The Melting-Pot (A Tale of Russian Jewish Immigrants). Israel Zangwill
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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.
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