The Melting-Pot (A Tale of Russian Jewish Immigrants). Israel Zangwill
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you offer him a fee, he shall not play. Did you think I was begging of you?
VERA
I beg your pardon——
[She smiles.]
There, I am begging of you. Sit down, please.
MENDEL [Walking away to piano]
I ought not to have burdened you with our troubles—you are too young.
VERA [Pathetically]
I young? If you only knew how old I am!
MENDEL
You?
VERA
I left my youth in Russia—eternities ago.
MENDEL
You know our Russia!
[He goes over to her and sits down.]
VERA
Can't you see I'm a Russian, too?
[With a faint tremulous smile]
I might even have been a Siberian had I stayed. But I escaped from my gaolers.
MENDEL
You were a Revolutionist!
VERA
Who can live in Russia and not be? So you see trouble and I are not such strangers.
MENDEL
Who would have thought it to look at you? Siberia, gaolers, revolutions!
[Rising]
What terrible things life holds!
VERA
Yes, even in free America.
[Frau Quixano's sobbing grows slightly louder.]
MENDEL
That Settlement work must be full of tragedies.
VERA
Sometimes one sees nothing but the tragedy of things.
[Looking toward the window]
The snow is getting thicker. How pitilessly it falls—like fate.
MENDEL [Following her gaze]
Yes, icy and inexorable.
[The faint sobbing of Frau Quixano over her book, which has been heard throughout the scene as a sort of musical accompaniment, has combined to work it up to a mood of intense sadness, intensified by the growing dusk, so that as the two now gaze at the falling snow, the atmosphere seems overbrooded with melancholy. There is a moment or two without dialogue, given over to the sobbing of Frau Quixano, the roar of the wind shaking the windows, the quick falling of the snow. Suddenly a happy voice singing "My Country 'tis of Thee" is heard from without.]
FRAU QUIXANO [Pricking up her ears, joyously]
Do ist Dovidel!
MENDEL
That's David!
[He springs up.]
VERA [Murmurs in relief]
Ah!
[The whole atmosphere is changed to one of joyous expectation, David is seen and heard passing the left window, still singing the national hymn, but it breaks off abruptly as he throws open the door and appears on the threshold, a buoyant snow-covered figure in a cloak and a broad-brimmed hat, carrying a violin case. He is a sunny, handsome youth of the finest Russo-Jewish type. He speaks with a slight German accent.]
DAVID
Isn't it a beautiful world, uncle?
[He closes the inner door.]
Snow, the divine white snow——
[Perceiving the visitor with amaze]
Miss Revendal here!
[He removes his hat and looks at her with boyish reverence and wonder.]
VERA [Smiling]
Don't look so surprised—I haven't fallen from heaven like the snow. Take off your wet things.
DAVID
Oh, it's nothing; it's dry snow.
[He lays down his violin case and brushes off the snow from his cloak, which Mendel takes from him and hangs on the rack, all without interrupting the dialogue.]
If I had only known you were waiting——
VERA
I am glad you didn't—I wouldn't have had those poor little cripples cheated out of a moment of your music.
DAVID
Uncle has told you? Ah, it was bully! You should have seen the cripples waltzing with their crutches!
[He has moved toward the old woman, and while he holds one hand to the blaze now pats her cheek with the other in greeting, to which she responds with a loving smile ere she settles contentedly to slumber over her book.]
Es war grossartig, Granny. Even the paralysed danced.
MENDEL
Don't exaggerate, David.
DAVID
Exaggerate, uncle! Why, if they hadn't the use of their legs, their arms danced on the counterpane; if their arms couldn't dance, their hands danced from the wrist; and if their hands couldn't dance, they danced with their fingers; and if their fingers couldn't dance, their heads danced; and if their heads were paralysed, why, their eyes danced—God never curses so utterly but you've something left to dance with!
[He moves toward his desk.]
VERA [Infected with his gaiety]
You'll tell us next the beds danced.
DAVID
So they did—they shook their legs like mad!
VERA
Oh, why wasn't I there?
[His eyes meet hers at the thought of her presence.]
DAVID
Dear little cripples, I felt as if I could play them all straight again with the love and joy jumping out of this old fiddle.
[He lays his hand caressingly on the violin.]
MENDEL [Gloomily]
But in reality you left them as crooked as ever.
DAVID
No, I didn't.
[He caresses the back of his uncle's head in affectionate rebuke.]
I couldn't play their bones straight, but I played their brains straight. And hunch-brains are worse than hunch-backs. …
[Suddenly perceiving his letter on the desk]
A letter for me!
[He takes it with boyish eagerness, then hesitates to open it.]
VERA [Smiling]
Oh, you may open it!
DAVID [Wistfully]
May I?
VERA [Smiling]
Yes, and quick—or it'll be Shabbos!
[David looks up at her in wonder.]
MENDEL [Smiling]
You