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The Melting Pot, a play by Israel Zangwill |
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Act 4 |
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_ ACT IV Saturday, July 4, evening. The Roof-Garden of the Settlement House, showing a beautiful, far-stretching panorama of New York, with its irregular sky-buildings on the left, and the harbour with its Statue of Liberty on the right. Everything is wet and gleaming after rain. Parapet at the back. Elevator on the right. Entrance from the stairs on the left. In the sky hang heavy clouds through which thin, golden lines of sunset are just beginning to labour. DAVID is discovered on a bench, hugging his violin-case to his breast, gazing moodily at the sky. A muffled sound of applause comes up from below and continues with varying intensity through the early part of the scene. Through it comes the noise of the elevator ascending. MENDEL steps out and hurries forward.
[He passes his hand over the wet bench.] Good heavens! You will get rheumatic fever! DAVID MENDEL DAVID Yes, there's a damper over everything. MENDEL DAVID MENDEL DAVID Miss Revendal? How should _she_ know? MENDEL She seems to understand your crazy ways. DAVID Ah, _you_ never understood me, uncle.... How did she look? Was she pale? MENDEL DAVID MENDEL [Louder applause.] There! Eleven minutes it has gone on--like for an office-seeker. You _must_ come and show yourself. DAVID MENDEL [Shouts of "QUIXANO!"] You hear! What is to be done with them? DAVID MENDEL DAVID MENDEL DAVID [He drops hopelessly into an iron garden-chair behind him.] MENDEL Take care--it's sopping wet. You don't look backward enough. [He takes out his handkerchief and begins drying the chair.] DAVID I thought you wanted the salt to melt. MENDEL DAVID [He laughs bitterly.] Ha! Ha! Ha! Fancy masquerading in America because twenty-five centuries ago the Jews escaped a _pogrom_ in Persia. Two thousand five hundred years ago! Aren't we uncanny? [He drops into the wiped chair.] MENDEL Better you should leave us altogether than mock at us. I thought it was your Jewish heart that drove you back home to us; but if you are still hankering after Miss Revendal---- DAVID Uncle! MENDEL DAVID MENDEL And you? DAVID MENDEL [Taking the violin from DAVID'S arms.] DAVID Don't rob me of my music--it's all I have. MENDEL DAVID No---- [He suddenly catches sight of two figures entering from the left--FRAU QUIXANO and KATHLEEN clad in their best, and wearing tiny American flags in honour of Independence Day. KATHLEEN escorts the old lady, with the air of a guardian angel, on her slow, tottering course toward DAVID. FRAU QUIXANO is puffing and panting after the many stairs. DAVID jumps up in surprise, releases the violin-case to MENDEL.] They at my symphony! MENDEL DAVID MENDEL DAVID MENDEL I suppose geniuses _are_. KATHLEEN Oh, Mr. David! it was like midnight mass! But the misthress was ashleep. DAVID [Laughs half-merrily, half-sadly.] Ha! Ha! Ha! FRAU QUIXANO He! He! He! _Dovidel lacht widder._ He! He! He! [She touches his arm affectionately, but feeling his wet coat, utters a cry of horror.] _Du bist nass!_ DAVID [She fusses over him, wiping him down with her gloved hand.] MENDEL KATHLEEN DAVID But did---did Miss Revendal send you up? KATHLEEN MENDEL Don't chatter, Kathleen. KATHLEEN But, Mr. Quixano----! DAVID Please take your mistress down again--don't let her walk. KATHLEEN MENDEL DAVID There's no harm, Kathleen, in going _down_ in the elevator. KATHLEEN DAVID Yes, tell her dropping down is natural--not _work_, like flying up. [Kathleen begins to move toward the stairs, explaining to FRAU QUIXANO.] And, Kathleen! You'll get her some refreshments. KATHLEEN Refrishments, is it? Give her refrishments where they mix the mate with the butther plates! Oh, Mr. David! [She moves off toward the stairs in reproachful sorrow.] MENDEL I'll get her some coffee. DAVID Yes, that'll keep her awake. Besides, Pappelmeister was so sure the people wouldn't understand me, he's relaxing them on Gounod and Rossini. MENDEL [With sudden call to KATHLEEN, who with her mistress is at the wrong exit.] Kathleen! The elevator's _this_ side! KATHLEEN What way can that be, when I came up _this_ side? MENDEL [FRAU QUIXANO, not understanding, exit.] Come this way. Can't you see the elevator? KATHLEEN _Wu geht Ihr_, bedad?... [Impatiently] Houly Moses, _komm' zurick_! [Exit anxiously, re-enter with FRAU QUIXANO.] Begorra, we Jews never know our way. [MENDEL, carrying the violin, escorts his mother and KATHLEEN to the elevator. When they are near it, it stops with a thud, and PAPPELMEISTER springs out, his umbrella up, meeting them face to face. He looks happy and beaming over DAVID'S triumph.] PAPPELMEISTER _Nun, Frau Quixano, was sagen Sie?_ Vat you tink of your David? FRAU QUIXANO [She taps her forehead.] PAPPELMEISTER _Meshuggah!_ Vat means _meshuggah_? Crazy? MENDEL You've struck it. She says David doesn't know enough to go in out of the rain. [General laughter.] DAVID But it's stopped raining, Herr Pappelmeister. You don't want your umbrella. [General laughter.] PAPPELMEISTER [Shuts it down.] MENDEL [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 PAPPELMEISTER DAVID PAPPELMEISTER DAVID To your four connoisseurs? [Seriously] Oh, please! I really could not meet strangers, especially musical vampires. PAPPELMEISTER Vampires? Oh, come! DAVID PAPPELMEISTER Ha! Ha! Ha! Vait till you hear vat dey say. DAVID PAPPELMEISTER [He roars with mischievous laughter.] Ha! Ha! Ha! De first vampire says it is a great vork, but poorly performed. DAVID Oh! PAPPELMEISTER DAVID Oh! PAPPELMEISTER DAVID Ah! PAPPELMEISTER DAVID Oh! [Then smiling] You see you _have_ to go by the people after all. PAPPELMEISTER _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 PAPPELMEISTER 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 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 I am glad I did not let you blay in Part Two. DAVID PAPPELMEISTER [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 Oh, it isn't such a descent as all that. Uncle said you ought to have given them comic opera. PAPPELMEISTER Comic opera.... Ouf! [He goes toward the elevator and rings the bell. Then he turns to DAVID.] Vat vas dat vord, David? DAVID PAPPELMEISTER _Mega--megasshu_.... DAVID _Megasshu?_ [The elevator comes up; the gates open.] PAPPELMEISTER [He taps his forehead with his umbrella.] DAVID PAPPELMEISTER _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 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 Miss Andrews has charged me to convey to you the heart-felt thanks and congratulations of the Settlement. DAVID Miss Andrews is very kind.... I trust you are well. VERA [She turns to go.] DAVID VERA They are gone back to Russia. And yours? DAVID VERA Yes--yes--of course--I forgot! Good-bye, Mr. Quixano. DAVID [He drops back on the chair. VERA walks to the elevator, then just before ringing turns again.] VERA DAVID [Bitterly] Curious how every one is concerned about my body and no one about my soul. VERA DAVID VERA Irony, Mr. Quixano? Please, please, do not imagine there is any irony in my congratulations. DAVID VERA DAVID VERA 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 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 DAVID VERA [She shudders and covers her eyes.] DAVID VERA DAVID VERA DAVID VERA [She is half-sinking to her knees. He stops her by a gesture and a cry.] DAVID VERA DAVID VERA [She breaks down. Recovers herself.] My only consolation is, you need nothing. DAVID I--need--nothing? VERA DAVID VERA No. DAVID VERA DAVID VERA No--I no longer even desire it. I have gotten over that womanly weakness. DAVID VERA DAVID VERA DAVID You love me and you leave me? VERA DAVID 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 I dare not! It will make you remember. DAVID [There is a pause of hesitation, filled up by the Cathedral music from "Faust" surging up softly from below.] VERA 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 Easter was the date of the massacre--see! I am at peace. VERA [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 reached its most magnificent moment; below there are narrow lines of saffron and pale gold, but above the whole sky is one glory of burning flame.] DAVID It is the fires of God round His Crucible. [He drops her hand and points downward.] There she lies, the great Melting Pot--listen! Can't you hear the roaring and the bubbling? There gapes her mouth [He points east] --the harbour where a thousand mammoth feeders come from the ends of the world to pour in their human freight. Ah, what a stirring and a seething! Celt and Latin, Slav and Teuton, Greek and Syrian,--black and yellow---- VERA Jew and Gentile---- DAVID [He raises his hands in benediction over the shining city.] Peace, peace, to all ye unborn millions, fated to fill this giant continent--the God of our _children_ give you Peace. [An instant's solemn pause. The sunset is swiftly fading, and the vast panorama is suffused with a more restful twilight, to which the many-gleaming lights of the town add the tender poetry of the night. Far back, like a lonely, guiding star, twinkles over the darkening water the torch of the Statue of Liberty. From below comes up the softened sound of voices and instruments joining in "My Country, 'tis of Thee." The curtain falls slowly.] _ |
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