The Melting-Pot

What 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.]

DAVID

Ah, 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 comic opera. 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 and congratulations of the Settlement.

DAVID [Frozen]

Miss Andrews is very kind.... I trust you are well.

VERA

Thank you, Mr. Quixano. Very well and very busy. So you'll excuse me.

[She turns to go.]

DAVID

Certainly.... How are your folks?

VERA [Turns her head]

They are gone back to Russia. And yours?

DAVID

You just saw them all.

VERA [Confused]

Yes-yes-of course-I forgot! Good-bye, Mr. Quixano.

DAVID

Good-bye, Miss Revendal.

[He drops back on the chair. VERA walks to the elevator, then

just before ringing turns again.]

VERA

I shouldn't advise you to sit here in the damp.

DAVID

My uncle dried the chair.

[Bitterly] Curious how every one is concerned about my body and no one about my soul.

VERA

Because your soul is so much stronger than your body. Why, think! It has just lifted a thousand people far higher than this roof-garden.

DAVID

Please 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 in my congratulations.

DAVID

The irony is in all the congratulations. How can I endure them when I know what a terrible failure I have made!

VERA

Failure! Because the critics are all divided? That is the surest proof of success. You have produced something real and new.

DAVID

I am not thinking of Pappelmeister's connoisseurs-I am the only connoisseur, the only one who knows. And every bar of my music cried 'Failure! Failure!' It shrieked from the violins, blared from the trombones, thundered from the drums. It was written on all the faces--

VERA [Vehemently, coming still nearer]

Oh, no! no! I watched the faces-those faces of toil and sorrow, those faces from many lands. They were fired by your vision of their coming brotherhood, lulled by your dream of their land of rest. And I could see that you were right in speaking to the people. In some strange, beautiful, way the inner meaning of your music stole into all those simple souls--

DAVID [Springing up]

And my soul? What of my soul? False to its own music, its own mission, its own dream. That is what I mean by failure, Vera. I preached of God's Crucible, this great new continent that could melt up all race-differences and vendettas, that could purge and re-create, and God tried me with his supremest test. He gave me a heritage from the Old World, hate and vengeance and blood, and said, 'Cast it all into my Crucible.' And I said, 'Even thy Crucible cannot melt this hate, cannot drink up this blood.' And so I sat crooning over the dead past, gloating over the old blood-stains-I, the apostle of America, the prophet of the God of our children. Oh-how my music mocked me! And you-so fearless, so high above fate-how you must despise me!

VERA

I? Ah no!

DAVID

You must. You do. Your words still sting. Were it seven seas between us, you said, our love must cross them. And I-I who had prated of seven seas--

VERA

Not seas of blood-I spoke selfishly, thoughtlessly. I had not realised that crimson flood. Now I see it day and night. O God!

[She shudders and covers her eyes.]