The Melting-Pot

DAVID

There lies my failure-to have brought it to your eyes, instead of blotting it from my own.

VERA

No man could have blotted it out.

DAVID

Yes-by faith in the Crucible. From the blood of battlefields spring daisies and buttercups. In the divine chemistry the very garbage turns to roses. But in the supreme moment my faith was found wanting. You came to me-and I thrust you away.

VERA

I ought not to have come to you.... I ought not to have come to you to-day. We must not meet again.

DAVID

Ah, you cannot forgive me!

VERA

Forgive? 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.]

DAVID

No! The sins of the fathers shall not be visited on the children.

VERA

My brain follows you, but not my heart. It is heavy with the sense of unpaid debts-debts that can only cry for forgiveness.

DAVID

You owe me nothing--

VERA

But my father, my people, my country....

[She breaks down. Recovers herself.] My only consolation is, you need nothing.

DAVID [Dazed]

I-need-nothing?

VERA

Nothing but your music ... your dreams.

DAVID

And your love? Do I not need that?

VERA [Shaking her head sadly]

No.

DAVID

You say that because I have forfeited it.

VERA

It is my only consolation, I tell you, that you do not need me. In our happiest moments a suspicion of this truth used to lacerate me. But now it is my one comfort in the doom that divides us. See how you stand up here above the world, alone and self-sufficient. No woman could ever have more than the second place in your life.

DAVID

But you have the first place, Vera!

VERA [Shakes her head again]

No-I no longer even desire it. I have gotten over that womanly weakness.

DAVID

You torture me. What do you mean?

VERA

What can be simpler? I used to be jealous of your music, your prophetic visions. I wanted to come first-before them all! Now, dear David, I only pray that they may fill your life to the brim.

DAVID

But they cannot.

VERA

They will-have faith in yourself, in your mission-good-bye.

DAVID [Dazed]

You love me and you leave me?

VERA

What else can I do? Shall the shadow of Kishineff hang over all your years to come? Shall I kiss you and leave blood upon your lips, cling to you 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 ghosts are 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.

DAVID

It 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 of peace.

[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.

VERA

God 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 the roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth

[He points east] -the harbour where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the world to pour in their human freight. Ah, what a stirring and a seething! Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian,-black and yellow--

VERA [Softly, nestling to him]

Jew and Gentile--

DAVID

Yes, East and West, and North and South, the palm and the pine, the pole and the equator, the crescent and the cross-how the great Alchemist melts and fuses them with his purging flame! Here shall they all 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 come to worship and look back, compared with the glory of America, where all races 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 giant continent-the God of our children give you Peace.