  The same scene on an afternoon a month later. David is discovered at his desk, scribbling music in a fever of enthusiasm. Mendel, dressed in his best, is playing softly on the piano, watching David. After an instant or two of indecision, he puts down the piano-lid with a bang and rises decisively. MENDEL David! DAVID [Putting up his left hand] Please, please—— [He writes feverishly.] MENDEL But I want to talk to you seriously—at once. DAVID I'm just re-writing the Finale. Oh, such a splendid inspiration! [He writes on.] MENDEL [Shrugs his shoulders and reseats himself at piano. He plays a bar or two. Looks at watch impatiently. Resolutely] David, I've got wonderful news for you. Miss Revendal is bringing somebody to see you, and we have hopes of getting you sent to Germany to study composition. Why, he hasn't heard a word! [He shouts.] David! DAVID [Writing on] I can't, uncle. I must put it down while that glorious impression is fresh. MENDEL What impression? You only went to the People's Alliance. DAVID Yes, and there I saw the Jewish children—a thousand of 'em—saluting the Flag. [He writes on.] MENDEL Well, what of that? DAVID What of that? [He throws down his quill and jumps up.] But just fancy it, uncle. The Stars and Stripes unfurled, and a thousand childish voices, piping and foreign, fresh from the lands of oppression, hailing its fluttering folds. I cried like a baby. MENDEL I'm afraid you are one. DAVID Ah, but if you had heard them—"Flag of our Great Republic"—the words have gone singing at my heart ever since— [He turns to the flag over the door.] "Flag of our Great Republic, guardian of our homes, whose stars and stripes stand for Bravery, Purity, Truth, and Union, we salute thee. We, the natives of distant lands, who find [Half-sobbing] rest under thy folds, do pledge our hearts, our lives, our sacred honour to love and protect thee, our Country, and the liberty of the American people for ever." [He ends almost hysterically.] MENDEL [Soothingly] Quite right. But you needn't get so excited over it. DAVID Not when one hears the roaring of the fires of God? Not when one sees the souls melting in the Crucible? Uncle, all those little Jews will grow up Americans! MENDEL [Putting a pacifying hand on his shoulder and forcing him into a chair] Sit down. I want to talk to you about your affairs. DAVID [Sitting] My affairs! But I've been talking about them all the time! MENDEL Nonsense, David. [He sits beside him.] Don't you think it's time you got into a wider world? DAVID Eh? This planet's wide enough for me. MENDEL Do be serious. You don't want to live all your life in this room. DAVID [Looks round] What's the matter with this room? It's princely. MENDEL [Raising his hands in horror] Princely! DAVID Imperial. Remember when I first saw it—after pigging a week in the rocking steerage, swinging in a berth as wide as my fiddle-case, hung near the cooking-engines; imagine the hot rancid smell of the food, the oil of the machinery, the odours of all that close-packed, sea-sick—— MENDEL [Putting his hand over David's mouth] Don't! You make me ill! How could you ever bear it? DAVID [Smiling] I was quite happy—I only had to fancy I'd been shipwrecked, and that after clinging to a plank five days without food or water on the great lonely Atlantic, my frozen, sodden form had been picked up by this great safe steamer and given this delightful dry berth, regular meals, and the spectacle of all these friendly faces.... Do you know who was on board that boat? Quincy Davenport. MENDEL The lord of corn and oil? DAVID [Smiling] Yes, even we wretches in the steerage felt safe to think the lord was up above, we believed the company would never dare drown him. But could even Quincy Davenport command a cabin like this? [Waving his arm round the room.] Why, uncle, we have a cabin worth a thousand dollars—a thousand dollars a week—and what's more, it doesn't wobble! [He plants his feet voluptuously upon the floor.] MENDEL Come, come, David, I asked you to be serious. Surely, some day you'd like your music produced? DAVID [Jumps up] Wouldn't it be glorious? To hear it all actually coming out of violins and 'cellos, drums and trumpets. MENDEL And you'd like it to go all over the world? DAVID All over the world and all down the ages. MENDEL But don't you see that unless you go and study seriously in Germany——? [Enter Kathleen from kitchen, carrying a furnished tea-tray with ear-shaped cakes, bread and butter, etc., and wearing a grotesque false nose. Mendel cries out in amaze.] Kathleen! DAVID [Roaring with boyish laughter] Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! KATHLEEN [Standing still with her tray] Sure, what's the matter? DAVID Look in the glass! KATHLEEN [Going to the mantel] Houly Moses! [She drops the tray, which Mendel catches, and snatches off the nose.] Och, I forgot to take it off—'twas the misthress gave it me—I put it on to cheer her up. DAVID Is she so miserable, then? KATHLEEN Terrible low, Mr. David, to-day being Purim. MENDEL Purim! Is to-day Purim? [Gives her the tea-tray back. Kathleen, to take it, drops her nose and forgets to pick it up.] DAVID But Purim is a merry time, Kathleen, like your Carnival. Haven't you read the book of Esther—how the Jews of Persia escaped massacre? KATHLEEN That's what the misthress is so miserable about. Ye don't keep the Carnival. There's noses for both of ye in the kitchen—didn't I go with her to Hester Street to buy 'em?—but ye don't be axin' for 'em. And to see your noses layin' around so solemn and neglected, faith, it nearly makes me chry meself. MENDEL [Bitterly to himself] Who can remember about Purim in America? DAVID [Half-smiling] Poor granny, tell her to come in and I'll play her Purim jig. MENDEL [Hastily] No, no, David, not here—the visitors! DAVID Visitors? What visitors? MENDEL [Impatiently] That's just what I've been trying to explain. DAVID Well, I can play in the kitchen. [He takes his violin. Exit to kitchen. Mendel sighs and shrugs his shoulders hopelessly at the boy's perversity, then fingers the cups and saucers.] MENDEL [Anxiously] Is that the best tea-set? KATHLEEN Can't you see it's the Passover set! [Ruefully] And shpiled intirely it'll be now for our Passover.... And the misthress thought the visitors might like to thry some of her Purim cakes. [Indicates ear-shaped cakes on tray.] MENDEL [Bitterly] Purim cakes! [He turns his back on her and stares moodily out of the KATHLEEN [Mutters contemptuously] Call yerself a Jew and you forgettin' to keep Purim! [She is going back to the kitchen when a merry Slavic dance breaks out, softened by the door; her feet unconsciously get more and more into dance step, and at last she jigs out. As she opens and passes through the door, the music sounds louder.] FRAU QUIXANO [Heard from kitchen] Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Kathleen!! [Mendel's feet, too, begin to take the swing of the music, and his feet dance as he stares out of the window. Suddenly the hoot of an automobile is heard, followed by the rattling up of the car.] MENDEL Ah, she has brought somebody swell! [He throws open the doors and goes out eagerly to meet the visitors. The dance music goes on softly throughout the scene.] QUINCY DAVENPORT [Outside] Oh, thank you—I leave the coats in the car. [Enter an instant later Quincy Davenport and Vera Revendal, Mendel in the rear. Vera is dressed much as before, but with a motor veil, which she takes off during the scene. Davenport is a dude, aping the air of a European sporting clubman. Aged about thirty-five and well set-up, he wears an orchid and an intermittent eyeglass, and gives the impression of a coarse-fibred and patronisingly facetious MENDEL Won't you be seated? VERA First let me introduce my friend, who is good enough to interest himself in your nephew—Mr. Quincy Davenport. MENDEL [Struck of a heap] Mr. Quincy Davenport! How strange! VERA What is strange? MENDEL David just mentioned Mr. Davenport's name—said they travelled to New York on the same boat. QUINCY Impossible! Always travel on my own yacht. Slow but select. Must have been another man of the same name—my dad. Ha! Ha! Ha! MENDEL Ah, of course. I thought you were too young. QUINCY My dad, Miss Revendal, is one of those antiquated Americans who are always in a hurry! VERA He burns coal and you burn time. QUINCY Precisely! Ha! Ha! Ha! MENDEL Won't you sit down—I'll go and prepare David. VERA [Sitting] You've not prepared him yet? MENDEL I've tried to more than once—but I never really got to—— [He smiles] to Germany. [Quincy sits.] VERA Then prepare him for three visitors. MENDEL Three? VERA You see Mr. Davenport himself is no judge of music. QUINCY [Jumps up] I beg your pardon. VERA In manuscript. QUINCY Ah, of course not. Music should be heard, not seen—like that jolly jig. Is that your David? MENDEL Oh, you mustn't judge him by that. He's just fooling. QUINCY Oh, he'd better not fool with Poppy. Poppy's awful severe. MENDEL Poppy? QUINCY Pappelmeister—my private orchestra conductor. MENDEL Is it your orchestra Pappelmeister conducts? QUINCY Well, I pay the piper—and the drummer too! [He chuckles.] MENDEL [Sadly] I wanted to play in it, but he turned me down. QUINCY I told you he was awful severe. He only allows me comic opera once a week. My wife calls him the Bismarck of the baton. MENDEL [Reverently] A great conductor! QUINCY Would he have a twenty-thousand-dollar job with me if he wasn't? Not that he'd get half that in the open market—only I have to stick it on to keep him for my guests exclusively. [Looks at watch.] But he ought to be here, confound him. A conductor should keep time, eh, Miss Revendal? [He sniggers.] MENDEL I'll bring David. Won't you help yourselves to tea? [To Vera] You see there's lemon for you—as in Russia. [Exit to kitchen—a moment afterwards the merry music stops in the middle of a bar.] VERA Thank you. [Taking a cup.] Do you like lemon, Mr. Davenport? QUINCY [Flirtatiously] That depends. The last I had was in Russia itself—from the fair hands of your mother, the Baroness. VERA [Pained] Please don't say my mother, my mother is dead. QUINCY [Fatuously misunderstanding] Oh, you have no call to be ashamed of your step-mother—she's a stunning creature; all the points of a tip-top Russian aristocrat, or Quincy Davenport's no judge of breed! Doesn't speak English like your father—but then the Baron is a wonder. VERA [Takes up teapot] Father once hoped to be British Ambassador—that's why I had an English governess. But you never told me you met him in Russia. QUINCY Surely! When I gave you all those love messages—— VERA [Pouring tea quickly] You said you met him at Wiesbaden. QUINCY Yes, but we grew such pals I motored him and the Baroness back to St. Petersburg. Jolly country, Russia—they know how to live. VERA [Coldly] I saw more of those who know how to die.... Milk and sugar? QUINCY [Sentimentally] Oh, Miss Revendal! Have you forgotten? VERA [Politely snubbing] How should I remember? QUINCY You don't remember our first meeting? At the Settlement Bazaar? When I paid you a hundred dollars for every piece of sugar you put in? VERA Did you? Then I hope you drank syrup. QUINCY Ugh! I hate sugar—I sacrificed myself. VERA To the Settlement? How heroic of you! QUINCY No, not to the Settlement. To you! VERA Then I'll only put milk in. QUINCY I hate milk. But from you—— VERA Then we must fall back on the lemon. QUINCY I loathe lemon. But from— VERA Then you shall have your tea neat. QUINCY I detest tea, and here it would be particularly cheap and nasty. But—— VERA Then you shall have a cake! [She offers plate.] QUINCY [Taking one] Would they be eatable? [Tasting it.] Humph! Not bad. [Sentimentally] A little cake was all you would eat the only time you came to one of my private concerts. Don't you remember? We went down to supper together. VERA [Taking his tea for herself and putting in lemon] I shall always remember the delicious music Herr Pappelmeister gave us. QUINCY How unkind of you! VERA Unkind? [She sips the tea and puts down the cup.] To be grateful for the music? QUINCY You know what I mean—to forget me! [He tries to take her hand.] VERA [Rising] Aren't you forgetting yourself? QUINCY You mean because I'm married to that patched-and-painted creature? She's hankering for the stage again, the old witch. VERA Hush! Marriages with comic opera stars are not usually domestic idylls. QUINCY I fell a victim to my love of music. VERA [Murmurs, smiling] Music! QUINCY And I hadn't yet met the right breed—the true blue blood of Europe. I'll get a divorce. [Approaching her] Vera! VERA [Retreating] You will make me sorry I came to you. QUINCY No, don't say that—promised the Baron I'd always do all I could for—— VERA You promised? You dared discuss my affairs? QUINCY It was your father began it. When he found I knew you, he almost wept with emotion. He asked a hundred questions about your life in America. VERA His life and mine are for ever separate. He is a Reactionary, I a Radical. QUINCY But he loves you dreadfully—he can't understand why you should go slaving away summer and winter in a Settlement—you a member of the Russian nobility! VERA [With faint smile] I might say, noblesse oblige. But the truth is, I earn my living that way. It would do you good to slave there too! QUINCY [Eagerly] Would they chain us together? I'd come to-morrow. VERA [Relieved] Here's Pappelmeister! QUINCY Bother Poppy—why is he so darned punctual? [Enter Kathleen from the kitchen.] VERA [Smiling] Ah, you're still here. KATHLEEN And why would I not be here? [She goes to open the door.] PAPPELMEISTER Mr. Quixano? KATHLEEN Yes, come in. [Enter Herr Pappelmeister, a burly German figure with a leonine head, spectacles, and a mane of white hair—a figure that makes his employer look even coarser. He carries an umbrella, which he never lets go. He is at first grave and silent, which makes any burst of emotion the more striking. He and Quincy Davenport suggest a picture of "Dignity and Impudence." His English, as roughly indicated in the text, is extremely Teutonic.] QUINCY You're late, Poppy! VERA [Smilingly goes and offers her hand.] Proud to meet you, Herr Pappelmeister! QUINCY Excuse me—— [Introducing] Miss Revendal!—I forgot you and Poppy hadn't been introduced—curiously enough it was at Wiesbaden I picked him up too—he was conducting the opera—your folks were in my box. I don't think I ever met anyone so mad on music as the Baron. And the Baroness told me he had retired from active service in the Army because of the torture of listening to the average military band. Ha! Ha! Ha! VERA Yes, my father once hoped my music would comfort him. [She smiles sadly.] Poor father! But a soldier must bear defeat. Herr Pappelmeister, may I not give you some tea? [She sits again at the table.] QUINCY Tea! Lager's more in Poppy's line. [He chuckles.] PAPPELMEISTER [Gravely] Bitte. Tea. Lemon. Four lumps.... Nun, five!... Or six! [She hands him the cup.] Danke. [As he receives the cup, he utters an exclamation, for Kathleen after opening the door has lingered on, hunting around everywhere, and having finally crawled under the table has now brushed against his leg.] VERA What are you looking for? KATHLEEN [Her head emerging] My nose! [They are all startled and amused.] VERA Your nose? KATHLEEN I forgot me nose! QUINCY Well, follow your nose—and you'll find it. Ha! Ha! Ha! KATHLEEN [Pouncing on it] Here it is! [Picks it up near the armchair.] OMNES Oh! KATHLEEN Sure, it's gotten all dirthy. [She takes out a handkerchief and wipes the nose carefully.] QUINCY But why do you want a nose like that? KATHLEEN [Proudly] Bekaz we're Hebrews! QUINCY What! VERA What do you mean? KATHLEEN It's our Carnival to-day! Purim. [She carries her nose carefully and piously toward the kitchen.] VERA Oh! I see. [Exit Kathleen.] QUINCY [In horror] Miss Revendal, you don't mean to say you've brought me to a Jew! VERA I'm afraid I have. I was thinking only of his genius, QUINCY Not my musicians. No Jew's harp in my orchestra, eh? [He sniggers.] I wouldn't have a Jew if he paid me. VERA I daresay you have some, all the same. QUINCY Impossible. Poppy! Are there any Jews in my orchestra? PAPPELMEISTER [Removing the cup from his mouth and speaking with sepulchral solemnity] Do you mean are dere any Christians? QUINCY [In horror] Gee-rusalem! Perhaps you're a Jew! PAPPELMEISTER [Gravely] I haf not de honour. But, if you brefer, I will gut out from my brogrammes all de Chewish composers. Was? QUINCY Why, of course. Fire 'em out, every mother's son of 'em. PAPPELMEISTER [Unsmiling] Also—no more comic operas! QUINCY What!!! PAPPELMEISTER Dey write all de comic operas! QUINCY Brute! [Pappelmeister's chuckle is heard gurgling in his cup. Re-enter Mendel from kitchen.] MENDEL [To Vera] I'm so sorry—I can't get him to come in—he's terrible shy. QUINCY Won't face the music, eh? [He sniggers.] VERA Did you tell him I was here? MENDEL Of course. VERA [Disappointed] Oh! MENDEL But I've persuaded him to let me show his MS. VERA [With forced satisfaction] Oh, well, that's all we want. [Mendel goes to the desk, opens it, and gets the MS. and offers it to Quincy Davenport.] QUINCY Not for me—Poppy! [Mendel offers it to Pappelmeister, who takes it solemnly.] MENDEL [Anxiously to Pappelmeister] Of course you must remember his youth and his lack of musical education—— PAPPELMEISTER Bitte, das Pult! [Mendel moves David's music-stand from the corner to the centre of the room. Pappelmeister puts MS. on it.] So! [All eyes centre on him eagerly, Mendel standing uneasily, the others sitting. Pappelmeister polishes his glasses with irritating elaborateness and weary "achs," then reads in absolute silence. A pause.] QUINCY [Bored by the silence] But won't you play it to us? PAPPELMEISTER Blay it? Am I an orchestra? I blay it in my brain. So! VERA [Anxiously] You don't seem to like it! PAPPELMEISTER I do not comprehend it. MENDEL I knew it was crazy—it is supposed to be about America or a Crucible or something. And of course there are heaps of mistakes. VERA That is why I am suggesting to Mr. Davenport to send him to Germany. QUINCY I'll send as many Jews as you like to Germany. Ha! Ha! Ha! PAPPELMEISTER [Absorbed, turning pages] Ach!—ach!—So! QUINCY I'd even lend my own yacht to take 'em back. Ha! Ha! Ha! VERA Sh! We're disturbing Herr Pappelmeister. QUINCY Oh, Poppy's all right. PAPPELMEISTER [Sublimely unconscious] Ach so—so—SO! Das ist etwas neues! [His umbrella begins to beat time, moving more and more vigorously, till at last he is conducting elaborately, stretching out his left palm for pianissimo passages, and raising it vigorously for forte, with every now and then an exclamation.] WunderschÖn!... pianissimo!—now the flutes! Clarinets! Ach, ergÖtzlich ... bassoons and drums!... Fortissimo!... Kolossal! Kolossal! [Conducting in a fury of enthusiasm.] VERA [Clapping her hands] Bravo! Bravo! I'm so excited! QUINCY [Yawning] Then it isn't bad, Poppy? PAPPELMEISTER [Not listening, never ceasing to conduct] Und de harp solo ... ach, reizend! ... Second violins——! QUINCY But Poppy! We can't be here all day. PAPPELMEISTER [Not listening, continuing pantomime action] Sh! Sh! Piano. QUINCY [Outraged] Sh to me! [Rises.] VERA He doesn't know it's you. QUINCY But look here, Poppy—— [He seizes the wildly-moving umbrella. Blank stare of Pappelmeister gradually returning to consciousness.] PAPPELMEISTER Was giebt's...? QUINCY We've had enough. PAPPELMEISTER [Indignant] Enough? Enough? Of such a beaudiful symphony? QUINCY It may be beautiful to you, but to us it's damn dull. See here, Poppy, if you're satisfied that the young fellow has sufficient talent to be sent to study in Germany—— PAPPELMEISTER In Germany! Germany has nodings to teach him, he has to teach Germany. VERA Bravo! [She springs up.] MENDEL I always said he was a genius! QUINCY Well, at that rate you could put this stuff of his in one of my programmes. Sinfonia Americana, eh? VERA Oh, that is good of you. PAPPELMEISTER I should be broud to indroduce it to de vorld. VERA And will it be played in that wonderful marble music-room overlooking the Hudson? QUINCY Sure. Before five hundred of the smartest folk in America. MENDEL Oh, thank you, thank you. That will mean fame! QUINCY And dollars. Don't forget the dollars. MENDEL I'll run and tell him. [He hastens into the kitchen, Pappelmeister is re-absorbed in the MS., but no longer conducting.] QUINCY You see, I'll help even a Jew for your sake. VERA Hush! [Indicating Pappelmeister.] QUINCY Oh, Poppy's in the moon. VERA You must help him for his own sake, for art's sake. QUINCY And why not for heart's sake—for my sake? [He comes nearer.] VERA [Crossing to Pappelmeister] Herr Pappelmeister! When do you think you can produce it? PAPPELMEISTER Wunderbar!... [Becoming half-conscious of Vera] Four lumps.... [Waking up] Bitte? VERA How soon can you produce it? PAPPELMEISTER How soon can he finish it? VERA Isn't it finished? PAPPELMEISTER I see von Finale scratched out and anoder not quite completed. But anyhow, ve couldn't broduce it before Saturday fortnight. QUINCY Saturday fortnight! Not time to get my crowd. PAPPELMEISTER Den ve say Saturday dree veeks. Yes? QUINCY Yes. Stop a minute! Did you say Saturday? That's my comic opera night! You thief! PAPPELMEISTER Somedings must be sagrificed. MENDEL [Outside] But you must come, David. VERA Oh, Mr. Quixano, I am so glad! Mr. Davenport is going to produce your symphony in his wonderful music-room. QUINCY Yes, young man, I'm going to give you the smartest audience in America. And if Poppy is right, you're just going to rake in the dollars. America wants a composer. PAPPELMEISTER [Raises hands emphatically.] Ach Gott, ja! VERA [To David] Why don't you speak? You're not angry with me for interfering——? DAVID I can never be grateful enough to you—— VERA Oh, not to me. It is to Mr. Davenport you—— DAVID And I can never be grateful enough to Herr Pappelmeister. It is an honour even to meet him. PAPPELMEISTER [Choking with emotion, goes and pats him on the back.] Mein braver Junge! VERA [Anxiously] But it is Mr. Davenport—— DAVID Before I accept Mr. Davenport's kindness, I must know to whom I am indebted—and if Mr. Davenport is the man who—— QUINCY Who travelled with you to New York? Ha! Ha! Ha! No, I'm only the junior. DAVID Oh, I know, sir, you don't make the money you spend. QUINCY Eh? VERA [Anxiously] He means he knows you're not in business. DAVID Yes, sir; but is it true you are in pleasure? QUINCY [Puzzled] I beg your pardon? DAVID Are all the stories the papers print about you true? QUINCY All the stories. That's a tall order. Ha! Ha! Ha! DAVID Well, anyhow, is it true that——? VERA Mr. Quixano! What are you driving at? QUINCY Oh, it's rather fun to hear what the masses read about me. Fire ahead. Is what true? DAVID That you were married in a balloon? QUINCY Ho! Ha! Ha! That's true enough. Marriage in high life, they said, didn't they? Ha! Ha! Ha! DAVID And is it true you live in America only two months in the year, and then only to entertain Europeans who wander to these wild parts? QUINCY Lucky for you, young man. You'll have an Italian prince and a British duke to hear your scribblings. DAVID And the palace where they will hear my scribblings—is it true that——? VERA [Who has been on pins and needles] Mr. Quixano, what possible——? DAVID [Entreatingly holds up a hand.] Miss Revendal! [To Quincy Davenport] Is this palace the same whose grounds were turned into Venetian canals where the guests ate in gondolas—gondolas that were draped with the most wonderful trailing silks in imitation of the Venetian nobility in the great water fÊtes? QUINCY [Turns to Vera] Ah, Miss Revendal—what a pity you refused that invitation! It was a fairy scene of twinkling lights and delicious darkness—each couple had their own gondola to sup in, and their own side-canal to slip down. Eh? Ha! Ha! Ha! DAVID And the same night, women and children died of hunger in New York! QUINCY [Startled, drops eyeglass.] Eh? DAVID [Furiously] And this is the sort of people you would invite to hear my symphony—these gondola-guzzlers! VERA Mr. Quixano! MENDEL David! DAVID These magnificent animals who went into the gondolas two by two, to feed and flirt! QUINCY [Dazed] Sir! DAVID I should be a new freak for you for a new freak evening—I and my dreams and my music! QUINCY You low-down, ungrateful—— DAVID Not for you and such as you have I sat here writing and dreaming; not for you who are killing my America! QUINCY Your America, forsooth, you Jew-immigrant! VERA Mr. Davenport! DAVID Yes—Jew-immigrant! But a Jew who knows that QUINCY [Rocking with laughter] Ha! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! Ho! [To Vera.] You never told me your Jew-scribbler was a socialist! DAVID I am nothing but a simple artist, but I come from Europe, one of her victims, and I know that she is a failure; that her palaces and peerages are outworn toys of the human spirit, and that the only hope of mankind lies in a new world. And here—in the land of to-morrow—you are trying to bring back Europe—— QUINCY [Interjecting] I wish we could!—— DAVID Europe with her comic-opera coronets and her worm-eaten stage decorations, and her pomp and chivalry built on a morass of crime and misery—— QUINCY [With sneering laugh] Morass! DAVID [With prophetic passion] But you shall not kill my dream! There shall come a fire round the Crucible that will melt you and your breed like wax in a blowpipe—— QUINCY [Furiously, with clenched fist] You—— DAVID America shall make good...! PAPPELMEISTER [Who has sat down and remained imperturbably seated throughout all this scene, springs up and waves his umbrella hysterically] Hoch Quixano! Hoch! Hoch! Es lebe Quixano! Hoch! QUINCY Poppy! You're dismissed! PAPPELMEISTER [Goes to David with outstretched hand] Danke. [They grip hands. Pappelmeister turns to Quincy Davenport.] Comic Opera! Ouf! QUINCY [Goes to street-door, at white heat.] Are you coming, Miss Revendal? [He opens the door.] VERA [To Quincy, but not moving] Pray, pray, accept my apologies—believe me, if I had known— QUINCY [Furiously] Then stop with your Jew! [Exit.] MENDEL [Frantically] But, Mr. Davenport—don't go! He is only a boy. [Exit after Quincy Davenport.] You must consider—— DAVID Oh, Herr Pappelmeister, you have lost your place! PAPPELMEISTER And saved my soul. Dollars are de devil. Now I must to an appointment. Auf baldiges Wiedersehen. [He shakes David's hand.] FrÄulein Revendal! [He takes her hand and kisses it. Exit. David and Vera stand gazing at each other.] VERA What have you done? What have you done? DAVID What else could I do? VERA I hate the smart set as much as you—but as your ladder and your trumpet—— DAVID I would not stand indebted to them. I know you [Getting hysterical] it is sodden with blood, red with bestial massacres—— VERA [Alarmed, anxious] Let us talk no more about it. [She holds out her hand.] Good-bye. DAVID [Frozen, taking it, holding it] Ah, you are offended by my ingratitude—I shall never see you again. VERA No, I am not offended. But I have failed to help you. We have nothing else to meet for. [She disengages her hand.] DAVID Why will you punish me so? I have only hurt myself. VERA It is not a punishment. DAVID What else? When you are with me, all the air seems to tremble with fairy music played by some unseen fairy orchestra. VERA [Tremulous] And yet you wouldn't come in just now when I—— DAVID I was too frightened of the others.... VERA [Smiling] Frightened indeed! DAVID Yes, I know I became overbold—but to take all that magic sweetness out of my life for ever—you don't call that a punishment? VERA [Blushing] How could I wish to punish you? I was proud of you! [Drops her eyes, murmurs] Besides it would be punishing myself. DAVID [In passionate amaze] Miss Revendal!... But no, it cannot be. It is too impossible. VERA [Frightened] Yes, too impossible. Good-bye. [She turns.] DAVID But not for always? Promise me that you—that I—— [He takes her hand again.] VERA [Melting at his touch, breathes] Yes, yes, David. DAVID Miss Revendal! [She falls into his arms.] VERA My dear! my dear! DAVID It is a dream. You cannot care for me—you so far above me. VERA Above you, you simple boy? Your genius lifts you to the stars. DAVID No, no; it is you who lift me there—— VERA [Smoothing his hair] Oh, David. And to think that I was brought up to despise your race. DAVID [Sadly] Yes, all Russians are. VERA But we of the nobility in particular. DAVID [Amazed, half-releasing her] You are noble? VERA My father is Baron Revendal, but I have long since carved out a life of my own. DAVID Then he will not separate us? VERA No. [Re-embracing him.] Nothing can separate us. [A knock at the street-door. They separate. The automobile is heard clattering off.] DAVID It is my uncle coming back. VERA [In low, tense tones] Then I shall slip out. I could not bear a third. I will write. [She goes to the door.] DAVID Yes, yes ... Vera. MENDEL [Half-seen at the door, expostulating] You, too, Miss Revendal——? [Re-enters.] Oh, David, you have driven away all your friends. DAVID [Going to window and looking after Vera] Not all, uncle. Not all. [He throws his arms boyishly round his uncle.] I am so happy. MENDEL Happy? DAVID She loves me—Vera loves me. MENDEL Vera? DAVID Miss Revendal. MENDEL Have you lost your wits? [He throws David off.] DAVID I don't wonder you're amazed. Maybe you think I wasn't. It is as if an angel should stoop down—— MENDEL [Hoarsely] This is true? This is not some stupid Purim joke? DAVID True and sacred as the sunrise. MENDEL But you are a Jew! DAVID Yes, and just think! She was bred up to despise Jews—her father was a Russian baron—— MENDEL If she was the daughter of fifty barons, you cannot marry her. DAVID [In pained amaze] Uncle! [Slowly] Then your hankering after the synagogue was serious after all. MENDEL It is not so much the synagogue—it is the call of our blood through immemorial generations. DAVID You say that! You who have come to the heart of the Crucible, where the roaring fires of God are fusing our race with all the others. MENDEL [Passionately] Not our race, not your race and mine. DAVID What immunity has our race? [Meditatively] The pride and the prejudice, the dreams and the sacrifices, the traditions and the superstitions, the fasts and the feasts, things noble and things sordid—they must all into the Crucible. MENDEL [With prophetic fury] The Jew has been tried in a thousand fires and only tempered and annealed. DAVID Fires of hate, not fires of love. That is what melts. MENDEL [Sneeringly] So I see. DAVID Your sneer is false. The love that melted me was not Vera's—it was the love America showed me—the day she gathered me to her breast. MENDEL [Speaking passionately and rapidly] Many countries have gathered us. Holland took us when we were driven from Spain—but we did not become Dutchmen. Turkey took us when Germany oppressed us, but we have not become Turks. DAVID These countries were not in the making. They were MENDEL [Passionately interrupting] We must look backwards, too. DAVID [Hysterically] To what? To Kishineff? [As if seeing his vision] To that butcher's face directing the slaughter? To those——? MENDEL [Alarmed] Hush! Calm yourself! DAVID [Struggling with himself] Yes, I will calm myself—but how else shall I calm myself save by forgetting all that nightmare of religions and races, save by holding out my hands with prayer and music toward the Republic of Man and the Kingdom of God! The Past I cannot mend—its evil outlines are stamped in immortal rigidity. Take away the hope that I can mend the Future, and you make me mad. MENDEL You are mad already—your dreams are mad—the Jew is hated here as everywhere—you are false to your race. DAVID I keep faith with America. I have faith America will keep faith with us. [He raises his hands in religious rapture toward the flag over the door.] Flag of our great Republic, guardian of our homes, whose stars and—— MENDEL Spare me that rigmarole. Go out and marry your Gentile and be happy. DAVID You turn me out? MENDEL Would you stay and break my mother's heart? You know she would mourn for you with the rending of garments and the seven days' sitting on the floor. Go! You have cast off the God of our fathers! DAVID [Thundrously] And the God of our children—does He demand no service? [Quieter, coming toward his uncle and touching him affectionately on the shoulder.] You are right—I do need a wider world. [Expands his lungs.] I must go away. MENDEL Go, then—I'll hide the truth—she must never suspect—lest she mourn you as dead. FRAU QUIXANO [Outside, in the kitchen] Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! [Both men turn toward the kitchen and listen.] KATHLEEN Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! FRAU QUIXANO AND KATHLEEN Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! MENDEL [Bitterly] A merry Purim! [The kitchen door opens and remains ajar. Frau Quixano rushes in, carrying David's violin and bow. Kathleen looks in, grinning.] FRAU QUIXANO [Hilariously] Nu spiel noch! spiel! [She holds the violin and bow appealingly toward David.] MENDEL [Putting out a protesting hand] No, no, David—I couldn't bear it. DAVID But I must! You said she mustn't suspect. [He looks lovingly at her as he loudly utters these words, which are unintelligible to her.] And it may be the last time I shall ever play for her. [Changing to a mock merry smile as he takes the violin and bow from her] Gewiss, Granny! FRAU QUIXANO [Childishly pleased] He! He! He! [She claps on a false grotesque nose from her pocket.] DAVID [Torn between laughter and tears] Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! MENDEL [Shocked] Mutter! FRAU QUIXANO Un' du auch! [She claps another false nose on Mendel, laughing in childish glee at the effect. Then she starts dancing to the music, and Kathleen slips in and joyously dances beside her.] DAVID [Joining tearfully in the laughter] Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! [The curtain falls quickly. It rises again upon the picture of Frau Quixano fallen back into a chair, exhausted with laughter, fanning herself with her apron, while Kathleen has dropped breathless across the arm of the armchair; David is still playing on, and Mendel, his false nose torn off, stands by, glowering. The curtain falls again and rises upon a final tableau of David in his cloak and hat, stealing out of the door with his violin, casting a sad farewell glance at the old woman and at the home which has |
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