The Melting-Pot by Israel Zangwill (read me a book TXT) 📕

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.

[General laughter.]

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!

[He waves umbrella at David.]

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.

[Bitterly]

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 it seven seas between us, you said, our love must cross them. And I—I who had prated of seven seas——

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.

[She kisses him three times on the mouth as in ritual solemnity.]

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