The Melting-Pot

DAVID

Yes, yes-so you are a Russian!

[He shudders violently, staggers.]

VERA [Alarmed]

You are ill!

DAVID

It is nothing, I-not much music at Kishineff! No, only the Death-March!... Mother! Father! Ah-cowards, murderers! And you!

[He shakes his fist at the air.] You, looking on with your cold butcher's face! O God! O God!

[He bursts into hysterical sobs and runs, shamefacedly, through

the door to his room.]

VERA [Wildly]

What have I said? What have I done?

MENDEL

Oh, I was afraid of this, I was afraid of this.

FRAU QUIXANO [Who has fallen asleep over her book, wakes as if with a

sense of the horror and gazes dazedly around, adding to the

thrillingness of the moment] Dovidel! Wu is' Dovidel! Mir dacht sach--

MENDEL [Pressing her back to her slumbers]

Du träumst, Mutter! Schlaf!

[She sinks back to sleep.]

VERA [In hoarse whisper]

His father and mother were massacred?

MENDEL [In same tense tone]

Before his eyes-father, mother, sisters, down to the youngest babe, whose skull was battered in by a hooligan's heel.

VERA

How did he escape?

MENDEL

He was shot in the shoulder, and fell unconscious. As he wasn't a girl, the hooligans left him for dead and hurried to fresh sport.

VERA

Terrible! Terrible!

[Almost in tears.]

MENDEL [Shrugging shoulders, hopelessly]

It is only Jewish history!... David belongs to the species of pogrom orphan-they arrive in the States by almost every ship.

VERA

Poor boy! Poor boy! And he looked so happy!

[She half sobs.]

MENDEL

So he is, most of the time-a sunbeam took human shape when he was born. But naturally that dreadful scene left a scar on his brain, as the bullet left a scar on his shoulder, and he is always liable to see red when Kishineff is mentioned.

VERA

I will never mention my miserable birthplace to him again.

MENDEL

But you see every few months the newspapers tell us of another pogrom, and then he screams out against what he calls that butcher's face, so that I tremble for his reason. I tremble even when I see him writing that crazy music about America, for it only means he is brooding over the difference between America and Russia.

VERA

But perhaps-perhaps-all the terrible memory will pass peacefully away in his music.

MENDEL

There will always be the scar on his shoulder to remind him-whenever the wound twinges, it brings up these terrible faces and visions.

VERA

Is it on his right shoulder?

MENDEL

No-on his left. For a violinist that is even worse.

VERA

Ah, of course-the weight and the fingering.

[Subconsciously placing and fingering an imaginary violin. ]

MENDEL

That is why I fear so for his future-he will never be strong enough for the feats of bravura that the public demands.

VERA

The wild beasts! I feel more ashamed of my country than ever. But there's his symphony.

MENDEL

And who will look at that amateurish stuff? He knows so little of harmony and counterpoint-he breaks all the rules. I've tried to give him a few pointers-but he ought to have gone to Germany.

VERA

Perhaps it's not too late.

MENDEL [Passionately]

Ah, if you and your friends could help him! See-I'm begging after all. But it's not for myself.

VERA

My father loves music. Perhaps he-but no! he lives in Kishineff. But I will think-there are people here-I will write to you.

MENDEL [Fervently]

Thank you! Thank you!

VERA

Now you must go to him. Good-bye. Tell him I count upon him for the Concert.

MENDEL

How good you are!

[He follows her to the street-door.]

VERA [At door]

Say good-bye for me to your mother-she seems asleep.

MENDEL [Opening outer door]

I am sorry it is snowing so.

VERA

We Russians are used to it.

[Smiling, at exit] Good-bye-let us hope your David will turn out a Rubinstein.

MENDEL [Closing the doors softly]

I never thought a Russian Christian could be so human.

[He looks at the clock.] Gott in Himmel-my dancing class!