The Melting-Pot

and that our Jew-immigrants are a greater factor in the glory of this great commonwealth than some of you sons of the soil. It is you, freak-fashionables, who are undoing the work of Washington and Lincoln, vulgarising your high heritage, and turning 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!

DAVID

I am nothing but a simple artist, but I come from Europe, one of her victims, and I know that she is a failure; that her palaces and peerages are outworn toys of the human spirit, and that the only hope of mankind lies in a new world. And here-in the land of to-morrow-you are trying to bring back Europe--

QUINCY [Interjecting]

I wish we could!--

DAVID

Europe with her comic-opera coronets and her worm-eaten stage decorations, and her pomp and chivalry built on a morass of crime and misery--

QUINCY [With sneering laugh]

Morass!

DAVID [With prophetic passion]

But you shall not kill my dream! There shall come a fire round the Crucible that will melt you and your breed like wax in a blowpipe--

QUINCY [Furiously, with clenched fist]

You--

DAVID

America 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!

QUINCY

Poppy! 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--

DAVID

Oh, Herr Pappelmeister, you have lost your place!

PAPPELMEISTER

And 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.]

VERA

What have you done? What have you done?

DAVID

What else could I do?

VERA

I hate the smart set as much as you-but as your ladder and your trumpet--

DAVID

I 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-the America of my music? They look back on Europe as a pleasure ground, a palace 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.

VERA

No, I am not offended. But I have failed to help you. We have nothing else to meet for.

[She disengages her hand.]

DAVID

Why will you punish me so? I have only hurt myself.

VERA

It is not a punishment.

DAVID

What else? When you are with me, all the air seems to tremble with fairy music played by some unseen fairy orchestra.

VERA [Tremulous]

And yet you wouldn't come in just now when I--

DAVID

I was too frightened of the others....

VERA [Smiling]

Frightened indeed!

DAVID

Yes, I know I became overbold-but to take all that magic sweetness out of 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.]

DAVID