The Melting-Pot

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?

BARONESS

About zat handsome, quite adoràhble Mr. Davenport.

VERA

Davenport!

BARONESS

Who 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 seem to forget one small point-bigamy is not permitted even to millionaires.

BARONESS

Ah, not boz at vonce, but--

VERA

And do you think I would take another woman's leavings? No, not even if she were dead.

BARONESS

You are insulting!

VERA

I beg your pardon-I wasn't even thinking of you. Father, to put an end at once to this absurd conversation, let me inform you I am already engaged.

BARON [Trembling, hoarse]

By name, David.

VERA

Yes-David Quixano.

BARON

A Jew!

VERA

How did you know? Yes, he is a Jew, a noble Jew.

BARON

A Jew noble!

[He laughs bitterly.]

VERA

Yes-even as you esteem nobility-by pedigree. In Spain his ancestors were hidalgos, favourites at the Court of Ferdinand and Isabella; but in the great expulsion of 1492 they preferred exile in Poland to baptism.

BARON

And you, a Revendal, would mate with an unbaptized dog?

VERA

Dog! You call my husband a dog!

BARON

Husband! God in heaven-are you married already?

VERA

No! But not being unemployed millionaires like Mr. Davenport, we hold even our troth eternal.

[Calmer] Our poverty, not your prejudice, stands in the way of our marriage. But David is a musician of genius, and some day--

BARONESS

A fiddler in a beer-hall! She prefers a fiddler to a millionaire of ze first families of America!

VERA [Contemptuously]

First families! I told you David's family came to Poland in 1492-some months before America was discovered.

BARON

Christ save us! You have become a Jewess!

VERA

No more than David has become a Christian. We were already at one-all honest people are. Surely, father, all religions must serve the same God-since there is only one God to serve.

BARONESS

But ze girl is an ateist!

BARON

Silence, 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 had

remained 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 come here to stab yourself afresh?

BARON

I wish to God I had come here earlier. I wish I had not been so nervous of Russian spies. Ah, Verotschka, if you only knew how I have pored over the newspaper pictures of you, and the reports of your life in this Settlement!

VERA

You asked me not to send letters.

BARON

I know, I know-and yet sometimes I felt as if I could risk Siberia myself to read your dear, dainty handwriting again.

VERA [Still more softened]

Father, if you love me so much, surely you will love David a little too-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 my life, and after our years of pain and separation I would gladly remember only my old childish affection. But not if you hate David. You must make your choice.

BARON [Pitifully]

Choice? I have no choice. Can I carry mountains? No more can I love a Jew.

[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]