The Melting-Pot. Israel Zangwill
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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!
[He hurries into the overcoat hanging on the hat-rack. Re-enter David, having composed himself, but still somewhat dazed.]
DAVID
She is gone? Oh, but I have driven her away by my craziness. Is she very angry?
MENDEL
Quite the contrary—she expects you at the Concert, and what is more——
DAVID [Ecstatically]
And she understood! She understood my Crucible of God! Oh, uncle, you don't know what it means to me to have somebody who understands me. Even you have never understood——
MENDEL [Wounded]
Nonsense! How can Miss Revendal understand you better than your own uncle?
DAVID [Mystically exalted]
I can't explain—I feel it.
MENDEL
Of course she's interested in your music, thank Heaven. But what true understanding can there be between a Russian Jew and a Russian Christian?
DAVID
What understanding? Aren't we both Americans?
MENDEL
Well, I haven't time to discuss it now.
[He winds his muffler round his throat.]
DAVID
Why, where are you going?
MENDEL [Ironically]
Where should I be going—in the snow—on the eve of the Sabbath? Suppose we say to synagogue!
DAVID
Oh, uncle—how you always seem to hanker after those old things!
MENDEL [Tartly]
Nonsense!
[He takes his umbrella from the stand.]
I don't like to see our people going