Part 2

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 read your letter!

DAVID [_Opens it eagerly, then smiles broadly with pleasure._] Oh, Miss Revendal! Isn't that great! To play again at your Settlement. I _am_ getting famous.

VERA But we can't offer you a fee.

MENDEL [_Quickly sotto voce to VERA_] Thank you!

DAVID A fee! I'd pay a fee to see all those happy immigrants you gather together--Dutchmen and Greeks, Poles and Norwegians, Welsh and Armenians. If you only had Jews, it would be as good as going to Ellis Island.

VERA [_Smiling_] What a strange taste! Who on earth wants to go to Ellis Island?

DAVID Oh, I love going to Ellis Island to watch the ships coming in from Europe, and to think that all those weary, sea-tossed wanderers are feeling what _I_ felt when America first stretched out her great mother-hand to _me_!

VERA [_Softly_] Were you very happy?

DAVID It was heaven. You must remember that all my life I had heard of America--everybody in our town had friends there or was going there or got money orders from there. The earliest game I played at was selling off my toy furniture and setting up in America. All my life America was waiting, beckoning, shining--the place where God would wipe away tears from off all faces. [_He ends in a half-sob._]

MENDEL [_Rises, as in terror_] Now, now, David, don't get excited. [_Approaches him._]

DAVID To think that the same great torch of liberty which threw its light across all the broad seas and lands into my little garret in Russia, is shining also for all those other weeping millions of Europe, shining wherever men hunger and are oppressed----

MENDEL [_Soothingly_] Yes, yes, David. [_Laying hand on his shoulder_] Now sit down and----

DAVID [_Unheeding_] Shining over the starving villages of Italy and Ireland, over the swarming stony cities of Poland and Galicia, over the ruined farms of Roumania, over the shambles of Russia----

MENDEL [_Pleadingly_] David!

DAVID Oh, Miss Revendal, when I look at our Statue of Liberty, I just seem to hear the voice of America crying: "Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest--rest----" [_He is now almost sobbing._]

MENDEL Don't talk any more--you know it is bad for you.

DAVID But Miss Revendal asked--and I want to explain to her what America means to me.

MENDEL You can explain it in your American symphony.

VERA [_Eagerly--to DAVID_] You compose?

DAVID [_Embarrassed_] Oh, uncle, why did you talk of--? Uncle always--my music is so thin and tinkling. When I am _writing_ my American symphony, it seems like thunder crashing through a forest full of bird songs. But next day--oh, next day! [_He laughs dolefully and turns away._]

VERA So your music finds inspiration in America?

DAVID Yes--in the seething of the Crucible.

VERA The Crucible? I don't understand!

DAVID Not understand! You, the Spirit of the Settlement! [_He rises and crosses to her and leans over the table, facing her._] Not understand that America is God's Crucible, the great Melting-Pot where all the races of Europe are melting and re-forming! Here you stand, good folk, think I, when I see them at Ellis Island, here you stand [_Graphically illustrating it on the table_] in your fifty groups, with your fifty languages and histories, and your fifty blood hatreds and rivalries. But you won't be long like that, brothers, for these are the fires of God you've come to--these are the fires of God. A fig for your feuds and vendettas! Germans and Frenchmen, Irishmen and Englishmen, Jews and Russians--into the Crucible with you all! God is making the American.

MENDEL I should have thought the American was made already--eighty millions of him.

DAVID Eighty millions! [_He smiles toward VERA in good-humoured derision._] Eighty millions! Over a continent! Why, that cockleshell of a Britain has forty millions! No, uncle, the real American has not yet arrived. He is only in the Crucible, I tell you--he will be the fusion of all races, perhaps the coming superman. Ah, what a glorious Finale for my symphony--if I can only write it.

VERA But you have written some of it already! May I not see it?

DAVID [_Relapsing into boyish shyness_] No, if you please, don't ask---- [_He moves over to his desk and nervously shuts it down and turns the keys of drawers as though protecting his MS._]

VERA Won't you give a bit of it at our Concert?

DAVID Oh, it needs an orchestra.

VERA But you at the violin and I at the piano----

MENDEL You didn't tell me you played, Miss Revendal!

VERA I told you less commonplace things.

DAVID Miss Revendal plays quite like a professional.

VERA [_Smiling_] I don't feel so complimented as you expect. You see I did have a professional training.

MENDEL [_Smiling_] And I thought you came to _me_ for lessons! [_DAVID laughs._]

VERA [_Smiling_] No, I went to Petersburg----

DAVID [_Dazed_] To Petersburg----?

VERA [_Smiling_] Naturally. To the Conservatoire. There wasn't much music to be had at Kishineff, a town where----

DAVID Kishineff! [_He begins to tremble._]

VERA [_Still smiling_] My birthplace.

MENDEL [_Coming toward him, protectingly_] Calm yourself, David.

DAVID Yes, yes--so you are a Russian! [_He shudders violently, staggers._]

VERA [_Alarmed_] 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.

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 to pieces, that's all.

DAVID Then why did you come to America? Why didn't you work for a Jewish land? You're not even a Zionist.

MENDEL I can't argue now. There's a pack of giggling schoolgirls waiting to waltz.

DAVID The fresh romping young things! Think of their happiness! I should love to play for them.

MENDEL [_Sarcastically_] I can see you are yourself again. [_He opens the street-door--turns back._] What about your own lesson? Can't we go together?

DAVID I must first write down what is singing in my soul--oh, uncle, it seems as if I knew suddenly what was wanting in my music!

MENDEL [_Drily_] Well, don't forget what is wanting in the house! The rent isn't paid yet. [_Exit through street-door. As he goes out, he touches and kisses the_ Mezuzah _on the door-post, with a subconsciously antagonistic revival of religious impulse. DAVID opens his desk, takes out a pile of musical manuscript, sprawls over his chair and, humming to himself, scribbles feverishly with the quill. After a few moments FRAU QUIXANO yawns, wakes, and stretches herself. Then she looks at the clock._]

FRAU QUIXANO _Shabbos!_ [_She rises and goes to the table and sees there are no candles, walks to the chiffonier and gets them and places them in the candlesticks, then lights the candles, muttering a ceremonial Hebrew benediction._] _Boruch atto haddoshem ellôheinu melech hoôlam assher kiddishonu bemitzvôsov vettzivonu lehadlik neir shel shabbos._ [_She pulls down the blinds of the two windows, then she goes to the rapt composer and touches him, remindingly, on the shoulder. He does not move, but continues writing._] _Dovidel!_ [_He looks up dazedly. She points to the candles._] _Shabbos!_ [_A sweet smile comes over his face, he throws the quill resignedly away and submits his head to her hands and her muttered Hebrew blessing._] _Yesimcho elôhim ke-efrayim vechimnasseh--yevorechecho haddoshem veyishmerecho, yoer hadoshem ponov eilecho vechunecho, yisso hadoshem ponov eilecho veyosem lecho sholôm._ [_Then she goes toward the kitchen. As she turns at the door, he is again writing. She shakes her finger at him, repeating_] _Gut Shabbos!_

DAVID _Gut Shabbos!_ [_Puts down the pen and smiles after her till the door closes, then with a deep sigh takes his cape from the peg and his violin-case, pauses, still humming, to take up his pen and write down a fresh phrase, finally puts on his hat and is just about to open the street-door when KATHLEEN enters from her bedroom fully dressed to go, and laden with a large brown paper parcel and an umbrella. He turns at the sound of her footsteps and remains at the door, holding his violin-case during the ensuing dialogue._]

DAVID You're not going out this bitter weather?

KATHLEEN [_Sharply fending him off with her umbrella_] And who's to shtay me?

DAVID Oh, but you mustn't--_I'll_ do your errand--what is it?

KATHLEEN [_Indignantly_] Errand, is it, indeed! I'm not here!

DAVID Not here?

KATHLEEN I'm lavin', they'll come for me thrunk--and ye'll witness I don't take the candleshtick.

DAVID But who's sending you away?

KATHLEEN It's sending meself away I am--yer houly grandmother has me disthroyed intirely.

DAVID Why, what has the poor old la----?

KATHLEEN I don't be saltin' the mate and I do be mixin' the crockery and----!

DAVID [_Gently_] I know, I know--but, Kathleen, remember she was brought up to these things from childhood. And her father was a Rabbi.

KATHLEEN What's that? A priest?

DAVID A sort of priest. In Russia he was a great man. Her husband, too, was a mighty scholar, and to give him time to study the holy books she had to do chores all day for him and the children.

KATHLEEN Oh, those priests!

DAVID [_Smiling_] No, _he_ wasn't a priest. But he took sick and died and the children left her--went to America or heaven or other far-off places--and she was left all penniless and alone.

KATHLEEN Poor ould lady.

DAVID Not so old yet, for she was married at fifteen.

KATHLEEN Poor young crathur!

DAVID But she was still the good angel of the congregation--sat up with the sick and watched over the dead.

KATHLEEN Saints alive! And not scared?

DAVID No, nothing scared her--except me. I got a broken-down fiddle and used to play it even on _Shabbos_--I was very naughty. But she was so lovely to me. I still remember the heavenly taste of a piece of _Motso_ she gave me dipped in raisin wine! Passover cake, you know.

KATHLEEN [_Proudly_] Oh, I know _Motso_.

DAVID [_Smacks his lips, repeats_] Heavenly!

KATHLEEN Sure, I must tashte it.

DAVID [_Shaking his head, mysteriously_] Only little boys get that tashte.

KATHLEEN That's quare.

DAVID [_Smiling_] Very quare. And then one day my uncle sent the old lady a ticket to come to America. But it is not so happy for her here because you see my uncle has to be near his theatre and can't live in the Jewish quarter, and so nobody understands her, and she sits all the livelong day alone--alone with her book and her religion and her memories----

KATHLEEN [_Breaking down_] Oh, Mr. David!

DAVID And now all this long, cold, snowy evening she'll sit by the fire alone, thinking of her dead, and the fire will sink lower and lower, and she won't be able to touch it, because it's the holy Sabbath, and there'll be no kind Kathleen to brighten up the grey ashes, and then at last, sad and shivering, she'll creep up to her room without a candlestick, and there in the dark and the cold----

KATHLEEN [_Hysterically bursting into tears, dropping her parcel, and untying her bonnet-strings_] Oh, Mr. David, I won't mix the crockery, I won't----

DAVID [_Heartily_] Of course you won't. Good night. [_He slips out hurriedly through the street-door as KATHLEEN throws off her bonnet, and the curtain falls quickly. As it rises again, she is seen strenuously poking the fire, illumined by its red glow._]

## Act II

_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. [_DAVID does not reply, but writes rapidly on._] 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.