The Melting-Pot

DAVID

Why, 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, before everything.

DAVID

I do put you before everything.

VERA

You are sure? And nothing shall part us?

DAVID

Not all the seven seas could part you and me.

VERA

And 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, if she wants to feel quite sure. You see father has talked so terribly, and after all I was brought up in the Greek Church, and we oughtn't to cause all this suffering unless--

DAVID

Those who love us must suffer, and we must suffer in their suffering. It is live things, not dead metals, that are being melted in the Crucible.

VERA

Still, we ought to soften the suffering as much as--

DAVID

Yes, but only Time can heal it.

VERA [With transition to happiness]

But father seems half-reconciled already! Dear little father, if only he were not so narrow about Holy Russia!

DAVID

If only my folks were not so narrow about Holy Judea! But the ideals of the fathers shall not be foisted on the children. Each generation must live and die for its own dream.

VERA

Yes, David, yes. You are the prophet of the living present. I am so happy.

[She looks up wistfully.] You are happy, too?

DAVID

I am dazed-I cannot realise that all our troubles have melted away-it is so sudden.

VERA

You, David? Who always see everything in such rosy colours? Now that the whole horizon is one great splendid rose, you almost seem as if gazing out toward a blackness--

DAVID

We Jews are cheerful in gloom, mistrustful in joy. It is our tragic history--

VERA

But you have come to end the tragic history; to throw off the coils of the centuries.

DAVID [Smiling again]

Yes, yes, Vera. You bring back my sunnier self. I must be a pioneer on the 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!

VERA

David-my dearest!

DAVID [His eyes closed, his violin clasped mechanically]

Don't be anxious-I shall be better soon-I oughtn't to have talked about it-the hallucination has never been so complete.

VERA

Don'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.]

DAVID

The voice!

[He opens his eyes, stares frenziedly at the BARON, then

struggles out of VERA'S arms.]

VERA [Trying to stop him]

Dearest--

DAVID

Let 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?

BARON

The cry?

DAVID [Mystically]

Can you not hear it? The voice of the blood of my brothers crying out against you from the ground? Oh, how can you bear not to turn that pistol against yourself and execute upon yourself the justice which Russia denies you?

BARON

Tush!

[Pocketing the pistol a little shamefacedly.]

VERA

Justice on himself? For what?