  Saturday, July 4, evening. The Roof-Garden of the Settlement House, showing a beautiful, far-stretching panorama of New York, with its irregular sky-buildings on the left, and the harbour with its Statue of Liberty on the right. Everything is wet and gleaming after rain. Parapet at the back. Elevator on the right. Entrance from the stairs on the left. In the sky hang heavy clouds through which thin, golden lines of sunset are just beginning to labour. David is discovered on a bench, hugging his violin-case to his breast, gazing moodily at the sky. A muffled sound of applause comes up from below and continues with varying intensity through the early part of the scene. Through it comes the noise of the elevator ascending. Mendel steps out and hurries forward. MENDEL Come down, David! Don't you hear them shouting for you? [He passes his hand over the wet bench.] Good heavens! You will get rheumatic fever! DAVID Why have you followed me? MENDEL Get up—everything is still damp. DAVID [Rising, gloomily] Yes, there's a damper over everything. MENDEL Nonsense—the rain hasn't damped your triumph in the least. In fact, the more delicate effects wouldn't have gone so well in the open air. Listen! DAVID Let them shout. Who told you I was up here? MENDEL Miss Revendal, of course. DAVID [Agitated] Miss Revendal? How should she know? MENDEL [Sullenly] She seems to understand your crazy ways. DAVID [Passing his hand over his eyes] Ah, you never understood me, uncle.... How did she look? Was she pale? MENDEL Never mind about Miss Revendal. Pappelmeister wants you—the people insist on seeing you. Nobody can quiet them. DAVID They saw me all through the symphony in my place in the orchestra. MENDEL They didn't know you were the composer as well [Louder applause.] There! Eleven minutes it has gone on—like for an office-seeker. You must come and show yourself. DAVID I won't—I'm not an office-seeker. Leave me to my misery. MENDEL Your misery? With all this glory and greatness opening before you? Wait till you're my age—— [Shouts of "Quixano!"] You hear! What is to be done with them? DAVID Send somebody on the platform to remind them this is the interval for refreshments! MENDEL Don't be cynical. You know your dearest wish was to melt these simple souls with your music. And now—— DAVID Now I have only made my own stony. MENDEL You are right. You are stone all over—ever since you came back home to us. Turned into a pillar of salt, mother says—like Lot's wife. DAVID That was the punishment for looking backward. Ah, uncle, there's more sense in that old Bible than the Rabbis suspect. Perhaps that is the secret of our people's paralysis—we are always looking backward. [He drops hopelessly into an iron garden-chair behind him.] MENDEL [Stopping him before he touches the seat] Take care—it's sopping wet. You don't look backward enough. [He takes out his handkerchief and begins drying the chair.] DAVID [Faintly smiling] I thought you wanted the salt to melt. MENDEL It is melting a little if you can smile. Do you know, David, I haven't seen you smile since that Purim afternoon? DAVID You haven't worn a false nose since, uncle. [He laughs bitterly.] Ha! Ha! Ha! Fancy masquerading in America because twenty-five centuries ago the Jews escaped a pogrom in Persia. Two thousand five hundred years ago! Aren't we uncanny? MENDEL [Angrily] Better you should leave us altogether than mock at us. I thought it was your Jewish heart that drove you back home to us; but if you are still hankering after Miss Revendal—— DAVID [Pained] Uncle! MENDEL I'd rather see you marry her than go about like this. You couldn't make the house any gloomier. DAVID Go back to the concert, please. They have quieted down. MENDEL [Hesitating] And you? DAVID Oh, I'm not playing in the popular after-pieces. Pappelmeister guessed I'd be broken up with the stress of my own symphony—he has violins enough. MENDEL Then you don't want to carry this about. [Taking the violin from David's arms.] DAVID [Clinging to it] Don't rob me of my music—it's all I have. MENDEL You'll spoil it in the wet. I'll take it home. DAVID No—— [He suddenly catches sight of two figures entering from the left—Frau Quixano and Kathleen clad in their best, and wearing tiny American flags in honour of Independence Day. Kathleen escorts the old lady, with the air of a guardian angel, on her slow, tottering course toward David. Frau Quixano is puffing and panting after the many stairs. David jumps up in surprise, releases the violin-case to Mendel.] They at my symphony! MENDEL Mother would come—even though, being Shabbos, she had to walk. DAVID But wasn't she shocked at my playing on the Sabbath? MENDEL No—that's the curious part of it. She said that even as a boy you played your fiddle on Shabbos, and that if the Lord has stood it all these years, He must consider you an exception. DAVID You see! She's more sensible than you thought. MENDEL [In sullen acquiescence] I suppose geniuses are. KATHLEEN [Reaching them; panting with admiration and breathlessness] Oh, Mr. David! it was like midnight mass! But the misthress was ashleep. DAVID Asleep! [Laughs half-merrily, half-sadly.] Ha! Ha! Ha! FRAU QUIXANO [Panting and laughing in response] He! He! He! Dovidel lacht widder. He! He! He! [She touches his arm affectionately, but feeling his wet coat, utters a cry of horror.] Du bist nass! DAVID Es ist gor nicht, Granny—my clothes are thick. [She fusses over him, wiping him down with her gloved hand.] MENDEL But what brought you up here, Kathleen? KATHLEEN Sure, not the elevator. The misthress said 'twould be breaking the Shabbos to ride up in it. DAVID [Uneasily] But did—-did Miss Revendal send you up? KATHLEEN And who else should be axin' the misthress if she wasn't proud of Mr. David? Faith, she's a sweet lady. MENDEL [Impatiently] Don't chatter, Kathleen. KATHLEEN But, Mr. Quixano——! DAVID [Sweetly] Please take your mistress down again—don't let her walk. KATHLEEN But Shabbos isn't out yet! MENDEL Chattering again! DAVID [Gently] There's no harm, Kathleen, in going down in the elevator. KATHLEEN Troth, I'll egshplain to her that droppin' down isn't ridin'. DAVID [Smiling] Yes, tell her dropping down is natural—not work, like flying up. [Kathleen begins to move toward the stairs, explaining to Frau Quixano.] And, Kathleen! You'll get her some refreshments. KATHLEEN [Turns, glaring] Refrishments, is it? Give her refrishments where they mix the mate with the butther plates! Oh, Mr. David! [She moves off toward the stairs in reproachful sorrow.] MENDEL [Smiling] I'll get her some coffee. DAVID [Smiling] Yes, that'll keep her awake. Besides, Pappelmeister was so sure the people wouldn't understand me, he's relaxing them on Gounod and Rossini. MENDEL Pappelmeister's idea of relaxation! I should have given them comic opera. [With sudden call to Kathleen, who with her mistress is at the wrong exit.] Kathleen! The elevator's this side! KATHLEEN [Turning] What way can that be, when I came up this side? MENDEL You chatter too much. [Frau Quixano, not understanding, exit.] Come this way. Can't you see the elevator? KATHLEEN [Perceives Frau Quixano has gone, calls after her in Irish-sounding Yiddish] Wu geht Ihr, bedad?... [Impatiently] Houly Moses, komm' zurick! [Exit anxiously, re-enter with Frau Quixano.] Begorra, we Jews never know our way. [Mendel, carrying the violin, escorts his mother and Kathleen to the elevator. When they are near it, it stops with a thud, and Pappelmeister springs out, his umbrella up, meeting them face to face. He looks happy and beaming over David's triumph.] PAPPELMEISTER [In loud, joyous voice] Nun, Frau Quixano, was sagen Sie? Vat you tink of your David? FRAU QUIXANO Dovid? Er ist meshuggah. [She taps her forehead.] PAPPELMEISTER [Puzzled, to Mendel] Meshuggah! Vat means meshuggah? Crazy? MENDEL [Half-smiling] You've struck it. She says David doesn't know enough to go in out of the rain. DAVID [Rising] But it's stopped raining, Herr Pappelmeister. You don't want your umbrella. [General laughter.] PAPPELMEISTER So. [Shuts it down.] MENDEL Herein, Mutter. [He pushes Frau Quixano's somewhat shrinking form into the elevator. Kathleen follows, then Mendel.] Herr Pappelmeister, we are all your grateful servants. [Pappelmeister bows; the gates close, the elevator descends.] DAVID And you won't think me ungrateful for running away—you know my thanks are too deep to be spoken. PAPPELMEISTER And zo are my congratulations! DAVID Then, don't speak them, please. PAPPELMEISTER But you must come and speak to all de people in America who undershtand music. DAVID [Half-smiling] To your four connoisseurs? [Seriously] Oh, please! I really could not meet strangers, especially musical vampires. PAPPELMEISTER [Half-startled, half-angry] Vampires? Oh, come! DAVID Voluptuaries, then—rich, idle Æsthetes to whom art and life have no connection, parasites who suck our music—— PAPPELMEISTER [Laughs good-naturedly] Ha! Ha! Ha! Vait till you hear vat dey say. DAVID I will wait as long as you like. PAPPELMEISTER Den I like to tell you now. [He roars with mischievous laughter.] Ha! Ha! Ha! De first vampire says it is a great vork, but poorly performed. DAVID [Indignant] Oh! PAPPELMEISTER De second vampire says it is a poor vork, but greatly performed. DAVID [Disappointed] Oh! PAPPELMEISTER De dird vampire says it is a great vork greatly performed. DAVID [Complacently] Ah! PAPPELMEISTER And de fourz vampire says it is a poor vork poorly performed. DAVID [Angry and disappointed] Oh! [Then smiling] You see you have to go by the people after all. PAPPELMEISTER [Shakes head, smiling] Nein. Ven critics disagree—I agree mit mineself. Ha! Ha! Ha! [He slaps David on the back.] A great vork dat vill be even better performed next time! Ha! Ha! Ha! Ten dousand congratulations. [He seizes David's hand and grips it heartily.] DAVID Don't! You hurt me. PAPPELMEISTER [Dropping David's hand,—misunderstanding] Pardon! I forgot your vound. DAVID No—no—what does my wound matter? That never stung half so much as these clappings and congratulations. PAPPELMEISTER [Puzzled but solicitous] I knew your nerves vould be all shnapping like fiddle-shtrings. Oh, you cheniuses! [Smiling.] You like neider de clappings nor de criticisms,—was? DAVID They are equally—irrelevant. One has to wrestle with one's own art, one's own soul, alone! PAPPELMEISTER [Patting him soothingly] I am glad I did not let you blay in Part Two. DAVID Dear Herr Pappelmeister! Don't think I don't appreciate all your kindnesses—you are almost a father to me. PAPPELMEISTER And you disobey me like a son. Ha! Ha! Ha! Vell, I vill make your excuses to de—vampires. Ha! Ha! Also, David. [He lays his hand again affectionately on David's right shoulder.] Lebe wohl! I must go down to my popular classics. [Gloomily] Truly a going down! Was? DAVID [Smiling] Oh, it isn't such a descent as all that. Uncle said you ought to have given them comic opera. PAPPELMEISTER [Shuddering convulsively] Comic opera.... Ouf! [He goes toward the elevator and rings the bell. Then he turns to David.] Vat vas dat vord, David? DAVID 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! 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. 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 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.] 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. 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 [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. |
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