCYOh, Poppy's all right. PAPPELMEISTER [_Sublimely unconscious_]_Ach so--so--SO! Das ist etwas neues!_ [_His umbrella begins to beat time, moving more and more vigorously, till at last he is conducting elaborately, stretching out his left palm for pianissimo passages, and raising it vigorously for forte, with every now and then an exclamation. _]_Wunderschön!. . . Pianissimo!_--now the flutes! Clarinets! _Ach, ergötzlich_ . . . Bassoons and drums!. . . _Fortissimo!. . . Kolossal!Kolossal!_ [_Conducting in a fury of enthusiasm. _] VERA [_Clapping her hands_]Bravo! Bravo! I'm so excited! QUINCY [_Yawning_]Then it isn't bad, Poppy? PAPPELMEISTER [_Not listening, never ceasing to conduct_]_Und_ de harp solo . . . _ach, reizend!_ . . . Second violins----! QUINCYBut Poppy! We can't be here all day. PAPPELMEISTER [_Not listening, continuing pantomime action_]Sh! Sh! _Piano. _ QUINCY [_Outraged_]Sh to _me_! [_Rises. _] VERAHe doesn't know it's you. QUINCYBut look here, Poppy---- [_He seizes the wildly-moving umbrella. Blank stare of PAPPELMEISTER gradually returning to consciousness. _] PAPPELMEISTER_Was giebt's. . . ?_ QUINCYWe've had enough. PAPPELMEISTER [_Indignant_]Enough? Enough? Of such a beaudiful symphony? QUINCYIt may be beautiful to you, but to us it's damn dull. See here, Poppy, if you're satisfied that the young fellow has sufficient talent to besent to study in Germany---- PAPPELMEISTERIn Germany! Germany has nodings to teach him, he has to teach Germany. VERABravo! [_She springs up. _] MENDELI always said he was a genius! QUINCYWell, at that rate you could put this stuff of his in one of myprogrammes. _Sinfonia Americana_, eh? VERAOh, that _is_ good of you. PAPPELMEISTERI should be broud to indroduce it to de vorld. VERAAnd will it be played in that wonderful marble music-room overlookingthe Hudson? QUINCYSure. Before five hundred of the smartest folk in America. MENDELOh, thank you, thank you. That will mean fame! QUINCYAnd dollars. Don't forget the dollars. MENDELI'll run and tell him. [_He hastens into the kitchen, PAPPELMEISTER is re-absorbed in the MS. , but no longer conducting. _] QUINCYYou see, I'll help even a Jew for your sake. VERAHush! [_Indicating PAPPELMEISTER. _] QUINCYOh, Poppy's in the moon. VERAYou must help him for his own sake, for art's sake. QUINCYAnd why not for heart's sake--for my sake? [_He comes nearer. _] VERA [_Crossing to PAPPELMEISTER_]Herr Pappelmeister! When do you think you can produce it? PAPPELMEISTER_Wunderbar!. . . _ [_Becoming half-conscious of VERA_]Four lumps. . . . [_Waking up_]_Bitte?_ VERAHow soon can you produce it? PAPPELMEISTERHow soon can he finish it? VERAIsn't it finished? PAPPELMEISTERI see von Finale scratched out and anoder not quite completed. Butanyhow, ve couldn't broduce it before Saturday fortnight. QUINCYSaturday fortnight! Not time to get my crowd. PAPPELMEISTERDen ve say Saturday dree veeks. Yes? QUINCYYes. Stop a minute! Did you say Saturday? That's my comic opera night!You thief! PAPPELMEISTERSomedings must be sagrificed. MENDEL [_Outside_]But you _must_ come, David. [_The kitchen door opens, and MENDEL drags in the boyishly shrinking DAVID. PAPPELMEISTER thumps with his umbrella, VERA claps her hands, QUINCY DAVENPORT produces his eyeglass and surveys DAVID curiously. _] VERAOh, Mr. Quixano, I am so glad! Mr. Davenport is going to produce yoursymphony in his wonderful music-room. QUINCYYes, young man, I'm going to give you the smartest audience in America. And if Poppy is right, you're just going to rake in the dollars. Americawants a composer. PAPPELMEISTER [_Raises hands emphatically. _]_Ach Gott, ja!_ VERA [_To DAVID_]Why don't you speak? You're not angry with me for interfering----? DAVIDI can never be grateful enough to you---- VERAOh, not to me. It is to Mr. Davenport you---- DAVIDAnd I can never be grateful enough to Herr Pappelmeister. It is anhonour even to meet him. [_Bows. _] PAPPELMEISTER [_Choking with emotion, goes and pats him on the back. _]_Mein braver Junge!_ VERA [_Anxiously_]But it is Mr. Davenport---- DAVIDBefore I accept Mr. Davenport's kindness, I must know to whom I amindebted--and if Mr. Davenport is the man who---- QUINCYWho travelled with you to New York? Ha! Ha! Ha! No, _I'm_ only thejunior. DAVIDOh, I know, sir, you don't make the money you spend. QUINCYEh? VERA [_Anxiously_]He means he knows you're not in business. DAVIDYes, sir; but is it true you are in pleasure? QUINCY [_Puzzled_]I beg your pardon? DAVIDAre all the stories the papers print about you true? QUINCY_All_ the stories. That's a tall order. Ha! Ha! Ha! DAVIDWell, anyhow, is it true that----? VERAMr. Quixano! What _are_ you driving at? QUINCYOh, it's rather fun to hear what the masses read about me. Fire ahead. Is what true? DAVIDThat you were married in a balloon? QUINCYHo! Ha! Ha! That's true enough. Marriage in high life, they said, didn'tthey? Ha! Ha! Ha! DAVIDAnd is it true you live in America only two months in the year, and thenonly to entertain Europeans who wander to these wild parts? QUINCYLucky for you, young man. You'll have an Italian prince and a Britishduke to hear your scribblings. DAVIDAnd the palace where they will hear my scribblings--is it true that----? VERA [_Who has been on pins and needles_]Mr. Quixano, what possible----? DAVID [_Entreatingly holds up a hand. _]Miss Revendal! [_To QUINCY DAVENPORT_]Is this palace the same whose grounds were turned into Venetian canalswhere the guests ate in gondolas--gondolas that were draped with themost wonderful trailing silks in imitation of the Venetian nobility inthe great water fêtes? QUINCY [_Turns to VERA_]Ah, Miss Revendal--what a pity you refused that invitation! It was afairy scene of twinkling lights and delicious darkness--each couple hadtheir own gondola to sup in, and their own side-canal to slip down. Eh?Ha! Ha! Ha! DAVIDAnd the same night, women and children died of hunger in New York! QUINCY [_Startled, drops eyeglass. _]Eh? DAVID [_Furiously_]And this is the sort of people you would invite to hear mysymphony--these gondola-guzzlers! VERAMr. Quixano! MENDELDavid! DAVIDThese magnificent animals who went into the gondolas two by two, to feedand flirt! QUINCY [_Dazed_]Sir! DAVIDI should be a new freak for you for a new freak evening--I and my dreamsand my music! QUINCYYou low-down, ungrateful---- DAVIDNot for you and such as you have I sat here writing and dreaming; notfor you who are killing my America! QUINCY_Your_ America, forsooth, you Jew-immigrant! VERAMr. Davenport! DAVIDYes--Jew-immigrant! But a Jew who knows that your Pilgrim Fathers camestraight out of his Old Testament, and that our Jew-immigrants are agreater factor in the glory of this great commonwealth than some of yousons of the soil. It is you, freak-fashionables, who are undoing thework of Washington and Lincoln, vulgarising your high heritage, andturning the last and noblest hope of humanity into a caricature. QUINCY [_Rocking with laughter_]Ha! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! Ho! [_To VERA. _]You never told me your Jew-scribbler was a socialist! DAVIDI am nothing but a simple artist, but I come from Europe, one of hervictims, and I know that she is a failure; that her palaces and peeragesare outworn toys of the human spirit, and that the only hope of mankindlies in a new world. And here--in the land of to-morrow--you are tryingto bring back Europe---- QUINCY [_Interjecting_]I wish we could!---- DAVIDEurope with her comic-opera coronets and her worm-eaten stagedecorations, and her pomp and chivalry built on a morass of crime andmisery---- QUINCY [_With sneering laugh_]Morass! DAVID [_With prophetic passion_]But you shall not kill my dream! There shall come a fire round theCrucible that will melt you and your breed like wax in a blowpipe---- QUINCY [_Furiously, with clenched fist_]You---- DAVIDAmerica _shall_ make good. . . ! PAPPELMEISTER [_Who has sat down and remained imperturbably seated throughout all this scene, springs up and waves his umbrella hysterically_]_Hoch Quixano! Hoch! Hoch! Es lebe Quixano! Hoch!_ QUINCYPoppy! You're dismissed! PAPPELMEISTER [_Goes to DAVID with outstretched hand_]_Danke. _ [_They grip hands. PAPPELMEISTER turns to QUINCY DAVENPORT. _]Comic Opera! Ouf! QUINCY [_Goes to street-door, at white heat. _]Are you coming, Miss Revendal? [_He opens the door. _] VERA [_To QUINCY, but not moving_]Pray, pray, accept my apologies--believe me, if I had known---- QUINCY [_Furiously_]Then stop with your Jew! [_Exit. _] MENDEL [_Frantically_]But, Mr. Davenport--don't go! He is only a boy. [_Exit after QUINCY DAVENPORT. _]You must consider---- DAVIDOh, Herr Pappelmeister, you have lost your place! PAPPELMEISTERAnd saved my soul. Dollars are de devil. Now I must to an appointment. _Auf baldiges Wiedersehen. _ [_He shakes DAVID'S hand. _]Fräulein Revendal! [_He takes her hand and kisses it. Exit. DAVID and VERA stand gazing at each other. _] VERAWhat have you done? What have you done? DAVIDWhat else could I do? VERAI hate the smart set as much as you--but as your ladder and yourtrumpet---- DAVIDI would not stand indebted to them. I know you meant it for my good, but what would these Europe-apers have understood of _my_ America--theAmerica of my music? They look back on Europe as a pleasure ground, apalace of art--but I know [_Getting hysterical_]it is sodden with blood, red with bestial massacres---- VERA [_Alarmed, anxious_]Let us talk no more about it. [_She holds out her hand. _]Good-bye. DAVID [_Frozen, taking it, holding it_]Ah, you are offended by my ingratitude--I shall never see you again. VERANo, I am not offended. But I have failed to help you. We have nothingelse to meet for. [_She disengages her hand. _] DAVIDWhy will you punish me so? I have only hurt myself. VERAIt is not a _punishment_. DAVIDWhat else? When you are with me, all the air seems to tremble with fairymusic played by some unseen fairy orchestra. VERA [_Tremulous_]And yet you wouldn't come in just now when I---- DAVIDI was too frightened of the others. . . . VERA [_Smiling_]Frightened indeed! DAVIDYes, I know I became overbold--but to take all that magic sweetness outof my life for ever--you don't call that a punishment? VERA [_Blushing_]How could I wish to punish you? I was proud of you! [_Drops her eyes, murmurs_]Besides it would be punishing _myself_. DAVID [_In passionate amaze_]Miss Revendal!. . . But no, it cannot be. It is too impossible. VERA [_Frightened_]Yes, too impossible. Good-bye. [_She turns. _] DAVIDBut not for always? [_VERA hangs her head. He comes nearer. Passionately_]Promise me that you--that I---- [_He takes her hand again. _] VERA [_Melting at his touch, breathes_]Yes, yes, David. DAVIDMiss Revendal! [_She falls into his arms. _] VERAMy dear! my dear! DAVIDIt is a dream. You cannot care for me--you so far above me. VERAAbove you, you simple boy? Your genius lifts you to the stars. DAVIDNo, no; it is you who lift me there---- VERA [_Smoothing his hair_]Oh, David. And to think that I was brought up to despise your race. DAVID [_Sadly_]Yes, all Russians are. VERABut we of the nobility in particular. DAVID [_Amazed, half-releasing her_]You are noble? VERAMy father is Baron Revendal, but I have long since carved out a life ofmy own. DAVIDThen he will not separate us? VERANo. [_Re-embracing him. _]Nothing can separate us. [_A knock at the street-door. They separate. The automobile is heard clattering off. _] DAVIDIt is my uncle coming back. VERA [_In low, tense tones_]Then I shall slip out. I could not bear a third. I will write. [_She goes to the door. _] DAVIDYes, yes . . . Vera. [_He follows her to the door. He opens it and she slips out. _] MENDEL [_Half-seen at the door, expostulating_]You, too, Miss Revendal----? [_Re-enters. _]Oh, David, you have driven away all your friends. DAVID [_Going to window and looking after VERA_]Not all, uncle. Not all. [_He throws his arms boyishly round his uncle. _]I am so happy. MENDELHappy? DAVIDShe loves me--Vera loves me. MENDELVera? DAVIDMiss Revendal. MENDELHave you lost your wits? [_He throws DAVID off. _] DAVIDI don't wonder you're amazed. Maybe you think _I_ wasn't. It is as if anangel should stoop down---- MENDEL [_Hoarsely_]This is true? This is not some stupid _Purim_ joke? DAVIDTrue and sacred as the sunrise. MENDELBut you are a Jew! DAVIDYes, and just think! She was bred up to despise Jews--her father was aRussian baron---- MENDELIf she was the daughter of fifty barons, you cannot marry her. DAVID [_In pained amaze_]Uncle! [_Slowly_]Then your hankering after the synagogue was serious after all. MENDELIt is not so much the synagogue--it is the call of our blood throughimmemorial generations. DAVID_You_ say that! You who have come to the heart of the Crucible, wherethe roaring fires of God are fusing our race with all the others. MENDEL [_Passionately_]Not _our_ race, not your race and mine. DAVIDWhat immunity has our race? [_Meditatively_]The pride and the prejudice, the dreams and the sacrifices, thetraditions and the superstitions, the fasts and the feasts, things nobleand things sordid--they must all into the Crucible. MENDEL [_With prophetic fury_]The Jew has been tried in a thousand fires and only tempered andannealed. DAVIDFires of hate, not fires of love. That is what melts. MENDEL [_Sneeringly_]So I see. DAVIDYour sneer is false. The love that melted me was not Vera's--it was thelove _America_ showed me--the day she gathered me to her breast. MENDEL [_Speaking passionately and rapidly_]Many countries have gathered us. Holland took us when we were drivenfrom Spain--but we did not become Dutchmen. Turkey took us when Germanyoppressed us, but we have not become Turks. DAVIDThese countries were not in the making. They were old civilisationsstamped with the seal of creed. In such countries the Jew may be rightto stand out. But here in this new secular Republic we must lookforward---- MENDEL [_Passionately interrupting_]We must look backwards, too. DAVID [_Hysterically_]To what? To Kishineff? [_As if seeing his vision_]To that butcher's face directing the slaughter? To those----? MENDEL [_Alarmed_]Hush! Calm yourself! DAVID [_Struggling with himself_]Yes, I will calm myself--but how else shall I calm myself save byforgetting all that nightmare of religions and races, save by holdingout my hands with prayer and music toward the Republic of Man and theKingdom of God! The Past I cannot mend--its evil outlines are stamped inimmortal rigidity. Take away the hope that I can mend the Future, andyou make me mad. MENDELYou are mad already--your dreams are mad--the Jew is hated here aseverywhere--you are false to your race. DAVIDI keep faith with America. I have faith America will keep faith with us. [_He raises his hands in religious rapture toward the flag over the door. _]Flag of our great Republic, guardian of our homes, whose stars and---- MENDELSpare me that rigmarole. Go out and marry your Gentile and be happy. DAVIDYou turn me out? MENDELWould you stay and break my mother's heart? You know she would mourn foryou with the rending of garments and the seven days' sitting on thefloor. Go! You have cast off the God of our fathers! DAVID [_Thundrously_]And the God of our children--does _He_ demand no service? [_Quieter, coming toward his uncle and touching him affectionately on the shoulder. _]You are right--I do need a wider world. [_Expands his lungs. _]I must go away. MENDELGo, then--I'll hide the truth--she must never suspect--lest she mournyou as dead. FRAU QUIXANO [_Outside, in the kitchen_]Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! [_Both men turn toward the kitchen and listen. _] KATHLEENHa! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! FRAU QUIXANO AND KATHLEENHa! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! MENDEL [_Bitterly_]A merry _Purim_! [_The kitchen door opens and remains ajar. FRAU QUIXANO rushes in, carrying DAVID'S violin and bow. KATHLEEN looks in, grinning. _] FRAU QUIXANO [_Hilariously_]_Nu spiel noch! spiel!_ [_She holds the violin and bow appealingly toward DAVID. _] MENDEL [_Putting out a protesting hand_]No, no, David--I couldn't bear it. DAVIDBut I must! You said she mustn't suspect. [_He looks lovingly at her as he loudly utters these words, which are unintelligible to her. _]And it may be the last time I shall ever play for her. [_Changing to a mock merry smile as he takes the violin and bow from her_]_Gewiss_, Granny! [_He starts the same old Slavic dance. _] FRAU QUIXANO [_Childishly pleased_]He! He! He! [_She claps on a false grotesque nose from her pocket. _] DAVID [_Torn between laughter and tears_]Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! MENDEL [_Shocked_]_Mutter!_ FRAU QUIXANO_Un' du auch_! [_She claps another false nose on MENDEL, laughing in childish glee at the effect. Then she starts dancing to the music, and KATHLEEN slips in and joyously dances beside her. _] DAVID [_Joining tearfully in the laughter_]Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! [_The curtain falls quickly. It rises again upon the picture of FRAU QUIXANO fallen back into a chair, exhausted with laughter, fanning herself with her apron, while KATHLEEN has dropped breathless across the arm of the armchair; DAVID is still playing on, and MENDEL, his false nose torn off, stands by, glowering. The curtain falls again and rises upon a final tableau of DAVID in his cloak and hat, stealing out of the door with his violin, casting a sad farewell glance at the old woman and at the home which has sheltered him. _] Act III _April, about a month later. The scene changes to MISS REVENDAL'S sitting-room at the Settlement House on a sunny day. Simple, pretty furniture: a sofa, chairs, small table, etc. An open piano with music. Flowers and books about. Fine art reproductions on walls. The fireplace is on the left. A door on the left leads to the hall, and a door on the right to the interior. A servant enters from the left, ushering in BARON and BARONESS REVENDAL and QUINCY DAVENPORT. The BARON is a tall, stern, grizzled man of military bearing, with a narrow, fanatical forehead and martinet manners, but otherwise of honest and distinguished appearance, with a short, well-trimmed white beard and well-cut European clothes. Although his dignity is diminished by the constant nervous suspiciousness of the Russian official, it is never lost; his nervousness, despite its comic side, being visibly the tragic shadow of his position. His English has only a touch of the foreign in accent and vocabulary and is much superior to his wife's, which comes to her through her French. The BARONESS is pretty and dressed in red in the height of Paris fashion, but blazes with barbaric jewels at neck and throat and wrist. She gestures freely with her hand, which, when ungloved, glitters with heavy rings. She is much younger than the BARON and self-consciously fascinating. Her parasol, which matches her costume, suggests the sunshine without. QUINCY DAVENPORT is in a smart spring suit with a motor dust-coat and cap, which last he lays down on the mantelpiece_. SERVANTMiss Revendal is on the roof-garden. I'll go and tell her. [_Exit, toward the hall. _] BARONA marvellous people, you Americans. Gardens in the sky! QUINCYGardens, forsooth! We plant a tub and call it Paradise. No, Baron. NewYork is the great stone desert. BARONESSBut ze big beautiful Park vere ve drove tru? QUINCYNo taste, Baroness, modern sculpture and menageries! Think of the Medicigardens at Rome. BARONESSAh, Rome! [_With an ecstatic sigh, she drops into an armchair. Then she takes out a dainty cigarette-case, pulls off her right-hand glove, exhibiting her rings, and chooses a cigarette. The BARON, seeing this, produces his match-box. _] QUINCYAnd now, dear Baron Revendal, having brought you safely to the den ofthe lioness--if I may venture to call your daughter so--I must leave_you_ to do the taming, eh? BARONYou are always of the most amiable. [_He strikes a match. _] BARONESS_Tout à fait charmant. _ [_The BARON lights her cigarette. _] QUINCY [_Bows gallantly_]Don't mention it. I'll just have my auto take me to the Club, and thenI'll send it back for you. BARONESSAh, zank you--zat street-car looks horreeble. [_She puffs out smoke. _] BARONQuite impossible. What is to prevent an anarchist sitting next to youand shooting out your brains? QUINCYWe haven't much of that here--I don't mean brains. Ha! Ha! Ha! BARONBut I saw desperadoes spying as we came off your yacht. QUINCYOh, that was newspaper chaps. BARON [_Shakes his head_]No--they are circulating my appearance to all the gang in the States. They took snapshots. QUINCYThen you're quite safe from recognition. [_He sniggers. _]Didn't they ask you questions? BARONYes, but I am a diplomat. I do not reply. QUINCYThat's not very diplomatic here. Ha! Ha! BARON_Diable!_ [_He claps his hand to his hip pocket, half-producing a pistol. The BARONESS looks equally anxious. _] QUINCYWhat's up? BARON [_Points to window, whispers hoarsely_]Regard! A hooligan peeped in! QUINCY [_Goes to window_]Only some poor devil come to the Settlement. BARON [_Hoarsely_]But under his arm--a bomb! QUINCY [_Shaking his head smilingly_]A soup bowl. BARONESSHa! Ha! Ha! QUINCYWhat makes you so nervous, Baron? [_The BARON slips back his pistol, a little ashamed. _] BARONESSZe Intellectuals and ze _Bund_, zey all hate my husband because he isfaizful to Christ [_Crossing herself_]and ze Tsar. QUINCYBut the Intellectuals are in Russia. BARONThey have their branches here--the refugees are the leaders--it is adiabolical network. QUINCYWell, anyhow, _we're_ not in Russia, eh? No, no, Baron, you're quitesafe. Still, you can keep my automobile as long as you like--I'veplenty. BARONA thousand thanks. [_Wiping his forehead. _]But surely no gentleman would sit in the public car, squeezed betweenworking-men and shop-girls, not to say Jews and Blacks. QUINCYIt _is_ done here. But we shall change all that. Already we have a fewtaxi-cabs. Give us time, my dear Baron, give us time. You mustn't judgeus by your European standard. BARONBy the European standard, Mr. Davenport, you put our hospitality to theshame. From the moment you sent your yacht for us to Odessa---- QUINCYPray, don't ever speak of that again--you know how anxious I was to getyou to New York. BARONProvided we have arrived in time! QUINCYThat's all right, I keep telling you. They aren't married yet---- BARON [_Grinding his teeth and shaking his fist_]Those Jew-vermin--all my life I have suffered from them! QUINCYWe all suffer from them. BARONESSZey are ze pests of ze civilisation. BARONBut this supreme insult Vera shall not put on the blood of theRevendals--not if I have to shoot her down with my own hand--and myselfafter! QUINCYNo, no, Baron, that's not done here. Besides, if you shoot her down, where do _I_ come in, eh? BARON [_Puzzled_]Where _you_ come in? QUINCYOh, Baron! Surely you have guessed that it is not merely Jew-hate, but--er--Christian love. Eh? [_Laughing uneasily. _] BARONYou! BARONESS [_Clapping her hands_]Oh, _charmant, charmant_! But it ees a romance! BARONBut you are married! BARONESS [_Downcast_]_Ah, oui. _ _Quel dommage_, vat a peety! QUINCYYou forget, Baron, we are in America. The law giveth and the law takethaway. [_He sniggers. _] BARONESSIt ees a vonderful country! But your vife--_hein?_--vould she consent? QUINCYShe's mad to get back on the stage--I'll run a theatre for her. It'syour daughter's consent that's the real trouble--she won't see mebecause I lost my temper and told her to stop with her Jew. So I look toyou to straighten things out. BARONESS_Mais parfaitement. _ BARON [_Frowning at her_]You go too quick, Katusha. What influence have I on Vera? And _you_ shehas never even seen! To kick out the Jew-beast is one thing. . . . QUINCYWell, anyhow, don't _shoot_ her--shoot the beast rather. [_Sniggeringly. _] BARONShooting is too good for the enemies of Christ. [_Crossing himself. _]At Kishineff we stick the swine. QUINCY [_Interested_]Ah! I read about that. Did you see the massacre? BARONWhich one? Give me a cigarette, Katusha. [_She obeys. _]We've had several Jew-massacres in Kishineff. QUINCYHave you? The papers only boomed one--four or five years ago--aboutEaster time, I think---- BARONAh, yes--when the Jews insulted the procession of the Host! [_Taking a light from the cigarette in his wife's mouth. _] QUINCYDid they? I thought---- BARON [_Sarcastically_]I daresay. That's the lies they spread in the West. They have the Pressin their hands, damn 'em. But you see I was on the spot. [_He drops into a chair. _]I had charge of the whole district. QUINCY [_Startled_]You! BARONYes, and I hurried a regiment up to teach the blaspheming brutesmanners---- [_He puffs out a leisurely cloud. _] QUINCY [_Whistling_]Whew!. . . I--I say, old chap, I mean Baron, you'd better not say thathere. BARONWhy not? I am proud of it. BARONESSMy husband vas decorated for it--he has ze order of St. Vladimir. BARON [_Proudly_]Second class! Shall we allow these bigots to mock at all we hold sacred?The Jews are the deadliest enemies of our holy autocracy and of the onlyorthodox Church. Their _Bund_ is behind all the Revolution. BARONESSA plague-spot muz be cut out! QUINCYWell, I'd keep it dark if I were you. Kishineff is a back number, and wedon't take much stock in the new massacres. Still, we're a bitsqueamish---- BARONSqueamish! Don't you lynch and roast your niggers? QUINCYNot officially. Whereas your Black Hundreds---- BARONBlack Hundreds! My dear Mr. Davenport, they are the white hosts ofChrist [_Crossing himself_]and of the Tsar, who is God's vicegerent on earth. Have you not read theworks of our sainted Pobiedonostzeff, Procurator of the Most Holy Synod? QUINCYWell, of course, I always felt there was another side to it, butstill---- BARONESSPerhaps he has right, Alexis. Our Ambassador vonce told me ze Americansare more sentimental zan civilised. BARONAh, let them wait till they have ten million vermin overrunning _their_country--we shall see how long they will be sentimental. Think of it! Aburrowing swarm creeping and crawling everywhere, ugh! They ruin ourpeasantry with their loans and their drink shops, ruin our army withtheir revolutionary propaganda, ruin our professional classes bysnatching all the prizes and professorships, ruin our commercialclasses by monopolising our sugar industries, our oil-fields, ourtimber-trade. . . . Why, if we gave them equal rights, our Holy Russiawould be entirely run by them. BARONESS_Mon dieu! C'est vrai. _ Ve real Russians vould become slaves. QUINCYThen what are you going to do with them? BARONOne-third will be baptized, one-third massacred, the other thirdemigrated here. [_He strikes a match to relight his cigarette. _] QUINCY [_Shudderingly_]Thank you, my dear Baron, --you've already sent me one Jew too many. We're going to stop all alien immigration. BARONTo stop _all_ alien--? But that is barbarous! QUINCYWell, don't let us waste our time on the Jew-problem . . . Our own littleJew-problem is enough, eh? Get rid of this little fiddler. Then _I_ mayhave a look in. Adieu, Baron. BARONAdieu. [_Holding his hand_]But you are not really serious about Vera? [_The BARONESS makes a gesture of annoyance. _] QUINCYNot serious, Baron? Why, to marry her is the only thing I have everwanted that I couldn't get. It is torture! Baroness, I rely on yoursympathy. [_He kisses her hand with a pretentious foreign air. _] BARONESS [_In sentimental approval_]_Ah! l'amour! l'amour!_ [_Exit QUINCY DAVENPORT, taking his cap in passing. _]You might have given him a little encouragement, Alexis. BARONSilence, Katusha. I only tolerated the man in Europe because he was alink with Vera. BARONESSYou accepted his yacht and his---- BARONIf I had known his loose views on divorce---- BARONESSI am sick of your scruples. You are ze only poor official inBessarabia. BARONBe silent! Have I not forbidden----? BARONESS [_Petulantly_]Forbidden! Forbidden! All your life you have served ze Tsar, and youcannot afford a single automobile. A millionaire son-in-law is just vatyou owe me. BARONWhat I owe you? BARONESSYes, ven I married you, I vas tinking you had a good position. I did notknow you were too honest to use it. You vere not open viz me, Alexis. BARONYou knew I was a Revendal. The Revendals keep their hands clean. . . . [_With a sudden start he tiptoes noiselessly to the door leading to the hall and throws it open. Nobody is visible. He closes it shamefacedly. _] BARONESS [_Has shared his nervousness till the door was opened, but now bursts into mocking laughter_]If you thought less about your precious safety, and more about me andVera---- BARONHush! You do not know Vera. You saw I was even afraid to give my name. She might have sent me away as she sent away the Tsar's plate ofmutton. BARONESSThe Tsar's plate of----? BARONDid I never tell you? When she was only a school-girl--at the ImperialHigh School--the Tsar on his annual visit tasted the food, and Vera, asthe show pupil, was given the honour of finishing his Majesty's plate. BARONESS [_In incredulous horror_]And she sent it avay? BARONGave it to a servant. [_Awed silence. _]And then you think I can impose a husband on her. No, Katusha, I have towin her love for myself, not for millionaires. BARONESS [_Angry again_]Alvays so affrightfully selfish! BARONI have no control over her, I tell you! [_Bitterly_]I never could control my womenkind. BARONESSBecause you zink zey are your soldiers. Silence! Halt! Forbidden! RightVeel! March! BARON [_Sullenly_]I wish I did think they were my soldiers--I might try the lash. BARONESS [_Springing up angrily, shakes parasol at him_]You British barbarian! VERA [_Outside the door leading to the interior_]Yes, thank you, Miss Andrews. I know I have visitors. BARON [_Ecstatically_]Vera's voice! [_The BARONESS lowers her parasol. He looks yearningly toward the door. It opens. Enter VERA with inquiring gaze. _] VERA [_With a great shock of surprise_]Father!! BARON_Verotschka!_ My dearest darling!. . . [_He makes a movement toward her, but is checked by her irresponsiveness. _]Why, you've grown more beautiful than ever. VERAYou in New York! BARONThe Baroness wished to see America. Katusha, this is my daughter. BARONESS [_In sugared sweetness_]And mine, too, if she vill let me love her. VERA [_Bowing coldly, but still addressing her father_]But how? When? BARONWe have just come and---- BARONESS [_Dashing in_]Zat charming young man lent us his yacht--he is adoràhble. VERAWhat charming young man? BARONESSAh, she has many, ze little coquette--ha! ha! ha! [_She touches VERA playfully with her parasol. _] BARONWe wished to give you a pleasant surprise. VERAIt is certainly a surprise. BARON [_Chilled_]You are not very . . . Daughterly. VERADo you remember when you last saw me? You did not claim me as a daughterthen. BARON [_Covers his eyes with his hand_]Do not recall it; it hurts too much. VERAI was in the dock. BARONIt was horrible. I hated you for the devil of rebellion that had enteredinto your soul. But I thanked God when you escaped. VERA [_Softened_]I think I was more sorry for you than for myself. I hope, at least, nosuspicion fell on you. BARONESS [_Eagerly_]But it did--an avalanche of suspicion. He is still buried under it. Vyelse did they make Skovaloff Ambassador instead of him? Even now herisks everyting to see you again. Ah, _mon enfant_, you owe your fazer agrand reparation! VERAWhat reparation can I possibly make? BARON [_Passionately_]You can love me again, Vera. BARONESS [_Stamping foot_]Alexis, you are interrupting---- VERAI fear, father, we have grown too estranged--our ideas are soopposite---- BARONBut not now, Vera, surely not now? You are no longer [_He lowers his voice and looks around_]a Revolutionist? VERANot with bombs, perhaps. I thank Heaven I was caught before I had doneany _practical_ work. But if you think I accept the order of things, youare mistaken. In Russia I fought against the autocracy---- BARONHush! Hush! [_He looks round nervously. _] VERAHere I fight against the poverty. No, father, a woman who has once heardthe call will always be a wild creature. BARONBut [_Lowering his voice_]those revolutionary Russian clubs here--you are not a member? VERAI do not believe in Revolutions carried on at a safe distance. I havefound my life-work in America. BARONI am enchanted, Vera, enchanted. BARONESS [_Gushingly_]Permit me to kiss you, _belle enfant_. VERAI do not know you enough yet; I will kiss my father. BARON [_With a great cry of joy_]Vera! [_He embraces her passionately. _]At last! At last! I have found my little Vera again! VERANo, father, _your_ Vera belongs to Russia with her mother and the happydays of childhood. But for their sakes---- [_She breaks down in emotion. _] BARONAh, your poor mother! BARONESS [_Tartly_]Alexis, I perceive I am too many! [_She begins to go toward the door. _] BARONNo, no, Katusha. Vera will learn to love you, too. VERA [_To BARONESS_]What does my loving you matter? I can never return to Russia. BARONESS [_Pausing_]But ve can come here--often--ven you are married. VERA [_Surprised_]When I am married? [_Softly, blushing_]You know? BARONESS [_Smiling_]Ve know zat charming young man adores ze floor your foot treads on! VERA [_Blushing_]You have seen David? BARON [_Hoarsely_]David! [_He clenches his fist. _] BARONESS [_Half aside, as much gestured as spoken_]Sh! Leave it to me. [_Sweetly. _]Oh, no, ve have not seen David. VERA [_Looking from one to the other_]Not seen--? Then what--whom are you talking about? BARONESSAbout zat handsome, quite adoràhble Mr. Davenport. VERADavenport! BARONESSWho combines ze manners of Europe viz ze millions of America! VERA [_Breaks into girlish laughter_]Ha! Ha! Ha! So Mr. Davenport has been talking to you! But you all seemto forget one small point--bigamy is not permitted even to millionaires. BARONESSAh, not boz at vonce, but---- VERAAnd do you think I would take another woman's leavings? No, not even ifshe were dead. BARONESSYou are insulting! VERAI beg your pardon--I wasn't even thinking of you. Father, to put an endat once to this absurd conversation, let me inform you I am alreadyengaged. BARON [_Trembling, hoarse_]By name, David. VERAYes--David Quixano. BARONA Jew! VERAHow did you know? Yes, he is a Jew, a noble Jew. BARONA Jew noble! [_He laughs bitterly. _] VERAYes--even as you esteem nobility--by pedigree. In Spain his ancestorswere hidalgos, favourites at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella; but inthe great expulsion of 1492 they preferred exile in Poland to baptism. BARONAnd you, a Revendal, would mate with an unbaptized dog? VERADog! You call my husband a dog! BARONHusband! God in heaven--are you married already? VERANo! But not being unemployed millionaires like Mr. Davenport, we holdeven our troth eternal. [_Calmer_]Our poverty, not your prejudice, stands in the way of our marriage. ButDavid is a musician of genius, and some day---- BARONESSA fiddler in a beer-hall! She prefers a fiddler to a millionaire of zefirst families of America! VERA [_Contemptuously_]First families! I told you David's family came to Poland in 1492--somemonths before America was discovered. BARONChrist save us! You have become a Jewess! VERANo more than David has become a Christian. We were already at one--allhonest people are. Surely, father, all religions must serve the sameGod--since there is only one God to serve. BARONESSBut ze girl is an ateist! BARONSilence, Katusha! Leave me to deal with my daughter. [_Changing tone to pathos, taking her face between his hands_] Oh, Vera, _Verotschka_, my dearest darling, I had sooner you hadremained buried in Siberia than that---- [_He breaks down. _] VERA [_Touched, sitting beside him_]For you, father, I _was_ as though buried in Siberia. Why did you comehere to stab yourself afresh? BARONI wish to God I had come here earlier. I wish I had not been so nervousof Russian spies. Ah, _Verotschka_, if you only knew how I have poredover the newspaper pictures of you, and the reports of your life in thisSettlement! VERAYou asked me not to send letters. BARONI know, I know--and yet sometimes I felt as if I could risk Siberiamyself to read your dear, dainty handwriting again. VERA [_Still more softened_]Father, if you love me so much, surely you will love David a littletoo--for my sake. BARON [_Dazed_]I--love--a Jew? Impossible. [_He shudders. _] VERA [_Moving away, icily_]Then so is any love from me to you. You have chosen to come back into mylife, and after our years of pain and separation I would gladly rememberonly my old childish affection. But not if you hate David. You must makeyour choice. BARON [_Pitifully_]Choice? I have no choice. Can I carry mountains? No more can I love aJew. [_He rises resolutely. _] BARONESS [_Who has turned away, fretting and fuming, turns back to her husband, clapping her hands_]Bravo! VERA [_Going to him again, coaxingly_]I don't ask you to carry mountains, but to drop the mountains youcarry--the mountains of prejudice. Wait till you see him. BARONI will not see him. VERAThen you will hear him--he is going to make music for all the world. Youcan't escape him, _papasha_, you with your love of music, any more thanyou escaped Rubinstein. BARONESSRubinstein vas not a Jew. VERARubinstein was a Jewish boy-genius, just like my David. BARONESSBut his parents vere baptized soon after his birth. I had it from hispatroness, ze Grande Duchesse Helena Pavlovna. VERAAnd did the water outside change the blood within? Rubinstein was ourCourt pianist and was decorated by the Tsar. And you, the Tsar'sservant, dare to say you could not meet a Rubinstein. BARON [_Wavering_]I did not say I could not meet a _Rubinstein_. VERAYou practically said so. David will be even greater than Rubinstein. Come, father, I'll telephone for him; he is only round the corner. BARONESS [_Excitedly_]Ve vill not see him! VERA [_Ignoring her_]He shall bring his violin and play to you. There! You see, littlefather, you are already less frowning--now take that last wrinkle out ofyour forehead. [_She caresses his forehead. _]Never mind! David will smooth it out with his music as his Biblicalancestor smoothed that surly old Saul. BARONESSVe vill not hear him! BARONSilence, Katusha! Oh, my little Vera, I little thought when I let youstudy music at Petersburg---- VERA [_Smiling wheedlingly_]That I should marry a musician. But you see, little father, it all endsin music after all. Now I will go and perform on the telephone, I'm notangel enough to bear one in here. [_She goes toward the door of the hall, smiling happily. _] BARON [_With a last agonized cry of resistance_]Halt! VERA [_Turning, makes mock military salute_]Yes, _papasha_. BARON [_Overcome by her roguish smile_]You--I--he--do you love this J--this David so much? VERA [_Suddenly tragic_]It would kill me to give him up. [_Resuming smile_]But don't let us talk of funerals on this happy day of sunshine andreunion. [_She kisses her hand to him and exit toward the hall. _] BARONESS [_Angrily_]You are in her hands as vax! BARONShe is the only child I have ever had, Katusha. Her baby arms curledround my neck; in her baby sorrows her wet face nestled against littlefather's. [_He drops on a chair, and leans his head on the table. _] BARONESS [_Approaching tauntingly_]So you vill have a Jew son-in-law! BARONYou don't know what it meant to me to feel her arms round me again. BARONESSAnd a hook-nosed brat to call you grandpapa, and nestle his greasy faceagainst yours. BARON [_Banging his fist on the table_]Don't drive me mad! [_His head drops again. _] BARONESSThen drive me home--I vill not meet him. . . . Alexis! [_She taps him on the shoulder with her parasol. He does not move. _]Alexis Ivanovitch! Do you not listen!. . . [_She stamps her foot. _]Zen I go to ze hotel alone. [_She walks angrily toward the hall. Just before she reaches the door, it opens, and the servant ushers in HERR PAPPELMEISTER with his umbrella. The BARONESS'S tone changes instantly to a sugared society accent. _]How do you do, Herr Pappelmeister? [_She extends her hand, which he takes limply. _]You don't remember me? _Non?_ [_Exit servant. _]Ve vere with Mr. Quincy Davenport at Wiesbaden---ze Baroness Revendal. PAPPELMEISTER_So!_ [_He drops her hand. _] BARONESSYes, it vas ze Baron's entousiasm for you zat got you your presentposition. PAPPELMEISTER [_Arching his eyebrows_]_So!_ BARONESSYes--zere he is! [_She turns toward the BARON. _]Alexis, rouse yourself! [_She taps him with her parasol. _]Zis American air makes ze Baron so sleepy. BARON [_Rises dazedly and bows_]Charmed to meet you, Herr---- BARONESSPappelmeister! You remember ze great Pappelmeister. BARON [_Waking up, becomes keen_]Ah, yes, yes, charmed--why do you never bring your orchestra to Russia, Herr Pappelmeister? PAPPELMEISTER [_Surprised_]Russia? It never occurred to me to go to Russia--she seems souncivilised. BARONESS [_Angry_]Uncivilised! Vy, ve have ze finest restaurants in ze vorld! And ze besttelephones! PAPPELMEISTER_So?_ BARONESSYes, and the most beautiful ballets--Russia is affrightfullymisunderstood. [_She sweeps away in burning indignation. PAPPELMEISTER murmurs in deprecation. Re-enter VERA from the hall. She is gay and happy. _] VERAHe is coming round at once---- [_She utters a cry of pleased surprise. _]Herr Pappelmeister! This is indeed a pleasure! [_She gives PAPPELMEISTER her hand, which he kisses. _] BARONESS [_Sotto voce to the BARON_]Let us go before he comes. [_The BARON ignores her, his eyes hungrily on VERA. _] PAPPELMEISTER [_To VERA_]But I come again--you have visitors. VERA [_Smiling_]Only my father and---- PAPPELMEISTER [_Surprised_]Your fader? _Ach so!_ [_He taps his forehead. _]Revendal! BARONESS [_Sotto voce to the BARON_]I vill not meet a Jew, I tell you. PAPPELMEISTERBut you vill vant to talk to your fader, and all _I_ vant is Mr. Quixano's address. De Irish maiden at de house says de bird is flown. VERA [_Gravely_]I don't know if I ought to tell you where the new nest is---- PAPPELMEISTER [_Disappointed_]_Ach!_ VERA [_Smiling_]But I will produce the bird. PAPPELMEISTER [_Looks round_]You vill broduce Mr. Quixano? VERA [_Merrily_]By clapping my hands. [_Mysteriously_]I am a magician. BARON [_Whose eyes have been glued on VERA_]You are, indeed! I don't know how you have bewitched me. [_The BARONESS glares at him. _] VERADear little father! [_She crosses to him and strokes his hair. _]Herr Pappelmeister, tell father about Mr. Quixano's music. PAPPELMEISTER [_Shaking his head_]Music cannot be talked about. VERA [_Smiling_]That's a nasty one for the critics. But tell father what a geniusDa--Mr. Quixano is. BARONESS [_Desperately intervening_]Good-bye, Vera. [_She thrusts out her hand, which VERA takes. _]I have a headache. You muz excuse me. Herr Pappelmeister, _au plaisir devous revoir_. [_PAPPELMEISTER hastens to the door, which he holds open. The BARONESS turns and glares at the BARON. _] BARON [_Agitated_]Let me see you to the auto---- BARONESSYou could see me to ze hotel almost as quick. BARON [_To VERA_]I won't say good-bye, _Verotschka_--I shall be back. [_He goes toward the hall, then turns. _]You will keep your Rubinstein waiting? [_VERA smiles lovingly. _] BARONESSYou are keeping _me_ vaiting. [_He turns quickly. Exeunt BARON and BARONESS. _] PAPPELMEISTERAnd now broduce Mr. Quixano! VERANot so fast. What are you going to do with him? PAPPELMEISTERPut him in my orchestra! VERA [_Ecstatic_]Oh, you dear! [_Then her tone changes to disappointment. _]But he won't go into Mr. Davenport's orchestra. PAPPELMEISTERIt is no more Mr. Davenport's orchestra. He fired me, don't youremember? Now I boss--how say you in American? VERA [_Smiling_]Your own show. PAPPELMEISTER_Ja_, my own band. Ven I left dat comic opera millionaire, dey allshtick to me almost to von man. VERAHow nice of them! PAPPELMEISTERAll egsept de Christian--he vas de von man. He shtick to de millionaire. So I lose my brincipal first violin. VERAAnd Mr. Quixano is to--oh, how delightful! [_She claps her hands girlishly. _] PAPPELMEISTER [_Looks round mischievously_]_Ach_, de magic failed. VERA [_Puzzled_]Eh! PAPPELMEISTERYou do not broduce him. You clap de hands--but you do not broduce him. Ha! Ha! Ha! [_He breaks into a great roar of genial laughter. _] VERA [_Chiming in merrily_]Ha! Ha! Ha! But I said I have to know everything first. Will he get agood salary? PAPPELMEISTEREnough to keep a vife and eight children! VERA [_Blushing_]But he hasn't a---- PAPPELMEISTERNo, but de Christian had--he get de same--I mean salary, ha! ha! ha! notchildren. Den he can be independent--vedder de fool-public like hisAmerican symphony or not--_nicht wahr?_ VERAYou _are_ good to us---- [_Hastily correcting herself_]to Mr. Quixano. PAPPELMEISTER [_Smiling_]And aldough you cannot broduce him, I broduce his symphony. _Was?_ VERAOh, Herr Pappelmeister! You are an angel. PAPPELMEISTER_Nein, nein, mein liebes Kind!_ I fear I haf not de correct shape for anangel. [_He laughs heartily. A knock at the door from the hall. _] VERA [_Merrily_]_Now_ I clap my hands. [_She claps. _]Come! [_The door opens. _]Behold him! [_She makes a conjurer's gesture. DAVID, bare-headed, carrying his fiddle, opens the door, and stands staring in amazement at PAPPELMEISTER. _] DAVIDI thought you asked me to meet your father. PAPPELMEISTERShe is a magician. She has changed us. [_He waves his umbrella. _]Hey presto, _was_? Ha! Ha! Ha! [_He goes to DAVID, and shakes hands. _]_Und wie geht's?_ I hear you've left home. DAVIDYes, but I've such a bully cabin---- PAPPELMEISTER [_Alarmed_]You are sailing avay? VERA [_Laughing_]No, no--that's only his way of describing his two-dollar-a-month garret. DAVIDYes--my state-room on the top deck! VERA [_Smiling_]Six foot square. DAVIDBut three other passengers aren't squeezed in, and it never pitches andtosses. It's heavenly. PAPPELMEISTER [_Smiling_]And from heaven you flew down to blay in dat beer-hall. _Was?_ [_DAVID looks surprised. _]_I_ heard you. DAVIDYou! What on earth did you go _there_ for? PAPPELMEISTERVat on earth does one go to a beer-hall for? Ha! Ha! Ha! For vawter! Ha!Ha! Ha! Ven I hear you blay, I dink mit myself--if my blans succeed andI get Carnegie Hall for Saturday Symphony Concerts, dat boy shall be oneof my first violins. _Was?_ [_He slaps DAVID on the left shoulder. _] DAVID [_Overwhelmed, ecstatic, yet wincing a little at the slap on his wound. _]Be one of your first---- [_Remembering_]Oh, but it is impossible. VERA [_Alarmed_]Mr. Quixano! You must not refuse. DAVIDBut does Herr Pappelmeister know about the wound in my shoulder? PAPPELMEISTER [_Agitated_]You haf been vounded? DAVIDOnly a legacy from Russia--but it twinges in some weathers. PAPPELMEISTERAnd de pain ubsets your blaying? DAVIDNot so much the pain--it's all the dreadful memories-- VERA [_Alarmed_]Don't talk of them. DAVIDI _must_ explain to Herr Pappelmeister--it wouldn't be fair. Even now [_Shuddering_]there comes up before me the bleeding body of my mother, the cold, fiendish face of the Russian officer, supervising the slaughter---- VERAHush! Hush! DAVID [_Hysterically_]Oh, that butcher's face--there it is--hovering in the air, that narrow, fanatical forehead, that---- PAPPELMEISTER [_Brings down his umbrella with a bang_]_Schluss!_ No man ever dared break down under me. My baton will beatavay all dese faces and fancies. Out with your violin! [_He taps his umbrella imperiously on the table. _]_Keinen Mut verlieren!_ [_DAVID takes out his violin from its case and puts it to his shoulder, PAPPELMEISTER keeping up a hypnotic torrent of encouraging German cries. _]_Also! Fertig! Anfangen!_ [_He raises and waves his umbrella like a baton. _]Von, dwo, dree, four---- DAVID [_With a great sigh of relief_]Thanks, thanks--they are gone already. PAPPELMEISTERHa! Ha! Ha! You see. And ven ve blay your American symphony---- DAVID [_Dazed_]You will play my American symphony? VERA [_Disappointed_]Don't you jump for joy? DAVID [_Still dazed but ecstatic_]Herr Pappelmeister! [_Changing back to despondency_]But what certainty is there your Carnegie Hall audience would understandme? It would be the same smart set. [_He drops dejectedly into a chair and lays down his violin. _] PAPPELMEISTER_Ach, nein. _ Of course, some--ve can't keep peoble out merely becausedey pay for deir seats. _Was?_ [_He laughs. _] DAVIDIt was always my dream to play it first to the new immigrants--those whohave known the pain of the old world and the hope of the new. PAPPELMEISTERTry it on the dog. _Was?_ DAVIDYes--on the dog that here will become a man! PAPPELMEISTER [_Shakes his head_]I fear neider dogs nor men are a musical breed. DAVIDThe immigrants will not understand my music with their brains or theirears, but with their hearts and their souls. VERAWell, then, why shouldn't it be done here--on our Roof-Garden? DAVID [_Jumping up_]A _Bas-Kôl_! A _Bas-Kôl_! VERAWhat _are_ you talking? DAVIDHebrew! It means a voice from heaven. VERAAh, but will Herr Pappelmeister consent? PAPPELMEISTER [_Bowing_]Who can disobey a voice from heaven?. . . But ven? VERAOn some holiday evening. . . . Why not the Fourth of July? DAVID [_Still more ecstatic_]Another _Bas-Kôl_!. . . My American Symphony! Played to the People! UnderGod's sky! On Independence Day! With all the---- [_Waving his hand expressively, sighs voluptuously. _]That will be too perfect. PAPPELMEISTER [_Smiling_]Dat has to be seen. You must permit me to invite---- DAVID [_In horror_]Not the musical critics! PAPPELMEISTER [_Raising both hands with umbrella in equal horror_]_Gott bewahre!_ But I'd like to invite all de persons in New York whoreally undershtand music. VERASplendid! But should we have room? PAPPELMEISTERRoom? I vant four blaces. VERA [_Smiling_]You are severe! Mr. Davenport was right. PAPPELMEISTER [_Smiling_]Perhaps de oders vill be out of town. _Also!_ [_Holding out his hand to DAVID_]You come to Carnegie to-morrow at eleven. Yes? _Fräulein. _ [_Kisses her hand. _]_Auf Wiedersehen!_ [_Going_]On de Roof-Garden--_nicht wahr?_ VERA [_Smiling_]Wind and weather permitting. PAPPELMEISTERI haf alvays mein umbrella. _Was?_ Ha! Ha! Ha! VERA [_Murmuring_]Isn't he a darling? Isn't he----? PAPPELMEISTER [_Pausing suddenly_]But ve never settled de salary. DAVIDSalary! [_He looks dazedly from one to the other. _]For the honour of playing in your orchestra! PAPPELMEISTERShylock!!. . . Never mind--ve settle de pound of flesh to-morrow. _Lebewohl!_ [_Exit, the door closes. _] VERA [_Suddenly miserable_]How selfish of you, David! DAVIDSelfish, Vera? VERAYes--not to think of your salary. It looks as if you didn't really loveme. DAVIDNot love you? I don't understand. VERA [_Half in tears_]Just when I was so happy to think that now we shall be able to marry. DAVIDShall we? Marry? On my salary as first violin? VERANot if you don't want to. DAVIDSweetheart! Can it be true? How do you know? VERA [_Smiling_]_I'm_ not a Jew. I asked. DAVIDMy guardian angel! [_Embracing her. He sits down, she lovingly at his feet. _] VERA [_Looking up at him_]Then you _do_ care? DAVIDWhat a question! VERAAnd you don't think wholly of your music and forget me? DAVIDWhy, you are behind all I write and play! VERA [_With jealous passion_]Behind? But I want to be before! I want you to love me first, beforeeverything. DAVIDI do put you before everything. VERAYou are sure? And nothing shall part us? DAVIDNot all the seven seas could part you and me. VERAAnd you won't grow tired of me--not even when you are world-famous----? DAVID [_A shade petulant_]Sweetheart, considering I should owe it all to you---- VERA [_Drawing his head down to her breast_]Oh, David! David! Don't be angry with poor little Vera if she doubts, ifshe wants to feel quite sure. You see father has talked so terribly, andafter all I was brought up in the Greek Church, and we oughtn't to causeall this suffering unless---- DAVIDThose who love us _must_ suffer, and _we_ must suffer in theirsuffering. It is live things, not dead metals, that are being melted inthe Crucible. VERAStill, we ought to soften the suffering as much as---- DAVIDYes, but only Time can heal it. VERA [_With transition to happiness_]But father seems half-reconciled already! Dear little father, if only hewere not so narrow about Holy Russia! DAVIDIf only _my_ folks were not so narrow about Holy Judea! But the idealsof the fathers shall not be foisted on the children. Each generationmust live and die for its own dream. VERAYes, David, yes. You are the prophet of the living present. I am sohappy. [_She looks up wistfully. _]You are happy, too? DAVIDI am dazed--I cannot realise that all our troubles have melted away--itis so sudden. VERAYou, David? Who always see everything in such rosy colours? Now that thewhole horizon is one great splendid rose, you almost seem as if gazingout toward a blackness---- DAVIDWe Jews are cheerful in gloom, mistrustful in joy. It is our tragichistory---- VERABut you have come to end the tragic history; to throw off the coils ofthe centuries. DAVID [_Smiling again_]Yes, yes, Vera. You bring back my sunnier self. I must be a pioneer onthe lost road of happiness. To-day shall be all joy, all lyric ecstasy. [_He takes up his violin. _]Yes, I will make my old fiddle-strings _burst_ with joy! [_He dashes into a jubilant tarantella. After a few bars there is a knock at the door leading from the hall; their happy faces betray no sign of hearing it; then the door slightly opens, and BARON REVENDAL'S head looks hesitatingly in. As DAVID perceives it, his features work convulsively, his string breaks with a tragic snap, and he totters backward into VERA'S arms. Hoarsely_]The face! The face! VERADavid--my dearest! DAVID [_His eyes closed, his violin clasped mechanically_]Don't be anxious--I shall be better soon--I oughtn't to have talkedabout it--the hallucination has never been so complete. VERADon't speak--rest against Vera's heart--till it has passed away. [_The BARON comes dazedly forward, half with a shocked sense of VERA'S impropriety, half to relieve her of her burden. She motions him back. _]This is the work of your Holy Russia. BARON [_Harshly_]What is the matter with him? [_DAVID'S violin and bow drop from his grasp and fall on the table. _] DAVIDThe voice! [_He opens his eyes, stares frenziedly at the BARON, then struggles out of VERA'S arms. _] VERA [_Trying to stop him_]Dearest---- DAVIDLet me go. [_He moves like a sleep-walker toward the paralysed BARON, puts out his hand, and testingly touches the face. _] BARON [_Shuddering back_]Hands off! DAVID [_With a great cry_]A-a-a-h! It is flesh and blood. No, it is stone--the man of stone!Monster! [_He raises his hand frenziedly. _] BARON [_Whipping out his pistol_]Back, dog! [_VERA darts between them with a shriek. _] DAVID [_Frozen again, surveying the pistol stonily_]Ha! You want _my_ life, too. Is the cry not yet loud enough? BARONThe cry? DAVID [_Mystically_]Can you not hear it? The voice of the blood of my brothers crying outagainst you from the ground? Oh, how can you bear not to turn thatpistol against yourself and execute upon yourself the justice whichRussia denies you? BARONTush! [_Pocketing the pistol a little shamefacedly. _] VERAJustice on himself? For what? DAVIDFor crimes beyond human penalty, for obscenities beyond human utterance, for---- VERAYou are raving. DAVIDWould to heaven I were! VERABut this is my father. DAVIDYour father!. . . God! [_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 [_Hoarsely_]Say it's not true. BARONWhat is not true? VERAWhat David said. It was the mob that massacred--_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--mysister---- BARON [_Sullenly_]I could not see everything. DAVIDNow 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. DAVIDAt any Jew who tried to defend himself. VERAGreat God! [_She falls on the sofa and buries her head on the cushion, moaning_]Is there no pity in heaven? DAVIDThere was no pity on earth. BARONIt 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 isthe voice of God. VERA [_Moaning_]But you could have stopped them. BARONI had no orders to defend the foes of Christ and [_Crossing himself_]the Tsar. The People---- VERABut you could have stopped them. BARONWho can stop a flood? I did my duty. A soldier's duty is not so prettyas a musician's. VERABut you could have stopped them. BARON [_Losing all patience_]Silence! You talk like an ignorant girl, blinded by passion. The_pogrom_ is a holy crusade. Are we Russians the first people to crushdown the Jew? No--from the dawn of history the nations have had to stampupon him--the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Persians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans---- DAVIDYes, it is true. Even Christianity did not invent hatred. But not tillHoly Church arose were we burnt at the stake, and not till Holy Russiaarose were our babes torn limb from limb. Oh, it is too much! Deliveredfrom Egypt four thousand years ago, to be slaves to the Russian Pharaohto-day. [_He falls as if kneeling on a chair, and, leans his head on the rail. _]O God, shall we always be broken on the wheel of history? How long, OLord, 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 readyto hold out his hand--and how this cur tried to bite it. Be calm--tellhim a daughter of Russia cannot mate with dirt. VERAFather, I will be calm. I will speak without passion or blindness. Iwill tell David the truth. I was never absolutely sure of my love forhim--perhaps that was why I doubted his love for me--often after ourenchanted moments there would come a nameless uneasiness, some vagueinstinct, relic of the long centuries of Jew-loathing, some strangeshrinking from his Christless creed---- BARON [_With an exultant cry_]Ah! She is a Revendal. VERABut now---- [_She rises and walks firmly toward DAVID_]now, David, I come to you, and I say in the words of Ruth, thy peopleshall be my people and thy God my God! [_She stretches out her hands to DAVID. _] BARONYou shameless----! [_He stops as he perceives DAVID remains impassive. _] VERA [_With agonised cry_]David! DAVID [_In low, icy tones_]You cannot come to me. There is a river of blood between us. VERAWere it seven seas, our love must cross them. DAVIDEasy words to you. You never saw that red flood bearing the mangledbreasts 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 streetsof holy processions--priests in black and girls in white and wavingpalms and crucifixes, and everybody exchanging Easter eggs and kissingone another three times on the mouth in token of peace and goodwill, andeven the Jew-boy felt the spirit of love brooding over the earth, thoughhe did not then know that this Christ, whom holy chants proclaimedre-risen, was born in the form of a brother Jew. And what added to thepeace and holy joy was that our own Passover was shining before us. Mymother had already made the raisin wine, and my greedy little brotherSolomon had sipped it on the sly that very morning. We were all athome--all except my father--he was away in the little Synagogue at whichhe was cantor. Ah, such a voice he had--a voice of tears andthunder--when he prayed it was like a wounded soul beating at the gatesof Heaven--but he sang even more beautifully in the ritual of home, andhow we were looking forward to his hymns at the Passover 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 herdoll dance to it. Ah, that decrepit old china doll--the only one thepoor child had ever had--I can see it now--one eye, no nose, half anarm. We were all laughing to see it caper to my music. . . . My fatherflies in through the door, desperately clasping to his breast the HolyScroll. We cry out to him to explain, and then we see that in thatbeloved mouth of song there is no longer a tongue--only blood. He triesto bar the door--a mob breaks in--we dash out through the back into thestreet. 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 God! DAVIDWhen I came to myself, with a curious aching in my left shoulder, I sawlying 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 littleMiriam. The doll was a dream of beauty and perfection beside themutilated mass which was all that remained of my sister, of my mother, of greedy little Solomon-- Oh! You Christians can only see that rosysplendour on the horizon of happiness. And the Jew didn't see rosilyenough for you, ha! ha! ha! the Jew who gropes in one great crimsonmist. [_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 pushing between us? VERA [_Unfaltering, moving his face toward her lips_]Kiss me! DAVIDI should feel the blood on my lips. VERAMy love shall wipe it out. DAVIDLove! 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--therewas always a still, small voice at my heart calling me back, but Iheeded 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. _] VERAThose arms reeking from that crimson river! [_She falls back. _] BARON [_Sullenly_]Don't echo that babble. You came to these arms often enough when theywere fresh from the battlefield. VERABut not from the shambles! You heard what he called you. Notsoldier--butcher! Oh, I dared to dream of happiness after my nightmareof 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! VERAYou thought you were ordering your soldiers to fire at the Jews, but itwas my heart they pierced. [_She sobs on. _] BARON. . . And my own. . . . But we will comfort each other. I will go to the Tsarmyself--with my forehead to the earth--to beg for your pardon!. . . Come, put your wet face to little father's. . . . VERA [_Violently pushing 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 attitude 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 _Saturday, 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 muffled 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_. MENDELCome down, David! Don't you hear them shouting for you? [_He passes his hand over the wet bench. _]Good heavens! You will get rheumatic fever! DAVIDWhy have you followed me? MENDELGet up--everything is still damp. DAVID [_Rising, gloomily_]Yes, there's a damper over everything. MENDELNonsense--the rain hasn't damped your triumph in the least. In fact, themore delicate effects wouldn't have gone so well in the open air. Listen! DAVIDLet them shout. Who told you I was up here? MENDELMiss Revendal, of course. DAVID [_Agitated_]Miss Revendal? How should _she_ know? MENDEL [_Sullenly_]She seems to understand your crazy ways. DAVID [_Passing his hand over his eyes_]Ah, _you_ never understood me, uncle. . . . How did she look? Was she pale? MENDELNever mind about Miss Revendal. Pappelmeister wants you--the peopleinsist on seeing you. Nobody can quiet them. DAVIDThey saw me all through the symphony in my place in the orchestra. MENDELThey didn't know you were the composer as well as the first violin. NowMiss Revendal has told them. [_Louder applause. _]There! Eleven minutes it has gone on--like for an office-seeker. You_must_ come and show yourself. DAVIDI won't--I'm not an office-seeker. Leave me to my misery. MENDELYour misery? With all this glory and greatness opening before you? Waittill you're _my_ age---- [_Shouts of "QUIXANO!"_]You hear! What is to be done with them? DAVIDSend somebody on the platform to remind them this is the interval forrefreshments! MENDELDon't be cynical. You know your dearest wish was to melt these simplesouls with your music. And now---- DAVIDNow I have only made my own stony. MENDELYou are right. You are stone all over--ever since you came back home tous. Turned into a pillar of salt, mother says--like Lot's wife. DAVIDThat was the punishment for looking backward. Ah, uncle, there's moresense in that old Bible than the Rabbis suspect. Perhaps that is thesecret of our people's paralysis--we are always looking backward. [_He drops hopelessly into an iron garden-chair behind him. _] MENDEL [_Stopping him before he touches the seat_]Take care--it's sopping wet. You don't look backward enough. [_He takes out his handkerchief and begins drying the chair. _] DAVID [_Faintly smiling_]I thought you wanted the salt to melt. MENDELIt _is_ melting a little if you can smile. Do you know, David, I haven'tseen you smile since that _Purim_ afternoon? DAVIDYou haven't worn a false nose since, uncle. [_He laughs bitterly. _]Ha! Ha! Ha! Fancy masquerading in America because twenty-five centuriesago the Jews escaped a _pogrom_ in Persia. Two thousand five hundredyears ago! Aren't we uncanny? [_He drops into the wiped chair. _] MENDEL [_Angrily_]Better you should leave us altogether than mock at us. I thought it wasyour Jewish heart that drove you back home to us; but if you are stillhankering after Miss Revendal---- DAVID [_Pained_]Uncle! MENDELI'd rather see you marry her than go about like this. You couldn't makethe house any gloomier. DAVIDGo back to the concert, please. They have quieted down. MENDEL [_Hesitating_]And you? DAVIDOh, I'm not playing in the popular after-pieces. Pappelmeister guessedI'd be broken up with the stress of my own symphony--he has violinsenough. MENDELThen you don't want to carry this about. [_Taking the violin from DAVID'S arms. _] DAVID [_Clinging to it_]Don't rob me of my music--it's all I have. MENDELYou'll spoil it in the wet. I'll take it home. DAVIDNo---- [_He suddenly catches sight of two figures entering from the left--FRAU QUIXANO and KATHLEEN clad in their best, and wearing tiny American flags in honour of Independence Day. KATHLEEN escorts the old lady, with the air of a guardian angel, on her slow, tottering course toward DAVID. FRAU QUIXANO is puffing and panting after the many stairs. DAVID jumps up in surprise, releases the violin-case to MENDEL. _]They at my symphony! MENDELMother _would_ come--even though, being _Shabbos_, she had to walk. DAVIDBut wasn't she shocked at my playing on the Sabbath? MENDELNo--that's the curious part of it. She said that even as a boy youplayed your fiddle on _Shabbos_, and that if the Lord has stood it allthese years, He must consider you an exception. DAVIDYou see! She's more sensible than you thought. I daresay whatever Iwere to do she'd consider me an exception. MENDEL [_In sullen acquiescence_]I suppose geniuses _are_. KATHLEEN [_Reaching them; panting with admiration and breathlessness_]Oh, Mr. David! it was like midnight mass! But the misthress was ashleep. DAVIDAsleep! [_Laughs half-merrily, half-sadly. _]Ha! Ha! Ha! FRAU QUIXANO [_Panting and laughing in response_]He! He! He! _Dovidel lacht widder. _ He! He! He! [_She touches his arm affectionately, but feeling his wet coat, utters a cry of horror. _]_Du bist nass!_ DAVID_Es ist gor nicht_, Granny--my clothes are thick. [_She fusses over him, wiping him down with her gloved hand. _] MENDELBut what brought you up here, Kathleen? KATHLEENSure, not the elevator. The misthress said 'twould be breaking the_Shabbos_ to ride up in it. DAVID [_Uneasily_]But did---did Miss Revendal send you up? KATHLEENAnd who else should be axin' the misthress if she wasn't proud of Mr. David? Faith, she's a sweet lady. MENDEL [_Impatiently_]Don't chatter, Kathleen. KATHLEENBut, Mr. Quixano----! DAVID [_Sweetly_]Please take your mistress down again--don't let her walk. KATHLEENBut _Shabbos_ isn't out yet! MENDELChattering again! DAVID [_Gently_]There's no harm, Kathleen, in going _down_ in the elevator. KATHLEENTroth, I'll egshplain to her that droppin' down isn't ridin'. DAVID [_Smiling_]Yes, tell her dropping down is natural--not _work_, like flying up. [_Kathleen begins to move toward the stairs, explaining to FRAU QUIXANO. _]And, Kathleen! You'll get her some refreshments. KATHLEEN [_Turns, glaring_]Refrishments, is it? Give her refrishments where they mix the mate withthe butther plates! Oh, Mr. David! [_She moves off toward the stairs in reproachful sorrow. _] MENDEL [_Smiling_]I'll get her some coffee. DAVID [_Smiling_]Yes, that'll keep her awake. Besides, Pappelmeister was so sure thepeople wouldn't understand me, he's relaxing them on Gounod and Rossini. MENDELPappelmeister's idea of relaxation! _I_ should have given them comicopera. [_With sudden call to KATHLEEN, who with her mistress is at the wrong exit. _]Kathleen! The elevator's _this_ side! KATHLEEN [_Turning_]What way can that be, when I came up _this_ side? MENDELYou chatter too much. [_FRAU QUIXANO, not understanding, exit. _]Come this way. Can't you see the elevator? KATHLEEN [_Perceives FRAU QUIXANO has gone, calls after her in Irish-sounding Yiddish_]_Wu geht Ihr_, bedad?. . . [_Impatiently_]Houly Moses, _komm' zurick_! [_Exit anxiously, re-enter with FRAU QUIXANO. _]Begorra, we Jews never know our way. [_MENDEL, carrying the violin, escorts his mother and KATHLEEN to the elevator. When they are near it, it stops with a thud, and PAPPELMEISTER springs out, his umbrella up, meeting them face to face. He looks happy and beaming over DAVID'S triumph. _] PAPPELMEISTER [_In loud, joyous voice_]_Nun, Frau Quixano, was sagen Sie?_ Vat you tink of your David? FRAU QUIXANO_Dovid? Er ist meshuggah. _ [_She taps her forehead. _] PAPPELMEISTER [_Puzzled, to MENDEL_]_Meshuggah!_ Vat means _meshuggah_? Crazy? MENDEL [_Half-smiling_]You've struck it. She says David doesn't know enough to go in out of therain. [_General laughter. _] DAVID [_Rising_]But it's stopped raining, Herr Pappelmeister. You don't want yourumbrella. [_General laughter. _] PAPPELMEISTER_So. _ [_Shuts it down. _] MENDEL_Herein, Mutter. _ [_He pushes FRAU QUIXANO'S somewhat shrinking form into the elevator. KATHLEEN follows, then MENDEL. _]Herr Pappelmeister, we are all your grateful servants. [_PAPPELMEISTER bows; the gates close, the elevator descends. _] DAVIDAnd you won't think _me_ ungrateful for running away--you know my thanksare too deep to be spoken. PAPPELMEISTERAnd zo are my congratulations! DAVIDThen, don't speak them, please. PAPPELMEISTERBut you _must_ come and speak to all de people in America whoundershtand music. DAVID [_Half-smiling_]To your four connoisseurs? [_Seriously_]Oh, please! I really could not meet strangers, especially musicalvampires. PAPPELMEISTER [_Half-startled, half-angry_]Vampires? Oh, come! DAVIDVoluptuaries, then--rich, idle æsthetes to whom art and life have noconnection, parasites who suck our music---- PAPPELMEISTER [_Laughs good-naturedly_]Ha! Ha! Ha! Vait till you hear vat dey say. DAVIDI will wait as long as you like. PAPPELMEISTERDen I like to tell you now. [_He roars with mischievous laughter. _]Ha! Ha! Ha! De first vampire says it is a great vork, but poorlyperformed. DAVID [_Indignant_]Oh! PAPPELMEISTERDe second vampire says it is a poor vork, but greatly performed. DAVID [_Disappointed_]Oh! PAPPELMEISTERDe dird vampire says it is a great vork greatly performed. DAVID [_Complacently_]Ah! PAPPELMEISTERAnd de fourz vampire says it is a poor vork poorly performed. DAVID [_Angry and disappointed_]Oh! [_Then smiling_]You see you _have_ to go by the people after all. PAPPELMEISTER [_Shakes head, smiling_]_Nein. _ Ven critics disagree--I agree mit mineself. Ha! Ha! Ha! [_He slaps DAVID on the back. _]A great vork dat vill be even better performed next time! Ha! Ha! Ha!Ten dousand congratulations. [_He seizes DAVID'S hand and grips it heartily. _] DAVIDDon't! You hurt me. PAPPELMEISTER [_Dropping DAVID'S hand, --misunderstanding_]Pardon! I forgot your vound. DAVIDNo--no--what does my wound matter? That never stung half so much asthese clappings and congratulations. PAPPELMEISTER [_Puzzled but solicitous_]I knew your nerves vould be all shnapping like fiddle-shtrings. Oh, youcheniuses! [_Smiling. _]You like neider de clappings nor de criticisms, --_was_? DAVIDThey are equally--irrelevant. One has to wrestle with one's own art, one's own soul, _alone_! PAPPELMEISTER [_Patting him soothingly_]I am glad I did not let you blay in Part Two. DAVIDDear Herr Pappelmeister! Don't think I don't appreciate all yourkindnesses--you are almost a father to me. PAPPELMEISTERAnd you disobey me like a son. Ha! Ha! Ha! Vell, I vill make yourexcuses to de--vampires. Ha! Ha! _Also_, David. [_He lays his hand again affectionately on DAVID'S right shoulder. _]_Lebe wohl!_ I must go down to my popular classics. [_Gloomily_]Truly a going down! _Was?_ DAVID [_Smiling_]Oh, it isn't such a descent as all that. Uncle said you ought to havegiven them comic opera. PAPPELMEISTER [_Shuddering convulsively_]Comic opera. . . . Ouf! [_He goes toward the elevator and rings the bell. Then he turns to DAVID. _]Vat vas dat vord, David? DAVIDWhat word? PAPPELMEISTER [_Groping for it_]_Mega--megasshu_. . . . DAVID [_Puzzled_]_Megasshu?_ [_The elevator comes up; the gates open. _] PAPPELMEISTER_Megusshah!_ You know. [_He taps his forehead with his umbrella. _] DAVIDAh, _meshuggah_! PAPPELMEISTER [_Joyously_]_Ja, meshuggah!_ [_He gives a great roar of laughter. _]Ha! Ha! Ha! [_He waves umbrella at DAVID. _]Well, don't be . . . _meshuggah_. [_He steps into the elevator. _]Ha! Ha! Ha! [_The gates close, and it descends with his laughter. _] DAVID [_After a pause_]Perhaps I _am_ . . . _meshuggah_. [_He walks up and down moodily, approaches the parapet at back. _]Dropping down is indeed natural. [_He looks over. _]How it tugs and drags at one! [_He moves back resolutely and shakes his head. _]That would be even a greater descent than Pappelmeister's to comicopera. One _must_ fly upward--somehow. [_He drops on the chair that MENDEL dried. A faint music steals up and makes an accompaniment to all the rest of the scene. _]Ah! the popular classics! [_His head sinks on a little table. The elevator comes up again, but he does not raise his head. VERA, pale and sad, steps out and walks gently over to him; stands looking at him with maternal pity; then decides not to disturb him and is stealing away when suddenly he looks up and perceives her and springs to his feet with a dazed glad cry. _]Vera! VERA [_Turns, speaks with grave dignity_]Miss Andrews has charged me to convey to you the heart-felt thanks andcongratulations of the Settlement. DAVID [_Frozen_]Miss Andrews is very kind. . . . I trust you are well. VERAThank you, Mr. Quixano. Very well and very busy. So you'll excuse me. [_She turns to go. _] DAVIDCertainly. . . . How are your folks? VERA [_Turns her head_]They are gone back to Russia. And yours? DAVIDYou just saw them all. VERA [_Confused_]Yes--yes--of course--I forgot! Good-bye, Mr. Quixano. DAVIDGood-bye, Miss Revendal. [_He drops back on the chair. VERA walks to the elevator, then just before ringing turns again. _] VERAI shouldn't advise you to sit here in the damp. DAVIDMy uncle dried the chair. [_Bitterly_]Curious how every one is concerned about my body and no one about mysoul. VERABecause your soul is so much stronger than your body. Why, think! It hasjust lifted a thousand people far higher than this roof-garden. DAVIDPlease don't you congratulate me, too! That would be too ironical. VERA [_Agitated, coming nearer_]Irony, Mr. Quixano? Please, please, do not imagine there is any irony inmy congratulations. DAVIDThe irony is in all the congratulations. How can I endure them when Iknow what a terrible failure I have made! VERAFailure! Because the critics are all divided? That is the surest proofof success. You have produced something real and new. DAVIDI am not thinking of Pappelmeister's connoisseurs--_I_ am the onlyconnoisseur, the only one who knows. And every bar of my music cried"Failure! Failure!" It shrieked from the violins, blared from thetrombones, thundered from the drums. It was written on all thefaces---- VERA [_Vehemently, coming still nearer_]Oh, no! no! I watched the faces--those faces of toil and sorrow, thosefaces from many lands. They were fired by your vision of their comingbrotherhood, lulled by your dream of their land of rest. And I could seethat you were right in speaking to the people. In some strange, beautiful, way the inner meaning of your music stole into all thosesimple souls---- DAVID [_Springing up_]And _my_ soul? What of _my_ soul? False to its own music, its ownmission, its own dream. That is what I mean by failure, Vera. I preachedof God's Crucible, this great new continent that could melt up allrace-differences and vendettas, that could purge and re-create, and Godtried me with his supremest test. He gave me a heritage from the OldWorld, hate and vengeance and blood, and said, "Cast it all into myCrucible. " And I said, "Even thy Crucible cannot melt this hate, cannotdrink up this blood. " And so I sat crooning over the dead past, gloatingover the old blood-stains--I, the apostle of America, the prophet of theGod of our children. Oh--how my music mocked me! And you--so fearless, so high above fate--how you must despise me! VERAI? Ah no! DAVIDYou must. You do. Your words still sting. Were it seven seas betweenus, you said, our love must cross them. And I--I who had prated of sevenseas---- VERANot seas of blood--I spoke selfishly, thoughtlessly. I had not realisedthat crimson flood. Now I see it day and night. O God! [_She shudders and covers her eyes. _] DAVIDThere lies my failure--to have brought it to your eyes, instead ofblotting it from my own. VERANo man could have blotted it out. DAVIDYes--by faith in the Crucible. From the blood of battlefields springdaisies and buttercups. In the divine chemistry the very garbage turnsto roses. But in the supreme moment my faith was found wanting. You cameto me--and I thrust you away. VERAI ought not to have come to you. . . . I ought not to have come to youto-day. We must not meet again. DAVIDAh, you cannot forgive me! VERAForgive? It is I that should go down on my knees for my father's sin. [_She is half-sinking to her knees. He stops her by a gesture and a cry. _] DAVIDNo! The sins of the fathers shall not be visited on the children. VERAMy brain follows you, but not my heart. It is heavy with the sense ofunpaid debts--debts that can only cry for forgiveness. DAVIDYou owe me nothing---- VERABut my father, my people, my country. . . . [_She breaks down. Recovers herself. _]My only consolation is, you need nothing. DAVID [_Dazed_]I--need--nothing? VERANothing but your music . . . Your dreams. DAVIDAnd your love? Do I not need that? VERA [_Shaking her head sadly_]No. DAVIDYou say that because I have forfeited it. VERAIt is my only consolation, I tell you, that you do not need me. In ourhappiest moments a suspicion of this truth used to lacerate me. But nowit is my one comfort in the doom that divides us. See how you stand uphere above the world, alone and self-sufficient. No woman could everhave more than the second place in your life. DAVIDBut you have the _first_ place, Vera! VERA [_Shakes her head again_]No--I no longer even desire it. I have gotten over that womanlyweakness. DAVIDYou torture me. What do you mean? VERAWhat can be simpler? I used to be jealous of your music, your propheticvisions. I wanted to come first--before them all! Now, dear David, Ionly pray that they may fill your life to the brim. DAVIDBut they cannot. VERAThey will--have faith in yourself, in your mission--good-bye. DAVID [_Dazed_]You love me and you leave me? VERAWhat else can I do? Shall the shadow of Kishineff hang over all youryears to come? Shall I kiss you and leave blood upon your lips, cling toyou and be pushed away by all those cold, dead hands? DAVID [_Taking both her hands_]Yes, cling to me, despite them all, cling to me till all these ghostsare exorcised, cling to me till our love triumphs over death. Kiss me, kiss me now. VERA [_Resisting, drawing back_]I dare not! It will make you remember. DAVIDIt will make me forget. Kiss me. [_There is a pause of hesitation, filled up by the Cathedral music from "Faust" surging up softly from below. _] VERA [_Slowly_]I will kiss you as we Russians kiss at Easter--the three kisses ofpeace. [_She kisses him three times on the mouth as in ritual solemnity. _] DAVID [_Very calmly_]Easter was the date of the massacre--see! I am at peace. VERAGod grant it endure! [_They stand quietly hand in hand. _]Look! How beautiful the sunset is after the storm! [_DAVID turns. The sunset, which has begun to grow beautiful just after VERA'S entrance, has now reached its most magnificent moment; below there are narrow lines of saffron and pale gold, but above the whole sky is one glory of burning flame. _] DAVID [_Prophetically exalted by the spectacle_]It is the fires of God round His Crucible. [_He drops her hand and points downward. _]There she lies, the great Melting Pot--listen! Can't you hear theroaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth [_He points east_]--the harbour where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of theworld to pour in their human freight. Ah, what a stirring and aseething! Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian, --black andyellow---- VERA [_Softly, nestling to him_]Jew and Gentile---- DAVIDYes, East and West, and North and South, the palm and the pine, thepole and the equator, the crescent and the cross--how the greatAlchemist melts and fuses them with his purging flame! Here shall theyall unite to build the Republic of Man and the Kingdom of God. Ah, Vera, what is the glory of Rome and Jerusalem where all nations and races cometo worship and look back, compared with the glory of America, where allraces and nations come to labour and look forward! [_He raises his hands in benediction over the shining city. _]Peace, peace, to all ye unborn millions, fated to fill this giantcontinent--the God of our _children_ give you Peace. [_An instant's solemn pause. The sunset is swiftly fading, and the vast panorama is suffused with a more restful twilight, to which the many-gleaming lights of the town add the tender poetry of the night. Far back, like a lonely, guiding star, twinkles over the darkening water the torch of the Statue of Liberty. From below comes up the softened sound of voices and instruments joining in "My Country, 'tis of Thee. " The curtain falls slowly. _] APPENDIX A THE MELTING POT IN ACTION ALIENS ADMITTED TO THE UNITED STATES IN THE YEAR ENDED JUNE 30TH, 1913 African (black) 9, 734Armenian 9, 554Bohemian and Moravian 11, 852Bulgarian, Servian, Montenegrin 10, 083Chinese 3, 487Croatian and Slavonian 44, 754Cuban 6, 121Dalmatian, Bosnian, Herzegovinian 4, 775Dutch and Flemish 18, 746East Indian 233English 100, 062Finnish 14, 920French 26, 509German 101, 764Greek 40, 933Hebrew 105, 826Irish 48, 103Italian (north) 54, 171Italian (south) 264, 348Japanese 11, 672Korean 74Lithuanian 25, 529Magyar 33, 561Mexican 15, 495Pacific Islander 27Polish 185, 207Portuguese 14, 631Roumanian 14, 780Russian 58, 380Ruthenian (Russniak) 39, 405Scandinavian 51, 650Scotch 31, 434Slovak 29, 094Spanish 15, 017Spanish-American 3, 409Syrian 10, 019Turkish 2, 132Welsh 3, 922West Indian (except Cuban) 2, 302Other peoples 3, 512--------Total 1, 427, 227 APPENDIX B THE POGROM (I) A RUSSIAN ON ITS REASONS [From _The Nation_, November 15, 1913] It is now over thirty years since the crew of the sinking shipof Russian absolutism first tried this unworthy weapon to savetheir failing cause. This was when Plehve organised an anti-Semiticagitation and Jewish pogroms in 1883 in South Russia, where the Jews formed almost the only merchant class in thevillages, and where the ignorant peasants, together with somecrafty Russian tradesmen, had a natural grudge against them. The result was that the prevailing discontent of the masseswas diverted against the Jews. A large public meeting ofprotest was organised at that time in the London MansionHouse, the Lord Mayor taking the chair. English publicopinion rightly appreciated the value of this criminal methodof using Jews as scapegoats for political purposes. Now we seemerely a further, and let us hope a final, development of thesame tactics. They have been used on many occasions since1883. One of the largest Jewish pogroms of the latest seriesin Kishineff in 1903 has been clearly traced to the same experiencedhand of Plehve, when the passive attitude of the localadministration and the military was explained by the presencein the town of a mysterious colonel of the Imperial Gendarmeriewho arrived with secret orders and a large supply of pogromliterature from St. Petersburg, and who organised the scum ofthe town population for the purpose of looting and killing Jews. The repulsive stories of further pogroms all over the countryimmediately after the issue of the constitutional manifesto ofOctober 17, 1905, are fresh in the memory of the civilised world. At that time anti-Semitic doctrine was openly preached, notonly against Jews, but against the whole constitutional andrevolutionary upheaval. Pogroms against both were organisedunder the same pretext of saving the Tsar, the orthodoxy, andthe Fatherland. Local police and military officials had secretorders to abstain from interference with the looting and murderingof Jews or "their hirelings. " Processions of peacefulcitizens and children were trampled down by the Cossackhorses, and the Cossacks received formal thanks from highquarters for their excellent exploits. . . . N. W. TCHAYKOVSKY. (II) A NURSE ON ITS RESULTS [From _Public Health_, Nurses' Quarterly, Cleveland, Ohio, October 1913] I was a Red Cross nurse on the battlefield. The words of the chief doctor of the Jewish Hospital of Odessa stillring in my ears. When the telephone message came, he said, "Moldvanko isrunning in blood; send nurses and doctors. " This meant that the Pogrom(massacre) was going on. Dr. P---- came into the wards with these words: "Sisters, there is notime for weeping. Those who have no one dependent upon them, come. Puton your white surgical gowns, and the red cross. Make ready to go on thebattlefield at once. God knows how many of our sisters and brothers arealready killed. " Tears were just running down his cheeks as he spoke. Ina minute twelve nurses and eight doctors had volunteered. There was oneRed Cross nurse who was in bed waiting to be operated on. She got up andmade ready too. Nobody could keep her from going with us. "Where mysisters and brothers fall, there shall I fall, " she said, and with thesewords, jumped into the ambulance and went on to the City Hospital withus. There they had better equipment, and they sent out three times asmany nurses as the Jewish Hospital. At the City Hospital they hungsilver crosses about our necks. We wore the silver crosses so that wewould not be recognised as Jewish by the Holiganes (Hooligans). Then we went to Molorosiskia Street in the Moldvanko (slums). We couldnot see, for the feathers were flying like snow. The blood was alreadyup to our ankles on the pavement and in the yards. The uproar wasdeafening but we could hear the Holiganes' fierce cries of "Hooray, killthe Jews, " on all sides. It was enough to hear such words. They couldturn your hair grey, but we went on. We had no time to think. All ourthoughts were to pick up wounded ones, and to try to rescue someuninjured ones. We succeeded in rescuing some uninjured who were inhiding. We put bandages on them to make it appear that they werewounded. We put them in the ambulance and carried them to the hospital, too. So at the Jewish Hospital we had five thousand injured and seventhousand uninjured to feed and protect for two weeks. Some were leftwithout homes, without clothes, and children were even without parents. My dear reader, I want to tell you one thing before I describe thescenes of the massacre any further; do not think that you are reading astory which could not happen! No, I want you to know that everything youread is just exactly as it was. My hair is a little grey, but I amsurprised it is not quite white after what I witnessed. The procession of the Pogrom was led by about ten Catholic (Greek)Sisters with about forty or fifty of their school children. They carriedikons or pictures of Jesus and sang "God Save the Tsar. " They werefollowed by a crowd containing hundreds of men and women murderersyelling "Bey Zhida, " which means "Kill the Jews. " With these words theyran into the yards where there were fifty or a hundred tenants. Theyrushed in like tigers. Soon they began to throw children out of thewindows of the second, third, and fourth stories. They would take apoor, innocent six-months-old baby, who could not possibly have done anyharm in this world and throw it down on to the pavement. You canimagine it could not live after it struck the ground, but this did notsatisfy the stony-hearted murderers. They then rushed up to the child, seized it and broke its little arm and leg bones into three or fourpieces, then wrung its neck too. They laughed and yelled, so carriedaway with pleasure at their successful work. I do wish a few Americans could have been there to see, and they wouldknow what America is, and what it means to live in the United States. Itwas not enough for them to open up a woman's abdomen and take out thechild which she carried, but they took time to stuff the abdomen withstraw and fill it up. Can you imagine human beings able to do suchthings? I do not think anybody could, because I could not imagine itmyself when a few years before I read the news of the massacre inKishineff, but now I have seen it with my own eyes. It was not enoughfor them to cut out an old man's tongue and cut off his nose, but theydrove nails into the eyes also. You wonder how they had enough time tocarry away everything of value--money, gold, silver, jewels--and stillbe able to do so much fancy killing, but oh, my friends, all the timefor three days and three nights was theirs. The last day and night it poured down rain, and you would think thatmight stop them, but no, they worked just as hard as ever. We could wearshoes no longer. Our feet were swollen, so we wore rubbers over ourstockings, and in this way worked until some power was able to stopthese horrors. They not only killed, but they had time to abuse younggirls of twelve and fourteen years of age, who died immediately afterbeing operated upon. I remember what happened to my own class-mates. They were two who camefrom a small town to Odessa to become midwives. These girls ran to theschool to hide themselves as it was a government school, and they knewthe Holiganes would not dare to come in there. But the dean of theschool had ordered they should not be admitted, because they wereJewish, as if they had different blood running in their veins. So whenthey came, the watchman refused to open the doors, according to hisinstructions. The crowd of Holiganes found them outside the doors of thehospital. They abused them right there in the middle of the street. Onewas eighteen years old and the other was twenty. One died after theoperation and the other went insane from shame. Some people ask why the Jews did not leave everything and go away. Buthow could they go and where could they go? The murderers were scatteredthroughout the Jewish quarters. All they could do was hide where theywere in the cellars and garrets. The Holiganes searched them out andkilled them where they were hidden. Others may ask, why did they notresist the murderers with their knives and pistols? The grown menorganised by the second day. They were helped by the Vigilantes, too, who brought them arms. The Vigilantes were composed of students at theUniversity and high-school boys, and also the strongest man from eachJewish family. There were a good many Gentiles among the students whobelonged to the Vigilantes because they wanted justice. So on the secondday the Vigilantes stood before the doors and gave resistance to themurderers. Some will ask where were the soldiers and the police? Theywere sent to protect, but on arriving, joined in with the murderers. However, the police put disguises on over their uniforms. Later, whenthey were brought to the hospital with other wounded, we found theiruniforms underneath their disguises. When the Vigilantes took their stations, the scene was like abattlefield. Bullets were flying from both sides of the Red Crosscarriages. We expected to be killed any minute, but notwithstanding, werushed wherever there were shots heard in order to carry away thewounded. Whenever we arrived we shouted "Red Cross, Red Cross, " in orderto help make them realise we were not Vigilantes. Then they would stopand let us pick up the wounded. They did this on account of their ownwounded. The Vigilantes could not stop the butchery entirely because they werenot strong enough in numbers. On the fourth day, the Jewish people ofOdessa, through Dr. P----, succeeded in communicating to the Mayor of adifferent State. Soldiers from outside, strangers to the murderers, camein and took charge of the city. The city was put under martial law untilorder could be restored. On the fifth day the doctors and nurses were called to the cemetery, where there were four hundred unidentified dead. Their friends andrelatives who came to search for them were crazed and hysterical andneeded our attention. Wives came to look for husbands, parents huntingchildren, a mother for her only son, and so on. It took eight days toidentify the bodies and by that time four hundred of the wounded haddied, and so we had eight hundred to bury. If you visit Odessa, you willbe shown two long graves, about one hundred feet long, beside the JewishCemetery. There lie the victims of the massacre. Among them are GentileVigilantes whose parents asked that they be buried with the Jews. . . . Another case I knew was that of a married man. He left his wife, who waspregnant, and three children, to go on a business trip. When he got backthe massacre had occurred. His home was in ruins, his family gone. Hewent to the hospital, then to the cemetery. There he found his wife withher abdomen stuffed with straw, and his three children dead. It simplybroke his heart, and he lost his mind. But he was harmless, and was tobe seen wandering about the hospital as though in search of some one, and daily he grew more thin and suffering. This story is told in the hope that Americans will appreciate the safetyand freedom in which they live and that they will help others to gainthat freedom. APPENDIX C THE STORY OF DANIEL MELSA Another example of Nature aping Art is afforded by the romantic story ofDaniel Melsa, a young Russo-Jewish violinist who has carried audiencesby storm in Berlin, Paris and London, and who had arranged to go toAmerica last November. The following extract from an interview in the_Jewish Chronicle_ of January 24, 1913, shows the curious coincidencebetween his beginnings and David Quixano's: "Melsa is not yet twenty years of age, but he looks somewhat older. Heis of slight build and has a sad expression, which increased to almost apainful degree when recounting some of his past experiences. He seemssingularly devoid of any affectation, while modesty is obviously thekeynote of his nature. "After some persuasion, Melsa put aside his reticence, and, complyingwith the request, outlined briefly his career, the early part of which, he said, was overshadowed by a great tragedy. He was born in Warsaw, and, at the age of three, his parents moved to Lodz, where shortly aftera private tutor was engaged for him. "'Although I exhibited a passion for music quite early, I did notreceive any lessons on the subject till my seventh birthday, but beforethat my father obtained a cheap violin for me upon which I was soon ableto play simple melodies by ear. ' "By chance a well-known professor of the town heard him play, and soimpressed was he with the talent exhibited by the boy that he advisedthe father to have him educated. Acting upon this advice, as far aslimited means allowed, tutors were engaged, and so much progress did hemake that at the age of nine he was admitted to the local Conservatoriumof Professor Grudzinski, where he remained two years. It was at the ageof eleven that a great calamity overtook the family, his father andsister falling victims to the pogroms. "Melsa's story runs as follows: "'It was in June of 1905, at the time of the pogroms, when one afternoonmy father, accompanied by my little sister, ventured out into thestreet, from which they never returned. They were both killed, ' he addedsadly, 'by Cossacks. A week later I found my sister in a Christianchurchyard riddled with bullets, but I have not been able to trace theremains of my father, who must have been buried in some out-of-the-wayplace. During this awful period my mother and myself lived in imminentdanger of our lives, and it was only the recollection of my playing thatsaved us also falling a prey to the vodka-besodden Cossacks. '" APPENDIX D BEILIS AND AMERICA The close relation in Jewish thought between Russo-Jewish persecutionand America as the land of escape from it is well illustrated by therecent remarks of the _Jewish Chronicle_ on the future of the victim ofthe Blood-Ritual Prosecution in Kieff. "So long as Beilis continues tolive in Russia, his life is unsafe. The Black Hundreds, he himself says, have solemnly decided on his death, and we have seen, in the not distantpast, that they can carry out diabolical plots of this description withcomplete immunity. . . . He would gladly go to America, provided he wassure of a living. The condition should not be difficult to fulfil, andif this victim of a barbarous _régime_--we cannot say latest victim, for, as we write, comes the news of an expulsion order against 1200Jewish students of Kieff--should find a home and place under thesheltering wing of freedom, it would be a fitting ending to a painfulchapter in our Jewish history. " That it is the natural ending even the Jew-baiting Russian organ, the_Novoe Vremya_, indirectly testifies, for it has published a sneeringcartoon representing a number of Jews crowded on the Statue of Libertyto welcome the arrival of Beilis. One wonders that the Russian censorshould have permitted the masses to become aware that Liberty exists onearth, if only in the form of a statue. APPENDIX E THE ALIEN IN THE MELTING POT Mr. Frederick J. Haskin has recently published in the _Chicago DailyNews_ the following graphic summary of what immigrants have done and dofor the United States: I am the immigrant. Since the dawn of creation my restless feet have beaten new paths acrossthe earth. My uneasy bark has tossed on all seas. My wanderlust was born of the craving for more liberty and a better wagefor the sweat of my face. I looked towards the United States with eyes kindled by the fire ofambition and heart quickened with new-born hope. I approached its gates with great expectation. I entered in with fine hopes. I have shouldered my burden as the American man of all work. I contribute eighty-five per cent. Of all the labour in the slaughteringand meat-packing industries. I do seven-tenths of the bituminous coal mining. I do seventy-eight per cent. Of all the work in the woollen mills. I contribute nine-tenths of all the labour in the cotton mills. I make nine-twentieths of all the clothing. I manufacture more than half the shoes. I build four-fifths of all the furniture. I make half of the collars, cuffs, and shirts. I turn out four-fifths of all the leather. I make half the gloves. I refine nearly nineteen-twentieths of the sugar. I make half of the tobacco and cigars. And yet, I am the great American problem. When I pour out my blood on your altar of labour, and lay down my lifeas a sacrifice to your god of toil, men make no more comment than at thefall of a sparrow. But my brawn is woven into the warp and woof of the fabric of yournational being. My children shall be your children and your land shall be my landbecause my sweat and my blood will cement the foundations of the Americaof To-Morrow. If I can be fused into the body politic, the Melting-Pot will have stoodthe supreme test. Afterword I _The Melting Pot_ is the third of the writer's plays to be published inbook form, though the first of the three in order of composition. Butunlike _The War God_ and _The Next Religion_, which are dramatisationsof the spiritual duels of our time, _The Melting Pot_ sprang directlyfrom the author's concrete experience as President of the EmigrationRegulation Department of the Jewish Territorial Organisation, which, founded shortly after the great massacres of Jews in Russia, will soonhave fostered the settlement of ten thousand Russian Jews in the West ofthe United States. "Romantic claptrap, " wrote Mr. A. B. Walkley in the _Times_ of "thisrhapsodising over music and crucibles and statues of Liberty. " As ifthese things were not the homeliest of realities, and rhapsodising thenatural response to them of the Russo-Jewish psychology, incurablyoptimist. The statue of Liberty is a large visible object at the mouthof New York harbour; the crucible, if visible only to the eye ofimagination like the inner reality of the sunrise to the eye of Blake, is none the less a roaring and flaming actuality. These things are assubstantial, if not as important, as Adeline Genée and Anna Pavlova, theobjects of Mr. Walkley's own rhapsodising. Mr. Walkley, never havinglacked Liberty, nor cowered for days in a cellar in terror of a howlingmob, can see only theatrical exaggeration in the enthusiasm for a landof freedom, just as, never having known or never having had eyes to seethe grotesque and tragic creatures existing all around us, he hasdoubted the reality of some of Balzac's creations. It is to be fearedthat for such a play as _The Melting Pot_ Mr. Walkley is far from beingthe χαρίεις of Aristotle. The ideal spectator must have known and feltmore of life than Mr. Walkley, who resembles too much the library-fedman of letters whose denunciation by Walter Bagehot he himself quoteswithout suspecting _de te fabula narratur_. Even the critic, who has todeal with a refracted world, cannot dispense with primary experience ofhis own. For "the adventures of a soul among masterpieces" it is notonly necessary there should be masterpieces, there must also be a soul. Mr. Walkley, one of the wittiest of contemporary writers and within hisurban range one of the wisest, can scarcely be accused of lacking asoul, though Mr. Bernard Shaw's long-enduring misconception of him as abrother in the spirit is one of the comedies of literature. But suchspiritual vitality as Oxford failed to sterilise in him has been largelytorpified by his profession of play-taster, with its divorcement fromreality in the raw. His cry of "romantic claptrap" is merely thereaction of the club armchair to the "drums and tramplings" of thestreet. It is in fact (he will welcome an allusion to Dickens almost asmuch as one to Aristotle) the higher Podsnappery. "Thus happilyacquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr. Podsnap settled thatwhatever he put behind him he put out of existence. . . . The world got upat eight, shaved close at a quarter past, breakfasted at nine, went tothe City at ten, came home at half-past five, and dined at seven. " Mr. Roosevelt, with his multifarious American experience as soldier andcowboy, hunter and historian, police-captain and President, comes farnearer the ideal spectator, for this play at least, than Mr. Walkley. Yet his enthusiasm for it has been dismissed by our critic as"stupendous _naïveté_. " Mr. Roosevelt apparently falls under that classof "people who knowing no rules, are at the mercy of their undisciplinedtaste, " which Mr. Walkley excludes altogether from his classification ofcritics, in despite of Dr. Johnson's opinion that "natural judges" areonly second to "those who know but are above the rules. " It iscomforting, therefore, to find Mr. Augustus Thomas, the famous Americanplaywright, who is familiar with the rules to the point of contempt, chivalrously associating himself, in defence of a British rival, withMr. Roosevelt's "stupendous _naïveté_. " "Mr. Zangwill's 'rhapsodising' over music and crucibles and statues ofLiberty is, " says Mr. Thomas, "a very effective use of a most potentsymbolism, and I have never seen men and women more sincerely stirredthan the audience at _The Melting Pot_. The impulses awakened by theZangwill play were those of wide human sympathy, charity, andcompassion; and, for my own part, I would rather retire from the theatreand retire from all direct or indirect association with journalism thanwrite down the employment of these factors by Mr. Zangwill as mereclaptrap. " "As a work of art for art's sake, " also wrote Mr. William Archer, "theplay simply does not exist. " He added: "but Mr. Zangwill would not dreamof appealing to such a standard. " Mr. Archer had the misfortune to seethe play in New York side by side with his more cynical _confrère_, andthus his very praise has an air of apologia to Mr. Walkley and the greatdoctrine of "art for art's sake. " It would almost seem as if he eventakes a "work of art" and a "work of art for art's sake" as synonymous. Nothing, in fact, could be more inartistic. "Art for art's sake" is onespecies of art, whose right to existence the author has amply recognisedin other works. (_The King of Schnorrers_ was even read aloud by OscarWilde to a duchess. ) But he roundly denies that art is any the lessartistic for being inspired by life, and seeking in its turn to inspirelife. Such a contention is tainted by the very Philistinism it wouldrepudiate, since it seeks a negative test of art in something outsideart--to wit, purpose, whose presence is surely as irrelevant to art asits absence. The only test of art is artistic quality, and this quality_occurs_ perhaps more frequently than it is achieved, as in the words ofthe Hebrew prophets, or the vision of a slum at night, the formerconsciously aiming at something quite different, the latter achievingits beauty in utter unconsciousness. II It will be seen from the official table of immigration that the RussianJew is only one and not even the largest of the fifty elements that, tothe tune of nearly a million and a half a year, are being fused in thegreatest "Melting Pot" the world has ever known; but if he has beenselected as the typical immigrant, it is because he alone of all thefifty has no homeland. Some few other races, such as the Armenians, arealmost equally devoid of political power, and, in consequence, equallyobnoxious to massacre; but except the gipsy, whose essence is to behomeless, there is no other race--black, white, red, or yellow--that hasnot remained at least a majority of the population in some area of itsown. There is none, therefore, more in need of a land of liberty, noneto whose future it is more vital that America should preserve thatspirit of William Penn which President Wilson has so noblycharacterised. And there is assuredly none which has more valuableelements to contribute to the ethnic and psychical amalgam of the peopleof to-morrow. The process of American amalgamation is not assimilation or simplesurrender to the dominant type, as is popularly supposed, but anall-round give-and-take by which the final type may be enriched orimpoverished. Thus the intelligent reader will have remarked how thesomewhat anti-Semitic Irish servant of the first act talks Yiddishherself in the fourth. Even as to the ultimate language of the UnitedStates, it is unreasonable to suppose that American, though fortunatelyprotected by English literature, will not bear traces of the fiftylanguages now being spoken side by side with it, and of which this playalone presents scraps in German, French, Russian, Yiddish, Irish, Hebrew, and Italian. That in the crucible of love, or even co-citizenship, the most violentantitheses of the past may be fused into a higher unity is a truth ofboth ethics and observation, and it was in order to present historicenmities at their extremes that the persecuted Jew of Russia and thepersecuting Russian race have been taken for protagonists--"the fellincensèd points of mighty opposites. " The Jewish immigrant is, moreover, the toughest of all the whiteelements that have been poured into the American crucible, the racehaving, by its unique experience of several thousand years of exposureto alien majorities, developed a salamandrine power of survival. Andthis asbestoid fibre is made even more fireproof by the anti-Semitism ofAmerican uncivilisation. Nevertheless, to suppose that America willremain permanently afflicted by all the old European diseases would beto despair of humanity, not to mention super-humanity. III Even the negrophobia is not likely to remain eternally at its presentbarbarous pitch. Mr. William Archer, who has won a new fame as studentof that black problem, which is America's nemesis for her ancientslave-raiding, and who favours the creation of a Black State as one ofthe United States, observes: "It is noteworthy that neither DavidQuixano nor anyone else in the play makes the slightest reference tothat inconvenient element in the crucible of God--the negro. " This is anoversight of Mr. Archer's, for Baron Revendal defends the Jew-baiting ofRussia by asking of an American: "Don't you lynch and roast yourniggers?" And David Quixano expressly throws both "black and yellow"into the crucible. No doubt there is an instinctive antipathy whichtends to keep the white man free from black blood, though this antipathyhaving been overcome by a large minority in all the many periods and allthe many countries of their contiguity, it is equally certain that thereare at work forces of attraction as well as of repulsion, and that evenupon the negro the "Melting Pot" of America will not fail to act in ameasure as it has acted on the Red Indian, who has found it almost asfacile to mate with his white neighbours as with his black. Indeed, itis as much social prejudice as racial antipathy that to-day dividesblack and white in the New World; and Sir Sydney Olivier has recordedthat in Jamaica the white is far more on his guard and his dignityagainst the half-white than against the all-black, while in Guiana, according to Sir Harry Johnston in his great work "The Negro in the NewWorld, " it is the half-white that, in his turn, despises the black andsucceeds in marrying still further whitewards. It might have beenthought that the dark-white races on the northern shore of theMediterranean--the Spaniards, Sicilians, &c. --who have already beencrossed with the sons of Ham from its southern shore, would, among theAmerican immigrants, be the natural links towards the fusion of whiteand black, but a similar instinct of pride and peril seems to hold themback. But whether the antipathy in America be a race instinct or asocial prejudice, the accusations against the black are largelypanic-born myths, for the alleged repulsive smell of the negro isconsistent with being shaved by him, and the immorality of the negressis consistent with her control of the nurseries of the South. The devilis not so black nor the black so devilish as he is painted. This is notto deny that the prognathous face is an ugly and undesirable type ofcountenance or that it connotes a lower average of intellect and ethics, or that white and black are as yet too far apart for profitable fusion. Melanophobia, or fear of the black, may be pragmatically as valuable aracial defence for the white as the counter-instinct of philoleucosis, or love of the white, is a force of racial uplifting for the black. Butneither colour has succeeded in monopolising all the virtues and gracesin its specific evolution from the common ancestral ape, and asuperficial acquaintance with the work of Dr. Arthur Keith teaches thatif the black man is nearer the ape in some ways (having even the remainsof throat-pouches), the white man is nearer in other ways (as in hisgreater hairiness). And besides being, as Sir Sydney Olivier says, "a matrix of emotionaland spiritual energies that have yet to find their human expression, "the African negro has obviously already not a few valuable ethnicelements--joy of life, love of colour, keen senses, beautiful voice, andear for music--contributions that might somewhat compensate for thedragging-down of the white and, in small doses at least, might one dayprove a tonic to an anæmic and art-less America. A musician likeColeridge-Taylor is no despicable product of the "Melting Pot, " whilethe negroes of genius whom the writer has been privileged to know--menlike Henry O. Tanner, the painter, and Paul Laurence Dunbar, thepoet--show the potentialities of the race even without white admixture;and as men of this stamp are capable of attracting cultured whitewives, the fusing process, beginning at the top with types like these, should be far less unwelcome than that which starts with the dregs ofboth races. But the negroid hair and complexion being, in Mendelianlanguage, "dominant, " these black traits are not easy to eliminate fromthe hybrid posterity; and in view of all the unpleasantness, bothimmediate and contingent, that attends the blending of colours, onlyheroic souls on either side should dare the adventure of intermarriage. Blacks of this temper, however, would serve their race better by makingLiberia a success or building up an American negro State, as Mr. WilliamArcher recommends, or at least asserting their rights as Americancitizens in that sub-tropical South which without their labour couldnever have been opened up. Meantime, however scrupulously andjustifiably America avoids physical intermarriage with the negro, thecomic spirit cannot fail to note the spiritual miscegenation which, while clothing, commercialising, and Christianising the ex-African, hasgiven "rag-time" and the sex-dances that go to it, first to whiteAmerica and thence to the whole white world. The action of the crucible is thus not exclusively physical--aconsideration particularly important as regards the Jew. The Jew may beAmericanised and the American Judaised without any gamic interaction. IV Among the Jews _The Melting Pot_, though it has in some instances servedto interpret to each other the old generation and the new, has morefrequently been misunderstood by both. While a distinguished Christianclergyman wrote that it was "calculated to do for the Jewish race what'Uncle Tom's Cabin' did for the coloured man, " the Jewish pulpits ofAmerica have resounded with denunciation of its supposed solution of theJewish problem by dissolution. As if even a play with a purpose could domore than suggest and interpret! It is true that its leading figure, David Quixano, advocates absorption in America, but even he is speakingsolely of the American Jews and asks his uncle why, if he objects to thedissolving process, he did not work for a separate Jewish land. He isnot offering a panacea for the Jewish problem, universally applicable. But he urges that the conditions offered to the Jew in America arewithout parallel throughout the world. And, in sooth, the Jew is here citizen of a republic without a Statereligion--a republic resting, moreover, on the same simple principles ofjustice and equal rights as the Mosaic Commonwealth from which thePuritan Fathers drew their inspiration. In America, therefore, the Jew, by a roundabout journey from Zion, has come into his own again. It is byno mere accident that when an inscription was needed for the colossalstatue of Liberty in New York Harbour, that "Mother of Exiles" whosetorch lights the entrance to the New Jerusalem, the best expression ofthe spirit of Americanism was found in the sonnet of the Jewess, EmmaLazarus: _Give me your tired, your poor, _ _Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, _ _The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. _ _Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, _ _I lift my lamp beside the golden door. _ And if, alas! passing through the golden door, the Jew finds his NewJerusalem as much a caricature by the crumbling of its early ideals asthe old became by the fading of the visions of Isaiah and Amos, he mayfind his mission in fighting for the preservation of the originalHebraic pattern. In this fight he will not be alone, and intermarriagewith his fellow-crusaders in the new Land of Promise will naturallyfollow wherever, as with David Quixano and Vera Revendal, no theologicaldifferences divide. There will be neither Jew nor Greek. Intermarriage, wherever there is social intimacy, will follow, even when the partiesstand in opposite religious camps; but this is less advisable as leadingto a house divided against itself and to dissension in the upbringing ofthe children. It is only when a common outlook has been reached, transcending the old doctrinal differences, that intermarriage isdenuded of those latent discords which the instinct of mankind divines, and which keep even Catholic and Protestant wisely apart. These discords, together with the prevalent anti-Semitism and his owningrained persistence, tend to preserve the Jew even in the "MeltingPot, " so that his dissolution must be necessarily slower than that ofthe similar aggregations of Germans, Italians, or Poles. But the processfor all is the same, however tempered by specific factors. Beginning asbroken-off bits of Germany, Italy, or Poland, with newspapers andtheatres in German, Italian, or Polish, these colonies gradually becomeAmericanised, their vernaculars, even when jealously cherished, become amere medium for American conceptions of life; while in the thirdgeneration the child is ashamed both of its parents and their lingo, thenewspapers dwindle in circulation, the theatres languish. The reality ofthis process has been denied by no less distinguished an American thanDr. Charles Eliot, ex-President of Harvard University, whose prophecy ofJewish solidarity in America and of the contribution of Judaism to theworld's future is more optimistic than my own. Dr. Eliot points to thestill unmelted heaps of racial matter, without suspecting--although heis a chemist--that their semblance of solidity is only kept up by theconstant immigration of similar atoms to the base to replace thoseliquefied at the apex. Once America slams her doors, the crucible willroar like a closed furnace. Heaven forbid, however, that the doors shall be slammed for centuriesyet. The notion that the few millions of people in America have a moralright to exclude others is monstrous. Exclusiveness may have somejustification in countries, especially when old and well-populated; butfor continents like the United States--or for the matter of that Canadaand Australia--to mistake themselves for mere countries is anintolerable injustice to the rest of the human race. The exclusion of criminals even is as impossible in practice as theexclusion of the sick and ailing is unchristian. Infinitely moreimportant were it to keep the gates of _birth_ free from undesirables. As for the exclusion of the able-bodied, whether illiterate or literate, that is sheer economic madness in so empty a continent, especially withthe Panama Canal to divert them to the least developed States. Fortunately, any serious restriction will avenge itself not only by thestagnation of many of the States, but by the paralysis of the greatliners which depend on steerage passengers, without whom freights andfares will rise and saloon passengers be docked of their sailingfacilities. Meantime the inquisition at Ellis Island has to its accountcruelties no less atrocious than the ancient Spanish--cruelties thatonly flash into momentary prominence when some luxurious music-hall ladyof dubious morals has a taste of the barbarities meted out daily toblameless and hard-working refugees from oppression or hunger, who, having staked their all on the great adventure, find themselves hustledback, penniless and heartbroken, to the Old World. V Whether any country will ever again be based like those of the Old Worldupon a unity of race or religion is a matter of doubt. New England, ofcourse, like Pennsylvania and Maryland, owes its inception to religion, but the original impulse has long been submerged by purely economicpressures. And the same motley immigration from the Old World isbuilding up the bulk of the coming countries. At most, the dominantlanguage gives a semblance of unity and serves to attract a considerablestream of immigrants who speak it, as of Portuguese to Brazil, Spaniardsto the Argentine. But the chief magnet remains economic, for Brazildraws six times as many Italians as Portuguese, and the Argentine twoand a half times as many Italians as Spanish. It may be urged, ofcourse, that the Italian gravitation to these countries is still amatter of race, and that, in the absence of an El Dorado of his own, theItalian is attracted towards States that are at least Latin. But thoughBrazil and the Argentine be predominantly Latin, the minority ofGermans, Austrians, and Swiss is by no means insignificant. The greatmodern steamship, in fact--supplemented by its wandering and seductiveagent--is playing the part in the world formerly played by invasions andcrusades, while the "economic" immigrant is more and more replacing therefugee, just as the purely commercial company working under native lawis replacing the Chartered Company which was a law to itself. How smalla part in the modern movement is played by patriotism proper may be seenfrom the avidity with which the farmers of the United States cross theborders to Canada to obtain the large free holdings which enable them tosell off their American properties. How little the proudest traditioncounts against the environment is shown in the shame felt byArgentine-born children for the English spoken by their British parents. The difference in the method of importing the ingredients makes thus nodifference to the action of the crucible. Though the peoples now inprocess of formation in the New World are being recruited by mainlyeconomic forces, it may be predicted they will ultimately harden intohomogeneity of race, if not even of belief. For internationalism inreligion seems to be again receding in favour of national religions (if, indeed, these were ever more than superficially superseded), at any ratein favour of nationalism raised into religion. If racial homogeneity has not yet been evolved completely even inEngland--and, of course, the tendency can never be more thanasymptotic--it is because cheap and easy transport and communication, with freedom of economic movement, have been late developments and arestill far from perfect. Hence, there has never been a thorough shake-upand admixture of elements, so that certain counties and corners haveretained types and breeds peculiar to them. But with the ever-growinginterconnection of all parts of the country, and with the multiplicationof labour bureaux, these breeds and types will be--alas, for localcolour!--increasingly absorbed in the general mass. For fusion andunification are part of the historic life-process. "Normans and Saxonsand Danes" are we here in England, yes and Huguenots and Flemings andGascons and Angevins and Jews and many other things. In fact, according to Sir Harry Johnston, there is hardly an ethnicelement that has not entered into the Englishman, including even themissing link, as the Piltdown skull would seem to testify. The earlierdiscovery at Galley Hill showed Britannia rising from the apes with anextinct Tasmanian type, not unlike the surviving aboriginal Australian. Then the west of Britain was invaded by a negroid type from Francefollowed by an Eskimo type of which traces are still to be seen in theWest of Ireland and parts of Scotland. Next came the true Mediterraneanwhite man, the Iberian, with dark hair and eyes and a white skin; andthen the round-headed people of the Bronze Age, probably Asiatic. Andthen the Gael, the long-headed, fair-haired Aryan, who ruled by iron andwhose Keltic vocabulary was tinged with Iberian, and who was followed bythe Brython or Belgian. And, at some unknown date, we have to allow forthe invasion of North Britain by another Germanic type, the Caledonian, which would seem to have been a Norse stock, foreshadowing the laterNorman Conquest. And, as if this mish-mash was not confusion enough, came to make it worse confounded the Roman conquerors, trailing like amantle of many colours the subject-races of their far-flung Empire. Is it wonderful if the crucible, capable of fusing such a motley oftypes into "the true-born Briton, " should be melting up its Jews likeold silver? The comparison belongs to Mr. Walkley, who was more moved bythe beauty of the old and the pathos of its passing than by theresplendence of the new, and who seemed to forget that it is for thedramatist to register both impartially--their conflict constitutinganother of those spiritual duels which are peculiarly his affair. Jewsare, unlike negroes, a "recessive" type, whose physical traits tend todisappear in the blended offspring. There does not exist in Englandto-day a single representative of the Jewish families whom Cromwelladmitted, though their lineage may be traced in not a few noblefamilies. Thus every country has been and is a "Melting Pot. " ButAmerica, exhibiting the normal fusing process magnified many thousanddiameters and diversified beyond all historic experience, and fed not bysuccessive waves of immigration but by a hodge-podge of simultaneoushordes, is, in Bacon's phrase, an "ostensive instance" of a universalphenomenon. America is _the_ "Melting Pot. " Her people has already begun to take on such a complexion of its own, itis already so emphatically tending to a new race, crossed with everyEuropean type, that the British illusion of a cousinly Anglo-Saxonpeople with whom war is unthinkable is sheer wilful blindness. Evento-day, while the mixture is still largely mechanical not chemical, theAnglo-Saxon element is only preponderant; it is very far from being thesum total. VI While our sluggish and sensual English stage has resisted and evenburked the writer's attempt to express in terms of the theatre ourEuropean problems of war and religion, and to interpret through art the"years of the modern, years of the unperformed, " it remains to beacknowledged with gratitude that this play, designed to bring home toAmerica both its comparative rawness and emptiness and its truesignificance and potentiality for history and civilisation, has beenuniversally acclaimed by Americans as a revelation of Americanism, despite that it contains only one native-born American character, andthat a bad one. Played throughout the length and breadth of the Statessince its original production in 1908, given, moreover, in Universitiesand Women's Colleges, passing through edition after edition in bookform, cited by preachers and journalists, politicians and Presidentialcandidates, even calling into existence a "Melting Pot" Club in Boston, it has had the happy fortune to contribute its title to current thought, and, in the testimony of Jane Addams, to "perform a great service toAmerica by reminding us of the high hopes of the founders of theRepublic. " I. Z. _January 1914. _ Printed in the United States of America.